After remaining some days at Wadelai and hearing no news from Dufflé, people became very uneasy, and messengers were sent down to Dufflé, on the east bank of the river, to carry letters and to ascertain the reason of the long silence, as we had heard that a large body of the Mahdi’s people were advancing from the west on Wadelai and were only four days distant. On December 4th, an officer in command of Bora, a small station between Wadelai and Dufflé, came in with his soldiers in great haste, saying they had abandoned their post at Dufflé, Fabbo and all the northern station had fallen, and that the steamers also had been captured and were in the hands of the Mahdi’s people, the natives round the stations had all risen and joined the enemy and had killed our messengers. On hearing this news a council was held, and the officers and soldiers at once decided to abandon and retire to Tunguru, from which place they would ascend the mountains and try to join you at Fort Bodo. I was desired at the council to destroy our boat the _Advance_, to prevent her falling into the hands of the Mahdi, and, as there was no prospect of saving her, I was reluctantly obliged to do so. On the next day, December 5th, we had all ready for an early start, taking with us only a few bundles of the most necessary things and abandoning everything else. All the ammunition in the storehouses was divided among the soldiers, who at the last moment declared, as they now had plenty of ammunition, they preferred to retire to their own countries--Makraka and the countries round--where they would disperse and live amongst their own people, and that they would desert the Pasha and their officers. Things, however, seemed desperate, and we hurried on without them--a long, straggling procession, consisting chiefly of Egyptian employés with their wives and families; we were accompanied only by some seven or eight soldiers who remained faithful. Some of our servants were armed with percussion-guns, and we may have mustered some thirty guns amongst us. Immediately on our quitting the station the soldiers entered the houses and looted them.