Lieut.-Colonel C. S. B. Parsons, R.A., Governor of Kassala and the Red Sea littoral, to whom I have previously referred when we were advancing against Omdurman, was menacing the dervish outpost of Gedarif. Later on, when Ahmed Fadl was marching to reinforce his master the Khalifa, Colonel Parsons was leading his Egyptians, Abyssinian irregulars, and friendlies from Kassala up the head waters or khor of the Atbara, far to the southward, and thence to a tributary of the Blue Nile where the enemy had long had a garrison. The fifteen years' campaign against Mahdism was nigh over, but not quite concluded, with the victory of Omdurman. On receiving the check from the gunboats, Fadl and his dervishes retreated up the Blue Nile to where they had come from, their own country upon the borders of Abyssinia. News seems to have reached them of Colonel Parsons' advance, and it became a race for Gedarif. The Egyptians had a good start, and managed to reach and capture the place and occupy the two forts, one on either side of the river, or, what it is more frequently, the khor, before the dervishes got back. Fadl was a man of mettle and resolutely assaulted the town and forts of which he had so long been governor. A desperate action ensued, but Fadl was beaten off with a loss of 700, it is said, in killed and wounded. The casualties in Colonel Parsons' force were about 100. But the dervishes, though severely beaten, soon returned to attack the forts. With increased numbers they sat down before the place and began to harass sorely the Egyptian troops, cutting their communications with Kassala, whence by wire to Massowah over the Italian lines and up the Red Sea to Egypt the Sirdar was able to keep in touch with Colonel Parsons. They endeavoured again, on several occasions, to storm one or other of the forts, which were about half a mile apart, but happily they were invariably repulsed. Still they persisted in their tactics of worrying, evidently determined to recapture the place. At last matters grew so serious that Major-General Rundle was sent with a brigade of infantry and several batteries to deal with Ahmed Fadl's dervishes. Advancing up the Blue Nile in gunboats, the Egyptian force cleared the banks of all the many wandering armed bands of the enemy. Through the aid of the wily Abyssinian scouts, information was sent to and received from Colonel Parsons and a plan arranged for catching Fadl and his men between two attacking columns. Seventeen hundred men of the Omdurman force attacked the dervishes on one side, whilst Colonel Parsons' garrison assailed them from the other. The enemy were completely routed and scattered in all directions. Hundreds of dervishes were slain, and ultimately many who escaped were so closely pressed by friendlies and Abyssinians that they surrendered. A thousand fugitive Baggara or so vainly tried to make their way up the Blue Nile, in order to retire to their former country in Kordofan.