Such was the moment chosen for a general stampede. About sixty or seventy convicts agreed to cut and run simultaneously, all toward the shelter of the hills. A few were told off to try conclusions with the armed guards, to wrest away the rifles and thus secure both immunity from fire and the power to use the weapon in self-defence. The attempt appears to have been fairly successful at first. A few rifles were seized, and the fugitives, turning on their pursuers, made some pretty practice, during which a few of the more fortunate got away. But authority finally asserted itself. Many were shot down; the rest were overtaken and immediately surrendered. The absence of “grit,” so characteristic of the race, showed itself at once, and these poor wretches, who had been bold enough to make the first rush under a hail of bullets, now squatted down and with uplifted hands implored for mercy or declared it was all a mistake. “Malesh, it does not matter,” was their cry then. But they no doubt found that it mattered a great deal when a few days later Nemesis overtook them in the shape of corporal punishment; for the lash, a cat of six tails, is used in the Egyptian prisons as a last resort in the maintenance of discipline and good order. It is only inflicted, however, under proper safeguards and by direct sentence of a high official. There is no courbash now in the prisons, and no warder or guard is permitted to raise his hand against a prisoner. Tyranny and ill-usage are strictly forbidden. Escapes have happened at other places. When military operations were in progress on the frontier leading to the revindication of the Sudan, an immense amount of good work was done by large detachments of convicts at stations high up the river. There were rough and ready “Tourahs” at Assuan, Wady Halfa, Korosko, Suakin, El Teb, points of considerable importance in the service of the campaign, where supplies were constantly being landed, stored or sent forward to the front. The Egyptian prison authorities very wisely and intelligently utilised the labour at their disposal to assist in unloading boats and in reshipping stores and railway plant. Numbers of convicts were employed to construct the railway ahead in the direction of Abu Hamed by which the advance was presently made. The Nile above Merawi flows through the most difficult country in its whole course, the very “worst water,” and no navigation in that length was possible by steamers, little or none by small boats except at high Nile and then only by haulage. It was necessary, therefore, to complete the railway to Abu Hamed, so that gunboats might be sent up in sections over the line, to be put together above the cataracts and then utilised in the final advance, for the river is more or less open to Berber and on to Khartum, and the success of the campaign was greatly facilitated thereby.