General Hicks left Duem on the 24th of September, 1883, and marched in a south-westerly direction through Shatt, Zeregga, Aigella, Shirkeleh, and Rahad, which he reached on the 20th of October, leaving Tagalla and Jebel Dair on the left. The inhabitants of the districts through which the troops passed, quitted their villages and carried off all their goods, so that when the troops arrived they found nothing but straw huts, which the soldiers at first set fire to; but General Hicks soon forbade this practice. The ill-fated army scarcely met a living soul, but flocks of vultures followed them as if waiting for their prey. Shortly after the annihilation of the army, a small and incomplete diary belonging to an Austrian officer, Major Herlth, came into my hands, but it was sufficient to give me an insight into the wretched condition of this force. The facts were briefly as follows: It was expected that on the arrival of the army at Shirkeleh, it would be joined by several thousand Tagalla people, and it was hoped that this reinforcement would inspire the troops with some life and energy, which they entirely lacked; but these reinforcements never appeared. Major Herlth described the troops as anything but good, and frequently refers to the want of agreement between the two commanders--General Hicks with his small body of European officers on the one hand, and Ala ed Din Pasha, Governor-General of the Sudan, a man imbued with the old Turkish system, on the other. The European officers were convinced that the expedition would not be successful; the camels were badly looked after, hundreds died every day, and their loads were piled on to the others which were still alive; saddles were for the most part without straw, so that the bare wood rubbing on their backs made terrible wounds. Almost all the horses had died before the force reached Rahad. General Hicks had also great trouble in keeping the men together; numbers of them had recently been fighting against the English with Arabi Pasha, and had been forcibly sent to the Sudan. It is also strange that the shorter route from Duem to Bara, on which there was plenty of water, was not chosen in preference to the long roundabout road they took. While the latter route led through forests and long grass, the former was entirely free from these obstructions, and, moreover, the friendly Kababish tribe would have supported them on their northern flank. There was still another circumstance which contributed to the final disaster--the guides were treacherous, and led the army into the hands of the Dervishes; indeed, it was an open secret in the camp at El Obeid that the guides had been sent by the Mahdi.