On the morning of 3rd September our troops moved out of Omdurman and encamped on the banks of the river some two miles to the north. The moment I had finished breakfast I made for the Mahdi's tomb. The interior was an absolute wreck. Vast quantities of stones and mortar, torn away by the Lyddite shells, were heaped upon the floor, and of the superstructure over the Mahdi's grave only the wooden framework remained. Some pieces of tawdry drapery which had covered the tomb lay on the ground, and these I brought away. Outside the tomb, a little to the right, I came across a truly awful spectacle. One of the terrible Lyddite shells had burst amongst some unfortunate Arabs near the Khalifa's palace. Eight men lay dead in a ghastly ring, some of them torn by horrid mutilations; but the curious point about some of the bodies was that they were not lying flat, but were sitting on the ground with fearfully contorted limbs and features. Could this be due to the deadly fumes of the picric acid contained in the Lyddite? The stonework of the tomb and the surrounding buildings was often stained yellow by this chemical. Outside in the open street fragments of Koran manuscripts were lying about in every direction. I then set out to find Cross and the other correspondents. It was said that they were with the Staff, in strange and unwonted proximity to the Sirdar's tent. However, as nobody seemed to know where the Staff was, I wandered about for hours seeking my colleagues in vain. As I passed along the river a barge drew up alongside to land the bodies of the British soldiers who had been killed. From some misunderstanding a wounded man slid out of the boat amongst the corpses, and began to walk up the bank, but was promptly sent back with the reprimand--"D----n you, what do you mean by coming ashore with this lot? You aren't dead!" Even amid such gruesome surroundings it was quite funny to see the disappointed look of the man as he returned to the barge to take his place under a separate category. At last I came by accident upon Cross. The poor fellow was again in a state of prostration, and was lying under the blanket-tent of Captain Luther, R.A.M.C., in the camp of the Lancashire Fusiliers. The officers of this battalion had been most kind to Cross, and as the day was terribly hot he remained under the shelter of their tents until the evening, when he rejoined me in our own camp. He told me that on the previous night he had, like the rest of the correspondents, failed to get any food, and had slept on the sand without a blanket, though Steevens, with his usual kindness, had lent him an overcoat when the night air became chilly.