battery was posted on a little mound of sand. The British infantry were protected solely by the zeriba, but in front of the native battalions under Colonels Lewis, Maxwell, and Macdonald ran a shallow trench. Colonel Collinson's brigade was posted as a reserve inside the zeriba some distance to the rear of Macdonald's division. Ammunition boxes lay in rows behind each company, bayonets had been fixed, and everyone looked eagerly over the plain for a glimpse of the advancing Dervishes. For some reason or other, which has never been adequately explained, the Dervishes did not advance to the attack that afternoon. The Khalifa's army, after marching forward a couple of miles, came to a sudden halt, and subsequently withdrew to its camp for the night. None of the Emirs in the enemy's lines, with the exception of the wily Osman Digna, had had any previous experience of British methods of warfare. Still, some at least of the Dervish leaders must have passed a night of anxiety, full of gloomy anticipations of coming disaster. The brave Wad-Ed-Nejumi, just before the battle of Toski, addressed the followers whom he had led across the terrible Bayuda desert, and warned them in simple, soldierly words that each one must be prepared on the morrow to meet his Maker. Thoughts such as this were surely, one would think, enough to keep the Khalifa and his generals awake that night with the awful sense of responsibility! Not that the Moslem fighting man, whether of high or low degree, has any fear of death itself. From what I have seen of him in action, I should imagine that the contingency of death never enters into his head as a factor of the fight which need be regarded. Absolutely convinced as he is of a future existence in which bravery and devotion will be rewarded, the Dervish faces the muzzles of Maxim guns with a sword in his hand. It is civilisation which sets Death upon his throne of terror. The greater the sum of life's enjoyments the greater the dread of losing them, and as the nervous organism of mankind becomes relaxed and softened by the æsthetic and sentimental influences of social progress, physical pain is accentuated in reality, and dreaded all the more in anticipation. The ordinary belief in a future life amongst Christian peoples is, for the most part, so nebulous and indefinite that it fails altogether as a mainspring of action amid the risks of battle. Thus, unless other sentimental or utilitarian considerations can step in to fill the gap, _e.g._ patriotism, or the preservation of hearth and home, the Christian is invariably at a disadvantage in contending with his Moslem enemy. Look at the spectacle presented by the Ottoman Empire, in which millions of Christians have been dominated for centuries by a small but valiant minority of Osmanlis.