On 6th December the last boat was passed through. On the same day, Sir Evelyn Wood and Sir Redvers Buller received a telegram reporting a block of boats at Ambigol and Dal Cataract; and I was ordered there at a moment's notice. On 27th September I had arrived at Wady Halfa; on 10th October I schemed the portage; and for eight weeks since that date I had been continuously hard at work passing the boats through the Second Cataract; which the Arabs call "the belly of stone." {240} CHAPTER XXV THE SOUDAN WAR (_Continued_) III. UP THE CATARACTS AND ACROSS THE DESERT "To Assiout, in a cloud of dust We came, and it made us smile, To see each other's features, till We washed them in the Nile. From there, by boat, to Assouan We came, and every night Made fast, for the boatmen wouldn't steam Excepting in daylight." _Songs of the Camel Corps_ (Sergt. H. EAGLE, R.M.C.C.) On the 6th December, 1884, Peel and Colbourne, my two gallant comrades who had done so splendid a work upon the Second Cataract, quitted the Belly of Stone, embarking in two boats manned by Kroomen. The names of these big black men were Africa, Ginger Red, Bottled Beer, Sampson, Two Glasses and Been-Very-Ill-Twice; and when they were excited, as they nearly always were, they took to the English tongue, and kept us laughing for a week. When the wind was fair and we sailed up against the rapids, the Kroo boys were terribly anxious, knowing that if the wind failed we should slide all the way back again. By this time the whole expedition was moving up river. The conduct of the soldiers was magnificent, achieving wonderful results. Of the sailors, accustomed to the work, and knowing the shortest way of doing things, one expected much--and got even more. It was hard enough for the {241} seamen. Although they, the soldiers, knew nothing of boats, they worked like heroes. And the navigation of the Nile from Gemai to Dal enforced hard continuous toil from dawn to dark day after day. The _voyageurs_ did splendid service; the expedition could not have advanced so rapidly without them; and although they knew nothing of sails, being acute adventurous fellows they soon picked up enough knowledge to carry them through. An officer of cavalry in charge of a convoy of stores on the river worked by Dongola men, describing his adventures with what he called his "peasant crews," pathetically observed: "You know, I know nothing whatever about a boat, or what it ought to do, and I am not ashamed to tell you that the whole time I am sweating with terror. And every night when I go to bed I dream of whirlpools and boiling rapids and then I dream that I am drowned." But his visions of the night affected neither his nerve nor his indomitable energy.