=Abu-Klea.=--At the beginning of January 1885 Lord Wolseley, becoming apprehensive for the safety of General Gordon, ordered General Sir Herbert Stewart to press forward across the desert with about 1,600 men to Metammeh on the Nile, and from there to make for Khartoum--about 100 miles up the river--in Gordon's steamers. After a march of 100 miles the force rested on January 12th at Jadkul; refreshed, the troops marched on until on January 16th they fell in with the enemy about 4 miles from Abu-Klea. A zareba was formed, and the men lay down to rest, which intermittent firing made almost impossible. At 9 o'clock on the morning of January 17th, leaving the camels and wounded inside the zareba, the force advanced towards the enemy's position; the naval brigade under Lord Charles Beresford formed the centre of the near face of the square: they had with them a Gardner gun. After a march of 2 miles the skirmishers were forced back on the square by the rush of thousands of Mahdists, horse and foot, who came up to within 400 feet of the partly formed square. "The terrible rain of bullets poured into them by the mounted infantry, and the Guards, stayed them not," for, as Lord Charles Beresford relates, "they were tearing down upon us with a roar like the roar of the sea, an immense, surging wave of white-slashed black forms brandishing bright spears and long flashing swords; and all were chanting, as they leaped and ran, the war song of their faith.... These things we heard and saw in a flash, as the formidable wave swept steadily nearer."