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Updated: May 18, 2025
Our camp was a perfect model; we had a view of about five miles in extent along the valley of the Atbara, and it was my daily amusement to scan with my telescope the uninhabited country upon the opposite side of the river, and watch the wild animals as they grazed in perfect security.
The country was now thickly populated on the west bank of the Atbara, as the Arabs and their flocks had returned after the disappearance of the seroot fly. Mahomet had had an accident, having fallen from his camel and broken no bones, but he had smashed the stock of my single-barrel rifle; this was in two pieces; I mended it, and it become stronger than ever.
When half way to Wat el Negur, we found the whole country in alarm, Mek Nimmur having suddenly made a foray. He had crossed the Atbara, and plundered the district, and driven off large numbers of cattle and camels, after having killed a considerable number of people.
The mystery of the Nile has been dispelled; we have proved that the equatorial lakes supply the main stream, but that the inundations are caused by the sudden rush of waters from the torrents of Abyssinia in July, August, and September; and that the soil washed down by the floods of the Atbara is at the present moment silting up the mouths of the Nile, and thus slowly, but steadily, forming a delta beneath the waters of the Mediterranean, on the same principle that created the fertile Delta of Egypt.
In flood-time a tremendous torrent sweeps down the course of the Atbara, and the sudden bends of the river are hollowed out by the force of the stream to a depth of twenty or thirty feet below the level of the bed. Accordingly these holes become reservoirs of water when the river is otherwise exhausted.
They were quartered in a cool and cleanly camp by the Atbara, to the south-east of the fortified lines. The 21st Lancers also arrived at Dakhala in due course. Major Williams' Field Battery, the 32nd R.A. of 15-pounders; Major Elmslie's 37th R.A., with the new 50-pounder Howitzers firing Lyddite shells; and Lieut.
Upon my return to the camp, I was informed by the Sheik Wat Said that a detachment of troops was stationed at Tomat expressly to protect the Egyptian frontier from the raids of Mek Nimmur, who was in the habit of crossing the Atbara and pillaging the Arab villages during the dry season, when the river was fordable.
Mahomet could do nothing but rush frantically to the very edge of the cliff, and scream and gesticulate to a crowd of Arab women who had passed the day beneath the shady trees by the Faky's grave, watching our passage of the Atbara.
I thoroughly explored the beautiful country of the Salaam and Angrab, and on the 14th of April we pushed on for Gallabat, the frontier market-town of Abyssinia. We arrived at our old friend, the Atbara River, at the sharp angle as it issues from the mountains. At this place it was in its infancy.
"May I ask, General, what is to be done with the women?" Gregory said. "I have been speaking to the Sirdar about them, and I was just going to ask you to go with me to them. They are, of course, not to be considered as prisoners. They cannot stay here, for they would die of hunger. Therefore they had best follow the troops, at any rate as far as the Atbara camp.
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