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Updated: May 29, 2025
The Khalifa did not receive his letter until the 27th of June. But he acted with even greater promptitude. Part of Mahmud's army had already started for the north. Mahmud and the rest followed on the 28th. On the 30th the advanced guard arrived before Metemma. The Jaalin prepared to resist desperately.
The post at the confluence was gradually growing into the great camp of a few months later. A regular system of gunboat patrolling was established on the upper reach, and on the 1st of November the Zafir, Naser, and Metemma, under Commander Keppel, again steamed south to reconnoitre Mahmud's position.
Mahmud's plan was to march along the Nile to Ahab, then to cross the desert to Hudi, at an angle of the river; whence a direct march, of twenty-five miles, would take him to Berber, and in this way he would avoid our strong position at the junction of the Atbara and the Nile.
The whole of Mahmud's army poured in through the gap, and the garrison, after a stubborn resistance, were methodically exterminated. An inhuman butchery of the children and some of the women followed. Abdalla-Wad-Saad was among the killed. A few of the Jaalin who had escaped from the general destruction fled towards Gakdul.
For more than a week the Anglo-Egyptian force remained halted at Ras-el-Hudi, waiting for privation to demoralise Mahmud's army or to exasperate him into making an attack. Every morning the cavalry rode out towards the enemy's camp. All day long they skirmished with or watched the Baggara horse, and at night they returned wearily to camp.
Such was Mahmud's famous zeriba, which for more than a month had been the predominant thought in the minds of the troops. It was scarcely imposing, and at first the soldiers thought it deserted. Only a dozen stray horsemen sat silently on their horses outside the entrenchment, watching their enemies, and inside a few dirty-white figures appeared and disappeared behind the parapets.
As soon as he had come to this conclusion, he no longer turned a deaf ear to Mahmud's solicitations. He knew that the falling Nile would restrict the movements of the gunboats. He knew that there were only 2,000 men in Berber a mere handful. He did not realise the tremendous power of rapid concentration which the railway had given his enemies; and he began to think of offensive operations.
The eventual product of Mahmud's persistency was the 'Turkey' we have seen in our own time that Turkey irretrievably Asiatic in spirit under a semi-European system of administration, which has governed despotically in the interests of one creed and one class, with slipshod, makeshift methods, but has always governed, and little by little has extended its range.
On one occasion, however, the gunboats went up to watch what was going on, and take advantage of any opportunity that might offer to destroy some of Mahmud's boats, and thus render the work of his getting his force over slower and more difficult. An entrenchment had been thrown up at the point where the Dervishes crossed, and this had been manned by two hundred and fifty riflemen.
As their three deployed companies pressed on through the enclosure, they were confronted by a small inner zeriba stubbornly defended by the Emir Mahmud's personal bodyguard.
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