We moved to Koshyeh, and there encamped.

The only change we had was a terrific storm, which almost washed us away.

In the middle of August, we managed to get the gunboats up through the cataract, and were in hopes of advancing, when another storm carried away twenty miles of the railway, which by this time had come up as far as the cataract." At Ginnis, twenty miles from Ferket, they passed the ground where, on the 31st of December, 1885, on the retirement of General Wolseley's expedition, Generals Grenfel and Stevenson, with a force of Egyptian troops and three British regiments, encountered the Dervish army which the Khalifa had despatched under the Emir Nejumi, and defeated it.

It was notable as being the first battle in which the newly raised Egyptian army met the Mahdists, and showed that, trained and disciplined by British officers, the Egyptian fellah was capable of standing against the Dervish of the desert.
From this point the railway left the Nile and, for thirty miles, crossed the desert.

Another twenty miles, and they reached Fareeg.
"It was here," the officer said, "that the North Staffordshires came up and joined the Egyptians.