The next morning the news
was published in the Times, ostensibly as coming from its correspondent
in Cairo: and the Egyptian Cabinet was convened to give a formal assent
by voting the decree. On the 14th the reserves were called out. On the
15th the Khedive reviewed the Cairo garrison; and at the termination of
the parade Sir H. Kitchener informed him that the earliest battalions
would start for the front that night.
The Egyptian frontier force had always been kept in a condition of
immediate readiness by the restless activity of the enemy. The beginning
of the long-expected advance was hailed with delight by the British
officers sweltering at Wady Halfa and Sarras. On Sunday, the 15th
of March, three days after the Sirdar had received his orders, and before
the first reinforcements had started from Cairo, Colonel Hunter, who
commanded on the frontier, formed a small column of all arms to seize and
hold Akasha. At dawn on the 18th the column started, and the actual
invasion of the territory which for ten years had been abandoned to the
Dervishes began. The route lay through a wild and rocky country--the
debatable ground, desolated by years of war--and the troops straggled into
a long procession, and had several times for more than an hour to move in
single file over passes and through narrow defiles strewn with the
innumerable boulders from which the 'Belly of Stones' has derived its name.
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