To support and cover the
movement, the three batteries of artillery under Major Parsons were brought
into action from the swampy island of Artagasha, which was connected
at this season with the right bank by a shoal. At the same time three
battalions of infantry were moved along the river until opposite the Arab
position. At 9 A.M. the eighteen guns on the island opened a tremendous
bombardment at 1,200 yards range on the entrenchments, and at the same time
the infantry and a rocket detachment concentrated their fire on the tops
of the palm-trees. The artillery now succeeded in silencing three of the
five Dervish guns and in sinking the little Dervish steamer Tahra, while
the infantry by a tremendous long-range fire drove the riflemen out of the
palms. Profiting by this, the gunboats at ten o'clock moved up the river in
line, and, disregarding the fusillade which the Arabs still stubbornly
maintained, passed by the entrenchment and steamed on towards Dongola.
After this the firing on both sides became intermittent, and the fight
may be said to have ended.
Both forces remained during the day facing each other on opposite sides of
the river, and the Dervishes, who evidently did not admit a defeat,
brandished their rifles and waved their flags, and their shouts of loud
defiance floated across the water to the troops. But they had suffered very
heavily.
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