The gunboats then returned to Berber, towing a dozen
captured grain-boats. Meanwhile the Sirdar had started for the front
himself. Riding swiftly with a small escort across the desert from Merawi,
he crossed the Nile at the Baggara Cataract and reached Berber on the 10th
of September. Having inspected the immediate arrangements for defence,
he withdrew to Abu Hamed, and there busily prepared to meet the
developments which he well knew might follow at once, and must follow
in the course of a few months.
CHAPTER X: BERBER
The town of Berber stands at a little distance from the Nile,
on the right bank of a channel which is full only when the river is in
flood. Between this occasional stream and the regular waterway there runs
a long strip of rich alluvial soil, covered during the greater part of the
year with the abundant crops which result from its annual submersion and
the thick coating of Nile mud which it then receives. The situation of
Berber is fixed by this fertile tract, and the houses stretch for more
than seven miles along it and the channel by which it is caused. The town,
as is usual on the Nile, is comparatively narrow, and in all its length
it is only at one point broader than three-quarters of a mile. Two wide
streets run longitudinally north and south from end to end, and from these
many narrow twisting alleys lead to the desert or the river.
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