Besides the regular troops, there were also the band of irregulars under
the Sheikh Bakr, numbering 380 men, 100 men under the Sheikh of Rosaires,
and a few other unclassified scallywags.
Colonel Lewis determined to attack what part of Ahmed Fedil's force still
remained on the east bank of the river, and on Christmas Day, at five
o'clock in the afternoon, he marched with every man he could muster in the
direction of Dakhila.
Moving in single file along a track which led through a dense forest of
thorny trees, the column reached Adu Zogholi, a village thought to be half,
but really not one-third, of the way to Dakhila, at eleven o'clock on
Christmas night. Here they bivouacked until 3 A.M. on the 26th, when the
march was resumed in the same straggling order through the same tangled
scrub. Daylight found them still several miles from the Dervish position,
and it was not until eight o'clock that the enemy's outposts were
discovered. After a few shots the Arab picket fell back, and the advance
guard, hurrying after them, emerged from the forest upon the open ground of
the river bank, broken only by palms and patches of high grass. Into this
space the whole column gradually debouched. Before them the Blue Nile,
shining in the early sunlight like a silver band, flowed swiftly;
and beyond its nearest waters rose a long, bare, gravel island crowned
with clumps of sandhills, to the shelter of which several hundred Dervishes,
surprised by the sudden arrival of the troops, were scampering.
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