Korti was a city of tents arrayed amid groves of fronded palm overhanging the broad river; beyond, the illimitable coloured spaces of the desert, barred with plains of tawny grass set with mimosa, and green fields of _dhura_, and merging into the far rose-hued hills. All day long the strong sun smote upon its yellow avenues, and the bugles called, and the north wind, steady and cool, blew the boats up the river, and the men, ragged and cheery and tanned saddle-colour, came marching in and were absorbed into the great armed camp. Thence were to spring two long arms of fighting men, one to encircle the river, the other to reach across the desert, strike at Khartoum and save Gordon.
The day after I arrived at Korti, 5th January, 1885, the desert arm had bent back to obtain reinforcements; because there were not enough camels to furnish transport for the first march.
The first division of the Naval Brigade, under Lieutenant Alfred Pigott, also arrived on the 5th. Officers and men alike were covered with little black pustules, due to the poison carried by the flies. Nevertheless, they were fit and well and all a-taunto. They were brigaded under my command with Sir Herbert Stewart's Desert Column. The intention was that Gordon's steamers, then waiting for us somewhere between Metemmeh and Khartoum, should be manned with the sailors and a detachment of infantry, and should take Sir Charles Wilson up to Khartoum. The second division of the Naval Brigade was still on its way up. It eventually joined us at Gubat. I may here say, for the sake of clearness, that Gubat is close to Metemmeh and that Shendi lies on the farther, or east, bank of the Nile, so that Gubat, Metemmeh and Shendi were really all within the area of the rendezvous at which the River Column under General Earle was intended to join forces with the Desert Column.
Sir Herbert Stewart arrived at Korti on the 5th and left that place on the 8th, the intervening days being occupied in preparations. An essential part of my own arrangements consisted in obtaining spare boiler-plates, rivets, oakum, lubricating oil, and engineers' stores generally, as I foresaw that these would be needed for the steamers, which had already been knocking about the Nile in a hostile country for some three months. At first, Sir Redvers Buller refused to let me have either the stores or the camels upon which to carry them. He was most good-natured and sympathetic, but he did not immediately perceive the necessity.