and out at the Narrows under her own canvas, and never employed any
tugboat. The agent states positively that the _Silver Heels_ did not go
up the Sound, and declares that if a mysterious vessel did take on a
cargo and slip up the Sound, it was not the _Silver Heels_.

There the matter rests for the present.

* * * * *

We hear from the Soudan that General Hunter is steadily advancing up the
Nile.

By his orders gunboats were sent ahead of the army as far as Metemneh,
which is the present stronghold of the Mahdists, and lies between
Khartoum and Berber. The object of sending on the gunboats was to find
out whether the city was very strongly fortified, and what were the
nature of its defences.

Under cover of a heavy fire from their guns, these boats were able to
reach the city and take all the observations they needed, and then,
having treated the city itself to a brisk cannonading, they retreated to
report.

A sad story has been telegraphed of the cruel revenge taken by the
Mahdists upon a tribe of natives who refused to join them in their war
against the British and Egyptians.

This tribe lived on the banks of the Nile between Berber and Metemneh,
and were a quiet and industrious people, who, not wishing to mix
themselves up in warfare, declined to join in it. The Mahdists,