was accomplished on either side, however. Occasionally a stray bullet
would carry off one of our men in his sleep. Sometimes these naked
savages would stealthily creep in upon our sentries and with their
sharp knives would overpower them and mutilate them in an
indescribable manner.

To prevent this, we laid dynamite mines in front of our encampments. I
watched, late one afternoon, the young engineer officer as he
connected the wires for the night--perhaps his hand trembled as he
made connections, or perhaps some mistake was made. Anyway, there was
an explosion. Great masses of desert sand shot into the air like a
cloud, and when it fell again, the mangled body of the engineer fell
with it; but the mines were laid, connections made for the night, just
the same, by another engineer.

At other places we had broken bottles fixed in the sand, for the black
men came barefooted, and they were more seared by broken bottles in
the sand than they were by the musketry fire.

A night of great excitement was that of the capturing of some of our
mounted scouts in a sortie near the hills. That night we saw half a
dozen immense bon-fires on the hilltops, and the impression we got was
that our comrades were being burned alive. There were half a dozen
brushes or skirmishes with the natives during my stay in the desert,
but I did not experience what might be called a decisive battle. There
had been decisive battles of one sort or another, but I was not
present. They were before my time.

They began the laying of a railway from Suakim to Berber, but
afterward they pulled the rails up. The soldiers cursed Gladstone for