The tribes of the Soudan are still not reconciled to
the British occupation of Egypt. A body of 750 camelmen, in two divisions, threatened Gamai, south of Wady Haifa, on the last day of the year, but were driven off. It was thought necessary to read them a lesson, and accordingly 120 men of the Egyptian camel corps were sent in pursuit, and came up with them at Ambigol Wells, seventeen miles south of Wady Haifa, on Monday. The Dervishes turned at bay, and fought hard, charging repeatedly, and lighting hand-to-hand. The Egyptian camel corps was in the end compelled to retreat, but not until they had lost some fifty men and a. British officer, —Captain Pyne, of the Dorsetshire Regiment, who seems to have been surrounded and cut off. The Dervishes retreated towards the South, and Colonel Wodebouse, commanding the frontier force, has started for Ambigol, probably to inquire how so large a loss was incurred. It looks as if the Soudanese, with their accustomed daring, had thrown themselves right among their pursuers, and as if the affair had at one moment approached a massacre. Nothing is said as to the character of the raiding force,—whether it was supposed to be isolated or a part of the Mandi's army. We wish the bulletin-makers for the Times and Reuter would include in their accounts of battles on the Nile the words " negro " or " fellahin." We should know so much more of the progress made in turning the Egyptian Army into a fighting-force as well as a disciplined one.
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