THE WAR IN SOUDAN.

Kumara Times, Issue 2685, 30 April 1885, Page 2

THE WAR IN SOUDAN.

[REUTER’S TELEGRAMS.] By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. —■ GARRISON TO BE RETAINED AT SUAKIN. (Received April 30, 1.30 p.m.) Suakih, April 29. It is announced that the garrison to be retained here will consist of the Berkshire and Surrey Regiments, together with the Indian Contingent. ♦ ■ Mr Dransfield, of Wellington, has received, through the Telegraph department, a cable message from Colonel Richardson, commanding the New South Wales contingent, stating that his son, Sergeant Prank Dransfield, who broke his ankle on board the s.s. Iberia, is in the hospital at Suakin, doing well. Mr Dransfield was well known in Canterbury, and was an officer in the Lyttelton Volunteers. Here is a grim and ghastly detail of the realties of war, supplied by a special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, who, on his way back to Gadkul, paid a visit to the battle-field of AbuKlea. The correspondent says:—lt presented a horrible spectacle. The desert for nearly a mile was strewn with bodies of the slaughtered Arabs. On our approach great numbers of carrion birds rose lazily from their sickening feast. They continued to hover around, however, until our departure. The corpses had already been shrivelled by the great heat and the dry air of the desert to the proportions and semblance of mummies, with this difference, that they lay twisted in every variety of contortion. In many instances the white bones, stripped of their covering by the foul birds, started up at the beholder. Truly a sickening sight, and one to be remembered with a shudder. The Apostolic Vicar in Central Africa, Mgr. Francesco Sagaro, has addressed a second letter to the Vienna “ Political Correspondent, ” in which he begs the English not to advance on foot from Suakin to Berber, as they cannot imagine, he says, what hardships they would have to go through on this arid desert road. Even if they gained a victory over Osman Digna, their further advance would be impeded by the ever-hovering forces of the Mahdi, who, having had no tiring marches and hardships to overcome, would be in full vigour, besides numbering four times the British force. His advice is to make a railway, and advance no further than the rails reach.