Te Aroha Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1889.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2094, 14 April 1898, Page 2

Te Aroha Ohinemuri News

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1889.

UPPBB THAMES ADVOCATE, , ‘This above all—to bbine own self be 6rae Ind ib must follow as the nighi the dsy Thou oaneb aob then bo false to any man . _ - * SIIAKKSi-KAKH.

As is well-known to those who read the daily papers with anything’ like diligence an expedition under the leadership of General Kitchener, Sirdar of the Egyptian army, has for many months been slowly, but surely advancing in the direction of that city of Khartoum, which General Gordon immortalised by his death at the hand of an assassin, and which is the key of the situation in the Soudan. This steady advance of an army composed of the flower'of our own Highland regiments—the Cameron and Seaforth —and the Egyptian levies officered by Englishmen was opposed at various points on the route by hordes of Arabs under the famous Osman Digna and his right - hand man, Mahmond The latter a haughty sullen fanatic to whom the utter rout and slaughter of the host under the English flag was ; merely a question of time. Osman Digna, however, was too wily a tactician to risk a general engagement until he had, as be hoped to*, harassed and disheartened the advancing column by a series of insignificant, but galling night attacks and alarms. The fates however, seem to have forced his hands. IJnable to maintain their occupation of Shendy, two courses only were left to the Dervishes ;• either to retire towards Khartoum or risk a battle. . In keeping with their warlike instincts it was decided to meet the Infidels in the open field, consequently a strong zareba, or improvised stockade, was erected surrounding, as the war correspondents describe them, a perfect labyrinth of earthworks and trenches. General Kitchener's scouts swiftly advised him of the ‘long expected stand made by the enemy, with the intuitive perception of military genjus, the general decided that sudden attack by the entire forces under his command just at day-break would be the most effectual method of dealing with the slippery foe. In the engagement that followed, needless to say, the •roops employed behaved splendidly. After the enemy's earthworks had been somewhat lowered by a fierce bombardment, the charge was sounded, and to the scream of the pibrochs, the H’ghlanders dished at the ramparts in the face of a hail of bu'lets. For a time the Dervishes fought, hand to hand, with great gallantry, but the elan of the Highlanders' attack proved irresbt'ble, and the enemv broke and fled, losing all their standards. As a fitting comment on this great victory, •»ve think we may quote tuaD web known French journal Le Temps, which says that it shares this English rejoicing over General Kitchener’s' victory in common with the civilised world.