"There Is No Town At Korosko Only A Village..."

 Korosko, Egypt, on the Nile River.  From a 1912 Post card;  eBay 

The signal station was most likely located on the top of the highest hill, located on the right in this picture.  Korosko disappeared under Lake Nassar, created by the Aswan High Dam, in the 1960's. 

  From here to the end of Charles Kings' description of his trip to Egypt and back we have to toggle between his original manuscript written on the back of the Bazaar flyers, his small notebook  and his final copy written in pen, which he ended in pencil.  It appears that at this point in his narrative Charles either ran out of time in his talk and had to trim quite a bit of detail and extra information, or he wanted to add some of the more colorful and descriptive tidbits of his experiences and was otherwise discouraged in including them (perhaps by his wife Anna? Boils and near drowning may have been too much for his intended audience). I have pieced together the rest of my Great Great Grandfather's  narrative from the remaining pages of his writings.

   In the following pages we get a glimpse of what Charles was doing in Korosko as a Royal Engineer and we also get more details of the expedition itself.  I especially enjoyed his descriptions of  wild life on the Nile....I can just hear the music of the frogs at night.....

  Small notebook, continued from previous post... 

"...There is no town at Korosko only a village but the importance of Korosko lies in the fact of its being the entrance to the pass by which Gordon took this rout (sic) on his journey to Khartoum thus saving several...

Small notebook 

 ...hundreds of mile rout (sic) which from here may be likened unto a D the straight line showing the rout (sic) across the desert from Korosko to Abu Hamed & the circular part that of the river with Korti about the middle of the curve..."

 Map of Korosko in relation to places mentioned by Charles King in this post and subsequent posts (highlighted).  The "D" he refers to here would be in relation to Korosko looking south. 

"...We found here stationed the 79th Cameron Highlanders Regiment, and it then became known to us that we were sent there to commence to build a permanent camp for them...we also found that Major Rundle of the Egyptian Army was organizing a relief party to cross the desert with stores & C (commissary/canned food?) for General Earl's (Earle's) column who was making their...

 Small Notebook

...way up the Nile to reach Berber and ultimately to overtake Stewarts column who were crossing the desert from Korti. You all know that this did not work out in fact as Earl(e) was killed & Gordon was no more & by a lucky coincidence Rundle did not commence his journey across the desert, had he done so it is more than probable that the whole party would have been annihilated... as prisoners who were taken & brought into camp from the desert reported that a very large party were...

 Small notebook

...outside waiting for the expedition to move out to compete their deadly design. We remained at Korosko for several months during which time we had raised accommodations for several hundred of troops & as it was of urgent importance that our work should be got on with, we were obliged to work when the sun was intensely hot.  I here experienced the hottest day that I knew in Egypt namely 125 (degrees) in the shade...I could tell you lots of things that I witnessed during my...

 Small Notebook 

 ...sojourn on the Nile but I must not go further that to take a ramble. I witnessed a tremendous whirlwind at Korosko... paper matting made of palm leaves & things that was laying on the ground was carried up in the air to a tremendous height.  It was here that I first witnessed the manufacture of Egyptian brick, primitive of course made today & dried in the sun  & used tomorrow, we used millions of these brick whilst at Korosko and the native method of making them is as follows. *

Page 23 (on the back of a Bazaar flyer)

*They have a goodly supply of water & they dig up the soil into a kind of pit & 2 or 3 men tread the whole together as the water is allowed to run into the pit & when the whole is brought to the consistency of stiffish mortar it is taken out of the pit in such quantitys (sic) as two men can conveniently carry on a piece of matting such as I named just now. It is then carried to the moulders who, having placed the mould on the ground, the moulder sitting on his haunches fills the mould...lifts it from the brick he has made & again sets the mould in a position alongside the brick last made, thus after continuing this motion from morning till night they have a large quantity of brick covering the surface of the ground. Those made as it were today will be fit to use after having the strength of a days sun upon & they are then collected together and if for immediate use are taken away in panniers on camels backs.  Sometimes straw is used in making the brick & sometimes the stubble from...

 Page 24 

  ...the land after the corn crop has been taken out. I may just say that whilst at Korosko I was almost drowned, having gone down to the river to bathe of Easter Sunday 1885, and as there was a very large number bathing at the same time I was fouled (?) whilst swimming from a small island not far from the shore & lost my stroke & was only just reached when going under water for the third time.  I was also impressed with the reality of the plagues with which god smote the Egyptians in the days of Moses.  I was the recipient of several boils by way of (?), on another occasion we were almost swarmed with flies & almost the whole time I was at Korosko we used to be blessed with frog music...frogs are very numerous there...I remember one night sleeping in our tent which was a square one about 10 ft square with doors open at each end when in the dead of the night I was almost (?) & seeing a wolf run right through our tent on its way from the hills to the river to drink. The wild animals which inhabit the desert and mountainous regions generally make their way to the river for drink at all hours of the night. I did not see any lions whilst I was in Egypt but I was told that one was seen in the deserts a little way out from our camp. One of the Officers in our camp killed a hyena one day & had it brought into camp & stuffed (?)....

Page 25

...I did not see any crocodiles or alligators whilst I was there but I know they frequent the waters further up the river & sometimes they are several together & make it very dangerous to people frequenting the river in any way.  During my stay at Korosko the Nile was quite low but began to rise rapidly before I left to go upward. On the highest hill behind the camp was the signal station & the man who was stationed there could see a good distance over the river in both directions & it was his duty as soon as a steamer hove in sight to signal its approach by hoisting a ball to the flag pole attached to which was an arm each way & so whicher (which ever?) way the steamer was approaching from he would raise the ball indicating the direction...The man who was appointed to this billit (?) was a good man....I have been on the top of the hill for a ramble occasionally & found him devoted to reading his bible or praying or some other religious exercise......"  (to be continued)

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 "We found here stationed the 79th Cameron Highlanders Regiment, and it then became known to us that we were sent there to commence to build a permanent camp for them"   ...Who were the Cameron Highlanders? And what was their role in the Nile Expedition?  

 

Internet Archive 

https://archive.org/stream/historicalrecord00grearich/historicalrecord00grearich_djvu.txt

  The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (or the 79th of Foot) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, originally raised in 1793.  Their primary mission during the Nile campaign was to assist in guarding the lines of communication at Korosko; they remained to later join the Sudan Frontier Field Force in 1885. (Cameron Highlanders; Wikipedia)

  According the Historical Records of the 79th Queens Own Cameron Highlanders, the Highlanders arrived in Korosko on the 4th of December, 1884. On the 23rd of January more troops from the 79th arrived in Korosko from Cairo.  On the 28th of January, 1885, the sad news of the fall of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon was communicated to Colonel Leith, the Commandant of the station. 

  An excerpt from the text is as follows...

On the 8th of February the following telegram was received by 
Colonel Leith from Major-General Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., commanding 
the lines of communication : 

" Your battalion will spend the summer at Korosko ; commence at 
once to hut half a battalion with a view to health and comfort, and 
report progress when half is completed." 

From this it became evident that Lord Wolseley's army would 
summer in the Soudan and advance upon Khartoum in the autumn. 

On receipt of this order the regiment at once commenced to 
construct huts of mud and palm branches, 

  

  The role of the Royal Engineers stationed at Korosko was to oversee the building of these huts.  Charles gave a detailed description of how the mud bricks were constructed.  Did he participate in the making of the bricks, or just the design and construction of the huts?  He didn't say. We do know that he was a part of a small detachment consisting of an officer, a corporal and 4 men (himself included). 

  On the 7th of April, Lord Wolseley himself arrived in Korosko and inspected the work of hutting the Highlanders.  B, C and D companies occupied the mud huts by the 20th of April, and by the middle of May the whole regiment was hutted (from Historical Records...) Charles King was most certainly there in April to meet Lord Wolseley and have his detachment's work reviewed.  

  The Highlanders stayed and eventually went on to defend the Sudan later in the year, with Korosko used an an outpost. The greater part of the expedition forces began leaving Egypt in July of 1885.  (Project Gutenberg's The Egyptian campaigns, 1882 to 1885, by Charles Royle, Chapter 51 Evacuation)

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