'The Nile Steamer "Ernest." Engineering, vol. 40, 4 December 1885, pp. 541 and 542. In the spring of 1885 five shallow-draught steamers were ordered by the War Office of Messrs. J. I. Thornycroft and Co., Chiswick, for the Nile expedition. Given the lives lost and the political consequences one cannot cease to wonder as to what would have happened if the British Government had sent five such vessels to the Nile in the summer of 1884; they would have probably been able to pass up the cataracts at high Nile, and one alone would have saved Gordon and Khartoum, and the reputation of England.