Along the same lnes : Rivers - left or right?

[Chick]

I'm reading an "Official History of the Gordon Relief Expedition" (probably not the exact wording of the title) and it describes the journey up the Nile in great detail - day by day, in fact. It is all a series of official military reports and what is annoying is sometimes they use East and West but others they say the right bank or left bank! So, should I assume that as they are heading South the right bank is the West bank?!

Left and right banks of a river are always when you are looking downstream.

(Of course, that doesn't mean Gordon knew that, he might be referring to the direction he was traveling on the river)

[altfritz]

Ahhh. Well that would be opposite to the direction the relief expedition was traveling: South, ie. up the Nile. Gordon though would have been looking North (as he was waiting on the expedition - in vain as it turned out.) One thing the book has impressed upon me is that Military/Government procurement was just as screwed up back then as it is nowadays! :-)