I Could Not Realize The Truth Of This Melancholy Report Until I Read The Details Of His Fatal Accident In The Appendix Of A French Translation Of His Work.

It was but a sad consolation that I could confirm his discoveries, and bear witness to the tenacity and perseverance with which he had led his party through the untrodden path of Africa to the first Nile source.

While at Khartoum I happened to find Mahommed Iler! the vakeel of Chenooda's party, who had instigated my men to mutiny at Latooka, and had taken my deserters into his employ. I had promised to make an example of this fellow; I therefore had him arrested and brought before the divan. With extreme effrontery, he denied having had anything to do with the affair. Having a crowd of witnesses in my own men, and others that I had found in Khartoum who had belonged to Koorshid's party at that time, his barefaced lie was exposed, and he was convicted. I determined that he should be punished, as an example that would insure respect to any future English traveller in those regions. My men, and all those with whom I had been connected, had been accustomed to rely most implicitly upon all that I had promised, and the punishment of this man had been an expressed determination.

I went to the divan and demanded that he should be flogged. Omer Bey was then Governor of the Soudan, in the place of Moosa Pacha deceased. He sat upon the divan, in the large hall of justice by the river. Motioning me to take a seat by his side, and handing me his pipe, he called the officer in waiting, and gave the necessary orders. In a few minutes the prisoner was led into the hall, attended by eight soldiers. One man carried a strong pole about seven feet long, in the centre of which was a double chain, riveted through in a loop. The prisoner was immediately thrown down with his face to the ground, while two men stretched out his arms and sat upon them. His feet were then placed within the loop of the chain, and the pole being twisted round until firmly secured, it was raised from the ground sufficiently to expose the soles of the feet. Two men with powerful hippopotamus whips stood one on either side. The prisoner thus secured, the order was given. The whips were most scientifically applied, and after the first five dozen the slave-hunting scoundrel howled most lustily for mercy. How often had he flogged unfortunate slave women to excess, and what murders had that wretch committed, who now howled for mercy! I begged Omer Bey to stop the punishment at 150 lashes, and to explain to him publicly in the divan that he was thus punished for attempting to thwart the expedition of an English traveller, by instigating my escort to mutiny.

We stayed at Khartoum two months, waiting for the Nile to rise sufficiently to allow the passage of the cataracts.

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