Quat Kare Never Eats Or Drinks In The Presence Of His People, But His
Food Is Taken To Him Either Within A Hut Or To A Lonely Tree.
On the following morning both the governor of Fashoda and the old king
returned to their respective homes.
On the 10th May, a sail was reported by the sentries in the south. None
of the slave-traders had any intelligence of my station at Tewfikeeyah.
The people of Kutchuk Ali, on the Bahr Giraffe, were under the
impression that we had returned direct to Khartoum. I was rather curious
to know whether they would presume to send slaves down the White Nile
during this season, knowing that the Khedive had sent me expressly to
suppress the trade. I could not believe that the Koordi governor of
Fashoda would have the audacity to allow the free passage of slave
vessels after the stringent orders that had been given. Although I had
heard that this governor had amassed a considerable fortune by the
establishment of a toll per head for every slave that passed Fashoda, I
imagined that he would this year make up his mind that the rich harvest
was over.
If any vessels should attempt to descend with slave cargoes, they must
pass my new station, of which they were ignorant, and the fact would
prove the complicity of the governor of Fashoda, as it would
substantiate all the reports that I had heard concerning his connivance
with the slave-traders. The strange sail now reported was rapidly
approaching on her route to Khartoum, without the slightest suspicion
that a large military station was established within four miles of the
Sobat junction.
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