A Country That Was In No Way Connected With Egypt, And Over Which Egypt Had No More Authority Than England Has Over China, Had Actually Been Leased-Out To Adventurers Of The Class Known As Merchants At Khartoum, But Thoroughly Well Known To The Authorities As Slave-Hunters.

It was hardly credible that such dust should be thrown in the eyes of the Khedive, after the stringent orders he had given; but Egypt is celebrated for dust; the Soudan is little else but dust, therefore we must make some allowance for the blindness of the authorities.

My eyes had evidently been filled with Khartoum dust, for it was only now upon my return from Tewfikeeyah that I discovered that which should have been made known to me upon my first arrival from Cairo to command the expedition. It was the trader and lessee, Achmet Sheik Agad, who had applied to Mr. Higginbotham as a mediator, and he stated clearly a case of great hardship. He had paid annually about 3000L for the sole right of trading. Thus, if he paid rent for a monopoly of the ivory, and the government then started as traders in ivory in the country leased to him, he would be in the same position as a man who rented a cow at a fixed sum per week, but the owner, nevertheless, insisted upon a right to her milk.

It would be a hard case upon the traders at any rate, even should they trade with equal rights to the government.

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