Also, That Instead Of The Money Payment Now Annually Made To The
Government, The Rent Should Be Paid In Ivory, At The Rate Of Two-Fifths
Of The Amount Collected.
The ivory was to be delivered and weighed in
Gondokoro, at which place the rent was to be paid to the government in
tusks.
The original contract would expire on April 9, 1872.
My hands were to a certain extent tied by these engagements, but I
resolved that at the expiration of the term I should assume a monopoly
of the ivory trade for the government, on the principle of the fur trade
of the Hudson's Bay Company; as it would be impossible to permit the
acts of the Khartoum traders, who, I was convinced, would never deal
honestly with the natives.
The working representative of Achmet Sheik Agad was his son-in-law - a
man named Abou Saood: I had seen this person when at Tewfikeeyah; he had
arrived in charge of several vessels from Gondokoro during the rainy
season, when the flooded river and strong south wind had allowed the
passage of his boats. At that time he had no slaves on board, but I
subsequently discovered that upon hearing that I had formed a station
near the Soba, he had discharged a large cargo of slaves at the station
of Kutchuk Ali on the Bahr Giraffe, so as to pass Tewfikeeyah in a state
of innocence and purity, and thus save the confiscation of his ivory.
This man was present at the divan when the final agreement was signed by
myself and his principal.
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