Natives who were originally friendly were rendered
hostile to all strangers, and the general result of the slave trade
could only be expressed in one word - "ruin."
The slave hunters and traders who had caused this desolation were for
the most part Arabs, subjects of the Egyptian government.
These people had deserted their agricultural occupations in the Soudan
and had formed companies of brigands in the pay of various merchants of
Khartoum. The largest trader had about 2,500 Arabs in his pay, employed
as pirates or brigands, in Central Africa. These men were organized
after a rude military fashion, and armed with muskets; they were divided
into companies, and were officered in many cases by soldiers who had
deserted from their regiments in Egypt or the Soudan.
It is supposed that about 15,000 of the Khedive's subjects who should
have been industriously working and paying their taxes in Egypt were
engaged in the so-called ivory trade and slave-hunting of the White
Nile.
Each trader occupied a special district, where, by a division of his
forces in a chain of stations, each of which represented about 300 men,
he could exercise a right of possession over a certain amount of assumed
territory.
In this manner enormous tracts of country were occupied by the armed
bands from Khartoum, who could make alliances with the native tribes to
attack and destroy their neighbours, and to carry off their women and
children, together with vast herds of sheep and cattle.
