I can only refer to Lieutenant
Baker, R.N., and that gallant officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Abd-el-Kader,
and many others, including all soldiers and servants who belonged to the
detachment at Fatiko.
These persons subsequently gave their evidence, which they will be ready
at all times to repeat.
On 7th August, at about 5 P.M., Abou Saood appeared with about forty of
his men. He was afraid to enter my camp without a second assurance in
writing that he should not be made prisoner.
Of course he swore that he had not given orders to fire at me; and he
declared that his people of Fatiko had only fired because they were
afraid that the natives who had accompanied me were about to attack
them.
I asked him, "If that were the case, why had they not communicated with
me, as I was only ninety yards distant?" He said his people had not
fired at the government troops, but only at the natives who were upon
the rock.
He could not quite explain in that case "how it was that 1,000 natives
perched upon the rock close together, had escaped without a man being
wounded, while not only were seven of the government troops knocked down
by bullets, but the huts and furniture of our camp, including boxes in
the magazine, &c, had been completely riddled with balls." He then began
to lay the blame on Wat-el-Mek, and even had the audacity to declare
that "he had nothing to do with slaves, but that he could not restrain
his people from kidnapping." I never heard any human being pour out such
a cataract of lies as this scoundrel. His plausibility and assurance
were such that I stood aghast; and after he had delivered a long speech,
in which he declared that "he was the innocent victim of adverse
circumstances, and that every one was against him," I could merely reply
by dismissing him with the assurance that there was "only one really
good and honest man in the world, who invariably spoke the truth; this
man was ABOU SAOOD. All other men were liars."
On the following morning Abou Saood came to take leave. He pretended to
devote himself to my service, and declared that he should now at once
return to Fabbo and organize the best of his people into an irregular
corps for the government, and he should act with energy as my vakeel,
and assist me in every manner possible. He begged me not to believe a
word that any one might say EXCEPT HIMSELF, and he swore by the eyes and
head of the Prophet (this was his favourite oath whenever he told the
biggest lie) that there was no one so true to me as he, which he would
prove by his acts. He then went back to Fabbo.
This is the last time that I ever saw Abou Saood. He took 200 men upon
his arrival at Fabbo, and after having told his men to cut the throat of
the sheik Werdella, who was a prisoner in the Fabbo camp under my
special orders for protection, he went straight to Gondokoro to his
friend Raouf Bey.
This officer, who commanded at head-quarters during my absence, although
he heard from Abou Saood's people of the attack made upon me at Fatiko,
and Abou Saood had arrived without either a passport or letters from
myself, positively allowed him to depart to Khartoum.
At Khartoum Abou Saood spread every conceivable false report. Thence he
travelled to Cairo, expressly to complain to the Khedive's government of
the manner in which he had been treated by me.
Thus the greatest slave-trader of the White Nile, who was so closely
connected with the Soudan government that he was a tenant who had rented
a country WHICH DID NOT BELONG TO EGYPT, now applied to that government
for protection against my interference with his murders, kidnapping, and
pillaging, which were the accompaniments of his slave-hunting in Central
Africa.
The fact of this renowned slave-hunter having the audacity to appeal to
the Egyptian authorities for assistance, at once exhibits the confidence
that the slave-traders felt in the moral support of certain official
personages who represented public opinion in their hatred to the
principal object of the expedition.
The various links in the chain which united the interests of Abou Saood
with certain officers who were opposed to the spirit of the enterprise
will be at once perceived.
From the very commencement, this man had been the chief intriguer who
had endeavoured to ruin the expedition. He had fraternized with the
Baris when they were at open war with the government. He had incited the
tribes to attack me, and at length his own companies had fired at me by
his orders. HE NOW SOUGHT THE PROTECTION OF THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT AT
CAIRO.
We shall now leave Abou Saood in Cairo, where he spread the false report
of the massacre of Lady Baker and myself, which reached England and
appeared in the newspapers in April 1873.
After Abou Saood's departure from Fabbo, the influence of Wat-el-Mek
began to be felt, and many men flocked to the government standard.
Nevertheless, that station was a scene of anarchy. The slave-hunters
were divided among themselves. The party that followed Wat-el-Mek were
nearly all Soudanis, like himself, but the Arabs were split up into
companies, each of which had elected a separate leader. This dissension
was exactly what I desired, and I played the game accordingly.
