Although the
Baris were at war with the government, Abou Saood had about seventy of
these natives at Fatiko, armed with muskets, in his employ; thus he was
openly in league with the enemies of the Khedive's government.
The report among the slave companies asserted that Abou Saood had been
in league with Raoul Bey to frustrate the expedition; thus the
conspiracy of the officers headed by Raouf Bey, which I had checkmated,
was the grand move to effect a collapse of the expedition, and to leave
a clear field for the slave-traders.
"Up to the present time, my arrangements have been able to overpower all
opposition."
The success of the corn collection at the moment of the conspiracy was
fatal to the machinations of Raouf Bey, and secured me the confidence of
the troops.
"The success of every attack that I have personally commanded has
clinched this confidence.
"The trader's people are discontented with their leaders; they are
without clothes or wages.
"Their parties have been massacred in several directions by the natives.
Nearly 500 loads of ivory have been burned, together with one of their
stations, by a night attack of the Madi, in which the slave-hunters lost
thirty-five killed, and the rest of the party only escaped in the
darkness, and fled to the forests.
"Thus I come upon them at a moment when they are divided in their
feelings. A dread of the government is mingled with confidence in the
arrival of a strong military force, which would be auxiliary in the
event of a general uprising of the country."
I found several of my old men engaged as slave-hunters. These people,
who had behaved well on my former voyage, confided all the news, and
were willing to serve the government. Kamrasi, the former king of
Unyoro, was dead, and had been succeeded by his son, Kabba Rega.
Some few of the people of Abou Saood had been on a visit to the king
M'tese at Uganda. This powerful ruler had been much improved by his
personal communication with the traders of Zanzibar. He had become a
Mohammedan, and had built a mosque. Even his vizier said his daily
prayers like a good Mussulman, and M'tese no longer murdered his wives.
If he cut the throat of either man or beast, it was now done in the name
of God, and the king had become quite civilized, according to the report
of the Arab envoys. He kept clerks who could correspond, by letters, in
Arabic, and he had a regiment armed with a thousand guns, in addition to
the numerous forces at his command.
