A time when no Englishman had held a
high command, when rival consulates were struggling for paramount
influence, when the native officials were jealous of foreign
interference, and it appeared that slavery and the slave trade of the
White Nile were institutions almost necessary to the existence of
Egyptian society.
It was obvious to all observers that an attack upon the slave-dealing
and slave-hunting establishments of Egypt by a foreigner - an
Englishman - would be equal to a raid upon a hornets' nest, that all
efforts to suppress the old-established traffic in negro slaves would be
encountered with a determined opposition, and that the prime agent and
leader of such an expedition must be regarded "with hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness." At that period (1869) the highest authorities
were adverse to the attempt. An official notice was despatched from the
British Foreign Office to the Consul-General of Egypt that British
subjects belonging to Sir Samuel Baker's expedition must not expect the
support of their government in the event of complications. The
enterprise was generally regarded as chimerical in Europe, with
hostility in Egypt, but with sympathy in America.
Those who have read "Ismailia" may have felt some despondency. Although
the slave-hunters were driven out of the territory under my command,
there were nevertheless vast tracts of country through which new routes
could be opened for the slave caravans to avoid the cruising steamers on
the White Nile, and thus defeat the government.
