When Thus Attired I Presented Him With A Tarboosh (Fez); All Of Which Presents He Received Without A Smile Or The Slightest Acknowledgment.

When dressed with the assistance of two or three of the soldiers who had volunteered to act as valets, he sat down on the carpet, upon which he invited his family to sit near him.

There was a profound silence. The king appeared to have no power of speech; he simply fixed his eyes upon myself and my wife; then slowly turned them upon Lieutenant Baker and the officers in attendance. The crowd was perfectly silent.

"I was obliged to commence the conversation by asking him `whether he was really Quat Kare, the old king of the Shillooks? as I had heard his death reported.'

"Instead of replying, he conferred with one of his wives, a woman of about sixty, who appeared to act as prime minister and adviser. This old lady immediately took up the discourse, and very deliberately related the intrigues of the Koordi governor of Fashoda, which had ended in the ruin of her husband. It appeared that the Koordi did not wish that peace should reign throughout the land. The Shillooks were a powerful tribe, numbering upwards of a million, therefore it was advisable to sow dissension amongst them, and thus destroy their unity. Quat Kare was a powerful king, who had ruled the country for more than fifty years. He was the direct descendant of a long line of kings; therefore he was a man whose influence was to be dreaded. The policy of the Koordi determined that he would overthrow the power of Quat Kare, and after having vainly laid snares for his capture, the old king fled from the governor of Fashoda as David fled from Saul and hid in the cave of Adullam. The Koordi was clever and cunning in intrigue; thus, he wrote to Djiaffer Pacha, the governor-general of the Soudan, and declared that Quat Kare the king of the Shillooks was DEAD; it was therefore necessary to elect the next heir, Jangy for whom he requested the firman of the Khedive. The firman of the Khedive arrived in due course for the pretender Jangy, who was a distant connexion of Quat Kare, and in no way entitled to the succession. This intrigue threw the country into confusion. Jangy was proclaimed king by the Koordi, and was dressed in a scarlet robe with belt and sabre. The pretender got together a large band of adherents who were ready for any adventure that might yield them plunder. These natives, who knew the paths and the places where the vast herds of cattle were concealed, acted as guides to the Koordi; and the faithful adherents of the old king, Quat Kare, were plundered, oppressed, and enslaved without mercy, until the day that I had fortunately arrived in the Shillook country, and caught the Koordi in the very act of kidnapping.

"I had heard this story a few days before, and I was much struck with the clear and forcible manner in which the old wife described the history.

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