Nubar Pacha has
been recalled to office, and he must regard with pride the general
confidence occasioned throughout Europe by his reappointment. The
absolute despotism hitherto inseparable from Oriental ideas of
government has been spontaneously abrogated by the Khedive, who has
publicly announced his determination that the future administration
shall be conducted by a council of responsible ministers.
England has become the great shareholder in the Suez Canal, which is the
important link with our Indian Empire. At the alarm of war we have
already seen the fleet of steam transports hurrying through the isthmus,
and carrying native troops to join the British forces in the
Mediterranean. We have learnt to know, and the Khedive has wisdom to
understand, that the bonds between Egypt and Great Britain are
inseparable. At the same time we have been aided by the cordial alliance
of France in promoting the advance of free institutions and the growth
of European influence in the administration of the country. England and
France, who struggled in hostile rivalry upon the sands and seas of
Egypt, are now joined in the firm determination to uphold the integrity
of the great canal of Suez, and these powers and leaders of civilization
will become the guides and guardians of Egyptian interests. The reforms
already sanctioned with a new era of justice and economy will insure the
confidence of British capitalists; the resources of Egypt will be
developed by engineering skill that will control the impetuosity of the
Nile and protect the Delta alike from the scarcity of drought, and from
the risk of inundation. The Nile sources, which from the earliest times
had remained a mystery, have been discovered by the patience and
industry of Englishmen; the Nile will at no distant period be rendered
navigable throughout its course, and Egypt, which for actual existence
depends alone upon that mighty river, will be restored by British
enterprise, supported by the intelligence and good-will of its ruler, to
the position which it held in the pages of Eastern history.
1878.
S. W. B.
ISMAILIA.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
In the present work I shall describe the history of the Khedive of
Egypt's expedition, which I have had the honour to command, as the first
practical step that has been taken to suppress the slave trade of
Central Africa.
I shall not repeat, beyond what may be absolutely necessary, that which
has already been published in my former works on Africa, "The Albert
N'yanza" and "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia," but I shall adhere to
the simple path taken by the expedition. This enterprise was the natural
result of my original explorations, in which I had been an eye-witness
to the horrors of the slave trade, which I determined, if possible, to
suppress.
In my former journey I had traversed countries of extreme fertility in
Central Africa, with a healthy climate favourable for the settlement of
Europeans, at a mean altitude of 4,000 feet above the sea level. This
large and almost boundless extent of country was well peopled by a race
who only required the protection of a strong but paternal government to
become of considerable importance, and to eventually develop the great
resources of the soil.
I found lands varying in natural capabilities according to their
position and altitudes - where sugar, cotton, coffee, rice, spices, and
all tropical produce might be successfully cultivated; but those lands
were without any civilized form of government, and "every man did what
seemed right in his own eyes."
In this dislocated state of society, the slave trade prospered to the
detriment of all improvement. Rich and well-populated countries were
rendered desolate; the women and children were carried into captivity;
villages were burnt, and crops were destroyed or pillaged; the
population was driven out; a terrestrial paradise was converted into an
infernal region; the 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.
I have already fully described this system in "The Albert N'yanza,"
therefore it will be unnecessary to enter into minute details in the
present work. It will be sufficient, to convey an idea of the extended
scale of the slave-hunting operations, to explain that an individual
trader named Agad assumed the right over nearly NINETY THOUSAND SQUARE
MILES of territory.
