The slaves are then marched across the country to
different places; many to Sennaar, where they are sold to other dealers,
who sell them to the Arabs and to the Turks. Others are taken immense
distances to ports on the Red Sea, Souakim, and Masowa, there to be
shipped for Arabia and Persia. Many are sent to Cairo, and in fact they
are disseminated throughout the slave-dealing East, the White Nile being
the great nursery for the supply.
The amiable trader returns from the White Nile to Khartoum; hands over
to his creditor sufficient ivory to liquidate the original loan of
1,000 pounds, and, already a man of capital, he commences as an
independent trader.
Such was the White Nile trade when I prepared to start from Khartoum on
my expedition to the Nile sources. Every one in Khartoum, with the
exception of a few Europeans, was in favor of the slave trade, and
looked with jealous eyes upon a stranger venturing within the precincts
of their holy land; a land sacred to slavery and to every abomination
and villany that man can commit.
The Turkish officials pretended to discountenance slavery: at the same
time every house in Khartoum was full of slaves, and the Egyptian
officers had been in the habit of receiving a portion of their pay in
slaves, precisely as the men employed on the White Nile were paid by
their employers. The Egyptian authorities looked upon the exploration of
the White Nile by a European traveller as an infringement of their slave
territory that resulted from espionage, and every obstacle was thrown in
my way.
Foreseeing many difficulties, I had been supplied, before leaving Egypt,
with a firman from H. E. Said Pasha the Viceroy, by the request of H. B.
M. agent, Sir R. Colquhoun; but this document was ignored by the
Governor-general of the Soudan, Moosa Pasha, under the miserable
prevarication that the firman was for the Pasha's dominions and for the
Nile; whereas the White Nile was not accepted as the Nile, but was known
as the White River. I was thus refused boats, and in fact all
assistance.
To organize an enterprise so difficult that it had hitherto defeated the
whole world required a careful selection of attendants, and I looked
with despair at the prospect before me. The only men procurable for
escort were the miserable cutthroats of Khartoum, accustomed to murder
and pillage. in the White Nile trade, and excited not by the love of
adventure but by the desire for plunder: to start with such men appeared
mere insanity. There was a still greater difficulty in connection with
the White Nile. For years the infernal traffic in slaves and its
attendant horrors had existed like a pestilence in the negro countries,
and had so exasperated the tribes, that people who in former times were
friendly had become hostile to all comers.
