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.
