CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LATEST NEWS FROM KHARTOUM.
The various trading parties were assembled in Gondokoro with a total of
about three thousand slaves; but there was consternation depicted upon
every countenance. Only three boats had arrived from Khartoum - one
diahbiah and two noggurs - these belonged to Koorshid Aga. The resume of
news from Khartoum was as follows: -
"Orders had been received by the Egyptian authorities from the European
Governments to suppress the slave-trade. Four steamers had arrived at
Khartoum from Cairo. Two of these vessels had ascended the White Nile,
and had captured many slavers; their crews were imprisoned, and had been
subjected to the bastinado and torture; - the captured slaves had been
appropriated by the Egyptian authorities.
"It would be impossible to deliver slaves to the Soudan this season, as
an Egyptian regiment had been stationed in the Shillook country, and
steamers were cruising to intercept the boats from the interior in their
descent to Khartoum; - thus the army of slaves then at Gondokoro would
be utterly worthless.
"The plague was raging at Khartoum, and had killed 15,000 people; - many
of the boats' crews had died on their passage from Khartoum to Gondokoro
of this disease, which had even broken out in the station where we then
were: people died daily.
"The White Nile was dammed up by a freak of nature, and the crews of
thirty vessels had been occupied five weeks in cutting a ditch through
the obstruction, wide enough to admit the passage of boats."
Such was the intelligence received by the latest arrival from Khartoum.
No boats having been sent for me, I engaged the diahbiah that had
arrived for Koorshid's ivory; - this would return empty, as no ivory
could be delivered at Gondokoro.
