Ismailia Part 77

It appeared that the woman had the small-pox, and she had been therefore thrown into the high gra.s.s, and abandoned by the vakeel of the three vessels that we had observed in the distance. She described these vessels as being crowded with slaves.

I gave the unfortunate creature a supply of six days' food, together with a cooking-pot and some firewood, but I dared not introduce so horrible a disease as the small-pox among our party. She was thus left alone upon the dubba. (At this season native fishermen visited the dubba, therefore she was most probably discovered on the following morning.)

On 8th June we steamed along, towards the tall masts and yards of the three vessels which we perceived upon the horizon.

The intricacies of the narrow channel were such that we did not overtake the slavers until sunset.

We then anch.o.r.ed for the night in a lake, while I sent a boat forward into the ca.n.a.l occupied by the three vessels to order the vakeel of the company to visit me immediately.

In a short time the boat returned with my old acquaintance Wat Hojoly, the vakeel of the Bohr station belonging to Abou Saood.

I had always liked this man, as he was generally straightforward in his manner. He now told me, without the slightest reserve, that during my absence in the south, several cargoes of slaves had pa.s.sed the government station at Fashoda by bribing the governor; and that he would certainly have no difficulty, provided that I did not seize him. He confessed that he had 700 slaves on board the three vessels, and according to orders that he had received from his master, Abou Saood, he was conveying them to their destination, a few days south of Khartoum, on the White Nile; at which point they could either march overland to the west via Kordofan, or to the east via Sennaar; whence they could pa.s.s unmolested to the Red Sea or to other markets.

The small-pox had broken out among the slaves, several of whom had died.

I was most thoroughly disgusted and sick at heart. After all the trouble and difficulties that we had gone through for the suppression of the slave trade, there could be no question of the fact that Abou Saood, the great slave-hunter of the White Nile, was supported by some high authority behind the scenes, upon whom he could depend for protection.

This was apparently the last act of the drama, in which the villain of the piece could mock and scoff at justice, and ridicule every effort that I had made to suppress the slave trade. His vessels were actually sailing in triumph and defiance before the wind, with flags flying the crescent and the star, above a horrible cargo of pest-smitten humanity, in open contempt for my authority; which Wat Hojoly had been carefully informed did not extend north of Gondokoro.

I asked this plain-spoken agent whether he was quite sure that he could pa.s.s the government station? "Oh yes," he replied, "a little backsheesh will open the road; there is nothing to fear."

I was then informed by the same authority that Abou Saood had gone to Cairo to appeal to the Khedive's government against my proceedings, and to represent his TRADE as ruined by my acts.

This was a remarkable disclosure at the end of the last act; the moral of the piece was thus explained before the curtain fell. The slave-hunter par excellence of the White Nile, who had rented or farmed from the government, for some thousands sterling per annum, the right of TRADING in countries which did NOT belong to Egypt, was now on the road to protest against my interference with his TRADE, this innocent business being represented BY THREE VESSELS WITH SEVEN HUNDRED SLAVES THAT WERE TO Pa.s.s UNCHECKED BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT STATION OF FASHODA.

I told Wat Hojoly that I did not think he would succeed upon this occasion, but that I should certainly not lay hands upon him.

I had not received replies to my letters addressed to the Khedive, therefore I was determined not to exert physical force again; at the same time I made up my mind that the slave vessels should not pa.s.s Fashoda.

After some delay, owing to a shallow portion of the river, we pa.s.sed ahead, and the fearful stench from the crowded slave vessels reeking with small-pox followed us for quite a mile down the wind. (Fortunately there was a powerful force with Wat Hojoly, whom I called upon for a.s.sistance in heaving the steamer over the bank; otherwise we must have dug a channel.)

On 19th June, at 3.30 P.M., we reached Fashoda. The governor at once came on board to receive us.

This officer hall been only recently appointed, and he appeared to be very energetic and desirous to a.s.sist me in the total extinction of the slave trade. I a.s.sured the governor (Jusef Effendi) that I had entirely suppressed it in my territory, and I had also suppressed the river trade in 1870; but if the authorities were determined to connive at this abomination, I had been placed in a disgracefully false position, and had been simply employed on a fool's errand.

Jusef Effendi a.s.sured me that it would be impossible for vessels to pa.s.s Fashoda with slave cargoes now that he represented the government, as the Khedive had issued the most positive orders within the last six months against the traffic in slaves; therefore such instructions must be obeyed.

I did not quite see that obedience to such orders was absolutely necessary, as the slave trade had been similarly prohibited by proclamation in the reign of the late Said Pacha, but with no permanent effect.

There were two fine steamers lying at Fashoda, which had formed a portion of the fleet of six steamers that I had sent up from Cairo some years ago to tow my flotilla up the White Nile. This was the first time that I had ever seen them.

I now told Jusef Effendi that he would be held responsible for the capture of Abou Saood's three vessels, together with the 700 slaves; at the same time, it would be advisable to allow them to arrive at Fashoda before their capture should be attempted; as the fact of such an audacious contempt of law would at once implicate the former governor as having been in the habit of connivance.

Jusef Effendi appeared to be in earnest. He was an active and highly intelligent Circa.s.sian who held the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

My servants had discovered by chance, when in communication with Wat Hojoly, that Salim-Wat-Howah, who had been one of the princ.i.p.al ringleaders in the attack upon the troops at Fatiko, and had subsequently knocked down Suleiman and possessed himself forcibly of the ammunition from the magazine, with which he and his party had absconded, was now actually concealed on one of the three slave vessels. I had taken care not to mention his name to Wat Hojoly, lest he should be left at some station upon the route, and thus escape me.

I now gave a written order to Jusef Effendi to arrest him upon the arrival of the slave vessels, and to send him to Khartoum in irons.

The news of Abou Saood's personal appeal to the government at Cairo was confirmed by the best authorities at Fashoda.

On 21st June I took leave of Jusef Effendi, and upon the 28th, at 11 A.M., we arrived at the large tree which is within five miles of Khartoum, by the short cut across the neck of land to the Blue Nile.

I stopped at this tree, and immediately wrote to Ismail Ayoub Pacha, the new governor of Khartoum, to telegraph INSTANTLY to Cairo to arrest Abou Saood.

I sent this note by a faithful officer, Ferritch Agha, with positive orders that he was to deliver it into the hands of Ismail Pacha.

This order was immediately carried out before any people in Khartoum had an idea of my return. Had I at once steamed round the point, some friend would have telegraphed my arrival to Abou Saood in Cairo, and he might have gone into concealment.

In the afternoon we observed a steamer rounding the distant headland at the point of junction of the two Niles. She rapidly approached, and in about half an hour my old friend, Ismail Ayoub Pacha, stepped on board my diahbeeah, and gave us a hearty welcome.

There was no letter either from the Khedive or Cherif Pacha, in reply to the important communications that I had written more than two years ago.

Ismail Ayoub Pacha was a friend of eight years' date. I had known him during my first expedition to the Nile sources as Ismail Bey, president of the council at Khartoum. He had lately been appointed governor, and I could only regret that my excellent friend had not been in that capacity from the commencement of the expedition, as I should have derived much a.s.sistance from his great energy and intelligence.

Ismail Ayoub Pacha is a Circa.s.sian. I have observed that all those officers who are superior to the average in intellect and general capacity belong to this race. The Circa.s.sians are admirably represented in Cherif Pacha, who is well known and respected by all Europeans in Egypt for his probity and high intelligence; and Riaz Pacha, who was lately the Minister for Public Instruction, is a Circa.s.sian much beloved and respected.

Ismail Ayoub had commenced a great reform in the Soudan, in his endeavour to put down the wholesale system of bribery and corruption which was the ruin of the country. He had also commenced a great work, according to the orders he had received from the Khedive, to remove the sudd or obstruction to the navigation of the great White Nile. He succeeded in re-opening the White Nile to navigation in the following season.

The Khedive had given this important order in consequence of letters that I had written on 31st August, 1870, to the Minister of the Interior, Cherif Pacha, and to his Highness direct on 8th October, 1871, in which communications I had strenuously advocated the absolute necessity of taking the work in hand, with a determination to re-establish the river in its original navigable condition.

Ismail Ayoub Pacha had been working with a large force, and he had succeeded in clearing, according to his calculations, one half of the obstruction, which extended for many miles.

There was no engineering difficulty in the undertaking, which was simply a matter of time and steady labour.

The immense force of the main stream, thus confined by matted and tangled vegetation, would materially a.s.sist the work, as the clearing was commenced from below the current.

The work would become lighter as the head of the sudd would be neared.

A curious accident had happened to Ismail Pacha by the sudden break-up of a large portion of the sudd, that had been weakened by cutting a long but narrow channel.

The prodigious rafts of vegetation were hurried before the stream like ice-floes, and these ma.s.ses having struck against a line of six noggurs, the vessels were literally swept away and buried beneath the great rafts, until they capsized and disappeared for ever in the deep channel.

Late in the evening Ismail Pacha took leave and returned in his steamer to Khartoum. We had enjoyed a long conversation, and I felt sure that the Soudan and Central Africa would quickly feel the benefit of Ismail Ayoub Pacha's administration, as he combined great energy and determination with nine years' experience of the requirements of his province.

On 29th June the new steamer, the Khedive, rounded the point at full speed with our diahbeeah in tow.

All the population of Khartoum thronged to the banks and the new quay to witness the arrival of the extraordinary steamer that travelled without paddles, and which had been constructed by the Englishmen at Ismailia (Gondokoro).

The troops were in order, and as the Khedive drew alongside the quay we were warmly welcomed by Ismail Ayoub Pacha with the usual formalities.

A few days latter, a steamer arrived from Fashoda with the three vessels in tow belonging to Abou Saood, which had attempted to pa.s.s the government station with more than 600 slaves on board, about 100 having died of the small-pox since I had left the Bahr Giraffe. The small-pox was still raging on board, therefore the vessels were taken to the north bank of the Blue Nile and placed in quarantine.

As the guard pa.s.sed by with prisoners, I recognized my friend the vakeel, Wat Hojoly, in irons. The unfortunate man had found a new governor at Fashoda instead of his old acquaintance; thus he did NOT pa.s.s free; as I had antic.i.p.ated.

Walking next to the vakeel, heavily chained, with his wrists secured in a block of wood similar to stocks, came the cream of ruffians, Salim-Wat-Howah, nailed at last.

This villainous-looking fellow was afterwards tried before the medjeldis, or tribunal, and by overpowering evidence he was found guilty of having first threatened to attack Major Abdullah in the government camp of Fatiko; and secondly, with having actually given the orders to fire, and having fired himself, on 2nd August, 1872, when we had been treacherously attacked by Abou Saood's company.