The suppression of the slave trade was a compliment to the European
Powers which would denote the superiority of Egypt, and would lay the
first stone in the foundation of a new civilization; and a population
that was rapidly disappearing would be saved to Africa.
To effect this grand reform it would be necessary to annex the Nile
Basin, and to establish a government in countries that had been hitherto
without protection, and a prey to the adventurers from the Soudan. To
convey steel steamers from England, and to launch them upon the Albert
Lake, and thus open the resources of Central Africa; to establish
legitimate trade in a vast country which had hitherto been a field of
rapine and of murder; to protect the weak and to punish the evil-doer,
and to open the road to a great future, where the past had been all
darkness and the present reckless spoliation - this was the grand object
which Ismail, the Khedive of Egypt, determined to accomplish.
In this humane enterprise he was firmly supported by his two Ministers,
Nubar Pacha and Cherif Pacha (an Armenian and a Circassian). The young
princes his sons, who are well-educated and enlightened men, took the
greatest interest in the undertaking; but beyond these and a few others,
the object of the expedition was regarded with ill-concealed disgust.
Having received full powers from the Khedive, I gave orders for the
following vessels to be built of steel by Messrs. Samuda Brothers: -
No. 1. A paddle steamer of 251 tons, 32-horse power.
No. 2. A twin screw high-pressure steamer of 20-horse power, 108 tons.
No. 3. A twin screw high-pressure steamer of 10-horse power, 38 tons.
Nos. 4, 5. Two steel lifeboats, each 30 ft. by 9 - 10 tons each.
These vessels were fitted with engines of the best construction
by Messrs. Pond & Co., and were to be carried across the Nubian
desert in plates and sections.
In addition to the steamers were steam saw mills, with a boiler that
weighed 8 cwt. in one piece - all of which would have to be transported
by camels for several hundred miles across the Nubian desert, and by
boats and camels alternately from Alexandria to Gondokoro, a distance of
about THREE THOUSAND MILES.
In the description of this enterprise, which terminated in the
suppression of the slave trade of the White Nile and the annexation of a
large equatorial territory to Egypt, I shall be compelled to expose many
abuses which were the result of misgovernment in the distant provinces
of Upper Egypt. It must be distinctly understood that his Highness the
Khedive was ignorant of such abuses, and that he took prompt and
vigorous measures to reform the administration of the Soudan immediately
upon receiving information of the misgovernment of that extensive
territory.
