- Started at 11.30 a.m. The river has fallen three feet since
we were here, and the country is now dry.
Mr. Baker and I therefore
walked a portion of the way upon the banks as the diahbeeah slowly
descended the stream. There were great numbers of wild fowl; also
hippopotami, and being provided with both shot guns and heavy rifles we
made a very curious bag during the afternoon, that in England or
Scotland would have been difficult to carry home; we shot and secured
two hippopotami, one crocodile, twenty-two geese, and twenty ducks.
"At 7 p.m. we arrived at the station of Kutchuk Ali. I sent for the
vakeel, or agent, commanding the company, to whom I thoroughly explained
the system and suppression of the slave trade. He seemed very
incredulous that it would actually be enforced; but I recommended him
not to make the experiment of sending cargoes of slaves down to
Khartoum, as he had done in previous years. He appeared to be very
confident that because his employer, Kutchuk Ali, had been promoted to
the rank of sandjak, with the command of a government expedition, no
inquiry would be made concerning the acts of his people. No greater
proof could be given of the insincerity of the Soudan authorities in
professing to suppress the slave trade, than the fact that Djiaffer
Pacha, the governor-general of the Soudan, had given the command of an
expedition to this same Kutchuk Ali, who was known as one of the
principal slave-traders of the White Nile.
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