GOVEBNMENT. 99 had only constructed three military stations or forts, Gondokoro, Fatiko, and Foweira, having been unsuccessful in maintaining a position at Masindi in Unyoro.

When Colonel Gordon undertook the government of this part of the Khedive's possessions, he at once perceived the necessity of establishing more stations, and of pacifying the natives, before he could hope to ameliorate the condition of the people, and succeed in putting an end to the slave trade.

At first three new stations vpere formed, one at Sobat, with the view of cutting off the slave caravans which came overland from the east of the White Nile ; one at Shambil as a wooding station, and to bar the slavers' road from the province of Eohl ; and a small station at Bohr. Then in three years a network of stations was established all over the Provinces, no station being more than three days' post from, another ; and it is indeed astonishing that a work of such magnitude should have been accomplished in so short a time, and that in the space of three years such an immense district should have been well organised, the difficult task of erecting the stations finished, and the still more difficult problem of tranquillising the natives solved.

One of the last things Colonel Gordon did before .

giving up his command was to order the withdrawal of the stations in Unyoro; thus Mruli, H 2