120 THE ABYSSINIAN FRONTIER difficult to persuade them that one is not a Turk —i.e., Egyptian—the fact that one is white and of the ruHng race being sufficient to cause the name Turk to be appHed to all.

Such horrible memories cling to the reputation of the old regime, and to the days of the Dervish rule, that the utmost nervousness is displayed by those who come for the first time into contact with white people, as was demonstrated during the latter part of my wanderings, in the Bahr-el-Zeraf.

The Egyptian Government of the Sudan in the days of Baker was in effect a horde of slave-dealers who commanded the sympathy of the ruling classes in Egypt proper, and who were the chiefs of an enormous and infamous organization which utilized tribal warfare and death for the attainment of its abominable ends, and left famine and depopulation in its trail.

The devastating results of the Dervish rule have been already referred to, and it is stated on competent authority that a population now estimated at from a million and a half to two millions amounted to full eight and a half millions before the days of the Mahdi.

The main waterways from Abyssinia are now jealously guarded. The slightest relaxation of this keen watch would be the signal for a revival of the trade, and even now it is possible that a few traders, who are generally well-known and desperate characters, do succeed in getting past. But there is an elaborate detective system—with