260 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

which ran along the eastern side of the town, the Desert extended to the horizon — a hot, white plain, dotted with clumps of thorns. On our return to the boat, the rai's pointed out the spot where, in 1822, Ismail Pasha and his soldiers were burned to death by Mek Nemr (King Leopard), the last monarch of Shendy. The bloody revenge taken by Mohammed Bey Defterdar (son-in-law of Mohammed Ali), for that act, sealed the fate of the kingdom. The seat of the Egyptian government in Soudan was fixed at Khartoum, which in a few years became also the centre of trade, and now flourishes at the expense of Shendy and El Metemma.

Burckhardt, who visited Shendy during the reign of King Leopard, devotes much space to a description of the trade of the town at that time. It was then in the height of its prosperity, and the resort of merchants from Arabia, Abyssinia, Egypt, and even Syria and Asia Minor. It was also one of the chief slave-marts o" Central Africa, in which respect it has since been superseded by Obeid, in Kordofan. The only commerce which has been left to Shendy is that with Djidda and the other Arabian ports, by way of Sowakin, on the Red Sea — a caravan journey of fourteen days, through the country of Takka, infested by the wild tribes of the Hallengas and Hadendoas. Mek Nemr, according to Burckhardt, was of the Djaaleyn tribe, who are descendants of the Beni Koreish, of Yemen, and still retain the pure Arabian features. I was afterwards, during my stay in Khartoum, enabled to verify the declaration of the same traveller, that all the tribes of Ethiopia between the Nile and the Red Sea are of unmixed Arab stock.

The palace of the Governor, which was a building of con-