SOCIETY IN KHARTOUM. 2?5 receives a ray of light from the civilized world heyond), it has become a capital on a small scale, and its society is a curious compound of Christian, Turk and Barbarian. On the same day, I have had a whole sheep set before me, in the hoiise of an Ethiopian Princess, who wore a ring in her nose ; taken coffee and sherbet with the Pasha ; and drank tea, prepared in the true English style, in the parlor of a European. When to these remarkable contrasts is added the motley character of its native population, embracing representatives from almost every tribe between Dar-Fur and the Red Sea, between Egypt and the Negro kingdoms of the White Nile, it will readily be seen how rich a field of observation Khartoum offers to the traveller. Nevertheless, those who reside there, almost without exception, bestow upon the city and country all possible maledictions. Considered as a place of residence, other questions come into play, and they are perhaps not far wrong. Khartoum is the most remarkable — I had almost said the only example of physical progress in Africa, in this century.

Where, thirty years ago, there was not even a dwelling, unless it might be the miserable tolcul, or straw hut of the Ethiopian Fellah, now stands a city of some thirty or forty thousand inhabitants, daily increasing in size and importance, and gradually drawing into its mart the commerce of the immense regions of Central Africa. Its foundation, I believe, is due to Ismail Pasha (son of Mohammed Ali), who, during his conquests of the kingdoms of Shendy and Sennaar, in the years 1821 and 1822, recognized the importance, in a military and commercial sense, of establishing a post at the confluence of the two Niles. Mohammed Bey Defterdar, who succeeded him, seconded the plan, and ere long it was determined to make Khartoum, on