INTRODUCTION. XV

appointed Governor, no rank had been given to him on account of the intrigues of some Khartum officials.

The state of his province in 1878, when he accepted the

post of Governor, is difficult to describe in a few words. The population consisted of numerous and varied tribes, who, having

once experienced the beneficent rule of Gordon Pasha, had

suffered greatly from the oppression and cruelty of his suc-

cessors, and there was also a scattered population throughout

the country, consisting of former slave-dealers and many of

their late employés, who were settled in small fortified villages

over the land, and who had recommenced their nefarious prac-

tices. The officials, too, for the most part, were disreputable men; the greater number of them were criminals, who had

been banished from Egypt, and after undergoing their sentences, had been taken on into Government employ. The Egyptian

soldiers were very unreliable, and their acts of oppression were

resented by the natives, and tended to bring about continual

friction between the Administration and the mass of the popu-

lation. Added to all this, many of the stations themselves

required rebuilding, and a block in the Nile prevented all sup-

plies being sent to the Equatorial Province for the first two

years of Emin’s rule. It is not to be wondered at, therefore,

that the cares of government rested heavily upon him. Constant journeys had to be made, daily complaints arrived from all sides

of difficulties between officials and native chiefs, and a continual round of stated duties filled up his time from sunrise to sunset. Many a man would have shrunk from undertaking the respon-

sibility of inducing order out of such chaos. Not so Emin

Effendi. Slowly but firmly, and with ever-increasing success,

he became master of the situation, and when I passed through

his province for the second time, in 1879, a most wonderful change had taken place. Stations had been rebuilt, discontent

was changed into loyal obedience, corruption had been put

down, taxation was equalised, and he had already begun the

task of clearing his province from the slave-dealers who infested