AN UNCOMFORTABLE STATION, 335 It received its name from that of the chief of the district. After Malzac’s* death it was purchased by Binder, a Transylvanian, and subsequently passed through the hands of Halil Shami, Téhami, Ghattas, until finally it became the property of the Government, whose authority, however, up till the time of my arrival has only been a nominal one. This place, originally erected for elephant hunting, became after the lapse of years the centre of the settlement in this district, and the starting-place for the caravans vid Amadi to Monbuttu; it was also the collecting-place for the ivory, both white and black, obtained by these caravans; and lastly, it provided an asylum and free quarters for all idlers and scamps from the various Danagla settlements throughout the Sudan. Its rise . was facilitated by the dense neighbouring population and the luxuriant corn-fields. At the present time the station has a very uncomfortable look, owing to the former attempt to construct a moat round the station, and the numerous trenches in the yellow clayey soil, from which clay has been taken to plaster the walls of the huts and to form the floors of the platforms. Besides this, wells were constructed by means of a row of deep holes, which the rain during the kharif has deepened in some parts and destroyed in others, so that you can now almost imagine that you have come upon a colony where gold-diggers have been at work. In the midst of this chaos of trenches, mounds, and pools, the station buildings form a kind of island. They consist of a motley group of huts built upon platforms, the irregular arrangement of which defies all description. Paths about a foot broad, and covered by every kind of filth, lead through this confusion; and as the spaces underneath the platforms are occupied by crowds of slaves, who live after their own manner, the stench and dirt are prodigiously increased. Hardly any one has thought of fencing in his house, so that every one can see into his neighbour’s dwelling, and if any one quarrels with his concubine every one in the station can see and hear. In one corner a kind of * M. Alfonse de Malzac died at Kharttim in April 1881. Tejean (“ Les Deux Nils,” pp. 19, 77, 99) calls him a monster of iniquity, but a good botanist ; Heuglin (Petermann and Hassenstein’s ‘‘ Inner Afrika,” p. 99) refers to him as “a slavehunter of the worst type.”