430 AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE, ETC.

made other arrangements, and what instruments I do possess are my own property. It is, however, rather annoying to hear men in power hold forth continually about their appreciation of science, and then to receive nothing but empty phrases when one applies to them.

Our communication with the Bahr-el-Ghazal territory has been interrupted for a long time, at least by the usual postroad which runs ftom here through Amadi, Ayak, and Rumbek to Gok-el-Hassan and Jur Ghattas, for the Dinka round Jur Ghattas have revolted, and the Bongo round Gok-el-Hassan have joined them. I have therefore opened a new route, passing through Makraka to Gosa, and thence northwards through Sabbi to Wau. Of course this is a much longer road, so I have received no news from there for the last three months. I hear reports of two steamers having arrived there to take so-called basinger to Khartum as recruits ; this will, of course, not fail to increase the existing discontent considerably, for our Negroes do not like to leave their native country, and the thought of going to Khartum is quite horrible to them. We do not know what is going on in Fashoda and the neighbourhood, for the Government prefers to leave us in the dark. Darfur is probably already lost to the Government, for Slatin wrote several times to Lupton asking for assistance, as his situation was really desperate, but Lupton had to refuse it, as he could not trust his own province. [ive to six thousand Danagla still live in the Bahr-el-Ghazal territory, just as they did in Gessi’s time, although he emphatically asserted that he had sent them all away. As regards my own—and I have a good share of them, and cannot dispense with them, having no soldiers—I have nothing to complain of. JI have kept them in order with a rod of iron, much as a battalion of Bashi-Bazuks is held in check; they do not love me, but they fear me, and therefore obey. It may be that certain rather singular situations, from which I fortunately came out in triumph, have thrown a sort of halo round me. I hope that all will go on smoothly with us, and that the youngest province of the Egyptian dominion will also be the most sensible.