466 LETTERS TO DR. SCHWEINFURTH.

and officers in the place to break their allegiance, but met with a refusal. After this, on June 4, he started off, together with some Danagla who had joined him, the above-mentioned officer, and five Egyptian soldiers (ex-convicts). The boat on the swollen Yei had first been sunk by his orders, to prevent the news reaching here. They plundered the country all the way through Makraka-Sugaire to Kabayendi, carrying off all the natives they could lay hands on, both men and women, and when they reached the station of Kabayendi, they pillaged not only the Government magazine, but also private property. The commander of the station, a certain Mustapha Aga, also from Khartum, was put in chains and earried off, all his property being confiscated. Then the rabble went to Kudurma, where they took up their quarters in order to prepare flour for the march to the Bahr-el-Ghazal, that is, to steal corn from the natives, and make flour from part of it and mrissa from the rest. During this halt, the Danagla stationed in Mundu joined the rebels, with their arms and ammunition, and there were only a few men left in Makraka who adhered to us. But in the meantime I had been able to throw a few soldiers at least into the district, and as it was not at all my intention to give up acting on the defensive, I confined myself for the time being to stirring up the Negroes against these men, and so far succeeded that all the people they had dragged off with them returned to their homes. But dissensions seem to have broken out in the Danagla’s camp itself, arising at first on account of the captive, Mustapha Aga. Letters and news received from deserters informed me that Ibrahim Aga was forced to restore all that he had taken from Mustapha, and was at last even imprisoned; but in the end he took the road to Sabi, accompanied by the five Egyptian soldiers and some of the Danagla, while the remaining Danagla and the Egyptian officer already referred to are still staying in Kudurma. They intend to wait there until the kharzf is over, and then to proceed to the north. Of course, they are in close communication with the Danagla who have remained ostensibly true to me, and I should not be astonished if our present allies joined their seditious brethren at the expiration of the kharif, unless help or good news comes from the north.