498 LETTERS TO DR. SCHWEINFURTH.

to move. Besides, it is quite impossible to make a Sudanese understand why the Government has given up the Sudan, and he refuses in so many words to believe that a horde of Danagla is able to crush a well-trained army. Hven now it is believed here that the news of General Hicks’s defeat in Kordofan is a fiction. All my efforts during the last twelve months to concentrate the men in the south, have had no other result hitherto than to draw from the first battalion, stationed in Ladd and the neighbourhood, or at any rate from the officers, a categorical declaration that they would not give up Lado, &c. -Now, if I send copies of the letter from Heypt, written in French too (an error much to be regretted—it should have been written in Arabic), it will at least be considered a fabrication, that is, a device of my own, and will not be obeyed. But something worse may happen, for when the people are once convinced of the impotence of the Government, universal anarchy may ensue, and the destruction of all the white men may be the first result. I do not yet see how I am to get out of this dilemma. God help me! Of course I wrote at once to Nubar Pasha, promising to do my utmost, but could not give the foregoing details, as the letter might be opened in Uganda or elsewhere. The reason which induces me to communicate them to you is that, should we come to grief, you at any rate will know the state of affairs, and will be able to explain it to the authorities.

By a most unfortunate coincidence, war has just at this moment broken out between Uganda and Unyoro; as far as I can make out, it is the consequence of endless misunderstandings. The Hnglish missionaries in Uganda seem also to have lost credit to some extent. I have written to the king, and to my old friends, the Katikiro and the Arab, Hamis-bin-Holfan, begging them to send me some men from there. I hope for good results. I lay great weight on the fact that in all my dealings with Kabréga I have found him trustworthy and obliging.

Dr. Junker writes to me that he forwarded his letters from Kabréga to Uganda on February 12, and that he has also written to you. I gave him a small packet of letters for the English Consul-General at Zanzibar, in which a couple of lines