— 102 country that was as large as France, a country that he had won at the point of the sword, and in which he established a military despotism to enforce his orders with the sword. At Deim Zubeir, which he made the seat of his autocratic Government, he maintained a state of truly regal splendour. Though separated from the dainty dalliance that such civilisation as the mud fiats of Khartoum could afford, by a thousand miles of river, by virgin forest, and by interminable marshes, Zubeir kept up in the straw huts of his capital a princely ease and luxurious comfort that many an Eastern potentate might have envied.

When Schweinfurth visited him in 1870 "Zubeir had surrounded himself with a court that was little less than regal in its details. A group of large wellbuilt square huts, enclosed by tall hedges, composed the private residence : within these were various state apartments, before which armed sentries kept guard by day and night. Special rooms, provided with carpeted divans, were reserved as antechambers, and into these visitors were conducted by richly dressed slaves, who served them with coffee, sherbet and chibouks. The regal aspect of these halls of state was increased by the introduction of some lions, secured, as may be supposed, by sufficiently strong and massive chains.

Behind a large curtain in the innermost hut was placed the invalid couch of Zubeir.(i) Attendants were close at hand to attend to his wants, and a (i) He had been wounded in the fight with Biliaii ; p. 47.