" 4 — welcome and came to terms with him. Among these chiefs was my father Rahmat and his brother El Fil who respected the treaty until the day of their death, and we too have followed in their footsteps in loyal obedience up to the present time.

I was born on the Island of Wawissi on the seventeenth of Moharram 1246, that is 1 83 1 of the Christian era, * and I grew up under the eye of my father until my seventh birthday, when he sent me to the Khartoum school. Here I learned to read and to write, and was instructed in the Koran as interpreted by Ali Omar and El Basri.

I was also taught metaphysics after the school of the Imam Malik. When I was twenty five years old I took as my wife the daughter of my uncle and became a merchant.

JOURNEY TO THE BAHR-EL=GHAZAL, 1856.

"There was a well known merchant of Nagaa Hamada in Lower Egypt, called Ali Abu Amfiri, who was one of the most important traders in the Bahr el Ghazal. With him my cousin Mohammed Abd el Qadir purposed to travel secretly : but when I heard of the journey that he contemplated, mjheart was filled with compassion and sorrow, seeing * Popular tradition makes him much older than 8i year of age.