Agreement with the Rizighat Arabs for opening the road to Shakka, 1866.

After the victories that I had won, peace reigned in the land, and I determined to open up a trade route between the Bahr el Ghazal and Kordofan, because the journey by way of the Nile was so long, and beset with difficulties and dangers.

In the month of March, 1866, I sent messengers with presents to the Sheikhs of the Rizighat Arabs, who were settled along the road that merchants had to pursue. Eighty of their Sheikhs came to see me, and made an agreement for opening up the road, so that caravans and merchants, whether Christian or Mohammedan, might be enabled to travel in safety. Each one took the oath fifty times on the Koran, and I fixed for them certain dues that they could extract from merchants who used that route. This caused many travellers and merchants to come to me with goods, by reason of the road being short and easy to traverse. They came even from Hodeida, Massawah, Jedda, and Tripoli, and their numbers increased, so that their gathering around me was like .to the assembling of thirsty people round a fountain of clear water.

Expedition of Billali to the Bahr el Ghazal in 1869.

In 1869—the year in which Sir Samuel Baker went to explore the Equatorial regions—a man