— 37 — surpasses that which comes from Europe : from a hundred cantars of raw copper we would extract ninety nine cantars of pure copper and one of pure gold. Indeed it was not difficult to obtain, seeing that I had with me many slaves who had been accustomed to working the mines, (i) Now when first I went to the Western Bahr el Ghazal, I found large numbers of slaves there, and, ere many years had passed, others ran away from their masters in Kalaka, Dar Taaisha, and those parts, seeking shelter with me, among them being Zeki Tummal (2), and (1) "According to a recent analysis of a specimen the ore is a silicate and carbonate, not a sulphate of copper, containing 14 per cent of pure metal". Gleichen, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan I. 156.

(2) "This man afterwards rose to high rank under the Khalifa Abdullahi by whom he was sent to attack Gedaref, which he sacked. In 1892, owing to the influence of Yacub, he fellunderthe displeasure of the Khalifa who summoned him to Omdurman. Here "he was seized and thrown into a small stone building the shape of a coffin, the door of which was built up. He was given no food whatever, but a small amount of water was handed to him through an aperture in the wall. For twenty-three days he suffered all the horrors of starvation, but no sound or complaint was heard to issue from that living grave. Too proud to beg, and well aware of the futility of doing so, he lingered on till the twenty-fourth day, when death carried him out of reach of his tormentors. The Saier and his warders watched through the aperture the death agonies of the wretched man, and when at length he had ceased to struggle, they hurried off to give their lord and master the joyful news. That night Zeki's body was removed to the western quarter of the City and there buried amongst a heap of old ruins with his back towards Mecca. The Khalifa, not content with having tormented him in this life, thought thus to dejirive him of peace in the world to come. All true Moslems are buried facing Mecca." Slatin 356.