62 AFBICAN WANDEJilNGS.

when the Turks find they have a firmer footing in the land, time will show.

After the Pascha had again to-day called his most devoted follower, the Major of Kordafan and Sennaar, an ass, complaining that everything fell on his own shoulders, he turned to me, and with much seeming satisfaction told me that the exploring expedition had returned from the White Nile, having traced that river for 600 miles upwards from Chartum. Now, this is either a great error or a great falsehood ; nor can I resist the inclination I feel to investigate how far the Pascha's favourite epithet may not apply to the leader of this expedition.

The chief commander of it, and general of its 400 soldiers, was Soliman Kaschef, of Karreri, a countryman and friend of the Pascha, who had sent him on this expedition to look after his interests, and have a special eye on Selim-Capitan, sent from Alexandria as chief leader. Men call Soliman Kaschef a good man, but though he may understand justly to allot and gather in the taxes of his district, still he is certainly no fit person to judge with accuracy of foreign countries and people, as regards their geographical position, cultivation, produce, industrious arts, and other such points, or to give them any hints how to better or increase them ; nor is he fitted to observe if the Nile flows from a lake or hill, whether its course is east or west, &c. He has neither education, nor, as far as I know, inclination for such matters, and assuredly will ever have been thinking more of his harem at Karreri, and comfortable life there, than the aims of his journey ; so the first plausible cause for a return will have been the pleasantest of all occurrences to him.

As admiral of the exploring fleet went the already-named short and well-fed Selim-Capitan, of Candia, a better judge of the qualities of young slaves than of navigation ; and even only so far qualified and equipped for his ofiice as one would expect from a proud, arrogant Mussulman. In one word, he is a perfect specimen of an Egyptian man-of-war captain. Such a one would not even admit of the idea of laying down a degree of latitude or longitude, to determine the position of a country, or the course of a river.

[This however proved, as often happens in this world, a hastily formed opinion which I had entered in my journal, possibly from