ZEBEHRS DEFENCE AND DENIALS. IOQ a master. A gentleman who visited him in May, 1884, afterwards wrote: "Zebehr told me, in reply to other questions which I addressed to him, that he had seen the statements published in the English newspapers of his alleged cruelty to slaves; for he had collected the papers and had all the references to himself translated into Arabic. He supposed the newspapers had been paid by the English government to write against him. I told him he was mistaken about that. It was not the government, but the English people, who had a very strong impression that he had been guilty of great cruelties, and this was the only reason why the eovernment had been unwilling to let him gfo to Khartum when urged to do so by General Gordon. Zebehr denied the accusation made against him, and asked, if we thought him so guilty, why had he not been taken to England to be tried, when he could have proved that he was innocent. The desire to be taken to England for a fair trial was evidently very strong upon Zebehr, but he objected to being kept an indefinite time under the surveillance of the authorities in Cairo."

At the time that these strong declarations of his innocence were first published he had been somewhat touched by Gordon's having just sent a request to the Egyptian government to give Zebehr 5000 as compensation for the recent unjust confiscation of part of his property in the Soudan, and he had coupled this request with another asking them to restore his goods. After this Zebehr commenced his declaration by saying that he did not believe that Gordon had ever given orders to Gessi to shoot his (Zebehr's) son, " for Gordon is a strangely merciful man. He cannot speak our language, and so is often apt to get wrong impressions; but I do not think he would have shot my son without hearing him. However, that is a thing of the past. I have forgiven him, as we all hope to be forgiven."

Assuredly there were reasons enough for the refusal to send Zebehr to Khartum; but as almost every other proposition was refused, as it was decided that no attempt should be made either by the Indian troops or by the British troops under General Graham to open the road from Suakim to Berber, as neither