S/az 'c-dcal iiiQ Goi 'cniors. 20 1 orders of Ibrahim Fauzi Bey, lie could do no less than execute them by delivering the slaves to the Governor of Fashoda, Taib Bey.

I instantly ordered the officer of the station of Gaba-Shambe to return to Khartoum, and put himself at the disposal of the Governor-General of the Soudan.

I set the crowd of slaves at liberty ; the greater part were infirm and emaciated by hunger. I wished to send them back to their own country, but they begged me to give them two days of repose in order that they might have a chance to recover their strength. A great part of them were lying down from weakness, and they implored me to give them a little doora, as they were famished, having eaten nothing for three days.

I immediately caused doora and two oxen to be distributed among them, and after having supplied them with some more grain for the journey, I made them set out, giving them an escort of a few soldiers, so that they might reach their homes unmolested.

All this disgusted me so much that I repented having accepted the mission entrusted to me by Gordon. I retired into my tukul, giving orders that no one should disturb me. When 1 was alone, a thousand reflections passed through my mind, and I thought in what a labyrinth Gordon was. I remembered all the favours distributed by him to these treacherous officials to tempt them into the right way. I thought of Ibrahim Fauzi Bey, who from a simple cadet, in the space of five years had been raised by General Gordon to the grade of colonel, and entrusted with all the Equatorial Provinces.

I now know positively that all the officials, almost without exception, were engaged in the slave-trade, or were at least indirectly interested in it ; but I never could have imagined that the evil was so deeply rooted. I certainly did not suppose that it could have originated with the highest officials, and