332 Seven J 'ears in the Soudan.

to tlie plain. He had barricaded the road to the mountain with great trees, and if I had attacked his position, it would have been at the sacrifice of too many lives. But now the doora began to be scarce, and, later on, when obliged to eat leaves, and foreseeing that his people would soon tire of that sort of life, he surrendered. All his followers were disarmed, and thus the episode terminated.

At last I reached Dem Suleiman. The next day several sheikhs arrived, and during the whole week there was nothing but new arrivals and fantastic dancing, in sign of delight at being freed from the despotism of Ziber Pasha and his son, who for twenty-five consecutive years had tormented the unfortunate natives, subjecting them to the hardest labour, robbing them of their children, and leading whole tribes to the slave market.

Now the poor negroes begin to breathe once more, and become a"s\are of the benefit of a protecting government, occupied with furthering their Avell-being.

Thanks to the richness of the soil and its great variety of natural products, until now greatly neglected, I believe that the provinces of Bahr-el-Ghazal and Niam-Niam Avill soon become the finest jewels of the Soudan.

" Dem Suleiman, "8th November, 1879.

" To the Editor of the Esjloratore.

" If I do not err, I wrote to you that I supposed the Gazelle river, which flows into" the Meshra-el-Rek, was navigable ; now I am certain of it. Here is what was reported to me by an old ivory and slave merchant : — " 'Some years ago, when the exportation of slaves formed the principal part of commercial enterprise, our boats reached Hau-el-Kutshuk-Ali by way of the river, carried by a strong current, which at some points reached a velocity of four and a half miles an