424 Seven Years in the Son dan.

" I have tlie honour to inform you that the persons who may have given your Excellency such information, only meant to deceive you.

" How long is it since King Wauda, after having killed Hagi Khalil Yussuf Pasha's father-in-law, and repulsed the expedition, continually attacked the ]\[onbuttu possessions ? Is it not only seven months since we established ourselves in the heart of his country ? King Mdarama, who repulsed several attacks, exterminated the troops sent against him, and massacred all the members of the expeditions of Abu Gurum, Avet, Kutshuk Ali and Bisellia, kept his independence till the fall of Suleiman Bey, and only gave in his submission when the Government substituted a judicial authority for that of the previous guilty rulers.

" If the kings were already subject to Egypt, why were expeditions of seven or eight hundred men sent wherever ivory had to be collected ? I now keep only a simple clerk at the residence of each king, charged with executing the orders I send them, and yet ivory, in quantities five times greater than when it Avas sought for Avith powder and ball, is brought from ever\ region. This is why I consider the countr} as really subjected.

" At the end of the war there was nothing left but burned, abandoned, or ruined villages. The natives had fled into the jungle or inaccessible forests ; not an ox, goat, or fowl was to be found at any price. I caused the villages to be rebuilt ; I opened depots, warehouses, and a school to which the sheikhs now send the children of their tribe for primary instruction, and which is frequented by a hundred boys belonging to the irregular troops. I opened easy communications by boat or bridge across the rivers ; I restored to their families more than forty thousand slaves who had been dragged away from cultivating their native lands, to be sold at Shakka. I destroyed all the settlements which had served as depots of