The Death of Gessi Pasha.

425 slaves, and with tlie liberated people I created agricultural colonies. Peaceful Arabs, avIio submitted to the established laws, found protection, and founded three agricultural colonies ; one at Wau, another at Kutshuk Ali, and the third at Tonja. I furnished them with goats, seed, etc., and helped them to build their villages.

" As the timber of Bahr-el-Ghazal, being of good quality, promised a new source of revenue, I established saw-mills that furnished planks and beams for the arsenal and city of Khartoum, rendering the expensive importation of such material from Trieste superfluous.

" At Wau I founded a small arsenal for building riAer boats for the transport of ivory and timber.

Two of these boats, loaded with goods, would have arrived at Khartoum had we not been obliged, in our critical position, to make use of the load of one of them as fuel. These loads had cost resj)ectively sixty and eighty dollars, and could have been resold after the voyage for nearly eight hundred dollars.

" I created iron works, and had nails made for the boats and for houses. If I had had better means for melting the ore, I could have provided Khartoum, and rivalled the quality of European iron.

" In Bahr-el-Ghazal the great difficulty was the means of transport, the population having been carried away, as your Excellency is aware, and sold by the pretended servants of God. Twenty years ago the slave traders navigated the Jur, but from that time navigation ceased because of the thousands of trees thrown into the river by the natives. I completely cleared the river, so that during the rainy season boats could go up it to Wau, a length of about seventy miles, without inconvenience. I established tan-works, which furnished beautiful shoe leather, so that the Governnient need no longer trouble itself about shoes for the troops. In Bahr-el-Ghazal a pair of shoes costs the Government one dollar, and is