The Siiilluks and t/icir Chief Mek. 29 I replied that it was certainl_y not with such peo})le that he must treat ; but it was ni}- opinion that, if he went in person to Cairo, and presented himself to the Khedive, he might be certain of being well received, and that everything would be fairly arranged.

" How can I go to Cairo ? " he exclaimed, " Do you not see how they pursue me, even in the desert ? I should be murdered before I reached Khartoum. And even if I arrived at Cairo safe and sound, how could I manage to see the Khedive ? AVho would present me ? Do you believe that these governors, guilty of everj sort of tyranu} and stratagem to the injury of this poor country, would not try every means to prevent me from having an audience P " His words were not destitute of good sense, and, from his way of speaking, I perceived that he had already thought of everything, and had his answers ready.

" They accused me of complicity in the murder of twenty Egyptian soldiers," he continued, "but the accusation was without foundation. I only knew of that affair when the troops of Fashoda set fire to our huts, surprising us by night, and firing grapeshot among sleeping people, who were altogether guiltless of the massacre of the twenty soldiers. They accuse me also of having had the intention of taking Fashoda by assault with twenty thousand men ; but this also is false. The governor of Fashoda wished to give proof of his zeiil, and at the same time had an eye on our cattle. Every time that these governors come among us with the intention of plundering, they always find a mode of giving a different colour to their theft, making it seem a necessity to fight Avith us." I saw that no reasoning would suffice to persuade this brave man, and that it was necessary to leave it to time ; he had suffered too much ; he was too much under the impression of grief for the loss of his father for me to hope to be able to remove his pre-