Report lo Gordon.

51 '•Enrolment of ihe Soldiers of the Sei-iljc.

" The soldiers of the seribe are engaged from year to year. They must clothe and feed themselves at their own expense. The pay varies, according to circmnstances, from two hundred piastres to six pounds of beads, per month.

" The pay is never in cash, but in goods of various kinds, as linen, coffee, sugar, tobacco, tarbusc, cattle, or slaves. In this way a piece of cotton cloth, which at Khartoum is worth a dollar and a quarter, is given for six hundred piastres ; two pounds of beads, for one hundred and fifty ; two pounds of soap for one hundred ; a tarbusc for two hundred and eight. The soldier can, if he likes, be paid in cattle or slaves.

" When a village is taken by assault two-thirds of the booty in cattle and slaves belongs to the Vekil, one-third to the soldiers. The ivory obtained is the exclusive property of the Vekil. The soldiers make their slaves cultivate the land, and the product is their own.

" These soldiers also put their slaves at the disposal of the seribe, and pocket the pay for themselves. Every seriba counts a thousand to two thousand combatants, a third of whom are armed with guns, and the others with lances. The troop is at the orders of the Vekil, and a Bolukbashi ; they have a flag-bearer and a trumpeter. The ivor}' which these seribe send out is obtained by hunting or exchange, and the slaves are obliged to carry it to the place of shipment. But for this work the soldiers have no right to any pay. The soldiers must provide on the march the doora for themselves and their slaves.

" Taking into account the very high prices which the Vekil make the soldiers pay for articles of the first necessity, it is no exaggeration to say that they gain ten or fifteen times more than their dependents can gain. The profit of the soldiers is in the capture E 2