2 2 Seven Years in the Soudan.

of cattle and slaves, and therefore we must not be surprised if the natives are driven to robbery and pillage, and if circumstances of repulsive brutality occur. , . , ■ " Towards May 15th of this year there arrived two Vekil of the family Agat, and one of the family Abu Muri, with a great quantity of ivory. Un the wav the Vekil had taken by assaults various villages, kilfing and robbing mercilessly a thousand women and children, and ten thousand oxen. Two thousand of these were given to the soldiers a thousand kept in a village near Mushra, and three thousand sent to the Sandeh to be exchanged for ivory, ihis figure of six thousand oxen is by no means exaggerated, and was known to all in the counti-y. " On July 3rd there arrived at Mushra the \ ekil Mahomed Hassan, partner of %?f,.,'V .nf toum; Cherik Hassabala, and Behid lu..uf ot the family Cherik Magajub Biselli, with a load of ivorv They also, on the road, attacked the villages and carried off to Mushra several thousand head of cattle, and hundreds of women and children.

-I was assured that Yussuf Behid committed every species of cruelty in a village to force he nltives to reveal the place where they had hidden ?he ivory. After having put forty o these unhappy wretches to the torture, he succeeded m discovering three elephant-tusks !

" When I left Meshra seven nugars were there expecting their load; they will be supphed by the hunters now at work, and those that are employed on their return from the seribe.

" Tlie Vekil.

« Tn creneral the Vekil belong to Khartoum while thos in their pay are, for the greater P-t, -m Doncola ; others are deserters from the Egyptian anny, or fugitives seeking safety from the law.