The British Campaign in the Soudan. 133 from time immemorial had been one of continual rapine, anarchy, and savagery. Commerce could hardly be said to exist, for caravans had to pay heavy tributes to every robber chief, and even this did not always secure their lives and property from attacks by roving bands of Bedouins. Striking mementoes of that period of brigandage are the ruins of ancient castles seen on many basaltic islands rising one or two hundred feet above the river-bed. Some, like the feudal fortresses on the Rhine (which they so much resemble), were once the strongholds of bandit chiefs, whence they could spy out the approach of their prey ; while others served as refuges in which the agricultural population stored their erops to save them from the raids of the desert nomads.

Mehemet-Ali’s conquest was accompanied by fearful eruelties on both sides. I have stood at Shendy upon the very spot where Mehemet’s son, Ismail, was roasted to death with all his chief officers and a portion of his troops. Ismail had made extortionate demands for gold, slaves, and forage upon the local Sultan, e Nimr (the Tiger), and had struck him across the face with his pipe-stem because the forage fell short. The crafty chief retired humbly from his presence, promising that an abundance would be supplied before morning. All the afternoon and evening immense quantities were piled all around the quarter of the town where Ismail and his troops were holding high revel. But an hour before daylight the stacks were simultaneously fired at every point, and the doomed Turco-Egyptians found themselves surrounded by a circle of flames from which none escaped, for el Nimr with his Nubians stood outside and shot down or speared every one who attempted