THE PASHA'S COURT. 159 were often very beautiful, having rich patterns stamped or chased upon them. It was often a hard task for Gessi Pasha to settle the disputes brought before him, for many of the grievances were of very long standing, some being fifteen or even twenty years old. Bundles of twigs or straws were brought forward, black with age, to represent the numbers of women, children, or cattle which had been carried off by slave-dealers ; and it was noticeable that the cattle, as the most important possession, had the longest straws to represent them. The chiefs in the neighbourhood of Djour Ghattas were just beginning to understand that their old oppressors, the slave-dealers, had been defeated, and that their power was broken ; but it was a difficult matter to prevent the natives going, from a state of abject fear of the Arabs and of all strangers, to the opposite extreme, of thinking that they were free from all control, and could do just what they pleased. It required the greatest firmness on the part of the Pasha to restrain them from taking revenge on the Arabs for so many years of barbarous misrule.

While we were in Djour Ghattas there was an officer in prison, who was sent down to Khartoum for the following offence :—Some of the Mohammedan priests profess to write charms which render their possessor perfectly bullet-proof, and there was a certain fakir who had the reputation of being