Stanley's Emin Pasha Expedition ... With map ... and illustrations

Front matter

V STANLEY'S EMIN PASHA EXPEDITION. IIKNRV M. STANLEY STANLEY'S EMIN PASHA EXPEDITION BY A. J. WAUTERS CHIEF EDITOR OF TUR MOUVEMENT GltOCHtAPHIQUE, BRUSSELS MHitf) JHap, Œf).rtr=foi.t ftDortraita ant) TllUiatrattone LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN .... I II REVOLT OF THE MAHDI — GORDON PASHA — SIEGE OF KHARTOUM AND RELIEF EXPEDI- TION UNDER LORD WOLSELEY -1 III THE EQUATORIAL PROVINCES — LUPTON BEY AND EMIN BEY . . . ' . . -45 DR. JUNKER AND CASATI— THE NIAM-NIAM — THE MONBUTTU 66 IV, V. PRISONERS IN THE SOUDAN .... 84 VI. RETURN OF DR. JUNKER I03 VII. THE RELIEF EXPEDITION — TIPPOO TIB . . 123 VIII. ON THE LOWER CONGO 146 IX. THE DISTRICT OF THE FALLS . . . .162 X. STANLEY POOL 1 88 XI. ON THE UPPER CONGO 211 XII. THE CAMP AT YAMBUYA 2 224 XIII.

FIFTEEN MONTHS OF UNCERTAINTY : IS HE KILLED, UNABLE TO LEAVE, OR A PRI- SONER? — THE WHITE PASHA . . .231 + VI CONTENTS. PAGE CHAP. XIV. THROUGH AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY — FROM 250 THE CAMP AT YAMBUYA TO LAKE ALBERT . XV. MEETING OF STANLEY* AND EMIN BEY ON LAKE ALBERT 273 XVI. TO THE ASSISTANCE OF THE REAR-GUARD — MURDER OF MAJOR STARVING IN THE FOREST ...... 292 XVII. REVOLT OF THE EGYPTIAN TROOPS — EMIN PASHA AND JEPHSON PRISONERS— MAHDIST INVASION 313 XVIII. ANOTHER MEETING OF EMIN BEY AND STAN LEY — THE SOUDAN ABANDONED . . . 326 XIX. RETREAT OF THE FIFTEEN HUNDRED — THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON AND THE SOURCES OF THE NILE 347 XX. THE RETURN TO ZANZIBAR — THALASSA! — THALASSA ! LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. i. Portrait of Henry M. Stanley . . Frontispiece 2. General View of Khartoum . . . To face page 4 3.

General Gordon ,, 14 4. Lupton Bey ,, 54 5. Emin Pasha ,, 63 6. Captain Casati ,, 75 7. Bari Warriors ,, 85 8. Bari Women ,, 87 9. Dr. Junker ,, 94 10. Tippoo Tib ,, 138 11. The Forces of the Congo State on Drill at Vivi ,,148 12. Group of Kabinda Servants ... ,, 150 13. Arrival of the Expedition at Banana . ,, 153 14. View of Boma ,, 156 15. Boys of the Neighbourhood of Vivi . ,, 158 16. The Congo at the Station of Isanghila ,, 163 17. The Belgians on the Congo — Departure of a Caravan ,, 166 18. The Expedition on its way past the Falls ,, 168 19. Young Chiaika Girl .. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VIII 20. Natives of the Region of the Falls . To face page 173 ai. Native Chief of the Lower Congo with his Ministers and Boys .... ,, 177 22. Group of Krooboy Servants ... ,, 180 23. The Congo in the District of the Falls ,, 184 24.

Introduction

. In February 1883 Dr. Junker had penetrated so far into the heart of Africa that he found himself at the zeriba Ali Kobo, on the banks of the Welle Makowa, in a region hitherto traversed by no other European. For three years this indefatigable traveller had been exploring north and south, east and west, the districts watered by the Welle, in the hope of finding a definite solution to the important geographical problem propounded by his friend Dr. Schwein furth, thirteen years previously, as to whether the Welle was connected with the Shary and thence with Lake Tchad, or whether it flowed into the Congo. It needed only a few more weeks of perseverance and progress towards the west, and the ex plorer would have attained his end and reaped the

INTRODUCTION.

. X reward of his labours. He was within a few days' march of the Congo and was about to push on wards, when letters from Lupton Bey brought news of startling import and put an end to further investigations. Dr. Junker had for a considerable time been quite aware how the country around Khartoum was harassed by the revolutionary action of an agitator who professed himself to be the " Mahdi," that is, a deliverer invested with a supernatural mission. He had been apprised that the powerful tribe of the Dinka had taken arms, and was threatening the military settlements and zeribas on the Bahr-el-Ghazal ; and had further learnt from Lup ton Bey, who was the representative of the Egyp tian government in that province, that the route between the Niam-niam country and the landing place of Rek on the Bahr-el-Ghazal was completely blockaded, while the Mahdists were at the same time making an alarming progress.

Lupton Bey's ad vice to him was that he should endeavour forthwith to return to Egypt ; and letters received at Semmio, his station in the Niam-niam country, as well as those which came to hand some weeks later, so far from representing the outlook in a more reassuring

INTRODUCTION.

. XI light, pictured it as dark and overclouded. The Dinka round Meshra-er-Rek, and the Mahdi's forces about Khartoum, were steadily gaining ground, so that the northern route was ever becom ing more and more impracticable. The cpnviction, therefore, could not fail to take hold on his mind that he would be obliged to remain in the south for the repression of the two revolts before he could carry out his design of returning to Europe by way of Egypt and the Nile. A certain presentiment of the hard times which he would have to face had already occurred to him. In his journal of August I, 1883, he made the entry : — " All hope of seeing my country this year is fading away. Thanks to frequent communications from Lupton Bey, I have been kept informed of the events on the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Our gaze is fastened on the north, whence with the utmost anxiety we are looking for relief.

The Khartoum steamer is expected. The last news from Lupton is urgent ; Hassan Mussa has been killed ; sixty more guns have fallen into the hands of the rebels : the road to Meshra-er-Rek is again closed, and 900 soldiers are about to make an effort to reopen it. My fears for the population of the Rohi and for

INTRODUCTION.

. the station of Rumbek are verified, for Lupton writes, ' Rumbek is destroyed, only six soldiers managing to escape,' while he further announces the desertion of about thirty Dongolese, drawn over by some fakirs to the Mahdi. If the dis asters that I forebode should come to pass, and the Arabs, driven down from the north, should invade the Bahr-el-Ghazal, I foresee that there will be no alternative for us but to retreat by the south. O that help may arrive from Khartoum ! " But the hope was in vain. There was no longer any chance of relief from the north. Neither Meshra nor Lado was again to welcome a steamer from Khartoum. The northern road was closed, and the entire situation in the Soudan was critical to a degree of which Dr. Junker in his remote station in the Niam-niam country could form no conception.

The situation, in fact, was more than serious. In Kordofan and the Bahr-el-Ghazal district the Arab and the negro were persistently joining the rebels ; Sennar and El-Obeid were threatened ; the Egyptian corps in Darfur, as well as the de tachments under Lupton and Emin, was absolutely cut off from the rest of the Soudan, and the Mahdi,

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII whose audacity increased with his prestige, had under him an army of at least 100,000 men. Moreover, the government troops had met with sanguinary reverses, and were reduced to such a state of alarm that symptoms of rebellion had begun to appear in their ranks. The governor general, Abd-el-Kadir, was almost overpowered, and compelled no longer to send for a few battalions from Cairo, but to implore that an army might be despatched to his aid. Altogether, things were becoming desperate. It was in this emergency that the British government, rousing itself from its protracted reserve, determined to substitute its own action for the inadequate efforts of the Khedive, and proceeded to equip 10,000 soldiers who should start from Suakin, make forced marches, and re-establish order in Kordofan.

All along, throughout this time, at Lado, at Meshra, and at Semmio, anxious eyes were turned towards Khartoum awaiting help. But no help was forthcoming. The drama of the Soudan had commenced. On a stage of which the scenery extended from the Red Sea to Lake Victoria, from the frontier

INTRODUCTION.

. XIV of Abyssinia to the remote confines of Darfur, scenes wild and bloody were about to be enacted. Face to face with the invincible Mahdi and his fierce general Osman Digna were now to appear successively Hicks Pasha, Baker Pasha, General Graham, and Admiral Hewett ; in his turn should follow General Gordon, the hero sans peur et sans reproche; and then finally a second British army under the command of the renowned Lord Wolseley, the victor at Tel-el-Kebir. And so for three years along the Nile there ensued a series of terrible struggles, of brilliant, sanguinary, yet futile engagements, of which the eventual results were alike disastrous to the cause of civilisation and damaging to English prestige. The drama came to an end. When Baker was worsted, Khartoum captured, Gordon massacred, Wolseley in retreat, and the Soudan abandoned to the hands of the Mussulman and slave-hunter, it seemed as if civilisation was arrested, the hope of years was extinguished, inasmuch as not an individual remained who could give effect to the counsels of Europe. The Khamsin, which at the bidding of a fanatical leader had arisen in the desert, had made all things retire before it, and

INTRODUCTION.

. XV the region of the Nile-sources must again relapse into the gloom of night. Such, at least, for a considerable time was the general conviction, until, one day, from beyond the domain of the bloodthirsty tyrant of Uganda, from Msalala, the Christian mission station by the southern shore of Lake Victoria, suddenly there rose the voice of Junker. He announced that he was safe, and that Emin with the soldiers who had remained faithful to him was safe also ; so too was the Italian explorer Casati. All three had succeeded in securing their. liberty amidst the break-down of the Egyptian authority in the Soudan. The time had come for Dr. Junker to realise the truth of what in 1883 he had written in his diary, that if the events he dreaded should come to pass, there would be no alternative but that he must take a southern route.

After two years and a half of suspense, of struggle and privation, the explorer resolved to attempt his retreat by this southerly route, that he might make Egypt and Europe aware of the existence and critical position of these last defenders of the lost Soudan. It was another year b

INTRODUCTION.

. XVI before he succeeded in reaching Zanzibar. Europe was stirred by his appeal, and this time, without hesitation or delay, England undertook to organise an expedition of relief. But the difficulty was great : the obstacles were many. What forces would be requisite to break through the enemies by which Emin was en vironed ? What route towards Wadelai should be chosen ? The hordes of the Mahdi barred all access from the north ; the warlike Masai and the battalions of Uganda held the east and the south ; the regions to the west were utterly unknown. Beyond all there lay the further question as to who should be the leader of such an enterprise. The way into the heart of that mysterious region was over mountains and valleys, through deserts, virgin forests and marshes, amidst savage and relentless tribes, beneath the rays of the equa torial sun.

Who should be found competent to conduct a caravan made up of numerous and pro miscuous followers, equally ready to quarrel with nature and with their fellows, yet indispensable for the conveyance along that weary route of the double cargo of victuals, ammunition, and supplies? The answer was forthcoming. Then it was that

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII for the fifth time Central Africa was to behold the hero, at once the discoverer and deliverer of Livingstone. Stanley was ready for the task. He chose the Congo route, which he had himself opened up for the commercial enterprise of Europe, while the opposition of the Mahdi was closing all access by the Nile. More fortunate than Wolse ley, who only reached Khartoum in time to register its fall and the slaughter of its defenders, he accom plishes his arduous undertaking, and after three years' undaunted perseverance he has brought back Emin and Casati, with their faithful adherents, in safety and triumph to Zanzibar. It is the history of this ever-memorable expedi tion and of the dramatic events that led up to it, together with the important geographical dis coveries resulting from it, that forms the subject of the ensuing pages.

Chapter I. Conquest Of The Soudan

Project of Mehemet Ali — Khartoum — Meeting of Baker, Speke, and Grant at Gondokoro — First Explorers of the Upper Nile — Ismailia, and expedition of Baker against Fatiko slave-traders — Exploration of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and discovery of the Welle by Schweinfurth — Zeribas on the Bahr-el-Ghazal — Ivory trade and kidnapping — Gordon's government — Europeans at the King of Uganda's court — Gessi Pasha on Lake Albert — Conquest of Darfur, Shekka, and Dar-Fertit — Revolt of Suleiman Bey— The Egyptian Soudan— Deposition of Ismail Pasha and Recall of Gordon — Raouf Pasha at Khartoum. At the date of the earliest events which it is the purpose of this book to narrate, M. Louis Vossion, then French Vice-Consul at Khartoum, wrote the following description of the place : — ■ " Khartoum, the capital of the Egyptian Soudan, stands on the left bank of the Blue Nile, just at its junction with the White Nile.

"Any traveller arriving at the town for the first time could not fail to experience much surprise. After passing what is called the Ras-el-Khartoum at the confluence of the two streams, a low tract A XX of alluvial soil, covered with thick herbage relieved by occasional clumps of palms, the boat, all sails set, glides into the Blue Nile. A few minutes more and, hailed by the vociferous shouts of the Nubian boatmen, the town rises suddenly into view, with its palm-trees, its lines of little houses along the shore, its white mosques, with their pointed minarets, all standing out sharply against the clear blue sky. Heavy boats called ' nuggers/ laden with durra-corn, wood, and gum-arabic, are ranged for nearly half a mile along the river-bank. The stone buildings of the Roman Mission of Verona and of Marquet's factory are conspicuous above the dwellings of Nile mud to which they are in proximity.

" Upon landing, the stranger will find himself surrounded by a whole swarm of inquisitive negroes, and his astonishment will increase at every step; he will at once be struck by the variety of the types of the tribes of the Soudan into which he is thrown so suddenly. There are the Denka, Shilluk of the White River, Bari from Gondokoro, people from Unyoro, Niam-iiiam from Makraka, Mombuttu, Nuer, Jur, Bongo, Fertit from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Galia, Abys- PROJECT OF MEHEMET ALI. 1 sinians, negroes from Jebel-Nuba, Dongola, Darfur, and Kordofan ; add to these Arabs of the various semi-independent tribes, Bishareens, Hadendoas, Shukries, Kababishes, Bagaras, Jews, Syrians, Greeks, and it may be imagined what a strange and well-nigh unique spectacle is presented by such an agglomeration of nationalities, all retaining their own traditions and marked out by their peculiar costumes !

" The general impression is intensified when it is remembered that Khartoum is on the very fringe of the civilised world, and is the threshold of that mysterious Africa which holds so many secrets in its bosom." When, in 1838, the energetic Viceroy Mehemet Ali made his journey into the Soudan, Khartoum was a mere fishing village ; but with a quick appreciation of its importance as a geographical position, he determined to rear upon its site a town that should become the capital of the new equatorial province over which it was his dream that he should reign. His successors, one after another, added a stone to the edifice by increasing the area of the new city, to which it was found that traders, not only from Egypt but from Europe, were ready and eager to flock. The increase of the population of Khartoum, thus rapid, was altogether beyond and out of pro portion to the progress of its internal appliances.

Sir Samuel Baker, who saw it for the first time in June 1862, describes it as one of the most dirty, miserable, and unhealthy places that could be imagined. Built of sun-dried bricks, it stood upon a low-lying flat, which was often quite under water at the period of the floods. Notwithstanding that the houses were overcrowded with a population exceeding 30,000, there was no drainage nor sani tary arrangements of any kind. The streets were full of filth of every description ; the bodies of the dead animals that lay about were so many centres of corruption and disease. The entire aspect was that of utter misery. In matters of administration things were even worse. Musa Pasha, by his deplorable misgovern ment, was ruining the country. From the highest to the lowest of his officials, dishonesty and fraud were the common characteristics ; every one cheated according to his rank.

Slave traffic, with all its abominations, was the leading business of the GENERAL VIEW OF KHARTOOM. (From a Photograph by Herr Richard Buchtn.) MEETING OF EXPLORERS. 5 place, a fact which has been demonstrated alike by Baker and Schweinfurth, who, at separate times, had ample opportunity of studying the matter upon the very scene of the misdoings. It was the laudable ambition to ascertain the true sources of the Nile that took Baker into regions south of Khartoum that had previously been un explored. Accompanied by his courageous wife, on February 2, 1863, he reached Gondokoro, then a miserable group of turf-cabins occupied only for two months in the year by the Khartoum traders whose " dahabiehs " could go no farther. He landed there to meet Speke and Grant, who, weary, ragged, and destitute, were on their way back from the interior along the Nile, of which they had just discovered the real springs.

The meeting was a memorable epoch in the history of the Soudan ; it marked a new stage in the progress of the open ing up of Equatorial Africa, betokening at the same time a fresh extension of Egyptian rule towards the south. In his own lively manner Baker gives a description of the incident : — " Shots in the distance. The ivory-bearers that I have been expecting have arrived. My people are running franticly towards my boat and shouting that two white men from the sea are with them. Is it possible that they can be Speke and Grant ? Away I start. True enough, there they are ! Hurrah for old England ! Returned they have from the Victoria Nyanza ; thence it is that the Nile flows forth ; . . . the mystery of the ages is solved. "At the same time, with all the excitement of joy there is mingled a sense of disappointment.

It would have pleased me better to meet them farther on. However, it was satisfactory to know that I had made such arrangements as would have ensured my meeting them in case they were in any difficulty, as I ascertained that they had returned by the very route which I had proposed to follow. " My people are mad with delight : in firing a salute they have managed to kill one of my donkeys, a melancholy sacrifice in celebration of the accomplishment of the great geographical discovery 1 " When I first caught sight of them they were approaching my boats. At the distance of some hundred yards, I recognised my old friend Speke ; my heart throbbed with ecstasy, and raising GONDOKORO. 7 my cap, I called aloud ' Hurrah ! ' and ran towards him. At first he did not know me ; a beard and moustache of ten years' growth had so altered my countenance that, not expecting to meet me, he did not comprehend my sudden apparition.

There was no need for Speke to introduce me to his companion, as we already felt like intimate friends. When the first transports of this propitious meeting were over we all proceeded to my dahabieh, through a cloud of smoke raised by the continuous salutes of my people." A year after the exploration of Lake Victoria by Speke and Grant, Baker made his name illustrious by the discovery of Lake Albert. Thenceforward an increasing interest was centred on these regions, and Gondokoro, from being the mere halting-place that it was when the three English travellers met there, became a new centre for the commercial activity of the Khartoum traders, as well as a starting-point for various scientific expeditions, the history of the Soudan becoming from that time intimately connected with the history of discovery.

Antecedent to the enterprises that were under taken by the three great Englishmen, there had already been various expeditions, half scientific, half commercial, which had partially raised the veil that concealed the inland regions of Africa from the curiosity of European eyes. William Lejean and Petherick had visited the Upper Nile ; Piaggia had explored the Jur country and the Bahr-el- Ghazal ; Dr. Peney had reached Mount Nyiri ; Dr. Cuny had penetrated to Darfur, Poncet to Dar- Fertit, and Munziger to Kordofan. Greedier than the vultures and hyenas of the desert, the Egyptian troops and Government officials had followed in the wake of the explorers and traders, so that, little by little, the political limits of the new province were extended, while the native populations (their opposition and outbreaks being promptly suppressed by relentless bloodshed) successively submitted to the conqueror.

In 1870 the extension of Egyptian territory towards the south was pushed forward by a larger and more rapid impetus. During that year Ismail Pasha, alarmed no doubt by the reports that reached him that the Soudan was becoming over run by the Bashi-Bazouks, who, beyond control, were making perpetual incursions into it, made an appeal for European assistance to strengthen him in completing the conquest of Central Africa. BAKER GOVERNOUR-GENERAL. 9 Baker was accordingly placed in command of 1200 men, supplied with cannon and steam-boats, and received the title of Governour-General of the provinces which he was commissioned to subdue. Having elected to make Gondokoro the seat of his government, he changed its name to Ismailia. He was not long in bringing the Bari to submission, and then, advancing southwards, he came to the districts of Dufile and Fatiko, a healthy region en dowed by nature with fertile valleys and irrigated by limpid streams, but for years past converted into a sort of hell upon earth by the slave-hunters who had made it their headquarters.

From these pests Baker delivered the locality, and having by his tact and energy overcome the distrust of the native rulers, he established over their territory a certain number of small military settlements, by means of which communication could be kept up with Egypt, and its authority over the country be maintained. This expedition was accompanied by M. de Bizemont, a lieutenant in the French navy, as scientific attache ; but in spite of the favourable auspices which attended it at its outset, it can hardly be said to have fulfilled the expectations that had been formed about it. From the very first Baker had protested too strongly that he had come to the Upper Nile to destroy the slave-trade, and the consequence was, that he made himself enemies at once amongst the Viceroy's officials, who were all more or less interested in the negro traffic, and conspired accordingly to frustrate his plans and to impede his progress.

The result was, that he found himself unable to carry out his design of advancing as far as Lake Albert, and had to stop short at Masindi, the residence of Kamrasi, the native king of Unyoro. Baker returned to Europe flattering himself with the delusion that he had put an end to the scourge of slave-dealing. It was true that various slave dealers' dens on the Upper Nile had been destroyed, a number of outlaws had been shot, and a few thousand miserable slaves had been set at liberty ; but beyond that nothing had been accomplished ; no sooner had the liberator turned his back than the odious traffic recommenced with more vigour than before through the region south of Gondokoro. This, however, was only one of the slave-hunting districts, and by no means the worst. To the west the basin of the Bahr-el-Ghazal was far more KHARTOUM TRADERS. 11 infested.

Nowhere throughout the Soudan had the negro trade been more hideous and disastrous in its working than in the fertile and populous plains inhabited by the Denka, the Jur, the Bongo, and the Niam-niam. While Baker was at Cairo organising his second expedition, Dr. Schwein furth was exploring all this fine and interesting country, pushing forward to the Mombuttu land, where he discovered the large river Welle. The story of his journey, which claims to be remembered as one of the most important scientific records of Equatorial Africa ever published, has thrown light upon districts in which for the last quarter of a century the Khartoum traders have established a series of fortified depots. As this eminent traveller points out, these depots were originally brought into existence for the sake of the ivory trade.

They were set up in places where elephants were most abundant, and in the midst of peaceable popu lations, devoted to agriculture and cattle-breeding, and every year were visited by the Khartoumers, who carried back the ivory that had been procured. The men who were armed and despatched on these annual expeditions were composed of the very scum of the people. Ascending the Nile as far as Lake No, they spread themselves Over the lands adjacent to the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Bahr-el-Arab, and their affluents, and having thus gained a footing, pro ceeded to apportion the country amongst them. They reduced the natives to a state of subjection, and for the purpose of securing a base for further operations and obtaining free access to the sur rounding districts, they established isolated settle ments, which they enclosed by palisades and thorn hedges, and which hence were called zeribas.

The whole line of the various watercourses was thus studded with these zeribas, which usually bore the names of the traders to whom they belonged, and are so distinguished upon the maps. But although originally designed purely for mer cantile purposes, the settlements became gradually transformed into centres for slave-hunting. They were (and, though in a diminished degree, they are) the starting-points for expeditions of armed marauders, who made sudden attacks upon the native villages, to which they set fire, and then, having reduced the terrified residents to a condition of helplessness, carried off the women and children, along with the ivory and the cattle. Destined to be bartered by the slavers for either money or SLAVE TRAFFIC. 13 merchandise, the miserable captives were yoked two and two together, and dragged in long caravans to some place of embarkation, where they were crammed down into the holds of the dahabiehs, and conveyed to the markets either on the coast or in the interior.

Such was the way in which the ill-fated districts of the Egyptian Soudan, and especially those of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Darfur, Kordofan, and Jebel- Nuba, became, as it were, the nursery whence were supplied more than 30,000 slaves every year to satisfy the requirements of Oriental luxury and debauch. But the eyes of the civilised world were at length opened to the atrocities that at the close of the nineteenth century were thus being perpe trated in the Soudan with the knowledge, and often by the connivance, of the Egyptian authorities. Under European compulsion, therefore, the Khedive Ismail undertook to promote measures to put a stop to the scandal. He entered into various conventions with England on the subject ; and in order to convince the Powers of the sincerity of his intentions, he consented to put the equatorial provinces under the administration of an European officer, who should be commissioned to carry on the work of repression, conquest, and organisation that had been commenced by Baker.

His choice fell upon a man of exceptional ability, a brilliant officer trained at Woolwich, who had already gained high renown in China, not only for military talent, but for his adroitness and skill in negotiation and diplomacy. This was Colonel Gordon, familiarly known as " Chinese Gordon," who was now to add fresh lustre to his name in Egypt as Gordon Pasha. Gordon was appointed Governour-General of the Soudan in 1874. With him were associated Chaille-Long, an American officer, who was chief of his staff; the German, Dr. Emin Effendi, medical officer to the expedition ; Lieutenants Chippendall and Watson ; Gessi and Kemp, engineers ; two Englishmen, Messrs. Russell and Anson ; and two Frenchmen, MM. Auguste and Ernest Linant de Bellefonds, sons of an engineer who had been Minister of Public Works under Mehemet Ali.

Thenceforward the territories, of which so little had hitherto been known, became the continual scene of military movements and scientific excur sions. GENERAL GORDON. (From a Photograph by Herr Richard Buchta.) EMBASSIES TO UGANDA. 15 Colonel Chaille-Long, with a mission from Gordon to Mtesa, the king of Uganda, reached the residence of that potentate without hindrance, and was entertained with much magnificence. He availed himself of the opportunity to explore the northern section of Lake Victoria, and descending the Somerset Nile, not without some conflict with the native tribes, he discovered on his way the lake which he designated by the name of Ibrahim Pasha. He rejoined Gordon at Gondokoro, and was subsequently despatched by him, in company with Marno, the Austrian naturalist, to make an exploration of the Makraka district.