For several years past the inland commerce of this favored land had
suffered great interruptions from the confusion and discord to which the
countries on the Upper Nile have been a prey. The chiefs of Shageia had
formed themselves into a singular aristocracy of brigands, and pillaged
all the provinces and caravans within their reach, without mercy and
without restraint; while the civil wars, which have distracted the
once powerful kingdom of Sennaar for these last eighteen years, had
occasioned an almost entire cessation of a commerce, from which Egypt
had derived great advantages.

His Highness the Viceroy, in consequence, determined, as the most
effectual means of putting an end to these disorders, to subject those
countries to his dominion.

Four thousand troops were accordingly put under the command of Ismael
Pasha, the youngest son of the Viceroy, with orders to conquer all the
provinces on the Nile, from the Second Cataract to Sennaar inclusive.

Through the influence of the recommendation of Henry Salt, Esq., His
Britannic Majesty's Consul General in Egypt, I was ordered by the
Viceroy to accompany this expedition, with the rank of Topgi Bashi,
i.e. a chief of artillery, and with directions to propose such plans of
operation to the Pasha Ismael as I should deem expedient, but which the
Pasha might adopt or reject as he should think proper.

This expedition has been perfectly successful; and the conquest of
the extensive and fertile countries, which, in the reign of Candace,
repulsed the formidable legions of Rome, has been effected at an expense
not greater than the blood of about two hundred soldiers.