I was met by the governor, my old friend Moomtazz Bey, a highly
intelligent Circassian officer, who had shown me much kindness on my
former expedition.

A week's delay in Souakim was necessary to obtain camels. In fourteen
days we crossed the desert 275 miles to Berber on the Nile, and found a
steamer and diahbeeah in readiness. We arrived at Khartoum, a distance
of 200 miles by river, in three days, having accomplished the voyage
from Suez in the short space of thirty-two days, including stoppages.

Khartoum was not changed externally; but I had observed with dismay a
frightful change in the features of the country between Berber and the
capital since my former visit. The rich soil on the banks of the river,
which had a few years since been highly cultivated, was abandoned. Now
and then a tuft of neglected date-palms might be seen, but the river's
banks, formerly verdant with heavy crops, had become a wilderness.
Villages once crowded had entirely disappeared; the population was gone.
Irrigation had ceased. The night, formerly discordant with the creaking
of countless water-wheels, was now silent as death. There was not a dog
to howl for a lost master. Industry had vanished; oppression had driven
the inhabitants from the soil.

This terrible desolation was caused by the governor general of the
Soudan, who, although himself an honest man, trusted too much to the
honesty of others, who preyed upon the inhabitants. As a good and true
Mohammedan, he left his territory to the care of God, and thus, trusting
in Providence, he simply increased the taxes. In one year he sent to the
Khedive his master 100,000 pounds in hard dollars, wrung from the poor
peasantry, who must have lost an equal amount in the pillage that
accompanies the collection.