and villany that man can commit.

The Turkish officials pretended to discountenance slavery: at the same
time every house in Khartoum was full of slaves, and the Egyptian
officers had been in the habit of receiving a portion of their pay in
slaves, precisely as the men employed on the White Nile were paid by
their employers. The Egyptian authorities looked upon the exploration of
the White Nile by a European traveller as an infringement of their slave
territory that resulted from espionage, and every obstacle was thrown in
my way.

Foreseeing many difficulties, I had been supplied, before leaving Egypt,
with a firman from H. E. Said Pasha the Viceroy, by the request of H. B.
M. agent, Sir R. Colquhoun; but this document was ignored by the
Governor-general of the Soudan, Moosa Pasha, under the miserable
prevarication that the firman was for the Pasha's dominions and for the
Nile; whereas the White Nile was not accepted as the Nile, but was known
as the White River. I was thus refused boats, and in fact all
assistance.

To organize an enterprise so difficult that it had hitherto defeated the
whole world required a careful selection of attendants, and I looked
with despair at the prospect before me. The only men procurable for
escort were the miserable cutthroats of Khartoum, accustomed to murder
and pillage. in the White Nile trade, and excited not by the love of
adventure but by the desire for plunder: to start with such men appeared
mere insanity. There was a still greater difficulty in connection with
the White Nile. For years the infernal traffic in slaves and its
attendant horrors had existed like a pestilence in the negro countries,
and had so exasperated the tribes, that people who in former times were