Ismailia - Sir Samuel White Baker (best mystery novels of all time .txt) 📗

government. Already they have benefited by the fight with the slave-hunters, by running off with the arms and ammunition, together with a number of cattle, while our troops were engaged with the enemy."

I came to the conclusion that it would be unwise to get rid of the slave-hunters by physical force. Although I felt that they were entirely in my power, as I could bombard their stations with Hale's rockets, if they should refuse to turn out, the natives would, in the event of a flight, most assuredly possess themselves of the guns and ammunition.

With 146 men, I could not take more than eighty men to act against 600, as the small force of sixty-six would be the minimum that I could leave to protect the Fatiko station. If with eighty men, together with a wild army of natives, I should attack Fabbo (in which I had heard that Abou Saood was concentrating his people from the other stations), every one of the slave-traders would be massacred. It would be impossible for eighty men to fight, and to secure at the same time the 600 stand of arms that would be in the hands of the rebels. These, together with the muskets belonging to the Baris, would all fall into the possession of my native allies, who would immediately scatter and disappear with their prize.

Should I attack Fabbo, the result would simply arm the natives with 800 or 900 stand of muskets, together with a large amount of ammunition, which they might probably use against me at some future time.

I resolved to work diplomatically, and to keep the slave-hunters' party as a rod above the backs of the natives, until I should discover their real character.

It had been necessary to establish a corn tax [*] for the support of the troops. Possibly the natives, if entirely relieved from their oppressors, might refuse to acknowledge government taxation! At all events I determined to proceed cautiously.


[*Footnote: The corn tax was thus established. Each house was taxed to pay a small basket of corn every full moon. All old and infirm people and also strangers were exempted from taxation. The headman of each village was responsible for the tax, and he delivered a bundle of small pieces of reed, the size of drawing pencils which represented the number of houses belonging to able-bodied men. This tax was always paid cheerfully, in gratitude for the protection afforded by the government.]


The first step was to summon Abou Saood and to hear his defence from his own mouth.

I had given the prisoners their choice, of either enlisting in the government service, or returning to Khartoum.

Of course they ought to have been shot in a batch; but I could not afford to shoot them. I had to catch and tame my wild beasts instead of destroying them.

A considerable number agreed to serve under Wat-el-Mek.

I wrote, on 5th August, a letter addressed to Abou Saood, summoning hum to appear instantly at Fatiko: at the same time I promised him a free exit; without which written assurance I might as well have summoned the "man in the moon".

It was difficult to procure natives who would accompany the new irregulars with the letter, as news had arrived that Abou Saood's people were plundering and laying waste the neighbourhood of Fabbo.

At length I arranged that eight of the new levy, together with the native blacksmith and several others from Fatiko, who were well known in the Madi country, should go to Fabbo (22 miles) with my letter to Abou Saood. The blacksmith would protect the irregulars by explaining their new position to any natives who might desire to molest them.

I also sent a proclamation to be read publicly in the zareeba, summoning all subjects of the Khedive to declare their allegiance to the government.

On the following day (6th August) the blacksmith and his people returned to Fabbo thoroughly disgusted. Upon their arrival near the zareeba of Abou Saood they had cried out to the slave-hunters that they had brought "a letter from the Pacha to Abou Saood!" The slave-hunters had replied with a well-known form of abuse in that country, and had immediately fired a volley into the blacksmith and the eight men of their own people!

The blacksmith and his natives had lost no time in running back to Fatiko; and the eight irregulars having thrown themselves on the ground, had (the blacksmith supposed) at length explained who they were.

The patience and forbearance that I was obliged to assume were far more trying to my feelings than the march from Masindi.

It has always been an intense satisfaction to me that I had reliable witnesses to every incident of the expedition; otherwise, I might perhaps have been suspected of some prejudice against Abou Saood and certain Egyptian authorities that, unknown to myself, might have discoloured the true aspect of affairs. I can only refer to Lieutenant Baker, R.N., and that gallant officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Abd-el-Kader, and many others, including all soldiers and servants who belonged to the detachment at Fatiko.

These persons subsequently gave their evidence, which they will be ready at all times to repeat.

On 7th August, at about 5 P.M., Abou Saood appeared with about forty of his men. He was afraid to enter my camp without a second assurance in writing that he should not be made prisoner.

Of course he swore that he had not given orders to fire at me; and he declared that his people of Fatiko had only fired because they were afraid that the natives who had accompanied me were about to attack them.

I asked him, "If that were the case, why had they not communicated with me, as I was only ninety yards distant?" He said his people had not fired at the government troops, but only at the natives who were upon the rock.

He could not quite explain in that case "how it was that 1,000 natives perched upon the rock close together, had escaped without a man being wounded, while not only were seven of the government troops knocked down by bullets, but the huts and furniture of our camp, including boxes in the magazine, &c, had been completely riddled with balls." He then began to lay the blame on Wat-el-Mek, and even had the audacity to declare that "he had nothing to do with slaves, but that he could not restrain his people from kidnapping." I never heard any human being pour out such a cataract of lies as this scoundrel. His plausibility and assurance were such that I stood aghast; and after he had delivered a long speech, in which he declared that "he was the innocent victim of adverse circumstances, and that every one was against him," I could merely reply by dismissing him with the assurance that there was "only one really good and honest man in the world, who invariably spoke the truth; this man was ABOU SAOOD. All other men were liars."

On the following morning Abou Saood came to take leave. He pretended to devote himself to my service, and declared that he should now at once return to Fabbo and organize the best of his people into an irregular corps for the government, and he should act with energy as my vakeel, and assist me in every manner possible. He begged me not to believe a word that any one might say EXCEPT HIMSELF, and he swore by the eyes and head of the Prophet (this was his favourite oath whenever he told the biggest lie) that there was no one so true to me as he, which he would prove by his acts. He then went back to Fabbo.

This is the last time that I ever saw Abou Saood. He took 200 men upon his arrival at Fabbo, and after having told his men to cut the throat of the sheik Werdella, who was a prisoner in the Fabbo camp under my special orders for protection, he went straight to Gondokoro to his friend Raouf Bey.

This officer, who commanded at head-quarters during my absence, although he heard from Abou Saood's people of the attack made upon me at Fatiko, and Abou Saood had arrived without either a passport or letters from myself, positively allowed him to depart to Khartoum.

At Khartoum Abou Saood spread every conceivable false report. Thence he travelled to Cairo, expressly to complain to the Khedive's government of the manner in which he had been treated by me.

Thus the greatest slave-trader of the White Nile, who was so closely connected with the Soudan government that he was a tenant who had rented a country WHICH DID NOT BELONG TO EGYPT, now applied to that government for protection against my interference with his murders, kidnapping, and pillaging, which were the accompaniments of his slave-hunting in Central Africa.

The fact of this renowned slave-hunter having the audacity to appeal to the Egyptian authorities for assistance, at once exhibits the confidence that the slave-traders felt in the moral support of certain official personages who represented public opinion in their hatred to the principal object of the expedition.

The various links in the chain which united the interests of Abou Saood with certain officers who were opposed to the spirit of the enterprise will be at once perceived.

From the very commencement, this man had been the chief intriguer who had endeavoured to ruin the expedition. He had fraternized with the Baris when they were at open war with the government. He had incited the tribes to attack me, and at length his own companies had fired at me by his orders. HE NOW SOUGHT THE PROTECTION OF THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT AT CAIRO.

We shall now leave Abou Saood in Cairo, where he spread the false report of the massacre of Lady Baker and myself, which reached England and appeared in the newspapers in April 1873.

After Abou Saood's departure from Fabbo, the influence of Wat-el-Mek began to be felt, and many men flocked to the government standard. Nevertheless, that station was a scene of anarchy. The slave-hunters were divided among themselves. The party that followed Wat-el-Mek were nearly all Soudanis, like himself, but the Arabs were split up into companies, each of which had elected a separate leader. This dissension was exactly what I desired, and I played the game accordingly. As I have before stated, I wished to avoid physical force.

Ali Genninar, whom I had engaged at Masindi, was an excellent fellow, and before Abou Saood deserted the country, he had been the first man to arrive at Fatike and unite with the government. He now collected sixty-five men, whom I at once enrolled, and having given them their government flags, I started them off without delay to support Rionga in Unyoro, and recalled Abd-el-Kader and his troops to Fatiko. At the same time I sent Rionga many valuable presents.

There were several terrible scoundrels at Fabbo, among whom was Salim-Wat-Howah, who, together with Lazim, had threatened to shoot Major Abdullah in his own camp during my absence in Unyoro.

I had Lazim in irons at Fatiko, but Salim-Wat-Howah had escaped on the day of attack. This man Salim was the head of the greatest villains at Fabbo, and he and his band of about one hundred men daily sallied out of the zareeba and plundered and burnt the neighbourhood in open defiance of Wat-el-Mek.

When these ruffians captured women, they now cut their throats and threw them into the Un-y-Ame river, explaining to the natives that they defied me to "liberate" them when their throats were cut.

Every day the natives flocked to