SIR SAMUEL BAKER AND THE SLAVE TRADE 377 



floating vegetation proved so impassable an obstruction that, after 

 fighting it for many weeks, the expedition was forced to retire, baffled, 

 to Khartoum, Baker determining to return in the following season. 

 On this occasion he succeeded in overcoming the obstructions, and 

 reached Gondokoro on April 15, 1870. 



"Upon my arrival at Gondokoro," says Mr. Baker, "I was looked 

 upon as a spy sent by the British governmejit. Whenever I approached' 

 the encampments of the various traders, 1 lieard the clanking of fetters 

 before I reached the station, as the slaves were being quickly driven 

 into hiding-places to avoid inspection. They were chained by two 

 rings secured round the ankles, and connected by three or four links. 



"Gondokoro was a perfect hell. It is utterly ignored by the Egyp- 

 tian authorities, although well known to be a colony of cut-throats. 

 Nothing would be easier than to send a few officers and' two hundred 

 men from Khartoum to form a military government, and thus impede 

 the slave-trade ; but a bribe from the traders to the authorities is suffi- 

 cient to insure an uninterrupted asylum for any amount of villainy. 

 The camps w^re full of slaves, and the Bari natives assured me that 

 there were large depots of slaves in the interior belonging to the trad- 

 ers that would be marched to Gondokoro for shipment to the Soudan 

 a few hours after my departure. I was the great stumbling-block to 

 the trade, and my presence at Gondokoro was considered as an imwar- 

 rantable intrusion upon a locality sacred to slavery and iniquity. There 

 were about six hundred of the traders' people at Gondokoro, whose 

 time was passed in drinking, quarreling and ill-treating the slaves." 



With such people to deal with Baker had a task that seemed 

 destined to failure. He had been at Gondokoro but a few days when 

 he saw signs of discontent among his men, who had evidently been 

 tampered with by the traders' agents. This developed into som.ething 

 approaching an insurrection, which the leader had no small trouble to 

 quell. Though he succeeded in this, he saw that he had almost hope- 

 less material under his command. 



"From that moment," he says, "I knew that my expedition was 

 fated. This outbreak was an example of what was to follow. Previ- 

 ous to leaving Khartoum I had felt convinced that T could not succeed 

 \vith such villains for escort as these Khartoumers : thus I had applied 



