378 SIR SAMUEL hAKER AND THE SLAVE TRADE 



to the Egyptian authorities for a few troops, but had been refused. 

 I was now in an awkward position. All my men had received five 

 months' w^ages in advance, according to the custom of the White Nile; 

 thus I had no control over them. There were no Egyptian authorities 

 in Gondokoro; it w^as a nest of robbers; and my men had just exhibited 

 so pleasantly their attachment to me, and their fidelity. There w^as no 

 European beyond Gondokoro; thus I should be the only white man 

 among this colony of wolves; and I had in prospective a difficult and 

 uncertain path, where the only chance of success lay in the complete 

 discipline of my escort, and the perfect organization of the expedition. 

 After the scene just enacted I felt sure that my escort W'Ould give me 

 more cause for anxiety than the acknowledged hostility of the natives." 



Having been instructed by the khedive to annex the surrounding 

 territory to his province, Baker selected the 26th of May as the time 

 when it would be officially annexed to Egypt. On that day, the troops, 

 numbering one thousand four hundred men, dressed in bright uni- 

 forms, gathered around the flagstaff which had been erected; and the 

 proclamation w^as read, which declared the khedive ruler of the coun- 

 try and possessor of its soil. The flag was then drawn up to the top 

 of the staff, and the officers saluted it with drawn swords. After this 

 the artillery fired a salute, and the region around Gondokoro belonged 

 to Egypt's ruler. The natives watched the proceedings with astonish- 

 ment, and were told in response to their questionings, that all this 

 pomp was for their benefit, and that the new-comers only sought their 

 good, and to protect them from the slave-traders. 



Baker at once endeavored to set the natives to w^ork; he partially 

 succeeded in this, and' for a time everything bore a promising look. 

 But the warlike Bari had restrained their destructive propensities as 

 long as they could, and began to show signs of hostility. There suc- 

 ceeded a war w^ith these people in which they showed the greatest 

 courage and ferocity, and in which the men under Baker's command 

 manifested great lack of soldierly qualities. He succeeded in subduing 

 them at last, largely by the aid of his faithful "forty thieves," or body- 

 guard, upon whom alone he could safely depend. 



Early in 1871 Baker set out on a trip to the Albert Nyanza. On 

 his veturn he stopped at Fatiko, a slave-trading station established 



