282 Tttfi WORLD'S WONDERS. 



diers had been killed, their arms taken, and all the cattle cap- 

 tured. The ill-feeling between the two officers was the cause of 

 all their calamities. 



There had been enough recruits brought from Gondokoro* 

 however, to swell the total force to six hundred and twenty men, 

 with which E -^er strongly garrisoned Fatiko, Fabbo, and the 

 stockade ii-3 'i.-,d built opposite Rionga's island, at Foweera. 

 Unyoro was now completely in the power of Rionga, and a route 

 was opened from Fatiko to Zanzibar. Everything was in per- 

 fect order, so leaving Major Abdullah commandant at Fatiko, he 

 gave him full ins f ructions as to the government of Central Africa, 

 and then departed with a small body-guard for Gondokoro, which 

 place was reached without special incident on April 1st, 1873, 

 the date on wnich his commission from the Khedive expired. 



After turning over his effects to the government officers at 

 Gondokoro, he secured a vessel and started for Khartoum. 

 En route he overtook three vessels having on board seven hundred 

 slaves, among whom tho small-pox had broken out and the mor- 

 tality was frightful. He nailed the slavers and was astonished 

 to learn that the vessels belonged to Abou Saood, who had been 

 to Cairo and so established himself in the confidence of the au- 

 thorities that he could continue his nefarious traffic without fear 

 of any unpleasant results ; nor was this the only discouraging 

 news which Baker heard, for he learned positively that ever since 

 his departure from Gondokoro for Fatiko the slave vessels had 

 been carrying their human cargoes directly on to Alexandria or 

 the Red Sea, meeting with no opposition they could not easily 

 overcome by bribery. He now saw that all his labors for a sup- 

 pression of the slave trade in Central Africa had been without 

 fruit ; that the government, so far from rendering its aid to 

 that end, had nullified its declarations and orders by refusing to 

 punish convicted slavers, and by receiving tnem as worthy mer- 

 chants at the Khedive's capital. Sick with disgust, he quitted 

 Egypt and sailed for England. 



Colonel Gordon, R. E., now known as Chinese Gordon," 

 was appointed Bakei'o successor, and at this writing is invested 

 at Khartoum by El,Mhadi, the false prophet. 



