4 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



repast, the insurgent chiefs surrounded his camp with 

 a belt of faggots, to which they set fire in the middle 

 of the night, and the Egyptians who endeavoured to 

 escape were massacred by the Soudanese. 



" Vengeance for this was entrusted by Mehemet 

 Ali to his son-in-law, the Defterdar, who committed 

 atrocities the very description of which makes the 

 blood boil. I am told that he was equally cruel to 

 those of his soldiers or servitors who were lacking in 

 discipline. 



"Upon one occasion, at the request of a woman 

 of the country, who came to complain that an Egyptian 

 soldier had stolen some milk, he sent for the man 

 whom she accused, having first warned her that he 

 would have her ripped open if she had told a false- 

 hood. The soldier was then ripped open, and as his 

 stomach was found to contain traces of milk the woman 

 was dismissed with a largess. Upon another occasion, 

 as his horse was badly shod, he sent for his safe (run- 

 ning groom) and had the horse's shoes nailed to his 

 feet. 



" The Defterdar scattered terror and desolation 

 throughout the Soudan, leaving nothing but ruins 

 behind him, and bringing back to Egypt a hundred 

 thousand slaves. It is easy to imagine how miserable 

 and oppressed were the populations which had re- 

 mained since then beneath the military authority of 

 the rapacious Turkish governors. 



"Such is the country which Ismail's brother and 



