520 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. , 
course of the more western river, i.e. the White Nile, should be investigated, 
as he could not believe that its source was only two hundred leagues south of 
Sennaar. 
Starting from Egypt, Browne travelled with a merchant’s caravan from 
Assiut, by way of the oases of Khargeh and Selima, to El Fasher, in Darfur. 
Here he remained for three years, but was not able to do much in the way of 
exploration, as he was thwarted by the king and people, and was not allowed 
to go to Sennaar or to explore the White Nile. He collected, however, from the 
accounts given him by the natives, a good set of itineraries in Darfur and 
Kordofan, the first, so far as I know, compiled for the Sudan. But his efforts 
to obtain information as to the source of the White Nile were not successful, 
and all he was able to learn was that ten days’ journey south of a place called 
Abu Telfan, the Bahr-el-Abiad had its source in forty rivers, which came 
from the hills of Kumr. It seems probable that these numerous rivers were 
those that form the head-waters of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and that the people of 
Darfur knew as little about the Bahr-el-Gebel, as the southern part of the White 
Nile is called, as the people of Sennaar. 
But although Browne was not able himself to solve the mystery, his name 
should not be forgotten, as being one of the first in modern times to realise the 
fact that the White Nile was the longer of the two rivers. His views, how- 
ever, seem to have met with no support, and Bruce was supposed to have settled 
the question of the sources of the Nile. The great lakes, shown by Ptolemy and 
the medieval geographers, were, as I have already mentioned, erased from the 
map, and the White Nile was left in peace. 
During the visit of Browne to Darfur the kingdom of Sennaar had fallen 
upon evil times, as an insurrection, which had commenced during the reign of 
Bady, ended with the death of King Adlan in 1789, when the Fung dynasty 
came to an end, and all authority fell into the hands of the tribal chiefs, who 
made and removed the kings of Sennaar at their pleasure. The internecine 
wars continued up to the time of the arrival of the Egyptians in the Sudan, 
and greatly facilitated the advance of the latter. 
‘This advance of the Egyptians was due to the policy of Mahomed Ali Pasha, 
the Turkish Governor of Egypt, who had greatly increased his power by a 
successful campaign in Arabia in 1812-18, when he succeeded in capturing Mecca 
and Medina, and made himself master of the country. He then turned his atten- 
tion to the Sudan, and decided to take advantage of the local troubles and to 
add Sennaar and Kordofan to the Egyptian dominions. In 1820 he sent an 
army up the Nile, under his son Ismail, who took possession of Dongola and the 
country adjacent to the river, as far as the junction of the Blue and White Niles, 
and, after seizing Sennaar, marched up the Blue Nile to Fazokl, on the 
Abyssinian frontier. Kordofan was also occupied, and the capital of the new 
Egyptian province was placed at Khartum, the point where the two Niles met, 
which took the place of the old capital of Sennaar; but no attempt was made to 
take possession of the country along the White Nile to more than about one 
hundred miles south of Khartum. So little was that river known beyond this 
that when Linant Pasha succeeded in sailing up the river as far as the Island 
of Aba he was supposed to have arrived at the furthest point reached by a 
European since the first century. 
No further advance was made for a few years, but, in 1838, Mahomed Ali 
decided to try to open up the. White Nile, and an expedition under Major 
Selim, of the Egyptian Army, succeeded in making its way through the marsh 
district, and in reaching a point about 6° 30’ North latitude on the Bahr-el- 
Gebel, while another expedition in 1842 got as far as Gondokoro. It was thus 
proved that the marshes were not impenetrable, and trading stations began to 
be opened up, both on the Bahr-el-Gebel and the Bahr-el-Ghazal. On the former 
river, however, the traders could not at first proceed further than Gondokoro, as 
the rapids, which commenced a few miles south of that place, made navigation 
by sailing vessels impracticable, so the merchants had to establish their depots 
at Gondokoro and depend upon the natives bringing ivory from the south. To 
these natives the opening of the river proved a great evil, as the legitimate 
traders were soon followed by slave-hunters, who carried thousands into cap- 
tivity, while killing many others. By the ill-will thus created the difficulty 
of exploration was increased. In the end, the source of the White Nile was 
