MR BROWNE'S JOURNEY. 
401 
of the Sultan, notwithstanding his remonstrance. 
A frivolous charge of violating the female slave of 
the person with whom he lodged at El-Fasher, be- 
ing commenced against him, and a very consider- 
able compensation claimed by her master, the Sul- 
tan was induced to interfere, and take him under 
his immediate protection, in order to prevent re- 
prisals from being made on the property of his own 
subjects in Egypt. Mr Browne resided afterwards 
with the Melek of the Jelabs, or the officer who 
presides over the foreign merchants, by whom he 
was treated with kindness and attention. He en- 
deavoured, by the mediation of this officer, to ob- 
tain a compensation for his effects which had been 
seized, and permission to accompany the armed ex- 
peditions for procuring slaves, but was informed 
that he would certainly perish, either by the jea- 
lousy of the depredators whom he accompanied, or 
the hostility of the tribes on whom they perpetrat- 
ed these enormities. Renouncing, therefore, this 
design, he requested permission either to pass into 
Bergoo, the first Mahometan kingdom on the west, 
or to Sennaar, through Kordofan j but the Melek 
suggested, that both these routes were equally im- 
practicable, from the jealousy which subsisted be- 
tween Bergoo and Darfur, and the insurrections 
in Kordofan, and advised him to embrace the first 
opportunity of returning to Egypt. The journey 
vol. i. c c 
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