€HAP. II.] 
A BOY SHOT. 
65 
after my departure. I was the great stnmblingblock 
to the trade, and my presence at Gondokoro was con¬ 
sidered as an unwarrantable intrusion upon a locality 
sacred to slavery and iniquity. There were about six 
hundred of the traders people at G-ondokoro, whose 
time was passed in drinking, quarrelling, and illtreating 
the slaves. The greater number were in a constant 
state of intoxication, and when in such a state, it was 
their invariable custom to fire off their guns in the 
first direction prompted by their drunken instincts ; 
thus, from morning till night, guns were popping in 
all quarters, and the bullets humming through the air 
sometimes close to our ears, and on more than one 
occasion they struck up the dust at my feet. Nothing 
was more probable than a ball through the head by 
accident , which might have had the beneficial effect of 
ridding the traders from a spy. A boy was sitting 
upon the gunwale of one of the boats, when a bullet 
suddenly struck him in the head, shattering the skull 
to atoms. A T o one had done it. The body fell into 
the water, and the fragments of the skull were scat¬ 
tered on the deck. 
After a few days' detention at Gondokoro, I saw 
unmistakable signs of discontent among my men, who 
had evidently been tampered with by the different 
traders' parties. One evening several of the most dis¬ 
affected came to me with a complaint that they had 
not enough meat, and that they must be allowed to 
make a razzia upon the cattle of the natives to procure 
some oxen. This demand being of course refused, 
they retired, muttering in an insolent manner their 
determination of stealing cattle with or without my 
permission. I said nothing at the time, but early on 
the following morning I ordered the drum to beat, and 
the men to fall in. I made them a short address, 
reminding them of the agreement made at Khartoum 
to follow me faithfully, and of the compact that had 
been entered into, that they were neither to indulge in 
slave-hunting nor in cattle-stealing. The only effect 
F 
