CHAP. XIX.] 
HORRIBLE SLAVE CARGO. 
499 
cargo could not be adequately described. The slaves 
were in a state of starvation, having had nothing to 
eat for several days. They were landed in Khartoum ; 
the dead and many of the dying were tied by the 
ankles, and dragged along the ground by donkeys 
through the streets. The most malignant typhus, or 
plague, had been engendered among this mass of filth 
and misery, thus closely packed together. Upon landing, 
the women were divided by the Egyptian authorities 
among the soldiers. These creatures brought the plague 
to Khartoum, which, like a curse visited upon this 
country of slavery and abomination, spread like a fire 
throughout the town, and consumed the regiments 
that had received this horrible legacy from the dying 
cargo of slaves. Among others captured by the authori¬ 
ties on a charge of slave-trading, was an Austrian 
subject, who was then in the custody of the Consul. A 
French gentleman, Monsieur Gamier, had been sent to 
Khartoum by the French Consulate of Alexandria on 
a special inquiry into the slave-trade ; he was devoting 
himself to the subject with much energy. 
While at Khartoum I happened to find Mahommed 
Her! the vakeel of Chenoocla s party, who had insti¬ 
gated my men to mutiny at Latooka, and had taken 
my deserters into his employ. I had promised to 
make an example of this fellow ; I therefore had him 
arrested, and brought before the Divan. With extreme 
effrontery, he denied having had anything to do with 
the affair, adding to his denial all knowledge of the 
total destruction of his party, and of my mutineers by 
the Latookas. Having a crowd of witnesses in my 
own men, and others that I had found in Khartoum 
who had belonged to Koorshid s party at that time, his 
barefaced lie was exposed, and he was convicted. I 
determined that he should be punished, as an example 
that would insure respect to any future English 
traveller in those regions. My men, and all those with 
whom I had been connected, had been accustomed to 
rely most implicitly upon all that I had promised, and 
k K 2 
