500 MAHOMMED HER PUNISHED. [chap. xix. 
the punishment of this man had been an expressed 
determination. 
I went to the Divan and demanded that he should 
be flogged. Omer Bey was then Governor of the 
Soudan, in the place of Moosa Pasha deceased. He 
sat upon the Divan, in the large hall of justice by the 
river. Motioning me to take a seat by his side, and 
handing me his pipe, he called the officer in waiting, 
and gave the necessary orders. In a few minutes the 
prisoner was led into the hall, attended by eight 
soldiers. One man carried a strong pole about seven 
feet long, in the centre of which was a double chain, 
rivetted through in a loop. The prisoner was imme¬ 
diately thrown down with his face to the ground, while 
two men stretched out his arms and sat upon them ; 
his feet were then placed within the loop of the chain, 
and the pole being twisted round until firmly secured, it 
was raised from the ground sufficiently to expose the 
soles of the feet. Two men with powerful hippo¬ 
potamus whips stood, one on either side. The prisoner 
thus secured, the order was given. The whips were 
most scientifically applied, and after the first five dozen, 
the slave-hunting scoundrel howled most lustily for 
mercy. How often had he flogged unfortunate slave 
women to excess, and what murders had that wretch 
committed, who now howled for mercy? I begged 
Omer Bey to stop the punishment at 150 lashes, and 
to explain to him publicly in the Divan, that he was 
thus punished for attempting to thwart the expedition 
of an English traveller, by instigating my escort to 
mutiny. 
This affair over—all my accounts paid—and my 
men dismissed with their hands full of money,—I was 
ready to start for Egypt. The Nile rose sufficiently to 
enable the passage of the Cataracts, and on the 30th 
June we took leave of all friends in Khartoum, and of 
my very kind agent, Michael Latfalla, well known as 
Hallil el Shami, who had most generously cashed all 
my bills on Cairo, without charging a fraction of 
