CHAPTER XLII 
Sir Samuel Baker and the Slave Trade 
U NTIL recently the worst sore in Africa was its horrible traffic 
in slaves, but, thanks to the efforts of European governments, 
this evil now no longer flaunts itself before us. What the 
awful character of this loathsome business was may be gleamed from 
the following description, penned by one of the first men who endeav¬ 
ored to mitigate its horrors: 
“The people for the most part engaged in the nefarious traffic of 
the White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few 
Europeans. 
“Throughout the Soudan money is exceedingly scarce and the rate 
of interest exorbitant, varying, according to the securities, from thirty- 
six to eighty per cent.; this fact proves general poverty and dishonesty, 
and acts as a preventive to all improvement. So high and fatal a rate 
deters all honest enterprise, and the country must lie in ruin under such 
a system. The wild speculator borrows upon such terms, to rise sud¬ 
denly like a rocket, or to fall like its exhausted stick. Thus, honest 
enterprise being impossible, dishonesty takes the lead, and a successful 
expedition to the White Nile is supposed to overcome all charges. 
There are two classes of White Nile traders, the one possessing capital, 
the other being penniless adventurers; the same system of operations 
is pursued by both, but that of the former will be evident from the 
description of the latter. 
“A man without means forms an expedition, and borrows money 
for this purpose at one hundred per cent, after this fashion. He agrees 
to repay the lender in ivory at one-half its market value. Having ob¬ 
tained the required sum, he hires several vessels and engages from one 
hundred to three hundred men, composed of Arabs and runaway vil¬ 
lains from distant countries, who have found an asylum from justice 
in the obscurity of Khartoum. He purchases guns and large quantities 
of ammunition for his men, together with a few hundred pounds of 
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