373 
SIR SAMUEL BAKER AND THE SLAVE TRADE 
to the Egyptian authorities for a few troops, but had been refused. 
I was now in an awkward position. All my men had received five 
months’ wages in advance, according to the custom of the White Nile; 
thus I had no control over them. There were no Egyptian authorities 
in Gondokoro; it was a nest of robbers; and my men had just exhibited 
so pleasantly their attachment to me, and their fidelity. There was no 
European beyond Gondokoro; thus I should be the only white man 
among this colony of wolves; and I had in prospective a difficult and 
uncertain path, where the only chance of success lay in the complete 
discipline of my escort, and the perfect organization of the expedition. 
After the scene just enacted I felt sure that my escort would give me 
more cause for anxiety than the acknowledged hostility of the natives.” 
Having been instructed by the khedive to annex the surrounding 
territory to his province, Baker selected the 26th of May as the time 
when it would be officially annexed to Egypt. On that day, the troops, 
numbering one thousand four hundred men, dressed in bright uni¬ 
forms, gathered around the flagstaff which had been erected; and the 
proclamation was read, which declared the khedive ruler of the coun¬ 
try and possessor of its soil. The flag was then drawn up to the top 
of the staff, and the officers saluted it with drawn swords. After this 
the artillery fired a salute, and the region around Gondokoro belonged 
to Egypt’s ruler. The natives watched the proceedings with astonish¬ 
ment, and were told in response to their questionings, that all this 
pomp was for their benefit, and that the new-comers only sought their 
good, and to protect them from the slave-traders. 
Baker at once endeavored to set the natives to work; he partially 
succeeded in this, and’ for a time everything bore a promising look. 
But the warlike Bari had restrained their destructive propensities as 
long as they could, and began to show signs of hostility. There suc¬ 
ceeded a war with these people in which they showed the greatest 
courage and ferocity, and in which the men under Baker’s command 
manifested great lack of soldierly qualities. He succeeded in subduing 
them at last, largely by the aid of his faithful “forty thieves,” or body¬ 
guard, upon whom alone he could safely depend. 
Early in 1871 Baker set out on a trip to the Albert Nyanza. On 
Kis return he stopped at Fatiko, a slave-trading station established 
