"It would be impossible to deliver slaves to the Soudan this season, as
an Egyptian regiment had been stationed in the Shillook country, and
steamers were cruising to intercept the boats from the interior in their
descent to Khartoum;--thus the army of slaves then at Gondokoro would
be utterly worthless.
"The plague was raging at Khartoum, and had killed 15,000 people;--many
of the boats' crews had died on their passage from Khartoum to Gondokoro
of this disease, which had even broken out in the station where we then
were: people died daily.
"The White Nile was dammed up by a freak of nature, and the crews of
thirty vessels had been occupied five weeks in cutting a ditch through
the obstruction, wide enough to admit the passage of boats."
Such was the intelligence received by the latest arrival from Khartoum.
No boats having been sent for me, I engaged the diahbiah that had
arrived for Koorshid's ivory;--this would return empty, as no ivory
could be delivered at Gondokoro. The prospect was pleasant, as many men
had died of the plague on board our vessel during the voyage from
Khartoum; thus we should be subject to a visitation of this fearful
complaint as a wind-up to the difficulties we had passed through during
our long exile in Central Africa. I ordered the vessel to be thoroughly
scrubbed with boiling water and sand, after which it was fumigated with
several pounds of tobacco, burnt within the cabin.
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