than white.  So they formed fortified posts, called sceribas, and garrisoned them with Arab ruffians, who harried the country and organized manhunts on a gigantic scale.  The profits were enormous, but the “bitter cry” of Africa began to make itself heard in distant Europe, and the so-called Christian slave-dealers found it more prudent to withdraw.  This they did without loss, for they sold their stations to Arabs, and the trade in human beings went on as merrily as ever.  Dr. Schweinfurth, the African explorer and botanist, visited one of these slave-dealing princes in 1871, and found him surrounded by an almost regal court, and possessed of more than vice-regal power.  He was lord of thirty stations, all strongly fortified, and stretching like a chain into the very heart of Africa.  Thus his armies of fierce soldiery, Arab and black, were able to make raids over whole provinces, and gather in the great human harvest to supply the demands of Egypt, Turkey, and Arabia.  This famous man was named Sebehr Rahma; and although he was defeated by Colonel Gordon and sent down to Cairo, he never quite lost favor at the Egyptian Court, and was not long since appointed commander in chief of the Soudan, to uphold the power of Egypt against the Mahdi!  The scandals of the slave-trade, combined with the lust of conquest, were the causes out of which grew the famous expedition of Sir Samuel Baker to the Soudan.  The love of conquest made it pleasing in the eyes of the Khedive Ismail, and the desire to uproot the infamous slave-trade obtained for the enterprise the warm approval of the Prince of Wales, and the hearty co-operation of Sir Samuel Baker, who displayed the greatest courage and energy in the conduct of the enterprise.

From this first expedition the two succeeding ones of Colonel Gordon may be said to have arisen.  The struggle against the slave-hunters had developed into a war, and the Khedive began to fear that their power would grow until his own position at Cairo might become endangered.  The slave-king Sebehr must be destroyed, together with his numerous followers and satellites.

Gordon was not long in perceiving why he was selected for the office of governor; for we find him writing home, “I think I can see the true motive of the expedition, and believe it to be a sham to catch the attention of the English people.”  With him, however, it was no sham.  He was determined to do what he was professedly sent to do, viz.:  put down the slave-trade.  “I will do it,” he said, “for I value my life as naught, and should only leave much weariness for perfect peace.”

How hard he found his task to ameliorate the condition of the wretched inhabitants, we perceive from such an outburst as this, amongst many similar:  “What a mystery, is it not?  Why are they created?  A life of fear and misery, night and day!  One does not wonder at their not fearing death.  No one can conceive the utter misery of these lands—­heat and mosquitoes day and night all the year round.  But I like the work, for I believe I can do a great deal to ameliorate the lot of the people.”