withdraw
from the business. This touch of conscience or alarm did not improve
the situation. They sold their stations to their Arab agents, who in
turn purchased immunity from the Egyptian officers. The slave trade,
by the pursuit and capture of any tribe rash enough to come within the
spring of the Arab raiders, flourished as much as ever. The only
change was that after 1860 Europeans were clear of the stigma that
attached to any direct participation in it.

The condition of the Soudan during this period has been graphically
described by Captain Speke, Dr Schweinfurth, and Sir Samuel Baker.
They all agree in their facts and their conclusions. The people were
miserably unhappy, because the dread and the reality of compulsory
slavery hung over their daily life. Those who were not already slaves
realised their impending fate. Villages were abandoned, districts
passed out of cultivation, and a large part of the population
literally vanished. Sir Samuel Baker, speaking of the difference
between a region he knew well in 1864 and in 1872, wrote in the latter
year: "It is impossible to describe the change that has taken place
since I last visited this country. It was then a perfect garden,
thickly populated, and producing all that man could desire. The
villages were numerous, groves of plantains fringed the steep cliffs
on the river's bank, and the natives were neatly dressed in the bark
cloth of the country. The scene has changed! All is wilderness. The
population has fled! Not a village is to be seen! This is the certain
result of the settlement of Khartoum traders. They kidnap the women
and children for slaves, and plunder and destroy wherever they set
their foot." How true all this was will be seen in the course of
Gordon's own experiences.

It has been stated that the Arab slave-dealers made terms with the
Egyptian officials, and they were even not without influence and the
means of gaining favourable consideration at Cairo itself. But as they
increased in numbers, wealth, and confidence in themselves and their
organisation, the Khedive began to see in them a possible danger to
his own authority. This feeling was strengthened when the slavers,
under the leadership of the since notorious Zebehr Rahama, the most
ambitious and capable of them all, refused to pay their usual tribute.
Dr Schweinfurth has given a vivid picture of this man in the heyday of
his power. Chained lions formed part of his escort, and it is recorded