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"Do you know," he wrote, "I have forgiven the head slaver Nassar, and am employing him; he is not worse than others, and these slavers have been much encouraged to do what they have done. He is a first-rate man, and does a great deal of work. He was in prison for two weeks, and was then forgiven."
After exchanging courteous gifts they parted, the Sirdar leaving an Egyptian force in the village, and lodging a written protest against the presence of the French force . He then proceeded up stream to the Sobat tributary, on the banks of which at Nassar he left half of a Sudanese battalion to bar the road on that side to geographical explorers provided with flags. He then returned to Khartum.
But in June we find him seizing an Arab dealer named Nassar, at the head of a large convoy of slaves, and casting him into prison. By this brilliant stroke he not only got possession of a well-known culprit, but struck terror into the hearts of smaller dealers. But, as in the case of the Taiping rebels, whom he at once turned into soldiers to fight for him, so Nassar was enlisted into his service.
It is customary for travellers, before entering the Arabian wastes, to hire a Ghafir, that is, a guide and protector. Palmer, instead of securing a powerful chief, as the case required, selected a man of small account named Matr Nassar, and this petty shaykh and his nephew were the expedition's only defence. The doomed party left Suez on August 8th.
On the 10th at midnight they were attacked by the Bedawin. "Palmer expostulated with his assassins; but all his sympathetic facility, his appeals to Arab honour and superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift of eloquence which had so often prevailed with the wild men, were unheeded." As vainly, Matr Nassar covered his proteges with his aba thus making them part of his own family.
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