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What would his feelings be should I wantonly attack him, simply because I had been requested to do so by his enemy? No argument was of any avail. Kabba Rega replied, "You were my father's friend and brother: your wife was the same. You drove back the slave-hunters under Wat-el-Mek by hoisting your flag. Since you left us, the slave-hunters have returned and ruined the country.
Wat-el-Mek, who was always the discoverer of unknown lands, had lately visited a new country in the east. Poor Ibrahim was dead, otherwise I should have had a good and dependable man. The Lira country was rich in ivory, but the greatest prize discovered was the presence of donkeys, which are quite unknown in the White Nile districts.
Both Wat-el-Mek and Suleiman, as late vakeels of Abou Saood, swore to their written evidence, to which they attached their seals in the presence of witnesses, that Abou Saood had given orders to his vakeels to harry the country and to capture slaves and cattle; that none of the people employed by him received wages in money, but that they were invariably paid in slaves, valued at a certain sum.
The slave-hunters were in this position. I had sent Ali Germinar with sixty-five men to Unyoro, 200 had gone off with Abou Saood, 100 reprobates clung to Salim-Wat-Howah, and the remainder were true to Wat-el-Mek.
In the days when Debono was the proprietor of the Madi station, Wat-el-Mek had been the sole vakeel; and although he was a tyrant, he was not disliked by the natives. Since Debono had sold his stations to the firm of Agad & Co., every separate camp was governed by an independent vakeel; thus there were many tyrants instead of one.
Thus ended one of the greatest scoundrels, and the government was relieved by his escape from custody, which had so quickly terminated his career. On 25th November, 1872, I started Wat-el-Mek to Gondokoro with a force of irregulars, in addition to a captain and twenty regular troops in charge of the post. His party consisted of 100 men.
Mohammed Wat-el-Mek, and a prisoner named Besheer, who was an officer in the same company, both swore upon the Koran, that in firing at me "they had only obeyed the orders of Abou Saood, who had instructed them to attack me and the government troops should I attempt to interfere with their proceedings."
Wat-el-Mek now offered to swear upon the Koran fidelity and allegiance if I would pardon him; and he would at once prove his sincerity by raising an irregular corps. This man was a curious character; his superstitious nature had been seized with the conviction that his present position was a special visitation of divine wrath.
With much patience, I waited within the station for about half an hour; during which time, five different officers had gone to call Wat-el-Mek, and each had returned with a message that "he would come presently."
Mohammed Wat-el-Mek was the son of a petty king far away up the Blue Nile, beyond Fazokle. He had in early life been a serjeant or choush in the Egyptian army; but having an adventurous disposition, he had taken to the White Nile, as the vakeel of Andrea Debono, a Maltese ivory merchant. Mr.
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