en Gordon accepted the position of 'governor of the equatorial
provinces,' with a salary of L2,000 a year, instead of the L10,000
offered him by the khedive, the country, which ten years before had been
rich and prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the
slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able by Europeans as well
as by Arabs. At first elephant-hunting was made the pretext of their
expeditions, but soon they found negroes a more profitable article of
commerce, and whole villages had the strong men and women torn away from
them, till, at the first hint of the approach of a caravan, the people
would abandon their huts and fly off to hide themselves. At length the
trade became so well known and so scandalous that the Europeans were
forced to give it up; but the Arab dealers continued to grow powerful
and wealthy, and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr,
whose name for ever after was closely connected with that of Gordon.

The slave-dealers soon formed themselves into a sort of league, with
Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and
of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or
to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose
viceroy he was. The Egyptian government, which had suffered the
slave-trade to proceed unchecked when human life only was at stake, grew
indignant the moment it became a question of money. An army was sent
against Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of
the Soudan or 'land of the black,' south of Khartoum, then a little
group of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile,
three miles from its junction with the White Nile.

But, small though it was, Khartoum was the capital of the province, and
owned a governor's house, with the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side,
and surrounded on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while on
the west side the town was only half a mile distant from the White Nile
itself.

As soon as the khedive understood that he was no match for Zebehr he
determined to make a friend of him, and offered him an alliance with the
title of pasha.

For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this proposal, and the two
armies combined and conquered the province of Darfour; but directly the
pasha wished to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew
frightened, and declared that he was now convinced that the trade in
slaves was wicke