d
all that was required of her by lying in the course the _Silver Heels_
was expected to take--that the vessel went another way was nobody's
fault.

The Madrid papers think it a great pity that this affair should have
occurred at a moment when Spain was trying to show her friendship for
us, and declare that the officers on the revenue cutter appeared to be
doing their best to avoid overtaking the ship. In Washington it is said
that grave trouble may arise out of the matter.

Following right after these statements comes another from the agent of
the _Silver Heels_.

This gentleman declares that the vessel never brought up alongside of
the dock at which she is accused of having taken on her cargo. He says
she was laden with coal, which she took on board at a pier on the New
Jersey shore, either Hoboken or Weehawken, that she sailed down the bay
and out at the Narrows under her own canvas, and never employed any
tugboat. The agent states positively that the _Silver Heels_ did not go
up the Sound, and declares that if a mysterious vessel did take on a
cargo and slip up the Sound, it was not the _Silver Heels_.

There the matter rests for the present.

* * * * *

We hear from the Soudan that General Hunter is steadily advancing up the
Nile.

By his orders gunboats were sent ahead of the army as far as Metemneh,
which is the present stronghold of the Mahdists, and lies between
Khartoum and Berber. The object of sending on the gunboats was to find
out whether the city was very strongly fortified, and what were the
nature of its defences.

Under cover of a heavy fire from their guns, these boats were able to
reach the city and take all the observations they needed, and then,
having treated the city itself to a brisk cannonading, they retreated to
report.

A sad story has been telegraphed of the cruel revenge taken by the
Mahdists upon a tribe of natives who refused to join them in their war
against the British and Egyptians.

This tribe lived on the banks of the Nile between Berber and Metemneh,
and were a quiet and industrious people, who, not wishing to mix
themselves up in warfare, declined to join in it. The Mahdists,
infuriated at their refusal, descended on their villages, killed every
male member of the tribe, burned the houses and destroyed the property
of the offenders, and carried their women off into slavery.

The British were horrified when they heard of these dreadful d