JUBA RIVER EXPEDITION, 1875.
The Juba River Expedition, 1875.In the autumn of 1875 the Khedive, having long had under consideration the advantage of opening up a line of communication from the Indian Ocean to the central provinces, sent out what is known as the Juba River Expedition. The command was given to McKillop Pasha (an English naval officer who died in 1879, and he was accompanied by Colonels Ward and Long, the former to survey the harbours along the coast and the latter to command an inland expedition. Colonel Gordon was to co-operate from the direction of Victoria Nyanza.
The anchorage at the mouth of the Juba River having been found inferior, the Expedition ran several miles further south to Port Durnford and the harbour of Kismayu; but here they encroached on the territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar. Several interests now clashed with the success of the enterprise. The British Government were bound more or less to the Sultan by treaties concerning the slave trade. The merchants of Zanzibar became alarmed for their equatorial trade, and the people of Aden for their supplies from the Somalis, who had been independent till Egypt had acquired a portion of their territory and levied taxes at their ports. The result was that, at the instance of Great Britain, the Egyptian Expedition was given up, but, on the other hand, the Khedive’s authority along the coast, as far as about 10° north lat. was tacitly acknowledged. Ismail Pasha was thus encouraged to think that he was entitled to the whole of the Red Sea coast, and could resist any pretensions of the Abyssinians to a port; while England believed that she had erected a safeguard against European settlement on the coast, and had opened the way to a Slavery Treaty with Egypt.