I am yours, &c.
APPENDIX R (249).
From Slatin Bey.
His Excellency Gordon Pasha, Governor-General of the Soudan.
Your Excellency,
I have sent two letters, one by George Calamatino and the other by my servant, without having received an answer from your Excellency, neither has Consul Hansall answered me.
Your Excellency, I have fought twenty-seven times for the Government against the enemy, and they have beaten me twice, and I have done nothing dishonourable, nothing which should hinder your Excellency from writing me an answer, that I may know what to do.
They have taken the little steamer at Dar-Djumna, after it passed the Sehelal of the Robatat, and they have brought the whole of the letters from Kartoum for Cairo here. In order to assure you that they have taken the steamer they have sent your Excellency some letters, and I have done all that I could to send your Military Journal,[342] because it may be, perhaps, of some value for your Excellency.
I hope that Consul Hansall has made a translation of my letter, in which I place all my feeble services to your Excellency’s disposal, and I have been obliged to write in German, because they have burnt my French dictionary, believing that it was a prayer book.