CHAPTER XI.
SPIRIT OF DISAFFECTION.
The amount of corn collected by the troops, now in the magazines, was only sufficient for two months' consumption at full rations.
There was a spirit of general disaffection among the officers and troops.
Although I had worked with them in every difficulty and led them invariably to success, there was a general dislike, not to me personally, but to the system of rigid discipline that I was determined at all hazards to enforce, and to the general object of the expedition.
Neither officers nor men could understand why, during open war, I should forbid the capture of women and children, who, by all Mohammedan rules, were lawful prizes!
It was not slave-hunting: they were simple prisoners of war that God had delivered into their hands; and it was a hard case that, after all the trouble and difficulties which had been encountered, they should be debarred from taking a few prisoners.
This was the argument of the military force, to which, had I yielded, the expedition would have quickly relapsed into the original slave-hunting of the White Nile, which I was bound to suppress. I have already described the direct disobedience of the officers in having purchased 126 slaves secretly from the slave-hunters' station during the voyage. A slave trade would quickly spring up between the Khedive's officers and the slave-hunters of Abou Saood, unless I enforced the strictest discipline. The expedition would represent a government slave market for the reception of slaves captured by the Khartoum companies.
It may easily be imagined, that my determination to enforce obedience to the newly-instituted reform caused bitter disappointment and disgust. The government I had established afforded justice and protection to all, whether freeman or slave. I had not interfered with the slaves that had been the property of officers prior to my taking the command of the expedition; these remained in their original position, with the simple improvement, that they could not be ill-treated with impunity.
A poor little Abyssinian boy, about eleven years of age, had one day crawled through the high river grass to escape the observation of the sentries, and suddenly appeared on the deck of my diahbeeah to claim protection. He was streaming with blood, and had been shamefully ill-used by his master, who was a captain in the Egyptian regiment. The boy demanded his freedom, and I immediately granted his release (This boy, named Amam, was a great example to others in his general good conduct and integrity. He accompanied us throughout the subsequent trials of the expedition with much devotion, and he is now one of our household in England).