Ismail Ayoub Pacha was a friend of eight years' date. I had known him during my first expedition to the Nile sources as Ismail Bey, president of the council at Khartoum. He had lately been appointed governor, and I could only regret that my excellent friend had not been in that capacity from the commencement of the expedition, as I should have derived much assistance from his great energy and intelligence.
Ismail Ayoub Pacha is a Circassian. I have observed that all those officers who are superior to the average in intellect and general capacity belong to this race. The Circassians are admirably represented in Cherif Pacha, who is well known and respected by all Europeans in Egypt for his probity and high intelligence; and Riaz Pacha, who was lately the Minister for Public Instruction, is a Circassian much beloved and respected.
Ismail Ayoub had commenced a great reform in the Soudan, in his endeavour to put down the wholesale system of bribery and corruption which was the ruin of the country. He had also commenced a great work, according to the orders he had received from the Khedive, to remove the sudd or obstruction to the navigation of the great White Nile. He succeeded in re-opening the White Nile to navigation in the following season.
The Khedive had given this important order in consequence of letters that I had written on 31st August, 1870, to the Minister of the Interior, Cherif Pacha, and to his Highness direct on 8th October, 1871, in which communications I had strenuously advocated the absolute necessity of taking the work in hand, with a determination to re-establish the river in its original navigable condition.
Ismail Ayoub Pacha had been working with a large force, and he had succeeded in clearing, according to his calculations, one half of the obstruction, which extended for many miles.
There was no engineering difficulty in the undertaking, which was simply a matter of time and steady labour.
The immense force of the main stream, thus confined by matted and tangled vegetation, would materially assist the work, as the clearing was commenced from below the current.
The work would become lighter as the head of the sudd would be neared.
A curious accident had happened to Ismail Pacha by the sudden break-up of a large portion of the sudd, that had been weakened by cutting a long but narrow channel.
The prodigious rafts of vegetation were hurried before the stream like ice-floes, and these masses having struck against a line of six noggurs, the vessels were literally swept away and buried beneath the great rafts, until they capsized and disappeared for ever in the deep channel.