Ismail Pacha had made great improvements in Khartoum, and he had completed the new government house that had been commenced by his predecessor, Moomtazz Pacha, who was also a most intelligent Circassian. He had likewise made a great change by converting a large open space into a public garden, where it was his intention that the military band should play every evening for the amusement of the people.
Steam irrigation works were also commenced on the north side of the Blue
Nile for the cultivation of cotton.
After a few days at Khartoum we took leave of our good friend, Ismail
Ayoub Pacha, and started for Cairo by steamer.
I had left my two boys, Saat and Bellaal, with Ismail Pacha, to be instructed either as musicians or soldiers, the latter profession being their great ambition. There was already a school established for the education of the more intelligent negro boys that might be liberated from the slave-traders.
Upon our arrival at Berber, I found a considerable improvement in the country. The Arabs were beginning to return to the fertile banks of the river, and to rebuild their sakeeyahs or water-wheels. This change was the result of a wise reform instituted by the Khedive, in dividing the Soudan into provinces, each of which would be governed by a responsible and independent official, instead of serving under a governor-general at the distance of Khartoum.
Hussein Khalifah was now the governor of Berber. He was the great Arab sheik of the desert who had so ably assisted Mr. Higginbotham in transporting the machinery and steamer sections by camels from Korosko to Berber across the great Nubian desert, for a distance of about 400 miles. The Arabs were much pleased at his appointment as governor, as he was one of their race.
In starting from Berber for Souakim, I had the great misfortune to lose by death one of my excellent Englishmen, David Samson. He had been ailing for some time, and the intense heat of July was more than he could endure in riding across the desert. Poor Samson died on the first day's march, and I had his body conveyed to Berber, where it was buried in the Coptic cemetery with every mark of respect.
This was a sad termination after a journey of nearly four years and a half, when he was on the hopeful road towards home.
We were nearly wrecked during the voyage from Souakim to Suez, as the engine of the sloop-of-war was out of repair. We then changed to another steamer, which carried away the cap of her rudder during a heavy sea and fresh northerly gale. Fortunately our English shipwrights were on board, and Lieutenant Baker, R.N., knew his work; thus we escaped drowning on a coral reef, which would assuredly have been our fate had we been left to the ignorance of the officers and crew.
We reached Cairo on 24th August at 4.30 P.M. On 25th I had the honour of presenting myself to his Highness the Khedive, to explain the large chart of his new territory that I had annexed in Central Africa.