At the same time I officially invited Allorron and all the headmen of the country, including the sheik of Belinian, to an entertainment. I intended, formally and officially, to annex the country to Egypt.
On May 26, 1871, all was in order. A flag-staff about eighty feet high had been neatly erected by Lieut. Baker on the highest point of land overlooking the river. Every small bush had been cleared away, and the position in the centre of an open park-like country would have formed an admirable race-course. The troops, having had two days' rest to wash their clothes and burnish up their arms and accoutrements, marched from the station at Gondokoro at 6 A.M.
I had 1,200 men on the ground, including ten mountain rifled guns throwing 8 and 1/4 lbs. shell.
In their clean white uniforms, with the neat koofeeia or sun-cloth, which, covering the head, drooped gracefully upon the shoulders, the troops showed to great advantage, as they marched with the band playing from head-quarters to the flagstaff above my station. As they filed through the green trees, and then formed into sections of companies as they emerged into the open ground, the effect was exceedingly good, and the sheik, Allorron, and his friends, the headmen of many villages, looked with amazement upon a scene that was altogether new to them.
Having arrived opposite the flag-staff, the troops formed in line two deep on the flat grassy surface of the heights above my station. The long row of glittering bayonets and the gay uniforms of the officers bewildered the astonished natives. All the sailors, servants, and camp-followers were dressed in their best clothes. The prevailing colours, white and red, looked exceedingly gay upon the close and even surface of the green turf. My staff was composed of my aides-de-camp, Lieutenant Baker, R.N., Lieut.-Colonel Abd-el-Kader, together with three other officers, and Mr. Higginbotham. At that time the horses were all in excellent condition.
Having ridden along the line and halted beneath the flag, the troops formed three sides of a square with the flag-staff in the centre. The fourth side, facing the river, was then occupied by the artillery, with ten guns.
The formality of reading the official proclamation, describing the annexation of the country to Egypt in the name of the Khedive, then took place at the foot of the flag-staff. At the termination of the last sentence, the Ottoman flag was quickly run up by the halyards and fluttered in the strong breeze at the mast-head. The officers with drawn swords saluted the flag, the troops presented arms, and the batteries of artillery fired a royal salute.
This ceremony being completed, the troops marched past; after which, they formed in order for a supposed attack upon an imaginary enemy, and fired away about ten thousand rounds of blank cartridge in the advance down the long slope which led to the temporary camp and tents erected for the entertainment. Here the bugle sounded "disperse," and all the men immediately set to work to light fires and prepare the food that had been already supplied for their dinners. I believe this was the only day of real enjoyment that the troops had had. The hours passed in rest and sleep until sunset.
I had invited fourteen of the officers to dine with me, and our party of eighteen was easily accommodated on the roomy poop-deck of my diahbeeah.
The Englishmen had a table to themselves in the garden, and were regaled with roast beef and real English plum-pudding, that, having been brought out in tins for Christmas Day, could not be found during the voyage; therefore it added to the feast of the "day of annexation," and was annexed accordingly by English appetites. This was washed down and rendered wholesome by a quantity of pure filtered water from the river Nile, which was included in the annexation; and was represented in the Nile Basin mixed with Jamaica rum, sugar, nutmeg, and lemon-juice from the fruit of the trees planted by the good Austrian missionaries at Gondokoro. Little did they think, poor fellows, of the jollification to which their lemons would subscribe when they first sowed the good seeds.