—On his return from Bahr-el-Ghazal, Gessi found Khartoum very different from what he had seen it three years before. The European colony had transformed it. The Catholic mission had become the instructor of the population. The traders had imported all the products of European industry. Houses with magnificent stores had been erected, and one could obtain there all that was required for modern civilization. It had become a centre of exportation for the products of Soudan. To remedy the inconvenience of expensive voyages, they already thought of establishing in the neighborhood a permanent place for receiving the wax, rubber and ivory which they brought from the more central countries.
—The French missionaries who are in the Egyptian Soudan complain that the slave trade is more active than ever, and that far from taking measures to prevent it, the regular troops take part in the plunder in the neighborhood of the White Nile, where they capture thousands of slaves of both sexes and all ages. One of the missionaries saw at Fachoda a number of children taken to the slave market. Another reports that the mountains south of Kordufan are inhabited by a very beautiful race of negroes, who have resisted all efforts of the proselytizing Mussulman. These are sold at high prices, and the slave-hunters regard them as a favorite prey. This missionary also relates that a dozen valleys were recently ravaged by the Bagarahs.
THE INDIANS.
—In British America, during the past 20 years, more than 13,000 Indians have been received into the Church of England.
—There is a church organization at Fort Wrangel, Alaska Territory, among the Stickenn tribe of Indians, with a membership of about forty. In connection with this, an industrial school and home for girls has been established.
—The Indians at present in close relations with the Presbyterian church number about 16,000, and may be divided as follows: Mohave, 838; Chimehneva, 200; Coahuila, 150; Cocopah, 180; Pima, 4,500; Maricopa, 500; Papago, 6,000; the San Carlos, White Mountain, Coyotero, Tonto, Chiricahua, Cochise, Ojo Caliente, Yuma and Mohave Apaches, 4,878; Hualapai, 620; Yuma, 930; Suppai, 75; and Quacharty’s, 400.
These are grouped into the three agencies of Colorado River, Pima and San Carlos. They number 2,218 children of school age. They had 7,700 acres of land under cultivation, and raised 43,333 bushels of wheat, 2,493 of corn, and 10,833 of barley and oats.
—Some poet at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., has set forth the merits of the Indian training-school at that point as follows: