Author Description

An interval of five years has elapsed since the termination of my engagement in the service of His Highness the Khedive of Egypt, "to suppress the slave-hunters of Central Africa, and to annex the countries constituting the Nile Basin, with the object of opening those savage regions to legitimate commerce and establishing a permanent government."This volume--"Ismailia"--gives an accurate description of the salient points of the expedition. My thanks are due to the public for the kind reception of the work, and for the general appreciation of the spirit which prompted me to undertake a mission so utterly opposed to the Egyptian ideas of 1869-1873; at a time when no Englishman had held a high command, when rival consulates were struggling for paramount influence, when the native officials were jealous of foreign interference, and it appeared that slavery and the slave trade of the White Nile were institutions almost necessary to the existence of Egyptian society.