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Formerly all this part of Africa was considered very wild, barbarous, and dangerous to the traveller. But since it has been brought under the rule of the Egyptian government, the people have been forced to respect the lives and property of strangers, and travelling has become comparatively safe. I soon grew so accustomed to the ways of the inhabitants that by the time I reached Khartoum I felt quite at home among them. My experience had already taught me that, where a traveller was badly treated, it was generally his own fault. You must not despise a people because they are ignorant, because their habits are different, or because they sometimes annoy you by a natural curiosity. I found that by acting in a kind yet firm manner towards them, and preserving my patience and good-nature, even when it was tried by their slow and careless ways, I avoided all trouble, and even acquired their friendly good-will.

When I reached Khartoum, the Austrian Consul invited me to his house; and there I spent three or four weeks in that strange town, making acquaintance with the Egyptian officers, the chiefs of the desert tribes, and the former kings of the different countries of Ethiopia. When I left my boat, on arriving, and walked through the narrow streets of Khartoum, between mud walls, very few of which were even whitewashed, I thought it a miserable place, and began to look out for some garden where I might pitch my tent, rather than live in one of those dirty-looking habitations. The wall around the Consul’s house was of mud like the others; but when I entered I found clean, handsome rooms which furnished delightful shade and coolness during the heat of the day. The roof was of palm-logs, covered with mud, which the sun baked into a hard mass, so that the house was in reality as good as a brick dwelling. It was a great deal more comfortable than it appeared from the outside.