tion; he then had the survivors unshod, and consigned them to the care of a medical man." It must be said for Mahomet Ali that these atrocities were not perpetrated with his authority or connivance, and that at last he deposed this ruthless tyrant, and had him put to death; but Egypt remains a heavy and fatal incubus upon the prosperity of Kordofan. The government is now more lenient; but in a province so distant and inaccessible as Kordofan, there must always be a wide field for the abuse of local authority, and the system pursued continues to be one which tends not to enrich the country, but to drain it of its resources. The people are reduced to abject poverty by duties and imposts of every description; and the old proverb, "Where a Turk sets his foot, no grass will grow," is here fully exemplified. The province is now governed by the Bey, or colonel, of the first regiment of the line; and all inferior government stations are obtained by purchase, the highest bidder among the candidates obtaining the vacant post. The consequence, of course, is, that every officer avails himself of his position to extort as much as possible, in order to reimburse himself for this original outlay, so that when a contribution is ordered to be levied from Cairo, double the amount is usually exacted. Mahomet Ali knows this, and has tried to enforce a more just administration, but without success. A commission of inquiry sent into the, province in 1838, checked the abuse for a time, but for a time only, the system remaining unchanged; partly, perhaps, because Mahomet Ali feels the necessity of a cautious policy with the governors of these distant provinces. He knows that a revolt in Sennaar and Kordofan, now that the natives have become accustomed to the use of firearms, could only be subdued with an enormous sacrifice of troops: the governors are, therefore, for all merely local objects, practically independent; and finding themselves rarely interfered with, they substitute arbitrary will for the laws and institutions of Mahomet Ali, and exercise a more despotic power over life and property than the viceroy himself. Abuses of local administration, however, sink into shade when seen by the lurid light of the horrid slave hunts for which Mahomet Ali is alone responsible. Pallme, who is in some sort an apologist for the viceroy when any fair excuse presents itself, pleads for Mahomet Ali that a true account of the inhuman deeds committed in his name on these occasions never reaches him, all the parties employed being too deeply criminated to make a faithful report: but common humanity and a slave hunt are inconvertible terms, and by no effort of the imagination could the ruler of Egypt deceive himself as to the true character of these expeditions. Pallme describes a slave hunt organized in the years 1838 and 1839, when the province of Kordofan was ordered to contribute 5,000 slaves. The slaves were to be procured from the mountains of Nubia, inhabited by independent tribes. The inhabitants of the first hill attacked surrendered; those of the second had fled, leaving nothing behind them but their huts, which were instantly fired and burnt to the ground. The "And now the march was continued to the third hill. The inhabitants of this village had formed the firm resolution of defending their freedom to the uttermost; and, determined to suffer death rather than the horror of Turkish captivity, had prepared for a most obstinate resistance. The hill was charged, but the troops were several times repulsed; the attacks, however, were renewed, and the village was ultimately taken by storm. scene which now presented itself to view was frightful in the extreme. Of five hundred souls who had been the peaceful inhabitants of the village, one hundred and eighty-eight only were found living. Every hut was filled with the bodies of the aged and the young indiscriminately, for those who had not fallen by the sword in battle, had put themselves to death to elude the dreadful fate of captivity. The prisoners were led away; and the place was given up to the soldiery for plunder, but the dead were left disinterred. A fearful scene for the few who were fortunate enough to escape the carnage by flight! Nothing but the dead bodies of their friends and the ashes of their homes met their eyes on their return! AFAR IN THE DESERT BY PRINGLE. AFAR in the desert I love to ride The home of my childhood, the haunts of my prime, With a sadness of heart which no stranger may scan, Afar in the desert I love to ride With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; With the scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife; There is rapture to vault on the champing steed, Afar in the desert I love to ride, With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side; Where the white man's foot hath never passed, Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear, A region of drouth where no river glides, And here, while the night winds around me sigh, As I sit afar by the desert stone, Like Elijah by Horeb's cave alone, A still small voice comes through the wild, |