"It is in this spirit that Périères, Delange, and I, full of confidence and utterly devoid of fear, more daring and audacious day by day, are undertaking the conquest of Africa. It may rebuff us, may weary us, may terrify us with hardships, but we shall merely halt, rest a while, to-day at Berber, to-morrow at Khartoum, troubled only by the eager longing to go onward, to surmount fresh obstacles, to brave new dangers, and attain our settled goal. "Do not think from all this, my dear fellow, that the town where we are is an Eden. This halt is pleasurable solely by comparison with the recent ones we have made in the desert. Berber consists simply of a long string of rather low-pitched houses, situate on the right bank of the Nile—a collection of shops and stalls, where European merchandize is exposed for sale at ruinous prices. The market, or bazaar, is very badly supplied, and it is with considerable difficulty that we succeeded in laying in the stock of provisions necessary for us during our journey as far as Khartoum. Fortunately for us, a French merchant, standing very high in these parts, and courteous to a degree, placed himself completely at our disposal, and smoothed away all our difficulties. Thanks to his kind offices, we have chartered a large vessel in which to ascend the Nile, and, acting on his good advice, after getting rid of our camels and their drivers, instead of parting also with our horses we have added some more to our stable. We shall in this way perform our journey, half by land, and half by water—on the Nile so long as it has any features of interest—on horseback, whenever our maps tell us that there is anything worth seeing in the neighbourhood. CHAPTER XXXVII. "Our vessel is one of eighty tons, and we muster in all, masters, servants and crew, twenty-five souls. We certainly cannot complain, seeing that most of the boats on the Nile carry a hundred people, all told, without mentioning those which are laden with a cargo of two or three hundred slaves, packed together like herrings in a barrel, or perched like fowls on planks laid horizontally from one mast to the other. "Happily we shall not meet on the river with any vessel employed in the slave trade. Baker is at this moment at Gondokoro with his river police. His is a noble task, but it will not have the results anticipated from it, so long as he does not exercise the same amount of surveillance over the land routes that he does on the Nile. The Governor of Kordofan, I am told, has in this present year allowed more than five hundred slave-dealers to pass through his territory. The majority of these _moudirs_ are slave-dealers themselves, and so far from hindering the traffic, against which Baker is protesting so energetically, they encourage and protect it.