In hunting for these gangs of slaves, it was a subject of deep regret to Gordon that often his action only tended to increase their sufferings. In the Central African deserts there are only a few wells, at long intervals, and the poor captives suffered terrible thirst on the march from well to well. But the surest way of intercepting the gangs was to hold the wells. When the slave-dealers knew that a certain well on which they were marching was held by Gordon, they would make a detour in order to avoid him, and their unfortunate victims would be kept from quenching their thirst for unusually long periods, with the result that many would succumb to the appalling heat. If a slave exhibited great exhaustion, and showed little chance of being able to reach the next halting-place, the drivers would not even trouble to waste a round of ammunition, but, unchaining the victim, would kill him by a blow on the back of the neck with a mallet or a piece of wood, and leave his body where it lay, to feed the vultures. Often young girls, and even infants, were marched through deserts, through which Gordon declared that he shuddered to contemplate a journey on his fleet-footed camel. It was with truth that Burns said-- "Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." Some of the slave traders had become very rich, and one of them, Zebehr Rahama, now in captivity in Gibraltar, had become so powerful that even the Khedive dared not molest him. His field of operations lying at a considerable distance from Gordon's province, these two did not come in contact, until the latter was made Governor-General of the whole of the Soudan, and so it is not at the present time necessary to do more than merely allude to him as the king of slave hunters. Many more carried on a successful business, and some of them conducted their operations in the Equatorial Province; and it is hardly necessary to say that the first thing the new governor did was to break up the organisations of these men. He was only appointed in Cairo during the month of February, and after that time he had to spend many weary days and nights in travelling. But in June we find him seizing an Arab dealer named Nassar, at the head of a large convoy of slaves, and casting him into prison. By this brilliant stroke he not only got possession of a well-known culprit, but struck terror into the hearts of smaller dealers. But, as in the case of the Taiping rebels, whom he at once turned into soldiers to fight for him, so Nassar was enlisted into his service. "Do you know," he wrote, "I have forgiven the head slaver Nassar, and am employing him; he is not worse than others, and these slavers have been much encouraged to do what they have done. He is a first-rate man, and does a great deal of work. He was in prison for two weeks, and was then forgiven." Other quotations could be made from his letters showing that he had formed a high opinion of the abilities of