“We believed when we volunteered for this work that we should be met with open arms. We were received with indifference, until we were lead to doubt whether any people wished to depart. My representative was made a prisoner, menaced with rifles, threats were freely used. The Pasha was deposed, and for three months was a close prisoner. I am told this is the third revolt in the Province. Well, in the face of all this, we have waited nearly twelve months to obtain the few hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children in this camp. As I promised Selim Bey and his officers that I would give a reasonable time, Selim Bey and his officers repeatedly promised to us there should be no delay. The Pasha has already fixed April 10th, which extended their time to forty-four days, sufficient for three round voyages for each steamer. The news brought to-day is not that Selim Bey is close to here, but that he has not started from Wadelai yet. “In addition to his own friends, who are said to be loyal and obedient to him, he brings the ten rebel officers, and some six hundred or seven hundred soldiers, their faction. “Remembering the three revolts which these same officers have inspired, their pronounced intentions against this Expedition, their plots and counterplots, the life of conspiracy and smiling treachery they have led, we may well pause to consider what object principally animates them now--that from being ungovernably rebellious against all constituted authority, they have suddenly become obedient and loyal soldiers of the Khedive and his ‘Great Government.’ You must be aware that, exclusive of the thirty-one boxes of ammunition delivered to the Pasha by us in May, 1888, the rebels possess ammunition of the Provincial Government equal to twenty of our cases. We are bound to credit them with intelligence enough to perceive that such a small supply would be fired in an hour’s fighting among so many rifles, and that only a show of submission and apparent loyalty will ensure a further supply from us. Though the Pasha brightens up each time he obtains a plausible letter from these people, strangers like we are may also be forgiven for not readily trusting those men whom they have such good cause to mistrust. Could we have some guarantee of good faith, there could be no objection to delivering to them all they required: that is, with the permission of the Pasha. Can we be certain, however, that if we admit them into this camp as good friends and loyal soldiers of Egypt, they will not rise up some night and possess themselves of all the ammunition, and so deprive us of the power of returning to Zanzibar? It would be a very easy matter for them to do so, after they had acquired the knowledge of the rules of the camp.