This volume--"Ismailia"--gives an accurate description of the salient points of the expedition. My thanks are due to the public for the kind reception of the work, and for the general appreciation of the spirit which prompted me to undertake a mission so utterly opposed to the Egyptian ideas of 1869-1873; at a time when no Englishman had held a high command, when rival consulates were struggling for paramount influence, when the native officials were jealous of foreign interference, and it appeared that slavery and the slave trade of the White Nile were institutions almost necessary to the existence of Egyptian society. It was obvious to all observers that an attack upon the slave-dealing and slave-hunting establishments of Egypt by a foreigner--an Englishman--would be equal to a raid upon a hornets' nest, that all efforts to suppress the old-established traffic in negro slaves would be encountered with a determined opposition, and that the prime agent and leader of such an expedition must be regarded "with hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness." At that period (1869) the highest authorities were adverse to the attempt. An official notice was despatched from the British Foreign Office to the Consul-General of Egypt that British subjects belonging to Sir Samuel Baker's expedition must not expect the support of their government in the event of complications. The enterprise was generally regarded as chimerical in Europe, with hostility in Egypt, but with sympathy in America. Those who have read "Ismailia" may have felt some despondency. Although the slave-hunters were driven out of the territory under my command, there were nevertheless vast tracts of country through which new routes could be opened for the slave caravans to avoid the cruising steamers on the White Nile, and thus defeat the government. The Sultan of Darfur offered an asylum and a secure passage for all slaves and their captors who could no longer venture within the new boundaries of Egypt. It was evident that the result of the expedition under my command was a death-blow to the slave trade, if the Khedive was determined to persist in its destruction. I had simply achieved the success of a foundation for a radical reform in the so-called commerce of the White Nile. The government had been established throughout the newly-acquired territories, which were occupied by military positions garrisoned with regular troops, and all those districts were absolutely purged from the slave-hunters. In this condition I resigned my command, as the first act was accomplished. The future would depend upon the sincerity of the Khedive, and upon the ability and integrity of my successor.