Many travellers who have visited the East, and more especially Egypt, justly mention the humanity with which slaves are treated in these countries, but few persons are probably acquainted with the inhuman manner in which these miserable beings are led into captivity. The treatment they meet with among the Turks, Arabs, and other eastern nations, certainly is an indemnification, although a very frail one, for the loss of their liberty; but unfortunately only a small number of these poor wretches live to enjoy even this slight benefit, for more than one half of them fall victims to barbarous and cruel treatment before they reach the place of their destination. The Viceroy of Egypt institutes annually, once or twice in the course of the year, an actual hunt in the mountains of Nuba, and in the bordering countries, and seizes upon a certain number of the negroes by stratagem or force, in order either to pay the arrears due to his troops in Kordofan with these unfortunate men, instead of with ready money, or to increase his revenue by the sale of his fellow creatures. I must leave it to the kind judgment of my readers whether an apology for such a proceeding is to be found, and abstain myself from any observation on the subject, as the object of my sketch is simply to give a correct description of the slave-hunts as conducted by Mehemed Ali. Several European journals have stated that these marauding expeditions were put an end to by command of the viceroy on the occasion of his visit to Sennaar, but I can assure the reader that the order was “_vox et præterea nihil_,” and that these robberies take place as before even at the present day. No pen can describe the acts of deliberate cruelty perpetrated on these occasions, revolting atrocities which I am sure that Mehemed Ali, were he acquainted with the particulars, would visit on the heads of his officers, notwithstanding that they are committed in his interest and in his service; unfortunately, however, the distance of this ill-fated province is too great from the seat of justice for the cries of the afflicted to reach his ear, and those whose duty it would be to report these inhuman deeds, are too deeply criminated themselves. The burden of this sanguinary fate falls most heavily upon the miserable inhabitants of the Nuba mountains. In the year 1825, four years, therefore, after the conquest, the number of slaves which had been led away into captivity was estimated at forty thousand; and in the year 1839 the total number amounted at least to two hundred thousand, without reckoning the thousands stolen by the Bakkara and bought by the Djelabi. As soon as the rainy season is concluded, the arrangements for the marauding excursion called gasua[87] are made, and the necessary number of camels are pressed into service. Of the multitude of animals required an estimate may be formed, by considering that every infantry soldier is provided with a camel to mount, and that their total amount is nearly doubled