The mission of which Sir Samuel Baker gives a graphic account in his ‘Ismailia’ is one which was the first serious effort to put a stop to the slave-trade by an expedition up the country. Hitherto all that had been done was an attempt to blockade the coast and prevent the export of slaves. In this way English cruisers had effected an amount of good for which the whole civilised world has reason to be grateful. But their work was very limited. It was not difficult to run the blockade, and the enormous profit made it worth while to incur a little risk. Even if they could have prevented a single slaver from crossing the sea, they would not have done much towards stopping the traffic; it was like healing the surface of a cancer the roots of which ran far down into the system. The real work had to be done in the interior of Africa, the disease reached the very heart of the country. Sir Samuel Baker's expedition was an attempt to suppress the slave-trade on the White Nile and the adjoining countries. No limits were assigned to his operations, but from the very nature of things he could not attempt to embrace the whole African continent. It was the stream of emigration which passed from the neighbourhood of the Great Lakes by way of Darfur and Kordofan overland and by water down the White Nile that he undertook to encounter.