The secretary of the treasury informs ʿUthmān Diqna that fifty camels carrying ivory, accompanied by fifty men from the awlād al-ʿarab (Westerners) and the jihādiyya (slave soldiers) have arrived to Tūkar. They carried letters from Omdurman, stating that the administration in Tūkar should help them. Three days later, three letters arrived in the post from Berber. The letters explained that a man named Yūsuf Sulaymān has been appointed to fight the contraband ivory. The second and third letters deal with a smuggler name Muṣṭafā al-Nāʾim. As it happens, the latter was in Handūb, the other Mahdist station in Eastern Sudan. They arrested him, and seized the ivory in Tūkar, and are awaiting for Yūsuf Sulaymān’s confirmation that it is legal.
05/08/1307
