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[^0]:    8 It is likely that he crossed lake Abbe (Abhe Bad) on his way from his hometown to Djibouti, since the lake is located in the middle of the journey and was, most likely, used as a slaving route.
9 Most probably, the raiders were afraid of being caught, given the general prohibition of the black slave trade in 1857. But Erdem also notes that, despite the ŞeriI, injunctions and new legislation of the reform era, kidnapping, especially on a small-scale, individual level, continued in the Empire so long as there was a demand for slaves (1996, pp. 47,107).
10 One can acknowledge that the tides in Djibouti are common natural events.
11 As Toledano states, 'Jidda was then a Red Sea slaving port and one of the main gateways to the Hijaz and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina' (2007, p. 117).  
An Ottoman sharif named Avnüreffik ${ }^{12}$ then sent him to the palace upon the request of the Sultan Abdülhamid II who had asked for Abyssinian eunuchs. ${ }^{13}$ They sailed towards Istanbul. The journey lasted months since they stopped at different ports in order to recruit soldiers, finally arriving at the port of Sirkeci in Istanbul. This second passage through the Mediterranean took place on board a ship named Kamil Paşa. ${ }^{14}$ They went hungry because they ran out of provisions. When they arrived in Istanbul, it was snowing and they could not stop themselves from eating snowflakes. Nadir Agha states that his entrance into the palace was not incidental. The reason behind the Sultan's demand for Ethiopian eunuchs related to events involving two Sudanese eunuchs and the death of one of them. ${ }^{15}$ According to Nadir Agha, after this event, the Sultan only wanted to acquire slaves who did not know any Turkish so that they could not communicate with the other slaves of the palace. Nadir Agha must have been castrated at some point during this part of the journey into enslavement but he does not mention it either in his memoir or in the interviews. ${ }^{16}$