In 1863, the great Scottish explorer James Augustus Grant (1827 – 1892) visited Khartoum in his way from the Great Nile Basin in what is now Uganda, and stayed in in two weeks from 30 March to 15 April 1963. He, accompanied by the English explorer, John Hanning Speke (1827 – 1864), the discoverer of Lake Victoria, had a tour throughout the town guided by one Ali Bey, “a liberal-minded Mussulman”, who took him to visit the Coptic church, amongst others, where he was met by Gabriel, head of the Coptic Church in Khartoum. There he was told that the Coptic congregation in Khartoum was about five hundred persons.[1]
Here then we have the Coptic population in Khartoum in 1863 estimated at around 500 souls. In 1842, as we have seen in the 1843 letter by Fr. Luigi Montouri that they numbered 200 individuals.[2]
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[1] James Augustus Grant, A Walk Across Africa: or, domestic scenes from my Nile journal (Edinburgh, London, 1864), p. 415.
[2] Dioscorus Boles: The Coptic population of Khartoum in 1842 according to the Italian missionary Fr. Luigi Montouri (July 29, 2020).