Chapter 6

"Not for thisWas common clay ta'en from the common earth,Moulded by God, and tempered with the tearsOf angels, to the perfect shape of man!"

"Not for this

Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,

Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears

Of angels, to the perfect shape of man!"

The unfortunate captives were chained together to prevent escape, and often the fastenings were secured in a way so unnecessarily cruel, that they had great difficulty in securing any sleep, either at night or during the day when the periodical halts were made. Indeed the ordinary precautions that we take in the convoy of large herds of cattle were generally neglected. This is all the more surprising when we consider what great trouble these men took to secure their victims; one would have thought that self-interest at least would often have dictated a more humane policy, but it does not appear to have been so.

In hunting for these gangs of slaves, it was a subject of deep regret to Gordon that often his action only tended to increase their sufferings. In the Central African deserts there are only a few wells, at long intervals, and the poor captives suffered terrible thirst on the march from well to well. But the surest way of intercepting the gangs was to hold the wells. When the slave-dealers knew that a certain well on which they were marching was held by Gordon, they would make a detour in order to avoid him, and their unfortunate victims would be kept from quenching their thirst for unusually long periods, with the result that many would succumb to the appalling heat. If a slave exhibited great exhaustion, and showed little chance of being able to reach the next halting-place, the drivers would not even trouble to waste a round of ammunition, but, unchaining the victim, would kill him by a blow on the back of the neck with a mallet or a piece of wood, and leave his body where it lay, to feed the vultures. Often young girls, and even infants, were marched through deserts, through which Gordon declared that he shuddered to contemplate a journey on his fleet-footed camel. It was with truth that Burns said—

"Man's inhumanity to manMakes countless thousands mourn."

"Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn."

Some of the slave traders had become very rich, and one of them, Zebehr Rahama, now in captivity in Gibraltar, had become so powerful that even the Khedive dared not molest him. His field of operations lying at a considerable distance from Gordon's province, these two did not come in contact, until the latter was made Governor-General of the whole of the Soudan, and so it is not at the present time necessary to do more than merely allude to him as the king of slave hunters. Many more carried on a successful business, and some of them conducted their operations in the Equatorial Province; and it is hardly necessary to say that the first thing the new governor did was to break up the organisations of these men. He was only appointed in Cairo during the month of February, and after that time he had to spend many weary days and nights in travelling. But in June we find him seizing an Arab dealer named Nassar, at the head of a large convoy of slaves, and casting him into prison. By this brilliant stroke he not only got possession of a well-known culprit, but struck terror into the hearts of smaller dealers. But, as in the case of the Taiping rebels, whom he at once turned into soldiers to fight for him, so Nassar was enlisted into his service. "Do you know," he wrote, "I have forgiven the head slaver Nassar, and am employing him; he is not worse than others, and these slavers have been much encouraged to do what they have done. He is a first-rate man, and does a great deal of work. He was in prison for two weeks, and was then forgiven." Other quotations could be made from his letters showing that he had formed a high opinion of the abilities of the Arabs engaged in slave dealing, with a correspondingly low one of the Egyptian soldiers who were employed to put them down. The Arabs were enterprising, plucky fellows, with the spirit of a man in them, whereas the soldiers were a cowardly and contemptible lot. When in large numbers, they used to ill-treat and bully the natives, who consequently took every opportunity of retaliating. Gordon, with his quick perception, saw that the best way to remedy this was to scatter the soldiers about in small detachments, just strong enough to defend their posts, but not to take advantage of the people:—

"I have the garrisons small on purpose to make them keep awake; and it has its effect, for they are all in a fearful fright along the line. I cannot help feeling somewhat of a malicious enjoyment of their sufferings. If I personally am at any station, even if there are thirty or forty men there, the sentries all go to sleep in comfort. Not so in my absence; every one is awake, I expect. Having nothing to do—or rather not doing anything, though there is plenty to be done—they sit and talk over the terrors of their position, until they tremble again. I never in the course of my life saw such wretched creatures dignified by the name of soldiers. Fortunately, though I can do the work of the province without an interpreter, I cannot speak to the men except by my looks, or tell them my opinion in words, though my letters are pretty strong."

The results of this policy were excellent. Not only were the garrisons kept on the alert and prevented from oppressing the people, but the country was opened up and travelling rendered safer. Writing home, Gordon says:—

"It is such a comfort having my roads open. One man came down from Bedden to-day alone. Before I came it would have needed thirty or at least twenty men to go along this route. The blacks would have concealed themselves in the grass, and stuck a spear into the hinder-most man; now they are quite friendly. A Bari in my employment stole a sheep yesterday, and down came the natives to complain and have justice, which they got. Is it not comfortable? All this has effected a great change among my men. They no longer fear the blacks as they did, and altogether a much better feeling exists. Going up to Kerri, where in September last the convoy of Kemp was harassed all the route, I went on alone with four or five soldiers behind me, and never felt the least apprehension; for the natives talk much amongst themselves, and the virgin tribes had heard we were not to be feared, and that their cattle was safe from pillage. A year ago an escort of five or six soldiers used to accompany each nuggar either coming up or down. Even the steamers carried an escort of the same number. Now not one soldier either goes with one or the other. This has prevented all pillagingen route, for our people dare not do it now, not having the escort of soldiers."

In spite of his contempt for the soldiers under him, he treated them kindly and made great efforts to improve them. Now and then he would give them a magic-lantern lecture, and in other ways try to benefit them mentally and morally. No doubt in this he succeeded to a great extent, and at all events he had the satisfaction of feeling that he was liked by them. In another letter he says:—

"The men and officers like my justice, candour, and my outbursts of temper, and see that I am not a tyrant. Over two years we have lived intimately together, and they watch me closely. I am glad that they do so. My wish and desire is that all should be as happy as it rests with me to make them, and though I feel sure that I am unjust sometimes, it is not the rule with me to be so. I care for their marches, for their wants and food, and protect their women and boys if they ill-treat them; and I do nothing of this. I am a chisel which cuts the wood; the Carpenter directs it. If I lose my edge, He must sharpen me; if He puts me aside and takes another, it is His own good will. None are indispensable to Him; He will do His work with a straw equally as well."

Gordon had not been long in his province when he saw that the only effectual way to abolish slavery was to open up the country, and encourage traders by making it safe for them to travel about. Much as he did personally to punish slave-hunting, and to break up gangs of men so engaged, he always considered that his best efforts should be devoted to the opening up of the country for trade. At the time he was there, and now also, the leading men were all more or less engaged in slave-hunting, and no one dared to say a word against them. Gordon wanted to introduce an independent class of traders, who would soon be sufficiently powerful to give evidence against the leaders of the slave-hunting system. His desire afterwards to serve the King of the Belgians in the Congo territory was with the object of developing trade, and thus ultimately of preventing slave-dealing. With regard to Egypt, he formed his ideas during the first year he was in the country, and he steadily adhered to them to the end. Writing from Tultcha, on 17th November 1873, he says:—

"I believe if the Soudan was settled, the Khedive would prevent the slave trade; but he does not see his way to do so till he can move about the country. My ideas are to open it out by getting the steamers on to the lakes, by which time I should know the promoters of the slave trade and could ask the Khedive to seize them." And again: "God has allowed slavery to go on for so many years; born in the people, it needs more than an expedition to eradicate it; open out the country, and it will fall of itself."

Though he was not permitted during his life to see much permanent result from his arduous labours, yet far from his efforts having been in vain, he it was who revived in Europe an interest in the subject, and conclusions arrived at by the recent Anti-Slavery Conference, at Brussels, clearly indicate that the more thoughtful philanthropists who are moving in the matter recognise that the lines he laid down are the right ones to follow. The number of years that he was permitted to devote to this struggle with slavery were not many, but the seeds were sown which will bring forth a rich harvest in the future. In that noble crusade, which he undertook single-handed against tyranny and oppression, he supplied the best possible answer to the cynic's question whether or not life is worth living:—

"Is Life worth living? Yes, so longAs there is wrong to right,Wail of the weak against the strong,Or tyranny to fight;Long as there lingers gloom to chaseOr streaming tear to dry,One kindred woe, one sorrowing face,That smiles as we draw nigh."7

"Is Life worth living? Yes, so long

As there is wrong to right,

Wail of the weak against the strong,

Or tyranny to fight;

Long as there lingers gloom to chase

Or streaming tear to dry,

One kindred woe, one sorrowing face,

That smiles as we draw nigh."7

Not only had Gordon to contend with the slave trade, corrupt officials, an unsympathetic government at Cairo, and incompetent troops, but to add to his troubles his staff broke down with sickness and even death, while he for the first time in his life suffered from ague and liver disorders. Here are descriptions of the climate from some of his letters:—

"This is a horrid climate. I seldom, if ever, get a good sleep. It is a very great comfort to feel that God will rectify one's defects in this life, and make right all mistakes, also that He governs everything. Is it my present temperament, or is it truly the case that things go untowardly more in this land than anywhere else? You wrap up an article in paper, the paper is sure to tear, the string you least want to be broken is broken; every,everything seems to go wrong. It may be my liver which makes me think this, but it has been the same with all travellers." ... "The mosquitoes are horrible here; the proboscis is formed like a bayonet, with a hinge at the bend; they turn it down for perforation and press on it with their head, muscles, and chest. I am very susceptible of their bite or dig; the least touch of the 'bayonet' makes a lump."... "Variety is pleasing! Got away from mosquitoes to find sand-flies and harvest-bugs instead. However, they are quiet by day, and here there are no flies with irritating feet. There must be some wonderful mystery about this life. Why should these countries be so full of annoyances to man? Why should even the alighting of a fly,his footprints, cause such irritation to the skin. It must be for some good object eventually to be made known to us."

... "Variety is pleasing! Got away from mosquitoes to find sand-flies and harvest-bugs instead. However, they are quiet by day, and here there are no flies with irritating feet. There must be some wonderful mystery about this life. Why should these countries be so full of annoyances to man? Why should even the alighting of a fly,his footprints, cause such irritation to the skin. It must be for some good object eventually to be made known to us."

Most of Gordon's efforts were directed to the abolition of slavery, and the amelioration of the sufferings of the people he governed, but as an explorer and a surveyor he also did good work, and he might, had he cared for such distinctions, have received honours from the Royal Geographical Society. Though suffering a good deal from sickness and from mental worries, he endeavoured to explore the seventy miles of country between Foweira and the Albert Nyanza. In one of his letters he says:—

"It was contended that the Nile did not flow out of Lake Victoria and thence into Lake Albert and so northward, but that one river flowed out of Lake Victoria and another out of Lake Albert; and that these two rivers united and formed the Nile. This statement could not be positively denied, inasmuch as no one had actually gone along the river from Foweira to Hagungo. So I went along it with much suffering, and settled the question."

As he did not personally come into contact with M'tesa, the King of Uganda, it is not necessary to do more than mention the fact that this strange monarch wrote a letter to him, and even asked him to plant a stockade for his troops within Uganda territory. Gordon, however, did not trust M'tesa, and at one time, on account of some misbehaviour on the part of that monarch, even contemplated attacking him. But Mr. Stanley, the great explorer, sent a vigorous protest against any aggression on the part of a Christian representative, even of a Moslem Government, towards a newly Christianised state, if one may apply that term to Uganda. Gordon evidently recognised the wisdom of Stanley's contention, for the attack was never made, and Stanley received from Gordon a letter giving him much information.

Gordon reached Lake Albert at the end of July 1876, and from then till he left to return home he was busily engaged in surveying the country, wading through rivers, cutting his way through dense jungles, encountering natives armed with assegais, and in other ways risking his valuable life, all for the sake of his fellow-creatures, and in the hope of ultimately opening up the country. Was there ever a man more strongly actuated by the spirit of altruism?

His three years were drawing to a close, and not having received the support he thought he deserved, he decided to leave the service of the Khedive. On October 6th he commenced his journey, and by Christmas Eve of that year he had reached England.

CHAPTER XI

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SOUDAN

Colonel Gordon's visit to England was a very short one, for no sooner did the Khedive Ismail realise the fact that such an able public servant had definitely decided to quit his service, than he wrote imploring him to return on his own terms, which were nothing less than that he should be invested with the Governor-Generalship of the whole Soudan, including the Equatorial Province, over which he had for three years ruled. The Khedive was sufficiently wide awake to know what an able, conscientious servant he had in Gordon, and, cost what it might, was determined not to lose him. The truth of the matter was that Gordon had made himself indispensable to the Khedive, and when a man does that he may practically demand his own terms. His heart was thoroughly in the work, and the only reason for his having resigned was that he was disgusted with Ismail Yacoob, the Governor-General of the Soudan, who, although Gordon was not under him, was from his position in many ways able to hamper his reforms. The Khedive wisely decided to recall Ismail Yacoob from Khartoum, and to put Colonel Gordon in his place. "Setting a just value," wrote the Khedive, "on your honourable character, on your zeal, and on the great services that you have already done me, I have resolved to bring the Soudan, Darfour, and the provinces of the Equator, into one great province, and to place it under you as Governor-General. As the country which you are thus to govern is so vast, you must have beneath you three vakeels (or deputy governors): the first for the Soudan properly so called, the second for Darfour, and the third for the shores of the Red Sea and the Eastern Soudan." Thus, at the age of forty-four, Gordon had committed to his charge the absolute control, including power over life and death, over a province as large as France, Germany, and Spain together! He had already served the Khedive for three years in the unhealthy Equatorial Province, and now he was to govern for nearly three years more this larger and still more unwieldy province, his reign only ceasing with the abdication of Ismail.

When Gordon left England for Cairo, the appointment had not been conferred upon him. He merely went out to see the Khedive, and it was not till February 13, 1877, that the matter was finally decided. Writing home in reference to the Khedive's kindness, he quotes that text, "Ask of me, and I will give thee to the half of my kingdom," and then he goes on to say:—

"And now for the reverse of the medal. It is the sacrifice of alivinglife. To give your life to be taken at once, is one thing; to give a life such as is before me is another and more trying ordeal. I have set my face to the work, and will give my life to it. I feel as if I had nought to do with the Government. God must undertake the work.... I think how many would be weighed down by this immense charge; how they would shrink from accepting it without some other help, for fear of their reputation. But for me, I never gave the question a thought. I feel sure of success; for I do not lean on my own understanding, and He directs my path."

On March 19th he writes with regard to his grand escort:—

"Here I met two hundred cavalry and infantry, who had come to meet us. I am most carefully guarded—at six yards' radius round the tree where I am sitting are six or eight sentries, and the other men are in a circle round them. Now, just imagine this, and put yourself in my position. However, I know they will all go to sleep, so I do not fret myself. I can say truly, no man has ever been so forced into a high position as I have. How many I know to whom the incense would be the breath of their nostrils. To me it is irksome beyond measure. Eight or ten men to help me off my camel! as if I were an invalid. If I walk, every one gets off and walks; so, furious, I get on again."

After being appointed Governor-General of the Soudan, the first thing Colonel Gordon did was to attempt to bring about a definite peace between the Khedive and the King of Abyssinia, whose territory adjoins the Soudan. It will be remembered that in the year 1868 an English expedition, under the late Lord (then Sir Robert) Napier, went against Theodore, King of Abyssinia, to punish him for imprisoning and ill-treating British subjects. Being defeated, that monarch committed suicide. Before his defeat, as he was much hated, some of his chieftains had broken into open revolt, and one of them had proclaimed himself king of a certain province. Sir Robert Napier presented this chieftain with four guns and a thousand rifles, and this recognition on the part of the conquerors enabled the chief in question to mount the Abyssinian throne, taking for himself the name of Johannis.

In 1874 a Swiss adventurer, who was at that time governor of Massowah, under the Khedive, seized Bogos, a piece of territory belonging to Abyssinia, and held it for his master, at the same time urging him to add another province, that of Hamaçen, to his ill-gotten gains. At this time the Khedive was rich, having just received £4,000,000 from the British Government for the Suez Canal shares, and instead of spending the money in developing the resources of the territory he already possessed, he was ill advised enough to go to war, and got defeated. Foremost among the Abyssinians in the conflict was Walad el Michael, the hereditary prince of Bogos and Hamaçen, who before the war was imprisoned for having sought the aid of Napoleon III. against the Abyssinian king. He was released at the commencement of hostilities, and proved very successful. But, having defeated the Egyptians, Walad got disgusted with the Abyssinian king for depriving him of his share of the spoils of war, and consequently, when the Egyptians in 1876 sought to avenge their defeat, Walad turned against his own king. The Egyptians were however again defeated, 9000 of them being killed, and an enormous number taken prisoners. The spoils of war were great, for all the Egyptian tents, twenty-five guns, 10,000 rifles, and a large amount of English gold, were captured by the Abyssinians. So ignorant were they of the value of this spoil, that they mistook English sovereigns for brass counters, and thirty of them were sold for four dollars! The Abyssinian king was so incensed at the conduct of Walad, who had 7000 men and 700 rifles, that, as one of the conditions of peace, he demanded that the Khedive should give him up. This of course the Khedive could not do, and a long delay followed, during which the Abyssinian monarch sent an envoy to Cairo. But the Khedive treated the envoy badly, and he, rightly or wrongly, imagined that his life was in danger. He managed to get away, and the ill-feeling between the two monarchs was intense when Colonel Gordon arrived on the scene. Just at this time the great bulk of the Egyptian troops were required for the Turkish war against the Russians, and Gordon was left helpless, as he had not sufficient force with him to compel Walad to cease his intermittent attacks on Abyssinia.

Seeing the hopelessness of his position, Gordon decided to waste no more time over the question, more especially as he had not yet been to Khartoum, the capital of his huge province, to take up his duties, and all the time there was a revolt going on in Darfour, on the extreme west of his dominion. Having once made up his mind, he lost no time in getting to Khartoum, leaving Walad to be dealt with at his leisure later on. On reaching Khartoum, which he did by travelling forty-five miles a day in the extremely hot months of April and May, he had to submit to the ordeal of installation. It was on this occasion, after the firman had been read and the royal salute had been fired, that he made the memorable speech which so delighted the people, and which may be summed up in one sentence that he made use of, "With the help of God I will hold the balance level." By this he meant to say, that as long as he was Governor-General there should be none of the cruel, grinding tyranny that had existed in the time of his predecessor. It may be well here, anticipating events, to illustrate the desperate condition of the people under the tyranny of the Egyptian rule. Mr. Frank Power, correspondent of theTimes, in a private letter to his mother in the year 1884, describes the way in which the poor people were ground down with taxation. He says:—

"Every Arab must pay a tax for himself, children, and wife or wives. This he has to pay three times over—once for the Khedive, once for the tax collector or local Beys, and once for the Governor-General. The last two are illegal, but still scrupulously collected to the piastre. To pay this he must grow some corn, and for the privilege of growing corn he must pay £3 per annum. To grow corn the desert earth must have water: the means of irrigation is a 'Sakeh,' a wheel like a mill-wheel with buckets on it, which raise the water into a trough, and then it flows in little streams over the land. A sakeh is turned by two oxen. Every man who uses a sakeh must pay £7: if he does not use it, he must go into prison for life, and have his hut burned. Every one must pay for the right of working to earn money; every one must pay if they are idle; in any case every one must pay to make the officials rich. If you have a trading boat, you are fined £4 if you do not continually fly the Egyptian flag, and you must pay £4 for the privilege of flying it."

In another letter he says:—

"If they wish to grow corn they must pay for permission to do so, pay for liberty to take water from the broad Nile, and pay for liberty to sell the corn. If the crop is good, pay double taxes (one for private purse of the Pasha and one for the Government at Cairo). If they don't grow the corn they can't pay the taxes at all, and get kourbashed (flogged) and put into prison. No matter how they make a few piastres, the dragoman of some Bey or Pasha will steal it for his master. They frequently pull down huts and tear up yards and fields to find where the coins are hidden. If the peasant buys a few rags for his wife or child, or mends a hole in his hut to keep out the sun, he is told he must have got money somewhere, and he is doubly taxed; and after all, his sole possessions are a hut made of mud and river reeds, a rush bed, a rush mat, and an earthen pot."

In still another letter he says:—

"Some of these merchants, who sit all day in their little stalls in the bazaar, are really millionaires, and would buy up many of the London merchant-princes. They live like kings in what, outside, looks like a mud hut. If one shows any outward signs of wealth, the Pasha lets him know quietly that he will at once be charged as a rebel or something, and put in prison if he does not make him a little present, generally from £300 to £1000. One Pasha left here last year, admitting, report says, that in three years he had made £60,000. He came here three years ago as a clerk on £2 a month. Abdul-Kereem Pasha, the Governor, took a fancy to him, and made him chief of the tax-gatherers; in three years he gained the rank of Pasha and £60,000—meaning 5000 ruined homes, several million strokes of the bastinado, rapine, robbery, and men driven to exasperation, and shot down at their doors."

Need we wonder that people so ground down by tyranny were delighted to hear their Governor-General announce that he would hold the balance level, and that no longer should the rich and powerful trample on the weak and poor?

The prominent characteristic of the Egyptian rule in the Soudan was fittingly summed up in the sentence, "Kourbash, kourbash, et toujours kourbash," which being interpreted means, "Flogging, flogging, always flogging." As to administration of justice, there was no such thing. He who could bribe the judges the highest got judgment delivered in his favour, while his opponent received the kourbash. The symbol of authority might well have been a kourbash, which corresponds to the English cat-o'-nine-tails. Men were often kourbashed for no other reason than that they would not, or could not, bribe any official who had the power of administering this form of punishment not to inflict it on them. Nor must it be supposed that an ordinary flogging, such as we understand by that term, would satisfy these tyrannical perpetrators of cruelty. Often the use of the kourbash meant that the victim was maimed for life, and the unfortunate one might always consider himself lucky if he escaped without any permanent injury. In many cases it amounted to nothing more or less than a form of torture, such as used to be inflicted in England in the barbarous Middle Ages, and if the sufferer had not actually got the money he was supposed to have, he would often have to borrow as much as he could of the required amount, in order to avoid further torture. We can imagine how Gordon's blood must have boiled with indignation at such gross miscarriages of justice; and during the whole time he served the Khedive, his object was to do away with this kind of tyranny. Often his journeys from place to place were marked by signs of fallen greatness, as he would not tolerate tyranny. "In one month," he says, "I have turned out three generals of division, one general of brigade, and four lieutenant-colonels. It is no use mincing matters."

He allowed every one to approach him and to make complaints. A box always stood at his tent or palace, into which any one who had a grievance could drop his written complaint, with a certainty that it would receive immediate investigation. Such a method gave publicity to instances of cruelty and oppression, and often, directly Gordon heard of cases of this kind, he would jump on his camel, pay a personal visit to the individual concerned, and having investigated the case on the spot, would deal out justice upon the culprit. Of course, in such an extensive province as his, without railways, it was absolutely impossible to investigate all the cases, but by taking the more prominent and the grosser ones, he could strike terror into the hearts of evil-doers in high places; and in this way he considerably reduced the evil of tyrannical rule, and taught the oppressed people that they had as much right to live as their oppressors had.

Of course Gordon was a much-hated man among the oppressor class, as reformers of deep-seated abuses usually are; but he knew that the weak and helpless at all events would appreciate him. When Wilberforce, the great slavery abolitionist, was accused by an opponent of interference with the rights of man, he asked what those rights were, and received for answer, "The right that every man has to lick his own nigger!" To rights of this kind, however long established, Gordon was an inveterate enemy; his object was to show that the weak and the helpless had rights as well as their oppressors, and in this he succeeded to a marvellous extent. "My great desire," said he, "is to be a shelter to the people, to ease their burdens, and to soften their hard lot in these inhospitable lands." And again:—

"I have an enormous province to look after; but it is a great blessing to me to know that God has undertaken the administration of it, and it is His work, and not mine. If I fail, it is His will; if I succeed, it is His work certainly. He has given me the joy of not regarding the honours of this world, and to value my union with Him above all things. May I be humbled to the dust and fail, so that He may glorify Himself. The greatness of my position only depresses me, and I cannot help wishing that the time had come when He will lay me aside and use some other worm to do His work."

Besides putting an end to cruelty and injustice, he introduced into Khartoum a system of water supply. But important as his work at Khartoum was, he was on May 19 compelled to leave, a revolt having broken out at Darfour, where his immediate presence was required. So off he went on his camel into the very heart of the slave-hunting district. Writing from Fogia, on the frontier of Darfour, he says:—

"I have a splendid camel—none like it; it flies along, and quite astonishes the Arabs. I came flying into this station in marshal's uniform, and before the men had time to unpile arms, I had arrived with only one man with me. I could not help it; the escort did not come in for an hour and a half afterwards. The Arab chief who was with me said it was the telegraph.... It is fearful to see the Governor-General arrayed in gold clothes flying along like a madman, with only a guide, as if he was pursued.... Specks had been seen in the vast plain around the station moving towards it (like Jehu's advance), but the specks were few—only two or three—and were supposed to be the advanced guard, and before the men of Fogia knew where they were, the station was taken!"

Writing from Oomchanga near Fascher, the capital of Darfour, he says:—

"All this revolt is the fault of the Bashi-Bazouks. I said the other day, 'If the people of this country were Ryahs or Christians, I might understand your bad treatment of them, but I do not when I see they are Mussulmans, as you.' Upon which the Darfourians were delighted, and clapped their hands. Now the Darfourians were so fanatical that they would never let a Christian into their country, and now they ask me to send Christian Governors!"

Their hatred of the Bashi-Bazouks was well illustrated by an incident Gordon mentions, which was told him by one of the officers. "An officer declared to me," he said, "that a woman with an officer escaped with the child he had by her, and taking the child to the chief of the insurgents, asked him to kill it, as 'the child of a Turk,' which the chief did."

On June 29 Gordon was able to write, "We have made peace with the tribes around here half-way to Fascher;" but he records, "I speak my mind, and I cannot help saying to some" (of the Darfourians who had come in to ask for peace), "'You ought to pardon me.' Really no people could have been treated worse than these people."

No sooner was one trouble settled than he was off on another expedition, and this time his steps were directed towards Dara, the stronghold of the great prince of slave-dealers, Zebehr Rahama.En routehe was nearly starved as well as poisoned by putrid water. Writing from Toashia on July 3, he says, "We have been two whole days without meat," and he finds a garrison who for three years have been without pay! He left Toashia on July 11 with 500 men, of whom 150 only were any good. On this march there was a threatened attack, which fortunately did not come off, but that he felt he was in great danger we may gather from the extract: "We have, thank God, passed our dangers. Whether they were imaginary or not, I do not know, but we were threatened by an attack from thousands of determined blacks, who knew I was here. Now very few Englishmen know what it is to be with troops they have not a bit of confidence in.... I do not fear death, but I fear, from want of faith, the results of my death—for the whole country would have risen."

At Dara he came across a gang of 210 slaves, who had been rescued, but who had received no food for thirty-six hours. His heart was filled with pity for them, and he wrote:—

"I am a fool, I dare say, but I cannot see the sufferings of these people without tears in my eyes.... It is a sad sight to see the poor starved creatures looking so wistfully at one. What can I do? Poor souls! I cannot feed or look after them. I must leave it to God, who will arrange all in kindness. Some of them were so miserably thin. I have sent them some dhoora. I declare solemnly that I would give my life willingly to save the sufferings of these people; and if I would do this, how much more does He care for them than such imperfection as I am! You would have felt sick had you seen them. Poor creatures! thirty-six hours without food!"

The more experience Colonel Gordon had of his Bashi-Bazouk soldiers, the more he seems to have disliked them:—

"I am worn to a shadow by the utter uselessness of the Bashi-Bazouks. The very sight of them excites my ire. I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give my life for these Blacks."

Writing from Dara, he mentions an instance which occurred on the march to that place to show the cowardly nature of his men, as well as the bravery of the Blacks. His force of 3500 men was attacked by the Leopard tribe, numbering only 700 men. In spite of these overwhelming odds in their favour, Gordon says that his men were nearly beaten. "I was sickened," he said, "to see twenty brave men of the tribes in alliance with me ride out to meet the Leopard tribe, unsupported by my men, who crowded into the stockade. It was terribly painful. The only thing which restrained me from riding out to the attack was the sheep-like state in which my people would have been had I been killed. What, also, would have become of the province?"

Notwithstanding the inferior quality of his troops, Colonel Gordon was determined to march on and pay a visit to Zebehr Rahama's camp, one of the boldest acts of his life. Zebehr, himself the head of the cursed slave traffic, was at this time practically a prisoner in Cairo. He had, foolishly enough, gone there with £100,000, in the hope that he could bribe the Khedive and his officials, and he even had the effrontery to ask Gordon to intercede for him. Unfortunately for Zebehr, he was too powerful a man for the Khedive to care to have at large. He was practically an independent chief, his power and influence being greater in the Soudan than that of the Khedive. He lived in regal style, and every one trembled at his name. Dr. Schweinfurth thus describes the surroundings of this remarkable man. He was "surrounded with a court that was little less than princely in its details. Special rooms, provided with carpeted divans, were reserved as ante-chambers, and into these all visitors were conducted by richly-dressed slaves. The regal aspect of these halls of state was increased by the introduction of some lions, secured, as may be supposed, by sufficiently strong and massive chains." Dr. Birkbeck Hill says, "He owned no less than thirty stations. These fortified posts were carried far into the heart of Africa; and all along the line from one to another, and round each one of them far and wide, the slave-dealer exercised despotic rule."

The only foolish act this prince of slave-hunters ever did was to put himself into the power of the Khedive, by going to visit him at his capital. Once at Cairo, the Khedive kept him there as a prisoner. Zebehr's son, Suleiman, was at the head of his army of some 3000 fighting men, as plucky as Gordon's men were cowardly. When the father was detained at Cairo, he telegraphed in cipher to his son to break into open revolt, and even to attack the Government. Gordon knew that his men were utterly unable to meet Suleiman's troops in the field, so he tried another method to intimidate the rebels. He rode on alone ahead of his escort, covering eighty-five miles in a day and a half, in the heat of August, and dashing into the camp of these robbers, summoned their chief to an interview. Suleiman and his followers were dumbfounded by this bold act, and offered no resistance. The Governor-General then told Suleiman that he was aware of the meditated revolt, and that if he did not submit to his authority, his band should be broken up and disarmed. Suleiman and his chiefs went off to consider their course of action. Of course many were for making Gordon a prisoner, and he had, humanly speaking, a narrow escape. However, Suleiman decided to submit, and though afterwards we hear of him again in open revolt, for the time being Gordon carried the day. Nothing but his daring courage preserved him on that occasion. He even accepted an invitation to visit Suleiman at Shaka, where he spent two days. When Suleiman asked for an appointment, it was refused, on the ground that he had not yet shown his loyalty to the Khedive. Gordon, however, made him a present of his own gun, and taught him to use it.

Gordon often used to speak of this adventure as a most remarkable answer to prayer. He had prayed for Suleiman before starting, and had also asked for guidance for himself, and God heard him. It has sometimes been represented as a mad freak on Gordon's part to put himself into the lion's den in this way, but it was nothing of the kind. Suleiman was in revolt, supported by a splendid army. Gordon was absolutely at his mercy, for he could not rely on his troops. It was only Gordon's daring courage that intimidated Suleiman, and made him think Gordon was stronger than he really was.

After obtaining the submission of Suleiman, Gordon returned to Khartoum, and again for a time resumed his ordinary official duties. But this was not for long; he had before him another visit to Walad el Michael, the turbulent Abyssinian chief, whom he had visited before taking up his duties at Khartoum. Gordon's object was to persuade Walad to submit to the authority of King Johannis of Abyssinia. But nothing would induce Walad to do this. He was surrounded by 7000 soldiers, and Gordon felt himself, in spite of the denials of the rebel chief, practically a prisoner. Walad demanded authority to go on attacking Johannis, but to this of course the Governor-General could not assent. He therefore compromised matters by offering Walad £1000 per mensem, on condition that he should leave his old king alone.

Having settled Walad, Gordon left, intending to return to Khartoum, but was intercepted by a telegram from the Khedive begging him to go to Cairo to help him in his financial difficulties, and he started for Cairo on February 3, 1878, having completed one year's service as Governor-General of the Soudan.

In spite of the hard rough life of the Soudan, he infinitely preferred it to the more artificial civilised existence which the officials were living at Cairo. He arrived there on March 7th, and left again on the 30th; and during the whole of his stay he was wretched. At first the Khedive paid great attention to him, receiving him with a splendour which suggested the "Arabian Nights." He asked him to be the president of a commission of inquiry into the finances of the country, with the condition attached that he should use his influence to arrange with the representatives of the different countries that the commissioners of the debt or the representatives of the creditors who had lent money to Egypt should not serve on that commission of inquiry. After a good deal of discussion, it was finally ascertained that this condition would not be consented to by the foreign Governments. This of course relieved Colonel Gordon of any obligations in the matter, and he, seeing that he could be of no further service, decided to return to his province. Considering how much Gordon had done to try and accomplish the desires of the Khedive, there can be little question that he was in this matter treated very badly. "I left Cairo," said he, "with no honours, by the ordinary train, paying my own passage. The sun which rose with such splendour set in the deepest obscurity. I calculate my financial episode cost me £800. His Highness was bored with me after my failure, and could not bear the sight of me."

Fortunately for Gordon, he cared very little for official favour. "I now only look," said he in a letter written a short time after this, "to benefiting the people." It was in this spirit he visited Harrar, a small province detached from the Soudan, and lying to the south of Abyssinia, on the eastern coast of Africa, almost opposite to Aden. This province had once belonged to Turkey, but had been transferred to the Khedive in exchange for £15,000 per annum extra tribute. The governor of the province was Raouf Pasha, whom Colonel Gordon, it will be remembered, had refused to employ on account of his cruel treatment of the natives in the Equatorial Province four years before. Again he had been playing the tyrant, and Gordon felt it to be his duty to turn him out. As this man afterwards succeeded Colonel Gordon as Governor-General of the Soudan, it is to him more than any one that the present Khedive is indebted for having lost the whole of the Soudan. By his tyranny, following after Gordon's kindness, the province was stirred into revolt, and the Mahdi enabled to usurp authority. We are, however, anticipating events.

Having freed Harrar of this tyrant, he went to Massowah, and thence on May 22nd to Khartoum. Back once more at his capital, he devoted himself first to a thorough reform of the prisons and the administration of the law. "The prisons," he wrote, "were dens of injustice, and I am glad to have had time to go into the question of each individual prisoner."

Although he used to tell amusing stories against himself and his own personal expenditure of money, yet Gordon had great aptitude for finance, and could make money go farther than most men. Had his views been adopted for Egypt, it is more than likely that we should have been saved the Egyptian war, to say nothing of the loss of the Soudan, and all that was associated with it. In the Soudan province there was an annual deficit amounting to something like £259,000. By dint of cutting down expenditure and increasing the receipts, Gordon reduced this during the second year to £50,600! Had he continued Governor-General for many years, there can be no question that he would have not only made the two ends meet, but would have obtained sufficient to carry out his schemes of opening up the country by railways and steamers, thus at the same time developing trade and reducing slavery. He calculated that with great economy, and utilising the machinery and the rails that were already lying idle in the country, a highway from Cairo to Khartoum might have been opened up for £70,000, a sum of money which over and over again has been frittered away in building great useless palaces for the Khedive or some other Egyptian official, which bring in no income, and are a great expense to keep up. The traffic, especially the conveyance of ivory and other merchandise, would soon have recouped the Government for their original outlay. The way in which Colonel Gordon was thwarted in every possible manner at this time troubled him a good deal. "As for myself," he writes, "I am exceedingly weary, and wish, with a degree of bitterness, that it was all over. I am cooped up here now, but am much occupied with finances, which are in a very low state. My life is burthensome and weary, but I feel that it is better to be employed here than to be idle elsewhere."

Writing on November 20, 1878, he says:—

"I will give you an instance of the miserable way the Cairo Government treats the Soudan. I asked H.H.8a long time ago to send up a man A. H.H. replied he wanted the man A., and could not send him. To-day I got a request for £7, 10s., stating that I had asked for A., who was at Port Said; that in consequence A. went to Cairo and said that he did not want to come; so they ask me to pay the £7, 10s. for his passage from Port Said to Cairo and return, which I have refused to do."

Closely associated with this question of finance was the still more important question of slavery. The Khedive's Government were at this time at their wit's end for money. They wrote to Colonel Gordon asking him to send them £12,000, and he replied that he had no funds available. Nubar Pasha, who was Minister at the time, was casting about to see how money could be raised, and not being troubled with conscientious scruples on the subject of slavery, he made overtures to the great slave-dealer Zebehr, who, it will be remembered, was practically a prisoner in Cairo. Zebehr jumped at the offer, and promised to send £25,000 per annum to Cairo from the Soudan, if he were made Governor-General in place of Gordon. This of course meant that he would be allowed a perfectly free hand to kidnap as many slaves as possible, in order to make up the annual deficit in addition to this subsidy of £25,000. Writing from Khartoum on February 18, 1879, Gordon says that he was ordered to return to Cairo for consultation. This, however, he steadily refused to do, on the ground of certain disturbances which had occurred. There was a simultaneous rebellion of slave-dealers in the Bahr-Gazelle, and also risings in Darfour and Kordofan, and Gordon felt it to be his duty to go and assist his lieutenant, Gessi, who was endeavouring to crush Zebehr's gang. Again all the horrors of the slave-trade were forced upon Gordon's mind.

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