The Life of Gordon, Volume I

re than "the land of the blacks"-and of the events which immediately preceded the appointment of Gordon, is nece

that region. The Egyptian yoke promised to be as light as any other, and a few whiffs of grape-shot dispersed the only adversaries who showed themselves. Ibrahim, who soon took the lead, selected Khartoum as the capital of the new province, in preference to Shendy, which had formerly been regarded as the principal place in the country. In this he showed exc

1884. There was nothing attractive or imposing about Khartoum. It contained 3000 mud houses, and one more pretentious building in the Governor's official residence or palace, known as the Hukumdariaha. It is surrounded by a wall and ditch, except where the Blue Nile supplies the need; and its western wall is not more than half a mile from the banks of the White Nile, so that with proper artillery it commands both ri

s way beyond the Egyptian stations into the region of the Bahr Gazelle, where the writ of the Cairo ruler did not run. These traders came to deal in ivory, but they soon found that, profitable as it was, there was a greater profit in, and a far greater supply of, "black ivory." Thus an iniquitous trade in human beings sprang up, and the real originators of it were not black men and Mahommedans, but white men, and in many instances Englishmen. From slave buying they took to slave hunting, and in this way there is no exaggeration in declaring that villages and districts were depopulated. Such scandalous proceedings could n

and a large part of the population literally vanished. Sir Samuel Baker, speaking of the difference between a region he knew well in 1864 and in 1872, wrote in the latter year: "It is impossible to describe the change that has taken place since I last visited this country. It was then a perfect garden, thickly populated, and producing all that man could desire. The villages were numerous, groves of plantains fringed the steep clif

r Schweinfurth has given a vivid picture of this man in the heyday of his power. Chained lions formed part of his escort, and it is recorded that he had 25,000 dollars' worth of silver cast into bullets in order to foil the magic of any enemy who was said to be proof against lead. Strong as this truculent leader was in men and money, the Khedive Ismail did not believe that he would dare to resist his power. He therefore decided to have recourse to force, and in 1869 he sent a small military expedition, under the command of Bellal Bey, to bring t

he more politic course, Ismail decided to invade their territory simultaneously with Zebehr. Several battles were fought, and one after another the Sultans of Darfour, whose dynasty had reigned for 400 years, were overthrown and slain. Zebehr received in succession the Turkish titles of Bey and Pasha, but he was not satisfied, for he said that as he had done all the fighting, he ought to receive the Governor-Generalship of Darfour. If he failed to win that title from the Khedive, he succeeded in gratifying a mo

tithe in the only trade that they had allowed to exist in the Soudan. What share of the human traffic they parted with was given in the way of bribes, and found no place in the official returns. All the time that this drain continued the Khedive was in a constant state of apprehension as to the danger which might arise to him in the south. He was also in receipt of frequent remonstrances from the English and other Governments as to the iniquities of the slave-trade, for which he was primarily

sion to Sir Samuel Baker, who resigned what he found after many years' experience was a hopeless and thankless task. The post was in one sense peculiar. It was quite distinct from that of the Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, who retained his separate and really superior position in the administration of the Upper Nile region. Moreover, the finances of the Equatorial districts were included in the general Soudan Budget, which always showed an alarming deficit. These arrangements imparted a special difficulty in

in cutting off the slave hunters from their best source of supply. The expression of his plans in his earnest manner showed up by contrast the hollowness of the views and policy of those who had obtained his services. In his own graphic and emphatic way he wrote: "I thought the thing real and found it a sham, and felt like a Gordon who has been humbugged." He found Cairo "a regular hot-bed of intrigues," and among not only the Egyptian, but also the European officials. With a prophetic grasp of the situation he wrote, "Things cannot last long like this." Had Gordon been long

ordon's plan would have saved the Khedive's Government ￡400, but he had to give way to the proprieties. The affair had an amusing issue. His special train to Suez met with an accident, and he and the Egyptian officials sent to see him off were compelled, after two hours' delay, to change into another tr

kim on 26th, left Souakim on 1st March, Berber on 9th March, and entered Khartoum 13th March. He brought with him 200 fresh troop

and obstructed all navigation, had suddenly given way, and restored communication with Gondokoro and the lakes. The importance of this event may be measured by the fact that whereas the journey to Gondokoro, with the "

the current is too strong, and so, no longer constrained to move on, they go off to the sides; others do the same-idle and loitering, like everything up here. After a time winds drive a whole fleet of them against the

the banks of the river. In his letters to his sister, which were to stand in the place of a diary, he facetiously remarks that he supposes they were amused at the idea of anyone being so foolish as to go up the Nile in "the hope of doing anything." But Gordon was not to be discouraged. Already he liked his work, amid the heat and mosquitoes day and night all the year round, and already he

o forts at Gondokoro-garrison 300 men-and Fatiko-garrison 200 men-the Khedive had no possessions, and there was not even safety for his representatives half a mile from their guns. As Gordon said: "The Khedive gave me a Firman as Governor-General of the Equator, and left me to work out the re

, of the United States Army, who had accompanied him to Gondokoro and been left there; Major Campbell, Egyptian Staff; Mr Kemp, an engineer; M. Linant, a Frenchman; Mr Anson, Mr Russell, and the Italian Romulus Gessi. Two Royal Engineer officers, Lieutenants Chippendall and Charles Watson, joined him before the end of the year. He worked very hard himself, and he expected those under him to d

t merely from themselves, but from other Europeans-then apprehension seized them as to what he would do next in the way of exposi

besides 2000 cows. By several skilful man?uvres Gordon succeeded in rescuing all of them, restoring the cows to their owners, and compelling the soldiers of the slavehunters to return to their homes, generally in or near Khartoum. Nor was this his only success during the first two months of his government, for he detected one of his lieutenants in the act of letting a slave convoy pass in return for a bribe of ￡70. On this occasion he had the satisfaction of delivering 1600 human beings from slavery. This will show that one of his principal difficulties was caused by his own subordinates, who were hand-in-glove with the leading slavehunt

t. Abou Saoud, who had been formerly banished by Sir Samuel Baker from the Soudan, and then taken into high favour by Gordon, turned out a fraud and a failure, while Raouf Bey, the nominee of the Khartoum Governor-General, was sent back in disgrace. With regard to Abou Saou

if they attempted to seek shelter among them, they had no alternative save to obey; and thus, one after another, Gordon brushed the chief obstructionists from his path. He served the old troublesome soldiers who would not work or change their ways a

hem by force to perform any work they might deem necessary, and then to dismiss them without reward or thanks. The result was a deep-rooted execration of the whole Egyptian system, which found voice in the most popular war-cry of the region: "We want no Turks here! Let us drive them away!" But Gordon's mode was widely different. It was based on justice and reason, and in the long-run constituted sound policy. He paid for what he took, and when he used the natives to drag his boats, or to clear tracks through the grassy zone fringing the Nile, he always carefully handed over to them cows, dhoora, or money, as an equivalent for their work. On the other hand, he was not less promp

ny work, and so encumbered by their women and children, that their ability to make any military show might be as safely challenged as their combative spirit. Well might Gordon write: "I never had less confidence in any troops in my life." But even these shortcomings were not the worst. The Arab soldiers provided by the Egyptian Government, and sent up over and over again, in spite of Gordon's protests and entreaties, could not stand the climate. They died like flies. Of one detachment of 250, half were dead in three months, 100 of the others were invalided, and only 25 remained fit for

d in the first year of his rule a corps of about forty men as a sort of bodyguard. An accident brought him into contact with a party of the Niam Niam, a tribe of cannibals from the interior of Africa, but possessing a martial spirit and athletic frames. Gordon looked at them with the eye of a soldier, and on the spot enrolled fifty of them into the small force he was organising. He armed them with spears as well as guns, and as these spears were cutting ones, with a blade two feet long, they were the more formidable weapon of the two.

st resolutions had been that his part of the Soudan should cease to be a drain, like the rest, on the Cairo Exchequer. He determined that he at least would pay his way, and on the threshold of his undertaking he had insisted, and carried in the teeth of powerful opposition his resolution, that the accounts of the Equatorial Province should be kept distinct from those of the Soudan. The employme

Allusion has already been made to the considerable number of slaves rescued by a few grand coups at the expense of his own subordinates, but during the whole of these three years Gordon was in close contact with slaves, and the rescue of individuals was of frequent occurrence. Several touching incidents are recor

for the interpreter, and asked what she wanted. She said the soldier who owned her beat her, and she would not stay with him; so I put her on board the steamer. The so

ry reputation Gordon had acquired by his high-minded action among these primitive and down-trodden races. Here

lying dead in a pool of mud-her black brothers had been passing and passing, and had taken no notice of her-so I ordered her to be buried, and went on. In the midst of the high grass was a baby, about a year or so old, left by itself. It had been out all night in the rain, and had been left by its mother. I carried it in, and seeing the corpse was not moved, I sent again about it, and went with the men to have it buried. To my surprise and astonishment, she was alive. After considerable trouble I got the black brothers to lift her out of the mud, poured some brandy down her throat, and got her into a hut with a fire, having the mud washed out of her eyes. She was not more than sixteen years of age. There she now lies. I cannot help hoping she is floating down with the tide to the haven of rest. The next day she was still

aw and experienced the beneficial results of a sound and well-balanced administration. The light was all too quickly withdrawn; but while it lasted, General Gordon stood out as a kind of redeemer for the Soudanese. The poor slaves, from whose limbs the chains of their oppressors had only just been struck, would come round him when anxious about his health, and gently touch him with their fingers. The hostile chiefs, hearing, as Bedden did, that he restored his cattle to and recompensed in other ways a friendly chief who had been attacked in mistake, would lie in wait for him, and lay their views and grievances before him. He could walk fearlessly and unarmed through their midst, and along the river bank

lue, the following passage embodying Genera

fear of responsibility. They are fallen on so heavily if anything goes wrong. Their deceit is the result of fear and want of moral courage, as they have no independence in their characters. For a foreign power to take this country would be most easy. The mass are far from fanatical. They would rejoice in a good government, let its religion be what it might. A just administration of law, and security of person against arbitrary condu

tings will find many passages that express philosophical doubts as to our right to coerce black races, and to bind peoples who in their rude and primitive fashion are free to the car of our wide-world Empire. But I am under no obligation to save them the trouble of discovery by citing them, more especially because I believe that they give a false impression of the man. I have affirmed, and shall adduce copious and, as I think, convincing evidence, at every turn of his varied experiences, that the t

lthier. Above Lardo he established at comparatively short stages further posts at, in their order, Rageef, Beddem, Kerri, Moogie, and Laboré, immediately beyond the last of which occur the Fola Falls, the only obstruction to navigation between Khartoum and the Lakes. Above those Falls Gordon established a strong post at Duffli, and dragged some of his steamers overland, and floated them on the short link of the Nile between that place and Lake Albert, establishing a final post north of that lake, at Wadelai. When his fleet commanded that lake, he despatched his lieutenant, Gessi, across it up the Victoria Nile, connecting the two great lakes, and continued his chain of posts along it by Magungo, Anfina, Foweira, and Mrooli, to the very borders of Mtesa's dominion in Uganda. By means of these twelve posts General Gordon

reasons for establishing a line of communication from Gondokoro, across the territory of Mtesa, with the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. As Gordon pointed out, that place was nearly 1,100 miles from Khartoum, and only 900 from Mombasa, while the advance to the Lakes increased the distance from the one place by nearly 300 miles, and reduced that to the other in the same measure. Thi

t, Gessi. Although he sometimes took hasty resolutions, in flat opposition to his declared intentions, he would probably have adhered to this determination but for reading in one of Dr Schweinfurth's published lectures that "it may be that Lake Albert belongs to the Nile basin, but it is not a settled fact, for there are seventy miles between Foweira and Lake Albert never explored, and one is not authorised in making the Nile leave Lake Albert. The question is very doubtful." The accidental perusal of thi

m Foweira to Magungo. So I went along it with much suffering, and settled the question. I also found that from Foweira or Karuma Falls there was a series of rapids to Murchison Falls, thus by degrees getting rid of the 1000-feet difference of level between Foweira and Magungo." While mapping this region, Gordon one day marched eighteen miles through jungle and in pouring rain, and on each of the four foll

ment when it was found that the arrangement was illusory and destitute of practical value,

erior claims to the privileges of supreme authority. In the time of Gordon's predecessor, Sir Samuel Baker, Kaba Rega had come to the front as a native champion, resolved to defy the Egyptians and their white leaders to do their worst. In a spirited attack on Baker's camp at Masindi, he endeavoured to settle the pretensions of his invaders at a blow, but he found that numbers were no match for the superior arms of his opponent. But defeat did not diminish his spirit. Baker decreed his deposition as King

the Egyptian station at Foweira; and above all, he welcomed the thwarted slave-dealers, who were not averse to taking their revenge in any form at Gordon's expense. In these circumstances an active policy was forced on General Gordon, who promptly decided that Kaba Rega was "too treacherous" to be allowed to retain his kingdom, and that measures must be taken to set up Rionga in his pla

her of his kinsmen was likely to prove a formidable foe. Rionga passed his hours in native excesses, in the joy of receiving the titular rank of Vakil to the Khedive. Anfina alienated Gordon's friendly feeling by suggesting the wholesale assassination of Kaba Rega's officers and followers when they came on a mission to his camp. Kaba Rega carried off the stool to the south, or rather the west, of Victoria Nyanza, and bided his time, while Mtesa wrote a half-defiant and half-entreating letter to Gordon, asking him to spare Unyoro. Mtesa had his own views of gain, and when Gordon propose

any act of treachery, and to annex, if necessary, his kingdom. But Gordon did not wish to force a war on Mtesa, or to increase the burdens of the Nile dominion. All he wanted was the restoration of the men detained at Dubaga, and he soon received assurance

e an Arab and a Mahommedan, was at Dubaga, but his influence on the course of events was nil, and he and Gordon never met. After the return of the troops Gordon commenced his retirement to the Nile, and after an arduous and dangerous march of eighty miles through a swampy jungle beset by Kaba Rega's tribesmen, who were able to throw their spears with accurate aim for fifty yards, he succeeded in reaching Masindi without loss. Then Gordon drew up a plan of campaign for the effectual subjugation of Kaba Rega, but he did not wait to se

much cattle, and when they in turn retired, he advanced and reoccupied his country. After a brief period the Egyptians definitely gave up their stations at Mrooli, Foweira, and Masindi, on the

lanted a station on the Victoria Lake, he telegraphed the facts to the Khedive, who promptly replied by conferring on him the Medjidieh Order. At the moment that Gordon received this intimation he had decided that it would not be politic to comply with Mtesa's request to garrison Dubaga,

nd treated with indifference by the Cairene Government. He also discovered that his troops were worthless, and that not one of his officers, civil and military, cared a fig for the task in hand. Their one thought was how to do nothing at all, and Gordon's patience and energy were monopolised, and in the end exhausted, by attempts to extract work from his unwilling subordinates. Even the effort to educate them up to the simple recognition that a certain amount of work had to be done, and that unless it were well done, it had to be done over again, resulted in failure. To the plain instructions he gave, they would give an interpret

temperament. In no other period of his career did he devote himself more strenuously to the details, in themselves monotonous and uninteresting, of a task that brought him neither present nor prospective satisfaction. When the tools with which he was supplied failed him, as they did at every turn, he threw himself into the struggle, and supplied the shortcomings of all the rest. When it was a matter of pulling the boats up the river, he was the first at the ropes, and the last to leave them, wading through the water with his trousers up. If it was his steamer that had run aground, all the active labour, as well as the organisation, fell on him. Sooner than add to the work of those in attendance on him, he would be seen preparing and cooking his own food; and because he could do it better than his native se

readth of Gordon, but he did not seem to mind it at all, and the victory we won was entirely due to him and his reserve of 100 men. When the fight was at its worst he found time to light a cigarette. Never in my life did I see such a thing; and then the following day, when he divided the s

rebellion, of his standing unarmed in the breach of an assaulted stockade, while around him pressed on or wavered the individuals of a forlor

ong letter full of praise and encouragement from the Khedive Ismail induced him to alter his plans, to tear up the telegrams, and to continue his work. General Gordon gives his reason for changing his mind very briefly: "The man had gone to all this expense under the belief that I would stick to him; I could not therefore leave him." So he

o leave his work half done came over him, and all the personal inconvenience and incessant hardship and worry of the task were forgotten in the belief that he was called on by God "to open the country thoroughly to both Lakes." He saw very clearly that what he had accomplished in the three years of his stay did not provide a permanent or complete cure of the evils arising out of t

the sound conclusion that after a brief rest General Gordon would sicken of inaction, and that it would be no difficult manner to lure him back to that work in the Soudan which had already established its spell over him. Of that work, considerable as it was as the feat of a single man, it need only be said that it would have remained transitory in its effect

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