Haifa, May 10.—The interest which attaches to the memory of the late
General Gordon must be my apology for devoting a letter to my personal
reminiscences of one whose singularly pure and lofty character attracted
me to him at a time when he was comparatively unknown. Nothing is in
fact more remarkable than the suddenness of the notoriety into which he
sprang, a notoriety from which he of all men would have the most shrunk,
and of the knowledge of which, by the singular fatality which isolated
him from the world in his beleaguered garrison, he was to the last
unconscious. Owing to his own modesty and love of retirement, and to the
fact that his life had been largely spent abroad and in the service of
foreign governments, he was personally almost unknown in London society.
His friends consisted chiefly of his brother officers and a few
congenial spirits whose acquaintance he had made in various parts of the
world. By the public at large he had only been heard of as “Chinese”
Gordon, and few cared to inquire what manner of man he was.
It was just twenty-nine years ago since I first met him in the trenches
before Sebastopol. He was quite a young and unknown officer at that
time, and I should have forgotten the circumstance had we not again come
across each other three years afterwards in China, and upon comparing
notes found that we had already met in the Crimea. He had not then been
appointed to the command of the “ever victorious army,” and was still a
junior Captain of Engineers. I left China before he entered the Chinese
service, and almost immediately after his arrival, so that I saw very
little of him. Still, I had seen enough to make me watch his subsequent
career with great interest, but our paths had not again crossed until
one day, about two years ago, I received a letter from Jaffa signed C.
G. Gordon, asking for information in regard to Haifa as a residence, and
expressing his intention of possibly paying me a visit. As I have many
friends of the name, I was puzzled for the moment. The writer did not
mention anything in the letter to give a clew to his identity, though it
was addressed as from one old friend to another. It was only
accidentally that the same afternoon the vice-consul here asked me if I
knew anything of a General Gordon, as some letters had arrived to his
care for an individual of that name. I at once perceived who my
correspondent must be. I immediately addressed him a cordial invitation
to pay me a visit, which he promptly responded to, and we spent a few
very pleasant days together. The Hicks disaster in the Soudan had not
then occurred, so that the affairs of that country and its Mahdi had not
yet acquired the notoriety they were destined so soon to attain; but
Gordon's intimate knowledge of the country induced him to express his
opinion in regard to its condition.
He deprecated strongly the whole course adopted by the British
government in Egypt from the beginning, warned me that they underrated
the nature of the movement in the Soudan, to which country he was then
in favour of granting independence under native rulers, was entirely
opposed to English officers at the head of Egyptian troops, thrusting
themselves into the mess, and maintained that the whole affair should be
settled by a civil commissioner, who should at once be sent by England
to the Mahdi to arrange with him the terms upon which the Soudan should
be rendered independent of Egypt. As at this time the English had not
come into violent hostile collision with the Mahdi, Gordon declared his
conviction that such a mission would be favourably received, and that a
state of affairs might be arranged which, although not so favourable to
the Soudanese as he could have wished, would leave them better off than
under Egyptian rule. His idea was that if the Mahdi did not show himself
amenable to reason, he might be threatened with a rebellion of the local
Soudanese chiefs, who, he felt convinced, could easily be induced to
combine against him. In fact, before going to the Mahdi he would have
sounded the feeling of these chiefs, with a view, if necessary, to
organizing a revolt against him.
In a word, his view was that the Soudan question should be settled by
the Soudanese alone, that no Egyptians should be mixed up in the affair;
and I have no doubt that if the British government had thought of
availing themselves of Gordon's services at this juncture, the question
of the Soudan might have been arranged satisfactorily to all parties,
except, perhaps, the Egyptian and Turkish governments. He was at that
time particularly strong on the necessity of a railway from Suakim to
Berber, the concession for which was being then applied for by English
railway contractors, who were sanguine of success. He assured me that
they were wasting their time; that it was a concession the Egyptian
government would never grant, as they were afraid if they did that the
whole trade of the Soudan would be diverted to Suakim instead of, as
now, coming down to Cairo. “It is a short-sighted policy,” he remarked,
“for without that railway Egypt will one day not only lose the trade of
the Soudan, but the Soudan itself.”
Not long afterwards there was a report that the concession had been
granted, and he wrote me a long letter of many pages, which began with
warning me not to believe the report, as it was quite impossible that it
could be true, his knowledge of the Egyptian government convincing him
that they would make promises, but that nothing would ever induce them
to consent to this railway being made, unless they were coerced into it
by the British government. He felt equally convinced that the British
government had no intention of using their authority in this direction,
as, in his opinion, they should do, and that the report, therefore, was
without foundation. This, in fact, turned out to be the case.
General Gordon, after spending a few days at Haifa, returned to
Jerusalem, promising to bring his tents two months later and pitch them
next to mine at Esfia on the summit of Carmel. I was eagerly looking
forward to his companionship in the delightful wilderness of this
mountain, and had even marked out in my own mind a spot for his
camping-ground within fifty yards of my own, when, to my great
disappointment, I received a letter from him saying that he was so
deeply interested in biblical studies at the Holy City that he felt it
his duty to change his mind, as he might never again have an opportunity
of verifying the correctness of the views he entertained in regard to
the typical nature of its configuration.
Not long afterwards I received another long letter from him on the
subject of the Jordan valley canal scheme, in which he took a warm
interest. This led to a correspondence, as I entirely differed from him
as to its practicability. Towards the end of the year he wrote, saying
that he was suddenly summoned to the Congo, and bidding me adieu.
Curiously enough, in my reply I said that I did not say good-bye, as I
felt sure I should see him again before he left the country. A few days
afterwards he once more turned up at Haifa. He had embarked at Jaffa for
Port Said in a country sailing craft, and he had been driven by stress
of weather so far out of his course that his crew finally ran in here
for shelter.
At this time affairs in the Soudan were in a very acute stage, and we
again discussed them at great length. His views had naturally undergone
a change, as the policy which had been possible seven or eight months
previously was impracticable now. He felt great doubt whether, if he
went to the Soudan, he could succeed in achieving now what he was
convinced he could have accomplished then, or whether the policy he had
sketched out was longer feasible. “If it were not for the Soudanese,
whom I love,” he said, “the easy way out of it for the English
government would be to invite the Turks to go, but it is not probable
that they have the sense to make the proposition, or that the Turks
would be such fools as to accept it.”
He refused altogether to anticipate the possibility of his being sent to
the Soudan, partly because he felt bound in honour to go to the Congo
for the King of the Belgians, and partly because he had already had too
many differences with the heads of departments under which he had
served, and was regarded with too little favour, on account of his
refusal to look at every question through official spectacles, to be a
_persona grata_ to the English government. He was detained here a week,
during which time we not only discussed fully the Egyptian and Soudanese
questions, but talked over old times in China, when he gave me many
graphic descriptions of incidents in his Chinese campaigns, which have
probably never been heard of, and which I now regret I did not record.
His modesty was such that I could only compel him to narrate his own
adventures by a process of severe cross-examination.
One of his marked peculiarities in conversation was his employment of
phrases which he had himself coined to represent certain ideas. Thus he
would say of a man: “So-and-so is a very good fellow, but he would never
break his medal,” by which he meant that he was ambitious. Gordon
himself, when the Emperor of China gave him, in return for his services,
a very valuable gold medal, fearing that the sense of gratification he
derived from it might prove a snare to him, broke it up and gave away
the pieces. Hence the allusion.
Again, he would say, if asked if he knew so-and-so. “I only met him once
and then he rent me.” From which I understood that he had felt it his
duty on that occasion to give the individual in question a word of good
advice, and that the only thanks was that the man resented it, or, in
Scripture phraseology, “turned again and rent him.”
One day I observed him writing notes on a slip of paper. He asked me the
Christian names of two friends who were staying with me. I told him, and
feeling, I suppose, that my curiosity ought to be gratified, he said, “I
am writing them down on my prayer list.”
Another day, after using some very strong language in regard to a very
high personage who shall be nameless, he added quickly, “but I pray for
him regularly.” All this without a vestige of cant. If there was a thing
he detested it was hypocrisy, and I trust I may not be suspected of it
when I say that the thought of Gordon at Khartoum, and the knowledge
that I was on his prayer list, was calculated to produce a lump in my
throat. He was full of fun and a most cheery companion with those he
knew intimately. He never forced a conversation in a religious channel.
He brought with him from Jerusalem a raised model which he had made, to
carry out his theory that the hill upon which the greater part of the
city was built was in the form of a woman. Taking the mound commonly
identified as “the place of the skull” as the head, the lines of
topographical configuration certainly bore out the resemblance in a very
remarkable manner. He was far more full of this than either of the
Soudan or the Congo, and was taking it with him to Brussels to show the
King of the Belgians. “I suppose, as you are the king's guest, you will
go and stay at the palace,” I remarked. “No, certainly not,” he replied;
“I shall go to a hotel. I don't want the king's servants to see my old
comb.” He left here on the 18th or 19th of December, 1883, and walked to
Acre, twelve miles, to meet the steamer that was to take him direct to
Marseilles. He sent his luggage in a carriage.
His last words as we parted were that he felt sure we should never meet
again. I said he had been wrong once when he told me that he should not
see me again, and I hoped he was wrong now. He said no, he felt that he
had no more work to do for God on this earth, and that he should never
return from the Congo. Within a month he was in upper Egypt.
It was characteristic of the man that scarcely any one in Haifa knew who
he was. Seeing a very handsome garden belonging to a rich Syrian, near
Acre, he strolled into it, and was accosted by the proprietor, who asked
him who he was. He replied, “Gordon Pasha,” on which my Syrian friend,
who told me the story, laughed incredulously, and politely showed him
out. Gordon meekly departed without attempting to insist on his
identity. The proprietor told me that he felt convinced that he was
being imposed upon, because Gordon, when spoken to in English, would
answer in bad Arabic, and because, when asked his name, he took his
card-case half out of his pocket, as though to give his card, and then,
on second thought, put it back again and answered verbally. So my friend
lost his chance of entertaining an angel unawares, which he has never
ceased to regret, the more especially as his friends take a pleasure in
teasing him about it.
My last letter from Gordon is dated Khartoum, the 6th of March. Now that
he is gone, and his name has become a household word in almost all
countries, and among the professors of all religions, the few among the
natives who knew him here treasure up every trait of his marked
individuality, and are fond of narrating anecdotes, which grow by
repetition. His instinct of retirement and extremely unassuming manner
concealed him, so to speak, from general observation; but his
simplicity, purity, and absolute singleness of aim made him a sort of
moral magnet, irresistibly attractive to those who came directly beneath
the sphere of his influence. The potency of his virtue in life has been
proved by the imperishable moral legacy which in death he has bequeathed
to humanity.
THE CONVENT OF CARMEL _versus_ THE TOWN OF HAIFA.
Haifa, May 25.—It was from Carmel that in times of old a small cloud was
seen rising not bigger than a man's hand, which overcast the heavens,
and it is not impossible that a political incident which has just
occurred here may prove the diplomatic commencement of a storm of
another kind pregnant with untold issues. If we look back through
history at the origin of some of its greatest events, we often almost
fail to discover them, on account of their insignificance. When the
moral atmosphere is charged with electricity, it needs but a spark to
produce the shock; and so it is just possible that the upsetting of a
few stones, on a barren hillside, may open up a question which may
assume proportions of very considerable magnitude, as it involves the
most dangerous of all elements in a dispute, that of religious
fanaticism. The Monastery of Carmel, as your readers are doubtless
aware, is situated on the spur of the mountain which projects in a point
at an elevation of about five hundred feet above the sea. From this
point the mountain gradually rises until it attains a height of about
nine hundred feet, immediately behind the town of Haifa and the German
colony. The mountain here spreads into an elevated plateau of some
extent, affording extensive pasture-ground and good arable and vineyard
land. For some years past the claim of the convent over a large area of
this plateau has been a matter of dispute, but it only reached an acute
stage the other day, when the towns-people were called upon to pay taxes
on it. They naturally objected that they ought not to pay taxes on land
the use of which they did not enjoy, and access to which was forbidden
to them by a wall which had been built by the convent as the boundary to
its possessions. In order to bring the matter to an issue, some thirty
of the German colonists and as many of the Moslem inhabitants of the
town went up in a body and proceeded _vi et armis_ to tear down the
wall. While thus engaged some of the monks emerged, armed with spiritual
weapons alone. One of them, elevating his cross, pronounced a solemn
curse, first in German and then in Arabic, upon the profaners of their
sacred soil. The convent being under the protection of the French
government, a formal complaint was lodged against the action of the
Germans in the matter, and a deputation, consisting of the German and
French vice-consuls, were sent down from Beyrout to inquire into it.
Meantime the Turkish government interfered, as it had a right to do,
seeing that many Ottoman subjects had participated in the act complained
of, and decided that the right of the convent to erect the wall was a
matter for the local tribunals to decide upon, as well as the question
of the validity of their title to the part of the mountain claimed by
them. In the meantime instructions were given that, pending the decision
of the court, the wall should be replaced in exactly the same position,
and of the same dimensions, as before its removal. Advantage was taken
of this order to rebuild the wall much more solidly, and to increase its
height far beyond the limits prescribed in the order, and the result was
the removal of the local governor for negligence in not seeing that the
instructions were properly carried out. Meantime the town instituted a
lawsuit against the convent, calling upon them to substantiate their
legal title to the land.
Now, one third of the population of Haifa is Moslem and Jews, and about
two thirds are Christian. The Christians are all under the direct
influence of the convent, and the spirit of religious fanaticism runs
high on both sides. On measurement being made of the land claimed by the
convent it was found to amount to an area of about twelve square miles.
According to Turkish law the whole of this would originally belong to
the inhabitants of the town for their common use, unless the town
council had at some time or other legally parted with it for an adequate
consideration. This it was denied on the part of the municipality that
they had ever done, and search was consequently made in the records for
the act of sale, which would have been registered. On the other hand,
the monks had a duly-signed document under which they claimed, but
which, on further investigation, was found to be practically a fraud, as
none of the formalities had been complied with, and the seal had been
affixed illegally by an officer who had been induced for a certain
consideration to perform the act. It is not contended that the monks
were a party to this irregularity. They seem, indeed, rather to have
been the victims of their agent at the time, who perpetrated it, leaving
them under the delusion that they possessed a valid title, but the
discovery left the court no alternative but to pronounce judgment
against them. Against this judgment they have appealed to
Constantinople, and it would be difficult to see how it could be
reversed, were it not that the interests involved are of such a peculiar
character that the purely legal side of the question may be overlooked.
The prestige which the order of barefooted Carmelites enjoys in all
Catholic countries is so great that the most powerful influences will be
invoked, and possibly not invoked in vain, in their favor. Strong
articles have already appeared on the subject in the Continental press
of Europe. The Emperor of Austria has, I understand, been personally
appealed to, while the pilgrims, who, to the number of about four
hundred, have already visited the sacred shrine this year, are every one
of them missionaries who will be so many Peter the Hermits, invoking
once more the faith of the true believer to protect the sacred mountain
from the grasp of the infidel. But there is an element in the affair
which removes it from the simple category of Cross _versus_ Crescent,
and that is, that the interests of some three hundred Germans are
involved. As forming part of the population of Haifa, they enjoy equal
rights with the rest of the towns-people, and Prince Bismarck is not a
man to see their rights tamely abandoned to the monks. It is true that
the question is one which affects exclusively the Turkish government,
and there can be no doubt that it would not willingly deprive an Ottoman
population of twelve square miles of mountain if they are legally
entitled to it, but the united pressure of Catholic Europe might be too
powerful a force for the Porte to resist single-handed. It is a
different matter when they have the German government at their back, and
this quarrel over a right of way and a patch of hillside may yet be
pregnant with important consequences. Had the convent entered upon large
agricultural operations, their rights over land thus brought into
cultivation could not be disputed. The complaint of the population is
that they neither cultivate it themselves, nor allow others to cultivate
it, or even to graze their flocks upon it. The exclusive possession thus
claimed has deprived the German colonists of one of the most important
desiderata for the success of their colony.
A retreat from the heats of summer is almost essential to the health of
the colonists. If they had the right of way claimed they could, with
ease, construct a wagon-road to the top of the hill overhanging the
colony, where, at an elevation of nine hundred feet, they would be in
full enjoyment of the sea breezes, while only half an hour distant from
their homes. The money necessary for the construction of such a
sanitarium was provided under singular circumstances a few weeks ago. I
was riding just outside the town, on the Nazareth road, when to my
surprise I met a foreign lady riding by herself, accompanied only by an
Arab, an unusual sight in this country. Following her was a covered
litter. On returning to the colony an hour later I found that the litter
contained the body of the husband of the lady I had met. He had died in
it on the road from Nazareth a couple of hours before I met the poor
widow, a perfect stranger and unable to speak a word of the language,
forming the solitary attendant of her husband's corpse. These painful
circumstances enlisted the warmest sympathy on the part of the
colonists, whose kindness and consideration so overwhelmed the lady, who
was herself a countrywoman, that before leaving she presented the colony
with a check for $7500. These simple people had no idea when they were
lavishing their kindness on the widow that she was a lady of large
fortune, and this was their unexpected reward. And it is with this money
they hope to build their sanitarium.