AS GOVERNOR OF THE EQUATORIAL PROVINCE
It has already been mentioned that when Colonel Gordon was at Galatz he
met Nubar Pasha. In September 1873 Nubar asked him to enter the service
of the Khedive of Egypt. While waiting to know whether the British
Government would sanction this step he wrote home as follows:--
"For some wise design God turns events one way or another, whether
man likes it or not, as a man driving a horse turns it to right or
left without consideration as to whether the horse likes that way
or not. To be happy, a man must be like a well-broken, willing
horse, ready for anything. Events will go as God likes. It is hard
to accept the position; the only solace is, it is not for long. If
I go to Egypt or not is uncertain; I hope He has given me the
strength not to care one way or the other; twenty years are soon
gone, and when over it will matter little whether I went or not."
The proposed step was sanctioned by the authorities, and so, at the age
of forty-one, Gordon became the governor of the immense Equatorial
Province. _En route_ to Egypt he writes from Paris: "I remember that
God has at all times worked by weak and small means. All history shows
this to be His mode, and so I believe if He will He may work by me."
Of course some little time had to be spent in Cairo; the Khedive Ismail
was anxious to make the acquaintance of his new governor, and certain
preliminaries had to be settled. Gordon had a suspicion that his
appointment was a sham, and that he would not have the power he needed
to suppress the slave trade. He was determined that _coute qui coute_
he would not be made a tool of to blind the European public, so at
the very outset he showed his colours, and let the Khedive clearly
understand that he was not a mere hireling anxious to secure a
well-paid billet. As for his pay, though his predecessor had received
L10,000 per annum, he decided to cut it down to L2000; for, as he said,
the whole would be wrung out of the unfortunate natives, who could ill
afford the high taxation to which they were subjected. Writing home at
this juncture, he said:--
"My object is to show the Khedive and his people that gold and
silver idols are not worshipped by all the world. They are very
powerful gods, but not so powerful as our God; so if I refuse a
large sum, you--and I am responsible to you alone--will not be
angry at my doing so. From whom does all the money come? From poor
miserable creatures who are ground down to produce it. Of course,
these ideas are outrageous. 'Pillage the Egyptians!' is still the
cry.
"I am quite prepared not to go, and should not think it unkind of
God if He prevents it, for He must know what is best. The twisting
of men carries out some particular object of God, and we should
cheerfully agree now to what we will agree hereafter when we know
all things."
His characteristic outspokenness--a style of thing to which Egyptian
officials were not accustomed--somewhat alarmed a few of his friends,
and on one occasion he was urged not to make an enemy of Nubar Pasha,
who was a very powerful minister, and could, it was said, do him a
great deal of harm. At this Gordon fired up, and before those present
said that he would like to see the man who was capable of injuring him.
Shakespeare has well said:--
"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."
Though Nubar showed his powers of appreciation in recognising merit in
Colonel Gordon, when he met him at Galatz, there can be no question
that he little understood the honest, straightforward character of the
man with whom he had to deal. He must have often wished that he had
never met Gordon, for, whilst the new governor was not a man to seek
office for the sake of the "loaves and fishes," once in power he was
not one of those pliant characters who will act as mere dummies in the
hands of others. Men with great strength of character, good abilities,
and honest intentions are invaluable, when their official superiors are
capable of appreciating their merits; but when those under whom they
serve have ulterior purposes to attain, weak, pliant natures make
better servants for their purposes. In Colonel Gordon's own mind his
mission at this time was to combat slavery, and in every possible way
to ameliorate the sufferings of the unfortunate people over whom he was
called to rule. Nubar Pasha held very different views from the
newly-appointed governor on many points that were likely to arise in
connection with these duties. The Soudan and the Equatorial Province
were so frightfully mismanaged and cruelly governed that, Gordon says,
"when Said Pasha, the Viceroy before Ismail, went up to the Soudan with
Count F. Lesseps, he was so discouraged and horrified at the misery of
the people that at Berber the Count saw him throw his guns into the
river, declaring that he would be no party to such oppression. It was
only after the urgent solicitations of European consuls and others that
he reconsidered his decision."
It is quite amusing to see the efforts that were made at Cairo to break
in the new governor, and to fit him for his post, in accordance with
the traditions of the country. As soon as everything was settled,
Gordon, with his usual promptness, and absence of all love of display,
was anxious to be off to his post of duty, and for that purpose to
utilise the ordinary passenger steamer from Suez. But about states such
as Egypt was before the British occupation, there is a strange mixture
of reckless expenditure combined with paltry meanness. Although the
Egyptian authorities once refused to pay the travelling expenses of an
official travelling on duty from Alexandria to Cairo in connection with
Colonel Gordon, yet they insisted on this occasion that it would be
unbecoming to the dignity of a governor to travel by an ordinary
steamer, so a special one was set apart for this purpose. Gordon
afterwards calculated that had he been allowed his own way, he would at
the outset have saved at least L400! For the sake of peace he yielded
the point, and went from Cairo in a special train, and from Suez in a
special steamer, accompanied by a large number of useless servants. He
had his revenge, however, for owing to an engine getting off the line,
there was a long halt, and finally he had to proceed by the ordinary
train. Gordon was a remarkable instance of the general rule, that the
greater the ability of a man the less affection has he for display, and
for all the official trappings of office. The only display that Gordon
ever cared for was that of intrinsic merit and hard work, and these
qualities he always looked for in his subordinates.
Colonel Gordon reached Suakim on February 25th, 1874, and writing home,
he records his impressions of Cairo and its officials. "I think the
Khedive likes me, but no one else does; and I don't like them, I mean
the swells, whose corns I tread on in all manner of ways. Duke of This
wants steamer, say L600. Duke of That wants house, &c. All the time the
poor people are ground down to get money for all this. 'Who art thou to
be afraid of man?' If He wills, I will shake all this in some way not
clear to me now. Do not think I am an Egoist; I am like Moses who
despised the riches of Egypt. I will not bow to Haman." Little did he
then foresee that before eight years had passed British guns would be
shaking the stronghold of Alexandria, and that 10,000 Egyptian soldiers
would yield the citadel of Cairo to a small force of some 300 troops
carrying the British flag. From Suakim he went on a camel to Berber,
and thence by steamer to Khartoum, the first time he ever visited a
place which now can never be mentioned without awakening in the mind
associations of this noble servant of God, who feared neither man nor
devil.
At first Gordon was to a certain extent subordinate to the
Governor-General of the Soudan, through whom he had to get supplies.
But by September 8th he was enabled to write: "I have now entirely
separated my province from that of the Soudan. When I came up I had
instructions to ask for all I wanted from the Governor-General of
Khartoum, who was ordered to supply me. Now this was from the first a
fruitful source of quarrel, and must have been so, for I could not be
continually writing to the Khedive about the non-supply of things and
money; it would have worn me and every one out. Now I am quite
independent, raise my own revenue, and administer it, and send the
residue to Cairo, which residue is all they care for there."
* * *
The Equatorial Province lies considerably to the south of Khartoum, and
is bisected by the Nile. As a matter of fact, the equator does not run
through any part of the province, though the southern part comes very
close to it, just touching the Victoria Nyanza, through the north of
which the equator runs. The hold that Egypt had at any time on this
province was indeed very slight, and considering how little capable she
was of managing even her own affairs, it does seem ridiculous in the
extreme that she should ever have attempted to annex an enormous
country outside her borders. When Egypt was really strong and powerful,
as in olden times, it does not appear that she ever held territory
beyond Wady Haifa, and it is in reality only within this century,
during the whole of which Egypt has been weak, that she has extended
her territory down to the equator. Far from gaining either money or
prestige, she has lost greatly by her annexations. Had the Nile, which
is the only highway, been easily navigable for ships of any size,
possibly the tide of civilisation might have gone south as well as
north, and the history of these provinces might have been very
different. But the Nile is full of rapids, or cataracts, as they are
called, and at certain seasons of the year is absolutely impassable for
large boats, while the paucity of wells makes regular travel by land
impossible. From Khartoum to Gondokoro, which was the capital of
Colonel Gordon's new province, a distance of about 1000 miles, another
obstacle presents itself, in the form of an almost impassable barrier,
known as a "sudd," which forms on the river, and puts a stop to
traffic. Gordon said that the sudd is formed by an "aquatic plant with
roots extending five feet in the water. The natives burn the top parts,
when dry; the ashes form mould, and fresh grasses grow till it becomes
like _terra firma_. The Nile rises, and floats out the masses; they
come down to a curve and then stop. More of these islands float down,
and at last the river is blocked. Though under them the water flows, no
communication can take place, for they bridge the river for several
miles."
Gordon left Khartoum on March 23, 1874, for Gondokoro, and on the 26th
he writes: "Last night we were going along slowly in the moonlight, and
I was thinking of you all, and the expedition, and Nubar, &c., when all
of a sudden from a large bush came peals of laughter. I felt put out;
but it turned out to be birds, who laughed at us from the bushes for
some time in a rude way. They are a species of stork, and seemed in
capital spirits, and highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to
Gondokoro with the hope of doing anything." Gordon was full of hope,
and very sanguine of success; but from the day when he reached Cairo,
croakers all along the route had been whispering in his ear the
hopelessness of his mission, and how utterly impossible it was to
reform anything connected with such a corrupt administration as that of
Egypt. Fortunately, though he used at times to have terrible fits of
depression, he possessed a great deal of dogged perseverance. It was
this that in China had enabled him to overcome all obstacles in
fighting the enemy, and the same indomitable spirit now made him
persevere and hope on, when every one else despaired. Not only were
there real foes in every direction, determined if possible to frustrate
his mission, but in addition there was physical suffering to endure
from climatic and other causes. "No one can conceive," says he in a
letter written on April 10th, "the utter misery of these lands, heat
and mosquitoes day and night all the year round. But I like the work,
for I believe that I can do a great deal to ameliorate the lot of the
people." Two days after this he passed through a place called St.
Croix, which had been a Roman Catholic mission station, but so
unhealthy was it that it had at last been abandoned. After thirteen
years of work not a single convert had been made, although during that
period the missionaries had plodded on in the face of discouragement,
and in spite of the appalling havoc that death and sickness had made in
their ranks. Out of twenty missionaries thirteen had died of fever, two
of dysentery, and two had been invalided. A few banana trees were all
that remained of the settlement at which these heroes had been
sacrificed.
Gordon reached Gondokoro on April 16th, just twenty-four days after
leaving Khartoum. Everybody was much surprised to see him, for it was
not even known that he had been appointed. He remained only six days,
and then started back to Khartoum, in order to get his baggage. Not
finding it there, he went on to Berber to hurry up the escort, but not
till he had given the corrupt Governor of Khartoum a bit of his mind.
"I have had some sharp skirmishing with the Governor-General of
Khartoum," said he in a letter home, "and I think I have crushed him.
Your brother wrote to him and told him he told _stories_. It was
undiplomatic of me, but it did the Governor-General good." Having
secured his baggage, he returned to Gondokoro. _En route_ he writes
from the entrance of the Sanbat River:--
"We arrived here from Khartoum a week ago, and I have made a nice
station here, and made great friends with the Shillock natives, who
come over in great numbers from the other side of the river. They
are poorly off, and I have given them some grain; very little
contents them. I have employed a few of them to plant maize, and
they do it very fairly. The reason they do not do it for themselves
is, that if they plant any quantity they would run the chance of
losing it, by its being taken by force from them; so they plant
only enough to keep body and soul together, and even that is sown
in small out-of-the-way patches."
He reached Gondokoro the second time on September 4th, receiving the
salaams and salutes of the officers, men, and functionaries, together
with the submission of all the neighbouring chiefs. In the whole of his
province Egypt had only two forts, one at Gondokoro, the capital, with
300 men, and one at Fatiko, further south, with 200 men. "As for paying
taxes," said he, "or any government existing outside the forts, it is
all nonsense. You cannot go out in any safety half-a-mile, all because
they have been fighting the poor natives and taking their cattle. I
apprehend not the least difficulty in the work; the greatest will be to
gain the people's confidence again. They have been hardly treated."
The chief culprit, to whom much of this misgovernment was due, was
Raouf Bey, whom Gordon found at Gondokoro. This man had been in office
for six years, and proved a miserable failure. "Raouf had never
conciliated the tribes, never had planted dhoora; and, in fact, only
possessed the land he camped upon." Yet he made it a grievance that
Gordon refused to employ him, and the present Khedive of Egypt many
years afterwards made him Governor-General of the Soudan when Gordon
resigned.
What most astonished Gordon was the apparent want of affection on the
part of the natives for their offspring, and it pained him none the
less when he reflected that this was entirely due to the slave trade,
and the sufferings the poor people had endured. One man brought Gordon
two of his children of 12 and 9 years old, because they were starving,
and sold them for a basketful of grain, and though the father often
came to the station after this, he never asked to see them. Gordon
mentioned another case, of a family in which there were two children.
Passing their hut one day, and seeing only one child, he asked the
mother where the other was. "Oh," said she, "it has been given to the
man from whom the cow was stolen"--her husband having been the culprit.
This was said with a cheerful smile. "But," said Gordon, "are you not
sorry?" "Oh, no! we would rather have the cow." "But you have eaten the
cow, and the pleasure is over." "Oh, but all the same, we would sooner
have had the cow!" Gordon adds, "The other child of twelve years old,
like her parents did not care a bit. A lamb taken from the flock will
bleat, while here you see not the very slightest vestige of feeling."
Such an incident shows how the human heart can, under certain
circumstances, degenerate to being "without natural affection." It is
not the people who are to blame, but their cruel conquerors. Not many
miles away from this place, in a district which the tyranny of slavery
has not yet reached, Dr. Schweinfurth says of the natives:
"Notwithstanding that certain instances may be alleged which seem to
demonstrate that the character of the Dinka is unfeeling, these cases
never refer to such as are bound by the ties of kindred. Parents do not
desert their children, nor are brothers faithless to brothers, but are
ever prompt to render whatever aid is possible." The famous negro
prelate, Bishop Crowther, and the celebrated traveller, Mr. Stanley,
bear similar testimony. There can be no question that the African, in
his normal condition, is as capable of affection as the native of any
other country.
* * *
Slavery has been, is, and as long as it exists will be, the curse of
Africa. "Not a soul," said Gordon, "to be seen for miles; all driven
off by the slavers in years past. You could scarcely conceive such a
waste or desert." Such was his comment when at the entrance of the
river Sanbat, and such would have frequently been a correct description
of the country blighted by this cursed traffic.
Speaking generally, slavery exists now only in Mohammedan countries
(though there are a few exceptions), yet it cannot be called a
Mohammedan institution. The Prophet sanctioned only the taking of
slaves in war. The custom of his time was to kill and often to torture
prisoners taken in war, so that really it was a step in advance to
suggest that these captives should be utilised as servants. To a great
extent, if not entirely, slavery as an institution is due to the low
moral standard set up by the Koran. Were it not for love of sensual
indulgence, slavery would long ago have died a natural death. Over and
over again has it been proved that voluntary service is far cheaper
than enforced labour. An Indian coolie will work all day, and ask for
little more than enough to keep body and soul together. This much the
slave-owners are compelled to give to keep their slaves in health.
Slaves are valuable property, and it is cheaper to feed them well than
badly. But over and above the food, the slave-owner has to bear the
cost of transit from their bright happy homes in Central Africa,
through hundreds of miles of scorching desert, which demands a
frightful death-toll. Only the strongest ever reach the slave-markets,
and it has been calculated that at least 500,000 lives are annually
sacrificed during transit. Indirectly the slave-owner has to pay for
these. When slaves were taken in war, they cost nothing to transport;
but when Mohammedan conquests ceased, the supply ceased with it, for
Mohammedans are not allowed by the Koran to make slaves of men of their
own creed, though they do sometimes infringe this rule.
It is generally supposed that the slave trade originated in the fact
that in certain parts of Central Africa there are no horses or beasts
of burden, as owing to the existence of the tetse-fly no animal can
live. Consequently ivory and everything else has to be carried on the
heads of porters. These porters were engaged by the Arab ivory dealers
in the interior, and marched in large gangs to the seaports. Having
reached their destination, and given up their loads, the question of
transport back to their villages would arise. The Arab traders found
that it would suit their purpose best to sell the porters as slaves.
Who was to know whether or not they were taken in battle? In Mohammedan
countries, so long as plenty of backsheesh is forthcoming, those in
authority ask few questions. Soon the sale of slaves became more
profitable than the ivory trade, which possibly had originated it, and
so the one was substituted for the other, the authorities not only
winking at it, but encouraging it as a source of large revenues to
them. At one time a large number of so-called Christians were engaged
in this unholy traffic, but the scandal became so great that European
public opinion would not tolerate it, and so they had to sell their
stations to Mohammedan Arabs, who if possible were even more cruel and
relentless in the way they conducted the trade. Merchant princes arose
among them, and they carried on their business with a thoroughness and
a system worthy of a better cause. Soldiers were trained, and large
armies kept for no other purpose than that of collecting slaves.
Peaceful villages were surrounded, night attacks were made, whole
tribes were marched off to the slave markets, the road being lined by
grinning skulls to show the way in which the victims suffered _en
route_.
"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 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 pillaging _en
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 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]
[7] Mr. Alfred Austin in the _English Illustrated Magazine_.
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, _every_ thing 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."
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.