Part 31 (2/2)

With the remnant of Baker's troops, nearly 3,000 men were available for the defence of the town, but the majority were completely demoralized.

In every part of the town and on the road to the camp were heart-rending scenes, women and children weeping for husbands and fathers killed in the late battle. Even for the purpose of holding Souakim, the Egyptian troops could not be relied upon, whilst the townspeople, infected with religious mania, threatened to turn on the Europeans.

On the 9th it was decided to declare Souakim in a state of siege, and to give the British officers full powers, military and civil, over the town. The Egyptian Government were at the same time notified that in the event of Souakim being attacked it would be defended by a British force.

On the same day spies from Sinkat brought a letter from Tewfik Bey to the effect that the garrison having eaten the camels, and even the cats and dogs, were subsisting on roots and the leaves of trees.

The force at Souakim was now employed working day and night strengthening the intrenchments and fortifications. A further force of Marines and bluejackets landed from the fleet, occupying the new barracks which had been made in the centre of the lines. This post was surrounded by a trench, and made impregnable. The advanced lines, about a mile in length, were to be manned by Egyptian troops in case of an attack. As a means of preventing the latter from running away, the communication between the lines to be held by them and the rest of the works was so arranged that it could be immediately cut off, in which case it was hoped that the Egyptians, having no alternative, might be induced to stand their ground.

On the 10th the charge of Souakim was handed formally over by Baker to Admiral Hewett, and the troops, numbering some 3,800 strong, were paraded. At the same time a proclamation was posted in that town announcing that the Admiral had taken over the command.

On the 12th the news reached Souakim of the fall of Sinkat. It appears that the rebels surrounded the place and demanded the submission of the garrison. Tewfik Bey, with the courage which had marked his conduct throughout, declined to lay down his arms, replying that he preferred death to submission. He then sallied forth with 450 half-starved men, and attacked the rebels, killing a large number. He was finally overpowered, and the whole of his force annihilated. Tewfik seemed to have fought bravely himself, and after expending all the cartridges of his Remington carbine, defended himself with his sword. Only five men escaped the general ma.s.sacre, and all the women except thirty were sold as slaves.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

GORDON'S MISSION.

We now arrive at the period when the abandonment of the Soudan having been decided upon, the British Government confided to General Gordon the task of extricating the Egyptian garrisons scattered throughout the country. In dealing with this part of the subject the s.p.a.ce available in the present work will not admit of more than a concise summary of events. The subject has, however, been so exhaustively dealt with by other writers, that the abbreviated account given in the following pages will probably be found sufficient for the general reader.

Charles George Gordon was born on the 28th January, 1833. Gazetted to the Royal Engineers in 1852, he took part in all the operations in the Crimea, including the first a.s.sault of the Redan. In 1860 he went to China, where he shared in the advance on Pekin. In the spring of 1862 he was summoned to Shanghai to check the advance of the Taepings, and in March, 1863, was appointed to the command of ”the ever victorious army.”

Of Gordon's exploits in the Chinese service it is unnecessary to dwell at any length. The Emperor bestowed on him the post of Commander-in-Chief, with the decoration of the yellow jacket and peac.o.c.k's feather. The British Government promoted him to the rank of Colonel, made him a C.B., and in 1865 he returned to England.

In 1874, as already stated, Colonel Gordon succeeded Sir Samuel Baker in the Soudan. Offered 10,000 a-year salary, Gordon would only accept 2,000. Landing at Souakim, he crossed the desert to Berber, paid his first visit to Khartoum, and pushed up the Nile to Gondokoro, in September. He began by conciliating the natives and by breaking up the slave-stations. He continued Governor-General for a period of eighteen months, during which time he accomplished miracles.

When he arrived, there was a fort at Gondokoro, and one at Fatiko, 200 miles to the south, miserably garrisoned by soldiers, who dared not venture out half a mile for fear of being slaughtered by the natives.

When he left he had established a chain of stations from the Soudan up to the Albert Nyanza, and rendered the communication between them perfectly safe. He had, moreover, succeeded in restoring peace to the tribes of the Nile Valley, who now freely brought their produce to these stations for sale. He had checked the slave trade on the White Nile, and secured a revenue to the Khedive's exchequer, without having recourse to oppression. He had been the means of establis.h.i.+ng satisfactory relations with King M'tesa, the powerful ruler of Uganda, had mapped out the White Nile from Khartoum almost up to the Victoria Nyanza, and had opened water communication between Gondokoro and the lakes.

In October, 1876, Gordon, judging that he had done enough for the Soudan, started northward, halted at Cairo to request Cherif Pasha to inform the Khedive that he intended quitting his service, and on the 24th December reached London.

Egypt, however, had not yet done with him. Gordon remained only a short time in retirement before he was again called to Egypt. In February, 1877, Ismail Pasha made him not only Governor-General of the Soudan, but also of Darfur and the Equatorial Provinces, a country 1,640 miles long and 660 miles broad.

Gordon hastened to Khartoum, the seat of his new government. It was time. The Soudan had been drained of Egyptian troops for the support of the Sultan in his war with Russia. Darfur was in revolt, and its garrisons were beleaguered.

Arrived at Khartoum, he at once set to work to overthrow every tradition of Oriental rule. In less than a month he revolutionized the whole administration, abolished the courbash, checked bribery, arranged for a water-supply to the city, and commenced the disbandment of the Turks and Bas.h.i.+-Bazouks, who, instead of acting as a frontier guard, favoured the pa.s.sage of slave-caravans.

In February, 1878, he was summoned by telegraph to the Egyptian capital to lend his aid in arranging the finances of the country, which had fallen into hopeless confusion. Reaching Cairo on the 7th March, he was received with every honour, and placed at table on the Khedive's right hand. He now fell into disfavour with the Egyptian Government. He was too much in earnest and spoke out too openly, and within a month started off in quasi-disgrace to inspect the south-eastern provinces of his government. After dismissing an old enemy, Reouf Pasha, from the governors.h.i.+p of Harrar, he made his way back to Khartoum by Souakim and Berber, and for months remained engaged in settling questions of finance and the affairs of the province.

In July, 1879, Gordon received the news of the Khedive Ismail's deposition, and started at once for Cairo. He told Tewfik, the new Khedive, that he did not intend to go back to the Soudan, but he nevertheless accepted a mission to Abyssinia to settle matters with King Johannes. Physically worn out by his exertions, he came to England for a time, visiting on his way thither the ex-Khedive at Naples.

On the appointment in May, 1880, of Lord Ripon to the Governor-Generals.h.i.+p of India, Gordon accepted the post of private secretary to the Marquis, but resigned it on the 3rd of June, feeling, as he expressed it, ”the hopelessness of doing anything to the purpose.”

On the invitation of the Chinese authorities he soon afterwards left India for China, between which country and Russia differences had arisen, and after successfully exerting his influence in the maintenance of peace, left China the following August.

In the spring of 1881 Gordon went to the Mauritius as Commandant of the Royal Engineers, remaining for a year, when he was made Major-General.

In the following May he proceeded to the Cape to aid the Colonial authorities in solving the Basuto difficulty.

Shortly after his return to England he left for Palestine, where he spent a year in retirement outside Jerusalem, devoting much time to proving, to the horror of pious tourists, that the commonly received ”holy places” were not the right ones after all, and working out the scheme for a Jordan Ca.n.a.l.

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