Part 24 (1/2)
In June 1864 the British government sent an intimation to China that they considered the country had no further need for Gordon's services, and wished him set at liberty to return home Gordon hier, but, as he was given no choice, he quietly disbanded the Ever-Victorious-Arht becoing Nankin, whose naave hi of troops, and even took part in directing soeneral, and a few hours later he had started on his journey Tien wang, one of the Taeping co that the cause was tottering to its fall, co gold leaf Shortly after the city itself was stor the rebels was, said Gordon, equal to an army of five thousand men, fell into the hands of the victors He was sentenced to be beheaded, but was given a week's respite in order to write the history of the rebellion of the Taepings, who had invaded sixteen out of the eighteen provinces and destroyed six hundred cities
By this tiun to know more of each other and to understand a little better the different views of East and West Gordon had gained the trust and respect of everybody, even of the Taeping chiefs the, in the naratitude for Gordon's services to the British hest rank in the Chinese army, had been conferred on hi back to the co of the present Manchu dynasty in the seventeenth century, and only given to generals who had been victorious against rebels Gordon had besides six dresses ofhow they should be worn
They were of course the handsomest that China could produce, and the buttons on the hats alone orth 30 l or 40 l each Froold reat store, though not long after, having spent all his pay on his boys at Gravesend, he sold it for 10 l, and, s out the inscription, sent the overnave him a step in military rank, and it was as 'Colonel Gordon' that he returned home early in 1865
The next six years of his life Gordon passed at home, and these years were, he said, the happiest he had ever spent He first visited his fa at Southampton, and to them he was ready to talk of all that he had seen and done since they last parted Invitations poured in upon hi fussed over, and invariably lost his tery at a minister who borrowed fro rebellion, and then sent to have it printed for the other ht to the printers and insisted that the type should at once be destroyed It was a very great loss to the world; but the minister had no business to act as he did without Gordon's permission, and had only hih it was to be back again, Gordon soon got tired of being idle, so he was given an appointment to superintend the erection of forts at Gravesend His leisure hours he devoted to helping the people round hiround and schoolroom were the streets or the riverside And it is curious that he, who aers of his own class was shy and abrupt, and often tactless, was quite at his ease with these little fellows, generally as suspicious as they are acute About hiht, and if he orking would eat, when it was necessary and he remembered to do so, food which he had ready in a drawer of his table
But as he had carefully watched over the welfare of his troops in China, so in Gravesend he looked after that of his boys He took into his own house as many as there was rooht thelish history and the Bible, and when he considered they had done lessons long enough he played games with them By-and-by more boys came in from the outside and joined his classes It did not matter to hiave theious as well as practical, hoping that soood soldiers and sailors, and be a protection to the empire Several of his boys were taken on board some of the many shi+ps off Gravesend, and the 'kernel,' as they called hies all over the world
[Illustration: He told thelish history]
Most people would have considered that between h; but Gordon still found tied schools, and money to provide hundreds of boots and suits for the little waifs, till he left hiarden attached to his house was of no benefit to himself, but was lent by him to a number of his friends, each of whom did as he liked with his own portion, and either kept the fruit and vegetables for his family, or else sold them Of course, the 'kernel' was frequently taken in, and spent his money on those who had no claim to it; but the boys he helped were seldom a disappointment, any more than the boys of to-day sent out from the Gordon Boys' Homes founded in his memory
It must have been a black day indeed for overnment on a raves of those who had fallen in the Criood-bye to his friends, young and old, leaving to the ragged schools sos, which are still waved at the school treats aiver
On his way back from the Crimea Gordon stopped at Constantinople, and while there a proposal was ypt and to take service, with the queen's perovernor of the tribes in upper Egypt Sir San, and Gordon, who had always laid greatly to heart the iniquity of the slave-trade, thought that, as governor of the provinces froht be able to put an end to it
Leave was granted in the autumn of 1873, and before Gordon returned to London to make the necessary preparations, he proceeded to Cairo to see the khedive, or, as he was still called, 'the lieutenant of the sultan'
When Gordon accepted the position of 'governor of the equatorial provinces,' with a salary of 2,000 a year, instead of the 10,000 offered him by the khedive, the country, which ten years before had been rich and prosperous, was in a wretched condition owing to the slave-trade, carried on as long as they were able by Europeans as well as by Arabs At first elephant-hunting was roes a es had the strong men and women torn away from them, till, at the first hint of the approach of a caravan, the people would abandon their huts and fly off to hide theth the trade became so well known and so scandalous that the Europeans were forced to give it up; but the Arab dealers continued to groerful and wealthy, and the wealthiest and most powerful of all was Zebehr, whose name for ever after was closely connected with that of Gordon
The slave-dealers soon forue, with Zebehr at their head, and, having created an army made up of Arabs and of the slaves they had taken, refused to pay tribute to the khedive, or to acknowledge the supremacy of the sultan of Constantinople, whose viceroy he was The Egyptian government, which had suffered the slave-trade to proceed unchecked when hunant the ainst Zebehr, who easily defeated it, and proclaimed himself ruler of the Soudan or 'land of the black,' south of Khartouroup of three thousand mud-houses on the left bank of the Blue Nile, three miles froh it was, Khartouovernor's house, with the Blue Nile sheltering it on one side, and surrounded on the other three by a deep ditch and a wall, while on the west side the toas only half a mile distant from the White Nile itself
As soon as the khedive understood that he was no match for Zebehr he determined to make a friend of him, and offered him an alliance with the title of pasha
For the moment it suited Zebehr to accept this proposal, and the two armies combined and conquered the province of Darfour; but directly the pasha wished to turn into a governor-general the khedive grew frightened, and declared that he was now convinced that the trade in slaves icked and uessed that Europe was hardly likely to be convinced by this sudden change, so, instead of appointing an Egyptian governor of the equatorial provinces, he conferred the post first on Sir Samuel Baker, and, later, on Gordon
It did not take Gordon long to find out that the khedive's newly discovered zeal in putting down the slave-trade was 'a shalish people,' but the weapon had been thrust into his hands, and he meant to use it for the help of the oppressed tribes
Difficulties he knew there would be, and he was ready to fight them, but one difficulty he hardlythe Mahohout the world it was as much a matter of course to have slaves as it is to us to have houses
With great care he selected the staff that was to accompany him, and a body of two hundred troops to inspect Khartoulishmen, an American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud, whom Gordon had found a prisoner in Cairo In vain the khedive warned the new governor-general of the danger of taking such a villain into his service, and of the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes of Europe To Gordon the only thing that h which they were to travel, and as to the rest, his own neck must take its chance
It was on March 12, 1874, that Gordon caht of Khartourave He was received on the banks by the Egyptian governor-general, who ordered salutes to be fired and the brass band to play If Gordon did not appreciate the honours paid to hirass and stones that had hitherto rendered the White Nile impassable had been at last cut away by the soldiers Now the river was free, and instead of the journey to Gondokoro--his own capital, eleven hundredfourteen months, as in the days of Sir Samuel Baker, he would be able to perform it in four weeks