The
published extracts from these voluminous outpourings lay bare the
inner history of Gordon's spirit, and reveal the pious visionary
of Gravesend in the restless hero of three continents.
His seclusion came to an end in a distinctly providential manner.
In accordance with a stipulation in the Treaty of Paris, an
international commission had been appointed to improve the
navigation of the Danube; and Gordon, who had acted on a similar
body fifteen years earlier, was sent out to represent Great
Britain. At Constantinople, he chanced to meet the Egyptian
minister, Nubar Pasha. The Governorship of the Equatorial
Provinces of the Sudan was about to fall vacant; and Nubar
offered the post to Gordon, who accepted it. 'For some wise
design,' he wrote to his sister, '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.'
And then followed six years of extraordinary, desperate,
unceasing, and ungrateful labour. The unexplored and pestilential
region of Equatoria, stretching southwards to the Great Lakes and
the sources of the Nile, had been annexed to Egypt by the Khedive
Ismail, who, while he squandered his millions on Parisian ballet-
dancers, dreamt strange dreams of glory and empire.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315