eagerness--forty times he was in the trenches for twenty hours--he never
overlooked the details that were necessary to ensure the success of any
work he was entrusted with, and he never relaxed his watchfulness till
the post to be won was actually taken. In his leisure moments he seems
to have been fond of walking as far as he could without running into
danger, and writes home in February of the grass that was springing and
the crocuses that were flowering outside the camp. Sometimes he would go
with a friend down to the great harbour on the north side of which the
Russians were entrenched, and listen to them singing the sad boating
songs of the Volga, or watch them trying to catch fish, chattering
merrily all the while.

At last the forts of the Mamelon and the Malakoff were stormed, and the
Russians abandoned Sebastopol. Gordon, who had often narrowly escaped
death, was mentioned by the generals in despatches; but he did not
receive promotion, and, except a scar, the only token he carried away of
those long months of toil and strain was the cross of the Legion of
Honour bestowed on him by the French. But he was a marked man for all
that, and was sent straight from the Crimea, after peace was made, to
join a mission for fixing fresh frontiers for Russia south-west along
the river Pruth and on the shores of the Black Sea.

* * * * *

Wherever he went, whether he was on the borders of Turkey, in Armenia,
or in the Caucasus, where he proceeded after a winter in England, he
made the best of his opportunities and saw all he could of the country
and the people. He was as fond as ever of expeditions and adventures,
and climbed Ararat till a blinding snowstorm came on and the guides
refused to proceed. In the Caucasus he dined out whenever he was asked,
and was equally surprised at the beauty of the smart ladies (who wore
bracelets made of coal) and at the ingrained dirt of their clothes and
their houses. On the whole, though he thoroughly enjoyed the good
dinners they gave him, he preferred going on shooting expeditions into
the mountains with their husbands and sons.

At the end of 1858 he was ordered home again, and a few months later
obtained his captaincy, and was made adjutant and field-work instructor
at Chatham. But this did not last long, for in a year's time he was
destined to undertake one of the two great missions of his life.

Early in 1860 a war with China broke out, and in th