he outside
public blamed the Khedive, and Gordon himself blamed Nubar Pasha and
the Egyptian Ministry; but the real fault lay at the doors of the
British Government, which knew of Gordon's representations and the
discrepancy between the orders of the Khedive and the Convention they
had signed together, and yet did nothing to enforce the precise
fulfilment of the provisions it had thought it worth while to resort
to diplomacy to obtain. The same hesitation and inability to grasp the
real issues has characterised British policy in Egypt down to the
present hour.

If Gordon had not been a man fearless of responsibility, and resolved
that some result should ensue from his labours, he would no doubt have
expended his patience and strength in futile efforts to obtain clearer
and more consistent instructions from Cairo, and, harassed by
official tergiversation and delay, he would have been driven to give
up his task in disgust if not despair. But being what he was--a man of
the greatest determination and the highest spirit--he abandoned any
useless effort to negotiate with either the English or the Egyptian
authorities in the Delta, and he turned to the work in hand with the
resolve to govern the Soudan in the name of the Khedive, but as a
practical Dictator. It was then that broke from him the characteristic
and courageous phrase: "I will carry things with a high hand to the
last."

The first and most pressing task to which Gordon had to address
himself was the supersession of the Turkish and Arab irregulars, who,
under the name of "Bashi-Bazouks," constituted a large part of the
provincial garrison. Not merely were they inefficient from a military
point of view, but their practice, confirmed by long immunity, had
been to prey on the unoffending population. They thus brought the
Government into disrepute, at the same time that they were an element
of weakness in its position. Gordon saw that if the Khedive had no
better support than their services, his authority in the Soudan was
liable at any moment to be overthrown. It had been the practice of the
Cairo authorities to send up, whenever reinforcements were asked for,
Arnaut and Arab loafers in that city, and these men were expected to
pay themselves without troubling the Government. This they did to
their own satisfaction, until Gordon resolved to put an end to their
misdeeds at all cost, for he found that not merely did they pillage
the people, but that they were active