nt with Brocklehurst to Barracks, washed, and went
to Wolseley. He said Ministers would see me at 3 P.M. I went back
to Barracks and reposed. At 12.30 P.M. Wolseley came for me. I
went with him and saw Granville, Hartington, Dilke, and
Northbrook. They said, 'Had I seen Wolseley, and did I understand
their ideas?' I said 'Yes,' and repeated what Wolseley had said
to me as to their ideas, which was '_they would evacuate
Soudan_.' They were pleased, and said 'That was their idea; would
I go?' I said 'Yes.' They said 'When?' I said 'To-night,' and it
was over. I started at 8 P.M. H.R.H. The Duke of Cambridge and
Lord Wolseley came to see me off. I saw Henry and Bob (R. F.
Gordon); no one else except Stokes--all very kind. I have taken
Stewart with me, a nice fellow. We are now in train near Mont
Cenis. I am not moved a bit, and hope to do the people good. Lord
Granville said Ministers were very much obliged to me. I said I
was much honoured by going. I telegraphed King of the Belgians at
once, and told him 'Wait a few months.' Kindest love to
all.--Your affectionate brother,

"C. G. GORDON."

As further evidence of the haste of his departure, I should like to
mention that he had hardly any clothes with him, and that Mrs Watson,
wife of his friend Colonel Watson, procured him all he required--in
fact, fitted him out--during the two days he stayed at Cairo. These
kindly efforts on his behalf were thrown away, for all his
baggage--clothes, uniforms, orders, etc.--was captured with the money
at Berber and never reached him. His only insignia of office at
Khartoum was the Fez, and the writer who described him as putting on
his uniform when the Mahdists broke into the town was gifted with more
imagination than love of truth.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST NILE MISSION.

When Gordon left Egypt, at the end of the year 1879, he was able to
truthfully declare in the words of his favourite book: "No man could
lift his hand or his foot in the land of the Soudan without me." Yet
he was fully alive to the dangers of the future, although then they
were no more than a little cloud on the horizon, for he wrote in 1878:
"Our English Government lives on a hand-to-mouth policy. They are very
ignorant of these lands, yet some day or other, they or some other
Government, will have to know them, for things at Ca