yptian garrison in the Soudan was
efficient, that communications were easy, and the climate not
unpleasant, and that Gordon, supported by zealous lieutenants, had
only to hold up his hand or pass a resolution, in the fashion of
Exeter Hall, for the chains, real and metaphysical, to fall from the
limbs of the negro population of Inner Africa. That was their dream.
The reality was a worthless and craven army, a climate that killed
most Europeans, and which the vigour and abstemiousness of Gordon
scarcely enabled him to endure, communications only maintained and
represented by the wearying flight of the camel across the desert,
treachery and hostility to his plans, if not his person, among his
colleagues--all these difficulties and dangers overcome and rendered
nugatory by the earnestness and energy of one man alone. Well might
his indignation find vent in such a grand outburst as this:--

"I do not believe in you all. You say this and that, and you do
not do it; you give your money, and you have done your duty; you
praise one another, etc. I do not wonder at it. God has given you
ties and anchors to this earth; you have wives and families. I,
thank God, have none of them, and am free. Now understand me. If
it suit me, I will buy slaves. I will let captured slaves go down
to Egypt and not molest them, and I will do what I like, and what
God, in His mercy, may direct me to do about domestic slaves; but
I will break the neck of slave raids, even if it cost me my life.
I will buy slaves for my army; for this purpose I will make
soldiers against their will, to enable me to prevent raids. I
will do this in the light of day, and defy your resolutions and
your actions. Would my heart be broken if I was ousted from this
command? Should I regret the eternal camel-riding, the heat, the
misery I am forced to witness, the discomforts of everything
around my domestic life? Look at my travels in seven months.
Thousands of miles on camels, and no hope of rest for another
year. You are only called on at intervals to rely on your God;
with me I am obliged continually to do so. Find me the man and I
will take him as my help who utterly despises money, name, glory,
honour; one who never wishes to see his home again; one who looks
to God as the Source of good and Controller of evil; one who has
a healthy body and energetic spirit