n now is, how to get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart
away from Khartum.... Under present circumstances, I think an effort
should be made to help General Gordon from Suakin, if it is at all a
possible military operation.... We all consider that, however
difficult the operations from Suakin may be, they are more practicable
than any operations from Korosko and along the Nile."

A telegram from General Gordon, received at Cairo on the 19th of April,
stated that

"We have provisions for five months and are hemmed in.... Our position
will be much strengthened when the Nile rises.... Sennar, Kassala and
Dongola are quite safe for the present."

At the same time he suggested "an appeal to the millionaires of America
and England" to subscribe money for the cost of "2000 or 3000 nizams"
(Turkish regulars) to be sent to Berber. A cloud now settled down upon
Khartum, and subsequent communications were few and irregular. The
foreign office and General Gordon appeared to be somewhat at cross
purposes. The former hoped that the garrisons of the Sudan could be
extricated without fighting. The latter, judging from the tenor of some
of his telegrams, believed that to accomplish this work entailed the
suppression of the mahdi's revolt, the strength of which he at first
greatly underestimated. He had pressed strongly for the employment of
Zobeir as "an absolute necessity for success" (3rd of March); but this
was refused, since Sir H. Gordon advised at this time that it would be
dangerous. On the 9th of March General Gordon proposed, "if the
immediate evacuation of Khartum is determined upon irrespective of
outlying towns," to send down the "Cairo _employes_" and the garrison to
Berber with Lieutenant-Colonel J. D. Stewart, to resign his commission,
and to proceed with the stores and the steamers to the equatorial
provinces, which he would consider as placed under the king of the
Belgians. On the 13th of March Lord Granville gave full power to General
Gordon to "evacuate Khartum and save that garrison by conducting it
himself to Berber without delay," and expressed a hope that he would not
resign his commission.

Relief expedition: question of route.

By the end of March 1884 Sir E. Baring and the British officers in Egypt
were convinced that force would have to be employed, and the growing
danger of General Gordon, with the grave national responsibility
involved, began to be realized in Great Britain. Sir Henry