termined to use the Egyptian flotilla
to make an immediate advance. The steamers were protected, and a small
relief force started on January 24th. They came in sight of Khartum on
the 28th, but were fired upon from every side. At this moment, a native
called from the bank that the city had fallen, and that the heroic
Gordon had been killed.

A history of Egypt would be incomplete without some account of that
leader whose bravery, humanitarian views, and understanding of the
Oriental character have made him famous among the pioneers of Christian
civilisation in Asia and Africa. Fresh from his laurels won in the
service of the Chinese government in suppressing the Tai-peng rebellion,
Gordon returned to England in 1871. In 1874 he accepted a position from
Egypt, with the consent of the British government. He journeyed to Cairo
and up the Nile to take up the command as governor of the Equatorial
Provinces in succession to Sir Samuel Baker. There he laboured with
incessant energy to put down the slave-trade and to secure the welfare
of the natives. He established a series of Egyptian outposts along the
Abyssinian frontier and made a survey of Lake Albert Nyanza. Returning
to Cairo in 1874, after some delay, he was appointed by Ismail Pasha as
governor-general of the whole of the Egyptian Sudan. A war followed
with Abyssinia, and, after the army, led by Egyptian officers, had been
beaten twice, Gordon went to Massowah to negotiate with the Abyssinian
monarch, Atti Johannes. He next proceeded to Khartum, and vigorously
undertook the suppression of the slave-trade.

[Illustration: 207.jpg MOSQUE OF THE IBRIHAM AT DESUK]

Gordon's death at Khartum, in 1884, is one of the greatest tragedies of
modern history. Supported neither by Egypt nor by the English army, of
a different religion from all his followers, pressed on all sides by the
Mah-dist forces, Gordon gallantly kept his few faithful followers at his
side, and, with incessant activity and heroism, protected the remaining
Egyptian colonists of the cities along the Nile, over which he still
held control. He had called upon the British government to send aid
across the desert from Suakin via Berber, but this request had been
denied him. Berber then fell, and he was cut off to the north by many
hundred miles of territory occupied by Mahdists. On January the
1st, nearly a month before the long-delayed succour approached the
beleaguered city, the provisions had given out. He ha