superseded by those of
sick nurse. But before the end of October he was back again in
England, and met his father and the other members of his family after
a still longer interval. While engaged on the frontier commission, his
comrade in the trenches, Lieutenant William Christian Anderson, of his
own Corps, had married one of his sisters, but, after a very short
period of wedded happiness, he died suddenly. After his death a son
was born who bore the same name, is now an officer in the Royal
Artillery, and served on General Graham's staff at Souakim. Charles
Gordon summed up his comrade's character in these words:--

"I am extremely distressed to hear of poor Willie Anderson's
death, and every one who knew him will be so. He was a sterling
good comrade and officer, greatly liked by both officers and men,
and our Corps has sustained a great loss in him. I am so very
sorry for poor dear ----. It is such a sudden blow to her, and I
am sure they must have been so happy together during their short
married life."

Gordon, therefore, found a certain amount of gloom in the family
circle during the Christmas of 1857, and as his desire to join the
staff of the army was not immediately attainable, the orders he
suddenly received in April 1858 to again proceed to the Caucasus, in
consequence of a slight frontier dispute with Russia, were not
altogether disagreeable to him as a return to that active work which
he loved. For some reason, which was probably the wish to save a
little money by economy in travelling, with the view of carrying out
his generous plans towards others, he took his passage to
Constantinople in a slow steamer from the Thames, touching at Havre.
He described his fellow-passengers as not very select, but amusing,
and the voyage as "a yachting excursion, time being apparently no
object." He only remained ten days at Constantinople, and reached
Redout Kaleh in the Caucasus on 3rd June, visiting Sebastopol on the
way. He described it as still an utter ruin; "the grass had so
overgrown the place where the camps stood that it was with difficulty
I found my hut."

On 12th June Gordon joined his Russian colleague, Ogranovitch, at
Ozurgeth; but the Turkish representative did not arrive for a month
later, which interval Gordon employed in recording his impressions of
Russian and Georgian society in the Caucasus:--

"I dined with the Governor-General, Prince Eristaw, who left t