had finished writing my "History of China."
His laughing reply was: "You know I shall never read it, but you can
have all my papers now in the possession of my brother, Sir Henry
Gordon." My history took a very long time to write, and the third
volume was not published until April 1884, when General Gordon was
hemmed in, to use his own words, at Khartoum.

For over two years General Gordon's papers and letters remained in my
custody, and they included the Equator and Soudan correspondence,
which was so admirably edited by Dr Birkbeck Hill in that intensely
interesting volume, "Colonel Gordon in Central Africa." The papers
relating to China and the Taeping Rebellion were freely used in my
history. To them I have the privilege of adding in the present volume
an authoritative narrative of the events that followed the execution
of the Taeping Wangs at Soochow, and of thus rendering tardy justice
to the part taken in them by Sir Halliday Macartney. Among the
contents of the large portmanteau in which all these documents were
stored, I noticed a thick bundle of letters, in somewhat faded
handwriting, and an examination of their contents showed me that they
were of the deepest interest as relating to the important events of
the Crimean War, and to the first seven years of Gordon's service in
the Army. I at once went to Sir Henry Gordon, who honoured me with his
friendship and confidence in no less a degree than his distinguished
and ever-lamented brother, and begged of him permission to publish
them. He at once gave his consent, which was ratified by the late Miss
Augusta Gordon, the hero's favourite sister. The letters appeared in
July 1884, under the title of "General Gordon's Letters from the
Crimea, the Danube, and Armenia." In the proper place I have told what
Kinglake, the historian of the war, thought of them and their author.

In the rush of books that followed the fall of Khartoum, no favourable
opportunity for carrying out my original purpose presented itself;
and, indeed, I may say that the anonymous biographical work I
performed during the course of the year 1885 would have filled a
large-sized volume. Moreover, the terrible events of the fall of
Khartoum, and the failure of the relieving expedition, were too close
at hand to allow of a just view being taken of them, and it was
necessary to defer an intention which I never abandoned. It seemed to
me that the tenth anniversary of the fall of Khartoum would be an