height, and I have been
to much pains to obtain some decisive evidence on the subject.
Unfortunately no such records as to height, etc., are kept about
officers, and my search proved fruitless, more especially as the
records at Woolwich for the period required were destroyed by fire
some years ago. The best evidence I have obtained is that of General
Gordon's tailors, Messrs Batten & Sons, of Southampton, who write: "We
consider, by measurements in our books, that General Gordon was 5 ft.
9 in." As he had contracted a slight stoop, or, more correctly
speaking, carried his head thrown forward, he looked in later life
much less than his real height. The quotations at the end of this
chapter will show some difference of opinion. His figure was very
slight, but his nervous energy could never be repressed, and he was
probably stronger than his appearance suggested. The suggestion of
delicate health in his look and aspect, arising, as he was led to
believe, but erroneously, from _angina pectoris_, or some mysterious
chest pain, may have induced a belief that he was not robust, but this
seems to have been baseless, because throughout his life, whether in
the trenches of Sebastopol, the marshes of the Yangtse delta, or the
arid plains of the Soudan, he appears to have equally enjoyed
excellent health.

The only specific mention of serious illness was during his stay in
the Soudan as Governor-General, when the chest pains became acute.
These were at length traced to an enlarged liver, and perhaps the
complaint was aggravated by excessive smoking. In the desert, far
removed from medical aid, he obtained much relief from the use of
Warburg's Tincture.

In his ordinary moods there was nothing striking about the face. The
colour of the eye was too light--yet the glance was as keen as a
rapier, and, as the little Soudan boy Capsune, whom he had educated,
said, "Gordon's eyes looked you through and through"--the features
were not sufficiently marked, the carriage of the man was too
diffident and modest to arrest or detain attention, and the
explanation of the universal badness of the numerous photographs taken
of him at all stages of his career is probably to be found in the
deficiency of colouring and contrast. Everything in his appearance
depended on expression, and expression generally baffles the
photographer. Perhaps the least objectionable of all these
portraitures is the steel plate in Dr Birkbeck Hill's volume on
"Gordon