composition. He had a most powerful will. When his mind was made
up on a matter it never seemed to occur to him that there could
be anything more to say about it. Such was his superb confidence
in himself!"

When Gordon had been only a few months at Pembroke Dock he received
orders to proceed to Corfu, and believing it to be due to his father's
request, he wrote: "I suspect you used your influence to have me sent
there instead of to the Crimea. It is a great shame of you." But the
Fates were to be stronger than any private influence, for four days
after he wrote those lines he received fresh orders directing him to
leave for the Crimea without delay in charge of huts. It seems that
the change in his destination was due to Sir John Burgoyne, to whom he
had expressed the strongest wish to proceed to the scene of war. On
4th December 1854, he received his orders at Pembroke, on the 6th he
reported himself at the War Office, and in the evening of the same day
he was at Portsmouth. It was at first intended that he should go out
in a collier, but he obtained permission to proceed _via_ Marseilles,
which he pronounced "extremely lucky, as I am such a bad sailor." This
opinion was somewhat qualified later on when he found that the
Government did not prepay his passage, and he expressed the opinion
pretty freely, in which most people would concur, that "it is very
hard not to give us anything before starting." He left London on the
14th December, Marseilles in a French hired transport on the 18th, and
reached Constantinople the day after Christmas Day. He was not much
struck with anything he saw; pronounced Athens "very ugly and dirty,"
and the country around uncommonly barren; and was disappointed with
the far-famed view on approaching Constantinople. The professional
instinct displayed itself when he declared that the forts of the
Dardanelles did not appear to be very strong, as, although numerous,
they were open at the rear and overlooked by the heights behind. On
28th December Gordon left Constantinople in the _Golden Fleece_
transport conveying the 39th Regiment to Balaclava. The important huts
had not yet arrived in the collier from Portsmouth, but they could not
be far behind, and Gordon went on in advance. The huts, it may be
added, were built to contain twenty-four men, or two captains and four
subalterns, or two field-officers or one general, and the number of
these entrusted to the charge of Gordon w