me to make them, and though I feel sure that I am
unjust sometimes, it is not the rule with me to be so. I care for
their marches, for their wants and food, and protect their women
and boys if they ill-treat them; and I do nothing of this. I am a
chisel which cuts the wood; the Carpenter directs it. If I lose my
edge, He must sharpen me; if He puts me aside and takes another, it
is His own good will. None are indispensable to Him; He will do His
work with a straw equally as well."

Gordon had not been long in his province when he saw that the only
effectual way to abolish slavery was to open up the country, and
encourage traders by making it safe for them to travel about. Much as
he did personally to punish slave-hunting, and to break up gangs of men
so engaged, he always considered that his best efforts should be
devoted to the opening up of the country for trade. At the time he was
there, and now also, the leading men were all more or less engaged in
slave-hunting, and no one dared to say a word against them. Gordon
wanted to introduce an independent class of traders, who would soon be
sufficiently powerful to give evidence against the leaders of the
slave-hunting system. His desire afterwards to serve the King of the
Belgians in the Congo territory was with the object of developing
trade, and thus ultimately of preventing slave-dealing. With regard to
Egypt, he formed his ideas during the first year he was in the country,
and he steadily adhered to them to the end. Writing from Tultcha, on
17th November 1873, he says:--

"I believe if the Soudan was settled, the Khedive would prevent the
slave trade; but he does not see his way to do so till he can move
about the country. My ideas are to open it out by getting the
steamers on to the lakes, by which time I should know the promoters
of the slave trade and could ask the Khedive to seize them." And
again: "God has allowed slavery to go on for so many years; born in
the people, it needs more than an expedition to eradicate it; open
out the country, and it will fall of itself."

Though he was not permitted during his life to see much permanent
result from his arduous labours, yet far from his efforts having been
in vain, he it was who revived in Europe an interest in the subject,
and conclusions arrived at by the recent Anti-Slavery Conference, at
Brussels, clearly indicate that the more thoughtful philanthropis