aces seem to have had peculiar
fascination for his active brain, and he came to the conclusion that
most, if not all, of them were wrong. It would, however, occupy too
much space to give the reasons which led him to this conclusion. Though
we cannot gather it from his own letters, a good deal of his time was
more profitably spent than in hunting up old sites. Dr. Cunningham
Geikie, who was in Jerusalem when Gordon was killed at Khartoum, tells
us:--

"A poor dragoman told me that General Gordon used to come often to
his house in Jerusalem when he and his wife lay ill, and that he
would take a mat, and put it on the floor as a seat, there being no
chairs or furniture, and sit down with his Testament to read and
speak to them about Christ. Ascertaining that a doctor's account
had been incurred, he went off secretly and paid it. He gave away
all he had to the poor in Jerusalem and the villages round, and the
people mourn for him as for their father."

He made friends with some of the missionaries of the Church Missionary
Society, with whom he found himself much in sympathy. Speaking of the
Rev. J. R. L. Hall, he says, "I have found a nice man now here (Jaffa),
but his mission is at Gaza. He is a Jew[10] by birth, but a man after my
own heart. I may drop down there ere long and help him. He belongs to
the C.M.S."

[10] General Gordon was under a misconception as to the parentage
of Mr. Hall. As a matter of fact this missionary is descended
from a very old family in the county of Hampshire, and was no
more related to that ancient race than the General himself.

This Mr. Hall, in a speech afterwards made at Exeter Hall, told some
interesting things about General Gordon at this period of his life,
which for want of space, cannot be reproduced at length here. He
thoroughly identified himself with mission work, showing how much he
valued Christianity over all other religious systems. When he met Mr.
Hall he said, "I am very restless; I came here for rest and quiet, to
study the Word of God, and at the same time to discover different
sacred sites. I am not satisfied; I am restless; I want Christian work.
Do you think that if I were to come to Jaffa, you could give me any
work to do?" He went to live at Jaffa for eight months. While he was
there instructions came from the central society for a mission-house to
be built at Nablous. There was no architect nearer than at Jer