the meeting with Li Hung Chang the “Ever-Victorious Army” again advanced and took a number of towns from the rebels, ending with Chanchufu, the principal military position of the Taipings. This fell in May, when Gordon returned to Quinsan and disbanded his force. In June the Tien Wang, seeing his cause was hopeless, committed suicide, and the capture of Nanking by the imperialist troops shortly afterwards brought the Taiping revolt to a conclusion. The suppression of this serious movement was undoubtedly due in great part to the skill and energy of Gordon, who had shown remarkable qualities as a leader of men. The emperor promoted him to the rank of Titu, the highest grade in the Chinese army, and also gave him the Yellow Jacket, the most important decoration in China. He wished to give him a large sum of money, but this Gordon refused. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel for his Chinese services, and made a Companion of the Bath. Henceforth he was often familiarly spoken of as “Chinese” Gordon.
Gordon was appointed on his return to England Commanding Royal Engineer at Gravesend, where he was employed in superintending the erection of forts for the defence of the Thames. He devoted himself with energy to his official duties, and his leisure hours to practical philanthropy. All the acts of kindness which he did for the poor during the six years he was stationed at Gravesend will never be fully known. In October 1871 he was appointed British representative on the international commission which had been constituted after the Crimean War to maintain the navigation of the mouth of the river Danube, with headquarters at Galatz. During 1872 Gordon was sent to inspect the British military cemeteries in the Crimea, and when passing through Constantinople on his return to Galatz he made the acquaintance of Nubar Pasha, prime minister of Egypt, who sounded him as to whether he would take service under the khedive. Nothing further was settled at the time, but the following year he received a definite offer from the khedive, which he accepted with the consent of the British government, and proceeded to Egypt early in 1874. He was then a colonel in the army, though still only a captain in the corps of Royal Engineers.
To understand the object of the appointment which Gordon accepted in Egypt, it is necessary to give a few facts with reference to the Sudan. In 1820–22 Nubia, Sennar and Kordofan had been conquered by Egypt, and the authority of the Egyptians was subsequently extended southward, eastward to the Red Sea and westward over Darfur (conquered by Zobeir Pasha in 1874). One result of the Egyptian occupation of the country was that the slave trade was largely developed, especially in the White Nile and Bahr-el-Ghazal districts. Captains Speke and Grant, who had travelled through Uganda and came down the White Nile in 1863, and Sir Samuel Baker, who went up the same river as far as Albert Nyanza, brought back harrowing tales of the misery caused by the slave-hunters. Public opinion was considerably moved, and in 1869 the khedive Ismail decided to send an expedition up the White Nile, with the double object of limiting the evils of the slave trade and opening up the district to commerce. The command of the expedition was given to Sir Samuel Baker, who reached Khartum in February 1870, but, owing to the obstruction of the river by the sudd or grass barrier, did not reach Gondokoro, the centre of his province, for fourteen months. He met with great difficulties, and when his four years’ service came to an end little had been effected beyond establishing a few posts along the Nile and placing some steamers on the river. It was to succeed Baker as governor of the equatorial regions that the khedive asked for Gordon’s services, having come to the conclusion that the latter was the most likely person to bring the affair to a satisfactory conclusion. After a short stay in Cairo, Gordon proceeded to Khartum by way of Suakin and Berber, a route which he ever afterwards regarded as the best mode of access to the Sudan. From Khartum he proceeded up the White Nile to Gondokoro, where he arrived in twenty-four days, the sudd, which had proved such an obstacle to Baker, having been removed since the departure of the latter by the Egyptian governor-general. Gordon remained in the equatorial provinces until October 1876, and then returned to Cairo. The two years and a half thus spent in Central Africa was a time of incessant toil. A line of stations was established from the Sobat confluence on the White Nile to the frontier of Uganda—to which country he proposed to open a route from Mombasa—and considerable progress was made in the suppression of the slave trade. The river and Lake Albert were mapped by Gordon and his staff, and he devoted himself with wonted energy to improving the condition of the people. Greater results might have been obtained but for the fact that Khartum and the whole of the Sudan north of the Sobat were in the hands of an Egyptian governor, independent of Gordon, and not too well disposed towards his proposals for diminishing the slave trade. On arriving in Cairo Gordon informed the khedive of his reasons for not wishing to return to the Sudan, but did not definitely resign the appointment of governor of the equatorial provinces. But on reaching London he telegraphed to the British consul-general in Cairo, asking him to let the khedive know that he would not go back to Egypt. Ismail Pasha, feeling, no doubt, that Gordon’s resignation would injure his prestige, wrote to him saying that he had promised to return, and that he expected him to keep his word. Upon this Gordon, to whom the keeping of a promise was a sacred duty, decided to return to Cairo, but gave an assurance to some friends that he would not go back to the Sudan unless he was appointed governor-general of the entire country. After some discussion the khedive agreed, and made him governor-general of the Sudan, inclusive of Darfur and the equatorial provinces.
One of the most important questions which Gordon had to take up on his appointment was the state of the political relations between Egypt and Abyssinia, which had been in an unsatisfactory condition for some years. The dispute centred round the district of Bogos, lying not far Governor-General inland from Massawa, which both the khedive and King John of Abyssinia claimed as belonging to their respective dominions. War broke out in 1875, when an Egyptian expedition was despatched to Abyssinia, and was completely defeated by King John near Gundet. A second and larger expedition, under Prince Hassan, the son of the khedive, was sent the following year from Massawa. The force was routed by the Abyssinians at Gura, but Prince Hassan and his staff got back to Massawa. Matters then remained quiet until March 1877, when Gordon proceeded to Massawa to endeavour to make peace with King John. He went up to Bogos, and had an interview with Walad Michael, an Abyssinian chief and the hereditary ruler of Bogos, who had joined the Egyptians with a view to raiding on his own account. Gordon, with his usual powers of diplomacy, persuaded Michael to remain quiet, and wrote to the king proposing terms of peace. But he received no reply at that time, as John, feeling pretty secure on the Egyptian frontier after his two successful actions against the khedive’s troops, had gone southwards to fight with Menelek, king of Shoa. Gordon, seeing that the Abyssinian difficulty could wait for a few months, proceeded to Khartum. Here he took up the slavery question, and proposed to issue regulations making the registration of slaves compulsory, but his proposals were not approved by the Cairo government. In the meantime an insurrection had broken out in Darfur, and Gordon proceeded to that province to relieve the Egyptian garrisons, which were considerably stronger than the force he had available, the insurgents also being far more numerous than his little army. On coming up with the main body of rebels he saw that diplomacy gave a better chance of success than fighting, and, accompanied only by an interpreter, rode into the enemy’s camp to discuss the situation. This bold move, which probably no one but Gordon would have attempted, proved quite successful, as part of the insurgents joined him, and the remainder retreated to the south. The relief of the Egyptian garrisons was successfully accomplished, and Gordon visited the provinces of Berber and Dongola, whence he had again to return to the Abyssinian frontier to treat with King John. But no satisfactory settlement was arrived at, and Gordon came back to Khartum in January 1878. There he had scarcely a week’s rest when the
