do you put him on me? I have had enough trouble with them already.
"You will have my letter about Darfur. I must say your task will not be pleasant; but you talk Arabic, which I do not; and you will have much to interest you, for most of the old Darfur families are of Mohammed's family.
"I dare say you wonder how I can get on without an interpreter and not knowing Arabic. I do not believe in man's free-will, and therefore believe all things are from God and preordained. Such being the case, the judgments or decisions I give are fixed to be thus or thus, whether I have exactly hit off all the circumstances or not. This is my raft, and on it I manage to float along, thanks to God, more or less successfully. I do not pretend my belief could commend itself to any wisdom or science, or in fact anything; but as I have said elsewhere, a bag of rice jolting along these roads could, if it had the gift of speech, and if it were God's will, do as well as I do. You may not agree with me. Keep your own belief. I get my elixir from mine—viz. that with these views I am comfortable, whether I am a failure or not, and can disregard the world's summary of what I do, or of what I do not do.
"Yours sincerely,
"C. G. Gordon."
"Dara, July 18, 1877."My dear Burton,
"I have got round to Dara viâ Toashia, and hope in four or five days to get to Tascher. The sot-
