CHAPTER XXIV GORDON COLLEGE AND THE WELLCOME LABORATORIES AWAY up the Nile valley, so far from the Mediter-/\ ranean that it took me four days by steamship and railroad to reach it, almost within a stone’s V throw of where whole tribes are going naked, and near the site of what was one of the slave centres of Africa, the English have built up a school that is turning out native teachers and judges, government clerks and bookkeepers, mechanics of all sorts, and within certain limits, civil engineers. It has already several acres of col¬ lege buildings, including large dormitories, well equipped classrooms, a library, a museum, and one of the most remarkable research laboratories of the world.

I refer to Gordon College, which was founded just after the Battle of Omdurman and named in honour of the great general who was killed in sight of where it now stands. The idea was suggested by Lord Kitchener, and the money was contributed by the people of England. The amount raised was seven hundred thousand dollars, to which has been added the munificent gift of Mr. Henry S. Wellcome, an American, who has established the famous Wellcome Laboratory as a part of this institution.

It was through a note of introduction from Sir Reginald Wingate to Dr. James Currie, the president of the college, that I was taken through it and given an insight into its workings and possibilities. The institution stands on the 200