14 ON THE NILE ABOVE KHARTOUM.

Berndorff, German, my servant, ill; Mengies, German servant, sent back ill; Russell, ill, cannot be moved, invalided ; Anson, dead; De Witt, amateur like Berndorff, dead ; Campbell, ill; Linant, very ill, cannot be moved; Long, with King Mtesa, have not heard of him for six months.”

THE PENALTIES OF GREATNESS.

*“T suffer a little like royalty—that is to say, nothing the Soudan soldier likes better than watching every movement one makes. It is very irritating. One or two will stand for hours watching me. Some people do not like dogs, for they often stare so. Yet I am not like royalty a bit, for I cleaned a duck- gun in public to-day. I will be natural, cotte que cotite, and I am quite sure I cleaned the gun better than any Arab would. . . Neither here nor at Kerri are there mosquitoes ; at Lardo very few. You can have but little idea what an intense comfort this is. At Gondokoro they swarmed and bit you under the table and wherever any skin was tight—trousers, shirt, or coat was to them no obstacle. They liked a cane-bottomed chair best for you sit on.”

His MISSION IN THESE LANDS.

“* Residence in these Oriental lands tends, after a time, to blunt ones suscep- tibilities of right and justice, and, therefore, the necessity for men to return at certain periods to their own countries to re-imbibe the notion of the same. Some men become imbued with the notions of injustice much quicker than others when abroad, but certainly has not taken much time to throw off all the trammels of civilized life, and to be ready to take up the unjust dealings of an Arab Pasha. The varnish of civilized life is very thin, and only super- ficial. .. . Man does not know what he is capable of in circumstances of this sort; unless he has the lode star, he has no guide, no counsellor in his walk.

‘“‘T feel that I have a mission here (not taken in its usual sense), The men’ and officers like my justice, candour, my outbursts of temper, and see that I am not a tyrant. Over two years we have lived intimately together, and they watch me closely. Iam glad that they do so. My wish and desire is that all should be as happy as it rests with me to make them, and, though I feel sure that I am unjust sometimes, it is not the rule with me to be so. 1 care for their marches, for their wants and food, and protect their women and boys if they ill-treat them; and J do nothing of this—I am w 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.”

Enp oF Gorpon’s First EXPEDITION TO CENTRAL AFRICA,

‘“‘ Khartoum, October 29, 1876.—I see there are English sparrows here ; it is. quite a pleasure to see them. . . [These letters are my journal, so do not nail me down to anything I may say that I propose to do.]”

‘Cairo, December 2.—I arrived here to-day at seven in the morning, twenty days from Khartoum. I called on Cherif Pasha, who is Minister for Foreign Affairs, and he was very civil; but I do not think he relished telling the Khedive I would not stay in his service.”

[Colonel Gordon arrived in London on December 24th, 1876.]

Colonel Gordon had been almost exactly three years in the Soudan. He had performed a vast work, and had opened the country from ‘Cairo to the Lakes, establishing fortified posts and uprooting the