84 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

contain numerous touches of that dry satirical humour which we have before noted as interspersing the former diaries. The space remaining to us will not admit many extracts, and the journals, that is to say, a judiciously revised copy of them, have been published, omitting, no doubt, some strong references to diplomatists and others in authority, of whom there is still enough said to indicate what the writer thought. Gordon had inscribed on the journals themselves, that if they were published they would want " paring," and the "pared" edition has been for some time before the public.

On the 3d of November he was still uncertified of the loss of the Abbas and the murder of those on board, when he received a letter which Major Kitchener had written at Debbeh on the i6th of October, and sent by messenger, saying, " Please inform me by this present messenger, who is paid to return, who were on board the steamer that came down from Khartum. I am sorry to say that whoever they were they have fallen into the hands of Suleiman Wady Goun Sheikh of the Minassir, and have, I am afraid, been killed. Lord Wolseley is now at Wady Haifa, and it is expected that this expedition will definitely start from Dongola on or about the ist of November. Special boats are coming out from England for the passage up the Nile."

It was a great blow to Gordon to hear of the fate of the steamer and of his friends, and he was growing heart-sick. He had on the 24th of October calculated that the advance force of troops had arrived at Wady Haifa on September 22d, that they took twenty days from there to Debbeh, so that they were at Debbeh on the 1 2th of October, and could not arrive at Metammeh (Shendy) before the loth of November, nine days for 150 miles, and five days in a steamer to Khartum, so that the 15th of November ought to see them or their advance guard at that destination. "If they do not come before the 30th of November, the game is up, and Rule Britannia. In this calculation I have given every latitude for difficulties of transport, making forts, &c., and on the 15th of November I ought to see her majesty's uniform. ... I suppose a part of the force will go to attack Berber on the loth