308 WITH KITCHENEE IN THE SOUDAN We can hold on to the end of the year, though the pinch will be very severe; but I think we can make the stores last till then. But by the end of December our last crust will have been eaten, and the end will have come. It will be a satisfaction to me to know that I have done my best, and fail only because of the miserable delays and hesitation oi government. So it is settled that I am going. The gunboats are to escort us for some distance. Were it not for Gordon I should feel delighted at the prospect. It is horrible to leave him—one of the noblest Englishmen !—alone to his fate. My only consolation is, that if I remained I could not avert it, but should only be a sharer in it. September 18th .—We left Khartoum on the 14th and came down without any serious trouble until this morning, when the boat struck on a rock in the cataract opposite a village called Hebbeh. A hole has been knocked in her bottom, and there is not a shadow of hope of getting her off. Numbers of the natives have gathered on the shore. I have advised that we should disregard their invitations to land, but that, as there would be no animosity against the black crew, they would be safe; and that we three whites should take the ship’s boat and four of the crew, put provisions for a week on board, and make our way down the river. Colonel Stewart, however, feels convinced that the people can be trusted, and that we had better land and place ourselves under the protection of the sheik. He does not know the Arabs as well as I do. However, as he has determined to go ashore, I can do nothing. I< consider it unlikely in the extreme that there will be any additions to this journal. If at any time in the future this should fall into the hands of any of my countrymen, I pray that they will send it down to my dear wife, Mrs. Hilliard, whom, I pray, God may bless and comfort, care of the Manager of the Bank, Cairo.”