ANOTHER PROPOSAL. THE BAHR GAZELLE. 89 a man to power would mean the revival of the worst conditions of which he had before been the chief supporter; and they were supported in this belief by weighty evidence of the character of the man with whom they would have to deal, by the reasoning of common experience, and even by the former testimony of Gordon himself. Added to this was the overwhelming reluctance which they felt at taking any action which might commit this country to the indefinite responsibility of a costly, and perhaps a disastrous, intervention in a vast desert territory like the Soudan, where it would be impossible to maintain European forces of occupation; and the abandonment of which they had already urged upon Egypt.

But before this proposition of the reinstatement of Zebehr had been fully discussed, though not before it had been seriously proposed, Gordon had written on the ist of February from Korosko, before starting for Abu Hamed, a letter to Sir E. Baring, inclosing another which was to be sent to the King of the Belgians: " Here is a letter I have written to the King of the Belgians. His majesty told me he would take these two provinces if he could get them when I was at Brussels; also that he would take over the troops in them. You might mention this to the foreign office, and send them copy of the letter. It would settle the slave-trade."

The full text of the letter to the King of the Belgians has not been published, but it is easy to imagine what must have been the shock to official decorum to have received such an astounding communication. If Gordon was going on in this manner any government might be excused for being alarmed at him, and for declining to commit itself to any but such diplomatic language as could be made to cover no responsibility. Sir E. Baring in inclosing the letter to Earl Granville said: "I have the honour to inclose copy of a letter from General Gordon inclosing a letter to be forwarded to the King of the Belgians, in which he urges his majesty to occupy the Bahr Gazelle and the Equatorial provinces, and to appoint him governor-general of all that country. He seems to intend to go straight on in that direction from Khartum. I do not think that General Gordon