j rQ EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN. j escape the intercepting tribes who were drawing more and more closely round the capital.

Before the close of regular communications, however, some remarkable messages had passed; though the confusion and misapprehension were even then increased by the interception of messages on the state of affairs at the telegraph office at Berber, where the clerks were participating in the general panic, and were anxious to escape and go to Korosko and thence to Cairo.

A telegram, dated April 8th, from Gordon to Sir E. Baring, said: "The man who brought letters from Berber states Zebehr is at Korosko; if so, you did not tell me this important fact.

Scarcely a day passes without our inflicting losses on rebels, which losses are quite unnecessary if we are to succumb. ... I have telegraphed to Baker to make an appeal to British and American millionaires to give me ,£300,000 to engage 3000 Turkish troops from sultan, and send them here. This would settle the Soudan and Mahdi for ever; for my part, I think you would agree with me.

I do not see the fun of being caught here, to walk about the streets for years as a dervish, with sandalled feet; not that (D.V.)

I will ever be taken alive. It would be the climax of meanness, after I had borrowed money from the people here, had called on them to sell their grain at a low price, &c, to go and abandon them without using every effort to relieve them, whether those efforts are diplomatically correct or not; and I feel sure, whatever you may feel diplomatically, I have your support — and that of every man professing himself a gentleman — in private."

Sir E. Baring had sent several telegrams to Gordon after the 10th of March, but only one short one appeared to have reached him. This, however, did not alter the fact that no aid was to be given to the beleaguered garrison, and Gordon had realized this with patience and determination, but with smouldering anger. He had telegraphed to Sir Samuel Baker as was reported, and that he should have done so showed that he was like a caged bird, not beating against the bars, but seeking in every direction for the means of liberation. But it must be liberation with an effectual defence of those who were under his charge.