FALSE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 1 53 passing through now,1 and I pray God to perpetuate your health and success."

Copy of this was forwarded to the foreign office in Soudan, and on the 20th Sir E. Baring said: — " Zebehr has telegraphed to General Gordon that he cannot go to Khartum. I am told that he would be willing: to go if crovernment made good his previous losses, which he fixes at a very high figure. I have not seen him myself."

Communications were stopped soon after this, and there ensued a period of nearly five months during which the fate of Khartum, and of Gordon, Stewart, and Power were the subject of strange and often contradictory rumours, and the cause of no little anxiety to those who admired the heroism of the man, who, with his companions and the people who trusted him, was left in the midst of a horde of savage foes. These foes, like wolves, were kept at bay notwithstanding their endeavours to break through the defences of the town, where the garrison and the population, diminished by frequent losses in killed and wounded and by sickness, and threatened with approaching famine, yet held their own and fought b ravel v on.

It is impossible to follow the authentic details of this narrative as discovered in telegrams, correspondence, official documents, and the reports of eye-witnesses, without a constant feeling of disappointment if not of indignation, not because of the policy adopted by the government, but because of the repeated contradictions, difficulties, and fatal errors, caused by their adhesion on one hand to a scheme which was contradicted on the other.

Only ignorance of the actual state of affairs, ignorance of the inevitable consequences of the rebellion, and the absolute necessity for rapid decision, and for the almost irresponsible authority of any person empowered to take measures for checking the advance ol the Mahdi, or for protecting the garrisons and the European and Egyptian population, can account for the placid officialism which insisted on the subjection of Gordon to specific orders and then, 1 The Blue Book interpretation of the phrase, "affairs as at present do not permit of my passing through now" is, "i.e. that the route is impracticable;" but there seems to be a little ambiguity I