-8 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

work among the poor which he had formerly carried on at Gravesend, he had letters from the King of the Belgians reminding him of the scheme for administering certain territory on the Congo and establishing an anti-slavery mission in memory of the dead son of the sovereign, who had obtained his promise to take the control if the assent of his government and of the other powers were secured.

It took a very short time for Gordon to prepare for leaving Palestine. He sailed from Jaffa by the first ship, a battered merchantman that was nearly wrecked on the voyage, and was very soon at Brussels, where the final arrangements for the Congo enterprise were rapidly completed, the plans discussed, and full instructions and authority placed in his hands. It has been significantly said, that but for the excitement of popular feeling by the publication of the opinions expressed by General Gordon to the representative of a newspaper, and the strong opinion in favour of his being sent out to the Soudan by the government, he would probably have been discussing the programme of the Belgian mission with Mr. Stanley on the banks of the Congo, instead of finding himself beleaguered in Khartum; but neither the newspaper editors nor the public, whose enthusiasm was aroused, were aware that the government had made overtures to secure his services some time before, when he might have achieved prompt and complete success in the undertaking for which he was required, but that Gordon himself was reluctant to accept the appointment, and the Egyptian ministry were absolutely opposed to the results which it was mainly intended to accomplish. Gordon had desired to induce Sir Samuel Baker to undertake the duty, and as late as the 12th of January had written to him a letter in which he had given a general view of the situation, from which it was evident that he regarded the intervention of Turkish troops as desirable if not inevitable. He said: — " If the sultan allows the Mahdi to be head of the Q-overnmcnt, he virtually abdicates all authority over the Hedjaz, Syria, Palestine; therefore if we prevent his action, or refuse propositions such as I have made, we virtually upset the sultan in the countries