GORDON ARRIVES AT ASSOUAN. 75 proposed to follow the Nile bank to Berber and Khartum. It happened — one is almost tempted to say, of course it happened— that the young man chosen to rule Darfur was altogether incompetent. At anyrate he took with him on his journey a considerable harem (forty wives it was said) and a retinue of servants, besides provisions and ample stores of wines or spirits. He was, in fact, a drunkard, and therefore a serious incumbrance till Gordon reached the point where he had to prepare for the desert journey which lay before him, and could leave the youth to go on to Darfur under the protection of his own retainers.

As some rumour of this further example of Egyptian incompetency reached England together with a report that Gordon had taken .£40,000 with him on his journey, a good deal of excitement was occasioned by speculations as to the probable safety of the general. It was feared that he would be intercepted and murdered, and as accounts of the investment of Tokar and the; defeat of Baker's relieving force had reached England crcat anxiety prevailed. As we have already seen, Gordon experienced no interruption of his journey because of events in the Eastern Soudan and the Red Sea provinces, and had reached Berber before he heard such accounts as enabled him to offer an opinion on the effect of the later operations, or their influence upon the general situation in the Soudan. He had but 2000 with him when he started from Assouan, leaving the remaining sum to draw upon after he had accomplished the desert journey. On the 30th of January he reached Assouan, so well known to Nile travellers, who pass it in order to reach the first cataract three miles higher, and there he learned something about the aspect of affairs in the Soudan: that the Mahdi had still with him the deserters from Hicks' army, several powerful chiefs all concerned in maintaining the slave-trade, and several Arab tribes from which from 6000 to 8000 horsemen could be put in the field. 1 hese tribes, however, were reluctant to move out of their homes in the province of Kordofan, and this assured Gordon that the Bahr Gazelle country and the Equatorial provinces were not likely to be in immediate serious danger. He concluded that the revolt