Haifa, May 10.—The interest which attaches to the memory of the late General Gordon must be my apology for devoting a letter to my personal reminiscences of one whose singularly pure and lofty character attracted me to him at a time when he was comparatively unknown. Nothing is in fact more remarkable than the suddenness of the notoriety into which he sprang, a notoriety from which he of all men would have the most shrunk, and of the knowledge of which, by the singular fatality which isolated him from the world in his beleaguered garrison, he was to the last unconscious. Owing to his own modesty and love of retirement, and to the fact that his life had been largely spent abroad and in the service of foreign governments, he was personally almost unknown in London society. His friends consisted chiefly of his brother officers and a few congenial spirits whose acquaintance he had made in various parts of the world. By the public at large he had only been heard of as “Chinese” Gordon, and few cared to inquire what manner of man he was.
It was just twenty-nine years ago since I first met him in the trenches before Sebastopol. He was quite a young and unknown officer at that time, and I should have forgotten the circumstance had we not again come across each other three years afterwards in China, and upon comparing notes found that we had already met in the Crimea. He had not then been appointed to the command of the “ever victorious army,” and was still a junior Captain of Engineers. I left China before he entered the Chinese service, and almost immediately after his arrival, so that I saw very little of him. Still, I had seen enough to make me watch his subsequent career with great interest, but our paths had not again crossed until one day, about two years ago, I received a letter from Jaffa signed C. G. Gordon, asking for information in regard to Haifa as a residence, and expressing his intention of possibly paying me a visit. As I have many friends of the name, I was puzzled for the moment. The writer did not mention anything in the letter to give a clew to his identity, though it was addressed as from one old friend to another. It was only accidentally that the same afternoon the vice-consul here asked me if I knew anything of a General Gordon, as some letters had arrived to his care for an individual of that name. I at once perceived who my correspondent must be. I immediately addressed him a cordial invitation to pay me a visit, which he promptly responded to, and we spent a few very pleasant days together. The Hicks disaster in the Soudan had not then occurred, so that the affairs of that country and its Mahdi had not yet acquired the notoriety they were destined so soon to attain; but Gordon's intimate knowledge of the country induced him to express his opinion in regard to its condition.
He deprecated strongly the whole course adopted by the British government in Egypt from the beginning, warned me that they underrated the nature of the movement in the Soudan, to which country he was then in favour of granting independence under native rulers, was entirely opposed to English officers at the head of Egyptian troops, thrusting themselves into the mess, and maintained that the whole affair should be settled by a civil commissioner, who should at once be sent by England to the Mahdi to arrange with him the terms upon which the Soudan should be rendered independent of Egypt. As at this time the English had not come into violent hostile collision with the Mahdi, Gordon declared his conviction that such a mission would be favourably received, and that a state of affairs might be arranged which, although not so favourable to the Soudanese as he could have wished, would leave them better off than under Egyptian rule. His idea was that if the Mahdi did not show himself amenable to reason, he might be threatened with a rebellion of the local Soudanese chiefs, who, he felt convinced, could easily be induced to combine against him. In fact, before going to the Mahdi he would have sounded the feeling of these chiefs, with a view, if necessary, to organizing a revolt against him.
In a word, his view was that the Soudan question should be settled by the Soudanese alone, that no Egyptians should be mixed up in the affair; and I have no doubt that if the British government had thought of availing themselves of Gordon's services at this juncture, the question of the Soudan might have been arranged satisfactorily to all parties, except, perhaps, the Egyptian and Turkish governments. He was at that time particularly strong on the necessity of a railway from Suakim to Berber, the concession for which was being then applied for by English railway contractors, who were sanguine of success. He assured me that they were wasting their time; that it was a concession the Egyptian government would never grant, as they were afraid if they did that the whole trade of the Soudan would be diverted to Suakim instead of, as now, coming down to Cairo. “It is a short-sighted policy,” he remarked, “for without that railway Egypt will one day not only lose the trade of the Soudan, but the Soudan itself.”
Not long afterwards there was a report that the concession had been granted, and he wrote me a long letter of many pages, which began with warning me not to believe the report, as it was quite impossible that it could be true, his knowledge of the Egyptian government convincing him that they would make promises, but that nothing would ever induce them to consent to this railway being made, unless they were coerced into it by the British government. He felt equally convinced that the British government had no intention of using their authority in this direction, as, in his opinion, they should do, and that the report, therefore, was without foundation. This, in fact, turned out to be the case.
General Gordon, after spending a few days at Haifa, returned to Jerusalem, promising to bring his tents two months later and pitch them next to mine at Esfia on the summit of Carmel. I was eagerly looking forward to his companionship in the delightful wilderness of this mountain, and had even marked out in my own mind a spot for his camping-ground within fifty yards of my own, when, to my great disappointment, I received a letter from him saying that he was so deeply interested in biblical studies at the Holy City that he felt it his duty to change his mind, as he might never again have an opportunity of verifying the correctness of the views he entertained in regard to the typical nature of its configuration.
Not long afterwards I received another long letter from him on the subject of the Jordan valley canal scheme, in which he took a warm interest. This led to a correspondence, as I entirely differed from him as to its practicability. Towards the end of the year he wrote, saying that he was suddenly summoned to the Congo, and bidding me adieu. Curiously enough, in my reply I said that I did not say good-bye, as I felt sure I should see him again before he left the country. A few days afterwards he once more turned up at Haifa. He had embarked at Jaffa for Port Said in a country sailing craft, and he had been driven by stress of weather so far out of his course that his crew finally ran in here for shelter.
At this time affairs in the Soudan were in a very acute stage, and we again discussed them at great length. His views had naturally undergone a change, as the policy which had been possible seven or eight months previously was impracticable now. He felt great doubt whether, if he went to the Soudan, he could succeed in achieving now what he was convinced he could have accomplished then, or whether the policy he had sketched out was longer feasible. “If it were not for the Soudanese, whom I love,” he said, “the easy way out of it for the English government would be to invite the Turks to go, but it is not probable that they have the sense to make the proposition, or that the Turks would be such fools as to accept it.”
He refused altogether to anticipate the possibility of his being sent to the Soudan, partly because he felt bound in honour to go to the Congo for the King of the Belgians, and partly because he had already had too many differences with the heads of departments under which he had served, and was regarded with too little favour, on account of his refusal to look at every question through official spectacles, to be a persona grata to the English government. He was detained here a week, during which time we not only discussed fully the Egyptian and Soudanese questions, but talked over old times in China, when he gave me many graphic descriptions of incidents in his Chinese campaigns, which have probably never been heard of, and which I now regret I did not record. His modesty was such that I could only compel him to narrate his own adventures by a process of severe cross-examination.
One of his marked peculiarities in conversation was his employment of phrases which he had himself coined to represent certain ideas. Thus he would say of a man: “So-and-so is a very good fellow, but he would never break his medal,” by which he meant that he was ambitious. Gordon himself, when the Emperor of China gave him, in return for his services, a very valuable gold medal, fearing that the sense of gratification he derived from it might prove a snare to him, broke it up and gave away the pieces. Hence the allusion.
Again, he would say, if asked if he knew so-and-so. “I only met him once and then he rent me.” From which I understood that he had felt it his duty on that occasion to give the individual in question a word of good advice, and that the only thanks was that the man resented it, or, in Scripture phraseology, “turned again and rent him.”
One day I observed him writing notes on a slip of paper. He asked me the Christian names of two friends who were staying with me. I told him, and feeling, I suppose, that my curiosity ought to be gratified, he said, “I am writing them down on my prayer list.”
Another day, after using some very strong language in regard to a very high personage who shall be nameless, he added quickly, “but I pray for him regularly.” All this without a vestige of cant. If there was a thing he detested it was hypocrisy, and I trust I may not be suspected of it when I say that the thought of Gordon at Khartoum, and the knowledge that I was on his prayer list, was calculated to produce a lump in my throat. He was full of fun and a most cheery companion with those he knew intimately. He never forced a conversation in a religious channel. He brought with him from Jerusalem a raised model which he had made, to carry out his theory that the hill upon which the greater part of the city was built was in the form of a woman. Taking the mound commonly identified as “the place of the skull” as the head, the lines of topographical configuration certainly bore out the resemblance in a very remarkable manner. He was far more full of this than either of the Soudan or the Congo, and was taking it with him to Brussels to show the King of the Belgians. “I suppose, as you are the king's guest, you will go and stay at the palace,” I remarked. “No, certainly not,” he replied; “I shall go to a hotel. I don't want the king's servants to see my old comb.” He left here on the 18th or 19th of December, 1883, and walked to Acre, twelve miles, to meet the steamer that was to take him direct to Marseilles. He sent his luggage in a carriage.
His last words as we parted were that he felt sure we should never meet again. I said he had been wrong once when he told me that he should not see me again, and I hoped he was wrong now. He said no, he felt that he had no more work to do for God on this earth, and that he should never return from the Congo. Within a month he was in upper Egypt.
It was characteristic of the man that scarcely any one in Haifa knew who he was. Seeing a very handsome garden belonging to a rich Syrian, near Acre, he strolled into it, and was accosted by the proprietor, who asked him who he was. He replied, “Gordon Pasha,” on which my Syrian friend, who told me the story, laughed incredulously, and politely showed him out. Gordon meekly departed without attempting to insist on his identity. The proprietor told me that he felt convinced that he was being imposed upon, because Gordon, when spoken to in English, would answer in bad Arabic, and because, when asked his name, he took his card-case half out of his pocket, as though to give his card, and then, on second thought, put it back again and answered verbally. So my friend lost his chance of entertaining an angel unawares, which he has never ceased to regret, the more especially as his friends take a pleasure in teasing him about it.
My last letter from Gordon is dated Khartoum, the 6th of March. Now that he is gone, and his name has become a household word in almost all countries, and among the professors of all religions, the few among the natives who knew him here treasure up every trait of his marked individuality, and are fond of narrating anecdotes, which grow by repetition. His instinct of retirement and extremely unassuming manner concealed him, so to speak, from general observation; but his simplicity, purity, and absolute singleness of aim made him a sort of moral magnet, irresistibly attractive to those who came directly beneath the sphere of his influence. The potency of his virtue in life has been proved by the imperishable moral legacy which in death he has bequeathed to humanity.