From Pole to Pole

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The Nile afforded an excellent passage for Gordon's small steamboat. But
the Nile can also place an insurmountable obstacle in the traveller's
way. After the rainy season the White Nile overflows its banks, forming
an inextricable labyrinth of side branches, lakes, and marshes. The
country lies under water for miles around. The waterway between
impenetrable beds of reeds and papyrus is often as narrow as a lane. The
roots of large plants are loosened from the mud at the bottom, and are
compacted with stems and mud into large sheets which are driven
northwards by the rushing water. They are caught fast in small openings
and sudden bends, and other islets of vegetation are piled up against
them. Thus the river course is blocked, and above these natural dams the
water forms lakes. Such banks of drifting or arrested and decaying
vegetation are called _sudd_, and the more it rains the greater are the
quantities that come down. At length the _sudd_ becomes soft and yields
to the pressure of the water, and then the Nile is navigable again.

Gordon's small steamer glides gently up the river. He advances deeper
and deeper into a world unknown to him, and around him seethes tropical
Africa. On the banks papyrus stems wave their plumes above the reeds. It
was from the pith of papyrus stems that the old Egyptians made a kind of
paper on which they wrote their chronicles. Here and there swarthy
natives are seen between the reed beds, and sometimes noisy troops of
wandering monkeys gaze at the boat. The hippopotami look like floating
islands, but show themselves only at night, wallowing in the shallow
water. A little beyond the luxuriant vegetation of the banks extends the
boundless grassland with its abundant animal life and thin scattered
clumps of trees.

After a journey of four days the steamer glided past an island. There
dwelt in a grotto a dervish or mendicant monk named Mohamed Ahmed, who
ten years later was to be Gordon's murderer.

In the middle of April Gordon and his companions were in Gondokoro, a
small place which now stands on the boundary between the Sudan and
British East Africa, and here he took charge of his Equatorial Province.
He forced the Egyptian soldiers, who garrisoned this and one or two
other posts on the Nile and robbed on their own account, to plough and
plant; he arrested all slave-hunters within reach and freed the slaves;
he succoured the poor, protected the helpless, and sent durra to the
hungry.

The heat was excessive, and Gordon and his staff were pestered by crowds
of gnats. It was still worse in September when the rain poured down and
large tracts were converted into swamp, from which dangerous miasma was
exhaled. In a month seven of Gordon's eight officers had died of fever,
but he himself continued his work undismayed, and wrote in his diary:
"God willing, I shall do much in this country."

He soon perceived that the best districts of his province lay around the
large lakes in the south. But the Equatorial Province was too far away
from Egypt. It hung as it were on a long string, the Nile, and from the
largest lake, the Victoria Nyanza, the distance to Cairo in a straight
line was nearly 2200 miles. Much shorter was the route to Mombasa on the
east coast, so Gordon advised the Khedive to occupy Mombasa and open a
road to the Victoria Nyanza. Then it would be easier to contend against
the slave-trade. He described the condition of the Sudan in forcible
letters, and into the Khedive's ears were dinned truths such as he
never heard from his servile pashas. He would first establish steam
communication with the lakes, and a number of boats which could be taken
to pieces were on the way to his province.

The boats came up at the time when the Nile began to rise after rain,
and then his plan was to advance farther southwards. The natives were
opposed to this progress and feared the supremacy of Egypt, and
therefore they tried to prevent the advance of the "White Pasha," who
was loath to employ arms against them. All they wanted was to be left in
peace in their grasslands and forests; and when now an intruder, whose
aims they did not understand, penetrated into their country, they
endeavoured whenever they could to bar his way, so that he was obliged,
much against his will, to resort to force.

After all kinds of troubles and difficulties he reached at last the
northernmost of the Nile lakes, the Albert Nyanza, and it was a great
feat to have brought a steamer even thus far. He did not succeed in
reaching the Victoria Nyanza, for the ruler of the country between the
lakes had resolved to oppose with all his power any intruder, were he
white man or Arab.

For three years Gordon was at work on the Upper Nile in the
neighbourhood of the equator. During the next three years we find him in
the deserts of the Sudan farther north. He was Governor-General of the
whole of the Egyptian Sudan, and Khartum was his capital. His province
was 1200 miles broad, from the Red Sea to the Sahara, and as long from
north to south. The whole country was in a state of unrest. The Khedive
had carried on an unsuccessful war against the Christian King of
Abyssinia, and the Mohammedan states of Kordofan and Darfur were in
revolt against Egypt. There half-savage Beduin tribes were scattered
about over the deserts, and there some of the worst slave-dealers had
their haunts.

In May, 1877, Gordon mounted his swift dromedary to set out on a journey
of 2000 miles. He wished to visit the villages and camps of the
slave-dealers in distant Darfur. The hot season had set in. When the sun
stood at its meridian altitude the shadow of the dromedary disappeared
beneath the animal. A dreary desert extended on all sides,
greyish-yellow, dusty, and dry.

The White Pasha skims over the desert mile after mile. He has the finest
dromedary in all the land, an animal that became famous throughout the
Sudan. Some hundreds of Egyptian troopers follow him, but he leaves them
all far behind and only a guide keeps up with him. He rushes over the
desert like the wind, and suddenly and unexpectedly draws rein at the
gates of an oasis before the guard can shoulder their arms. After giving
his orders in the name of the Khedive, he disappears as mysteriously, no
one knows whither. At another oasis, perhaps 300 miles away, the chief
has been warned of his coming and has therefore posted watchmen to look
out for him. Round about lies the desert, sandy and yellow, with a
surface as level as a sea, where the approach of the White Pasha can be
seen from a long distance. The watchman announces that two black specks
are visible in the distance, which, it is supposed, are the Pasha's
outriders, and some hours must pass before he arrives with his troops.
The two specks grow larger and come rapidly nearer. The dromedaries
swing their long legs over the ground, seeming to fly on invisible
wings. Now the men have come to the margin of the oasis. The watchers
can hardly believe their eyes. One of the riders wears the
gold-embroidered uniform of an Egyptian pasha. Never had the Sudan seen
a Governor-General travelling in this way--without flags and noisy
music, and stripped of all the display appropriate to his rank.

And as he came so he flew away again, mysteriously and incomprehensibly.
Again and again he lost his armed force. In some districts he closed the
paths leading to wells in order to bring the refractory tribes to
submission. With inflexible severity he broke the power of the chiefs
who still carried on trade in slaves. He freed numbers of black captives
and drilled them as soldiers, for his own fighting men were the scum of
Egypt and Syria. With a handful of men he dealt his blows at the weakest
points of the enemy's defence and thus always gained the victory. In
four months he suppressed the revolt and checked the power of the
slave-dealers.

Gordon had now cleared all the west of the Sudan, and only Dara in
southern Darfur remained to be dealt with. There the most powerful
slave-dealers had collected to offer resistance. He came down one day
like lightning into their camp. They might easily have killed him--it
was he who had ruined their trade in black ivory. He went unconcernedly
among the tents, and they did not dare to touch him. And when his own
troops arrived, he summoned all the chiefs to his tent and laid his
conditions before them. They were to lay down their arms and be off each
to his own home; and one by one they obeyed and went away without a
word.

But the slave-trade was a weed too deeply rooted in the soil to be
eradicated in a single day, and the revolt and troubles which constantly
arose out of this horrible traffic gave Gordon no peace. He left the
Sudan at the end of 1879, and the next two years were occupied with work
in India, China, Mauritius, and South Africa. Meanwhile remarkable
events had occurred in Egypt. Great Britain had sent vessels and troops
to the land of the Khedive, and had taken over the command and the
responsibility. The chief of the dervishes, Mohamed Ahmed, whom we
remember on the small island in the Nile, proclaimed that he was chosen
by God to relieve the oppressed, that he was the Mahdi or Messiah of
Islam. Discontent prevailed among the Mohammedans throughout the Sudan,
for Egypt had at length prohibited the slave-trade, and the Mahdi
collected all the discontented people and tribes under his banner. His
aim was to throw off the yoke of Egypt. Proud and arrogant, he sent
despatches through the whole of the Sudan, and his summons to a holy war
flew like a prairie fire over North Africa.

The British Government, which was now responsible for Egypt, was in a
difficulty. The Sudan must either be conquered or evacuated, for the
Egyptian garrisons were still at Khartum and at several places even down
to the equator. The Government decided on evacuation, and Gordon was
sent to perform the task of withdrawing all the garrisons. He accepted
the mission and set out immediately for Cairo.

Thus Gordon began his last journey up the Nile. At Korosko, just at the
northern end of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, he mounted his
dromedary and followed the narrow winding path which has been worn out
during thousands of years through the dry hollows of the Nubian desert,
over scorched and weathered volcanic knolls and through dunes of
suffocating sand.

On February 18, 1884, Gordon, for the second time Governor-General of
the Sudan, made his entry into Khartum, where he took up his quarters in
his old palace. Cruelty and injustice had again sprung up during the
years he had been absent. He opened the gates of the overcrowded gaols,
and the prisoners were released and their fetters removed. All accounts
of unpaid taxes were burned in front of the palace. All implements of
punishment and torture were broken to pieces and thrown into the Nile.

Then began the evacuation of the town. As many as 3000 women and
children were sent to Abu Hamed and through the desert to Korosko. They
got through without danger and were saved. Where women and children
could travel, it would have been easy to lead troops from Egypt. Instead
of this, however, England despatched an expedition to Suakin to secure
an outlet on the Red Sea, whereupon the rebellious tribes of the Sudan
were roused to fury, believing that the white men intended to come and
take their country. Consequently they rallied all the more resolutely
round the Mahdi, and their hatred extended to the dreaded Gordon and the
few Europeans with him in Khartum.

As long as the telegraph line was still available to Cairo, Gordon kept
the authorities informed of the state of affairs and pointed out what
should be done to ensure success. He asked especially that the road from
Berber to Suakin should be held, for from this line also the Sudan could
be controlled, but his advice was not attended to and Berber was
eventually surrounded by the Mahdi's troops and captured. Several chiefs
north and north-east of Khartum, who had previously been friendly
disposed, now joined the Mahdi. News of fresh desertions came constantly
to Khartum, and even in the town itself Gordon was surrounded by
traitors. On March 10 the telegraph line was cut and then followed six
months of silence, during which the world learned little or nothing of
the brave soldier in the heart of Africa. On March 11 Arab war parties
appeared on the bank of the Blue Nile, for the Mahdi was drawing his net
ever closer round the unfortunate town.

During the preceding years the Egyptian Government had caused Khartum to
be fortified after a fashion, and during the earlier months of the siege
Gordon worked day and night to strengthen the defences. His soldiers
threw up earthern ramparts round the town, a network of wire
entanglements was set up, and mines were laid at places where an assault
might be expected. At the end of April the town was entirely blockaded,
and only the river route to the north was still open. At the beginning
of May the Arabs crossed the Blue Nile, suffering great losses from
exploding mines and the guns of the town. In the early part of September
there were still provisions for three months, and the Arabs, perceiving
that they could not take the town by storm from the White Pasha,
resolved to starve it out.

The Nile was now at its highest, and huge grey turbid volumes of water
hurried northwards. Now was the only chance for a small steamer to try
to get to Dongola, where it would be in safety. On the night of
September 9 a small steamer was made ready for starting, and Gordon's
only English comrades, Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power, went on board,
together with the French Consul, a number of Greeks, and fifty soldiers.
They took with them accounts of the siege, correspondence, lists and
details about provisions, ammunition, arms, men, and plans of defence,
and everything else of particular value. Silently the steamer moved off
from the bank, and when day dawned Gordon was alone. Alas, the little
steamer never reached Dongola, for it was wrecked immediately below Abu
Hamed. Every soul on board was murdered, and all papers of value fell
into the hands of the Mahdi. On the other hand, Gordon's diary from
September 10 to December 14, 1884, is still extant, and is wonderful
reading.

By this time the British Government had at last decided to send an
expedition to relieve Khartum. River boats were built in great numbers,
troops were equipped for the field, the famous general, Lord Wolseley,
was in command, and by the middle of September the first infantry
battalion was up at Dongola on the northern half of the great S of the
Nile. But then the steamers had only just arrived at Alexandria, and had
to be taken up the Nile and tediously dragged through the cataracts,
while the desert column which was to make the final advance on Khartum
had not yet left England. A long time would be required to get
everything ready.

In Khartum comparative quiet as yet prevailed. The dervishes bided their
time patiently, encamping barely six miles from the outworks. Shots were
exchanged only at a distance. On September 21 Gordon learned by a
messenger that the relief expedition was on the way, and ten days later
he sent his steamboats northwards to meet it and to hasten the
forwarding of troops. But thereby he lost half of his own power of
resistance.

On October 21 the Mahdi himself arrived in the camp outside Khartum, and
on the following day sent Gordon convincing proofs that Stewart's
steamboat had sunk and that all on board had been slain. He added a list
of all the journals and documents found on board. From these the Mahdi
had learned almost to a day how long Khartum could hold out, the
strength of the garrison, the scheme of defence, where the batteries
stood and how long the ammunition would last. This was a terrible blow
to the lonely soldier, but it did not break down his courage. The death
of Stewart and his companions grieved him inexpressibly, but he sent an
answer to the Mahdi that if 20,000 boats had been taken it would be all
the same to him--"I am here like iron."

In the relief expedition was a major named Kitchener, who was afterwards
to become very famous. He tried to get into Khartum in disguise to carry
information to Gordon, and he did succeed in sending him a letter with
the news that the relieving force would set out from Dongola on November
1. When the letter reached Gordon the corps had been two days on the
march, but the distance from Dongola to Khartum is 280 miles in a
straight line.

By November 22 Gordon had lost nearly 1900 of his fighting men, but his
diary shows that he was still hopeful. On December 10 there were still
provisions for fifteen days. The entries in the diary now become
shorter, and repeatedly speak of fugitives and deserters, and of the
diminishing store of provisions. On December 14 Gordon had a last
opportunity of sending news from Khartum, and the diary which the
messenger took with him closes with these words: "I have done the best
for the honour of our country. Good-bye."

After the sending-off of the diary impenetrable darkness hides the
occurrences of the last weeks in Khartum. One or two circumstances,
however, were made known by deserters. During the forty days during
which the town held out after December 14, 15,000 townspeople were sent
over to the Mahdi's camp, and only 14,000 civilians and soldiers were
left in the doomed city. Omdurman fell, and the Mahdi's troops pressed
every day more closely on all sides. Actual starvation began, and rats
and mice, hides and leather were eaten, and palms stripped to obtain the
soft fibres inside. But the White Pasha rejected all proposals to
surrender.

Meanwhile the relief columns struggled southwards and on January 20,
1885, reached Metemma, only a hundred miles from Khartum. There they
fell in with Gordon's boats, which had lain waiting in vain for four
months, and four days later two of the boats started for Khartum.

Halfway they had to pass up the sixth cataract, there losing two days
more, and not till the 28th had they left the rapids behind them. The
noonday sun was shining brightly when the English soldiers and their
officers saw Khartum straight in front of them on the point between the
White and Blue Niles. All glasses were turned on the tall palace; every
one was in the greatest excitement and dared hardly breathe, much less
speak. There stood Gordon's palace, but no flag waved from the roof.

The boats go on, but no shouts of gladness greet their crews as
long-looked-for rescuers. When they are within range the dervishes open
fire, and wild troops intoxicated with victory gather on the bank.
Khartum is in the hands of the Mahdi, and help has come 48 hours too
late.

Two days before, January 26, the dervishes, furious at their continual
losses and the obstinate resistance of the town, had flocked together
for a final assault. The attack was made during the darkest hour of the
night, after the moon had set. The defenders were worn out and rendered
indifferent by the pangs of hunger. The dervishes rushed into the town,
filling the streets and lanes with their savage howling. It was then
that Gordon gathered together his twenty remaining faithful soldiers and
servants, and dashed sword in hand out of the palace. It was growing
light in the east, and the outlines of bushes and thickets on the Blue
Nile were becoming clear. The small party took their way across an open
square to the Austrian Mission church, which had previously been put in
order for a last refuge. On the way they were met by a crowd of
dervishes and were killed to the last man. Foremost among the slain was
Gordon.

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUDAN

The Mahdi did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, for he died five
months to the day after the fall of Khartum. His successor, Abdullah,
bore the title of Khalifa, and for thirteen years was a scourge to the
unfortunate land. The tribes of the Sudan, tired of the oppression of
Egypt, had welcomed the Mahdi as a deliverer, but they had only
exchanged Turkish pashas for a tyrant unmatched in cruelty and
shamelessness. Abdullah plundered and exhausted the country, but with
the money and agricultural produce he extorted from the people he was
able to maintain a splendid army always ready for the field. His capital
was Omdurman, where the Mahdi was buried under a dome; but he did not
fortify the town, for long before any Christian dogs could advance so
far their bones would whiten in the sands of Nubia.

Yet after many years the hour of vengeance was at hand. The British
Government had taken the pacification of the Sudan in hand, and in 1898
an army composed of British and Egyptian troops was advancing quietly
and surely up the Nile. There was no need to hurry, and every step was
made with prudence and consideration. The leader, General Kitchener, the
last man to send a letter to Gordon, made his plans with such foresight
and skill that he could calculate two years in advance almost the very
day when Khartum and Omdurman would be in his hands.

At the Atbara, the great tributary of the Nile which flows down from the
mountains of Abyssinia, Kitchener inflicted his first great defeat on
the Khalifa's army in a bloody battle. From Atbara the troops pushed on
to Metemma without further fighting, and on August 28 they were only
four days' march from Khartum.

The green of acacia and mimosa is now conspicuous on the banks of the
river, which is very high. The grey gunboats pass slowly up the Nile in
the blazing sun, and the troops push on as steadily and as surely as
they have from the start of the expedition. Small parties of mounted
dervishes are seen in the far distance. The country becomes more
diversified, and the route runs through clumps of bushes and between
hillocks. A short distance in front are seen white tents, flags, and
horsemen, and the roll of drums is heard. It is the Khalifa calling his
men to the fight; but at the last moment the position is abandoned, the
dervishes retire, and Kitchener's army continues its march.

At length the vaulted dome over the Mahdi's grave beside the Nile bank
rises above the southern horizon, and round about it are perceived the
mud houses and walls of Omdurman. Between the town and the attacking
army stretches a level sandy plain scantily clothed with yellow grass;
and here took place a battle which will not be forgotten for centuries
throughout the Sudan.

On the morning of September 2, Kitchener's forces are drawn up in order
of battle. Single horsemen emerge from the dust on the hillocks,
increase in number, and then come in clouds like locusts--an army of
50,000 dervishes. Their fanatical war-cry rises up to heaven, gathers
strength, grows louder, and rolls along like a storm wind coming in
from the sea. They charge at a furious pace in an unbroken line, and it
looks as though they would ride like a crushing avalanche right over the
enemy. But the moment they come within range fire issues from thousands
of rifles, and the dervishes find themselves in a perfect hail of
bullets. Their ranks are thinned, but they check their course only for a
moment, and ride on in blind fury and with a bravery which only
religious conviction can inspire. The English machine guns scatter their
death-bolts so rapidly that a continuous roll of thunder is heard, and
the dervishes fall in heaps like ripe corn before the scythe. The fallen
ranks are constantly replaced by fresh reinforcements, but at last the
dervishes have had enough and beat a retreat. At once Kitchener pressed
on to Omdurman, but the bloody day is not yet at an end. The dervish
horsemen rally yet once more. The Khalifa's standard is planted in the
ground on a mound, and beside it the Prophet's green banner calls the
faithful together for a last desperate struggle. The English and their
Egyptian allies fight with admirable courage, and the dervishes strike
with a bravery and contempt of death to which no words can do justice.
Under the holy banner a detachment advances into the fire, wavers, is
mown down, and falls, and almost before the smoke of the powder has
cleared away, another presses forward on the track of the slain, only to
meet the same fate and join their comrades in the happy hunting-grounds
of eternity.

At length the day was ended and the Khalifa's army annihilated--11,000
killed, 16,000 wounded, and 4000 prisoners! The Khalifa himself escaped.
His harem and servants deserted him, and he who in the morning had been
absolute ruler over an immense kingdom, wandered about in the woods like
an outlaw. He fled to the south-west and succeeded in collecting another
army, which was completely cut to pieces the following year in a battle
in which he himself also perished.

When all was quiet in Omdurman, the victors had a solemn duty to fulfil.
Thirteen and a half years had passed since the death of Gordon, and at
last the obsequies of the hero were to be celebrated in a fitting
manner. In the court in front of Gordon's palace the troops are drawn up
on three sides of a square, and on the fourth stands the victor,
surrounded by generals of divisions and brigades and by his staff.
Kitchener raises his hand, and in a moment the Union Jack rises to the
top of the flagstaff on the palace, while a thundering salute from the
gunboats greets the new colours and the Guards' band plays the National
Anthem. Another sign, and the flag of Egypt goes up beside the Union
Jack and the Khedive's hymn is played. Then the belated funeral service
is impressively conducted by four clergymen of different Christian
denominations, the Sudanese band plays a hymn which Gordon loved, and
lastly Kitchener is saluted with the greatest enthusiasm by the officers
and men under his command.

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