“As it appeared to us in Kordofan, and to the Mahdi himself, Gordon’s undertaking was very strange; it was just as if a man were attempting to put out an enormous fire with a drop of water,” and, “I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that had the Egyptian Government not sent Gordon, then undoubtedly the evacuation originally ordered could have been carried out without difficulty.” One is simply staggered by such an assertion. When Gordon arrived in Khartoum, the whole of the western Soudan had fallen. The town was overrun with the mourning women and children—the widows and orphans, I should say—of the troops who, under Hicks Pasha, had been annihilated a few months before on their way to extricate the garrisons. Slatin had surrendered Dara to Zoghal. Said Bey Gumaa, the last man to fight for the Government in the western Soudan, was compelled to capitulate very shortly before Gordon’s arrival, and this only after a second siege when his men were dying with thirst. |311| Bahr-el-Ghazal fell before Gordon had had time to turn round, and, for all that he or the Mahdi knew, the Equatorial province had fallen also. The town was hemmed in by the Mahdists, and the commanders of the garrisons which Gordon was expected to extricate were holding various commands in the dervish army, while Slatin had taken part already as a Mahdist in the subjugation of his subordinate, Said Bey Gumaa of El Fasher, who had refused to surrender. Am I not justified in saying that only the suppression of such facts made possible such attacks upon Gordon? We are next told― “Those who escaped massacre in Khartoum have often told me that they were perfectly ready to leave, and it was only Gordon’s arrival that kept them back, but Gordon’s arrival without troops had rather disappointed them. Had he been accompanied by five hundred British bayonets, his reputation in the Soudan might have been maintained, and probably the Mahdi would never have left Kordofan.” Why did not those perfectly ready to leave leave with the members of the Austrian mission, or leave between the date of their departure, December 11, and the early days of February, when the news of Gordon’s mission first reached Khartoum? Who prevented their leaving during that interval of at least two months from the moment when they were all thrown into “indescribable dismay” until they heard of Gordon’s appointment? And if, when he did arrive, they were so bitterly disappointed at his not being accompanied with five hundred British |312| bayonets—much good these would have been against the “universally worshipped Mahdi” in extricating those who had surrendered to him—why did they stay on? Did not Gordon beg them to leave? did he not try and compel them to do so? did he not put boats at their disposal to sail north or south as best suited them? And has not Gordon himself given the real reason for their staying on?—though to this should be added their unbounded faith and confidence in Gordon.