* * * Although he used to tell amusing stories against himself and his own personal expenditure of money, yet Gordon had great aptitude for finance, and could make money go farther than most men. Had his views been adopted for Egypt, it is more than likely that we should have been saved the Egyptian war, to say nothing of the loss of the Soudan, and all that was associated with it. In the Soudan province there was an annual deficit amounting to something like L259,000. By dint of cutting down expenditure and increasing the receipts, Gordon reduced this during the second year to L50,600! Had he continued Governor-General for many years, there can be no question that he would have not only made the two ends meet, but would have obtained sufficient to carry out his schemes of opening up the country by railways and steamers, thus at the same time developing trade and reducing slavery. He calculated that with great economy, and utilising the machinery and the rails that were already lying idle in the country, a highway from Cairo to Khartoum might have been opened up for L70,000, a sum of money which over and over again has been frittered away in building great useless palaces for the Khedive or some other Egyptian official, which bring in no income, and are a great expense to keep up. The traffic, especially the conveyance of ivory and other merchandise, would soon have recouped the Government for their original outlay. The way in which Colonel Gordon was thwarted in every possible manner at this time troubled him a good deal. "As for myself," he writes, "I am exceedingly weary, and wish, with a degree of bitterness, that it was all over. I am cooped up here now, but am much occupied with finances, which are in a very low state. My life is burthensome and weary, but I feel that it is better to be employed here than to be idle elsewhere." Writing on November 20, 1878, he says:-- "I will give you an instance of the miserable way the Cairo Government treats the Soudan. I asked H.H.[8] a long time ago to send up a man A. H.H. replied he wanted the man A., and could not send him. To-day I got a request for L7, 10s., stating that I had asked for A., who was at Port Said; that in consequence A. went to Cairo and said that he did not want to come; so they ask me to pay the L7, 10s. for his passage from Port Said to Cairo and return, which I have refused to do." [8] The abbreviation he generally used for His Highness the Khedive.