It may be well to introduce here a few words he wrote of the celebrated Zulu king whom we deposed and imprisoned at the Cape. "_May_ 20, 1882.--I went to see Cetewayo, and felt for him, and tried to cheer him. I gave him a stick with an ivory head--a beauty--which had been given me by the Sultan of Perak, who was a prisoner at the Seychelles. When I told Cetewayo that I had always been interested in him and that he must have hope, with a deep '_Ah!_' he pointed upwards. He is a fine savage." General Gordon arrived in England on the 8th November 1882, after the close of the Egyptian war, little thinking how closely that war would affect him. After a short stay at Southampton he left on December 28th for Palestine, and nearly the whole of the year 1883 was spent in Palestine. Writing from Jerusalem he says:-- "Everything looks small and insignificant, but quite meets the idea I had of the _worldly_ position of the Jews and of our Lord. In fact, the Scriptures tell the story without any pretence that either the country, people, or our Lord were of any great importance _in the world_. They are expositors of how very low the position to which He, the Lord of lords, descended. You can realise the fact as well in England as here, by substituting a Scripture-reader of dubious birth and humble parents, exposing the fallacy of a ceremonial church-going religion, and pointing out how impossible it is to please God by such religious formalities.... "The Temple of Solomon was fine for those days, but, setting aside its Divine significance, it was only about six times as long as the room you are in, and not much wider--60 cubits = 90 feet = 30 yards long, by 20 cubits = 30 feet = 10 yards wide. You could walk round the city in less than an hour; it is not quite three miles round.... "The ravines round Jerusalem are full of the dust of men, for over a million bodies must have been slain there. What a terrific sight the resurrection there will be! I suppose there is no place in the world where so many bodies are concentrated.... "It is nice sauntering about, conjuring up scenes of days gone by--real scenes, actions on the stage of life; all gone! It quiets ambition! "I came back from Gaza yesterday, after a ten days' sojourn there, returning through Askelon, where there are very fine ruins, enormous columns, marbles, &c, lying in all directions: it is a wonderful place. Like all the coast, it is most dreary, yet one sees that all the country was once thickly populated. Sand from the shore is creeping in steadily, and makes it mournful. Napoleon I., Alexander the Great, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, and a host of great men passed by this route. Titus came up by Gaza to Jerusalem. Richard Coeur de Lion was years at Askelon. All gone, 'those old familiar faces'!"