It must not, however, be supposed that General Gordon availed himself of a flaw in his instructions to carry out a policy of his own. On the contrary, he clearly understood from the British Government that evacuation was what was required, and that all the Egyptian employes must be given a chance of leaving the Soudan if possible. From beginning to end this was the one thing he held out as the object at which he aimed. All the suggestions he put forward were made with this end in view, and he never swerved from it. He was in reality more true to the instructions he received than were those who issued them. No sooner had he got into the country, and grasped the actual state of affairs, than he saw that things were looking very serious. The interval between Hicks's defeat and his own arrival had been too prolonged. People who might have been loyal had lost heart and gone over to the Mahdi. Added to this, Gordon had himself made public the fact that the country was to be evacuated, so all who intended to remain behind saw that their best policy was to throw in their lot with the Mahdi. Gordon blamed himself sometimes for having made known the intentions of the Government, but it is questionable if such an important fact could have been long kept secret. At all events, when he openly promulgated it as Governor-General, he thought, and many thought with him, that he was taking the line most likely to lead to a peaceful solution. * * * General Gordon did not take long to make up his mind, and soon after his arrival in Khartoum he astonished the English people by two steps he took. The first was the issue of a proclamation announcing that the institution of slavery was not to be interfered with in any way; the second was an application that his old enemy, Zebehr Rahama, the great slave-dealer, should be sent up to govern the Soudan. At first sight Gordon's action was amazing; but when it is more carefully examined in the light of facts, it cannot be blamed. To take the proclamation first, it must be apparent to any one that when it was decided that the Soudan was to be given up, and that thenceforth neither Egypt nor England should interfere in its internal affairs, it would have been ridiculous to go on talking about the abolition of slavery. Gordon had to face a fanatical body of Mohammedans who, rightly or wrongly, looked upon slavery as a religious institution. The feeling of the country was strongly in favour of slavery, and if the country was to be left to itself slavery would continue to exist. Gordon did but make a virtue of a necessity, and announce that henceforth outsiders would not interfere in the matter. Thus he took the wind out of the sails of the Mahdi and his party, who could not say that they were fighting on behalf of one of their religious institutions.