It is quite amusing to see the efforts that were made at Cairo to break in the new governor, and to fit him for his post, in accordance with the traditions of the country. As soon as everything was settled, Gordon, with his usual promptness, and absence of all love of display, was anxious to be off to his post of duty, and for that purpose to utilise the ordinary passenger steamer from Suez. But about states such as Egypt was before the British occupation, there is a strange mixture of reckless expenditure combined with paltry meanness. Although the Egyptian authorities once refused to pay the travelling expenses of an official travelling on duty from Alexandria to Cairo in connection with Colonel Gordon, yet they insisted on this occasion that it would be unbecoming to the dignity of a governor to travel by an ordinary steamer, so a special one was set apart for this purpose. Gordon afterwards calculated that had he been allowed his own way, he would at the outset have saved at least L400! For the sake of peace he yielded the point, and went from Cairo in a special train, and from Suez in a special steamer, accompanied by a large number of useless servants. He had his revenge, however, for owing to an engine getting off the line, there was a long halt, and finally he had to proceed by the ordinary train. Gordon was a remarkable instance of the general rule, that the greater the ability of a man the less affection has he for display, and for all the official trappings of office. The only display that Gordon ever cared for was that of intrinsic merit and hard work, and these qualities he always looked for in his subordinates. Colonel Gordon reached Suakim on February 25th, 1874, and writing home, he records his impressions of Cairo and its officials. "I think the Khedive likes me, but no one else does; and I don't like them, I mean the swells, whose corns I tread on in all manner of ways. Duke of This wants steamer, say L600. Duke of That wants house, &c. All the time the poor people are ground down to get money for all this. 'Who art thou to be afraid of man?' If He wills, I will shake all this in some way not clear to me now. Do not think I am an Egoist; I am like Moses who despised the riches of Egypt. I will not bow to Haman." Little did he then foresee that before eight years had passed British guns would be shaking the stronghold of Alexandria, and that 10,000 Egyptian soldiers would yield the citadel of Cairo to a small force of some 300 troops carrying the British flag. From Suakim he went on a camel to Berber, and thence by steamer to Khartoum, the first time he ever visited a place which now can never be mentioned without awakening in the mind associations of this noble servant of God, who feared neither man nor devil.