Gordon left Khartoum on March 23, 1874, for Gondokoro, and on the 26th he writes: "Last night we were going along slowly in the moonlight, and I was thinking of you all, and the expedition, and Nubar, &c., when all of a sudden from a large bush came peals of laughter. I felt put out; but it turned out to be birds, who laughed at us from the bushes for some time in a rude way. They are a species of stork, and seemed in capital spirits, and highly amused at anybody thinking of going up to Gondokoro with the hope of doing anything." Gordon was full of hope, and very sanguine of success; but from the day when he reached Cairo, croakers all along the route had been whispering in his ear the hopelessness of his mission, and how utterly impossible it was to reform anything connected with such a corrupt administration as that of Egypt. Fortunately, though he used at times to have terrible fits of depression, he possessed a great deal of dogged perseverance. It was this that in China had enabled him to overcome all obstacles in fighting the enemy, and the same indomitable spirit now made him persevere and hope on, when every one else despaired. Not only were there real foes in every direction, determined if possible to frustrate his mission, but in addition there was physical suffering to endure from climatic and other causes. "No one can conceive," says he in a letter written on April 10th, "the utter misery of these lands, heat and mosquitoes day and night all the year round. But I like the work, for I believe that I can do a great deal to ameliorate the lot of the people." Two days after this he passed through a place called St. Croix, which had been a Roman Catholic mission station, but so unhealthy was it that it had at last been abandoned. After thirteen years of work not a single convert had been made, although during that period the missionaries had plodded on in the face of discouragement, and in spite of the appalling havoc that death and sickness had made in their ranks. Out of twenty missionaries thirteen had died of fever, two of dysentery, and two had been invalided. A few banana trees were all that remained of the settlement at which these heroes had been sacrificed.