Yet in the fervour of his belief in their imaginary fidelity, and the warmth of his manner, there was a certain nobility which deterred us from argument. His unwarying trustfulness was not convincing; but it deepened our regard for him, and it may be that he imbued us with a hope that, though invisible to us, there remained some good in them. We dare not treat these features of a trustful, loving nature like that of Emin Pasha with an insolent levity. He is a man, as I have said, eminently lovable, and were it only for the pleasure we have oftentimes received in his society, he deserves that what may be said of him shall be delivered with charity at least. For the high though impossible hopes entertained by him, and for the strenuous industry with which he endeavoured to realize them, he deserves the greatest honour and respect. If we will only consider the accident which brought him to Khartoum, and the rank and position he then filled, and the manner he rose from doctor to storekeeper at Lado, to that of Governor of African Equatoria, we need not wonder that his nature and taste remained unchanged. The story of Gordon’s trouble in the Soudan has never been written, and it never will be. Gordon is a name that English people do not care to examine and define too closely. Otherwise, I should like to know why there were so few English officers with him. I should be curious to discover why such as had an opportunity of working with him did not care to protract their stay in the Soudan. I am inclined to believe by my own troubles on the Congo that his must have been great--perhaps greater; that not one of the least of his troubles must have been the difficulty of finding good, fit, serviceable, and willing men. In Emin Pasha he meets with a man who, though a German and a doctor of medicine, is industrious, civil, ready, and obliging. Had I met Emin on the Congo, those qualities would have endeared him to me, as they must have been appreciated by Gordon. Those qualities are much rarer than editors of newspapers imagine. Out of three hundred officers on the Congo, I can only count ten who possessed them, who by mere request would seize on their duties with goodwill, and perform them. How many did Gordon have? Emin was one of the best and truest. Now Emin loved botanizing, ornithology, entomology, studied geology, made notes upon ethnology, and meteorology, and filled note-book after note-book with his observations, and at the same time did not neglect his correspondence. I know the courtesy with which he would write to the Governor-General. I can imagine how the latter would be pleased with receiving these letters--precise, careful, methodical, and polite. Therefore Emin is pushed on in his African career from storekeeper to chief of station, then envoy to Uganda, then offered a secretaryship, then envoy of Gordon, then vice-king to the astute and subtle Kabba Rega, and finally Governor of Equatoria.