Whenever the Soudan is mentioned, the first question asked is, ‘How is the Gordon College getting on?’ and the question cannot be answered in a word. The actual building is indeed for the present complete. It is a handsome structure of native red brick, built in the Moorish style, but retaining the collegiate character. It occupies two sides of a square, the front facing on the river. In the centre is the principal entrance, and over it a tower. If the original design is finally carried out, the whole quadrangle will be completed. Along the inside runs a cool and airy cloister, with winding stairs leading to the upper story; the class-rooms are spaciously designed. Its commanding position at the east end of the town makes it a conspicuous landmark for many miles round. From no point is this so remarkable as from the hill of Surgham, which overlooks the battlefield of Kerreri. Here is summed up much of the past and the future of the Soudan. On the one hand is the scene of the final overthrow of the forces of darkness and ignorance by war; on the other the symbols of that longer contest for the conquest of the Soudan by the peaceful arts of science and learning. With the eye of faith it is easy to look forward into the future, and to imagine the time, generations hence, when the Gordon College will be a true centre of learning for all these vast territories. Then it will stand, a completed quadrangle, in the middle of large gardens, its own territory, as green and cultivated as they are now arid and dusty. Its halls and class-rooms will be crowded with picked students from all the provincial centres, not vainly pursuing a dry and vain scholasticism, as in the other degenerate Universities of the Mohammedan East, but eagerly following in the paths of living science, and learning by practical teaching in the laboratory and workshop to wrest from Nature her secrets, and to absorb the principles underlying practice in the departments of chemistry and medicine, mechanics, agriculture, and the arts. Perhaps once more, in years to come, the culture and science of the Arabs will be as famous as they were in the great days of Arab dominion.