Gordon, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Stewart, an officer who had visited the Soudan in 1883, and written an able report on it, left London by the Indian mail of 18th January 1884. The decision to send Colonel Stewart with him was arrived at only at the very last moment, and on the platform at Charing Cross Station the acquaintance of the two men bound together in such a desperate partnership practically began. It is worth recalling that in that hurried and stirring scene, when the War Office, with the Duke of Cambridge, had assembled to see him off, Gordon found time to say to one of Stewart's nearest relations, "Be sure that he will not go into any danger which I do not share, and I am sure that when I am in danger he will not be far behind." Gordon's journey to Egypt was uneventful, but after the exciting events that preceded his departure he found the leisure of his sea-trip from Brindisi beneficial and advantageous, for the purpose of considering his position and taking stock of the situation he had to face. By habit and temperament Gordon was a bad emissary to carry out cut-and-dried instructions, more especially when they related to a subject upon which he felt very strongly and held pronounced views. The instructions which the Government gave him were as follows, and I quote the full text. They were probably not drawn up and in Gordon's hands more than two hours before he left Charing Cross, and personally I do not suppose that he had looked through them, much less studied them. His view of the matter never varied. He went to the Soudan to rescue the garrisons, and to carry out the evacuation of the province after providing for its administration. The letter given in the previous chapter shows how vague and incomplete was the agreement between himself and Ministers. It was nothing more than the expression of an idea that the Soudan should be evacuated, but how and under what conditions was left altogether to the chapter of accidents. At the start the Government's view of the matter and his presented no glaring difference. They sent General Gordon to rescue and withdraw the garrisons if he could do so, and they were also not averse to his establishing any administration that he chose. But the main point on which they laid stress was that they were to be no longer troubled in the affair. Gordon's marvellous qualities were to extricate them from the difficult position in which the shortcomings of the Egyptian Government had placed them, and beyond that they had no definite thought or care as to how the remedy was to be discovered and applied. The following instructions should be read by the light of these reflections, which show that, while they nominally started from the same point, Gordon and the Government were never really in touch, and had widely different goals in view:-- "FOREIGN OFFICE, _January 18th, 1884_.