Before a silence of five and a half months fell over Khartoum, Gordon had been able to make three things clear, and of these only one could be described as having a personal signification, and that was that the Government, by rejecting all his propositions, had practically abandoned him to his fate. The two others were that any settlement would be a work of time, and that no permanent tranquillity could be attained without overcoming the Mahdi. Immediately on arriving at Khartoum he perceived that the evacuation of the Soudan, with safety to the garrison and officials, as well as the preservation of the honour of England and Egypt, would necessarily be a work of time, and only feasible if certain measures were taken in his support, which, considerable as they may have appeared at the moment, were small and costless in comparison with those that had subsequently to be sanctioned. Six weeks sufficed to show Gordon that he would get no material help from the Government, and he then began to look elsewhere for support, and to propound schemes for pacifying the Soudan and crushing the Mahdi in which England and the Government would have had no part. Hence his proposal to appeal to wealthy philanthropists to employ Turkish troops, and in the last resort to force his way to the Equator and the Congo. Even that avenue of safety was closed to him by the illusory prospect of rescue held out to him by the Government at the eleventh hour, when success was hardly attainable. For the sake of clearness it will be well to give here a brief summary of the siege during the six months that followed the arrival of General Gordon and the departure of Colonel Stewart on 10th September. The full and detailed narrative is contained in Colonel Stewart's Journal, which was captured on board his steamer. This interesting diary was taken to the Mahdi at Omdurman, and is said to be carefully preserved in the Treasury. The statement rests on no very sure foundation, but if true the work may yet thrill the audience of the English-speaking world. But even without its aid the main facts of the siege of Khartoum, down at all events to the 14th December, when Gordon's own diary stops, are sufficiently well known for all the purposes of history.