At Rageef, seeing he need expect no real help from the Egyptian Government, Gordon began to form an army of his own, making soldiers of the Soudanese,--the "Gippies," as our own soldiers now call them. And the Gippies are as brave and soldier-like a body of troops as is to be found. "We," they say, "are like the English; we are not afraid." He enlisted men who had been slaves, and men who had been slavers. A detachment of cannibals that he came across he also enlisted, drilled, and trained, and turned into first-rate soldiers. The slavers grew afraid of Gordon Pasha, and of the army that he had made. Where an Egyptian official would not have dared to go without a convoy of 100 soldiers, and where a single soldier would have been sure to have been waylaid and murdered, Gordon could now go in safety, alone and unarmed. He would walk along the river banks for miles and miles, only armed when he wished to shoot a hippopotamus. Gordon's work was always much varied. Always, each bit of it was done with all his might. He drilled savages, shot hippopotamuses, mended watches and musical boxes for black chiefs, patched his own clothes and made clothes for some of his men, invented rat-traps and machines for making rockets, tamed baby lions and baby hippopotamuses, cleaned guns, raided the camps of slavers, nursed the sick, and fed the hungry. And day and night he worked to rid the land of slavery; to teach the black people the meaning of justice, of mercy, and of honour. His food all the time was of the plainest--no vegetables, only dry biscuits, bits of broiled meat, and macaroni boiled in sugar and water. Ants and beetles often nested in the stores, and made them horrid to the taste. "Oh, how I should like a good dinner!" he wrote to his sister. In addition to all his other work, Gordon had the task of finding out for himself the exact geography of that part of the Nile of which he was Governor, and he had to do much exploring. While doing this he one day marched 18 miles through jungle, in pouring rain. Another day, in the hottest season of that hot land, he marched 35 miles. As he and his men sailed up the Nile they met with many dangers. There were rapids to pass, furious hippopotamuses to charge their boats, and on the banks were concealed enemies, throwing their assegais with deadly aim. And through all this he had only a pack of cowardly Arabs to depend on for everything. A wizard belonging to one of the black tribes, sure that the white man and his soldiers could only have come for some evil purpose, stood on the top of a rock by the river, screaming curses at them and exciting his tribe. "I don't think that's a healthy spot to deliver an address from," said Gordon, taking up a rifle and pointing it at the wizard, who at once ran away.