Anecdotes of Gordon.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 914, 6 September 1889, Page 8

Anecdotes of Gordon.

Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette. To many of those lately serving in the Soudan the following anecdotes of the late General Gordon, which have come to our knowledge from a thoroughly authentic source, will, we truet, be a source of pleasure. That they are not generally known we feel certain ; but their authenticity will, we are equally positive, bear the strictest investigation, for our information has been derived from a gentleman who at one time served under Gordon at Khartoum iu a very responsible position. When Gordon was appointed Governor-General of the Soudan ha proceeded to Khartoum to be installed as the representative of the Khedive. The emirs and people had flocked in from the surrounding districts to be preeent at the ceremony, and one and all expected that the f new potentate would, on the ooc&s’on of his first entesiug upon his duties, make according to custom, a high-flown and hyperbolic

speech ; but t > the surprise of all assembled, Gordon, after taking the usual oath, merely raid to the crowd of sheikhs and chiefs who IhroDged the palace, in his usual quiet and, we might be almost justified in saying, quaint manner, ‘By the help of God I will hold the balance level.’ To those who know Gordon and his peculiar type of character, this utterance will be perfectly intelligible. Gordon wa3 very fond of visiting the different provinces of his enormous principality, and as often as not used a * dahabhyab,’ or Nile boat, as a means of conveyance. On one of these excursions Gordon, as was his wont, was walking along the bank with a small escort of two or three Egyptian Boldiers and a few European officers. Suddenly a number of armed Arabs were descried rushing towards the party. Gordon was a few yards in advance of his followers, and seeing that all means of escape was cut off he deliberately aimed at the leading Arab with his rifle and fired. The shot missed, and Gordon fired his seoond barrel, but with the same ..result. The Arab was within twenty yards of him when one of his Egyptian escort knelt down and dropped the fanatic. The soldier got up well pleased with himßelf, and expected, somewhat naturally we must confess, to receive some meed of praise from the Governor-General. Instead of which he was greeted with a volley of abuse and condemnation, for as the General explained, ‘lf his time was come it was not the soldier’s duty to interfere.’ We believe that this action, meritorious as it might seem to more worldly natures, neither received thanks nor any other ulterior benefite from the hands of the man whose life he had undoubtedly saved. Onanother occasion, somewhat similar to the last, Gordon, whilst walking on shore, almost unattended with the exception of one or two of his European subordinates, was pursued, when some two or three hundred yards from the bank of the river, by hostile Arabs. They were well aware who the white stranger was, and were desirous to revenge themselves upon their governors by getting rid of so distinguished a person as the Governor-General. But though they followed him down to the water’s edge, they hesitated to attack the small party before them. When they reached the water’s edge, and further retreat for the time was not possible, owing to the boat being in mid stream, it semed more than probable to the majority of the party that the end had come. But Gordon did not seem to take any notice of the hostile Arabs surrounding him, although their threatening attitudes and gestures betrayed, without any doubt, to the remainder of his party what their sinister intentions were. At that critical moment a hippopotamus rose at the edge of the river amongst the reeds, and Gordon, with the greatest calmness and indifference to his perilous surroundings, promptly turned on his heel and shot the hippopotamus dead. Whether it was the apparent indifference to their presence or the obvious contempt for the impending danger we do not know, but the Arabs allowed Gordon and his party to return to their dahabeyah without molesting them in any way. Another curious trait in Gordon’s character was his fondness for dromedaries or riding camels. He possessed whoa at Khartoum a very large stable of these useful beasts, and he did not care what he had to pay for them ; but have them he would. He would enter a village and ask what man possessed the fastest dromedary. On receiving the information, he would send for the owner and offer to buy his beast and take it away with him ,on his next journey, generally paying a much larger sum than was asked by the avaricious owner. Many other anecdotes of this remarkable man and still more remarkable life in the Soudan have been related to us by the same eyewitness, but space does not permit us to reproduce more in our present article.