The Life of Gordon, Volume I

There is no doubt that this absence of any organised opposition was fortunate, for the so-called troops at the disposal of the Governor of the Equator were as miserably inefficient and contemptible, from a fighting point of view, as any General Gordon ever commanded; and at a later stage of his career he plaintively remarked that it had fallen to his lot to lead a greater number of cowardly and unwarlike races than anyone else. But it was not merely that they were such poor fighters that Gordon declared that three natives would put a company to flight, but they were so disinclined for any work, and so encumbered by their women and children, that their ability to make any military show might be as safely challenged as their combative spirit. Well might Gordon write: "I never had less confidence in any troops in my life." But even these shortcomings were not the worst. The Arab soldiers provided by the Egyptian Government, and sent up over and over again, in spite of Gordon's protests and entreaties, could not stand the climate. They died like flies. Of one detachment of 250, half were dead in three months, 100 of the others were invalided, and only 25 remained fit for duty. From a further body of 150 men sent as a reinforcement, half were reported on the sick list the day after their arrival. The main buttress of the Khedive's authority in this region was therefore hollow and erected on an insecure foundation. The Egyptian soldiers possessed firearms, and the natives, in their ignorance that they could not shoot straight, were afraid of them; but the natural progress of knowledge would inevitably prove fatal to that unreal supremacy, and eventually entail the collapse of the Cairo administration in the Soudan and the remoter districts on the Equator.

Realising the inefficiency of the Egyptian force, General Gordon set himself to the task of providing a better; and mindful of the contingent danger of creating a corps that might in the end prove a peril to the system it was meant to protect, he resolved that, if individually brave and efficient, it should be exceedingly limited in numbers, and incapable of casting aside its allegiance to the Khedive. He began in a small way by engaging the services of any stalwart Soudanese native whom chance placed in his path, and thus he organised in the first year of his rule a corps of about forty men as a sort of bodyguard. An accident brought him into contact with a party of the Niam Niam, a tribe of cannibals from the interior of Africa, but possessing a martial spirit and athletic frames. Gordon looked at them with the eye of a soldier, and on the spot enrolled fifty of them into the small force he was organising. He armed them with spears as well as guns, and as these spears were cutting ones, with a blade two feet long, they were the more formidable weapon of the two. Gordon describes the Niam Niam warriors as looking very fierce, and brave, and fearless. They were also thick-set and sturdy, and, above all, so indifferent to the tropical heat that they might be relied on not to break down from the climate like the Egyptian soldiers. Before the end of the year 1876 he had increased the numbers of these two contingents to 500 men. It was with these black troops that Gordon humbled the pride of the Baris, elated by their two successes, and provided for the security of the long Nile route to the lakes.

There was another advantage besides the military in this practical measure, one of those numerous administrative acts, in every clime and under innumerable conditions, that established the fame and the sound sense and judgment of General Gordon. It promoted economy, and contributed to the sound finance which Gordon always set himself to establish wherever he was responsible. One of Gordon's first resolutions had been that his part of the Soudan should cease to be a drain, like the rest, on the Cairo Exchequer. He determined that he at least would pay his way, and on the threshold of his undertaking he had insisted, and carried in the teeth of powerful opposition his resolution, that the accounts of the Equatorial Province should be kept distinct from those of the Soudan. The employment of black soldiers was very economical as well as efficient, and contributed to the satisfactory result which was shown in the balance-sheet of the Equatorial Province as described by General Gordon for the year 1875. In that year the Khedive received £48,000 from the Province which Gordon ruled at a total cost of only £20,000, while he had also formed a surplus or reserve fund of £60,000 more.

Having thus accomplished as much as possible towards the strengthening of the administration and tranquillisation of the people, some further particulars may be recorded of his measures and success in dealing with that slave-trade, the existence of which was the primary cause of his own appearance in the Soudan. Allusion has already been made to the considerable number of slaves rescued by a few grand coups at the expense of his own subordinates, but during the whole of these three years Gordon was in close contact with slaves, and the rescue of individuals was of frequent occurrence. Several touching incidents are recorded in the letters published from Central Africa as to his kindness towards women and infants, to some of whom he even gave the shelter of his own tent; and nothing could be more effective in the way of illustration than his simple description of the following passage with the child-wife of one of his own soldiers:

"The night before I left this place a girl of twelve years, in one of those leather strap girdles, came up to the fire where I was sitting, and warmed herself. I sent for the interpreter, and asked what she wanted. She said the soldier who owned her beat her, and she would not stay with him; so I put her on board the steamer. The soldier was very angry, so I said: 'If the girl likes to stay with you, she may; if she does not, she is free.' The girl would not go back, so she stays on the steamer."

Nor was this the only incident of the kind to show not merely the tenderness of his heart, but the extraordinary reputation Gordon had acquired by his high-minded action among these primitive and down-trodden races. Here are some others that have been selected almost at random out of his daily acts of gentleness and true charity: —

"I took a poor old bag of bones into my camp a month ago, and have been feeding her up, but yesterday she was quietly taken off, and now knows all things. She had her tobacco up to the last, and died quite quietly… A wretched sister of yours [addressed to the late Miss Gordon] is struggling up the road, but she is such a wisp of bones that the wind threatens to overthrow her; so she has halted, preferring the rain to being cast down. I have sent her some dhoora, which will produce a spark of joy in her black and withered carcass. I told my man to see her into one of the huts, and thought he had done so. The night was stormy and rainy, and when I awoke I heard often a crying of a child near my hut within the enclosure. When I got up I went out to see what it was, and passing through the gateway, I saw your and my sister lying dead in a pool of mud – her black brothers had been passing and passing, and had taken no notice of her – so I ordered her to be buried, and went on. In the midst of the high grass was a baby, about a year or so old, left by itself. It had been out all night in the rain, and had been left by its mother. I carried it in, and seeing the corpse was not moved, I sent again about it, and went with the men to have it buried. To my surprise and astonishment, she was alive. After considerable trouble I got the black brothers to lift her out of the mud, poured some brandy down her throat, and got her into a hut with a fire, having the mud washed out of her eyes. She was not more than sixteen years of age. There she now lies. I cannot help hoping she is floating down with the tide to the haven of rest. The next day she was still alive, and the babe, not a year old, seized a gourd of milk, and drank it off like a man, and is apparently in for the pilgrimage of life. It does not seem the worse for its night out, depraved little wretch!.. The black sister departed this life at 4 p. m., deeply lamented by me, not so by her black brothers, who thought her a nuisance. When I went to see her this morning I heard the 'lamentations' of something on the other side of the hut. I went round, and found another of our species, a visitor of ten or twelve months to this globe, lying in a pool of mud. I said, 'Here is another foundling!' and had it taken up. Its mother came up afterwards, and I mildly expostulated with her, remarking, however good it might be for the spawn of frogs, it was not good for our species. The creature drank milk after this with avidity."

Such incidents explain the hold Gordon obtained over the indigenous population of the Upper Nile. He made friends right and left, as he said, and the trust of the poor people, who had never received kindness, and whose ignorance of the first principles of justice was so complete that he said it would take three generations of sound and paternal government to accustom them to it, in General Gordon was complete and touching. A chapter might be filled with evidence to this effect, but it is unnecessary, as the facts are fully set forth in the "Letters" from Central Africa. The result alone need be dwelt on here. For only too brief a period, and as the outcome of his personal effort, these primitive races saw and experienced the beneficial results of a sound and well-balanced administration. The light was all too quickly withdrawn; but while it lasted, General Gordon stood out as a kind of redeemer for the Soudanese. The poor slaves, from whose limbs the chains of their oppressors had only just been struck, would come round him when anxious about his health, and gently touch him with their fingers. The hostile chiefs, hearing, as Bedden did, that he restored his cattle to and recompensed in other ways a friendly chief who had been attacked in mistake, would lie in wait for him, and lay their views and grievances before him. He could walk fearlessly and unarmed through their midst, and along the river banks for miles, when an Egyptian official would have required a regiment to guard him, and detached soldiers would have been enticed into the long grass and murdered. Even the hostile tribes like the Bari, who, from a mistaken view of their own military power, would not come to terms, showed their recognition of his merit by avoiding in their attacks the posts in which he happened to be. Thus there grew up round Gordon in the Soudan a sublime reputation for nobleness and goodness that will linger on as a tradition, and that, when these remote regions along the Equator fall under civilized authority, will simplify the task of government, provided it be of the same pattern as that dispensed by General Gordon.

As the subject has a permanent practical value, the following passage embodying General Gordon's views is well worth repetition: —

"I feel sure that a series of bad governments have ruined the people. Three generations of good government would scarcely regenerate them. Their secretiveness is the result of the fear that if they give, it may chance that they may want. Their indolence is the result of experience that if they do well, or if they do badly, the result will be nil to them, therefore why should they exert themselves? Their cowardice is the result of the fear of responsibility. They are fallen on so heavily if anything goes wrong. Their deceit is the result of fear and want of moral courage, as they have no independence in their characters. For a foreign power to take this country would be most easy. The mass are far from fanatical. They would rejoice in a good government, let its religion be what it might. A just administration of law, and security of person against arbitrary conduct, would do a great deal. It is the Government that needs civilizing far more than the people. Mehemet Ali and his descendants have always gone on the principle of enriching themselves by monopolies of all sorts. None, not even the present Khedive (Ismail), have brought in civilizing habits or customs with any desire to benefit the country, or, at any rate, they have subordinated this desire to that of obtaining an increased revenue."

But while Gordon brought kindness and conciliation into play, the settlement of the region entrusted to his care called for sterner measures, and he was not the man, with all his nobility of character and overflowing supply of the milk of human kindness, to refrain from those vigorous and decisive measures that keep turbulent races in subjection, and advance the cause of civilization, which in so many quarters of the world must be synonymous with British supremacy. The student of his voluminous writings will find many passages that express philosophical doubts as to our right to coerce black races, and to bind peoples who in their rude and primitive fashion are free to the car of our wide-world Empire. But I am under no obligation to save them the trouble of discovery by citing them, more especially because I believe that they give a false impression of the man. I have affirmed, and shall adduce copious and, as I think, convincing evidence, at every turn of his varied experiences, that the true Gordon was not the meek, colourless, milk-and-water, text-expounding, theological disputant many would have us accept as a kind of Bunyan's hero, but in action an uncompromising and resistless leader, who, when he smote, at once struck his hardest. Gordon has supplied the answer to his own misgivings as to our moral right to coerce and subject tribes who advanced their natural claims to be left undisturbed: "We cannot have them on our flank, and it is indispensable that they shall be subjected."

Having organised his new forces, equipped all his steamers – one of which was fitted out with machinery that had been left in Baker's time to rust in the Korosko Desert – General Gordon set himself to the task of systematically organising the line of posts which he had conceived and begun to construct in the first stages of his administration. The object of these posts was twofold. By them he would cut the slave routes in two, and also open a road to the great Lakes of the Equator. In the first few months of his residence he had transferred the principal station from Gondokoro to Lardo, twelve miles lower down the stream, and on the left instead of the right bank of the river. These places lie a little on each side of the fifth degree of north latitude, and Gordon fixed upon Lardo as his capital, because it was far the healthier. Above Lardo he established at comparatively short stages further posts at, in their order, Rageef, Beddem, Kerri, Moogie, and Laboré, immediately beyond the last of which occur the Fola Falls, the only obstruction to navigation between Khartoum and the Lakes. Above those Falls Gordon established a strong post at Duffli, and dragged some of his steamers overland, and floated them on the short link of the Nile between that place and Lake Albert, establishing a final post north of that lake, at Wadelai. When his fleet commanded that lake, he despatched his lieutenant, Gessi, across it up the Victoria Nile, connecting the two great lakes, and continued his chain of posts along it by Magungo, Anfina, Foweira, and Mrooli, to the very borders of Mtesa's dominion in Uganda. By means of these twelve posts General Gordon established the security of his communications, and he also inspired his men with fresh confidence, for, owing to the short distances between them, they always felt sure of a near place of refuge in the event of any sudden attack. Thus it came to pass that whereas formerly Egyptian troops could only move about in bodies of 100 strong, General Gordon was able to send his boats and despatches with only two soldiers in charge of them; and having entirely suppressed the slave-trade within his own jurisdiction, he was left free to accomplish the two ulterior objects of his mission, viz. the installation of the Khedive's flag on the Lakes, and the establishment of definite relations with Mtesa, whose truculent vassal, Kaba Rega, of Unyoro, showed open hostility and resentment at the threatened encroachment on his preserves.

It was neither a reprehensible nor an unintelligible vanity for the Egyptian ruler to desire the control of the whole of the great river, whose source had been traced south of the Equator, and 2000 miles beyond the limits of the Pharaohs' dominions. Nor was the desire diminished when, without sharing the gratification of the Prince in whose name he acted, General Gordon advanced cogent reasons for establishing a line of communication from Gondokoro, across the territory of Mtesa, with the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. As Gordon pointed out, that place was nearly 1,100 miles from Khartoum, and only 900 from Mombasa, while the advance to the Lakes increased the distance from the one place by nearly 300 miles, and reduced that to the other in the same measure. This short and advantageous line of communication with the Equatorial Province and Upper Nile was beyond both the power and the sphere of the Khedive; but in the task of winning one of the most important of African zones formally recognised as lying within the British sphere of influence, the route advocated by General Gordon in 1875 has now become of the most undoubted value and importance.

The aversion to all forms of notoriety except that which was inseparable from his duty led Gordon to shrink from the publicity and congratulations sure to follow if he were the first to navigate those inland seas on the Equator. Having made all the arrangements, and provided for the complete security of the task, he decided to baffle the plans in his honour of the Royal Geographical Society, by delegating the duty of first unfurling the Khedive's flag on their waters to his able and much-trusted lieutenant, Gessi. Although he sometimes took hasty resolutions, in flat opposition to his declared intentions, he would probably have adhered to this determination but for reading in one of Dr Schweinfurth's published lectures that "it may be that Lake Albert belongs to the Nile basin, but it is not a settled fact, for there are seventy miles between Foweira and Lake Albert never explored, and one is not authorised in making the Nile leave Lake Albert. The question is very doubtful." The accidental perusal of this passage changed General Gordon's views. He felt that this task devolved on him as the responsible administrator of the whole region, and that his natural shrinking from trumpery and too often easily-earned geographical honours, which he has bluntly asserted should only be granted by the Sovereign, did not justify his evading a piece of work that came within his day's duty. Therefore he resolved to ascertain the fact by personal examination, and to set at rest the doubts expressed by the German traveller.

Expanding Dr Schweinfurth's remarks, he explained that "it was contended that the Nile did not flow out of Lake Victoria, and thence through Lake Albert, and so northward, but that one river flowed out of Lake Victoria and another out of Lake Albert, and that these two rivers united and formed the Nile. This statement could not be positively denied, inasmuch as no one had actually gone along the river from Foweira to Magungo. So I went along it with much suffering, and settled the question. I also found that from Foweira or Karuma Falls there was a series of rapids to Murchison Falls, thus by degrees getting rid of the 1000-feet difference of level between Foweira and Magungo." While mapping this region, Gordon one day marched eighteen miles through jungle and in pouring rain, and on each of the four following days he also walked fifteen miles – and the month was August, only a few miles north of the Equator, or, in other words, the very hottest period of the year. Having established the course of the Nile and its navigability to the Murchison Falls close to the Victoria Nyanza, General Gordon gave what he thought was a finishing touch to this exploring expedition by effecting an arrangement with King Mtesa.

But in order to explain the exact significance of this step, and the consequent disappointment when it was found that the arrangement was illusory and destitute of practical value, it is necessary to go back a little, and trace the course of events in the Uganda region.

The Egyptian advance towards the south brought in its train two questions of external policy. One was with Abyssinia, of which we shall hear much in the next chapter; and the other was with the kingdom of Uganda and the kinglets who regarded Mtesa as their chief. Of these the principal was Kaba Rega, chief of Unyoro, and the recognised ruler of the territory lying between the two Lakes. He was a man of capacity and spirit, and had raised himself to the position he occupied by ousting kinsmen who had superior claims to the privileges of supreme authority. In the time of Gordon's predecessor, Sir Samuel Baker, Kaba Rega had come to the front as a native champion, resolved to defy the Egyptians and their white leaders to do their worst. In a spirited attack on Baker's camp at Masindi, he endeavoured to settle the pretensions of his invaders at a blow, but he found that numbers were no match for the superior arms of his opponent. But defeat did not diminish his spirit. Baker decreed his deposition as King of Unyoro, proclaiming in his stead a cousin named Rionga, but the order had no practical effect. Kaba Rega retired a little from the vicinity of the Egyptian forces; he retained "the magic stool" of authority over the lands and peoples of Unyoro, and his cousin Rionga possessed nothing beyond the empty title contained in an Egyptian official decree. This was the position when Gordon appeared on the scene, and his first obligation was to give something like force and reality to the pretensions of Rionga.

If Kaba Rega had been satisfied to retain the practical marks of authority, it is probable that Gordon would have been well content to leave him alone, but irritated by the slight placed upon him by Sir Samuel Baker, he assumed the offensive on every possible occasion. He attacked Colonel Long, one of Gordon's lieutenants, on his way back from Mtesa, just as he had Baker; he threatened the Egyptian station at Foweira; and above all, he welcomed the thwarted slave-dealers, who were not averse to taking their revenge in any form at Gordon's expense. In these circumstances an active policy was forced on General Gordon, who promptly decided that Kaba Rega was "too treacherous" to be allowed to retain his kingdom, and that measures must be taken to set up Rionga in his place. It was at this moment, unfortunately, that General Gordon discovered the worthlessness of his troops, and when, in 1876, he had organised his new force, and was ready to carry out the policy he had decided on in 1874, he was thinking mostly of his departure from the Soudan, and had no time to proceed to extremities against these southern adversaries, for behind Kaba Rega stood Mtesa.

When Gordon, in January 1876, entered the territory of Unyoro, belonging to Kaba Rega, he found it desirable to take up the cause of Anfina, in preference to that of Rionga, as the more influential chief; but neither proved in popularity or expertness a match for Kaba Rega. The possession of "the magic stool," the ancestral throne or copper seat of the family of Unyoro, believed to be identified with the fortunes of the little kingdom, alone compensated for the few losses in the open field, as Kaba Rega was always careful to retreat on the approach of his most dangerous adversary. Neither of his kinsmen was likely to prove a formidable foe. Rionga passed his hours in native excesses, in the joy of receiving the titular rank of Vakil to the Khedive. Anfina alienated Gordon's friendly feeling by suggesting the wholesale assassination of Kaba Rega's officers and followers when they came on a mission to his camp. Kaba Rega carried off the stool to the south, or rather the west, of Victoria Nyanza, and bided his time, while Mtesa wrote a half-defiant and half-entreating letter to Gordon, asking him to spare Unyoro. Mtesa had his own views of gain, and when Gordon proposed to establish a fortified post with a garrison of 160 men at Urundogani, the Uganda ruler begged that it might be stationed at his own capital, Dubaga, with the view of either winning over the troops to his service or employing them against his own enemies. Gordon saw through this proposal and withheld his consent, but his lieutenant, Nuehr Agha, acted on his own responsibility, and moved with his force to Dubaga. In a few weeks Gordon learnt that they were all, practically speaking, prisoners, and that his already heavy enough task had been increased by the necessity of rescuing them.