at from fifteen to twenty thousand men. On
the 7th of March Colonel Stewart telegraphed from Khartoum: 'The Mahdi
has attempted to raise the people of Shendi by an emissary.... We may be
cut off;' [Lieut.-Colonel Stewart to Sir E. Baring, March 7, 1884.] and
on the 11th Gordon himself reported: 'The rebels are four hours distant
on the Blue Nile.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring, March 11,
1884.] Thereafter no more telegrams came, for on the 15th the wire was
cut between Shendi and Berber, and the blockade had commenced.

The long and glorious defence of the town of Khartoum will always
fascinate attention. That one man, a European among Africans, a
Christian among Mohammedans, should by his genius have inspired the
efforts of 7,000 soldiers of inferior race, and by his courage have
sustained the hearts of 30,000 inhabitants of notorious timidity, and
with such materials and encumbrances have offered a vigorous resistance
to the increasing attacks of an enemy who, though cruel, would yet
accept surrender, during a period of 317 days, is an event perhaps
without parallel in history. But it may safely be predicted that no one
will ever write an account which will compare in interest or in detail
with that set forth by the man himself in the famous. 'Journals at
Khartoum.'

The brief account has delighted thousands of readers in Europe and
America. Perhaps it is because he is careless of the sympathy of men
that Charles Gordon so readily wins it. Before the first of the six
parts into which the Journals were divided is finished, the reader has
been won. Henceforth he sees the world through Gordon's eyes. With
him he scoffs at the diplomatists; despises the Government; becomes
impatient--unreasonably, perhaps--with a certain Major Kitchener in the
Intelligence Branch, whose information miscarried or was not despatched;
is wearied by the impracticable Shaiggia Irregulars; takes interest in
the turkey-cock and his harem of four wives; laughs at the 'black
sluts' seeing their faces for the first time in the mirror. With him he
trembles for the fate of the 'poor little beast,' the Husseinyeh, when
she drifts stern foremost on the shoal, 'a penny steamer under cannon
fire'; day after day he gazes through the General's powerful telescope
from the palace roof down the long brown reaches of the river towards
the rocks of the Shabluka Gorge, and longs for some sign of the
relieving steamers; and when the end of the account