llege could be
thought of. Lamentable ignorance of the world and all therein was and
yet is the direct curse of the land. The natives have had no
opportunity of learning anything beyond the parrot-smattering of the
Koran, the one book of Moslem schools. The rudimentary knowledge
common to British schoolboys transcends all the learning of the wise
in the Soudan. The people, Arabs and blacks, are docile and capable of
readily learning everything taught in the ordinary scholastic
curriculum at home. With a minimum annual income of L1500 a year,
teachers and apparatus could, it was said, be provided, although in
addition five or six thousand pounds sterling would be required for
preliminary outlay. The land and part of the necessary buildings, the
Sirdar intimated, would probably be presented as a gift by the
Egyptian Government. It would be futile, as all knew, trying to
succeed with a staff of native teachers. Tribal relations and other
causes stood in the way, and unless the college was to be doomed to
failure it would have to be launched and conducted by virile European
professors. Much if not all of the food required for the staff and
scholars could be purchased cheaply or might be raised in the college
grounds by the pupils themselves. Technical training would be taught
hand in hand with the ordinary courses. These were the outlines of the
Sirdar's communications, who, by the way, at that date was already
being known as Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. It having been noticed that
certain dignitaries and others were, through the press, ruining the
scheme by attempts to foist upon it theological and medical schools, a
complete answer was found for their statements by a near relative of
Gordon Pasha. In the course of conversation he referred to what I knew
to be the facts, that the British and Egyptian army doctors wherever
stationed in the Soudan, or from Assouan south, were wont to give
medicines and professional services to the civil population free of
charge. General Gordon, I was authorised to state, was no
narrow-spirited Christian, for he always put the need of giving
education before attempts at proselytising. It is not generally known
amongst strait-laced sectarians or churchmen that Gordon Pasha, at his
own expense, built a mosque for the devout Mohammedans whom he ruled,
and that his name, as worthy to be remembered in Moslem annals, is
inscribed upon the walls of the Mosque at Mecca. That General Gordon
was a stau