st suitable for such an
appointment. Our Government acquiesced in the Khedive's offer of this
post to Gordon, so he accepted the responsible position.

The Khedive offered him, it is stated, a salary 10,000 pounds per annum;
this, however, he refused to accept. He said "Your Majesty I cannot
accept it, as I should look upon it as the life's blood wrung out of
those poor people over whom you wish me to rule." "Name your own terms
then," said the Khedive. "Well," replied Gordon, "2,000 pounds per annum
I think will keep body and soul together, what should I require more than
this for." About the close of the year 1873 he left his country and
loved ones behind him, for that lone sad land, with its ancient history.
We think Gordon played such a part that his name will be honourably
associated with Egypt, and remembered from generation to generation.

I am indebted to the author of _Gordon in Central Africa_ for the
following abstract of the Khedive's final instructions to Col. Gordon,
dated Feb. 16th, 1874.

"The province which Colonel Gordon has undertaken to organise and to
govern is but little known. Up to the last few years, it had been in
the hands of adventurers who had thought of nothing but their own
lawless gains, and who had traded in ivory and slaves. They
established factories and governed them with armed men. The
neighbouring tribes were forced to traffic with them whether they
liked it or not. The Egyptian Government, in the hope of putting an
end to this inhuman trade had taken the factories into their own
hands, paying the owners an indemnification.

Some of these men, nevertheless, had been still allowed to carry on
trade in the district, under a promise that they would not deal in
slaves. They had been placed under the control of the Governor of the
Soudan. His authority, however, had scarcely been able to make itself
felt in these remote countries. The Khedive had resolved therefore to
form them into a separate government, and to claim as a monopoly of
the State, the whole of the trade with the outside world. There was
no other way of putting an end to the slave trade which at present was
carried on by force of arms in defiance of law. When once brigandage
had become a thing of the past, and when once a breach had been made
in the lawless customs of long ages, then trade might be made free to
all. If the men who had been in t