dgment that have led him into sad dilemmas.
To say nothing of his second visit to the Soudan, to oblige Ismail
Pasha, and his rash and most dangerous embassy to King John of
Abyssinia, to oblige Tewfik Pasha, we need but allude to his unwise
acceptance of the post of private secretary to Lord Ripon in India. He
was overpersuaded, and to please others he sacrificed himself. To those
who knew him, it was not surprising that almost the first thing he did
on landing at Bombay was to throw up his appointment and rush off to
China, where he was instrumental in preventing war between that country
and Russia.

The active life of General Gordon, who is about fifty years old, may be
divided into the following sections: the Crimea and Bessarabia; China
(the suppression of the Taiping rebellion); Gravesend (the making of the
defenses at Tilbury); and the Soudan. A later and shorter episode occurs
in his visit to Mauritius and the Cape, the latter colony being the only
place in which his great capabilities and high character were
unappreciated.

In the Crimea General Gordon worked steadily in the trenches, and won
the praise of his superior officers for his skill in detecting the
movements of the Russians. Indeed, he was specially told off for this
dangerous duty. Lord Wolseley, then a captain, was a fellow-worker with
Gordon before Sebastopol.

In 1856 Gordon was occupied in laying down the boundaries of Russia, in
Turkey and Roumania, for which work he was in a peculiar manner well
fitted, and he resided in the East, principally in Armenia, until the
end of 1858. During this time he ascended both Little and Great Ararat.

In 1860 he was ordered to China, and assisted at the taking of Pekin and
the sacking and burning of the Summer Palace. This work did not seem to
be much to his taste.

China was the country destined to give to the young engineer the
sobriquet by which he is now best known--"Chinese" Gordon. Here he first
developed that marvelous power, which he still holds above all other
men, of engaging the confidence, respect, and love of wild and irregular
soldiery.

The great Taiping rebellion, which was commenced soon after 1842 by a
sort of Chinese Mahdi--a fanatical village schoolmaster--had attained
such dimensions that it had overrun and desolated a great portion of
Southern China, and threatened to drive the foreigners into the sea.
Nanking, with its porcelain tower, had been taken, and was made the
capital of