e him in any force
despatched with this object. There is no reason to think that his wish
would not have been complied with if the expedition had been fitted
out from England, but it was very wisely decided that the task should
be entrusted to the Anglo-Indian Army. The late Lord Napier of
Magdala, then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army, was appointed to
the command. The officers of his staff, as well as the troops under
him, were all drawn from the Bombay Army, and although his connection
by marriage, Sir Charles Staveley, held a command under Napier, and
would willingly have assisted towards the gratification of his wish,
an exception in Gordon's case could not be made without that
favouritism which he most deprecated. Still, it was a great
disappointment to him, and he shut himself up for a whole day, and
would see no one.

If the six years at Gravesend, "the most peaceful and happy of any
portion of my life," as he truly said, had left no other trace than
his official work, of which the details must necessarily be meagre,
there would have been a great blank in his life, and the reader would
necessarily possess no clue to the marked change between the Gordon
of China and the Gordon of the Soudan. Not that there was any loss of
power or activity, but in the transition period philanthropy had come
to occupy the foremost place in Gordon's brain, where formerly had
reigned supreme professional zeal and a keen appreciation--I will not
say love--of warlike glory. His private life and work at Gravesend
explain and justify what was said of him at that time by one of his
brother officers: "He is the nearest approach to Jesus Christ of any
man who ever lived."

It has been written of him that his house at Gravesend bore more
resemblance to the home of a missionary than the quarters of an
English officer. His efforts to improve and soften the hard lot of the
poor in a place like Gravesend began in a small way, and developed
gradually into an extensive system of beneficence, which was only
limited by his small resources and the leisure left him by official
duty. At first he took into his house two or three boys who attracted
his attention in a more or less accidental manner. He taught them in
the evening, fed and clothed them, and in due course procured for them
employment, principally as sailors or in the colonies. For a naturally
bad sailor, he was very fond of the sea; and perhaps in his heart of
hearts he cherished th