his own tent; and nothing could be
more effective in the way of illustration than his simple description
of the following passage with the child-wife of one of his own
soldiers:

"The night before I left this place a girl of twelve years, in
one of those leather strap girdles, came up to the fire where I
was sitting, and warmed herself. I sent for the interpreter, and
asked what she wanted. She said the soldier who owned her beat
her, and she would not stay with him; so I put her on board the
steamer. The soldier was very angry, so I said: 'If the girl
likes to stay with you, she may; if she does not, she is free.'
The girl would not go back, so she stays on the steamer."

Nor was this the only incident of the kind to show not merely the
tenderness of his heart, but the extraordinary reputation Gordon had
acquired by his high-minded action among these primitive and
down-trodden races. Here are some others that have been selected
almost at random out of his daily acts of gentleness and true
charity:--

"I took a poor old bag of bones into my camp a month ago, and
have been feeding her up, but yesterday she was quietly taken
off, and now knows all things. She had her tobacco up to the
last, and died quite quietly.... A wretched _sister_ of yours
[addressed to the late Miss Gordon] is struggling up the road,
but she is such a wisp of bones that the wind threatens to
overthrow her; so she has halted, preferring the rain to being
cast down. I have sent her some dhoora, which will produce a
spark of joy in her black and withered carcass. I told my man to
see her into one of the huts, and thought he had done so. The
night was stormy and rainy, and when I awoke I heard often a
crying of a child near my hut within the enclosure. When I got up
I went out to see what it was, and passing through the gateway, I
saw your and my sister lying dead in a pool of mud--her black
brothers had been passing and passing, and had taken no notice of
her--so I ordered her to be buried, and went on. In the midst of
the high grass was a baby, about a year or so old, left by
itself. It had been out all night in the rain, and had been left
by its mother. I carried it in, and seeing the corpse was not
moved, I sent again about it, and went with the men to have it
buried. To my surprise and astonishment, s