wn
in small out-of-the-way patches."

He reached Gondokoro the second time on September 4th, receiving the
salaams and salutes of the officers, men, and functionaries, together
with the submission of all the neighbouring chiefs. In the whole of his
province Egypt had only two forts, one at Gondokoro, the capital, with
300 men, and one at Fatiko, further south, with 200 men. "As for paying
taxes," said he, "or any government existing outside the forts, it is
all nonsense. You cannot go out in any safety half-a-mile, all because
they have been fighting the poor natives and taking their cattle. I
apprehend not the least difficulty in the work; the greatest will be to
gain the people's confidence again. They have been hardly treated."

The chief culprit, to whom much of this misgovernment was due, was
Raouf Bey, whom Gordon found at Gondokoro. This man had been in office
for six years, and proved a miserable failure. "Raouf had never
conciliated the tribes, never had planted dhoora; and, in fact, only
possessed the land he camped upon." Yet he made it a grievance that
Gordon refused to employ him, and the present Khedive of Egypt many
years afterwards made him Governor-General of the Soudan when Gordon
resigned.

What most astonished Gordon was the apparent want of affection on the
part of the natives for their offspring, and it pained him none the
less when he reflected that this was entirely due to the slave trade,
and the sufferings the poor people had endured. One man brought Gordon
two of his children of 12 and 9 years old, because they were starving,
and sold them for a basketful of grain, and though the father often
came to the station after this, he never asked to see them. Gordon
mentioned another case, of a family in which there were two children.
Passing their hut one day, and seeing only one child, he asked the
mother where the other was. "Oh," said she, "it has been given to the
man from whom the cow was stolen"--her husband having been the culprit.
This was said with a cheerful smile. "But," said Gordon, "are you not
sorry?" "Oh, no! we would rather have the cow." "But you have eaten the
cow, and the pleasure is over." "Oh, but all the same, we would sooner
have had the cow!" Gordon adds, "The other child of twelve years old,
like her parents did not care a bit. A lamb taken from the flock will
bleat, while here you see not the very slightest vestige of feeling."
Such an incident shows how the human hea