to say I will not
remain as Governor-General, for I feel I cannot govern the country
to satisfy myself.... Now as I will not stay as Governor-General of
the whole of the Soudan, query, shall I stay as Governor of the
West Soudan, and crush the slave-dealers? I agree, if the death was
speedy; but oh! it is a long and weary one, and for the moment I
cannot face it."

Again, writing from Kalaka at the beginning of May 1879, he says:--

"All the road from here to Shaka is marked by the camping-places of
the slave-dealers, and there are numerous skulls by the side of the
road. What thousands have passed along here! I hear some districts
are completely depopulated, all the inhabitants having been
captured or starved to death."

But though Gordon could not do all he desired, he was enabled to do
more perhaps than any other man could have accomplished in the
circumstances, and by the end of June 1879, Suleiman, the son of the
great Zebehr, had been hunted down by Gessi, who discovered papers
clearly proving the guilt of both father and son. The latter was tried
by court-martial and shot, and Gordon sent the evidence against the
father to the Khedive. No notice was taken of it, and Gordon bitterly
complains that, instead of being punished, Zebehr was _pensioned_!
"What pensions," he asks, "have the widows and orphans whom Zebehr has
made by the thousand? What allowance have the poor worn-out bodies of
men, strong enough till he dragged them from their homes, who are now
draining the last bitter dregs of life in cruel slavery? What
recompense has been made to those whose bleached bones mark the track
of his trade over many and many a league of ground?"

Space does not permit a detailed account of the interesting and
exciting campaign in which Gessi delivered this crushing blow against
the great slave-dealer. No man had imbibed more of Gordon's detestation
to the slave trade than Gessi, and with quite a small force he captured
the redoubtable Suleiman, who had a large force at his disposal. Gordon
made him a Pasha and gave him a reward of L2000, which he richly
deserved.

CHAPTER XII

ABYSSINIA, INDIA, AND CHINA

Colonel Gordon's work of putting a stop to slave-hunting and other
evils in the Soudan was about to terminate. At Fogia on the 1st July
1879 he received a telegram announcing that Ismail had abdicated, and
that his son Tewfik reigned at Cairo in his place. Gordo