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Updated: June 21, 2025
At Toashia Gordon had a short interview with Gessi, whom he created a pasha and made governor of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a present of £2,000. On his way back to his province news was brought to Gessi of Suleiman's whereabouts. He at once started in pursuit with three hundred men, and came up with Suleiman during the night at Gara.
The confederacy was severely shaken, and when, in the following year, Suliman again revolted, the Egyptian troops under Gessi Pasha were able to disperse his forces and induce him to surrender on terms. Towards the end of 1879 Gordon left the Soudan. With short intervals he had spent five busy years in its provinces. His energy had stirred the country.
When his fleet commanded that lake, he despatched his lieutenant, Gessi, across it up the Victoria Nile, connecting the two great lakes, and continued his chain of posts along it by Magungo, Anfina, Foweira, and Mrooli, to the very borders of Mtesa's dominion in Uganda.
He chose five Englishmen, an American, an old Crimean Italian interpreter called Romulus Gessi, and a slave-trader named Abou Saoud, whom Gordon had found a prisoner in Cairo. In vain the khedive warned the new governor-general of the danger of taking such a villain into his service, and of the strange look his appointment would have in the eyes of Europe.
Gessi took with him only 600 men, armed with Remington rifles; but they could carry no more than three or four days' provisions, which were exhausted before he came up with even the rearmost of the fugitive Arabs. There the troops turned sulky, and it was only by promising them as spoil everything taken that he restored them to something like good temper.
On the production of this letter of Zebehr to Suleiman, I ordered the confiscation of Zebehr's property in Soudan, and a court martial to sit on Zebehr's case. This court martial was held under Hassan Pasha Halmi; the court condemned Zebehr to death; its proceedings were printed in the brochure I alluded to. Gessi afterwards caught Suleiman and shot him.
Three days later he fought the first of these final battles outside that fort, and succeeded in cutting off the retreat of the vanquished Arabs into that place of shelter. He then broke into the fort itself, where there were only a few men, and he almost succeeded in capturing Suleiman, who fled through one gate as Gessi entered by another.
Unfortunately Gordon could not remain at Shaka, to attend in person to the dispersion of Suleiman's band, and after his departure that young leader regained his confidence, and resorted to his hostile and ambitious designs; but the success of General Gordon's plans in the summer of 1877 was complete, and sufficed to greatly diminish the gravity of the peril when, twelve months later, Suleiman broke out afresh, and fell by the hands of Gessi.
He is perhaps the only riddle I have met with in life. He is the man Amspldt spoke to you about. Amspldt was a useless fellow, and he has no reason to complain of Emin Effendi. I have sent Gessi up to see after the slave-dealers' outbreak. He was humble enough. Good-bye! Kind regards to Mrs. Burton. "Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."
Gessi was now in close proximity to the main force under Suleiman, but he had to halt for five months before he felt in any way equal to the task of attacking it. During that period he had to stand on the defensive, and sustain several attacks from Suleiman, who had made all his plans for invading Darfour, and adding that province to the Bahr Gazelle.
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