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Updated: May 6, 2025
Sent by the English Government to the Soudan, Gordon had been at Khartum hardly a month before it was invested by the Mahdi. The relief expedition arrived just two days too late. Gordon was slain! This was in January 1885. The shock to Burton was comparable only to that which he received by the death of Speke.
Although no perennial affluents enter the main stream lower down than Khartum, the volume of the Nile remains with little diminution throughout the entire distance to the Mediterranean. During the period of low water the amount of water in different localities is still uniform, notwithstanding all the irrigation, infiltration, and evaporation constantly taking place.
As will be seen by reference to the map on page 477, the decision to limit the campaign to Dongola involved the choice of the Nile route. If the blow had been aimed straight at Khartum, the Suakim-Berber route, or even that by way of Kassala, would have had many advantages.
There they fell in with Gordon's boats, which had lain waiting in vain for four months, and four days later two of the boats started for Khartum. Halfway they had to pass up the sixth cataract, there losing two days more, and not till the 28th had they left the rapids behind them.
Even on August 8, Lord Hartington, then War Minister, stated that help would be sent to Gordon, if it proved to be necessary . On August 26, Lord Wolseley was appointed to the command of the relief expedition gathering on the Nile, but not until October 5 did he reach Wady Haifa, below the Second Cataract. Meanwhile the web of fate was closing in on Khartum.
He turned from that to a cabled report from Khartum of the opinion which various governors of districts had formed concerning the ways and the discretion of Martin Hillyard. Then once more he rang his bell. "There was a list of suitable private yachts to be made out," he said. "It is ready," replied Miss Chayne, and she brought it to him.
"Yes, I see now," said Hillyard. "You had an instance to-night," Luttrell added, as they went in at the door. "It's a serious matter the order of a Province and a great many lives, and the cost of troops from Khartum, and the careers of all of us are at stake. I think that I am right, and it is for me to say. They disagree.
The next day at noon, we came to Wady Halfa; and the Enchantress Isis who had brought us eight hundred miles from Cairo, was now to be deserted by those with Khartum in view. All save three of the party were going on through this gate of the Sudan, where the river way ended and the desert-way began.
The young girls danced merrily at her approach; they took her for a princess, or, at all events, as such they saluted her. After resting for some weeks at Berber, Miss Tinné again hired their boats, and ascended the Nile to Khartûm, the chief town of the Egyptian Soudan.
News of fresh desertions came constantly to Khartum, and even in the town itself Gordon was surrounded by traitors. On March 10 the telegraph line was cut and then followed six months of silence, during which the world learned little or nothing of the brave soldier in the heart of Africa.
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