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Updated: May 25, 2025
General Gordon set out at once for his post, and, reaching Cairo on the 24th January 1884, left for Khartoum on the 26th, with General Stewart as his sole companion.
Pearson, of the Church Missionary Society, who was at Nyanza, gives a brief account of his visit to Khartoum in 1878, and says, "After the work of the day was finished, Gordon would say, 'Let us have reading and prayer; and in that very palace which was, perhaps, the scene of his death, we used to meet and pray, not separating sometimes until one in the morning."
The authorities at Woolwich had kindly supplied the expedition with 200 Hale's rockets three-pounders and fifty snider rifles, together with 50,000 rounds of snider ammunition. The military force and supplies were to be massed in Khartoum ready to meet me upon my arrival. I had taken extra precautions in the packing of ammunition and all perishable goods.
Of two whole companies of troops only a handful escaped by swimming to the steamer, which returned to Khartoum with the news of this defeat.
Frank's spirits rose as they rode on past rough bazaar and well built house, and the disappointment he had felt at the sudden check to their plans of obtaining permission to proceed to Khartoum died quite away.
The cataracts of the Nile between Assouan and Khartoum rendering the navigation next to impossible, camels are the only medium of transport, and the uncertainty of procuring them without great delay is the trader's greatest difficulty.
At its outset it had been terrible. It had engulfed Hicks's army, swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces as they retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding parties as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east and west, to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on the side of Egypt.
It is beyond the scope of these pages to describe his long ride across the desert from Korosko to Abu Hamed, his interview with the notables at Berber, or his proclamation of the abandonment of the Soudan, which some affirm to have been an important cause of his ruin. On the 22nd of February he arrived at Khartoum. He was received with rejoicing by the whole population.
Although we had worked hard throughout all seasons, over an immense extent of country, we were both strong and well, and the rest of some months at Khartoum had only served to inspire us with new vigour for the commencement of the work before us. Ninety-six souls formed my whole party, including forty well-armed men, with Johann Schmidt and Richarn.
As soon as the authorities had finally made up their minds to send a flotilla of boats to Cairo for the relief of Khartoum, not a moment was lost in issuing orders to the different shipbuilding contractors for the completion, with the utmost dispatch, of the 400 "whaler-gigs" for service on the Nile.
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