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Updated: June 23, 2025
Orders for sailing had been received; but suddenly a steamer was signalled as arriving. This was a transport, with troops. As she was to return immediately to Suez, I preferred the dirty transport rather than incur a further delay. We started from Souakim, and after five days' voyage we arrived at Suez. Landing from the steamer, I once more found myself in an English hotel.
Thus, were there a line from Suez to Souakim by steamers, similar to that already established to Jedda, Cassala would be only twenty-two days' journey from Cairo. At present, the arrival of steamers at Souakim is entirely uncertain; therefore the trade of the country is paralysed by the apathy of the Egyptian Government.
The Egyptians seldom had less than twenty thousand troops in the Soudan provinces; the principal stations were Khartoum, Cassala, and Dongola. Cassala was close to the Abyssinian frontier, and within from fifteen to twenty days' march of Souakim, on the Red Sea, to which reinforcements could be despatched in five days from Cairo.
For their extreme courtesy I take this opportunity of making my acknowledgment. Orders for sailing had been received, but suddenly a steamer was signalled as arriving: this was a transport, with troops. As she was to return immediately to Suez, I preferred the dirty transport rather than incur a further delay. We started from Souakim, and after five days' voyage we arrived at Suez.
The third division, brought up by Mr. Marcopolo, arrived from Souakim a few days later than ourselves, thus every arrangement that had been intrusted to my own officers was well executed. After some pressure, the governor began to purchase the vessels. It may be imagined that a sudden necessity gave a welcome opportunity to certain officials.
While engaged on the frontier commission, his comrade in the trenches, Lieutenant William Christian Anderson, of his own Corps, had married one of his sisters, but, after a very short period of wedded happiness, he died suddenly. After his death a son was born who bore the same name, is now an officer in the Royal Artillery, and served on General Graham's staff at Souakim.
As if to give emphasis to General Gordon's successive requests Zebehr, 200 men to Wady Halfa, opening of route from Souakim to Berber, presence of English officers at Dongola, and of Indian cavalry at Berber telegraphic communication with Khartoum was interrupted early in March, less than a fortnight after Gordon's arrival in the town.
General Gordon's original plan was to proceed straight to Souakim, and to travel thence by Berber to Khartoum, leaving the Foreign Office to arrange at Cairo what his status should be, but this mode of proceeding would have been both irregular and inconvenient, and it was rightly felt that he ought to hold some definite position assigned by the Khedive, as the ruler of Egypt.
Throughout the course of the Rahad the banks are high, and, when full, the river would average forty feet in depth, with a gentle stream, the course free from rocks and shoals, and admirably adapted for small steamers. The entire country would be a mine of wealth were it planted with cotton, which could be transported by camels to Katariff, and thence direct to Souakim.
After a journey of twenty-four days from the Nile at Berber, we emerged from the mountain-pass, and from the elevated embouchure we obtained a sudden and most welcome view of the Red Sea. We now quickly descended: the heat increased every hour; and after a long day's march, we slept within a few miles of Souakim. On the following morning we entered the town.
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