two months before Gordon's name had been suggested to the Egypttan Government, yet, in the face of this, we are first asked —
"What could Gordon do alone against the now universally worshipped Mahdi?"
and then told —
"General Gordon's arrival in Khartoum gave fresh life and hope to the inhabitants."
Then,
"As it appeared to us in Kordofan, and to the Mahdi himself, Gordon's undertaking was very strange; it was just as if a man were attempting to put out an enormous fire with a drop of water,"
and,
"I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that had the Egyptian Government not sent Gordon, then undoubtedly the evacuation originally ordered could have been carried out without difficulty."
One is simply staggered by such an assertion. When Gordon arrived in Khartoum, the whole of the western Soudan had fallen.. The town was overrun with the mourning women and children — the widows and orphans, I should say — of the troops who, under Hicks Pasha, had been annihilated a few months before on their way to extricate the garrisons. Slatin had surrendered Dara to Zoghal. Said Bey Gumaa, the last man to fight for the Government in the western Soudan, was compelled to capitulate very shortly before Gordon's arrival, and this only after a second siege when his men were dying with thirst.
