When, fifteen hundred miles to the southward, Gordon reached the seat of his government, and the desolation of the Tropics closed over him, the agonising nature of his task stood fully revealed. For the next three years he struggled with enormous difficulties—with the confused and horrible country, the appalling climate, the maddening insects and the loathsome diseases, the indifference of subordinates and superiors, the savagery of the slave-traders, the hatred of the inhabitants. One by one the small company of his European staff succumbed. With a few hundred Egyptian soldiers, he had to suppress insurrections, make roads, establish fortified posts, and enforce the government monoply of ivory. All this he accomplished; he even succeeded in sending enough money to Cairo to pay for the expenses of the expedition. But a deep gloom had fallen upon his spirit. When, after a series of incredible obstacles had been overcome, a steamer was launched upon the unexplored Albert Nyanza, he turned his back upon the lake, leaving the glory of its navigation to his Italian lieutenant, Gessi. "I wish," he wrote, "to give a practical proof of what I think regarding the inordinate praise which is given to an explorer." Among his distresses and self-mortifications, he loathed the thought of all such honours, and remembered the attentions of English society with a snarl. "When, D.V., I get home, I do not dine out. My reminiscences of these lands will not be more pleasant to me than the China ones. What I shall have done will be what I have done. Men think giving dinners is conferring a favour on you. … Why not give dinners to those who need them? "No! His heart was set upon a very different object. "To each is allotted a distinct work, to each a destined goal; to some the seat at the right-hand or left of the Saviour. (It was not His to give; it was already given—Matthew xx. 23. Again, Judas went to "his own place"—Acts i. 25.) It is difficult to the flesh to accept 'Ye are dead, ye have
