BOOKS.

• COLONEL GORDON IN CENTRAL AFRICA.* VALUABLE though this book is as throwing light on a most obscure chapter in contemporary history, deeply interesting though it is as the most direct revelation we have had for many . years of the influence of a simple religious faith on the career of a man of action, the general impression that a perusal of it leaves behind is that of dissatisfaction. It may be seriously doubted if Dr. Hill acted judiciously in accepting the task offered him last summer under the conditions that accompanied: the offer.

"I had not the honour of Colonel Gordon's acquaintance, and I was told from the first that be would neither see me nor correspond with me till the book was finished and before the world. Neither, too, would he read my manuscript and the proofs rf my work as they passed through the press. I have, therefore, neither seen nor corresponded with tho man whose memoir I have sketched, and whose letters I am editing. When, however, I have been puzzled by any fact in the account that he gives of his travels, or in the history of the countries which he has ruled, he has kindly cleared up my difficulties, through the intervention of his brother, Sir Henry Gordon."

We question very much if it is possible to write satisfactorily of an extraordinary "child. of nature" like Colonel Gordon, with- out having come into direct relations with him by correspond- euce or conversation, or both. Indeed, the tameness of the narrative which Dr. Hill gives of his hero's career before be entered upon the work of crushing the Egyptian slave-trade. is proof positive of this. The niost—perhaps the only— thoroughly enjoyable account of that work would have been written by an observer familiar both with Gordon, and with the events quorum maatima pars fuit. Those who take the trouble to compare this work with the late Mr. Andrew Wilson's story of the exploits of "The Ever Victorious Army" in China, will see what we mean.

It is, therefore, mainly as a revelation of character and of the influence of a dogmatic faith on conduct that this collection of extracts from Colonel Gordon's letters is valuable; and. by-and- by, it will be interesting to compare or contrast the moral effects of his unquestioning Puritanism with those of Gari- baldi's nebulous Theism. The Colonel frequently describes himself as a Nazarene, but his religion is that of the Old. Testa-. ment ; and the special New Testament virtue of Love is not mentioned. or suggested. The portrait which appears in the volume gives an admirable presentment of what the Colonel's Scotch fellow-countrymen call "the natural man." A frame- and features full of energy—the neck is especially suggestive of

power—an easy, military carriage, eyes rich in Celtic fire and impatience, and. not devoid of either humour or shrewdness ;. such, and nothing more, is Chinese and Egyptian'Gordon, as he himself would say, but for the grace of God. One can readily believe that in elder and more heathen military days, he, would have held n high place on account of his expletives, no

less than of his courage, in that British Army, which "swore terribly in Flanders." As things are, it is interesting, and not infrequently amusing, to observe how the "natural man" rebels against the man whom a strong will has subjected to faith. Now he "slangs " like a cadet ; again he bursts into such ejaculations as "poor devils ;" and with something bearing a suspicious resemblance to mess-room gusto, he tells how "old

, the French master at R.M.A., used. to say, Von vife in Paris, von vife in London, dat is de vay to enjoy life !' " These are the letters, too, of a man almost as impatient and irritable as Mr. Carlyle, and. very nearly as conscious of his own powers. Would not the author of the " Reminiscences " have enjoyed

such remarks as these about the Royal Geographical Society?-

' Your brother will be dreadfully badgered by the Royal Geo- graphical Society, and I foal pretty sure he will suffer a bit ; for he is loose in his remarks, and.rather non-observant of some important thiugs ; and it will all come on him, for I do not think the Royal, Geographical Society will trouble me much, after my letter to —. They have no more. business to be giving medals to the people than the people have to give medals to them."

Statements like the following, too, are enough to make the hair of enthusiastic geographers stand on end

"I have told — that I Will not explore the Lakes ! I declare I do not care whether there are two or a million, or whether the Nile has a source or not. To be boxed up for a phantasy in a tif ty.feet- lung steamer for a fortnight would be my death and I do not * Coionol Gordon in Centrit Africa, 1874-1870. From Original Luti en owl DOOR. meuts. Edited by George Birkbeek Mil, 1/.0.L. London : Thomas Du in Rue and Co. 1881.

also why I should suffer so much, to satisfy the curiosity of men I do not know."

Finally, it is with the-self-confidence of a divinely-commissioned. Hebrew "Judge," or of a Chatham, full of faith in his country and his power to save it, that ho speaks of himself :—

"'Why did I come here you ask The thing slidtn little

by little. I felt too independent to serve, with my views, at Malta, 'or in the corps, end perhaps I, felt I had in ma something that, if God willed, might have benefited these lands, for Ho has given me great energy and health, and some little common-sense."

But "if God willed,"—that is the note of this record of the subjection of a strong and impressionable child of nature to a religion which, if it cannot be described as Mr. Arnold's

"morality touched with emotion," and still less as the late Mr. Clifford's "immorality touched with emotion," was in- valuable for the work which Colonel Gordon had "given him to do." His creed—" great fatalism," he frankly says, in one letter, he suspects it will be thought to be—he repeats every 'second page. We give it once for all, expressed as it is with something more closely resembling rhetoric than Colonel Gordon is in the habit of indulging in :-

"I am sure it is the secret of true happiness to be content with what we actually have. Of course you may preach this (and it has been preached for ages), and never be listened to. We raise our own goblins, and as soon as One is laid, we raise another. I agree that I have not patience with the groans of half the world, and declare I think there is more happiness among those miserable blacks, who have not a meal from day to day, than among our own middle-elasses. 'The blacks are .glad of a little handful of maize, and live in the greatest discomfort. They bare not a strip to cover them ; but you do net see them grunting and groaning all day long, as you see rseores and scores in England, with their wretched dinner-parties and attempts at gaiety, where all is bellow and miserable. if they have one thing, they have not another. Better bring up their children to a trade, than let them follow their father' sad lives. There would be no One so unwelcome to come nod reside in this world as our ",Saviour, while the world is in the state it now is. He would be dead against nearly all our pursuits, and be altogether oufrtf. I gave you Watson on Contentment—it is the true expositor of how happiness is to be attained, i.e., by submission to the will of God, whatever that will may be. He who can say he realises this, has overcome the -world and its trials. Everything that happens to-day, good or evil, is settled and fixed, end it is no use fretting over it."

Ent Colonel Gordon's faith, like every other, must be known by its fruits. Seldom have such been made BO clearly known as they have been here: From the first,,Colonel Gordon anticipated failure in the work he :undertook in Egypt. "I think the Khedive likes me; but no one else does ; and I do not like them.

I-mean the swells,.whose corns I tread on in all manner of ways." He did his work,—did it, too, with unexampled thoroughness,

-conscious from first to last that it would be undone after his ,departure from Egypt. His faith gave him an absolute scorn

of what is mean alicl mercenary. • We find him caring for money as little as he cares for flattery or dinner-parties. This is the way lie talks about cutting down his own salary :—

"I have cut down my pay from E6,000 a year to £3,000 a year, because of this appointment of —, which certainly I cannot take quietly. I do, not want the larger sum, and as this appointment costs £3,000 a year, by my giving up this sum I save the revenue to that extent. Bat I have done this more in anger, I fear, than in love.

'The more one lives, the more one learns to act towards people as if they were inanimate objects, viz., to do what you can for -them, and to utterly disregard whether they are grateful or not. This is what God does to us. He lets his rain fall on the just and the unjust. He never gets gratitude, and is furthermore totally ignored in the ordinary circumstances of life."

A book of this .kind is so interesting from what is styled, in the loose, popular language of the day, "the psychological

point of viewr that one is apt to overlook the tale of actual and hard .work it tells, the more especially as that tale is, tinder Dr. Hill's unfortunate conditions, not a very clear or con- nected one. We are, indeed, tolerably familiar with the main facts. We know that from February, 1874, to November,1876, 'Colonel Gordon was engaged in asserting the power of the Khedive as far up the Nile as the Lakes Albert and Victoria, and the region of that curious and interesting potentate, Xing Mtesa. After paying a visit to England, he took the office

of Governor-General of the Soudan. This he hold till the -close of 187D, striking, with the help of his able and in every sense estimable lieutenant, G essi, blows at the slave-trade which were successful so far, and which, if properly followed up, would have led to its total destruction. His last act before he retired from his post was, perhaps, the most valuable service he ren- dered Egypt. By a personal interview with King Johannis, of

Abyssinia, at Debra Tabor, and, above all, by declining to ally himself, as Pashas before him 'had done, with Walad el Michael,

an Abyssinian brigand, who threatened the King's supremacy,

he undoubtedly staved off what would probably have been for Egypt a most disastrous war, and led to the beginning of the friendly relations which we are asked by recent advices from Alexandria to believe now to exist between the two countries. Colonel Gordon's views of King Johannis's character are fresh, and. should be compared with others of a mgre favourable character that have recently appeared :— 'The King is rapidly growing mad. He cuts off the noses of those who take snuff, and the lips of those who smoke. The other clay a man went to salute Ras Aloula. In saluting him, his tobacco- box dropped out. Has Aloula struck him with his sword, and his people finished him. The King is hated more than Theodore was. Cruel to a degree, he does not, however, tek0 life. Ho cats off the feet and hands of people who offend him. 110 pnts out their oyes, by pouring hot tallow into their ears. Several (sone to me to tell me this. I remonstrated with the King against hie °diet foreirg men to become Christian from Mussulman. He .quict they wished it. I also remonstratea about the tobacco edict, but it was of no use. No one can travel witliont the King's order, if he is a foreigner. You can buy nothing without the King's order ; no one will shelter you without his order,—in fact, TIO more complete despotism could exist. It cannot last ; for the King will go on from one madness to another. Orders were given that no one was to approach me ; nor was I to speak to any. The officer who conducted me to tho King, the second-in-command to Aloula, mot his uncle and cousin in chains, and durst not ask why they were chained. The King is a man of some forty-five year, a sour, ill-favoured looking being. He never looks you in the face, but when you look away he glares at you like a tiger. He never smiles ; his look, always changing, is one of thorough suspicion. Hated and hating all, I can imagine no more unhappy man. Avaricious above all his people, who du not lack this quality, his idea of a free port is that fleets of, steamers will arrive from the Powers of Europe with presents for him, to which he will reply by sending a letter with the Lion seal, saying, 'You are my brother, toy mother, Sze. How are you P You know I have seen many peoples,:but I never met with a more fierce, savage set than these. The peasantry are good enough. The King says he can beat united Europe, except linssia. All the groat men do not want a war with Egypt, and the King feers it when sober, for he drinks to excess at night. Be talks likti the Old Testament. Be is of the strictest sect of the Pharisees,—drunk over-eight, at dawn he is up reading the Psalms. Ho never would miss a prayer-meeting, and would have a Bible as big as a portmanteau, if he were in England. No women are allowed within 300 yards of his palace' —his hut, I should say. Us is furious at my opening his letter to the Khedive. I know, and indeed knew, that I was rash in pro- voking him while in his power ; but I leant on the verse, 'The hearts of kings are in the hands of the Lord ; as the rivers of water, He

turneth them as he willeth.' Iseult], the ex-Khedive, knew the King well. He said to me, 'Never go near him ; it is perfectly use- less.' He has one legitimate son, Bits Arya Sulam, and one illegiti- mate. Two sons of Theodore are with him. Poor Alamayon: I am very sorry that lie is dead. His name was known in all the land, and the people thought that our Government would send him here."

Colonel Gordon has, indeed, done so much for Egypt and for civilisation, that one cannot help asking if it savours of hoping against hope to wonder if it may not be his for- tune to repeat and complete, that work. The present volume does not add much to our geographical and ethno-

logical knowledge of Africa. Indeed, the Colonel repeatedly and with characteristic vigour asserts that explorritibn did not in any way come within his commission. Still, he proved more completely than any one before him in Africa has done the navigability of the Nile. Considering Colonel Gordon's wide experience of races of men, it is further interesting to read of the portion of Africa through which he passed. "The land is rich enough ; but it will be long before this (the draining-off of the water) is done, as the Arabs are very much frightened of these countries, and are so devoid of anything like energy. I look on the Chinamen as far superior to them in every way. 'The Berberans, a mixed race from Dongola, have much more energy than the Arabs," The French, who seem to have com- mitted themselves to a career of aggression in North Africa, and probably the Central region as well, should look to this. It was a tribe of Berber blood that destroyed. the Flatters expedition.