[141] Appendix R.
[142] Eight pages of the diary were cut out.—Ed.
[143] General Gordon has just stated that a letter received from the Greek Consul, dated 17th of August, contained more news than one he received, dated 31st of August, from an officer in Her Majesty’s service. He then goes on to say he sees now (i.e., after reading the Greek Consul’s letter) why he was kept in the dark.—Ed.
[144] Sir Gerald Graham’s despatch.—Ed.
[145] “King John issued an edict that if any of his subjects were found smoking they should lose hand and foot. General Gordon in his notes on Abyssinia in 1879, said: ‘I write in haste, but I will sum up my impression of Abyssinia. The king is rapidly growing mad. He cuts off the noses of those who take snuff, and the lips of those who smoke. The king is hated more than Theodore was. Cruel to a degree, he does not, however, take life. He cuts off the feet and hands of people who offend him. He puts out their eyes by pouring hot tallow into their ears. No one can travel without the king’s order if he is a foreigner. You can buy nothing without his order; no one will shelter you without his order—in fact no more complete despotism could exist.’
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“The cruelties the king and his people committed were atrocious. Forty Soudan soldiers were mutilated altogether, and sent to Bogos with the message that, if His Highness the Khedive wanted eunuchs he could have these.”—Hill’s Colonel Gordon in Central Africa, pp. 421-423.—Ed.
[146] Mr. F. L. James in his ‘Wild Tribes of the Soudan,’ gives an excellent and interesting account of this mission station, p. 210, seq.
[147] Twaddle.—Ed.
[148] Ismail, the Ex-Khedive, who knew King John well, said to General Gordon, “Never go near him, it is perfectly useless.”— Ed.