"In the Crimea it was supposed and considered mean to bob, and one used to try and avoid it. —— used to say, 'It is all well enough for you, but I am a family man,' and he used to bob at every report. For my part, I think judicious bobbing is not a fault, for I remember seeing on two occasions shells before my eyes, which certainly had I not bobbed would have taken off my head. 'And a good riddance, too,' the Foreign Office would say."
One of the most amusing passages is that in which he says, "I must say I hate our diplomatists." Here follows a rough sketch of two figures, one intended for Sir Evelyn Baring, and the other for Mr. Egerton, his deputy in Cairo. The former is represented as saying, "Most serious, is it not? He called us humbugs—arrant humbugs." Egerton is made to reply, "I can't believe it; it's too dreadful." Gordon, with characteristic candour, continues, referring to diplomatists in general, "I think with few exceptions they are arrant humbugs, and I expect they know it."
The foregoing is accompanied by one of the many extracts from the Scriptures, which abound. It is as follows: "Blessed is the man who does not sit in the seat of the scornful" (Ps. i. 1).
Hearing the news that to prevent outrage the Roman Catholic nuns at Obeid had been compelled to declare themselves married to the Greek priests, Gordon remarks, "What a row the Pope will make about the nuns marrying the Greeks; it is the union of the Greek and Latin Churches."
On the 23rd of September Gordon says, that from 12th March till 22nd September the garrison had expended 3,240,770 Remington cartridges, 1,570 Krupp cartridges, and 9,442 mountain-gun cartridges. He calculated that of the Remington cartridges perhaps 240,000 had been captured by the enemy, so that the number fired away would be only three millions. As the rebels lost perhaps 1,000 men in all, he reckons that each man killed required 3,000 cartridges to kill him.
There is less in the Diaries than might have been expected in the way of personal attack on the Government which sent Gordon to Khartoum. He says, indeed:—
"I could write volumes of pent-up wrath on this subject if I did not believe things are ordained and work for the best. I am not at all inclined to order half rations with a view to any prolongation of our blockade; if I did so it would probably end in a catastrophe before the time when, if full rations are given, we should have exhausted our supplies. I should be an angel (which I am not, needless to say) if I was not rabid with Her Majesty's Government; but I hope I may be quiet on the subject of this Soudan and Cairo business, with its indecision; but to lose all my beautiful black soldiers is enough to make one angry with them who have the direction of our future."
The diaries refer frequently to the Stewart incident, already mentioned in these pages. Gordon resolved to send the Abbas down, and upon his assuring Stewart, in reply to his inquiry, that he "could go in honour," Stewart left. Stewart asked for an order, but this Gordon refused, as he would not send him into any danger he did not share. It was the wish of Stewart and Mr. Power (the "Times" correspondent) to leave Khartoum and proceed down the Nile, and Gordon placed no restraint on their wish. Further, when they left he took every step in his power to provide for their security. He sent his river boats to escort them past Berber, and he gave them much advice, which, if it had been implicitly followed, should have brought them in safety to Dongola. Once reconciled to their departure and the despatch of some of his steamers northwards, he formed his plan for the co-operation of the latter with the Relief Expedition. It has been shown how this was actually carried out; but while thus endeavouring to facilitate the progress of the expedition, Gordon seriously weakened his own position in Khartoum.
That these steamers, each of which he considered worth 2,000 men, had to run no inconsiderable danger is shown by the following extract:—
"If any officer of the expedition is on board, he will know what it is to be in a penny boat under cannon-fire. The Bordein has come in; she has seven wounded and one woman killed."