The virtues and noble desires for which we must in strict justice commend the man are as great and as creditable to him as those which we cannot attribute to him. Any man striving for the sake of goodness to do what in him lies to deserve the sweet approval of conscience becomes armoured with a happy indifference of all else, and herein lies the Pasha’s merit, and which made his company so grateful to us when the necessity for violent action ceased to vex him. We learned more of his character from his manner than from words. That melancholy shake of the head, the uplifted hand, the composed calm gravity of features, the upturning eyes, and the little shrug, seemed to say to us, “What is the use? You see I am resigned. I am adverse to violence; let it be. Why force them? They surely ought to have seen during these many years that I sought only their welfare. If they reject me, ought I to impose myself and my ideas on them against their will?” He never admitted so much, but we are free to construe these symptoms according to our lights.
It is probable that his steady and loving devotion to certain pursuits tending to increase of knowledge, and the injured eyesight, unfitted him for the exercise of those sterner duties which appeared to us the circumstances of his sphere demanded. But then we cannot blame him because he loved scientific studies more than the duties of government, or because his tastes led him to value the title of M.D. higher than the rank of Pasha, or because he was in danger through a cataract of losing his eyesight altogether. If the page of a book had to be brought within two inches of his face it was physically impossible for him to observe the moods on a man’s face, or to judge whether the eyes flashed scorn or illumined loyalty.
Whatever may have been our own views of what ought to have been done we have always a high respect for him. We cannot, at a moment when his own fate lies trembling on the balance, but admire him when we see him availing himself of every opportunity to increase his store of lacustrine shells, or tropic plants, eager for the possession of a strange bird without regard to its colour or beauty, as ready to examine with interest a new species of rat as he is in the measurements of a human skull. If a great hawk-moth or a strange longicorn, or a typhlops be brought to him, he forthwith forgets the court-martial that is to decide his sentence, and seems to be indifferent whether he is to be summoned to be shot by his soldiery or to be strapped on his angarep to be deported as a prize to the Khalifa at Khartoum. When we learn all this about him, and begin to understand him, though wondering at these strange vagaries of human nature, we are only conscious that the man is worth every sacrifice on our part.
We cannot proceed by force to save him from himself, and rudely awake him out of his dream, without his permission. His position forbids it—our commission does not require it. To us he is only an honoured guest expectant, to whom rudeness is out of place. Without request for help, we are helpless.
From our point of view we observe the Pasha, serene and tranquil, encircled by wrangling rebels, and yet all along apparently unconscious of the atmosphere of perfidy in which he lives—at least more inclined to resignation than resistance. We feel that were we in his place, we would speedily upset every combination against us, and are confident that only one short resolute struggle is necessary to gain freedom and power. But regarding him absorbed in his delusion that the fawning obsequiousness of his perfidious followers and troops means devotion, and seeing him enmeshed by treachery and fraud, and yet so credulous as to believe this to be fidelity, we are struck dumb with amazement, and can but turn our eyes towards one another, questioning and wondering. For it was our misfortune, that, say what we would, we could not inspire in him a sense of our conviction that his case was hopeless, and that his people had cast him off utterly. We could not tell him that his men looked down on him with contempt as a “bird collector,” that they thought he showed more interest in beetles than in men; that they only paid him the externals of homage because they thought he was pleased and satisfied. We could not tell him all this; but Nelson, who hated deceit, would tell him in plain, blunt terms, that he was wrong in his beliefs, and Parke would discourage them; and Jephson would argue with him, and Stairs would give him open proof. But as often as these energetic young Englishmen, out of pure friendship and pity, would attempt to warn him, the Pasha was prompt to extenuate their offences, and excuse the malice exhibited by his officers, and discouraged the efforts of his friends. What each felt on returning from one of these profitless interviews had better be left unwritten.
He would say, “But I know my people better than you can possibly know them. I have thirteen years’ acquaintance with them, against as many weeks that you have.”
The retort which we might have given to him was crushed under a silent fuming, for he was still the Pasha! We might have said, “Aye; but, Pasha, you know, you find more interest in insects than in men. You are interested in the anatomy of a man, we in the soul. You know something of his skull, but we can feel the pulse, and we are certain that your faith in these men is misplaced, and that in the excess of this faith lies folly.”
Yet in the fervour of his belief in their imaginary fidelity, and the warmth of his manner, there was a certain nobility which deterred us from argument. His unwarying trustfulness was not convincing; but it deepened our regard for him, and it may be that he imbued us with a hope that, though invisible to us, there remained some good in them.
We dare not treat these features of a trustful, loving nature like that of Emin Pasha with an insolent levity. He is a man, as I have said, eminently lovable, and were it only for the pleasure we have oftentimes received in his society, he deserves that what may be said of him shall be delivered with charity at least. For the high though impossible hopes entertained by him, and for the strenuous industry with which he endeavoured to realize them, he deserves the greatest honour and respect.
If we will only consider the accident which brought him to Khartoum, and the rank and position he then filled, and the manner he rose from doctor to storekeeper at Lado, to that of Governor of African Equatoria, we need not wonder that his nature and taste remained unchanged. The story of Gordon’s trouble in the Soudan has never been written, and it never will be. Gordon is a name that English people do not care to examine and define too closely. Otherwise, I should like to know why there were so few English officers with him. I should be curious to discover why such as had an opportunity of working with him did not care to protract their stay in the Soudan. I am inclined to believe by my own troubles on the Congo that his must have been great—perhaps greater; that not one of the least of his troubles must have been the difficulty of finding good, fit, serviceable, and willing men. In Emin Pasha he meets with a man who, though a German and a doctor of medicine, is industrious, civil, ready, and obliging. Had I met Emin on the Congo, those qualities would have endeared him to me, as they must have been appreciated by Gordon. Those qualities are much rarer than editors of newspapers imagine. Out of three hundred officers on the Congo, I can only count ten who possessed them, who by mere request would seize on their duties with goodwill, and perform them. How many did Gordon have? Emin was one of the best and truest.