Gordon often used to speak of this adventure as a most remarkable answer to prayer. He had prayed for Suleiman before starting, and had also asked for guidance for himself, and God heard him. It has sometimes been represented as a mad freak on Gordon's part to put himself into the lion's den in this way, but it was nothing of the kind. Suleiman was in revolt, supported by a splendid army. Gordon was absolutely at his mercy, for he could not rely on his troops. It was only Gordon's daring courage that intimidated Suleiman, and made him think Gordon was stronger than he really was.
After obtaining the submission of Suleiman, Gordon returned to Khartoum, and again for a time resumed his ordinary official duties. But this was not for long; he had before him another visit to Walad el Michael, the turbulent Abyssinian chief, whom he had visited before taking up his duties at Khartoum. Gordon's object was to persuade Walad to submit to the authority of King Johannis of Abyssinia. But nothing would induce Walad to do this. He was surrounded by 7000 soldiers, and Gordon felt himself, in spite of the denials of the rebel chief, practically a prisoner. Walad demanded authority to go on attacking Johannis, but to this of course the Governor-General could not assent. He therefore compromised matters by offering Walad £1000 per mensem, on condition that he should leave his old king alone.
Having settled Walad, Gordon left, intending to return to Khartoum, but was intercepted by a telegram from the Khedive begging him to go to Cairo to help him in his financial difficulties, and he started for Cairo on February 3, 1878, having completed one year's service as Governor-General of the Soudan.
In spite of the hard rough life of the Soudan, he infinitely preferred it to the more artificial civilised existence which the officials were living at Cairo. He arrived there on March 7th, and left again on the 30th; and during the whole of his stay he was wretched. At first the Khedive paid great attention to him, receiving him with a splendour which suggested the "Arabian Nights." He asked him to be the president of a commission of inquiry into the finances of the country, with the condition attached that he should use his influence to arrange with the representatives of the different countries that the commissioners of the debt or the representatives of the creditors who had lent money to Egypt should not serve on that commission of inquiry. After a good deal of discussion, it was finally ascertained that this condition would not be consented to by the foreign Governments. This of course relieved Colonel Gordon of any obligations in the matter, and he, seeing that he could be of no further service, decided to return to his province. Considering how much Gordon had done to try and accomplish the desires of the Khedive, there can be little question that he was in this matter treated very badly. "I left Cairo," said he, "with no honours, by the ordinary train, paying my own passage. The sun which rose with such splendour set in the deepest obscurity. I calculate my financial episode cost me £800. His Highness was bored with me after my failure, and could not bear the sight of me."
Fortunately for Gordon, he cared very little for official favour. "I now only look," said he in a letter written a short time after this, "to benefiting the people." It was in this spirit he visited Harrar, a small province detached from the Soudan, and lying to the south of Abyssinia, on the eastern coast of Africa, almost opposite to Aden. This province had once belonged to Turkey, but had been transferred to the Khedive in exchange for £15,000 per annum extra tribute. The governor of the province was Raouf Pasha, whom Colonel Gordon, it will be remembered, had refused to employ on account of his cruel treatment of the natives in the Equatorial Province four years before. Again he had been playing the tyrant, and Gordon felt it to be his duty to turn him out. As this man afterwards succeeded Colonel Gordon as Governor-General of the Soudan, it is to him more than any one that the present Khedive is indebted for having lost the whole of the Soudan. By his tyranny, following after Gordon's kindness, the province was stirred into revolt, and the Mahdi enabled to usurp authority. We are, however, anticipating events.
Having freed Harrar of this tyrant, he went to Massowah, and thence on May 22nd to Khartoum. Back once more at his capital, he devoted himself first to a thorough reform of the prisons and the administration of the law. "The prisons," he wrote, "were dens of injustice, and I am glad to have had time to go into the question of each individual prisoner."
Although he used to tell amusing stories against himself and his own personal expenditure of money, yet Gordon had great aptitude for finance, and could make money go farther than most men. Had his views been adopted for Egypt, it is more than likely that we should have been saved the Egyptian war, to say nothing of the loss of the Soudan, and all that was associated with it. In the Soudan province there was an annual deficit amounting to something like £259,000. By dint of cutting down expenditure and increasing the receipts, Gordon reduced this during the second year to £50,600! Had he continued Governor-General for many years, there can be no question that he would have not only made the two ends meet, but would have obtained sufficient to carry out his schemes of opening up the country by railways and steamers, thus at the same time developing trade and reducing slavery. He calculated that with great economy, and utilising the machinery and the rails that were already lying idle in the country, a highway from Cairo to Khartoum might have been opened up for £70,000, a sum of money which over and over again has been frittered away in building great useless palaces for the Khedive or some other Egyptian official, which bring in no income, and are a great expense to keep up. The traffic, especially the conveyance of ivory and other merchandise, would soon have recouped the Government for their original outlay. The way in which Colonel Gordon was thwarted in every possible manner at this time troubled him a good deal. "As for myself," he writes, "I am exceedingly weary, and wish, with a degree of bitterness, that it was all over. I am cooped up here now, but am much occupied with finances, which are in a very low state. My life is burthensome and weary, but I feel that it is better to be employed here than to be idle elsewhere."
Writing on November 20, 1878, he says:—