Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/236

 388 WORKMEN AND HEROES was called away by the slave-dealers, who, headed by Suleiman, son of the notorious Zebehr, with 6,ooo armed men, had moved on Dara from their strong- hold, Shaka. Gordon left Fischer on August 31, 1877, with a small escort, which he soon outstripped, and in a day and a half, having covered eighty-five miles on a camel, entered Dara alone, to the surprise of its small garrison. The following morning, attended by a small escort, he rode into the rebel camp, up- braided Suleiman with his disloyalty, and announced his intention to disarm the band and break them up. Gordon's fearless bearing and strong will secured his object, and Suleiman returned with his men to Shaka. They rose again ; arid Gordon's Italian aide, Gessi, after a year's marching and fighting, succeeded in capturing Suleiman, and some of the chief slave-deal- ers with him. They were tried as rebels and shot. The suppression of the slave trade had thus been practically accomplished when on July 1st news arrived of the deposition of Ismail and the succession of Tewfik, which determined Gordon to resign his appointment. On arriving at Cairo, the kh^dive induced him first to undertake a mission to Abyssinia to prevent, if possible, an impending war with that country. Gordon went, saw King John, at Debra Tabor, but could arrive at no satisfactory understanding with him, and was abruptly dismissed. On his way to Kassala he was made prisoner by King John's men and carried to Gar- ramudhiri, where he was left to find his way with his little party over the snowy mountains to the Red Sea. He reached Massowah on December 8, 1879, and on his return to Cairo, the khdive accepted his resignation. He arrived in Eng- land early in January, 1880. During his service under the kh^dive, Gordon re- ceived both the second- and first-class of the order of the Medjidieh. His constitution was so much impaired by his sojournings in so deadly a cli- mate that his medical advisers sent him to Switzerland to recruit. He returned to England, in April, 1880, and in the following month accompanied the Mar- quis of Ripon, the new Viceroy of India, to that country as his private secretary. He resigned almost immediately, and was invited to China to advise the Chinese Government in connection with their then strained relations with Russia. Gor- don accepted at once, and although difficulties were raised by the home authori- ties, he reached Hongkong on July 2d, and went on by Shanghai and Chefoo to Tientsin to meet his old friend, Li Hung Chang, who, with Prince Kung, headed the peace party. From Tientsin, Gordon went to Pekin, and his wise and disin- terested counsels in favor of peace at length carried the day. In 1 88 1 he went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer, and while there was promoted major-general. In 1882, he was at the Cape Colony, endeavor- ing to arrange a peace with the natives of Basutoland ; but he failed, largely through the treachery of the Cape officials. The success of the Mahdi in the Soudan and the catastrophe to Hicks Pasha, in November, 1883, had induced the British Government, not only to decline any military assistance to enable the Egyptian Government to hold the Soudan, but to insist upon its abandonment by the khedive. To do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons scattered all over the country, and such of the Egyptian