The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Part 17

"EN ROUTE TO Ma.s.sOWAH, RED SEA, "August 31, 1879.

"MY DEAR BURTON,

"Thanks for several little notes from you, and one from Mrs. Burton, and also for the papers you sent me. I have been on my travels, and had not time to write. An Italian has egged on Johannis to be hostile, and so I have to go to Ma.s.sowah to settle the affair if I can. I then hope to go home for good, for the slave-hunters (thanks to Gessi) have collapsed, and it will take a long time to rebuild again, even if fostered by my successor. I like the new Khedive immensely; but I warn you that all Midian guiles will be wasted on him, and Mrs. Burton ought to have taken the 3,000 pounds I offered her at Suez, and which she scoffed at, saying, 'You would want that for gloves.' Do you wear those skin coverings to your paws? I do not! No, the days of Arabian Nights are over, and stern economy now rules. Tewfik seeks 'honour, not honours.' I do not know what he will do with the Soudan; he is glad, I think (indeed feel sure), I am going. I was becoming a too powerful Satrap. The report at Cairo was that I meditated rebellion even under Ismail the 'Incurable,' and now they cannot imagine why I am so well received by the new Khedive.

"Believe me, "Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."

Gordon was not the only one who suffered by the change of Khedive.

Burton, as Gordon had foretold, came to grief over the Mines of Midian, for Tewfik declined to be bound by any promise of his father; and though Burton went to Egypt to interview the Khedive, to see if he could do anything, his efforts were of no avail. Meanwhile Isabel, who had come to London mainly for medical treatment, was moving heaven and earth to see if she could induce the English Government to stir in the matter; but they naturally declined. Isabel wrote to Gordon, who had now come home from Egypt, on this and other matters. She received from him the following letters in answer to her request and inquiries concerning the state of affairs in Egypt:

"U.S. CLUB, PALL MALL, "4.2.80.

"MY DEAR MRS. BURTON,

"You write to an orb which is setting, or rather is set. I have no power to aid your husband in any way. I went to F. O. to-day, and, as you know, Lord ---- is very ill. Well! the people there were afraid of me, for I have written hard things to them; and though they knew all, they would say naught. I said, 'Who is the personification of Foreign Office?' They said, 'X is.' I saw 'X'; but he tried to evade my question--_i.e._ Would F. O. do anything to prevent the Soudan falling into chaos? It was no use. I cornered him, and he then said, '_I am merely a clerk to register letters coming in and going out_.' So then I gave it up, and marvelled. I must say I was surprised to see such a thing; a great Government like ours governed by men who dare not call their souls their own. Lord ---- rules them with a rod of iron. If your husband would understand that F. O. at present is Lord ---- (and he is _ill_), he would see that I can do nothing. I have written letters to F. O. that would raise a corpse; it is no good. I have threatened to go to the French Government about the Soudan; it is no good. In fact, my dear Mrs. Burton, I have done for myself with this Government, and you may count me a feather, for I am worth no more. Will you send this on to your husband? He is a first-rate fellow, and I wish I had seen him long ago (scratch this out, for he will fear I am going to borrow money); and believe me, my dear Mrs. Burton (pardon me about Suez),

"Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."

"HOTEL TAUCAN, LAUSANNE, "12.3.80.

"MY DEAR MRS. BURTON,

"Excuse my not answering your kind note of 5.3.80 before; but to be quiet I have come abroad, and did not have a decided address, so I only got your letter to-day. I will come and see you when I (D.V.) come home; but that is undecided. Of course your husband failed with Tewfik. I scent carrion a long way off, and felt that the hour of my departure from Egypt had come, so I left quietly. Instead of A (Ismail), who was a good man, you have B (Tewfik), who may be good or bad, as events will allow him. B is the true son of A; but has the inexperience of youth, and may be smarter. The problem working out in the small brains of Tewfik is this: 'My father lost his throne because he scented the creditors, I may govern the country as I like.' No doubt Tewfik is mistaken; but these are his views, backed up by a ring of pashas.

Now look at his Ministry. Are they not aliens to Egypt? They are all slaves or of low origin. Put their price down:

Riaz Pasha, a dancing-boy of Abbas Pasha, value. . . . 350 A slave, Osman, Minister of War, turned out by me. . . 350 Etc., etc., etc., each--five . . . . . . . . .350 = 1,750 Total = 2,450

So that the value of the Ministry (which _we_ think an enlightened one) is 490 pounds. What do they care for the country? Not a jot. We ought to sweep all this lot out, and the corresponding lot at Stamboul.

It is hopeless and madness to think that with such material you can do anything. Good-bye. Kind regards to your husband.

"Believe me, "Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."

"PARIS, 2.4.80.

"MY DEAR MRS. BURTON,

"Thanks for your telegram and your letter. Excuse half-sheet (economy).

No, I will not write to Cairo, and your letters are all torn up. I am going to Brussels in a few days, and after a stay there I come over to England. I do not like or believe in Nubar. He is my horror; for he led the old ex-Khedive to his fall, though Nubar owed him everything.

When Ismail became Khedive, Nubar had 3 pounds a month; he now owns 1,000,000 pounds. Things will not and cannot go straight in Egypt, and I would say, 'Let them glide.' Before long time elapses things will come to a crisis. The best way is to let all minor affairs rest, and to consider quietly how the ruin is to fall. It must fall ere long. United Bulgaria, Syria France, and Egypt England. France would then have as much interest in repelling Russia as we have. Supposing you got out Riaz, why, you would have Riaz's brother; and if you got rid of the latter, you would have Riaz's nephew. Le plus on change, le plus c'est la meme chose. We may, by stimulants, keep the life in them; but as long as the body of the people are unaffected, so long will it be corruption in high places, varying in form, not in matter.

Egypt is usurped by the family of the Sandjeh of Salonique, and (by our folly) _we_ have added a ring of Circa.s.sian pashas. The whole lot should go; they are as much strangers as we would be. Before we began muddling we had only to deal with the Salonique family; now we have added the ring, who say, '_We are Egypt_.' We have made Cairo a second Stamboul. So much the better. Let these locusts fall together. As well expect any reform, any good sentiment, from these people as water from a stone; the extract you wish to get does not and cannot exist in them. Remember I do not say this of the Turkish peasantry or of the Egyptian-born poor families. It is written, Egypt shall be the prey of nations, and so she has been; she is the servant; in fact Egypt does not really exist. It is a nest of usurpers.

"Believe me, "Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."

A day or two after the date of this last letter Gordon returned to London, and went several times to see Isabel, who was ill in lodgings in Upper Montagu Street, and very anxious about her husband and the Midian Mines. Gordon's prospects too were far from rosy at this time, so that they were companions in misfortune. They discussed Egypt and many things. Isabel writes: "I remember on April 15, 1880, he asked me if I knew the origin of the Union Jack, and he sat down on my hearth-rug before the fire, cross-legged, with a bit of paper and a pair of scissors, and he made me three or four Union Jacks, of which I pasted one in my journal of that day; and I never saw him again."[10] She also writes elsewhere; "I shall never forget how kind and sympathetic he was; but he always said, 'As G.o.d has willed it, so will it be.'"

In May Burton wrote to Lord Granville, pointing out that Riaz Pasha was undoing all Gordon's anti-slavery work, and asking for a temporary appointment as Slave Commissioner in the Soudan and Red Sea, to follow up the policy of anti-slavery which Gordon had begun. This Lord Granville refused.

Gordon went to many places--India, China, the Cape--and played many parts during the next three years; but he still continued to correspond with Isabel and her husband at intervals, though his correspondence referred mainly to private matters, and was of no public interest. In 1883 he wrote the following to Burton from Jerusalem, anent certain inquiries in which he was much interested:

"JERUSALEM, June 3, 1883.

"MY DEAR BURTON,

"I have a favour to ask, which I will begin with, and then go on to other subjects. In 1878 (I think) I sent you a ma.n.u.script in Arabic, copy of the ma.n.u.script you discovered in Harar. I want you to lend it to me for a month or so, and will ask you in sending it to register it. This is the favour I want from you. I have time and means to get it fairly translated, and I will do this for you. I will send you the translation and the original back; and if it is worth it, you will publish it. I hope you and Mrs. Burton are well. Sorry _s.d_. pounds sterling keep you from the East, for there is much to interest here in every way, and you would be useful to me as an encyclopaedia of oriental lore; as it is, Greek is looked on by me as hieroglyphics.

"Here is result of my studies: The whole of the writers on Jerusalem, with few exceptions, fight for Zion on the Western Hill, and put the whole Jerusalem in tribe Benjamin! I have worked this out, and to me it is thus: The whole question turns on the position of En-shemesh, which is generally placed, for no reason I know of, at Ain Hand. I find Kubbat el Sama, which corresponds to Baethsamys of the Septuagint, at the north of Jerusalem, and I split Jerusalem by the Tyropoean Valley (_alias_ the Gibeon of Eden, of which more another time).

"Anyway one can scarcely cut Judah out of Jerusalem altogether; yet that is always done, except by a few. If the juncture is as I have drawn it, it brings Gibeon, n.o.b, and Mizpah all down too close to Jerusalem on the Western Hills. This is part of my studies. Here is the Skull Hill north of the City (traced from map, ordnance of 1864), which I think is the Golgotha; for the victims were to be slain on north of altar, not west, as the Latin Holy Sepulchre. This hill is close to the old church of St. Stephen, and I believe that eventually near here will be found the Constantine churches.

"I have been, and still am, much interested in these parts, and as it is cheap I shall stop here. I live at Ain Karim, five mile from Jerusalem.

There are few there who care about antiquities. Sc.h.i.n.k, an old German, is the only one who is not a bigot. Have you ever written on Palestine?

I wondered you never followed up your visit to Harar; that is a place of great interest. My idea is that the Pison is the Blue Nile, and that the sons of Joktan were at Harar, Abyssinia, G.o.djam; but it is not well supported.

"The Rock of Harar was the platform Adam was moulded on out of clay from the Potter's Field. He was then put in Seych.e.l.les (Eden), and after Fall brought back to Mount Moriah to till the ground in the place he was taken from. Noah built the Ark twelve miles from Jaffa, at Ain Judeh; the Flood began; the Ark floated up and rested on Mount Baris, afterwards Antonia; he sacrificed on the Rock (Adam was buried on the Skull Hill, hence the skull under the cross). It was only 776 A.D. that Mount Ararat of Armenia became the site of the Ark's descent. Koran says Al Judi (Ararat) is holy land. After Flood the remnants went east to Plain of Shimar. Had they gone east from the Al Judi, near Mosul, or from Armenian Ararat, they could never have reached Shimar. Shem was Melchizedek, etc., etc.

"With kind regards to Mrs. Burton and you, and the hope you will send me the ma.n.u.script,

"Believe me, "Yours sincerely, "C. G. GORDON."

"P.S.--Did you ever get the 1,000 pounds I offered you on part of ex-Khedive for the Mines of Midian?"

Some six months after the date of this letter Gordon left England for the Soudan, and later went to Kartoum, with what result all the world knows. Burton said, when the Government sent Gordon to Kartoum, they failed because they sent him alone. Had they sent him with five hundred soldiers there would have been no war. It was just possible at the time that Burton might have been sent instead of Gordon; and Isabel, dreading this wrote privately to the Foreign Office, unknown to her husband, to let them know how ill he then was.

The Burtons were profoundly moved at the death of Gordon; they both felt it with a keen sense of personal loss. Isabel relates that in one of the ill.u.s.trated papers there was a picture of Gordon lying in the desert, his Bible in one hand, his revolver in the other, and the vultures hovering around. Burton said, "Take it away! I can't bear to look at it. I have had to feel that myself; I know what it is." But upon reflection Burton grew to disbelieve in Gordon's death, and he died believing that he had escaped into the desert, but disgusted at his betrayal and abandonment he would never let himself be discovered or show himself in England again. In this conviction Burton was of course mistaken; but he had formed it on his knowledge of Gordon's character.

I am aware that this chapter dealing with Gordon and his letters is something of an interpolation, and has little to do with the main thread of the story; but Lady Burton wished it to be so, and its irrelevance may be pardoned for the sake of the light it throws upon the friendship which existed between three very remarkable personages, each curiously alike in some respects, and in others widely dissimilar.

NOTES:

1. Gondokoro was the seat of Government of the Province of the Equator.

2. Sir Samuel Baker, whom Gordon succeeded as Governor of the tribes which inhabit the Nile Basin in 1874.

3. Romalus Gessi (Gessi Pasha), a member of Gordon's staff.

4. Mtesa, King of Uganda.

5. Mr. Rivers Wilson.

6. Nevertheless he permitted Dr. Birkbeck Hill to edit and publish his letters in 1881, which give a good account of his work in Central Africa.

7. Johannis, King of Abyssinia.

8. Colonel Prout, of the American army, for some time in command of the Equatorial Provinces.

9. King of Unyoro, a powerful and treacherous savage. Sir Samuel Baker attempted to depose him, but Kaha Rega maintained his power.

10. _Life of Sir Richard Burton_, by Isabel his wife, col. ii., p. 177.