Chapter XI: Part 11

Speaking of Miss Nightingale in the hospital at Scutari, the _Times_ correspondent wrote: "Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen; her benignant presence is an influence of good comfort even amid the struggles of expiring nature. She is a ministering angel, without any exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. With the heart of a true woman and the manner of a lady, accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex, she combines a surprising calmness of judgment and promptitude and decision of character. The popular instinct was not mistaken, which, when she set out from England on her mission of mercy, hailed her as a heroine; I trust that she may not earn her title to a higher, though sadder, appellation. No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid misgivings lest these should fail."

Public feeling bubbled up into poetry. Even doggerel ballads sung about the streets praised

"The Nightingale of the East,
For her heart it means good."

Among many others, Longfellow wrote the charming poem, "The Lady with the Lamp," so beautifully illustrated by the statuette of Florence Nightingale at St Thomas's Hospital, suggested by the well-known incident recorded in a soldier's letter: "She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile to many more; but she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows again, content."

"Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom.
And flit from room to room.

"And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

"On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song.
A light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

"A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land.
A noble type of good
Heroic womanhood."

In the following spring Miss Nightingale crossed the Black Sea and visited Balaclava, where the state of the hospitals in huts was extremely distressing, as help of all kinds was even more difficult to obtain there than at Scutari. Here Miss Nightingale spent some weeks, until she was prostrated by a severe attack of the Crimean fever, of which she very nearly died.

But at length the Crimean war came to an end. The nation was prepared to welcome its heroine with the most passionate enthusiasm. But Florence Nightingale quietly slipped back unnoticed to her Derbyshire home, without its being known that she had passed through London.

Worn out with ill-health and fatigue, and naturally shrinking from publicity, the public at large has scarcely ever seen her; she has been a great invalid ever since the war, and for many years hardly ever left her house.

But her energy has been untiring. She was one of the founders of the Red Cross Society for the relief of the sick and wounded in war. When the civil war broke out in America she was consulted as to all the details of the military nursing there. "Her name is almost more known among us than even in Europe," wrote an American. During the Franco-German war she gave advice for the chief hospitals under the Crown Princess, the Princess Alice, and others. The Children's Hospital, at Lisbon, was erected from her plans. The hospitals in Australia, India, and other places have received her care. A large proportion of the plans for the building and organization of the hospitals erected during the last twenty-five years in England, have passed through her hands.

The Queen, who had followed her work with constant interest, presented her with a beautiful and costly decoration. The nation gave £50,000 to found the Nightingale Home. In this home Miss Nightingale takes the deepest interest, constantly having the nurses and sisters to visit her, and learning from them the most minute details of its working. Great is evidently her rejoicing when one of her "Nightingales" proves to be a really fine nurse, such a one, for instance, as Agnes Jones, the reformer of workhouse nursing.

This was the high position Florence Nightingale conquered for her fellow-women. Hundreds have occupied, and are still occupying, the ground she won for them. "And I give a quarter of a century's European experience," she goes on, "when I say that the happiest people, the fondest of their occupation, the most thankful for their lives, are, in my opinion, those engaged in sick nursing."

Officials in high places, ever since the Crimean war, have sent Miss Nightingale piles, mountains one might say, of reports and blue books for her advice. She seems to be able to condense any number of them into half a dozen telling sentences; for instance, the mortality in Indian regiments, during times of peace, became exceedingly alarming. Reports on the subject were poured in upon her. "The men are simply treated like Strasbourg geese," she said in effect. "They eat, sleep, frizzle in the sun, and eat and sleep again. Treat them reasonably, and they will be well." She has written much valuable advice on "How to live and not die in India."

Children's hospitals have also engaged much of her attention. You cannot open one of her books at hazard without being struck with some shrewd remark, that tells how far-reaching is her observation; as in this, on the playgrounds of children's hospitals: "A large garden-ground, laid out in sward and grass hillocks, and such ways as children like (not too pretty, or the children will be scolded for spoiling it), must be provided."

Here, I am sorry to find, my space comes to an end, but not, I hope, before I have been able to sketch in some slight way what great results will assuredly follow, when Faith and Science are united in one person. In the days, which we may hope are now dawning, when these gifts will be united, not in an individual here and there, but in a large portion of our race, there will doubtless be many a devoted woman whose knowledge may equal her practical skill, and her love for God and her fellow-creatures, who will understand, even more thoroughly than most of us now can (most of us being still so ignorant), how deep a debt of gratitude is due to her who first opened for women so many paths of duty, and raised nursing from a menial employment to the dignity of an "Art of Charity"--to England's first great nurse, the wise, beloved, and far-seeing heroine of the Crimean war, the Lady of the Lamp, Florence Nightingale.

DR. LOUIS PASTEUR[21]

[Footnote 21: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By Dr. CYRUS EDSON

(1822-1895)

Louis Pasteur, the Columbus of "the world of the infinitely little"--to quote the phrase of Professor Dumas--was born in the town of Dôle, France, on December 27, 1822. His father was an old soldier, decorated on the field of battle, who, after leaving the array, earned his bread as a tanner. In 1825 M. Pasteur moved from Dôle to the town of Arbois, on the borders of the Cuisance, where his son began his education in the communal college. The boy was exceedingly fond of fishing and of sketching, and it was not until he reached the age of fourteen that he began study in earnest. There being no professor of philosophy at Arbois, Louis Pasteur moved to Besançon, where he received the degree of _bachelier ès lettres_ and was at once appointed as one of the tutors. Here he studied the course in mathematics necessary for admission into the École Normale, in Paris, which he entered in October, 1843. Already his passion for chemistry had shown itself, and he took the lectures in that science delivered by M. Dumas at the Sorbonne, and by M. Balard at the École Normale. It was but a short time before he became a marked man in his class, especially for his intense devotion to experiment. Thanks to M. Delafosse, one of the lecturers of the École Normale, his attention was turned to crystallography, and a note from the German chemist, Mitscherlich, communicated to the Academy of Sciences, set him on fire with curiosity. Mitscherlich declared: "The paratartrate and the tartrate of soda and ammonia have the same chemical composition, the same crystalline form, the same angles, the same specific weight, the same double refraction, and the same inclination of the optic axes. Dissolved in water, their refraction is the same. But while the dissolved tartrate causes the plane of polarized light to rotate, the paratartrate exacts no such action."

Pasteur at once instituted experiments resulting in the discovery of minute facets in the tartrate which gave it the power noted. He found in the paratartrate these facets existed, but that there was an equal admixture of right-and left-handed crystals, and the one neutralized the effect of the other. He also discovered the left-handed tartrate. These discoveries at the opening of Pasteur's career brought him at once to the front among the scientific men. He followed them with a profound investigation into the symmetry and dissymmetry of atoms, and reached the conclusion that in these lay the basic difference between inorganic and organic matter, between the absence of life and life.

Nominated at the age of thirty-two as Dean of the Faculté des Sciences, at Lille, Pasteur determined to devote a portion of his lectures to fermentation. At that time ferments were believed to be, to quote Liebig, "Nitrogenous substances--albumin, fibrin, casein; or the liquids which embrace them--milk, blood, urine--in a state of alteration which they undergo in contact with air." Pasteur examined the lactic ferment and found little rods, 1/25000 inch in length, which nipped themselves in the centre, divided into two, grew to full length and divided again, and these living things he declared to be the active principles of the ferment. He made a mixture of yeast, chalk, sugar, and water, added some of the rods, and got fermentation. He then made a mixture of sugar, water, phosphate of potash, and magnesia, and introducing fresh cells, fermentation followed. Liebig's theory of the nitrogenous character of the ferment disappeared when fermentation was caused in a mixture having no nitrogenous elements.

Pasteur had discovered that fermentation was a phenomenon of nutrition; it followed the increase and growth of the little rods. The next step was the discovery of the ferment of butyric acid, a species of vibrio consisting of little rods united in chains of two or three and possessed of movement. He found these vibrios lived without air. Further experiments showed there were ferments to which air was necessary, called by Pasteur the _ærobics_, and others to whom oxygen was fatal, the _anærobics_. He proved, also, by an exhaustive series of experiments, that what is called putrefaction of animal matter is the result of the combined work of the _ærobics_ and the _anærobics_, which reduce that part not taken up by oxygen to dead organic matter, ready in its turn to form food for living things.

His attention having been turned to the needs of the vinegar makers of Orleans, Pasteur began the examination of the ferment which produces vinegar from wine. He found this in the mycoderm aceto, a mould-like plant which has the power of developing acetic acid from alcohol. As the result of his investigation, the manufacturers of vinegar in France were able to do away with the cumbrous process they had long followed, and to make vinegar, not only more cheaply, but of very much better quality. But during these experiments Pasteur found the temperature of 65° C. was sufficient to kill the mycoderm. When, then, the wine makers of France appealed to him to investigate the "diseases" of wine, he was ready for the work.

Before this, however, he had examined the claims of Pouchet and others to their alleged discovery of spontaneous generation; in other words, the production of life. Ranging himself against them, Pasteur showed their experiments not to have been conclusive, simply because they had not succeeded in excluding the dust which contained germs of life in the shape of spores of microscopic plants.

The "diseases" of wine produce sour wine, wine that "spirits," "greasy" wine, and bitter wine. Pasteur found each to be due to a different microscopic ferment, all of which could be killed by heat. He placed bottles of wine in a bath heated to 60° C., and invited the most experienced wine tasters of Paris to try them afterward. The result of the test was the unanimous verdict that the wines had not been injured in the least, and to-day these "diseases" of wine are a thing of the past.

There are departments in France where the culture of the silk-worm is the principal industry of the inhabitants. In 1849 a strange disease, called pebrine, broke out among the worms; they were unable to moult and died before the cocoons were spun. It spread in the most alarming manner until, from a crop with an average of one hundred and thirty million francs a year, the production of silk went to less than fifty millions. The silk cultivators sent for eggs--seed is the technical name--to Italy and Greece, and for one season all went well. The next, the plague was as bad as ever. More than that, it spread to Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey, until Japan was the only silk-producing country where the worm was healthy. Societies and governments, as well as individuals, were aghast, for the silk industry of the world was on the verge of annihilation, and every remedy the mind of man could conceive was tried, only to be rejected. In France alone the loss in 1865 was over one hundred million francs.

At the suggestion of Professor Dumas, the Government induced Pasteur to examine into the "disease." He had seen in a report on the epidemic made by M. de Quatrefages, that there were found in the diseased worms certain minute corpuscles only to be seen under the microscope. When in June, 1865, Pasteur arrived in the town of Alais, he found these corpuscles without difficulty. He traced them from the worm to the chrysalid, in the cocoon, and thence to the moth; he found worms hatched from the eggs laid by these moths invariably developed the corpuscles. He crushed a corpuscular moth in water, painted a mulberry leaf with it, fed it to a healthy worm, and the corpuscles developed. He hatched eggs from moths free from corpuscles and secured healthy worms. While working on the "disease," Pasteur discovered in 1867 that the mortality among the worms was in part due to another disease, the _flacherie_, and this he found was the result of imperfect digestion.

_Flacherie_ was contagious, and was caused by the fermentation of the food eaten in the body of the worm. The causes of this fermentation, the condition of the leaves, the temperature, and others were pointed out. As the result of five years' work, Pasteur had restored the silk industry to its former position, and had shown that the microscopic examination of the moth laying the eggs to be hatched was a perfect safeguard against _pebrine_ and _flacherie_.

At the request of the emperor, Pasteur went to the Villa Vicentia, in Austria, belonging to the prince imperial. For ten years the silk harvest there had not paid the cost of the eggs.

Although he was just recovering from an attack of paralysis brought on by overwork, Pasteur travelled to Austria, introduced his methods and the sale of the cocoons gave the villa a net profit of 26,000,000 francs. No wonder it was said of him that his discoveries alone exceeded in money value to the French people the war indemnity paid by them to the Germans.

Splenic fever, called _charbon_ in France, had for years decimated the flocks in France, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Hungary, and Brazil. It attacked the horse and cow as well as the sheep, and human beings died of it when they developed malignant pustule. Many scientific men had studied it, but Dr. Davaine, in 1850, was the first to find in the blood of a sheep that had died of the disease, "little thread-like bodies about twice the length of a blood-corpuscle. These little bodies exhibit no spontaneous motion."

Pasteur began the examination of splenic fever by securing some of the blood from an animal dying from it. In the work before him he associated with himself M. Joubert, one of his former pupils. A drop of the blood sown in the water of yeast--the medium used for cultures by Pasteur at that time--produced myriads of the rods, the bacilli or microbes. A drop of this taken at the end of twenty-four hours, and placed in a fresh flask of the medium, again produced thousands of the bacilli. Pasteur found that guinea-pigs inoculated from the first flask developed the fever, and the same result followed when the inoculation was from the twentieth. He had proved, then, that splenic fever was produced by the bacilli, by living organisms only to be seen with a powerful microscope.

While working on the bacilli of splenic fever, Pasteur had isolated the bacillus of chicken cholera, had cultivated it and had inoculated chickens with it, developing the disease. He found that so long as the cultures were made from flask to flask within twenty-four hours, the virus of the disease, that is, the power of the bacilli to produce cholera in the fowls inoculated, remained the same and the fowl died. But he discovered that if a flask containing the bacilli were left exposed to the air for two weeks, and the fowls were then inoculated with bacilli from this flask, they became sick, but did not die. Following this up, he inoculated a hen that had recovered from a sickness so produced, with the bacilli in their strongest and most virulent form, and the hen showed no effect whatever. Then he took two hens, one fresh from the coop and the other well again after the sickness produced by the inoculation with the exposed bacilli, and inoculated both with the blood of a hen that was dying of chicken cholera. The first died, the second was affected. In other words, Pasteur had made the greatest discovery in physiology of this century. He had found it is possible to attenuate the virus of a virulent disease, and to use that virus so attenuated as a vaccine matter which will guard the animal vaccinated against the disease. He had taken Jenner's discovery, and proved it applied to other diseases besides small-pox.

Pasteur's theory of the reason why any vaccine matter will have its prophylactic effect, is this: He believes there is in the blood of any animal subject to a disease caused by bacilli some substance which is necessary to the sustenance of those bacilli; and when the bacilli, having an attenuated virus, are introduced, they slowly consume all of this substance.

The substance being one which nature creates very slowly, no subsequent introduction of the bacilli, however virulent, can produce the disease until such time shall have elapsed that a new supply of the substance shall have been secreted. In this way he accounts for the fact that vaccination will protect from small-pox for a more or less defined period of time.

Pasteur hastened to apply his discovery of the attenuation of the virus of chicken cholera to the virus of splenic fever. Here, however, he was met with a serious difficulty. The microbes of splenic fever, if left in the flask for forty-eight hours, developed bright spots, and gradually into these spots the bacilli themselves seemed to be absorbed. Pasteur found these spots were the spores or seeds of the microbes, and he also found that, while the bacilli could be killed easily in various ways, the spores possessed a much greater resistance. They could be dried, for example, and preserved in that state indefinitely. It was apparent that the oxygenation which attenuated the venom of the bacilli of chicken cholera was impossible with those of splenic fever if the bacilli of the latter disappeared within a week, leaving the spores behind. But Pasteur had discovered before this that, unless the temperature of a fowl were lowered artificially, inoculation with the microbes of splenic fever would not produce the disease. From this he argued that, as the heat of the fowl's body was sufficient to resist the contagion, the bacilli themselves must be extremely sensitive to variations in temperature. He tried the experiment and found, by lowering the temperature of the flasks containing the cultures, he could prevent the formation of the spores. He then attenuated the venom of the splenic bacilli as he had that of the fowl cholera, tried it on guinea-pigs, found they became sick and recovered; inoculated them with the bacilli of full strength, but with no result. Pursuing his experiments, he discovered that he could by using vaccine-attenuated bacilli, of unequal strength, cause any degree of sickness he pleased.

In the early part of 1881 Pasteur agreed to hold a public exhibition of his vaccine for splenic fever, the animals to be supplied by the Society of Agriculture in Melun. The experiment was begun on May 5th. Pasteur inoculated twenty-four sheep, one goat, and six cows with six drops each of attenuated virus, and twelve days afterward he reinoculated them with a stronger virus. On May 31st he reinoculated the thirty-one animals with the strongest virus of splenic fever, and at the same time inoculated twenty-five sheep and four cows which had not been vaccinated as were the others. On June 2d over two hundred people assembled at the farm to see the result. The twenty-five sheep that had not been vaccinated all died before that evening. The non-vaccinated cows had intense fever and great swellings, and could scarcely stand up. On the other hand, the vaccinated sheep and cows were in full health and were feeding quietly. Pasteur had conquered splenic fever.

Having attenuated the virus of these bacilli, Pasteur began a series of experiments to determine whether the attenuated virus could be intensified until its former venom was obtained. This he succeeded in, and thus discovered what is probably the key to the solution of the problem of the periodicity of epidemics of contagious diseases, such as cholera. In 1882 Pasteur's attention was called to a new disease, swine fever (_rouget_), which was ravaging the herds of swine in France. He found the microbes, attenuated them, vaccinated the pigs, and secured the most favorable results. He also discovered that by passing the microbe of a disease through an animal not subject to that disease, he attenuated it so far as its effects on another were concerned.

It was in 1880 that Pasteur first began his experiments in hydrophobia. Securing the saliva of a child suffering from the disease, he inoculated rabbits with it and they died in thirty-six hours. He examined the saliva and the blood of the rabbits, and found in both a new microbe (a minute disk having two points). He established by repeated experiments that hydrophobia is a disease of the nerves, that a portion of the medulla oblongata, or of the spinal cord, is very much more certain to produce the disease, when introduced into the blood or placed on the brain, than is the saliva. He succeeded at last in isolating the microbe, in making cultures of it, and then attenuating it, and in May, 1884, he produced before a commission appointed by the Minister of Public Instruction the following results:

Of six dogs unprotected by vaccination, three died as the results of bites of a dog violently mad. Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six died after extra-venous inoculation of rabic matter. Of five unvaccinated dogs, all died after inoculation, by trepanning, of the brain with rabic matter. Of twenty-three vaccinated dogs, not one was attacked with the disease after inoculation, in any fashion, with the most virulent rabic matter procurable.

During his long and busy life Louis Pasteur has been honored after every fashion known to men. He has opened the gates of knowledge wider than they were ever opened before, and in his discovery of the germs of disease, and in his still more wonderful discovery of the possibility of attenuating those germs and converting them into vaccines, he has revolutionized all ideas of physiology. He is one of the greatest pioneers in science that has ever lived, and his work will make his name illustrious so long as men shall continue on this earth. The lesson of his life is the supreme value of experiment; for, as was once said of him by Professor Dumas, "Pasteur is never mistaken, because he never asserts anything he cannot show another man how to prove."

[Signature: Cyrus Edson.]

GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE GORDON

By Colonel R. H. VEITCH, R.E.

1833-1885

Charles George Gordon, known as Chinese Gordon, major-general, C.B., royal engineers, fourth son of Lieutenant-general Henry William Gordon, royal artillery, and Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Enderby, of Croom's Hill, Blackheath, was born at Woolwich on January 28, 1833. He was sent to school at Taunton in 1843, and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1848. He obtained a commission in the royal engineers on June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. He was wounded on June 6, 1855, and was present at the attack on the Redan on June 18th. On the surrender of Sebastopol Gordon accompanied the expedition to Kinburn, and on his return was employed on the demolition of the Sebastopol docks. For his services in the Crimea Gordon received the British war medal and clasp, the Turkish war medal, and the French Legion of Honor.

In May, 1856, in company with lieutenant (now major-general) E. R. James, R.E., he joined Colonel (now General Sir) E. Stanton, R.E., in Bessarabia, as assistant commissioner for the delimitation of the new frontier line. This duty was completed in April, 1857, and he was then sent with Lieutenant James in a similar capacity to Erzeroum, where Colonel (now General Sir) Lintorn Simmons was the English commissioner for the Asiatic frontier boundary. The work was accomplished by the following October, when Gordon returned to England. In the spring of 1858 he and Lieutenant James were sent as commissioners to the Armenian frontier to superintend the erection of the boundary posts of the line they had previously surveyed. This was finished in November, and Gordon returned home, having acquired an intimate knowledge of the people of the districts visited.

On April 1, 1859, Gordon was promoted captain, and about the same time appointed second adjutant of the corps at Chatham, a post he held for little more than a year, for, in the summer of 1860, he joined the forces of Sir James Hope Grant, operating with the French against China. He overtook the allied army at Tientsin, and was present in October at the capture of Pekin and the pillage and destruction of the emperor's summer palace. For his services in this campaign he received the British war medal with clasp for Pekin and a brevet majority in December, 1862. Gordon commanded the royal engineers at Tientsin, when the British forces remained there under Sir Charles Staveley, and while thus employed made several expeditions into the interior, in one of which he explored a considerable section of the great wall of China. In April, 1862, he was summoned to Shanghai to assist in the operations consequent upon the determination of Sir Charles Staveley to keep a radius of thirty miles round the city clear of the rebel Taipings. Gordon took part as commanding royal engineer, in the storming of Sing-poo and several other fortified towns and in clearing the rebels out of Kah-ding. He was afterward employed in surveying the country round Shanghai.

The Taiping rebellion was of so barbarous a nature that its suppression had become necessary in the interest of civilization. A force raised at the expense of the Shanghai merchants, and supported by the Chinese Government, had been for some years struggling against its prowess. This force, known as the "Ever Victorious Army," was defeated at Taitsan, February 22, 1863. Li Hung Chang, governor-general of the Kiang provinces, then applied to the British commander-in-chief for the services of an English officer, and Gordon was authorized to accept the command. He arrived at Sung Kiong and entered on his new duties as a mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on March 24, 1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese, officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army, whose high-sounding title of "Ever Victorious" became a reality, and in less than two years, after thirty-three engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely broken and the rebellion stamped out. The maintenance of discipline was a perpetual struggle, and at one time there was a mutiny which was only quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. Before the summer of 1863 was over, Gordon captured Kahpoo, Wokong, and Patachiaow, on the south of Soo-chow, the great rebel stronghold, and, sweeping round to the north, secured Leeku, Wanti, and Fusaiqwan, so that by October Soo-chow was completely invested. On November 29th the outworks were captured by assault and the city surrendered on December 6th. Gordon was always in front in all these storming parties, carrying no other weapon than a little cane. His men called it his "magic wand," regarding it as a charm that protected his life and led them on to victory.

When Soo-chow fell, Gordon had stipulated with the governor-general, Li, for the lives of the Wangs (rebel leaders). They were treacherously murdered by Li's orders. Indignant at this perfidy, Gordon refused to serve any longer with Governor Li, and when on January 1, 1864, money and rewards were heaped upon him by the emperor, declined them all, saying that he received the approbation of the emperor with every gratification, but regretted most sincerely that, "owing to the circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soo-chow, he was unable to receive any mark of his majesty the emperor's recognition."

After some months of inaction it became evident that if Gordon did not again take the field the Taipings would regain the rescued country. On the urgent representations of the British envoy at Pekin, Governor Li was compelled to issue a proclamation exonerating Gordon from all complicity in the murder of the Wangs. Gordon then reluctantly consented to continue his services, on the distinct understanding that in any future capitulation he should not be interfered with. In December, 1863, a fresh campaign was commenced, and during the following months no fewer than seven towns were captured or surrendered. In February, 1864, Yesing and Liyang were taken, but at Kintang Gordon met with a reverse and was himself wounded for the first time. He nevertheless continued to give his orders until he had to be carried to his boat. After some other mishaps he carried Chan-chu-fu by assault on April 27th. The garrison consisted of 20,000 men, of whom 1,500 were killed. This victory not only ended the campaign but completely destroyed the rebellion, and the Chinese regular forces were enabled to occupy Nankin in the July following. The large money present offered to Gordon by the emperor was again declined, although he had spent his pay promoting the efficiency of his force, so that he wrote home, "I shall leave China as poor as when I entered it." The emperor, however, bestowed upon him the yellow jacket, and peacock's feather of a mandarin of the first class, with the title of Ti-Tu, the highest military rank in China, and a gold medal of distinction of the first class. The merchants of Shanghai presented him with an address expressing their admiration of his conduct of the war.

On his return home, in the beginning of 1865, he was made a C.B., having previously received his brevet as lieutenant-colonel in February, 1864. In September, 1865, he was appointed commanding royal engineer at Gravesend, and for the next six years carried out the ordinary duties of the corps, superintending the construction of the forts for the defence of the Thames. During this quiet and uneventful period of routine work he devoted his spare time to the poor and sick of the neighborhood, stinting himself that he might have larger means wherewith to relieve others. He took special interest in the infirmary and the ragged schools. He took many of the boys from the schools into his own house, starting them in life by sending them to sea, and he continued to watch the future progress of his kings, as he called them, with never-failing sympathy.

In October, 1871, Gordon was appointed British member of the international commission at Galatz for the improvement of the navigation of the Sulina mouth of the Danube, in accordance with the Treaty of Paris. During his tenure of this office he accompanied General Sir John Adye to the Crimea to report on the British cemeteries there. On his way back to Galatz, in November, 1872, he met Nubar Pasha at Constantinople, who sounded him as to his succeeding Sir Samuel Baker in the Soudan. The following year Gordon visited Cairo on his way home, and on the resignation of Sir Samuel Baker was appointed governor of the equatorial provinces of Central Africa, with a salary of £10,000 a year. He declined to receive more than £2,000.

Gordon went to Egypt in the beginning of 1874, and left Cairo in February for Gondokoro, the seat of his government, travelling by the Suez-Swakin-Berber route. He reached Khartoum on March 13th, stopped only a few days to issue a proclamation and make arrangements for men and supplies, then, continuing his journey, arrived at Gondokoro on April 16th. The garrison of Gondokoro at this time did not dare to move out of the place except in armed bands; but in the course of a year the confidence of the natives had been gained, the country made safe, eight stations formed and garrisoned, the government monopoly of ivory enforced, and sufficient money sent to Cairo to pay all the expenses of the expedition. At the close of the year, having already lost by sickness eight members of his small European staff, Gordon transferred the seat of government from the unhealthy station, Gondokoro, to Laido. By the end of 1875 Gondokoro and Duffh had been joined by a chain of fortified posts, a day's journey apart, the slave-dealers had been dispersed, and a letter post organized to travel regularly between Cairo and the verge of the Albert Nyanza, over two thousand miles as the crow flies.

Gordon had also visited Magungo, Murchison Falls, and Chibero, with a view to a further line of fortified posts, and he established for the first time, by personal observation, the course of the Victoria Nile into Lake Albert. Although he had accomplished a great work since his arrival, his efforts to put down the slave trade were thwarted by Ismail Pasha Yacoub, governor-general of the Soudan, and were likely to prove abortive so long as the Soudan remained a distinct government from that of the equatorial provinces. He, therefore, at the end of 1876, resigned his appointment and returned to England. Strong pressure was put upon him by the khédive to return, and on January 31, 1877, he left for Cairo, where he received the combined appointment of governor-general of the Soudan, Darfour, the equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea littoral, on the understanding that his efforts were to be directed to the improvement of the means of communication and the absolute suppression of the slave trade. Gordon first visited Abyssinia, where Walad el Michael was giving a great deal of trouble on the Egyptian frontier. He settled the difficulty for a time and travelled across country to Khartoum, where he was installed as governor-general, May 5th. After a short stay there he hastened to Darfour, which was in revolt; with a small force and rapid movements he quelled the rising, and, by the humane consideration he showed for the suffering people, won their confidence and pacified the province. Before this work was completely accomplished his attention was called away by the slave-dealers, who, headed by Suleiman, son of the notorious Zebehr, with 6,000 armed men, had moved on Dara from their stronghold, 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, upbraided 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; and Gordon's Italian aide, Gessi, after a year's marching and fighting, succeeded in capturing Suleiman, and some of the chief slave-dealers 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 khédive 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 to King John's men and carried to Garramudhiri, 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 khédive accepted his resignation. He arrived in England early in January, 1880. During his service under the khédive, Gordon received 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 climate that his medical advisers sent him to Switzerland to recruit. He returned to England, in April, 1880, and in the following month accompanied the Marquis 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. Gordon accepted at once, and although difficulties were raised by the home authorities, 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 disinterested counsels in favor of peace at length carried the day.

In 1881 he went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer, and while there was promoted major-general. In 1882, he was at the Cape Colony, endeavoring 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 khédive. To do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons scattered all over the country, and such of the Egyptian population as might object to remain. To Gordon was intrusted the withdrawal of the garrisons and the evacuation of the Soudan. At Cairo his functions were considerably extended. He was appointed, with the consent of the British Government, governor-general of the Soudan, and was instructed, not only to effect the evacuation of the country, but to take steps to leave behind an organized independent government.

By the month of March, having succeeded in sending some two thousand five hundred people down the Nile into safety, Gordon found himself getting hemmed in by the Mahdi and no assistance coming from without. On April 16, 1884, his last telegram before the wires were cut complained bitterly of the neglect of the Government. The attack of Khartoum began on March 12th, and from that time to its fall Gordon carried on the defence with consummate skill. His resources were small, his troops few, and his European assistants could be counted on the fingers of one hand; yet he managed to convert his river steamers into iron-clads, to build new ones, to make and lay down land mines, to place wire entanglements, and to execute frequent sorties, while he kept up the spirits and courage of his followers by striking medals in honor of their bravery, and baffled a fanatic and determined foe for over ten months, during the latter part of which the people who trusted him were perishing from disease and famine, and the grip of the enemy was tightening.

In April the necessity of a relief expedition was pressed upon the Government at home, but without avail. In May popular feeling found vent, not only in public meetings but in the House of Commons, when a vote of censure on the Government was lost by only twenty-eight votes. Eventually, proposals were made to send a relief expedition from Cairo in the autumn, and on August 5th a vote of credit for £300,000 was taken for "operations for the relief of General Gordon, should it become necessary, and to make certain preparations in respect thereof." Even when it was decided that Lord Wolseley should take command of a relief expedition up the Nile, hesitation continued to mark the proceedings of the Government, and time, so valuable on account of the rising of the Nile, was lost. It was September 1st before Lord Wolseley was able to leave England. Then everything was done, but the delay had been fatal.

In September, 1884, having driven the rebels out of Berber, Gordon authorized his companions, Colonel Stewart and Frank Power (_Times_ correspondent), to go down the river in the steamer Abbas to open communication with Dongola. The steamer struck on a rock, and they were both treacherously murdered. Gordon was now the only Englishman in Khartoum. On December 20th, Lord Wolseley launched Sir Herbert Stewart's expedition from Korti across the desert to Metemmeh, where, after two severe engagements, it arrived on January 20, 1885, under command of Sir Charles Wilson, Stewart having been mortally wounded. In order to succor the advancing force, Gordon had deprived himself for three months of five out of his seven steamers. These five steamers, fully armed, equipped, and provisioned, were in waiting, and in them were his diaries and letters up to December 14th. On that date he wrote to Major Watson, R.E., at Cairo, that he thought the game was up, and a catastrophe might be expected in ten days' time, and sent his adieux to all. On the same day he wrote to his sister: "I am quite happy, thank God, and like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty." His diary ended on the same day with: "I have done the best for the honor of my country. Good-by." It was necessary for the safety of his troops that Wilson should first make a reconnoissance down the river toward Berber before going to Khartoum, and when he started up the river, on January 24th, the difficulties of navigation were so great that it was midday on the 28th before the goal was reached, and then only to find it in the hands of the Mahdi, Khartoum having fallen early on the 26th, after a siege of 317 days.

From the most accurate information since obtained, it appears that the garrison, early in January, had been reduced to great straits for want of food, and great numbers of the inhabitants had availed themselves of Gordon's permission to join the Mahdi. Omdurman, opposite to Khartoum, on the west bank of the river, fell about January 13th, and about the 18th a sortie was made, in which some serious fighting took place. The state of the garrison then grew desperate. Gordon continually visited the posts by night as well as day, and encouraged the famished garrison. The news of Sir Herbert Stewart's expedition, and the successful engagements it had fought on the way to Metemmeh, determined the Mahdi to storm Khartoum before reinforcements could arrive for its relief. The attack was made on the south front at 3.30 a.m., on Monday, January 26, 1885. The defence was half-hearted, treachery was at work, and Gordon received no tidings of the assault. The rebels made good their entrance, and then a general massacre ensued. The accounts of Gordon's death are confused and conflicting, but they all agree in stating that he was killed near the gate of the palace, and his head carried to the Mahdi's camp.

Intelligence of the catastrophe reached England on Thursday, February 5th. The outburst of popular grief, not only in this country and her colonies, but also among foreign nations, has hardly been paralleled. It was universally acknowledged that the world had lost a hero. Friday, March 13th, was then observed as a day of national mourning, and special services were held in the cathedrals and in many churches of the land, those at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's being attended by the royal family, members of both houses of parliament, and representatives of the naval and military services. Parliament voted a national monument to be placed in Trafalgar Square, and a sum of £20,000 to his relatives. More general expression was given to the people's admiration of Gordon's character by the institution of the "Gordon Boys' Home" for homeless and destitute boys. Gordon's sister presented to the town of Southampton her brother's library, in March, 1889.

Gordon's character was unique. Simple-minded, modest, and almost morbidly retiring, he was fearless and outspoken when occasion required. Strong in will and prompt in action, with a naturally hot temper, he was yet forgiving to a fault. Somewhat brusque in manner, his disposition was singularly sympathetic and attractive, winning all hearts. Weakness and suffering at once enlisted his interest. Caring nothing for what was said of him, he was indifferent to praise or reward, and had a supreme contempt for money. His whole being was dominated by a Christian faith, at once so real and so earnest that, although his religious views were tinged with mysticism, the object of his life was the entire surrender of himself to work out whatever he believed to be the will of God.

GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER[22]

[Footnote 22: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS

(1839-1876)

Daring is always popular. The dashing fighter outranks the tactician and takes precedence over the engineer when the people's plaudits for valor fill the air. To be the _beau sabreur_ of the army, as was Murat, in Napoleon's day, and as Custer was in Grant's, is as glorious as it is dramatic, as inspiring as it is picturesque. There were, in fact, many points of resemblance between these two dashing cavalry leaders--Murat, the Frenchman, and Custer, the American. Both smelled powder as the aides-de-camp of their chiefs; both rose rapidly from grade to grade, and from rank to rank, until they stood at the top; both labored at the end under the burden of criticism and detraction; and both met their death through a mistake, and fell like brave and gallant soldiers.

George Armstrong Custer was born at New Rumley, in the State of Ohio, on December 5, 1839. His father was a blacksmith and farmer, of German stock, a descendant of a Hessian officer named Küstu--one among many who came to conquer and remained to live and die as citizens of the land they had failed to subjugate.

Young Custer was educated in the district school of New Rumley, and in the academy at Monroe, in Michigan, where he went in 1849 to live with his sister Lydia. Returning to Ohio he taught school for a year or more in Hopedale, near New Rumley, and in 1857 was able to see his boyish dream come true, and, as a lad of seventeen, enter the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Cadet Custer graduated from West Point in 1861, and hurried to the front at once, eager for service, for the war between the States had begun. He was made bearer of despatches by General Scott; he fought at Bull Run as lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, to which he had been assigned; he conducted successfully balloon reconnoissance along the Confederate lines, and so inspired General McClellan by his energy, courage, and persistence that he was appointed aide-de-camp to the general, with the rank of captain.

For his dash and daring in the Rappahannock battles he was advanced by speedy promotions to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers, his commission dating from June, 1863, just one year after his appointment as aide-de-camp to McClellan. He won his brevet as major in the regular army for his brilliant leadership of cavalry at Gettysburg; he had a horse shot under him while heading the charge at Culpepper, and gained his brevet as lieutenant-colonel of regulars for his gallantry in Sheridan's lights about Richmond, in the spring of 1864. He won renown and glory in Sheridan's famous raid on Richmond, by saving his brigade-colors at the battle of Trevillion Station, and, in September, 1864, his dashing valor at Winchester procured him his brevet as colonel of regulars and the volunteer rank of major-general. He won the battle of Woodstock by a wonderful cavalry engagement, routing the enemy, whom he drove for twenty-six miles, and capturing all their guns save one. In the bloody battle of Cedar Creek he fought at the head of the Third Division of Cavalry from start to finish, helping to turn a rout into a victory and recapturing all the guns and colors the Union troops had lost early in the action, besides taking all the Confederate flags and cannon. At Waynesboro, in the spring of 1865, still leading the Third Division, he won the day unaided; he captured 1,600 prisoners, with all the enemy's camp equipage, guns, and colors, and then turning for another onset, Custer drove the Confederate General Early from the field, destroying his command, scattering his army, and ending the campaign, so far as Early's army was concerned. For this brilliant engagement, and for his bravery at the battles of Five Forks and Dinwiddie Court-House, on April 1, 1865, Custer was brevetted brigadier-general in the regular army; and, as he had won the first colors taken by the Army of the Potomac in 1862, so, in 1865, he received the first flag of truce from Lee's army when the end at last came, and was present at the historic surrender at Appomattox. Then he secured his last promotion. He was brevetted major-general in the regular army and appointed major-general of volunteers.

It was a brilliant and exceptional record. He had fought in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac save one. He was Sheridan's most trusted and favorite cavalry officer. In less than four years he had advanced from captain of volunteers to major-general, and from lieutenant to major-general in the regular army. He was but twenty-six when the war closed, and all his promotions had been won by his bravery, his dash, his daring, and his good leadership. During the last six months of the war the Third Division of Cavalry, led by Custer, captured in open fight over one hundred pieces of artillery, sixty-five battle flags, and ten thousand prisoners. It was a record of which any soldier might be proud, and it made Custer at once the idol of his hard-riding troopers, and one of the popular heroes of the day. At the great review in Washington he rode near the head of the parade, leading what was popularly called "the most gallant cavalry division of the age," greeted with cheers and flowers along the line of march.