GENERAL GORDON.

Kumara Times, Issue 2636, 17 February 1885, Page 2

GENERAL GORDON.

To-day we publish what may be regarded as the first authentic or official announcement of the sad fate of General Gordon, and there can unfortunately be no longer any hope that this distinguished officer will ever be heard of again alive. General Wolseley telegraphs that an eye-witness states that the Arab rebels entered Khartoum on the 26th January, and that Gordon was killed by a volley from the invadiug troops. The following particulars of his career are taken from " Men of the Time :"

Gordon, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles George, C. 8., E.E. (Gordon Pasha), entered the Royal Engineers as a second lieutenant June 23id, 1852, and was promoted to be first lieutenant' February 17, 1854. He served in the Crimea from December, 1854, to May, 1856, was present before Sebastopol, and was wounded in the trenches. After peace had been made he was employed in surveying aud settling the Turkish and Russian frontier in Asia—a work of no little danger and difficulty owing to the wild character of the tribes of Armenia and Koordistan. Engaged in the expedition against Pekin, he continued on service in China after our difficulties with the Imperial Government had been arranged ; and at the close of the year 1861 lie made a long journey from that capital to the Chotow and Kalgau passes on the Great Wall, striking down from the latter place through Shensi, and passing Tiayuen, the capital of that province, a city before unvisited by foreigners, unless by Catholic priests in disguise. Next entering the service of the Emperor of China, he was appointed, in March, 1863, commander of the " Ever Victorious Army," and was mainly instrumental in suppressing the formidable Taiping rebellion in that and the succeeding year. The result of his operations was this: he found the richest and moat fertile districts of Chiua in the hands of the most savage brigands. The silk districts were the scenes of their cruelty aud riot, and the great historical cities of Hangchow and Soochow were rapidly following the fate of Nanking, and were becoming desolate ruins in their possession. Gordon cut the rebellion in half, recovered the great cities, isolated and utterly discouraged the fragments of the brigand power, and left the marauders nothing but a few tracts of devastated country and their stronghold at Nanking. All this he effected, first, by the power of his arms, and afterwards still more rapidly by the terror of his name. A detailed account of his exploits is given iu an interesting work entitled "'The Ever Victorious Army;' a History of the Chinese Campaign under Lieut.Colonei C. G. Gordon, C. 8., R.E., and of the Suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, by Andrew Wilson," published in 18.68. He was promoted to the rank of of captain iu 1801); ot major in 1862;

of lieut-colonel February 16tb, 1864; and was nominated a Companion of the Bath December 9th, 1864. Colonel Gordon was British Vice-Consul of the delta of the Danube, Turkey, from 1871 to 1873, when he undertook an expedition into Africa under the auspices of the Khedive of Egypt, who appointed hitn Governor of the Provinces of the Equatorial Lakes. Subsequently he was created a Pasha, and in February, 1877, the Khedive appointed him Governor of the whole of the Soudan. In the course of that year he traversed the whole of his proconsulate, settling difficulties, pacifying hostile tribes, changing local officials, gaining the love of the natives by his unswerving justice, and winning an almost superstitious admiration by the rapidity of his movements through the vast regions submitted to his rule. He put down a formidable revolt in Darfnr; he brought to an end a tedious war with Abyssinia ; he captured hundreds of slave caravans, and destroyed the power of the slave-dealers at the very source of their supplies. He was unsuccessful, however, in his efforts to establish permanent and satisfactory relations between Egypt iind Abyssinia. In January, 1880, he retired from the Governorship of the Soudan, and in May of that year he was appointed private Secretary to the Marquis of Ripon, Governor-General of India, but he resigned that post on his arrival at Bombay (June 2nd). He then paid a flying visit to China. In May, 1831, he accepted the command of the Royal Engineers at the Mauritius, where his term of office expired with his attainment of the rank of Major-General. The Government of the Cape of Good Hope appointed him to an important post in March, 1882, but he resigned it iu the following October, in cousequence of a disagreement with the Cape Ministry regarding Basutoland.