GORDON WRITES TO HIS MOTHER A MONTH BEFORE ARRIVING IN TIANJIN, CHINA, TELLING HER ABOUT HIS TRIP THROUGH THE GULF OF SUEZ GORDON (Charles George, 1833-1885, General Gordon of Khartoum, 'Chinese Gordon')

Superb Autograph Letter Signed "C. G. Gordon" to "My dear Mother", saying that "In spite of the heat I must write you a line to tell you how we got on after Cairo. When I despatched my letter to you on the 4th Augt I went up in a carriage to the Citadel and had a splendid view of the Pyramids both of Giza and Cairo. You remember that Mehmet Aliput the Mamelukes to death in this Castle and the place where one of them jumped his horse over and escaped and where they were buried is shown. The Mosque in the Citadel and palace are most beautiful. I shall leave with ... a piece of the marble ... send it to you. We went on at 10 am to Suez, a miserable place 90 miles from Cairo and over the veritable desert it was a perfect waste of sand. Suez looked very warm, the steamers lay enclosed about 2 miles from the village, and we were conveyed to them by a small tug. The place where they said the Israelites passed is about 1 mile from Suez, the only reason for it being that the water is shallower there than elsewhere. The Arab boys dive wonderfully well altho the water is far from clear, they pick up 6 with ease. The land on each side of the Gulf of Suez is high and arid and looks very hot; about Sunday we passed the range of which Mt Sinai & Horeb are peaks but no one could say positively which was which, after the Gulf of Suez, the Red Sea (which by the way is of Meditterranean blueness) widens and we lose sight of land. The whole navigation is very intricate and a native pilot is kept with the vessel as far as Aden. We are all pretty well ... it is not good to say anything about its being warm. The Cabin is provided with 'punkahs' or mats which are pulled to & fro by small boys to produce a draft. I found an officer called Hills of the Bombay Engineers who is my companion. We are crowded in my opinion but I hear it is nothing to what the crush is during the cool months. There is ample room for another line of packets on this route and it would be a great boon for the passengers, for at present we are at the mercy of the P & O for everything. As yet we have heard no news from China. The Sun today was on our Zenith and did not seem the worse for his eclipse. The Priests are in fine feather, they still keep to their hot black dress. There is a horrid child called Maggie, Sardinian, who squalls frightfully every evening on going to bed. There is a lieutenant of Bengal Infantry, fat and old with a heap of children and a funny wife ... We passed several sharks today and some shoals of flying fish pursued on all sides as well. We went thro the straits of Bab el Mandeb today ...", he then talks about a fellow passenger "she remarked that she had been fool enough to take her husband's advice and come out to India. He replied that most people made a mistake once in their lives, in spite of the heat she wept ... and a reconciliation took place ... we arrived in the Bay of Aden last night ... and I rode off to Bayly ... he came to meet me but I missed him and soon after I came to his house ... he is looking to my eyes very well ... in good spirits and has a capital house, he had ridden into Aden Bay to meet me and certainly did not seem the worse for the ride. He says he does not feel the heat at all and it is only during the wet season that he has any feeling of the bullet. I do not think that he can suffer much as he looks so well. My best love to my father, August, Helen & Mensa and please write to Ella and let her know that Bayly is looking very well and has been extremely kind ..." and hoping that she is well, 4 sides 8vo., crosswritten on 3 sides, "About 300 miles from Aden". 8th August

Mehemet Ali Pasha (1769-1849) was an Ottoman Albanian commander in the Ottoman army, who rose to the rank of Pasha, and became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan with the Ottomans' temporary approval. Though not a modern nationalist, he is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt because of the dramatic reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres that he instituted. He also ruled Levantine territories outside Egypt. The dynasty that he established would rule Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt and Sudan until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser. On the 1st March 1811 he massacred the Mamelukes in Cairo.
Gordon did a lot of surveying work and about the time of this letter he took up using the new technology of the camera.
Charles Gordon received recognition for his efforts during the Crimean War and went on to volunteer in the 'Arrow War' (part of the 'Opium Wars') against the Chinese in September 1860. In 1862, Gordon and his corps of engineers were stationed in Shanghai, with the mission of helping to protect the major trading centre, which was under threat from the Taiping rebellion (a civil war against the Qing Dynasty). After commanding a 3500-strong army of local people to defend the city against the Taiping Uprising, Gordon became known in Britain as 'Chinese Gordon'. Between 1873 and 1880, General Gordon was governor of the province of Equatoria in Sudan. He returned to the area in 1884 as part of an attempt to evacuate Egyptian forces from Khartoum, under threat from Sudanese rebels. The rebels broke into the city in January 1885, killing Gordon.

Item Date:  1860

Stock No:  39502      £4750

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