From W. E. Darwin to Emma Darwin [early January 1877]

My Dear Mother,

I have just done what few people would not envy dined alone with Co. Gordon & his sister, and after dinner he walked halfway up here and has promised to come & dine alone with me as he won't meet people, his sister tells me that Gordon says I just suit him which I am delighted to hear and he has actually brought me back some small presents from Gondokoro. There is a sort of sublime modesty about him that is quite astounding, and he seems to be utterly above all wordly & selfish motions of all kinds; and is very sensitive to the feelings of others, for instance he is most passionately fond of smoking but always go out of doors to smoke in the cold because though his sister would say nothing in fact seemed to expect him to go & smoke in his bedroom he said to me he thought she had a little feeling about it. I really do not know what to tell of all he told me   We had a long talk about his going back again, he evidently dreads it very much the misery & desolation & ennui seem to have been horrible, frightful food all of one kind husks of meat and flat unleavened bread rolled by perspiring women and never any vegetables utterly alone with no interpreter and only knowing some 20 words of the language no books and only a newspaper now & then of which he used to get to study the advertisements everything spoilt by damp & ants, having to nurse & doctor & give up all his comforts to the sick who gradually died or left him; the Khedive treating him shamefully never answering his letters and evidently shamming as to any real wish as to putting down the slave trade, and he said it was so disheartening to feel that directly he left all would be oppression & misery. For instance he knew that directly he passed Khartoum the Governor there rubbed his hands & said now that Gordon Pascha is gone we can steal as many women & boys & cattle as we like. Still he considered going back in this way many other men would take the Governorship of Bulgaria and do it as well as he could, but no one would go through what he had in Africa, and he felt he could protect "my poor blacks" as long as he was there; what he hopes is that King Mtesa, whose capital is on the Albert lake, and who he says has a higher civilization & far better government than the Khedive may get an opening to Zanzibar and so get connection with us and so escape being conquered by the Khedive   Fancy king Mtesa having the papers read to him and knowing all about European matters (though I suppose only understanding as far as Africa is concerned). He says if the Khedive really was in earnest he Gordon could put down the slave trade, and he thinks the Khedive would make him governor of Khartoum as well as of Gondorollo, but he then would have to keep up a gorgeous Palace & always go out with Trumpeters & 40 attendants which he could not stand.

In coming through Paris he went to see Nuba Pascha who had been the Khedives prime Minister for 20 years & had been banished, & Nuba told him that the conference at Constantinople had just determined to make him (Nuba) Governor of Bulgaria and Nuba asked Gordon to come & help him. When Gordon came back & found the Times proposing him (Gordon) as Governor, he feared that Nuba would think that he (Gordon) had sucked Nuba's information & got the Times to write the Article, so he instantly wrote to Nuba to explain & he evidently feels it would be something like a mean advantage if he were now to let himself be appointed (which is over delicacy)   He said the Duke of Cornbridge urged one of the Ministers to employ him in that way. He is going to give me a map of the country. When alone he wanted some one so badly to discuss free will with him

I am done up | W. E. D.