GORDON CG (1833-1885). British army officer.

Autograph Letter Signed (“CG Gordon”) to “My dear Geigler”, asking if he had received “a couple of copies of the Arabic Manuscripts”. 2½ pages 8vo together with the autograph envelope, addressed to “H. Ex. Geigler Pacha, Kartoum, Egypte”, Southampton, 21 January 1881 [envelope postmarked “South Kensington”].

A letter dating from an unusually calm period in Gordon’s life, a circumstance which was not entirely suited to his very active character.

“Did you not receive from me a couple of copies of the Arabic Manuscripts one the History of Hainan, one the History of the Sudan, could you kindly through some safe hand, get me a copy of each, and send me the same by safe hand. You had better not say who they are for. If you have not got yours with you, I know I gave Hausall & Birzati Bey one of each. I hope you are all well & have been tardily treated properly . . .” In a postscript he adds “I have seen nothing of the Mitrovi(?) stories or things from Utesu(?), but I only care for the M.S.S.”

Having returned from China in the autumn of the previous year, where he successfully took part in Sino-Russian peace negotiations, Gordon was, at the time, actively seeking another outlet for his considerable energies and considered going to work among the poor in Syria. Florence Nightingale, with whose interests and values he sympathised, encouraged him to return to India, but he dismissed this idea, writing to her that “I would never do so [return to India] if I had to accept the shibboleth of the Indian or Colonial middle classes.” He eventually went to Mauritius as commanding royal engineer in the summer of 1881.

Stock Code: 217518