General Charles "Chinese" Gordon Reveals He is Going to Palestine

General Gordon regrets an invitation from Sir Samuel and Lady Baker: he is going to Palestine at the end of the month. He comments that affairs in Egypt are “inextricably entangled” and he cannot see how they will get out of the bungle. “Our present state is the fruit of a series of blunders which began with the Cave Mission [1876] and which have been ripening ever since. I am very glad I am quite out of it."
 
In Palestine, Gordon would fulfill a cherished ambition, searching to establish authoritatively the locations of the site of the crucifixion,  the line of division between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, the identification of Gibeon, and the whereabouts  of Christ’s tomb. But his halcyon days in Palestine would be short-lived:  his own Calvary awaited him in Khartoum.

Autograph Letter Signed (“C.G. Gordon”), 3 pages, octavo, on black-bordered mourning stationery, 5 Rockstone Place, Southampton [England], December 11, 1882. To Sir Samuel Baker.