I have always been struck by a dream to which General Gordon declared he once owed his life. When in China, he dreamt he was entering a boat with some native troops in order to cross a river and when nearing the middle of the stream the boat began to sink. He noticed the man standing next to him and recognised a soldier whom he had been compelled to punish for disobedience.

He had this dream upon two successive nights, seeing the same face of the native soldier.

Soon after, the General was about to take a journey which included the crossing of a deep river. Suddenly it flashed across his mind that this was the river in his dream, and as he was entering the boat he noticed it was painted the same shade of grey as his dream boat, and among the men standing to attention he recognised the face of the soldier of his dream. The General immediately ordered that the boat should be dragged up on the shore and examined. The bottom beneath its covering boards had been carefully drilled with minute holes. Gordon relates that the native soldier flung himself on his knees confessing his guilt.

He writes: "If I had neglected that dream warning I and probably all the men with me must have been drowned, for the currents and weeds in the river were exceedingly dangerous."

Source: Acquainted with the Night by Nancy Price (1949). This anecdote is from the introduction--undated, untitled, source unnamed. It's not C.G. Gordon's Letters, or Hake's The Story of Chinese Gordon, Boulger's Life of Gordon, Wortham's Chinese Gordon, Butler's Charles George Gordon, or Forbes's Chinese Gordon: A Succinct Record. His correspondence was voluminous so it may well be from an unpublished letter. If anyone can trace this, email me! I'd like the full story in his own words.

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