Lot Essay
John Donald Stewart was an exceptionally able officer, who joined the 11th Hussars in 1865 and reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel at the age of thirty-six. In 1884 he was appointed Principal Assistant to General Gordon in Khartoum. Later that year, with Khartoum besieged by the Mahdi's forces and all communication with the outside world cut, Stewart set off down the Nile in the steamer Abbas in an attempt to reach the telegraph station at Dongola, six hundred miles down river. After negotiating many obstacles, the vessel finally ran aground in one of the cataracts. Those on board were offered shelter by a local sheikh but, once ashore,the whole party including Stewart was murdered.