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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
iUiGl3194bJ 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 088 058 973 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088058973 
 
HISTORICAL WORKS BY THE 
 SAME A UTHOR 
 
 SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 
 OCCUPATION OF EGYPT. 
 
 T. Fisher Unwin, 1907 
 
 INDIA UNDER RIPON. 
 
 T. Fisher Unwin, 1909 
 
 GORDON AT KHARTOUM. 1911 
 
 THE LAND WAR IX IRELAND. 1912 
 
 POETICAL WORKS. (Complete Edition) 
 
 Macmillan and Co., 1914 
 
MY DIARIES 
 
S''j.' rr:/- c.'' yy ^T<^o^^-aJ>he^ 
 
 '^^(jJiG'KL^ (hccuaaz/ Jouuvt 
 rgoo 
 
My Diaries 
 
 BEING A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF 
 EVENTS, 1888-1914 
 
 BY 
 
 WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 1888 TO 1900 
 
 LONDON: MARTIN SECKER 
 
 XVII BUCKINGHAM STREET ADELPHI MCMXIX 
 
/ygi^s32- 
 
 CHISWICK PRE-S: CHARLES WHITIINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHAXCtRY lA' E, I.r.N'DON. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN issuing this, the fifth volume of my " Secret 
 History" series, at the present moment, I feel 
 that, with much that is only too trivial in the diary 
 (a thing not written for publication) there are cer- 
 tain passages in it for which apology is due from me 
 for their too plain speaking in what will be thought 
 by some an unpatriotic sense. The fault is perhaps 
 not wholly mine, rather the change which has been 
 wrought in the public mind and heart of England by 
 the heroic efforts made by her sons unselfishly in 
 the war. 
 
 The period the volume travels over in English 
 public life — 1888 to 1900 — was in truth anything 
 but a noble one, and judged by the high stand- 
 ards now professed in Downing Street and echoed 
 by the universal popular voice, proclaiming inter- 
 national right and a respect for the weak nations 
 of the world, may deserve the worst that I have 
 said of it, and yet my telling be resented as an 
 untimely reminder of lapses the country would wish 
 to forget. It includes the Matabele and Boer 
 wars, and the wars on the Nile, where England led 
 the way in the white scramble for Africa. There 
 is a special danger for me of displeasure in regard 
 to Egypt, which forms so large a topic in the text, 
 as it becomes more clear that among the many 
 contributory causes leading to the final catastrophe 
 of the great World War of 19 14, our obstinacy in 
 retaining Egypt, notwithstanding all our promises, 
 must be counted as one of the foremost. It will be 
 reproached to me that I have sought to excuse Ger- 
 
\iii Preface 
 
 many by showing that there were others p imarih' 
 guilty and not only the Central Empires. I regret 
 this the more because I know how many of the 
 noblest there are amono^st us who are consoling their 
 sore hearts, wounded in the war, with the thought 
 that at least the quarrel was thrust on England by 
 no fault of hers, and who cannot but be disturbed by 
 m)- reminder of the broader truth which teaches that 
 our own Imperial ambitions were also a reason of 
 the quarrel. Yet the truth of histor\- needs to be 
 told, and not only in Blue Books, where the essen- 
 tial facts are travestied, but by individual testimony 
 such as mine, recording the words ot statesmen in 
 out of office hours, when they have spoken their 
 naked thought to me in very different language. I 
 cannot believe but that it is a service rendered to m) 
 fellow countrymen to do this at a moment when we 
 are endeavourins' to reconstruct our ruined world on 
 a basis sounder than before, to disabuse them of an 
 illusion, even a happy one, obscuring their clear 
 vision. 
 
 Nor must it be imagined that, because the period 
 treated here shows England the chief sinner amono 
 the white Empires in their dealings with the weak 
 nations of the African world, my sympathy is more 
 with the others. As masters of alien races both 
 France and Italy, to say nothing of Portugal and 
 Belgium, have shown themselves far worse and less 
 scrupulous oppressors than we have been, or in 
 Asia than Russia was under the Czars, while, as 
 for Germany, it was less the will than the oppor- 
 tunity of evil that limited its lawless ventures. I 
 have no love for the German race or its ideals, hav- 
 ing an ancient bone to pick with Prussia dating from 
 as long ago as the Franco- Prussian War of 1870, 
 when, young and enthusiastic, I made a vow of boy- 
 
Preface ix 
 
 cotting-.the whole Teutonic race (a vow which I have 
 kept), but this does not bhnd me to the fact that as 
 active a. i^ressors in deed as well as word, it was not 
 at Berlia that the first steps were taken in the direc- 
 tion of world-wide conquest. The will was there, 
 theatrically displayed at intervals in Kaiser Wil- 
 helm's not quite sane pronouncements, and to my 
 knowledge had been there before his day; but Ger- 
 many's plunder of the weak had been small in act 
 compared to ours, or even to that of France, during 
 the past half century, while in each and all of the 
 great Empires there had been the same ominous 
 growth of militarism and contempt for the old rules 
 of international right where the defenceless peoples 
 were concerned. The only difference between Berlin 
 morality and ours in Downing Street had been that 
 we had been careful to preserve our outward attitude 
 of forbearance and respect for moral right, while 
 Berlin had been shameless in its anti-human logic. 
 Also that as an Empire we were already sated like a 
 lion surrounded with the carcasses of its prey, while 
 Germany was alert and hungry. Well might we want 
 peace ! Almost as well might Germany prepare for 
 war! 
 
 These things, which need to be remembered, will 
 be found more plainly indicated in Part II of the 
 present issue, which will be published in the course 
 of the summer, and complete my contribution of 
 Mimoires pou7' servir a rhistoire de mon temps, and, 
 as I think, discharge my true patriotic duty as a nine- 
 teenth century Englishman. 
 
 W. S. B. 
 
 Xmas, 1918. 
 
 P.S. — It has been suggested to me, as an appro- 
 priate addition to the value of the present volume, 
 
X Pr'eface 
 
 that I should place in the Appendix a transcript of 
 a yet earlier diary kept by me during the first months 
 of the Franco- Prussian War of 1870. There is so 
 much in these that stands in close relation with the 
 war just over, that I have agreed, and so I print 
 them here. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. A Visit to Greece in iS88 i 
 
 II. Egypt under Tewfik, 1889 27 
 
 III. Brigandage in Egypt 49 
 
 IV. The Young Khedive Abbas, 1892 to 1893 76 
 V. The Veiled Protectorate 103 
 
 VI. Cromer's Heavy Hand 133 
 
 VII. A Visit to Tu.nis and Tripoli, 1894 172 
 
 VIII. A Visit to Tunis and Tripoli 188 
 
 IX. Poland and Armenia 215 
 
 X. The Advance on Dongola 237 
 
 XI. The Jameson Raid 260 
 
 XII. SlWAH 298 
 
 XIII. Omdurman and Fashoua 341 
 
 XIV. " Satan Absolved " — The Boer War * 372 
 XV. Last Year of the Nineteenth Century 415 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. Mv Paris Diary of 1870 469 
 
 II. Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt 499 
 
 III. Mr. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Blunt 504 
 
 ' Index 507 
 
PART I 
 THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA 
 
MY DIARIES 
 
 PART I 
 
 1888 TO 1900 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A VISIT TO GREECE IN 1 888 
 
 THE year 1888 saw the close of my activities in English 
 public life. How this came about was described in my 
 volume, " The Land War in Ireland," It told how, having 
 fought my battle for Nationalism there and lost it (for my 
 imprisonment had failed to win me the seat in Parliament 
 which alone would have justified me in English eyes for the 
 part I had played in the Celtic quarrel) I resolved to look 
 no more to action at home but to seek in other ways what 
 I still felt to be my mission in life, that of pleading the 
 cause of the backward nations of the world, and especially 
 those of Asia and Africa, from their slavery to Europe. I 
 knew myself to be regarded as a beaten man, and for the 
 moment my depression was extreme. 
 
 Socially, as well as politically, I needed rehabilitation. 
 My " unpatriotic " vagaries, for such they were looked upon, 
 had estranged me from most of my personal friends, my 
 blood relations and those I loved best ; nor could I content 
 myself with my new political acquaintances or, with the 
 strong instinct I had of the claims of kinship, shift my 
 heart at once to a new hold and break permanently with 
 the society in which I had been bred. All my relations 
 and nearly all my intimate friends were in the Tory camp, 
 and I had no natural footing in any other. With the ex- 
 ception of the Carlisles and the Harcourts, I was at home 
 in none of the great Whig houses, and in my own county of 
 
 B 
 
2 Longing for the East [t888 
 
 Sussex I stood absolutely alone in my opinions. Nothing 
 can be conceived more dispiriting than the attempts at 
 social entertainment made that Spring in London by the 
 few Liberal peers who had declared for Home Rule, un- 
 willing followers of Gladstone. I went with my wife to 
 one of these, at Spencer House, but we found ourselves 
 among strangers and did not go to another. At Crabbet 
 it mattered less, for I was Lord there of my own Manor, 
 cock on my own dunghill, yet I had been shocked by the 
 incongruity of being met at my door on my return from 
 Kilmainham by a deputation consisting of three Irish 
 M.P.'s and Langridge, our local cobbler and only Radical. 
 It revealed the full nakedness of the land for me at home, 
 on any lines but those of silence and abstention. And thus 
 the summer passed. I occupied myself once more with my 
 Arab horse breeding, I wrote verses and enjoyed my 
 physical life in the green Sussex woods as in former days, 
 but with the sadness a sense of failure brings. I left off 
 keeping my journal, so little there was of happy interest to 
 record, so much that was unhappy. An unfortunate family 
 quarrel about this time, in which I was constrained, un- 
 willingly, to take a part, added to my bitterness in regard 
 to the public situation, and a gap of four months occurs in 
 the entries. It was not till quite the end of the summer 
 that I was able to rouse myself into any more profitable 
 line of thought than that of vain regrets and hopes made 
 void. 
 
 By the middle of autumn, however, tired of inaction, a 
 longing seized me once more to visit Egypt and those 
 desert lands in which so many of my winters had been 
 spent. With the Arabs I had a second home, less estranged 
 from me than the other, and I should find myself, I knew, 
 in that "rut of centuries" which is so soothing to the 
 Japhetic soul troubled with Europe's ephemeral ills. Thus, 
 on the 9th of November my journal is resumed, and shows 
 me on my way eastwards with my wife and my daughter 
 Judith, now taken for the first time abroad with us, at 
 Paris, enjoying, for a few days, something of my old life 
 with my cousin, Francis Currie, whom I had not for some 
 years seen. 
 
 " \oth Nov. — Bitters and I breakfasted together this 
 morning and took one of our familiar walks in the after- 
 
1 888] A Visit to Paris 3 
 
 noon, visiting Richelieu's tomb at the Sorbonne and the 
 Pantheon and the Hotel de Cluny. The tomb is a fine 
 thing in the best style of French sculpture. We also stopped 
 and looked at the new monument to Gambetta [by Aube, 
 then an unknown name to me] which I like better than I 
 could have thought possible. It has good proportion and 
 a certain movement and originality which have merit. We 
 could not have produced anythinghalf so good in England. 
 They are pulling down the sheds on the site of the Tuileries, 
 leaving the Carousel open to the garden. This has a poor 
 effect, but it leaves a fine opportunity of rebuilding to 
 Boulanger, or whoever else succeeds to the French throne. 
 
 " \ith ATov. — Hearing that Lady C. was in Paris, I called 
 on her, and through her persuasion was introduced to 
 her friend Lacretelle, the painter, whose brother, a pro- 
 minent deputy, was intimate with Boulanger, and he invited 
 me to call upon the brave general. Lady C. had already 
 made Boulanger's acquaintance, and had spoken to me 
 about him when I had seen her in London. Her description 
 of him reminded me not a little of Napoleon HI, 'very 
 amiable, but rather dull, not at all like a soldier, and with 
 a hand the most disagreeable to touch of any she remem- 
 bered. She could not explain in what the repulsion con- 
 sisted.' Nevertheless, she seemed impressed with him. He is 
 floated financially, she tells me, by Mrs. Mackay the Ameri- 
 can, and if war comes, he may yet achieve his fortune." 
 
 This resulted in my being taken (iSth Nov.) by Lacre- 
 telle to see the General at his house near the Barriere de 
 I'Etoile. The moment of our visit was that of the very 
 height of his popularity, when it was believed in Paris that 
 he was about to repeat the adventure of Prince Louis 
 Napoleon in 185 1, when France, tired of her constitutional 
 regime and a Republic which had brought her no credit, 
 was ready for " a Saviour of Society," who should restore to 
 her something of her military glory. This might be effected 
 either by a restoration of the monarchy, or by Boulanger's 
 proclaiming himself Dictator. The thing seemed possible 
 enough, especially in Paris, where the idea of a guerre de 
 revanche against Germany had still many adherents. I, as 
 member of the acting Committee of the Peace and Arbitra- 
 tion Society, was interested to find out how far the General, 
 if he succeeded, was likely to prove a serious danger to the 
 
4 General Boiilangcr [iSSS 
 
 peace of the world, and it was with that view principally 
 that I hailed the opportunity of an interview. Lacretclle, 
 the deput)-, though personall\- friends with the General, was 
 a strict Republican of the Victor Hugo school, and opposed 
 to ideas of war for an)- purpose, and he had assured me 
 that the popular hero was in realit)- no swashbuckler, though 
 he gave himself the airs of one for popularity's sake with 
 his principal supporters, Royalists and Bonapartists, who 
 affected to quarrel with the Republic for having agreed to 
 a cession of the lost provinces when peace was made with 
 Germany in 1 871. England, however, was at that date 
 regarded in France as the chief enemy, and Alsace-Lorraine 
 was already beginning to be forgotten in favour of Egypt. 
 The following is the account my diary gives of the visit, 
 but I wrote a much fuller and better one to the " Times," 
 which was published in it a few days later: 
 
 "15^/1! Nov. — With Lacretelle at 10 o'clock to call on 
 General Boulanger. He lives in one of the streets beyond 
 the Barricre de I'Etoile, and we found the house crowded. 
 Not only were the two anterooms full, but the staircase also, 
 men of every rank of life, from the priest to the deca)-ed 
 soldier and the artisan, a few women, too. After waiting 
 nearly an hour, we were let in by special favour, most of 
 the suppliants (the mulatto button boy who did the honours 
 of the waiting room told us) having no chance whatever of 
 an audience. The General's reception room is on the second 
 floor, a singular room, as you go down half-a-dozen steps to 
 the level of the floor when the door to it is opened. It is a 
 ver}' large piece with a single table at the far end of it and 
 some Louis XIV chairs. The General, who was at the far 
 table in a snuff-coloured morning dress, not uniform, came 
 forward to receive us (Lacretelle has just been painting his 
 portrait for the Salon) and gave us each a hand, and when he 
 heard who I was, led me with some pomp and made me sit 
 on a gigantic Louis XIV chair beside him. Lacretelle began 
 to compliment him as " I'homme du destin," a bit of flattery 
 which the General took very much as a matter of course, 
 saying that there were moments when people were obliged 
 to act, and that the wave was rising now, and that whether 
 he liked it or not it would carry him on to whatever was 
 intended — just the same words of pleasant fatalism I re- 
 member in Arabi's mouth seven years ago at Cairo. 
 
i888] A Man of Peace 5 
 
 " The General is a man of about fifty, fair-haired, turning 
 gray, a fresh complexion, a good but not especially military 
 figure, a very pleasant voice, and a quite frank manner. He 
 gave one the impression ^.t once of simplicity and sincerity 
 and of a sort of manly self-reliance which is doubtless his 
 power. There was nothing of the general de cafe chantant 
 in what I saw of him. After a little desultory conversation 
 I asked him to allow me to put him a serious question. 
 ' It has been much debated,' I said, ' in our Peace Societies, 
 how the quarrel between France and German}^ could be 
 settled without war. Is it possible to arrange for the neu- 
 tralization of the ceded Provinces? ' To this he replied, 
 that such a solution might possibly be in the future, but 
 that he could not say now it was his own; the German 
 Government had made it impossible by their policy in 
 Alsace-Lorraine for any inhabitant of the Provinces to do 
 otherwise than call himself a Frenchman ; the only way one 
 had of knowing the opinion of districts was by the ballot, 
 and the Provinces had universally elected deputies who 
 demanded restoration to France; while this was the case 
 neutralization was hardly a practical question ; still he did 
 not say it might not become one. As for war, he, Boulanger, 
 knew war too well to take the responsibility of rushing into 
 it without absolute necessity. War is so largely a matter of 
 chance, chose aleatoire, that a man must be a traitor who 
 would risk the fortunes of his countrj- on it; therefore I 
 must not doubt him when he told me he was a man of 
 peace. Lacretelle then explained to him my connection 
 with Arabi and Egypt, and his manner became extremely 
 cordial, and he told me that he had English or rather 
 Welsh blood in his veins through his mother [her name, 
 Lacretelle told me, was Griffiths] and begged me when I 
 returned to Paris to come and see him again. I said I 
 would do so and that I might be able to influence public 
 opinion in England somewhat in his favour, at which he 
 was much pleased and we parted the best of friends. La- 
 cretelle tells me that he has never heard him talk so well 
 or so amiably to a stranger, especially an Englishman, as 
 he hates the English in common now with all Frenchmen. 
 My impression of the General is that he is honest, that he 
 is able, and that, the circumstances of France being what 
 they are, he will succeed." 
 
6 Lonise Michel [1888 
 
 I had called at the Embassy on arriving in Paris, hoping 
 to find Lytton, who had just been named Ambassador 
 there, but he was unfortunately away delivering his Rectorial 
 Address at Glasgow. " Bitters tells me that Lytton is doing 
 very well here, having made friends with the Press and 
 leaving all real business to Austin Lee." 
 
 Another interesting new acquaintance whom I made 
 during my few clays at Paris was Louise Michel, then so 
 popular with the extreme Socialists, almost as notoriously 
 so as Boulanger with the army. This, too, I owed to 
 Lacretelle and his wife and to a certain Madame Dorrian 
 {nee Princess Merstcherska), who took me with her to call 
 upon Louise, with whom she is great friends — a most inter- 
 esting visit. This is the account of it: 
 
 " lAfth Nov. — We drove to Neuilly where Louise lives in a 
 miserable house on the fifth floor. Her apartment consists 
 of two very small rooms only, without even an ante-room, 
 and when we opened the door I thought we must have 
 come to the wrong place. It resembled a concierge's box 
 both in appearance and smell, crammed full with four 
 people, three dogs, five cats, a cage of monkeys and a parrot, 
 all screaming at the tops of their voices, and though the 
 rest were silenced the parrot continued its shrieking the 
 whole time we were there. The family party consisted of 
 Louise and another woman, a young man and a fourth 
 person whose sex I forget. They were engaged as we 
 entered on a meal. A deal table, without cloth plates or 
 utensil of any kind but a bottle of wine and some glasses, 
 was covered with roast chestnuts which they were peeling 
 and eating. Louise rose to receive us, a gray-haired woman 
 of about fifty with a wild but honest and kindly face, 
 dressed in a ragged gown of rusty black, guiltless of linen. 
 Her forehead is retreating, her features large, her face 
 colourless, its expression that of a ' believer.' It might have 
 been a French country priest's. She spoke hurriedly, with 
 an excitement which was evidently habitual and was not 
 altogether coherent. She seemed not to hear the, fearful 
 screams of the parrot or the yelping of the dogs, or perhaps 
 these excited her, as noise excites the hearing of some deaf 
 people. The Princess kissed her, calling her by her 
 Christian name, and Louise seemed pleased to see her. 
 When Louise was in prison the Princess used to visit and 
 
1 888] Prospects of Socialism "j 
 
 read to her. She tells me Louise is the best of women, 
 giving away everything she possesses to the poor, and serv- 
 ing as midwife to the women of her quarter. She is certainly 
 not a prophet of the sort that goes clothed in purple and 
 fine linen. The Princess explained who I was and how I, 
 too, had been in prison in Ireland, and Louise began to talk 
 about the prospects of Socialism. She said a revolution was 
 certain and near in Germany, and next year would see one 
 too at Paris. She was under the impression that England 
 was mined with Socialism and when I told her how little 
 that was true was visibly distressed. She then read us one 
 of her poems and tore out of a book and gave me the 
 manuscript of one beginning 'Nul souffle humain ne se 
 trouve sur ces pages,' and invited us to go with her to a 
 meeting to take place that evening at Belleville, which we 
 promised to do, but later I made the Princess explain to 
 her that it, was impossible I should really go, as I have no 
 mind to be mixed up in a free fight, or to be arrested by 
 the Paris police. But it was difficult to make her under- 
 stand. She imagined that as I had been in prison I must 
 necessarily be read}- for everything. ' Why should he hesi- 
 tate,' she said. ' There will be no danger, we shall all have 
 revolvers.' I like the woman, as she is evidently honest and 
 of an unselfish kindly heart." 
 
 This is the programme she gave me of the meeting: 
 
 Grand Meeting Internationale 
 
 a I'occasion de I'anniversaire de I'execution des anarchistes de Chicago. 
 
 Ordre du Jour. 
 
 Primo Les Crimes de la Bourgeoisie &c. &c 
 
 Avec Le Concours d'Orateurs Socialistes Revolutionnaires. 
 
 Et de la Citoyenne 
 
 Louise Michel. 
 
 Here is also the full text of her verses : 
 
 BOUCHE CLOSE 
 
 Nul souffle humain n'est sur ces pages, 
 
 Rien que celui des Elements, 
 
 Le cyclone hurlant sur les plages, 
 
 Les legendes des oceans, 
 
 Les sapins verts sous les nuees 
 
 Tordant les branches remuees 
 
 Comme les harpes dans les vents. 
 
8 Atheyis Revisited [1888 
 
 Sous les coraux ou sous les sables 
 La nature parfois ouvrant 
 Dans les tourmentes forniidables 
 Un cercueil, ville ou continent, 
 Et I'etre ayant la bouche close, 
 Feuille de chene ou lien de rose 
 Tombant au %x€ de I'ouragan. 
 
 Louise Michel. 
 
 14 Novefnbre '88. 
 
 Souvenir k M. Wilfrid Blunt. 
 
 From Paris we travelled on by Marseilles to Greece, 
 where my wife had a family interest through her grand- 
 father Lord Byron's death there in 1827; how glorious in 
 those romantic days! how disappointing in its results to- 
 , day! We had interests, too, in a long promised visit to her 
 / relations the Noels in Eub^ea, and I was curious to see the 
 changes which should have come about in the thirty years 
 which had elapsed since I first knew Athens as a member of 
 the English Legation in the days of King Otho. 
 
 " 20th Nov.^We arrived by night at the Piraeus and 
 landed in the early morning, Frank Noel having come 
 from Achmetaga to meet us. It is thirty years almost to a 
 month since I first drove up the road to Athens, and I 
 find little change. The suburbs have extended somewhat, 
 and the olive groves have shrunk, and the hills are even 
 barer than before, but nothing marks the progress of the 
 age unless it be the overthrow of the fine old Venetian 
 walls of the Acropolis. I regret these as much as if they 
 had pulled down the Parthenon itself. I wandered in the 
 town for a couple of hours, looking for houses I used to 
 frequent, and for friends I used to know, but all of these 
 last were gone. Our diplomatic set at Athens in 1859 was 
 certainly a distinguished one. At the Russian Legation 
 we had Ozeroff for Minister with Staal for First Secretary, 
 now Ambassador in London, and Nelidoff for attach^, 
 now Ambassador at Constantinople. Haymerld, afterwards 
 Prime Minister at Vienna, was Austrian Secretary. At 
 our own Legation we had that good Irishman, Sir Thomas 
 Wyse, with William Eliot, afterwards Lord St. Germans, for 
 First Secretary. Drummond, Digby, and myself attaches. 
 I was the youngest of all the Corps diplomatique, only 
 eighteen years old, and a favourite on account of my 
 
1 888] Achmetaga g 
 
 youth. The Dufferins were spending the winter there of 
 '59-60, he Httle over thirty, his mother, with whom he had 
 been travelling in Egypt, the most delightful of women. 
 We used all to ride out, a merry party, twice a week, 
 following a paper chase, of which I was generally the 
 leader on an old white horse, which, in memory of 
 Shelley's lines, I called Apocalypse."^ 
 
 We used to gallop through the olive groves, armed with 
 revolvers, as robbers were still common in the mountains 
 round, just as described by Edmond About in his " Roi 
 des Montagnes " and " La Grece Contemporaine," while one 
 met retired bandit chiefs in the best Athens society. King 
 Otho wore the Albanian /usianelle, and that and the cos- 
 tume of the Islands, with its immense balloon-like calico 
 nether garments and red cap, were the common dress of 
 the young Greek bloods. The king's footmen are the only 
 wearers of the fustanelle to-day. 
 
 On the 22nd we paid our visit to Achmetaga, for me a 
 romantic spot, for I had spent some weeks in Eubaea in 
 i860 in merry company in Frank Noel's father's time. 
 Edward Noel had come to Greece soon after the War of 
 Independence in the year 1830, and had purchased a good • 
 many thousand acres in the island, mostly mountain and 
 forest land, of a Turkish Aga, who was leaving the country 
 on Eubaea being made over to Greece. He had paid only 
 ;£^2,ooo for the whole, and it must be now vi'orth, with its 
 magnesia mines, ten times that price. The value of land 
 (Frank Noel tells me) is still rising, and agricultural 
 Greece is prospering. The peasants are everywhere pur- 
 chasing their holdings. They have few debts and are 
 saving money. This is due in part to the general advance 
 of the country, in part to the abolition of the land tithe for 
 which a tax on yoke oxen has been substituted. The 
 peasantry round here are an excellent race, sober, hard- 
 working, cheerful, with many pristine virtues. Such is 
 Frank Noel's testimony. Eubaea, unlike the rest of Greece, 
 is well wooded with pines on the hillsides, and plane trees 
 by the river banks. " I measured the largest of these last 
 
 ^ Next came Anarchy, he rode 
 On a white horse splashed with blood ; 
 He was pale even to the lips, 
 Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
 
lo Tricotipi [iS88 
 
 while I was there and found it 53 feet in girth, with a 
 circumference round the extreme circuit of its boughs of 
 170 yards, the finest single tree I ever saw, as it is perfect 
 without break or blemish more than a few bare twigs on 
 the extreme summit." Returning by road to Athens on 
 2nd December we slept a night at Chalcis and another 
 at Thebes. The journey was made in lovely weather and 
 along a carriageable road. At Chalcis they were talking 
 of widening the channel between the island and the main 
 land, and of making of it a large naval station for warlike 
 purposes. To do it they will destroy the old Venetian 
 tower which is now a chief ornament. We heard the 
 details of this plan from Admiral Mansell, a fossilized 
 English naval officer who has inhabited Chalcis for the 
 last twenty-five years. Both there and at Thebes we were 
 entertained by Greek friends of the Noels. 
 
 During the following days at Athens we enjoyed some- 
 thing of the society of Edmund Monson, our Minister 
 there, at the Legation, afterwards Ambassador 9,t Paris, 
 and of Rennell Rodd, afterwards Ambassador at Rome, 
 the latter a budding diplomatist with a small talent for 
 verse, but no great originality, as to whom I shall have 
 more to say in the course of this volume. All that I need 
 quote from my journal is that on the 3rd December I had 
 an hour's interesting talk with ,the then Prime Minister, 
 Tricoupi, on Greek politics, and the ambitions developed 
 later in the direction of territorial expansion at the ex- 
 pense of Turkey. 
 
 " 3rrf Dec. — Tricoupi is a hard-headed man without any 
 special graces of manner, but he talks straightforwardly 
 and to the point. We discussed finance, agriculture, road 
 making, free trade, peasant proprietorship, debts public 
 and private, the shipping trade, the Corinth Canal, and, 
 lastly, foreign politics and Greece's prospects in the 
 Ottoman inheritance. On this last point he said that 
 it was impossible for any Greek politician not to look to 
 an extension of territory, and that if Greece did not go 
 forwards she would go back and lose her independence at 
 the hands of either Austria or Russia. They were quite 
 content to let things alone as long as the Ottoman Empire 
 survived, but they must prepare for the future. The Turks 
 were no longer an enemy, but the others were. I asked 
 
5] 
 
 Madame Tilrr 1 1 
 
 him where he would draw the line of Greek claims north- 
 wards, and he said they could no longer claim the line of 
 the Balkans, but in Macedonia would ask for a boundary' 
 as far north as Seres, beyond Salonika, and in Thrace as 
 far as 'Adrianople. The exact limit, however, could hardly, 
 he thought, be settled without a war with the Bulgarians. 
 Then the conqueror would fix his own limit. 
 
 " I asked him about Albania. He said that Southern Al- 
 bania, which was Christian, would revert to Greece, but 
 Mohammedan Albania, on the extinction of the Sultan's 
 power, would find itself isolated and might accept a personal 
 union with Greece under the crown, after the model of 
 Hungary with Austria. I told him I doubted the possibility 
 of this. Otherwise I agreed with him in his view that it was 
 necessary Greece should put forward her claims or prepare 
 to put them forward. Also I am of opinion that if England 
 is to have a policy of the future it should be to help Greece 
 rather than Bulgaria. Greece would be always under the 
 influence of pressure from a naval power in the Mediter- 
 ranean, whereas Bulgaria must remain under pressure of 
 the Continental powers. 
 
 " With regard to Greek progress there is no doubt things 
 are improving, though slowly. The revenue has tripled since 
 1858, when the financial Commission sat, and this without 
 oppressing the peasantry. On the contrary, Tricoupi has 
 lately abolished the land tax, a really great measure, and 
 the peasants, in spite of recent bad harvests, have money to 
 buy their holdings whenever they are not already the 
 owners. He has had the sense to put heavy duties on 
 manufactured imports ; and he gives no facilities to the 
 peasantry for borrowing. The country is certainly improv- 
 ing. Only the rascality of the officials remains unchanged. 
 Tricoupi was silent on this head, though he hinted that all 
 was not quite satisfactory. Noel tells me the Constitution 
 is worked by a vast system of jobbery. If so, it differs little 
 from other Constitutions, notably those of France and 
 Italy. On the whole, I find Tricoupi a superior man. All 
 give him a perfectly clean character. 
 
 " A^th Dec. — To Corinth alone, to see the Canal. Good luck 
 took me in the train with Mme. Turr whom I had known 
 an extraordinarily pretty woman twenty-two years ago, 
 when I was staying on Lago Maggiore with the Usedoms 
 
12 Mycenae ^iS8S 
 
 at the Prussian Legation in Italy. Tiirr was at that time 
 negotiating co-operation between Bismarck and the Hun- 
 garians, or had been doing so, but Bismarck, ]\Ime. Turr 
 tells me, threw them over. Now Tiirr is President of the 
 Corinth Canal Compam-, and his wife, a fat good-natured 
 woman, lives at Kallimaki on the Isthmus. She was 
 daughter of INIme. Bonaparte W}-se, wife of my old chief at 
 Athens whom she calls her father, but old Sir Thomas 
 always repudiated the parentage of her and her brother, 
 who were born after his separation from his Bonaparte wife. 
 \A'ith her, in widow's weeds and looking the picture of woe, 
 
 was a little Greek lady, ]\Ime. P , and we three are 
 
 now in the Hotel at Isthmia, the General being away at 
 Paris, and are having a very amusing time, ]\Iadame P. 
 having recovered her spirits, and giving us her ideas about 
 Socialism, Eastern politics, and Zola's novels. She was a 
 Greek, born at Alexandria, but has lived most of her life at 
 Paris. I was sent with an employe to see the Canal works. 
 They are monumental. 
 
 " '^th Dec. — On to Xauplia, having spent twent_\'-four 
 hours very agreeably with these two women. IMadame P. 
 has given me a deal of political information. She sa}-s 
 ever\- serious person in Greece has been obliged to abandon 
 the grande idee (that of inheriting Constantinople from the 
 Turks). She herself does not think Salonika can be saved 
 from Austria, which is making a successful propaganda 
 there with the Jews and other non-Hellenic inhabitants. 
 The Bulgarians must eventually join Russia, and the Serv- 
 ians too, seeing that they are Slavs. The Roumanians will 
 not do so willingly, but the two great Empires will divide 
 the spoils. The Albanians will be merged either in Greece 
 or elsewhere and lose their nationalit}-. 
 
 " 6tk Dec. — At Nauplia I find nothing changed since I 
 was last here, not twenty new houses built. The plain, how- 
 ever, which is the richest in Greece, has become wonderfully 
 well cultivated. I drove this morning early to ^Mycenae to 
 see how much of the ruins Schleimann had left. He has 
 made a sad hash of the town with his excavations, but the 
 Gate of Lions and the Treasury still stand (with Agamem- 
 non's coat of arms over the entrance). What was most in- 
 teresting, however, in the place is gone, the ancient ruins 
 virgin of all meddling for three thousand \ears. Back to 
 
1 888] Monogamy in Turkey 13, 
 
 Athens by train in the evening. The last time I was here 
 we were travelling on horseback, there being no roads in 
 the Morea except the mountain mule tracks." 
 
 This is all that is worth recording of our visit to Greece. 
 On 8th December we went on by sea to Alexandria, travel- 
 ling in company with Prince Osman Pasha on his way back 
 from Constantinople, where he had been with his uncle the 
 ex-Khedive Ismail, now practically a prisoner in his own 
 palace on the Bosporus. " He gave me a deal of informa- 
 tion about Constantinople affairs. There is much sympathy 
 there for the Mahdists, the Sultan having refused to take 
 part against them at Suakim. It is not believed now that 
 the English occupation of Egypt will be permanent. Osman 
 Pasha is a most intelligent good fellow, better worthy of his 
 Khedivial rank than the rest of his race. He narrated to 
 me amongst other things his experience in educating his 
 daughters, which has only resulted in making them un- 
 happy. It was impossible, he said, to find them educated 
 husbands; nearly everybody now at Constantinople has 
 abandoned the practice of polygamy, only half-a-dozen 
 among the men of rank he knew having more than one wife. 
 He named the Grand Vizier, Kiamil Pasha, as one of the 
 few who continued it ; the Sultan is of course an exception, 
 but he does what no other Sultan has done for generations ;. 
 when his women are with child he marries them. Among 
 the common people of the Turks all are monogamists. This 
 may be in part from poverty." 
 
 During my stay that winter in Egypt I was obliged to be 
 very careful how I meddled with politics, even in conversa- 
 tion, for, though Lord Salisbury had given me leave to 
 return there notwithstanding Sir Evelyn Baring's unwilling- 
 ness, I was under a certain obligation to avoid any kind of 
 publicity in my sympathy with the National cause. I did 
 not therefore remain more than a few days at Cairo on 
 arrival, but went on to my country place at Sheykh Obeyd, 
 ten miles outside the town, where I got the little garden 
 house ready for my wife and daughter to inhabit, a beautiful 
 retired place on the desert edge far from European intrusion, 
 standing on the old pilgrim camel-track where it branches off 
 to Syria, and little frequented except by the Arab horse 
 merchants, who bring their horses for sale each spring to 
 Cairo. There we lived in seclusion and very happily for the 
 
14 Egyptian Politics [t888 
 
 three winter months, building and enlarging the house and 
 recovering the garden from the neglected state into which 
 it had fallen through the roguer}' of those left in charge. 
 These, getting news of my imprisonment in Ireland, had 
 imagined that my career in life was over and that they 
 might treat the garden as their own, economising the cost 
 of its watering and using it as a run for their cattle. It was 
 a labour of love for me restoring its prosperity and arrang- 
 ing for its future better management. It was only little by 
 little that my peasant neighbours came to pay me their 
 polite visits of congratulation, and then I found that there 
 was much hidden sympathy with me among them, repressed 
 onl}' through fear of the government, to which they knew I 
 had been opposed. My journal, however, of that winter 
 contains little in it that is politically worth transcribing. It 
 is a record of conversations with my peasant neighbours 
 and, as they began to hear of my arrival, with the obscurer 
 members of the old National Party, which still looked to 
 the possibility of their old chief Arabi's recall to Egypt, and 
 who came furtively to see me under the guidance of Arabi's 
 old body servant, Mohammed Ahmed, the same who had 
 faithfully preserved and delivered to those who were defend- 
 ing him at his trial his master's political papers and so saved 
 his life. (See " Secret History of English Occupation of 
 Eg\'pt.") He had been the first to come to me now, and 
 finding him out of employment I had put my garden under 
 his charge, a fortunate inspiration, for he was a man of 
 integrity and energy and speedily acquired great influence 
 in the neighbourhood and so restored to working order the 
 lands entrusted to him. To these Arabist visitors from 
 Cairo were gradually added other sources of native informa- 
 tion, the most important of whom were my old friends 
 Aarif Bey and Mohammed Moelhi, nephew of my other 
 friend Ibrahim Moelhi, both of whom were now much in 
 the confidence of the Ottoman High Commissioner at Cairo, 
 Mukhtar Pasha Gazi. We saw, too, something of Osman 
 Pasha and his sister. Princess Nazli, both of them persons 
 of the highest intelligence and knowledge of affairs, while 
 from the Greeks we obtained much secondhand information 
 of their view of things through Frank Noel, who had come 
 on to Egypt with us. Nor were we wholly cut off from the 
 English official world. We did not think it necessary to call 
 
i888] Salisbury s Policy 15 
 
 on Baring, but I found my connection, Colonel Charles 
 Wyndham, in command of a regiment of the army of occu- 
 pation, and Anne, her cousin Hugh Locke King. From all 
 these sources, though I hardly stirred from the solitude of 
 my country retreat during the winter, I was able to gather 
 a sufficient knowledge of the situation to be able to piece it 
 together now for the purposes of the present narrative. 
 The political situation in Egypt at the time, as I came to 
 understand it, during the four months that I was at Sheykh 
 Obeyd in the winter of '88-89 was briefly as follows : 
 
 The failure of the Drummond Wolff Convention at the 
 last moment, after it had been already agreed to by its 
 negociators, through the refusal of the Sultan under French 
 and Russian pressure to ratify their signatures, had left 
 affairs in Egypt diplomatically " in the air." Not only had 
 further negociations for evacuating the English garrison 
 been brought to a standstill, but every section of native 
 opinion had been checked and disorganized. Instead of a 
 new beginning having been frankly attempted on lines 
 preparatory to Egypt's restoration to self-government, all 
 had been left in precisely the same confusion from which 
 the Convention had sought to rescue it. The Khedive 
 Tewfik was still occupant of the Vice-regal throne, but 
 commanding no respect in the country, and dependent for 
 his maintenance on English support which might at any 
 moment be withdrawn, leaving him to deal as he could 
 with the Soudanese menace threatening his frontier at 
 Wadi Haifa. Weak and discredited he was, without personal 
 authority, and he enjoyed less consideration than Mukhtar 
 the Sultan's Commissioner. Baring, in whom all real power 
 was vested at Cairo, was for the moment without settled 
 policy beyond that of waiting events, a kind of marking 
 time with no definite instruction as to the future of 
 England's connection with the Nile Valley, except that 
 Lord Salisbury, feeling that he had done what honour re- 
 quired in fulfilment of English promises of evacuation, was 
 resolved now to leave things where they were, including 
 the garrison of occupation. 
 
 As to the National Party, whether represented by the 
 former Arabists or by any other group, their condition was 
 one of patriotic torpor; as a party they had ceased to exist, 
 being without leaders and without organization. They were 
 
1 6 Events in Arabia [iSSS 
 
 disappointed in the hopes raised at the commencement of 
 the Wolff mission that Tewfik would be replaced as Khedive 
 hy Prince Halim, or some other member of the Khedivial 
 family unconnected with the misfortunes of 1882, who 
 should restore their lost constitution of that year, and make 
 good Lord Dufferin's promises. In default of these and of 
 Arabi's recall, impossible under Tewfik, what poor hopes 
 they had turned mostl}- towards the Sultan. But un- 
 doubtedly the popular man among the Egyptian fellahin 
 that winter was the JMahdi, or rather his successor the 
 Khalifa Abdallah and his fighting lieutenant, Osman Digna, 
 who carried on a perpetual guerilla warfare in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Suakim. The popular imagination amongst 
 the fellahin credited these with heroic qualities, and it was 
 confidently believed that the Dervish forces would before 
 long overrun Upper Egypt, and that they were already 
 driving the Belgian Congo Company out of their territory 
 in Central Africa, that they would rid Senegal of the 
 French, and, as the issue of a hoh- war against all infidel 
 intruders, that they would even reconquer the northern 
 shores of the ^Mediterranean. News came while I was 
 there that Emin Pasha, to rescue whom Stanley had been 
 sent by King Leopold on his filibustering expedition to 
 the Xile sources, had made his submission to the Mahdists 
 and that Stanley himself had been slain. From the Eastern 
 desert, too, news reached me through the Bedouins of an 
 interesting kind. It was to the effect that my former friend 
 Mohammed Ibn Rashid, taking advantage of a quarrel 
 between the two sons of Saoud Ibn Saoud \\ith their 
 uncle Abdallah, had marched with an army to Riad and 
 made himself master of the whole of Xejd, an event of 
 high importance in Peninsula Arabia. I listened to these 
 stories and found my interest in the East once more 
 supreme over the petty hopes and fears of Western poli- 
 tics, and recovered in this way and in the routine of my 
 daily life in my garden, the peace of mind I had left 
 behind me on leaving England. I find the following de- 
 scription in m)- diary of my life at Sheykh Obeyd. 
 
 "Zrdjan. 1889.— I left Cairo on the 27th, escaping like 
 a bird out of the hand of the fowler and am established 
 here at Sheykh Obeyd. It has been a blessed change, and 
 though I have been here all these days alone, I have not 
 
1889J Home Life at Sheykh Obeyd 17 
 
 for a moment felt otherwise than happy. I have been get- 
 ting the place ready for habitation by the others, and it is 
 quite comfortable already in an Oriental way. The house 
 is merely the old gardener's house with two rooms added, 
 four in all, and an open salanilik, which I use as sitting 
 room. 1 have had the floors covered with two inches of 
 clean white sand after the Nejd fashion, and I spread my 
 carpet over it and sit there. P'or more furniture I have had 
 in a man from the village to make bedsteads, divans, and 
 seats {gufass) which he does out of our own palm branches 
 newly cut at the rate of four shillings, two shillings, and 
 seven pence halfpenny a piece. The village carpenter has 
 put up a few screens for more privacy, and the whole 
 furnishing for the family will cost about two pounds. My 
 room is like a lantern with windows facing East, North, 
 and West, and from my bed I can see the first glimmer of 
 the false dawn, which makes the owls hoot and the jackals 
 cry. Then, with the real dawn, crows begin to pass over- 
 head, and 1 get up and go outside the garden wall where 
 I sit at the desert's edge and wait for the sunrise. At this 
 hour one sees all the wild life of the place, foxes, ichneumons 
 {nims), jackals, and birds in great variety, kites, kestrels, 
 doves, and occasionally a woodcock at flight from the 
 marshes to the garden where he would spend the day. 
 There are night ravens, too, which have their home in the 
 lebbek trees next the house, and now in winter time a 
 flock of rooks with their attendant jackdaws. This is a rarity 
 in Egypt as rooks are never seen south of Cairo. There are 
 two foxes which live inside the garden, and I see them 
 most days; they sleep generally in the day time behind 
 some cactuses or at the foot of a palm tree, and they often 
 jump up as I walk round, and trot away. They come 
 sometimes within a few yards of my feet, being accustomed 
 to the work-people, and not afraid of me because I wear an 
 Arab dress. I have given orders here that there shall be 
 absolute avian even for wolves, and the hyenas which 
 sometimes make their way over the garden wall. I super- 
 intend the labour now, mark out the work, and pay the 
 wages, pruning the trees with a pair of garden nippers. 
 This is a delightful occupation. 
 
 "20th Jan. — I don't know how sufficiently to describe 
 the delight of the life here. Anne and Judith and Cowie 
 
 C 
 
1 8 Building Advent Jires [1889 
 
 (their maid), have joined me here, and we are idl>' busy 
 all day long. The whole of the garden (30 acres) has 
 now been weeded and dug twice. The irrigation engine 
 has been repaired, and watering \\\\\ begin regularly next 
 week. Day has gone by like day, each full of interest. 
 This morning we began pulling down an outhouse to clear 
 the land for a new building; thirty men and boys have been 
 working at the job in high good humour, and certainly 
 they are neither lazy nor unintelligent. In the midst of 
 the demolition a large cobra jumped out and put up his 
 hood in the middle of them, but they knocked him over 
 with their picks before he could do any harm. He measured 
 exactly six feet in length, and by general advice he was cut 
 up at once into four portions and thrust down the throat of 
 a sick camel they had with them, for a cure.' Four other 
 smaller snakes were also killed, but these were of a harm- 
 less kind. They tell me a horned viper was also seen in 
 the garden, a fortnight before I came, but this is unusual 
 except in the extreme heat of summer. Lizards, of course, 
 are plentiful. I have seen one with rudimentary legs only, 
 making its way along the ground as snakes do, its feet 
 hardly helping it. 
 
 " 22nd Jan. — We have begun a new wing to the house, 
 building with the ordinary sun-dried bricks, contracted for 
 at the rate of 8 piastres to the cubic metre. There will be 
 three rooms upstairs and three downstairs, and the whole 
 will cost about iJ'80. Also I bought a new engine for irriga- 
 tion, and I am restocking the garden with young orange 
 plants, and in two or three years, if things go well, it will be 
 a better property than when I bought it seven years ago. 
 I could be quite content to spend the rest of my days in 
 this pleasant work. 
 
 ''2gthjaii. — To-day two three-year-old colts and a filly 
 arrived at the garden, which I have bought of Ali Pasha 
 Sherif, all three of the Viceroy Abbas I's stock, one colt 
 and a filly, a Jellabi,the other a Seglawi Ibn Soudan. This 
 last ought to be valuable some day for our stud in England. 
 [This was ' Mesaoud,' so celebrated afterwards as our most 
 successful sire.] AH Pasha's horses are the only ones of 
 pure Arabian breed in Egypt, and there are certain points 
 
 ' N.B. — The camel recovered. 
 
1889] 
 
 Mosaic Rites 19 
 
 about them superior to all others, perhaps. He has an old 
 one-eyed Seglavvi named Ibn Nadir, which I consider the 
 finest horse, taking him all round, I ever saw, white, with 
 immense strength and breeding combined, long and low, 
 with splendid legs and hocks, a fine head and neck, tail 
 always carried. Our colts arrived as the noonday gun was 
 being fired from the citadel at Cairo. They had been 
 brought round by the desert entrance through Zeyd's pre- 
 caution to avoid the evil eye. He also sacrificed a Iamb on 
 the threshold of the garden and sprinkled their foreheads 
 with blood. I like these old Mosaic rites and superstitions. 
 Similarly on Friday the first stone of our new house was 
 laid, and another lamb was slaughtered on the corner- 
 stone, and the blood made to flow over it with a Bismillah 
 errahnian errahiin. It is possible that the blood of bulls 
 and of goats do not wash away sin, but it must be pleasing 
 still, at any rate more so than the godless rites of our own 
 stone-laying with a champagne bottle. The work-people 
 were then feasted, and a heavy shower of rain came down 
 to bless the building. Zeyd is in, the seventh heaven at all 
 these high doings, and is encamped with the horses under 
 the great fig tree. The work-people have a merry time 
 here, men and women working together, and there are one 
 or two pretty girls among them who have a deal of attention 
 paid them. They wear no veils while at work, but are quiet 
 and well behaved." Zeyd, here spoken of, was a Bedouin 
 from Nejd, who had attached himself to our service, a man 
 of imagination, a poet and, like all the Nejd Bedouins, an 
 enthusiast about horses. He was a constant pleasure to us 
 for this reason though repeatedly in trouble through his 
 little respect for persons and the inconsequence of his 
 tongue. He was also of value to us as a centre of Arabian 
 gossip, including political news, sometimes of importance. 
 
 "Zeyd tells me that when he was at Damascus in 1887 
 he learned that the French Government had written a 
 letter to Ibn Rashid and had sent it to Hail through 
 Mohammed Ibn Abdul Kader, the Emir's eldest son. It 
 contained an offer of alliance, and to make Ibn Rashid 
 independent of the Sultan under French protection. Ibn 
 Rashid, however, had forwarded the letter to Constantin- 
 ople, and Ibn Abdul Kader had been hauled over the coals 
 by the Sultan, but had excused himself, saying that as a 
 
20 Zcbchr Pasha [1889 
 
 French subject he could not disobey the order of his 
 government. 
 
 " \oth Marcli. — There is certainly just now a movement 
 going on in Egypt in favour of Arabi's recall, and 1 have 
 received notices of it from various quarters with a list of 
 those who would act with Arabi in forming a Nationalist 
 Ministry. Also Ahmed Minshawi Pasha has sent one of 
 the principal She}-khs of Tantah to consult me on the 
 matter, Sheykh Abdul Mejid, and a message has come 
 from a number of ex-officers from Arabi's army who wish 
 to see me, but I have declined this, as it could do no 
 possible good and might make trouble; the Egyptians have 
 not the spirit in them to revolt and if they did it would not 
 profit them. I am glad all the same to find that Arabi is 
 not forgotten." 
 
 One visit only I record that winter of any great interest 
 now. This was one I paid with Lady Anne to Zebehr 
 Pasha, Gordon's old enemy in the Soudan, now held a 
 prisoner in Egypt. During the troubles at Cairo which 
 had followed Gordon's death he had been arrested by 
 Baring by an arbitrary act of authority and sent on board 
 a man-of-war to Gibraltar, and there detained at the 
 Queen's pleasure for two years on no legal charge, -for 
 none was brought against him, and there he might have 
 remained for the rest of his daj-s had it not been for the 
 mterest excited in his case by Lord Ribblesdale who had 
 made friends with him at Gibraltar and brought his case 
 before the House of Lords. In 1889 he was newl}' returned 
 to Egypt, and was now once more a State prisoner of the 
 Khedive, occupying one of the minor palaces on the banks 
 of the Nile. It is thus that I describe our breakfast with 
 him. 
 
 " Zebehr Pasha is a really charming man who enter- 
 tained us with the greatest honour at breakfast. He is 
 lodged in the Ghizeh palace where he is a State prisoner, 
 though allowed to go about to a certain extent in Cairo, 
 under the charge of a certain Cashmiri Abderrahman 
 1-^ffendi. Zebehr is a tall, slight man, with long effile 
 hands, and a face of the profoundest melancholy. His 
 complexion is brown, and his features show a cross be- 
 tween the Arab and the Berberi, the Arab predominating, 
 and a smile of great beauty. He was dressed in Egyptian 
 
iSSg] " I am only a Wild Man " 2 i 
 
 uniform loosely made, shivered much, though it was a 
 bright sunny day, and complained of the cold. He has a 
 bad cough, and I should think would not live long. State 
 prisoners have a way of dying in Egypt. We talked on 
 most political subjects, but he avoided giving an opinion 
 on the actual position in the Soudan; perhaps he was 
 afraid of the Cashmiri. ' It is the Government's affair not 
 ours,' he said. Of Gordon he spoke with hearty respect, 
 and of Sir John Adye, and of several other English officers 
 he had known, but he had no good word for Baring, who 
 was a financier, he had heard, not a politician. He told us 
 Emin's history and Osman Digna's. He spoke highly of 
 Arabi, said that he had been present at a conversation 
 between him and Dervish Pasha in which Dervish had 
 offered Arabi ;^250 a month if he would go to Constantin- 
 ople, but Arabi had replied that even if he were willing, 
 there were 10,000 men would stand between him and the 
 sea. He said that he had been very much misrepresented 
 about this conversation in the English papers, and had 
 never spoken a word but what was honourable to Arabi. 
 He could not advise Arabi to come back to Egypt except 
 as Minister; this, however, Tewfik would never have. All 
 our conversation was in Arabic, which he speaks purely, 
 being easy to understand. When I told him the English 
 Occupation would not last for ever he smiled incredulously. 
 " He took us round the garden, an uninteresting French 
 garden laid out in pebbled walks and rockeries, and imita- 
 tion lawns. It and the palace cost Ismail, they say, several 
 millions, and the building is in ruins already. Then we 
 had breakfast and Zebehr was delighted because I ate 
 with my hands; he would have nothing to do himself with 
 knives and forks. ' I am only a wild man,' he said, ' and 
 use the instruments God gave me.' And he turned angrily 
 upon the Cashmiri, who was pretending that he could not 
 manage without European ways. Before going I asked him 
 if 1 could do anything for him, and he said : ' No, we two 
 are in the same position, the Government does not regard 
 us favourably. We cannot help each other,' and he laid his 
 hand affectionately on my arm. He complained, however, 
 how badly he had been treated in money matters, and I 
 said that the day might come when I could do something 
 for him. Our visit was, I fanc)', the greatest pleasure, poor 
 
2 2 Dalviatian Politics [iSSg 
 
 man, he has had for many months. He came down to put 
 us into our carriage and insisted upon paying the dri\er 
 his hire." 
 
 U'e left Sheykh Obeyd on the 8th of :\Iarch and Alex- 
 andria on the loth. 
 
 Here ends our winter's stay in Egypt of that year. 
 
 " i^th j\larch. — \^'e are in the Gulf of Fiume, and our 
 journey is nearly over, on our way to Fiume to spend a 
 fortnight with the Ho}-os family before returning home. 
 The captain of our ship, the Ceres, is a Dalmatian, and by 
 his own account was much mixed up in past times with 
 revolutionary affairs. He tells me his two brothers emigrated 
 to America after 1848, and his son has recently been in 
 prison for political reasons. He talks of a social war as 
 imminent in Europe, especially in Germany, France, and 
 Italy, and looks upon Bismarck as the deviser of all evil, 
 and on a revolt against him and military ideas as certain. 
 He believes, too, in the overthrow of the British Empire in 
 India by the Russians, who will be joined by the Indians. 
 He has recently seen Arabi in Ceylon, \^'e touched at 
 Corfu and Lissa, and the Ionian Islands, terribly bare and 
 scored with burnings, \^'e saw them well, coasting close 
 under Zante, Ithaca, and Cephalonia. Corfu is a pretty 
 town, little changed since the British evacuation, though 
 the people on board say the place is in decline. Lissa we 
 saw bj' moonlight. Admiral Tegethoff, who won the battle 
 tliere for Austria, did so against orders and against rules. 
 The Italian fleet was four times his strength, but his action 
 was fortunate and probably saved the Dalmatian coast to 
 Austria. There are three parties it seems in Dalmatia: a 
 Philo-Russian, the most numerous; a Philo- Austrian, the 
 most wealthy and educated; and a Philo-Italian, confined 
 to a few sea-coast towns. The officers on board are all 
 Catholic and Philo-Austrian but radicals, and talk some- 
 thing very like socialism without disguise. They are bitterly 
 opposed to Russia. They are all Dalmatians. They resent 
 the union of Fiume to Hungary, but admit that there is no 
 National party in Dalmatia. The captain, Gelachich, is a 
 capital fellow, a native of Lessina." 
 
 At Lissa we received news of the discomfiture of the 
 " Times " in the Parnell case, by far the most important 
 incident at home since the overthrow of Gladstone in 18S6. 
 
1SS9] Croiun Prince Rudolph s Death 23 
 
 " i^ith March, Villa Hoyos, Fiume. — We have been a 
 week here staying with Count and Countess George Hoyos 
 and their children, governesses, and tutors, a large cheer- 
 ful party of the kind I like. The villa is hke Paddock- 
 hurst (their place in Sussex) in miniature. The Hoyos' are 
 of ancient Spanish extraction, brought to Austria by Charles 
 Quint, and she is the daughter of Whitehead, the inventor 
 of the torpedo, who, beginning life as an engineer on board 
 an Austrian Llo}'d steamer, has made a large fortune. He 
 is an admirable sample of the self-made man, quiet, un- 
 obtrusi\e, absorbed in his work, liberal to his men, open- 
 handed in all his ways. The Countess is a pretty woman, 
 mother of pretty daughters, he a well-bred man of much 
 sense and information, a first cousin of Hoyos the Am- 
 bassador at Paris and of that younger Hoyos who was con- 
 nected the other day with the Austrian Crown Prince 
 Rudolph's death. This is what they tell me, or rather what 
 she has told me about that tragedy. 
 
 " The Crown Prince Rudolph was a very charming man 
 and had had innumerable successes with women, but had 
 never been in love till at a party last year he met a girl of 
 seventeen, Mademoiselle de Wetschera, daughter of a certain 
 Baroness of that name, of no very honest reputation. The 
 girl, however, was charming, and when the Prince made 
 love to her fell desperately too in love. Their liaison had 
 lasted four months, and though the Prince talked some- 
 what strangely, nobody suspected there was anything so 
 serious in the case. Hoyos was a friend of the Prince, not 
 in his service but very intimate and in the habit of going 
 with him on his shooting excursions. He went down at 
 the Prince's invitation to Meyerling, to shoot with him the 
 following day, and they passed the evening till nine o'clock 
 very gaily, when the Prince went to bed. Hoyos knew 
 nothing of Mademoiselle de Wetschera's being at the shoot- 
 ing lodge. In the morning, however, he was called by the 
 Prince's servant, who complained that his master's door was 
 locked, and they went together, and after knocking in vain, 
 broke it open, when they found the two bodies together in 
 the Prince's bed. The girl was then recognized by Hoyos, 
 and seeing her to be 'a member of society,' his first idea 
 was to conceal her presence there. He accordingly carried 
 her with the ser\'ant's help into a distant room, where they 
 
24 King Milan's Abdication [1889 
 
 left her, undressed as she was, locked up, till her relations 
 should come. This was not till the evening, when her uncle 
 arrived, dressed the girl with his own hands, and placed 
 her in his brougham, upright, beside him, and so conveyed 
 her home, and she was buried with equal secrecy in the 
 night. \Mth regard to the Prince, Hoyos also conve}-ed 
 the news to the Emperor, and it was tried to hush up the 
 truth but in vain. The Crown Prince had previous!}- \\ritten 
 to Sechen}.-i a letter, part of which only has been made 
 public; the unpublished part contained these words: ' I am 
 resolved to die, since I am no longer worth}- to wear the 
 Imperial uniform.' The Countess sa\-s she knew the Crown 
 Prince well, she had also met the girl and liked her. She 
 could not condemn them for their death, poor thinL;'s. 
 
 '• Another topic of conversation has been King Milan's 
 abdication in Servia. According to the Ho}os', Queen 
 Nathalie has long been plotting against her husband, 
 hoping to become Regent for her son. She is a very 
 prett}', charming woman, but ' a Russian, and therefore an 
 intriguer.' The first hint her husband had of her designs 
 was on his return from his lost battle of Slivnitza in 
 Bulgaria. He was dispirited and thought of abdicating, 
 and, when he told her, she was for his doing it at once. 
 This shocked him. Xow she has gained half her object 
 and the other half she will gain soon by returning as 
 Regent to Servia." The battle of Sli\-nitza here referred to 
 was one of the earliest of the Balkan internecine fightings 
 after the independence of Servia and Bulgaria had been 
 enforced upon the Sultan by European pressure. It ended 
 disastrously for the Servians who, without much cause of 
 quarrel, had invaded Bulgaria and were routed with heavy 
 loss. The Austrian Empire at that time was believed to 
 be in a verj' unstable position, held together onl\- b}- the 
 personal popularity of the aged Emperor. We stayed ten 
 days with the Ho)'os' and while there were shown experi- 
 ments in torpedo practice by \^'hitehead, who had his 
 factory adjoining the villa. I find, however, nothing in my 
 diary worth transcribing here, unless it be a list of persons 
 \\hose acquaintance we made, belonging to Viennese 
 society. This includes Count Zichy, governor of the town, 
 and his father, formerly Austrian Ambassador at Con- 
 stantinople; Prince and Princess Sanguscko, cousins of 
 
18S9] Boulanger Again 25 
 
 our friends the Potockis in Poland, and joint owner with 
 them of their famous Arabian stud; Count and Countess 
 Breuner, Countess Palffy and others. From Fiume we 
 went on by Vienna and the Orient Express to Paris, and 
 so home to England, arriving there on the 5th of April. 
 
 Here there is a long gap in my diary and nothing of 
 any public importance, except the record of a second inter- 
 view I had with Boulanger, who had come to London with 
 the idea of making friends there, and had made an appoint- 
 ment with me to see him at a house he had taken in Port- 
 land Place. I write: 
 
 " \gth May. — On Wednesday I saw General Boulanger 
 b\' appointment at his house in Portland Place. He looks 
 older and more worn than when I saw him six months ago, 
 but he talked cheerfully enough. I told him I had been 
 much taken to task by the leaders of the Liberal Party for 
 my avowal of sympathy with his cause (my letter to the 
 ' Times ' of last year), and asked him to inform me on 
 certain points which might strengthen my position. The 
 first point I put was whether he intended to destroy 
 liberty in France, to shut up the Chambers and make 
 himself Dictator ? intentions commonly attributed to 
 him. To this he said that the idea was ridiculous. The 
 French could never get on without talking, and a Parlia- 
 ment in some form they must have. What he wanted was 
 to do away with the personal politics of the Chamber, 
 which he could effect by reforming it (the Revision). 
 Frenchmen must be united into a National Party instead 
 of broken up into small groups. The power of the President 
 must be strengthened, but within limits. Those possessed 
 by the President of the United States will probably suffice. 
 There must be the Veto, but he would not say that in an 
 old society like the French it would do to assimilate the 
 American regime too closely. He had no intention at all 
 of destroying liberty. Thus, in the matter of education he 
 was for full liberty for all creeds, not as at present when 
 religious education was persecuted. The French provinces 
 did not want secular education and it should not be forced 
 on them, but he was not for this a Clerical. He did not 
 himself go to Mass, but he was determined everyone else 
 should do so who liked. If a man chose to go about in 
 fancy dress it was no concern of his neighbours. On my 
 
26 Alsace Lorraine [18S9 
 
 second point, peace and war, he repeated what he had said 
 to me last autumn about the hazards of war, and his un- 
 wilHngness to rush into hostihties. He could not ever 
 propose to disarm till the question of Alsace-Lorraine was 
 settled. Xo Government which did so could stand a fort- 
 night. He believed, however, that the question could be 
 settled vi'ithout war if Frenchmen were united. He would 
 then most gladly propose a disarmament. In this sense I 
 might say of him that his ultimate end was to bring about 
 a disbanding of the great armies of the Continent. This he 
 authorized me to tell my Liberal friends. He invited me 
 cordially to come again any Tuesday, Wednesday, or 
 Thursday morning." 
 
 I fear I did little towards helping the General in this or 
 any other way. Politics were at that moment repugnant 
 to me, and I could not bring myself to start on any new 
 campaign. I never saw the General again. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EGYPT UNDER TEWFIK, I 
 
 THE summer of 1889 saw me occupied almost exclu- 
 sively with literary work. It was then that I wrote my 
 poem, " A New Pilgrimage," which with many other pieces 
 of more or less the same date I published in the early 
 autumn. This brought me once more into pleasant relations 
 with my friends, even those who had been most angry with 
 me for my doings in Ireland. Chief among these was my 
 cousin, George Wyndham, who already the year before had 
 sent me a pleasant word. " We have so many grounds," he 
 wrote, " for friendship, our common love of sport and of 
 poetr)-, and especially our common blood, that I think it 
 would be very foolish to allow differences of politics and 
 opinion to interfere with it in any way. I sincerely hope 
 that you think so too." Now, on my return to England in 
 1889, I found him full of affectionate endeavour to make 
 things pleasant for me on my re-emergence into social life. 
 In this he showed himself no idle friend. I had hardly 
 arrived in London when he arranged occasions of meeting 
 for me at his house in Park Lane with our mutual friends, 
 and eventually one with Arthur Balfour, at which we buried 
 our political hatchet in mutual amiabilities, an attitude we 
 have ever since preserved as often as we have met. Another 
 friend, equally dear to me with George, whom I recovered at 
 this time, was Lytton. He, too, had written me an affection- 
 ate letter, regretting that he had missed seeing me on my 
 passage through Paris. As to my women friends, my prison 
 adventures, I soon found, had done me no real discredit 
 with them. The only one of them that had been seriously 
 shocked at it was Princess Wagram, who, not being English, 
 had made herself more English in the matter than were my 
 own countrywomen, and now she, too, was reconciled. With 
 the rest the episode was a title to romantic interest, which 
 made it easy for me to resume m)- place and more than my 
 
 27 
 
2 8 William Morris [1SS9 
 
 place in society. Their kindness did me full amends, and 
 for the next few \-ears strewed m}- path with flowers to the 
 extent that politics lost their hold over m}- mind, more than 
 perhaps the\- should have done. My daughter Judith, too, 
 now growing up, was a new interest of a very absLirbing 
 kind, and my diary, when it is resumed, I find dealing 
 mainh- with home occupations and the details of m)- private 
 life. 
 
 Xor must I omit another influence which was an im- 
 portant one with me that summer in the direction of wean- 
 ing me from home politics, that of an intimacy which I then 
 for the lirst time enjoyed with \'\'illiam ^Morris. I had already 
 for some )'ears known the Morrises, my first acquaintance 
 with them having been begun in 1883, when I metMrs. Alorris 
 at Xaworth, having been invited special!)" for the purpose 
 by Mrs. Howard (Lady Carlisle\ and had spent a week there 
 in her company, and we had made friends, but of Morris 
 himself I had as yet seen little except occasionall\- when I 
 called on them in Hammersmith. This summer, h'7\\ever, 
 of I ■'^89 saw me for the first time at Kelmscott Manor, v.'here 
 I had an opportunity of intimate intercourse with him during 
 the man}' pleasant da}-s gudgeon fishing we enjoyed together 
 on the Upper Thames and the evenings when we argued 
 the questions, artistic and political, which occupied hi."- mind. 
 
 ^I orris was at that time in a mood of reaction from his 
 socialistic fervour. He had quarrelled with Hyndman, and 
 was disgusted at the personal jealousies of his fellow-workers 
 in the cause and at their cowardice in action. He never got 
 over the pusillanimit}- they had shown at the Trafalgar 
 Square meeting two \-ears before, when a few hundred po- 
 licemen had dealt with thousands of them as though they 
 had been schoolboys. ^Morris was too loyal and too obstinate 
 to abjure his creed, but the heart of his devotion to the 
 cause of the proletariat had gone. In some ways our two 
 positions were the same. We had both of us sacrificed much 
 socially to our principles, and our principles had failed to 
 justify themselves by results, and we were both driven back 
 on earlier loves, art, poetry, romance. Morris, with one who 
 understood him and dared to argue with him boldh-, was a 
 delightful companion. He was intolerant of the conven- 
 tional talk of society, and had little sympathy with ideas 
 foreign to his own. He had little patience with fools, and 
 
1889J Kelmscott Manor 29 
 
 the prettiest woman in the world could not seduce him into 
 listening to nonsense if there was nothing of fact behind it. 
 His time was too precious to waste on them ; and the fine 
 ladies who affected artistic tastes in his company without 
 real knowledge put him straightway to flight. To such he 
 was rude and repellent, but to anyone who could increase 
 his stock of knowledge on any subject he lent a willing ear, 
 whether artist or artisan, with absolute indifference as to his 
 social position. In his domestic life Morris was too busy to 
 be unhappy, and of too sanguine a temperament to worry 
 himself much over past disappointments; yet disappoint- 
 ments cannot but have been his. He had a strong and 
 affectionate heart, and had centred his home affections on 
 his two children, and the younger, May, had just made an 
 engagement he disapproved, while the elder, Jenny, who 
 had been his pride as a child for her intellectual faculties, 
 had overworked her brain and was now subject to epileptic 
 fits. It was touching now at Kelmscott to watch Morris's 
 solicitude for this poor girl on whom his chief home love 
 was bestowed. 
 
 Kelmscott Manor was a romantic house, and the life there 
 extremely primitive. There were few of the conveniences 
 of modern life. The rooms below and also on the upper 
 floor were all passage rooms opening one into another, and 
 in order to reach the tapestried chamber in which we sat in 
 the evenings, it was necessary to pass to and fro through 
 Morris's own bedroom, in which he lay at night in a great 
 square Elizabethan four-post bed, an arrangement which 
 would have been of extreme discomfort to anyone less 
 tolerant of such things than he, and less indifferent to his 
 personal convenience. It was the same thing in the day 
 time. He worked at the designs he was making for his 
 carpets, and at his drawings, and the corrections of his 
 proofs in a room where he was liable every minute to dis- 
 turbance. Such discomforts had been submitted to by our 
 forefathers, arid why not, he thought, by us. It was this in- 
 sensitiveness to his surroundings that enabled him to deal 
 with the prodigious volume of work which he daily assigned 
 himself, both manual and intellectual. 
 
 Such was the house. Out of doors the river — an upper 
 branch of the Thames — was a constant attraction, and there 
 Morris each afternoon took complete holiday. He loved 
 
30 IViih Morris Giidgam Fis/.'i/.o- [iSSg 
 
 boating, as it reminded him of his Oxford daj's, and he 
 loved sitting hour after hour in a punt with rod and line, 
 capturing the local gudgeon, a sport requiring skill, on 
 which he prided himself, not without modest reason. In all 
 matters concerning the river he took a passionate and pro- 
 prietary interest, cherishing a special grudge against the 
 Thames Conservancy, a body which interfered with in- 
 di\"idual rights, and whose legitimate authorit\- he denied. 
 Against these he constantly inveighed. He loved, too, in 
 memory of O.xford, to engage in wordy warfare with the 
 bargees, and had a strong vocabular\' of abuse for them 
 which he did not spare. When on the river he affected a 
 rough manner even with his fellows in the boat, and 
 scorned to apologize if accidents through his fault occurred, 
 all which was in keeping with his appearance, which was 
 that of a Norwegian sea captain rather than a poet, and of 
 this he was proud. He was ver\- dogmatic, with violent 
 likes and dislikes. He used to say that St. Peter's was the 
 ugliest building in the world after St. Paul's, and of these 
 things he would discourse when the fish were off their feed, 
 for when they were biting he was too absorbed in his catch 
 to have a thought for anything else. 
 
 Of poetry he affected to have little knowledge, and of the 
 work of those he was averse to, he would pretend never to 
 have read a word. I remember that on one boating excursion 
 in which we all took part, we were compelled to take refuge 
 from heavy rain in a little inn by the river side, and that we 
 found in it a book of poetical extracts which we amused 
 ourselves by reading, and that among the rest were those 
 lines of Byron, perhaps his best and quite his best known: 
 
 There was a sound of revelry by night. 
 
 This he declared to be rubbish, and that he had not a 
 notion whom they were by. Morris in these playful moods 
 was very attractive, and of all the great men I have been 
 in close relations with, I reckon him intellectually the 
 strongest. He had an astonishingly firm grasp of things, 
 and an immensely \\-ide range of knowledge. I never knew 
 him deceived by a false argument, and he was difficult to 
 overcome in discussion even on subjects his adversary knew 
 the best. One thing only, I think, he did not know, much 
 as he had written about it, the love of women, and that he 
 
iSSg] Political Disappointments 31 
 
 never cared to discuss. My talks with him that summer 
 confirmed me in my resolution politically to retire into my 
 shell, and I think my resolution had a corresponding in- 
 fluence on him. 
 
 " \})tli Oct., 1889. Paris. — I have left home once more for 
 the winter, and with a lighter heart than I have lateh' had. 
 M)- last act before leaving England was to write two letters 
 severing the last links which bound me to political life. 
 One was to the Kidderminster electors telling them that 
 they must not depend on me to stand again for Parliament, 
 the other to T. P. O'Connor resigning my directorship of 
 the ' Star.' I have intended this for more th;in a year, but 
 have taken time to reflect, and am sure now that the step 
 is a wise one. As a matter of principle I cannot go on 
 pretending to believe in the Liberal Party, with which I 
 have not an idea in common, beyond Irish Home Rule. 
 As a matter of personal ambition, politics have nothing 
 more to give me. I will not be a parliamentary drudge, 
 and I cannot aspire to lead a party. 
 
 " Of doing good in the world in any public way I also 
 despair. I do not see clearly in what direction good lies. 
 I do not love civilised humanity; and poor savage human 
 nature seems a lost cause. I have done what I could for 
 it. I have, I think, saved Egypt from absorption by 
 Europe, and I have certainly, by stopping the Soudan 
 war in 1885, put back the clock of African conquest for a 
 generation, perhaps for a century. But the march of 
 ' Progress ' is irresistible in the end ; and every year the 
 old-fashioned idea of the rights of uncivilised man dies 
 more completely out. Even in Ireland, the National cause 
 is putting itself in line with nineteenth century thought. The 
 moonlighters and cattle-houghers and rebels of all kinds 
 are disappearing; and, instead, we see Parnell manoeuvring 
 and deceiving in Parliament neither more nor less than 
 Gladstone himself, and declaring with Rosebery for Imperial 
 Federation! In all this I have no real lot or part. Ireland 
 will doubtless get something of what she wants, and she 
 has all my good wishes still. But Imperial F"ederation is 
 not wortl") going to prison for a second time nor even 
 standing another contested election. I have done enough 
 — possibly too much — and am sick and weary of the 
 machinery of English public life. 
 
32 Ai the Paris Embassy [1SS9 
 
 " On the other hand stands the world of art and poetry. 
 In this I can still hope to accomplish something, and with 
 an advantage of experience not e\er3- poet has. I have a 
 great deal to accomplish before old age takes me and little 
 time. My poems, my memoirs, my book of maxims (the 
 ' \\'i.sdom of Merl)"n),' my book of the Arab horse. These 
 are \\ork enough for all my remaining strength. Then, 
 how delightful life is in perfect liberty! Xe\-er have I felt 
 more capable of enjoyment, of the pleasures of friendship, 
 of the casual incidents of romance, of the continuous happi- 
 ness of life at home. These harmonize with a literary, not 
 with a political ambition, and so it is best it should be. 
 Am I not right?" 
 
 The three weeks that I spent at Paris on this occasion 
 were delightful ones passed all in this mood. I found 
 L\tton at the Embassy, and our old intimate intercourse 
 was renewed. He, older than me by nine years, was 
 already entering that valley of the shadow of old age from 
 which he was never to emerge, and which ended in his 
 death two years later. It was that in which his last volume 
 of verse was written, and he made me the confidant of his 
 sorrows, but this is not the place in which to gi\e them 
 more publicity than the volume itself gave them when it 
 was published after his death. They served to accentuate 
 my own mood of aversion from public affaii's, and I spent 
 most of m}' time with him at the Embassy, the same well- 
 known house and garden where I had spent so much of 
 my early youth officially as a member of it in the da3s of 
 Lord Cowley and the Second Empire. I paid a visit, too, 
 to the Wagrams at Gros Bois, where I mixed again in 
 French society. The chateau was at that time undergoing 
 repair of a substantial kind, an experience it had not had 
 since 1830, and my hosts were living in the dcpetidancc, 
 an interesting suite of little rooms once the abode of 
 Marshal Berthier's aides-de-camp, and possessed of a 
 certain historic charm, with their Empire furniture and 
 decorations. We shot each day in the great woods. 
 
 " Gros Bois, Wagram tells me, has been an oak wood 
 ever since the time of the Druids. It was a- royal domain, 
 and had been given over and over again to different 
 favourites of the kings of France. The last instance was 
 when it was bestowed by Napoleon on the Prince's grand- 
 
1889] 
 
 The Chateau de Gros Bois 35 
 
 father, as the inscription over the door records, his ' com- 
 panion in arms.' The estate is of about 4,000 hectares, of 
 which fully half are woodlands, 1,200 being inside the park 
 wall, an ancient enclosure dating from 1650. I never saw 
 so completely isolated a place, nor one quite so enjoyable. 
 The woods are laid out formally (as French woods are) 
 with straight rides or rather drives of grass cut through 
 them, and though there is no old timber, all having been 
 levelled with the ground in 18 14, the oak trees grown up 
 again from the stub are very beautiful, and the place is 
 full of woodpeckers, jays, and magpies, besides game. 
 There is a stone recording the death of the late Prince's 
 first roebuck: Ici mon fils a tue son premier chevreuil, with 
 the date 1826. This was Wagram's father, who went on 
 till 1888, killing something every day in season and out 
 of season, partridges on their nests if he could find no 
 other, dogs, and sometimes beaters. All is recorded in a 
 book; and he might have been the original of Carlyle's 
 Baron : qui centum mille perdices plumbo confecit et statim 
 in stercore coiivertit. (1 am not sure of the Latinity.) He 
 died at the beginning of last year, being about eighty 
 }'ears old, but shooting on to the last week of his life. 
 
 " I have received a nice letter from Kidderminster in 
 answer to mine, and the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' announces 
 m}- retirement publicly from political life. The Princess is 
 triumphant at this retirement, as she was always opposed 
 to my politics.'' 
 
 All this was very demoralizing from a public point of 
 view. On the 25th I was joined by my family at Paris, 
 and on the 2nd November we moved on to Rome and 
 Egypt. At Rome, where we spent a month, I found my- 
 self once more within the sphere of the serious life of two 
 years before, having many friends among the Irish clergy, 
 who formed so strong an element at the Vatican, and I 
 find many entries in my diary connected with Irish politics, 
 some of which are worth transcribing here. 
 
 " i\th Nov. — To see Monsignore Stonor, who has inherited 
 much of Cardinal Howard's position, being a sort of diplo- 
 matic go-between with the Papal court as well as having 
 been made an archbishop. He tells me that Lintorn 
 Simmons is coming here on an official mission to the 
 Vatican. When he, Stonor, saw Lord Salisbury in London 
 
 D 
 
34 Vatican Politics [1889 
 
 this summer, Lord Salisbury told him that diplomatic 
 relations would have to be established with the Pope, but 
 that there was such fear of opposition from the Non- 
 conformists that it would have to be done cautiously. 
 Rosebery had told him much the same thing. Now the 
 pretext is a settlement of ecclesiastical disputes at Malta. 
 This, Stonor says, is a pretext only, as the disputes \\ere 
 settled some time ago through himself He also told 
 me what happened between the Pope and the German 
 Emperor. There was no rudeness intended by the Em- 
 peror nor offence taken by the Pope. An arrangement 
 had been come to between the Emperor and Prince Henry, 
 that Prince Henry and Herbert Bismarck should come to 
 the Vatican half an hour after the Emperor, but owing to 
 the slow pace of the Emperor's carriages Prince Henry 
 arrived too soon by ten minutes. Herbert Bismarck there- 
 upon made a scene, declaring that he and Prince Henry 
 would leave the Vatican if not at once announced. They 
 were consequently announced, although the Pope had 
 given orders that he and the Emperor should be undis- 
 turbed for half an hour, ten minutes before the time, but 
 the Emperor told them to wait. Stonor assures me that 
 this was all. It has, however, I fancy been agreed to hush 
 up whatever happened, and the Emperor has made what- 
 ever amends was required. 
 
 " ^th Nov. — Made a round of visits with Stonor, among 
 others to the Embassy. The Dufferins arrived last night, 
 but we did not see them. With Dering [the first Secretary], 
 however, we had some talk. Simmons is to arrive next 
 week and with him as secretary, Ross of Bladensburg. 
 This will make a storm in Ireland, where Ross is known 
 to have had much to do with the Papal Rescript against 
 the Plan of Campaign. [See my 'Land War in Ireland.'] 
 
 ''6th Nov. — We breakfasted at the Palazzo Caetani, 
 and went on in the afternoon in a storm of thunder and 
 lightning with the Duke and Duchess [of Sermoneta] and 
 their daughter Giovanella to Fogliano. Fogliano, however, 
 we were not destined to reach, for the rain was quite equa- 
 torial, and we stopped for the night at Cisterna, where the 
 Duke has a half-deserted palace, and there we are. camped. 
 The floods on the Campagna were beyond belief, torrents of 
 red water pouring over the edges of the railway cuttings, 
 
1 889] Cisterna and Fogliano 35 
 
 and in some places the train having to drive its way 
 against a strong and deep current. Every water course 
 was a raging flood and broad streams were forming them- 
 selves rapidly in the fields and still broader lakes. At 
 Villetri we left the train and took carriage, but stopped 
 here as it was thought dangerous to go farther. I never in 
 Europe saw such continuous lightning or such rain over 
 so long a space of time. It has been like the breaking of 
 the monsoon in India. The torrent in one of the valleys 
 gave one an idea of what the world may have been in the 
 tropic age when the great valleys were first formed. 
 
 " This palace here at Cisterna has many remains of 
 grandeur, fresco paintings by Zucchero, and fine marble 
 chimney-pieces. The weather, too, in spite of the rain is 
 warm, and we are lodged comfortably enough. We play 
 dominoes in the evening on an old fire screen propped on 
 two chairs to serve as table." 
 
 We went on next morning with the first light to Fogliano, 
 just in time to get across the Pontine Marshes, for the 
 floods were rising and in one place had already covered 
 the road. Here we spent four days in this the most de- 
 lightful country place in Italy. I have already described 
 Fogliano in one of my previous volumes and need not 
 repeat it here. We occupied our time pleasantly enough 
 duck shooting on the lagoons, which lie between the great 
 oak forest and the sea, in the early mornings, and riding 
 in the afternoons to visit the Duchess's stud, which she 
 has established very successfully here, and for which she 
 had bought a couple of Arab stallions a year or two ago. 
 The Duke much busied with public affairs, and the muni- 
 cipal elections now going on at Rome. He was on the 
 committee of selection, and after much telephoning to 
 and from headquarters ended by sending in his resigna- 
 tion. This was an early stage of his public career which 
 led him later to the mayoralty of Rome, and later still to 
 office in the Government. " The Duke," I write, 9th Nov- 
 ember, after much talk on these subjects, " is certainly a 
 most distinguished man, not a man of genius but of very 
 superior talents. He has read enormously, philosophy, 
 science, history, and can talk well on most subjects. He is 
 president of the Italian Geographical Society and the 
 Italian Alpine Club, an honest man in public affairs, but 
 
36 The Duke of Sermoneta [1S89 
 
 disenchanted with knowledge and doubtful of the ends of 
 life like all the rest of us. ' Neither the moral law nor the 
 law of beauty,' he says, ' can be found in nature, and without 
 these the world must be lacking in interest.' He is not 
 religious, but supports religion as being the reason of these 
 two ideas, at least so I gather from what he has told me." 
 
 It was in accordance with this view of religion, and out 
 of politeness to us, that on Sunday the loth it was arranged 
 that mass should be said in a little movable hut on wheels 
 like a bathing machine, evidently a new experiment, a 
 talked-of chapel not being finished or apparently likely to be. 
 " The Duke is clearly a latitudinarian though he attended 
 mass, and the Duchess enjoys life too much to be very 
 dt'vote. There were some thirty servants and peasant 
 neighbours brought in and a sprinkling of dogs to make 
 up the congregation, which was all out of doors in front of 
 the house, the celebrant a mass priest brought in from a 
 distance. Altogether a quaint admixture of mediaeval 
 simplicity with a nineteenth century lack of faith, but it 
 is not for me to criticize." On our return to Rome the 
 same afternoon, loth November, I found letters and news- 
 papers with news from Egypt. " The Stanley expedition 
 has come to grief in Africa, and Wadelai was really cap- 
 tured by the Mahdists just as Osman Digna declared it 
 to be more than a year ago. Stanley and Emin are now 
 reported to be together endeavouring to get to the coast, 
 but an end will have been put to their filibustering projects 
 of re-conquest on the Upper Nile. The German, Peters, 
 too, has been knocked on the head by the Somalis, and 
 Islam triumphs all along the equatorial line. The German 
 Emperor, meanwhile, is at Constantinople being feted with 
 all honour by Abdul Hamid." 
 
 The news inspired me with a fresh longing for the East, 
 where my true heart lay.^nd hastened our departure for 
 Egypt, the rest of our time at Rome being spent partly, as 
 I have said, with my old friends the Irish priests in the 
 various colleges and monasteries, partly with new artistic 
 acquaintances, of whom there are so many resident in the 
 ancient city. But I must not linger over these personal re- 
 collections, interesting as they are to me, for they would 
 take up too much space. All I need notice is that, calling 
 again at the Embassy, I found Lord Dufferin, to m}- pleas- 
 
iSgoJ Sir Evelyn Baring at Cairo 37 
 
 ure, favourable to the pleading I made that he should help 
 if possible in any decision there might be in the direction 
 of re-establishing that free government at Cairo he had 
 promised the Egyptians in 1883, and recalling Arabi. On 
 my last day at Rome I attended a dinner at the Irish col- 
 lege, where I met the Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, 
 and where good old Dr. Kirby, rector of the College, pro- 
 posed my unworthy health, and where I was constrained to 
 speak at length to the students on the prospects of Home 
 Rule. It was my last public utterance about Ireland. On 
 the morning of the 4th we left for Naples, and there took 
 ship for Alexandria, and by the 12th found ourselves once 
 more at Sheykh Obeyd, where we spent the rest of the 
 winter in the purely Oriental surroundings I have more 
 than once described. ^ 
 
 On the occasion of this second visit to Egypt of 1889- 
 90 I adopted a new attitude towards the British occupation 
 and Baring, who represented it at Cairo as Consul-General 
 and British Resident. When I had been there the previous 
 year I had avoided all intercourse with the Anglo-official 
 world, but now, on my return, influenced by the conversa- 
 tion 1 had had with Dufferin at Rome and thinking that I 
 might perhaps thus help on the re-establishment of a more 
 liberal regime at Cairo, I took occasion of an informal mes- 
 sage sent me that he would be glad to see me to call on 
 Baring, and from that time remained in friendly relations 
 with the Residency, which were not without their advantage 
 in a public way. In business matters I found Sir Evelyn a 
 pleasant man to deal with. He was quick to understand a 
 case, and straightforward in his replies, willing always to 
 listen to arguments, however opposed to his own opinions, 
 and with nothing of the conventional insincerities of diplo- 
 macy. It is to this, no doubt, that he owed his success in 
 converting to his view the many English Radical M.P.'s 
 who, arriving at Cairo with the idea of hastening on the 
 evacuation, left it persuaded that the proposal was impos- 
 sible or at least premature, and that the Occupation must 
 be maintained. 
 
 " 12th Jan. — Yesterday I called by appointment on Sir 
 Evelyn Baring. I had not done so since our meeting in 
 1883, but it came about in this wise. When Prince Wagram 
 (he had followed us to Egypt at the end of the year) was 
 
o 
 
 8 I call on Barino [iSgc 
 
 here a fortnight ago he gave me a kind of informal message 
 from Baring to the effect that he would be pleased if I 
 came to see him. At the time I was not quite sure how to 
 respond to this, and I delayed taking any action, but last 
 Sunday I received a visit from Mohammed el Moelhi, who 
 gave me news of how things were going politically. He as- 
 sured me that people were becoming more reconciled to 
 the state of affairs, that Riaz was allowing rather more per- 
 sonal liberty, and that Tewfik had retired altogether from 
 political action. Nearly all the exiles had been allowed to 
 return, and Mohammed Abdu had been appointed judge at 
 Benha. Under the circumstances he strongly advised me 
 in Arabi's interest to respond to Baring's advance. He said 
 it would increase my opportunities of influence, for now 
 people were afr"aid to come to me for fear of Baring's dis- 
 pleasure. He did not think that Riaz was hostile, though 
 the Khedive doubtless was. The Khedive, however, was 
 malleable, and if he saw that Baring was friends with me 
 he would think it safest to follow suit. I believe this to be 
 sound advice, and I consequently wrote a note to Baring 
 saying that I had received this informal message from 
 Wagram and asking when I could see him. He replied 
 very politely and so my visit was arranged. 
 
 " I found Baring at two in his study, and stayed with 
 him for about half an hour. People say that he is stiff and 
 ill-mannered. I did not find him so. On the contrary he 
 was courteous and kindly. We spoke pretty frankly about 
 things. I said I had not called before because I was not 
 sure whether he would wish to see me. He replied that the 
 only thing he had thought unfair in our political quarrel 
 was Randolph Churchill's having accused him in the House 
 of Commons of having attacked me through my property 
 in Egypt; he had not been there to answer him, and he 
 thought it unfair ; as a fact he had entirely forgotten the 
 existence of my property, and he certainly had had nothing 
 to do with the proceedings taken against me concerning it. 
 I answered that to the best of my recollection I had never 
 supposed him to have intervened personally in the affair, 
 and that it was doubtless the Khedive's doing. Randolph 
 had, moreover, exceeded my instructions in pushing the 
 case as far as he had done. We did not discuss this long. 
 1 told him the Khedive had had me spied upon, and he 
 
iSgoJ Baring on Arabi 39 
 
 said it was natural his Highness should not be very friendly 
 to me, and should want to know what I was doing in 
 Egypt, but the Khedive had not spoken to him about me 
 for a long while. 
 
 " We then went on to the state of the country, and I told 
 him I thought things were going better now he had got rid 
 of Nubar and was working with a Mohammedan Ministry. 
 He said the Nubar Ministry was a mistake, but the difficulty 
 is to get Mohammedans who are capable of the work. 
 They are either of the old-fashioned sort who will hear of 
 no improvement, or else young fellows who take some 
 modern European plan, and wish to pitchfork it into Egypt 
 whether it is suitable or not. I said that as to that it was 
 just Arabi's merit that he stood between these two ex- 
 tremes. Arabi knew nothing of Europe, but wanted to im- 
 prove on Oriental lines. I mentioned that I had heard 
 Mohammed Abdu had returned and received an appoint- 
 ment, and he gave the Sheykh a high character, and said 
 that nearly all the exiles were now recalled. I told him 
 that I hoped the amnesty would be general and would in- 
 clude Arabi and the other exiles who are in Ceylon. To 
 this he demurred, and said that Arabi, having made an un- 
 successful revolution had to pay the penalty, ' not, however,' 
 he added, ' that I have ever accepted the theory that his 
 was a military revolt, but it was unsuccessful' ' On the 
 contrary,' I said, ' it was altogether successful, except for 
 the British Army.' ' That,' he said, ' was one of the elements 
 he should have reckoned with ' ; and I ' a British army of 
 20,000 men is too strong an element for any Oriental 
 calculation.' 
 
 " He then went on to talk of practical improvements and 
 said he was pleased that I had recognized these, but it 
 would be necessary for many years to come to have some 
 European guidance, and he believed English guidance to 
 be better than French or any other. Lastly, we discussed 
 agricultural methods and a school of agriculture which was 
 being founded, and agreed that schools of this sort were a 
 doubtful benefit. \^N.B. — The school in question which had 
 been started under a Scotchman proved a comical failure, 
 the professors after several years of experiments having 
 had to call in their fellah neighbours to show them how 
 crops could be grown successfully.] We parted on cordial 
 
40 Shdhir Ibn Nassdr [1890 
 
 terms, and he invited Anne and me to luncheon for to-day. 
 I declined as I do not wish to go into town again, but I 
 accepted for Anne, and so she and Judith are to go in there 
 this morning. I trust this may all be for the best. 
 
 " I have been reading Gordon's ' Letters to his Sister,' 
 and find them very consoling in their resignation to Pro- 
 vidence; his doctrine is entirely Mohammedan." 
 
 This extract has its importance as showing in connection 
 with other extracts of a later date that the difficulty about 
 recalling Arabi, which was the essential condition of any 
 true intention of restoring the National Party in Egypt, 
 resided not in the Khedive only but in Lord Cromer. The 
 following, too, will have its interest as indicating perhaps 
 the point of departure taken by him so markedly at a later 
 date in Arabian affairs. 
 
 " 20th Feb. — Shahir Ibn Nassar, son of the chief Sheykh 
 of the Dhaheri Harb tribe of Hedjaz came to Sheykh 
 Obeyd on the 25th of January with his cousin Seyid and a 
 friend, AH, from Mecca. Shahir is a pleasing young man 
 and we invited him to stay with us, and he has been ever 
 since at Sheykh Obeyd. He came to Cairo to claim a debt 
 of ^350 due to his tribe for the hire of camels supplied to 
 the Haj last year, and was very angry because Riaz and the 
 Khedive had refused to see him notwithstanding his having 
 brought letters, also the money had been refused him, and 
 the Khedive had refused his gift of a delul. After wait- 
 ing in ante-rooms all this month he made up his mind to 
 go back to his people, who have it in their power to block 
 the pilgrim road, or at least to make things very uncom- 
 fortable for the pilgrims, but I proposed' to him as a last 
 resource to see Baring. This he did on Tuesday, I having 
 spoken about him the day before to Baring when I lunched 
 at the Residency. Baring received him, by ZeyH's account 
 who went with him, with all honour and sent at once for 
 Riaz and told him Shahir was under his protection, and he 
 must see justice done. Riaz then went to the Khedive, who 
 already knew of Shahir's being with me, and they sent 
 Thabit Pasha to Shahir and another Pasha Abderrahman, 
 and all together went to the Emir el Haj and gave him a 
 wigging and made him acknowledge the debt. Shahir is to 
 have his money in a few days, and is, of course, highly 
 delighted. He has given me the delul, which is rather 
 
iSgo] The Drink Question in Egypt 41 
 
 a white elephant as I shall have to give him a present in 
 exchange." 
 
 This Shahir was a most interesting man, being a quite 
 wild Bedouin, and his father, the chief Sheykh of the most 
 important tribe between Mecca and Medina, the hereditary 
 occupants of the mountain passes through which the pil- 
 grimage yearly has to pass. From very early times they 
 have been subsidized by the Caliphs and Sultans who have 
 been responsible for the safe conduct of the pilgrims to 
 grant a free passage, but of late years the subsidy had re- 
 mained unpaid through the dishonesty of the agents en- 
 trusted with its delivery, a neglect which brought about 
 much trouble, and occasionallv loss of life, through the hos- 
 tility of the tribe. Shahir had had little dealing with 
 civilization, even that of Mecca, and found himself more at 
 home with us than at Cairo, sharing Zeyd's tent on the 
 desert edge outside our garden wall. He was a wonderful 
 camel-rider, performing strange feats of agility with his 
 delul, but was unable to ride a horse, for the Harb are not 
 horse owners, at least not that section of the tribe which 
 inhabits the Hedjaz. When he left us to return to his home 
 by sea from Suez, his delul, an Udeyhah, remained with 
 me, I giving him in exchange £i,0, a very full price, for the 
 expense of his journey. 
 
 Another matter which I took up that winter with Lord 
 Cromer was one that lay at the root of all sound progress 
 in Egypt, as it does wherever a Mohammedan population 
 finds itself subjected to a Christian government, that of its 
 demoralization by drink. I am no fanatic on the question 
 of drink in Europe, where the use of wine and strong drinks 
 stands in no direct opposition, except by its abuse, to 
 morals. But in Mohammedan lands the case is entirely 
 different. There the abstention from wine is a fundamental 
 principle of the moral code, and those who transgress on 
 this point become reprobate in their own eyes, and lose all 
 sense of decency and decorum. This was beginning to 
 show itself markedly in Egypt as a consequence of the 
 establishment of English rule. It had been against the 
 spread of drink as much as anything that the revolution of 
 1 88 1 had acquired its moral strength in public opinion and, 
 with the suppression of the Nationalists after Tel-el-Kebir, 
 and the reinstatement of European control, the evil had 
 
4^ Drink Shops in the Villages [1S90 
 
 returned in double force. It is hardly too much to say that 
 we had intervened in Egj^pt to reinstate the Greek drink 
 sellers, who combined it with mone\-lending in the villages 
 of the Delta. The countr\- district where I had my home 
 was a good instance of how the evil worked. The villages 
 in our immediate neighbourhood at Sheykh Obeyd were 
 inhabited entirely by Mohammedans ; in the whole of them 
 there were not half-a-dozen Copts or Christians of an\" sect 
 and there was no demand whatever for drink in an}- of 
 them. On my return there, however, in this year I found 
 that a small local railway- had been opened, joining these 
 with Cairo, and that at each station on the line as the first 
 sign of the coming civilization a drink shop had been estab- 
 lished, kept by a Greek moneylender in the interest of his 
 financial business. It was calculated that if the fellahin 
 could be tempted inside his doors to taste the forbidden 
 liquor the rest of his morality would soon give way, and 
 with it his independence of borrowing. Against this coming 
 evil the respectable heads of the villages were doing their 
 best to make opposition, and one morning the)- called on 
 me to advise what the}- should do. I advised them to make 
 formal protest to the Government, and offered if they 
 should fail in obtaining a favourable answer, to plead their 
 cause with Baring, who alone had it in his power to put 
 pressure not so much on the Khedivial officials as on the 
 Greek Consulate. The Greek drink-sellers were most of 
 them Hellenic subjects, and as such protected by the inter- 
 national agreements known as the Capitulations against in- 
 terference in their trade by the Khedivial police, and 
 the privileges thus enjoyed by them had been re-estab- 
 lished in full force with the overthrow of the National 
 Government, an^ it rested with Baring, who exercised all 
 real power, to decide to what extent the privileges should 
 be permitted to go. The whole question of the drink shops 
 might, if he was willing, be treated as a police matter to be 
 dealt with as a common nuisance, and it would not have 
 been possible for the Greek Consul-General to make a 
 serious question of it if Baring should insist. The secret 
 reason, however, of the protection extended, to them at the 
 Consulate was, that thej- bought their immunity there in 
 part with cash paid down, in part with threats of complaints 
 laid against the Consul-General at Athens, a form of black- 
 mailing much in vogue amongst the Greeks. 
 
iSgo] The Villagers protest 43 
 
 " 2^tli MarcJi. — Saw Sir Evelyn Baring on the drink 
 question, especially with regard to our being threatened 
 here at Sheykh Obeyd. I told him of the deputation which 
 had come to me from Merj and Kafr el Sh6rafa (in pro- 
 test against the drink shops being open in those villages in 
 connection with the new railway), and he expressed his 
 general sympath)' and desire to help in stopping the 
 spread of drink in Egypt, but said it was a large question, 
 and a question of law; he would see Riaz (the Prime 
 Minister), and find out how the law was; Riaz was very 
 hostile to the Greeks, and so would be likely to do what he 
 could. He would let me know the result, and then, if there 
 was a possibility, the inhabitants of Merj and the other 
 villages should protest, and he would do all in his power to 
 help them. 
 
 " 6th April. — Called again on Baring to show him the 
 petition against the drink shops. It had been signed by 
 seventy-three of the principal Sheykhs and notables of Merj, 
 Kafr el Jamus, Kafr el Sh6rafa, and Birket el Haj, also 
 by Salaam Abu Shedid and Hassan Abu Tawil, Sheykhs 
 from the Howeytat and Aiaideh tribes. He seemed pleased 
 with it, and 1 left him a translation, and we discussed the 
 question together and with Tigrane Pasha, who had come 
 in and whom Baring sent off at once with the original to 
 Riaz. Tigrane [he was the Armenian Under-Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs] declared that the case could be dealt with 
 without infringing upon National rights. I argued strongly 
 against its being treated fiscally, but rather as a matter of 
 police and public morals. In this Tigrane agreed with me, 
 and Baring said he would do all in his power to stop the 
 spread of the drink shops, if according to the ruling of the 
 International Courts, and if not, he would submit a modifi- 
 cation of the law to the Powers. We discussed also several 
 other cases, especially that of the Government salt tax, an 
 imposition which pressed hardly upon the people, and that 
 of certain Bedouins imprisoned at Ghizeh. He showed him- 
 self anxious to intervene in all these matters, sent for the 
 persons responsible, and promised to see into the cases. A 
 good morning's work." 
 
 The above will give some idea of the practical way in 
 which Lord Cromer did the work of administration at Cairo, 
 and of the kind of questions I was able to bring before him. 
 
44 Talks ivith Zeyd [1S90 
 
 That he had the reformation of abuses at that date, 1890, 
 the period of his first and best practical energies, much at 
 heart, is certain, nor did I then suspect him of working, as 
 he did so flagrantly later, less for the good of Egypt than 
 in English political and financial interests. It is, however, 
 necessary to remark that, in spite of his promises of assist- 
 ance and the undoubted good faith of Riaz Pasha on the 
 drink question, nothing at all was ever done to protect these 
 villages from the Greek intruders, who ply their trade in 
 them unchecked to the present da)-. Their case was as 
 strong a one as could well have been brought forward, for 
 it was one where the demand for alcohol needed to be created 
 in the midst of a totally abstaining population, and it worked 
 the ill results we foresaw. The drink shops were put under 
 regulations good enough in their way, but the sale was not 
 suppressed, and like man)- another regulation in Egypt 
 where no advantage of revenue was concerned, they were 
 not insisted on ; energyin introducing them, however sincere 
 at the outset, soon slackened, and the regulations became a 
 dead letter. 
 
 I will add to this, because they are amusing, a couple of 
 extracts from m)' diar)', conversations 1 put down in it, with 
 Zeyd, my Bedouin horse master, of the Muteyr tribe in 
 Nejd, as I was riding with him on two occasions on the 
 desert edge in the evening that winter. They have an in- 
 terest worth preserving, as they show the way the Arabs of 
 Arabia think in contrast to the Egyptian fellahin whom 
 they come in contact with during their visits to Cairo, a 
 contrast which has a significance in view of the political 
 developments we have witnessed in these last years. 
 
 ^^ Zeyd. The fellahin are a timid folk, if they see a cat 
 cross their path after dark they think it an afrit, they^ believe 
 in all manner of foolish things. 
 
 " /. What then? Are there no afrits in Nejd? 
 
 "Zeyd. Wallah! The belief in (7/>7Vi- is foolishness. There 
 are no afrits, neither in Nejd nor here. But the fellahin 
 have no heart. They are without blood. They are afraid. 
 
 ■' /. You are a philosopher. Do all in Nejd think like you? 
 
 '^ Zeyd. The men of Nejd have brave hearts. They are 
 used to being alone. They journey alone through the desert, 
 ten days, twenty days, forty days perhaps. They know 
 nothing of afrits. There is none other but God. 
 
iSqo] The PhilosopJiy of Siipey-stition 45 
 
 " /. Truly none. But do they see nothing? 
 
 " Zcyd. They fear nothing. There is of course Shaitan, 
 who sometimes appears to them in the likeness of a goat or 
 a cow. But they are not afraid. He does not harm them. 
 
 " /. And do they speak to him? 
 
 " Zeyd. Shaitan will sometimes journey with them m 
 disguise. There was once a man of Bereydah who was 
 riding his delul alone in a storm. There was lightning 
 amid the darkness. He heard a voice in front of him asking 
 what he was doing there in such tempestuous weather, 
 and if he «as not afraid. A flash revealed to him the 
 figure of a sheep set on the neck of his camel. It was 
 Siiaita:!. who was speaking to frighten the man. The man, 
 however, put out his hand and caught the sheep b}- the 
 fleece, saying, ' I know }-ou are a sheep b}- your wool.' But 
 Shaitan answered, ' And you. I know }-ou are a sheep by 
 your wits! ' and he slid down the camel's neck to the ground 
 and disappeared. 
 
 " /. Yet }'ou do not believe in afrits. 
 
 " Zcyd. No. That is a vulgar superstition. 
 
 * * ♦ * 
 '■ /. What is this to the right of us? A tomb? 
 
 " Zeyd. A\-, verily. The tomb of a saint. The fellahin 
 have a hundred thousand saints. They are a credulous 
 people. They kill sheep for Abu Seri}-eh still, though he 
 has been dead a thousand years. 
 
 '■ /. And we, too, killed a sheep when we went on the 
 pilgrimage to Abu Seriyeh three years ago. 
 
 "'Zcyd. Yes, to bring a blessing on your camels. And one 
 of your camels died within the \-ear. How can a Sheykh, a 
 hoi}' man who has been dead so long, help any one, beast 
 or man? 
 
 "/. This, too, is philosophy. 
 
 " Zeyd. Xo. It is truth. An uncle or a grandfather, I can 
 understand that one should give them a sheep, but not to 
 Abu Seriveh. This land is full of the tombs of holy men. 
 The fellahin are a credulous people. 
 
 ♦ * * * 
 
 ^' Zevd. This road from Kafr el Shorafa to the bridge, 
 how often I used to think of it when I was journeying from 
 Syria with the Seglawi horse, the grey Seglawi, and the 
 Jilfa mare. I used to ask of God that he would grant me 
 
46 Zeyd purchases a Horse [1S90 
 
 this, that I might ride along the sand just here with them 
 in safety. And see, I arrived with them and rode along this 
 very road. 
 
 " /. Thank God. 
 
 " Zeyd. Yes, thank God. There is no word it does one 
 more good to say than this, ' thank God,' when a danger is 
 past. El havidu Vlllah; el hanidii I'lllah!" 
 
 Another conversation of nearly the same date has the 
 additional interest that it concerns a mission I had sent 
 him on the year before, to purchase a stallion for me from 
 the Anazeh in Northern Arabia. 
 
 " Zeyd. I will tell you how I bought the Seglawi [this was 
 the stallion ' Azrek,' see General Stud Book]. I did not, of 
 course, tell them the truth, that I was the servant of the Bey 
 (meaning me). There is no shame in this. It is policy 
 (siasd). I am a master of policy. I made a deceit. I said 
 to them that I was of the Agheylat, looking for horses for 
 India, horses from the north and tall ones, for those are the 
 horses that bring most price in India. What did I want with 
 the pure bred? I wanted to make money. And so I went 
 to the Sebaa. I alighted at Ibn ed Derri's tent, as it were 
 by accident. But I made a mistake. It was not the tent 
 of Mishlab Ibn ed Derri, but of his brother Fulan (the 
 name Fulan is used as we say So-and-So). There are 
 four brothers. Fulan and Fulan and Fulan and [Mishlab. 
 Mishlab was the owner of the Seglawi. I stayed there for 
 three days, without speaking of the Seglawi. The horse was 
 at pasture and I did not see him. On the fourth day came 
 Mishlab to breakfast with his brother, and they killed a lamb 
 — and behold the Seglawi was with him — he did not bring 
 him to sell, but, as the custom is with strangers, that I 
 might see him. He stood tethered outside the tent, but I 
 did not even turn his way. Only lifting up myeyes stealthily, 
 I saw him, and the sight of his forehead and of his eyes gave 
 me joy. For you know the Seglawi's face is of those which, 
 if a man, a sorrowful man, sees, he needs must rejoice. Only 
 it made my heart beat terribly, and I said to myself, ' Zeyd 
 must never more return to the Bey — he must die — -if he do 
 not obtain that horse.' Then, after we had eaten, I arose as 
 one who wishes to go outside for a private purpose ; and I 
 walked past the Seglawi with my face to the ground as 
 
189°] A Master of Guile /\.j 
 
 though I did not see him, and hardly putting one foot before 
 the other, Hke a thief And when I returned Mishlab was 
 alone with his son Sakr in the tent, and we talked of the 
 buying of horses. And I told them of my desire of tall 
 horses for the Indian market. 
 
 " And after a while I said to the father that I had some- 
 thing that I should wish to speak to him of in private — for 
 I knew that his son would not consent to the sale, seeing 
 that it was he who received the money of the Arabs when 
 their mares were served, and I knew, too, that the father 
 was displeased at this. All that is customary is that those 
 who bring mares should also bring flour for the stallion, and 
 it may be a kiswah (a complimentary robe), but not money. 
 But Sakr had taken money, to his father's displeasure. So I 
 said to the young man, when we had gone outside, ' O Sala- 
 meh, stay you here on one side, for I have something to speak 
 of with your father. And you may watch us, and, if you see 
 me strike your father, then come to his assistance, but if I do 
 not raise my hand to him, then wait till we have finished, for 
 it is not necessary you should hear.' And to my friend who 
 was with me, I told him to take his spear, and sent him on 
 another errand to fetch my dromedary. 
 
 "Then when we were alone, I said to Mishlab: 'O 
 Mishlab, it is time I went on my business, for I am en- 
 gaged in the purchase of horses. But before I go I would 
 see your horse. I cannot buy him, for I am looking only 
 for horses from the North at a low price, but yours, the 
 Seglawi, would I see. For 1 am of the Muteyr and you are 
 of the Sebaa, and I am a master of fortune {sahib el bukht), 
 and you are a master of fortune, and it would be a shame 
 that I did not name a price or put a value on him, for 
 otherwise, you might think that I did not know his worth.' 
 And Mishlab said, ' So be it.' And I named ;£^ioo, as if it 
 were a great price. And when I had named it, I saw that 
 Mishlab put his hand under his kefiyeh to scratch his 
 head and stroke his beard. And at last he spoke: 'Nay, 
 it v\^ould be a sin.' And I pressed him, for I saw by 
 his manner that he was in doubt, and I could hardly 
 believe in my fortune that there should be a hope of his 
 consenting. And again my heart beat so that you might 
 hear it. And at last I said, as if rising to go, ' There 
 shall be another ten added to the hundred.' And I gave 
 
48 Zeyd rides away [i8go 
 
 him my hand, and he gave me his hand. And I said, ' O 
 Mishlab, listen. The Seglawi is the Seglawi, and the men 
 of the tribe send their mares to you on his account. But 
 he is but flesh and blood, and a shot might destroy him, 
 and then where would be the ;^iio?' And he said, ' If it 
 were not for my son's ill doing, I would not do it. And I 
 do not want money, for God has blessed me with many 
 camels and I have all I need. But I fear that Sakr will 
 bring disgrace on me, for he takes money for the mares, 
 which thing is forbidden; and I fear lest my good fortune 
 should fail me.' 
 
 " And so it was settled in that one talking, and immedi- 
 ately I called for my delul, and having given him the 
 advance money iarbuti), I begged him to send his son 
 with me to Aleppo to receive the full price. And I mounted 
 in haste, fearing that the rest would return and would make 
 him change his mind." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BRIGANDAGE IN EGYPT 
 
 ^HE summer of 1890 I spent in large part at Paris 
 with Lytton at the Embassy, and was one of the most 
 dehghtful in my experience, but it contained Httle of a 
 political nature or that can be repeated here. Our talks 
 were mainly of literature, and more especially of dramatic 
 literature, on which he was just then engaged, the detail 
 of his official work being left principally to his staff, 
 though I would not be understood to mean that he was 
 a mere figurehead. As Ambassador, on the contrar\', his 
 political influence at Paris was greater than that of his 
 predecessor, Lord Lyons. With all the latter's dignity 
 and discretion and solid good sense, he had never suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining any kind of popularity, and in his 
 time the relations between France and England had be- 
 come the reverse of cordial. Lytton, however, by the very 
 qualities which had proved his defects when in India, had 
 obtained an immediate personal success at Paris, and had 
 in large measure restored the international good feeling. 
 His literary Bohemianism and lack of pomposity, his de- 
 votion to the stage, his ready patronage of artists, actors, 
 and those litterateurs who count for so much in Paris 
 journalism, had been a passport for him to favour with 
 the Press, and through the Press to public opinion. Lytton 
 was by taste a Bohemian, and Paris, which is also so largely 
 Bohemian, recognized him as a brother artist. It was im- 
 possible to regard him as representative of the morgice 
 britanniqiie, of which not only Lord Lyons but Lord 
 Cowley before him had been such notable examples. 
 Treated with a light hand, many a difficult question was 
 in his time easily circumvented, if not permanently solved, 
 and this at the expense of no real dignity. It was felt that 
 he wished well to Frenchmen and French views of life, and 
 that was sufficient. 
 
 E 
 
50 The Crabbet Chib [1890 
 
 In the intervals of my Paris visits I find notices of my 
 life in England, showing that I, too, had learned to take 
 life more lightly than in previous years. I busied myself 
 not at all with parliamentary politics, and even about 
 Ireland I ceased to take any absorbing interest. The 
 prospects of Home Rule were better assured just then 
 in all appearance than they had been since Gladstone's 
 defeat in 1886. The result of the great "Times" prosecu- 
 tion had been a notable victory for the Nationalists, and 
 had re-established Parnell's character as a responsible 
 statesman at a higher point than ever before in English 
 eyes, so that it was confidently expected that at the next 
 general election Gladstone would be returned to power 
 with a majority sufficient to overcome the opposition of 
 the House of Lords, and carry his Home Rule Bill into 
 law. It was, therefore, with a free conscience that I led an 
 idle life at home, writing my verses and enjoying social 
 pleasures in the company of my friends. It was in that 
 summer that the Crabbet Club, which was to acquire a 
 certain social celebrity, was established on a footing which 
 was to gain for it a character almost of importance. It 
 will not be out of place, seeing that our memoir writers of 
 the day have included it, or rather have not left it un- 
 noticed in their recollections, if I say a few words here as 
 to what it really was. 
 
 The Crabbet Club was in its origin a purely convivial 
 gathering, unambitious of any literary aim. It began in 
 this way: When George, Lord Pembroke (the 13th Earl) 
 came of age in 1871, having been a very popular boy at 
 Eton, with many school friends, and afterwards at Oxford, 
 he thought it would be amusing to continue in some measure 
 the life they had led by having them to stay with him once 
 or twice every summer at Wilton, for a day or two at a 
 time, to play cricket, and row on the river, and otherwise 
 divert themselves, and they took the name of the " Wilton," 
 or " Wagger " Club, and it proved a great success. In 1876, 
 though much older than the rest of the members, I was 
 asked to join it as one who had known the Herberts from 
 their school days. Pembroke was .staying with me at 
 Crabbet, and his two brothers and their sister Gladys 
 (afterwards Lady Ripon), and several of their friends, and 
 several of mine, and I drove them all to Epsom for the 
 
[Sgo] 
 
 Its Origin at JViIto7i 5 1 
 
 Derby (Silvio's year), and we had a cricket match and a 
 lawn tennis handicap (lawn tennis was in the process of 
 being invented, and we played on a court 20 feet longer 
 than what afterwards became the regulation length), and it 
 was on this occasion that I joined the club. The party at 
 Crabbet had proved such a success that the next year it 
 was proposed that the club should make one of its regular 
 meetings there, and so it gradually came about that the 
 members came to Crabbet annually. The members of the 
 club were never more than a few, a dozen to twenty, and 
 consisted, besides the Herbert brothers, of Eddy Hamilton, 
 who was afterwards Gladstone's private secretary. Lord 
 Lewisham, Jocelyn Amherst, Granny Farquhar, Lionel 
 Bathurst, with Harry Brand (afterwards Lord Hampden), 
 Nigel Kingscote, Godfrey VVebb, Button Bourke, Frank 
 Lascelles, Mark Napier, and half-a-dozen more of my own 
 intimates, and these came regularly to Crabbet every 
 summer, and we gradually adopted the " Crabbet Club " 
 as the name of our branch. 
 
 Though we professed no kind of politics, and looked to 
 amusement only, nearly all the members of it were Tories, 
 two or three of them in Parliament, and when in 1882 I 
 took the somewhat violent line I did about Egypt and war 
 ensued, several of the members taking offence ceased their 
 attendance, and the Club as far as the Crabbet meetings 
 were concerned became less popular, and this state of things 
 was aggravated when I stood for Parliament as a Home 
 Ruler in 1885 and 1886, and it was all but submerged by 
 my imprisonment at Galway. Hardly any of the old Wilton 
 members would answer the invitations to it, and Pem- 
 broke himself, the most tolerant of men, as an Irish land- 
 lord with large interests at stake in the county of Dublin, 
 felt it a grievance that I should have identified myself with 
 the Land League and the Plan of Campaign. All this was 
 natural enough, and I could not complain of the defection. 
 The Club, as the " Crabbet Club " was still continued, but 
 reconstructed on different lines with a number of young 
 men, Oxford undergraduates, most of them professing Home 
 Rule opinions. The chief of these were the two Peels, Willy 
 and George, sons of the Speaker, Arthur Pollen, Herbert 
 Vivian, Leo Maxse, Percy Wyndham (son of Sir Hugh], 
 Theodore Fry, Theobald Matthew, Artie Brand, and Loulou 
 
52 The Crabbet Chib [1S90 
 
 Harcourt, the only three of the old set being Mark Napier, 
 Eddy Hamilton, and Nigel Kingscote. 
 
 The young men thus got together, most of them fresh 
 from the Universities, though also bent on amusement, had 
 tastes more intellectual than their predecessors, and besides 
 our lawn tennis handicaps, we had much after-dinner speak- 
 ing, and a verse competition with the election of a poet 
 laureate for the year. The Club was in this condition when 
 in 1889 George Wyndham, becoming a member, took it in 
 hand, and seeing its intellectual capabilities brought ne\\' 
 blood into it by introducing friends of his own, already 
 holding a certain position in the political world, and who 
 have since no few of them climbed to fame. Among these 
 were George Curzon, Harry Cust, Houghton (now Lord 
 Crewe), Frederick Locker, Umphreville Swinburne, cousin 
 of the poet, St. George Lane Fox, Eddy Tennant, Lawrence 
 Currie, George Leveson Gower, Esme Howard, Elcho, Dick 
 Grosvenor, Alfred Douglas, Charles Gatty, Morpeth, and 
 his brother Hubert Howard, and on a single occasion Oscar 
 \\''ilde, and it was in the company of these that our meet- 
 ings of the early nineties were held. They were really 
 brilliant meetings, with post-prandial oratory of the most 
 amusing kind, and were productive of verse of a quite 
 high order. The number of the members was limited to 
 twenty, and there was much competition when a vacancy 
 occurred. The poetry of the Crabbet Club has been pre- 
 served in print, and is one of the curiosities of literature, 
 deserving a place, I venture to think, in company with the 
 best verse of a not serious kind, including even perhaps 
 that of the Mermaid Tavern. My own part in these meet- 
 ings, which were essentially convivial, was that of Chairman 
 and President, an anomalous one seeing that I was a tee- 
 totaller, but which yet worked well. 
 
 The latter half of the summer of 1890 was darkened for 
 me by the final illness and death of my cousin, Francis 
 Currie. He had been my Mentor, not always in the ways 
 of wisdom, during my youth at Paris, and had remained 
 there a constant and very dear friend for close on thirty 
 years. On my visit to Paris in the Spring I had found him 
 ill with an ominous cough, and other symptoms of a decline, 
 but his French doctor, whom I consulted about him, per- 
 sisted in declaring that it was nothing more than the 
 
iSgo] JVinier in Egypt 
 
 3 J 
 
 legacy of a fever he had long before contracted in India 
 while serving in the campaign of the Mutin)', and en- 
 couraged him to go for change of air to the Alps, though 
 to my eye, and to that of his faithful bonne Julienne he 
 was already " tin homnic fi'appc" Now, however, soon 
 after m\' return to the Paris Embassy in July, I learned 
 that he was at Aix les Bains, and, as it seemed, in an almost 
 hopeless state. This broke short my stay at Paris, and 
 took me first to Aix, and then moving him awa)- from the 
 great heat there to Glyon in Switzerland, where, a month 
 later, in spite of our care, he died. The histor_\- of those 
 few weeks, as of the rest of the summer of 1890, belongs, if 
 ever I write them, to my most private memoirs. 
 
 On the 1 8th of October we again left England for Egypt, 
 spending three more weeks on our way with the Lyttons at 
 Paris, and then on by Marseilles to Alexandria and Sheykh 
 Obeyd, where we once more spent the winter. The political 
 position in Egypt at this time was as follows: Riaz Pasha 
 was still in oiifice under the Khedive Tevvfik, and the pro- 
 vinces of Lower Egypt, laxly ruled, were much disturbed 
 with brigandage, especially in our immediate neighbour- 
 hood. Riaz, who at that time was working with the 
 Khedive in secret opposition to Baring and the British 
 Occupation, allowed the brigandage to continue, with the 
 idea that it would serve as a proof of the unpopularity of 
 the English regime and its powerlessness to preserve order. 
 Baring was occupied now almost exclusively with the 
 struggle to make both ends of Egyptian finance meet, 
 being convinced on his side that a prosperous balance 
 sheet was the best argument he could use with the British 
 public in favour of retainmg Egypt as a permanent British 
 dependency. In this he was supported by Lord Salisbury 
 at the Foreign Office, who had made up his mind, now that 
 the Wolff Convention for a withdrawal of the British garri- 
 son had failed, to stay on in military occupation with- 
 out any legal settlement of England's position on the Nile. 
 It was argued that the legal road to such a settlement had 
 been barred by the Sultan, who, when the Con\'ention had 
 been agreed to, had withheld his signature of ratification. 
 Though I did not know it at the time, our Queen (Victoria) 
 had taken the Sultan's action as a personal slight, seeing 
 that she had affixed her own royal signature in ratification 
 
54 Milner i7i Eoypt [1S90 
 
 before the Sultan's refusal, nor is it possible to sa)- that she 
 was without justification in feeling the matter strongly. In 
 accordance with this, Baring was beginning those changes 
 in the fiscal and administrative domain which were in- 
 tended to transfer all real power in Egypt, little by little, 
 from the Turco-Circassian class represented by Riaz which 
 he had hitherto patronized, into his own. The new policy, 
 however, was as \'et onh- in embryo, and the intention of 
 remaining in Egypt was not avowed. It was impossible to 
 do so openly, not only through the fear of trouble with 
 France, but also because Liberal opinion in England was 
 not prepared for it, and unless it could be converted to the 
 idea before the next general election, which was to take 
 place in 1892, it was always possible that Gladstone, coming 
 once more into power, might suddenly reverse the whole 
 process of absorption, and without further waiting recall 
 the troops from Cairo. 
 
 It was with this fear before his eyes that Baring had ob- 
 tained the services in Egypt of Alfred Milner, a journalist of 
 distinction, the same whom I had known in 1884 as sub- 
 editor of the " Pall Mall Gazette " under Stead (see " Gordon 
 at Khartoum "), and who, a year later, had been taken on by 
 Goschen as his private secretary. It was through Goschen's 
 recommendation that Baring ga\e him a place in Egypt of 
 ;^i,000 a year at the Ministry of Finance, nominally for ad- 
 ministrative work, but in reality with a mission of organizing 
 a press campaign in London in favour of a continuance of 
 the Egyptian occupation. For this work no man could have 
 been better chosen. He was nominally a Liberal, and had 
 stood as a supporter of Gladstone at the general election 
 of 1885, while his experience in Northumberland Street 
 had put him in touch with all the chief writers of the English 
 Liberal press. No man better than he knew the length of 
 the English electoral foot. At Cairo, without appearing per- 
 sonally in his journalistic character, he knew how to bring 
 the case he had to argue forward by encouraging the 
 various Englishmen officially emplo}-ed there to write 
 articles in the monthly magazines and elsewhere in praise, 
 not of their own, but of their fellow-administrator's achieve- 
 ments in the way of reform, knowing well that if it could 
 be proved that Eg\-pt, instead of a burden on the British 
 Exchequer, was becoming a paying concern, the battle would 
 
1891 ] Baring not opposed to Re/orvts 55 
 
 be won with the new government, should a Liberal one 
 come into office, even with Mr. Gladstone. And so, in fact, it 
 happened. The appearance of Milner's very able volume, 
 " England in Egypt," in which he drew together all these 
 threads of argument in lucid and attractive form, and which 
 was published a few months before the general election of 
 1893, effected, as I will show later, exactly the object aimed 
 at. Milner's reward for this service was not dela3'ed. The 
 same year he was relieved from his nominal functions in 
 Egypt, and given the important place at home of Chairman 
 of the Inland Revenue Board. I saw him pretty frequently 
 at Cairo during his stay there, and liked him, as I had liked 
 him. when in his humbler position as Stead's assistant 
 editor. He did not display, at that time, anything of that 
 violent Imperialism which led him later to aspire to the 
 sublime heights of Tory officialdom which he now oc- 
 cupies. 
 
 This was the position in Egypt in the earl)' spring of 
 1 89 1. I was now on excellent terms with Baring, whom I 
 found willing to listen to any suggestions I might make to 
 him for improving the lot of the fellahin, a matter which I 
 understood, while he, shut up in his office and seeing practic- 
 ally nothing of native Egypt beyond the tame officials 
 whom he had attracted to his camp, lived in comparative 
 darkness, and I was able in this way to effect a good deal 
 in the direction that most interested me, and I did not fail 
 to bring before him once more the case of Arabi's return ; 
 but he was still too strongly opposed to it, though, he 
 explained, if it was decided to occupy Egypt permanently 
 he should have no objection. Failing in this, as far as Arabi 
 was concerned, I now limited my pleading to an attempt 
 to interest him in other members of the former National 
 Party, and at the suggestion of my old friend, Sheykh 
 Mohammed Abdu, who was now living in my part of 
 Egypt as judge of our chief country town, Benha, and 
 whom we now saw pretty frequently, I brought before him 
 a plan that he should take these old Nationalists into his 
 councils and substitute for the Circassian Pashas who had 
 so far been the only class of Mohammedans permitted to 
 hold office under the restored regime since Tel-el-Kebir, an 
 Egyptian fellah government. Neither Riaz, nor Nubar, nor 
 an\- other of the ministers who had held office during the 
 
56 I suggest a Fellah Ministry [1*^91 
 
 past seven years, though patriotic some of them to the 
 extent of having it for their aim to get rid of all foreign 
 elements in the administration, had taken any real interest 
 in bettering the condition of the fellahin, and it seemed to 
 me a lack of intelligence on Baring's part that he had failed 
 to understand the popularity he might have gained by the 
 creation of a fellah ministry, and the comparative ease with 
 which he could have introduced the reforms he professed 
 to have at heart, and really at that time had. I find this 
 alluded to in my diary: 
 
 " 20t]i Feb. — A few days ago, there being a ministerial 
 crisis, I wrote to Baring suggesting that he should take 
 new men into the ministry instead of Riaz and the Cir- 
 cassians, who, despising the fellahin, look only to their own 
 class interests. He answered me favourably, and to-day I 
 called on him, and after luncheon we discussed the position. 
 Riaz has already given in, so nothing is to be done at pre- 
 sent ; but he expressed himself willing to make the acquaint- 
 ance of any men of the fellah class whose names I could 
 suggest, and I am to write to him again on the subject in 
 a few days. He fully admitted that Riaz was an obstructive ; 
 'but where,' he said, 'is there anyone better?' It was a 
 doubtful question whether it was possible to put Moham- 
 medans on any road of reform. I said: ' If you give up 
 that hope you give up everything, but you have not tried 
 the Liberal party to help you in reforms.' He said he ' was 
 quite willing. If the National party in 1882 had not allied 
 itself with the army it might have been supported.' ' That 
 was the fault,' I said, ' of the Joint Note.' He agreed that 
 ' the Joint Note was a mistake,' and, I think, was impressed 
 with what I said, and we parted on the understanding that 
 I was to give him the names of persons I thought able to 
 afford him political help, but he enjoined on me complete 
 secrecy. ' I will take some opportunity,' he said, ' of making 
 their acquaintance, but there is a difficulty sometimes in 
 my seeing the people.' I shall wait until Hassan Fasha 
 Sherei returns from Upper Egypt, and then see if we can- 
 not make out a fellah Cabinet together. I have a few letters 
 which passed between me and Baring at this time. They 
 are of importance as showing that the policy of intro- 
 ducing reforms through native Egyptians of the ;\Ioham- 
 medan Reform Party was laid before Sir Evelyn Baring, 
 
iSgi] A Night Attack by Robbers 57 
 
 and its advantages more or less acknowledged by him full 
 fifteen years before he, as Lord Cromer, adopted it as the 
 only one which could give a hope of making self-govern- 
 ment in Ei^ypt possible. (See his Reports for the year 
 1905). 
 
 Our life at Sheykh Obeyd that Spring was not w^ithout 
 incident, as our immediate neighbourhood was disturbed 
 almost nightly b)- gangs of robbers, who visited the country 
 houses round, breaking into them in the night time and 
 coming in armed conflict with such of the owners as re- 
 sisted them. The bands were composed principally (jf 
 Bedouins, with whom were associated certain refugees 
 from Upper Egypt and a few broken men escaped from 
 the prisons at Toura, but the direction of them was in 
 Bedouin hands. For this reason we, who were on good 
 terms with the tribes, were left unmolested, though every 
 one of our near neighbours suffered. This is from my diary: 
 
 " "jth March. — Last night at half-past twelve I heard a 
 great noise of dogs barking, and occasional shots. I went 
 out on to the balcony and listened, and was about to go to 
 bed again, for the guards have a habit of firing without 
 reason in the night to show they are awake, when I heard 
 cries, and I called to Deyf Allah, our head ghaffir, and 
 asked him what it was. He answered, ' there are robbers at 
 Selim Bey's.' I consequently dressed hastily and ran down, 
 having first awakened Anne, and taking m)' Winchester 
 rifle and a revolver sallied forth, followed by Deyf Allah 
 and Mahmud the Berberin. It was a dark night and I held 
 my rifle ready to fire as we went through the palm grove 
 where I thought I saw one or two people moving. As we 
 got near to Selim Faraj's house (a quarter of a mile from 
 ours) the noise of the dogs increased and mixed with it 
 there were groans, while occasional shots were still being 
 fired at a distance. I went cautiously up to the house where 
 I met an Arab with whom I exchanged greetings. He was 
 probably one of Selim's guards. At the door lay a fellah 
 groaning with his head cut open. There was a light at the 
 window, and women began to scream. On my coming close 
 they told me they had been robbed, and I found the win- 
 dow bars wrenched open. Presently Selim appeared at the 
 door [he was a County Court Judge, a Syrian Christian] 
 his face a coagulated mass of blood, and he let me in and 
 
58 Sclim Bey wouiided [1S91 
 
 told me the history of what had happened. There had been 
 a noise of knocking at his door, and on his opening it, 
 thinking it was the guard, he received a blow from a naboitt 
 (a quarter staff) on his shoulder, but managed to slip back 
 inside and bar the door. Then a number of men attacked 
 the house, calling on him to open, and on his refusal they 
 broke through the windows, while he struck at them with a 
 meat chopper, but they pushed him back and got through, 
 six of them, and called for his money. He proposed to 
 them to pay next day, but they declined to wait and broke 
 open his chests of drawers and made search. While this 
 was going on, he hid with his little girl in the sculler)', but 
 later issued out again to defend his property, and recei\'ed 
 three wounds on his head with some sharp instrument. 
 Then the robbers, ha\-ing found the money they were look- 
 ing for in his pockets, £^J, and hearing me coming, for 
 there was a cry of ' tarbitsh' their watchword for the 
 police, decamped. The wounded fellah was a servant whom 
 they had cut down outside with their nabouts, but nobody 
 paid him the least attention, and I had great difficulty in 
 getting him carried inside the house. The ladies begged me 
 to sta)- on with them, but I refused, as I had my own people 
 to look after, and so went back, and nothing further hap- 
 pened till daybreak. On my return in the morning I found 
 Selim in bed, and heard his story again. The men, he said, 
 were nearly naked, but had their faces masked. They spoke 
 the ;\'Iogrebbin dialect. The\' were Arabs of the West. I 
 then went with Sheykh Hassan Abu Tawil, the chief of our 
 local Arabs and a tracker, and we followed the track of 
 seven men, which was very distinct in the sand, running 
 towards Matarieh. When within a quarter of a mile of the 
 raihva)- station there, they had sat down and then separ- 
 ated, one who had been wearing shoes going to the ostrich 
 farm, the rest towards the tents of Prince Ahmed Pasha's 
 guard. It is generally thought that they are local people, 
 though Abu Tawil insists the}- are Mogrebbins, who once 
 lived near the Obelisk (of Heliopolis), and come back e\-er3- 
 year to rob. One of them had enormous footprints, prob- 
 abl)- a Xegro. I have taken Selim Bey into Cairo, first to 
 Baring, who, however, was too busy to see him, and then on 
 with a note from him to Baker Pasha, the English Chief of 
 Police, an old militar}- fogey whom I worked up into un- 
 
iSgi] Proposed Fellah Ministry 59 
 
 wonted action by telling him that the state of the country 
 was worse than either Greece or Asia Minor." 
 
 The curious part of this episode, though I do not iind it 
 in my diary, was Selim Bey's attitude in the affair. He was 
 a native Christian Judge, and had been a man of the law 
 all his life, but it was with the greatest difficulty that I 
 could persuade him to report the attack made on him to 
 the police. " It would only put me on bad terms with the 
 neighbours," he said, worse than those he vvas alread}' on, 
 for he was very unpopular, and it was only on my declaring 
 that I would myself report it that he consented to go in 
 with me to Cairo. 
 
 " 14/// Alarcli. — The attack on Selim Bey has made a stir 
 and his house is guarded by the regular police. The Mudir 
 has been there and Baker Pasha. They have made nine or 
 ten arrests, among them the two Ghaffirs. Poor old Eid, 
 our bowab (gatekeeper), being one of them. I found him 
 sitting disconsolately among the prisoners with his little 
 child he is so fond of I am sorry I troubled myself in the 
 matter, for I do not believe one of the arrested men had 
 anything to do with the business, but this is the fourth 
 serious case round about us in eighteen months, and last 
 time they killed a man, and a woman died of fright. Selim 
 Bey's wound is rather serious, and the servant may yet die; 
 he is in hospital. The Mudir took from me a deposition, 
 but it was very meagre, and I had a difficulty in preventing 
 the insertion in it of things quite untrue." 
 
 This affair put an end for the time to the night attacks. 
 I came to the conclusion later that the tolerance the bands 
 had so long enjoyed had been due to Riaz' tacit complicity 
 joined to Baker's muddle-headed incapacity (he was re- 
 placed soon afterwards). I took advantage of it to draw a 
 moral for Baring, and wrote a letter to him recapitulating 
 my arguments in favour of a fellah government, sending 
 him a list of the names of men of the fellah party who 
 might make up a Reform Ministry. The list was drawn up 
 in consultation with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu and Mo- 
 hammed Moelhi. These are the names: 
 
 Hassan Pasha Sherei of Minieh. 
 
 Baligh Bey. 
 
 Emin Bey Fikri. 
 
 Saad Effendi Zaghloul. 
 
6o I argue i^<ith Barhig [1^91 
 
 Ahmed Effendi Mahmoud. 
 
 Ibrahim Effendi el Wakil. 
 
 Mahmud Bey Shukri. 
 
 Ahmed Bey Heshmet 
 
 Yusuf Bey Shoki. 
 
 Sheykh Mohammed Abdu. 
 It is to be remarked that this Hst includes the name of 
 Saad Zaghloul, whom fifteen years later Cromer made Min- 
 ister of Public Instruction, as well as Sheykh Mohammed 
 Abdu's, afterwards Grand Mufti, whom he declared to be 
 the chief hope of Liberal Islam in Egypt. Baring, however, 
 missed his real opportunity by neglecting my recommenda- 
 tion of Hassan Sherei, who politically was of far greater 
 weight than any of them, and who had died before Baring 
 could bring himself to accepting a fellah Ministry. " Bar- 
 ing, however, answers: ' I do not think there is a ghost of 
 a chance of the Khedive forming a fellah Ministry.' Still 
 Baring may come to it, as Riaz has been coquetting with 
 the French, and has brought about a fine diplomatic storm. 
 Our only policy is to wait the disappearance, one after the 
 other, of the old ministers, and sooner or later they mu.st 
 come to us if they do not annex. Sherif is gone and Xubar, 
 and now Riaz seems going. 
 
 " A^th April. — To Cairo and saw Baring. I asked him first 
 about the drink shops, and he said that though he still 
 hoped to be able to issue his regulations, there was great 
 opposition to these for political reasons from the French; 
 the question of public security was much more important ; 
 it was a difficult job ; he should put an end to it in time, but 
 he hardly knew how ; with regard to the native government 
 it was impossible to get men capable and honest; things 
 were going badly and were leading to a new smash-up; he 
 had only to work on as he could. I asked him what he 
 thought would happen if we evacuated. He said everything 
 would go to smash, but we should not evacuate. I said we 
 might be obliged to do so if there was a change of govern- 
 ment at home. He said, ' I shall protest against it, and, if it 
 is insisted on, I wash my hands of the consequences.' I said, 
 ' It is impossible you should not be responsible if you do 
 nothing to prepare for it.' He said, ' They are all alike 
 (meaning the Egyptians). I know most of the men you 
 wrote of.' ' And Hassan Sherei? ' I asked. ' No, not Hassan 
 
1 89 1 J To prepare for Evacuation 61 
 
 Sherei, but the)' are all alike,' He said, ' The Khedive is in 
 favour of reform.' 'Yes, as long as he thinks you stronger 
 than the French, but if England were forced to evacuate, you 
 would see how soon he would go over.' ' I daresay. My ex- 
 perience of Easterns is all that way, but we shall not evacu- 
 ate ; we shall have a war with France.' I reminded him of 
 our conversation of 1883, when I told him he could make 
 nothing of Tewfik and the Circassians. He said, ' Whom 
 would you have had? There would only have been Halim, 
 and it would have been the same thing. At any rate, it is 
 too late now to change. And so we parted." 
 
 All this is of interest now as showing how little reality 
 there was in the excuse so commonly made for the breach 
 of our declarations that we were going to leave Egypt, and 
 that our remaining on there was thrust upon us against our 
 will. It was only true in the sense that it was impossible to 
 leave Egypt and at the same time remain its lords and 
 masters politically; only one way was really possible, and 
 that we always refused to take, to restore the National party 
 with its liberal ideas, and thus earn its gratitude and con- 
 fidence. Egypt might then have remained, not a dependency 
 of the British Empire, but its very good friend and the 
 faithful guardian of the route by the Suez Canal to India. 
 The mistake made on this head by Baring was among the 
 man}- causes that led, as I shall show, to England's being 
 obliged to take part in the quarrel between France and 
 Germany in the great war of 1914. Lord Cromer's obstin- 
 acy on this point was a misfortune. Another was the un- 
 looked-for secession which occurred that spring of Lord 
 Randolph Churchill from the counsels of the Tory party at 
 home. Churchill had, ever since 1882, been a powerful 
 advocate with Lord Salisbury of Egypt's claim to a restora- 
 tion of her independence so unwisely taken from her in that 
 year, and his quarrel now with his party left my advocacy 
 of Egyptian liberty without support at the Foreign Office 
 of effective Cabinet kind. 
 
 We left Sheykh Obeyd for Europe in April, taking Rome 
 again on our way home and Paris. 
 
 '' 2^rd April 1891. — Landed at Naples this morning, 
 having finished a letter yesterday to Lord Salisbury about 
 Egyptian affairs, and I hope he may pay the attention to it 
 it deserves. 
 
62 Naples and Rome [1S91 
 
 " Having seen our things through the custom house we 
 drove to Agnano and the Grotto del Cane. The lake which 
 used to be the beauty of the place has been dried up these 
 t\vent\- )-ears b\' a French company, which thought to 
 find the ancient Roman town but found nothing ; their 
 operations have left a desolation hideous to the eye. How 
 horrible civilized man is. All day the spectacle of these 
 Neapolitans in their modern slop clothes has been to me a 
 nightmare; all nature is defiled by them. \\'hat counten- 
 ances of filth)' passions! what abominations to the senses! 
 what foul rubbish heaps! what stenches! \\'e looked into 
 the Grotto del Cane where criminals they say were cast 
 in the da}S of Nero. It must have been a merciful death; 
 witness the custode's little dog which has ' died dail)- ' 
 there for sixteen years and still wags its tail at each 
 new performance. A nightingale was singing, the only 
 thing quite in harmon}" with the beauty of the sky and hills. 
 Later we saw the young Duke, the heir to the Italian throne, 
 a small timid-faced young man, very unlike the House of 
 Savoy of which he is to be the head. The prince is ph3'sic- 
 alh- unimposing, though on horseback he looks well enough. 
 
 "At Rome, 2\th April. — To Monsignor Stonor's, who 
 showed me a liuge correspondence he has been having 
 with O'Shea on the subject of a libel committed on him 
 b}' Dr. McCormack, Bishop of Galwa}-, O'Shea having 
 appealed to the Pope. There was one specially interesting 
 letter he gave me to read. It related to Parnell's doings 
 with Chamberlain in 1885, and his acceptance of a local 
 government scheme, also to the part played by O'Shea, 
 Dr. O'Dwyer, and Cardinal Manning in the appointment 
 of Dr. Walsh to the Archbishopric of Dublin. They had 
 all, according to the letter, guaranteed Dr. Walsh as a 
 sound champion of law and order. ' Law and Order,' how- 
 ever, meant another thing in 1885 from what it has meant 
 since. Monsignor Stonor sa\-s that Cardinal ]\Ioran was 
 already appointed to Dublin and on his way from Australia 
 to Rome, when his nomination was reversed and Dr. Walsh 
 appointed instead. He laments now the ignorance of the 
 Vatican, which sees in Ireland only a faithful Catholic land 
 oppressed by a Foreign Government. I am staying on at the 
 ;\Iinerva, Anne and Judith having gone home straight from 
 Naples. 
 
iSgiJ The French defeat at Tonquui 63 
 
 " 2^th April. — To the Irish College where I saw m)- old 
 friend the Monsignore Rector, who spoke despondingl)' of 
 Ireland, praying only that God's will might be done. Not 
 so Prior Glyn and Archbishop Walsh whom I next saw. 
 They are very confident of beating Parnell out of Ireland, 
 and winning the English elections (next year); if not they 
 agree that the cause of Home Rule is hopeless, for Irish 
 America would not continue to support a parliamentary 
 struggle, but would fall back on secret societies and assa.s- 
 sination. Dr. Walsh estimates Parnell's party in Ireland 
 after the elections at sixteen out of a total of eighty Home 
 Rule members. Prior Glyn's last words to me were ' We 
 shall meet again at College Green when the Parliament is 
 opened.' 
 
 " 2?>th April. — Called on Dufferin at the Embass}-, who 
 showed me a number of drawings he had made in former 
 times, including one of his mother, done at Athens in the 
 year of our first acquaintance, 1859. He talked a good 
 deal on Eastern subjects, but he skilfully 'avoided politics, 
 making it clear that he wished the visit to be one of 
 friendship only." 
 
 At Paris I stayed four days, principally with the Lyttons. 
 the talk of the day being of the French failure at Tonkin. 
 
 " 30//? April. — To a coiffeur in the Rue de la Paix to be 
 trimmed and washed and combed after the fashion of the 
 country. The man who attended me was very voluble, 
 having been a soldier in Tonkin and a blood-thirsty one 
 to boot, by his own showing. ' Ah, Monsieur,' he exclaimed, 
 ' quel gouvernement que le notre, un gouvernement qui ne 
 salt rien faire marcher. Figurez vous qu'on vous envoie des 
 civils pour gouverner la Colonic, des hommes de science 
 qui s'imaginent que tous les hommes sont freres. Ce n'est 
 pas cela qu'il faut a la Colonic, en agissant avec des brutes 
 il faut etre brutal. Si j'avais ete nomme gouverneur pend- 
 ant im mois seulement, j'aurais extermine tout ce monde 
 Tonquinois. II faut les assommer, Monsieur, comme fait le 
 gouvernement Anglais aux Indes. Voila un gouvernement 
 qui a la main raide; c'est ce qu'il faudrait a nos colonies.' 
 He asked me v/hether I was not of his opinion. I said, 
 ' Perhaps not quite.' " 
 
 On my arrival a fev/ days later in London I had a 
 momentary hope about Egypt, seeing it announced in the 
 
64 Labouchcrc on Gladstone [1S91 
 
 " Times" vl3th Ma\-) that the Riaz Ministry had resiLjiied 
 I had heard the news the night before from Rivers \^'ilson, 
 and was full of hope that the new men who, the " Times " 
 said, were to take their place would be of the Fellah Party, 
 but the hope was speedily dispelled, as it pro\ed to be 
 mereh" a shifting" of places, no single member of the new 
 Ministr\- being of the Xational Part\- or of the native fellah 
 class. Also Lord Salisbury, 21st May, made a speech about 
 EL,'-ypt, which seemed to exclude all thought of preparing 
 for evacuation. It put an end for a while to my pleading 
 for the Eg}'ptian cause, except with my few political friends, 
 Evelyn, Labouchere, Auberon Herbert, and Sir \^'ilfrid 
 Lawson. Soon after this: 
 
 " 2;id June. — I saw Sir \^'illiam Gregory in London, 
 wlio was interesting himself in the hoped-for return to 
 Eg}-pt of the Ceylon exiles. \\'e agreed that Lord 
 Salisbur\- was hopeless, and that we had better put 
 Labouchere on our Egxptian business, so to Labouchere 
 I went. He has moved into a delightful house in Old 
 Palace Yard exactly opposite the Houses of Parliament. 
 I met him on the doorstep just coming in from the 
 House, in an old skull-cap which he wears instead of hat, 
 and he took me in to luncheon. \\'e talked about Eg)-pt, 
 as to which he has alwa\s been sounder than an}- other 
 politician except Randolph. I was glad to find that he 
 was not prepared to evacuate itncoiiditioiiall_\\ but intended, 
 when the Liberals came into power, to get Egypt neutral- 
 ised, and I think he will serve us better than anyone else 
 can. ' If you have an\' influence with the PVench,' he said, 
 ' get them to propose terms of neutralization.' I explained 
 to him what the position in Eg)'pt was. He \\as vcr\- 
 amusing about the actual state of the Liberal part\\ Glad- 
 stone in his dotage pulled this way b\' one and that way 
 by another. They don't expect a dissolution until next 
 }-ear, but hope to keep the old man alive like the T\-coon 
 of Japan, even after he is dead.' All agree that there will 
 be a general break up in the part}- when Gladstone dies. 
 Labouchere is looking old, he tells me he is fift\'-eight, but 
 I trust he may last long enough some da}- to lead his 
 part}'." 
 
 With Lawson I had a long talk, June the 4th, and 
 " found him nearly as much a pessimist about the human 
 
1 891] The Society of " The Souis'' 65 
 
 race as I have become. In England he looks to the advent 
 of a really democratic parliament as a last chance, beyond 
 which, if it fails, there is nothing to hope." With Morris, 
 too, whom I again saw much of, 1 found the same political 
 despondency. He had just published his News from No- 
 where. "The picture he draws in it of social communism 
 is pretty, but he, too, is not ver)- hopeful of its ever coming 
 true. I am determined now to get on with my ' Secret 
 History of the Invasion of Egypt,' so as to have it ready 
 for publication when Gladstone comes back to office. My 
 old friend, too, Eddy Hamilton, I saw. I found him occupy- 
 ing the ground floor rooms of No. 10, Downing Street. 
 His sitting room is that in which the Cabinet Councils 
 ha\e always been held, and many a scurvy decision been 
 come to in the last hundred years." Hamilton was now 
 permanent official head of the Treasury, and the rooms 
 had been lent him by Lord Salisbury who did not occupy 
 them. He was suffering, however, with the disease, creep- 
 ing paralysis, of which some years later he died, and we 
 did not talk much on Egypt or on politics. 
 
 In my disappointment about Egypt I turned with re- 
 doubled zest to my social pleasures of the year before, and at 
 this time saw much of that interesting group of clever men 
 and pretty women known as the " Souls," than whom no 
 section of London Societ)' was better worth frequenting, 
 including as it did all that there was most intellectually 
 amusing and least conventional. It was a group of men and 
 women bent on pleasure, but pleasure of a superior kind, 
 eschewingthevulgaritiesof racing and card-playing indulged 
 in by the majority of the rich and noble, and looking for 
 their excitement in romance and sentiment. But this is not 
 the place in which to describe the life we led, though it 
 well deserves being eternalized in print. It harmonized well 
 with m)- literary work, and the verses I was preparing for 
 a new edition of the " Sonnets and Songs of Proteus." This 
 William Morris had proposed to print as one of the earliest 
 volumes of the Kelmscott Press, and I was much with him 
 in connection with it. 
 
 " lotk June. — There is a great turmoil in the papers 
 about Lord Salisbury's Treaty or Agreement with Italy 
 in 1887. It appears now that King Humbert told Prince 
 Napoleon about it, and at last it has come out. This 
 
 F 
 
66 London adulates Kaiser IJ^i/he/ni [i''9i 
 
 coincides with the change of polic}- in Egypt, and the 
 determination to remain there." [This Agreement, which 
 has never been officially admitted bj- our Foreign Office, 
 related to an intended seizure by Ital\- of Tripoli, and 
 a promise that England would help Itah- if it led to a 
 quarrel between her and France. The realit\- of the ;;._;'ree- 
 ment, however, has since been acknowle Ijed b\- Crispi m 
 his Memoirs.] 
 
 To London in the evening and dined in Park Lane (a 
 small dinner arranged by George \\'}-ndham, in which I 
 was to meet Arthur Balfour and bury the hatchet \\ith 
 him of our Irish quarrel). The party consisted of George 
 and his wife. Lady Clifden's daughter, ]\Iiss Ellis, ;\Irs. 
 Hardinge, Lord Edmund Talbot, Bo Grosvenor (Lord 
 Ebury), Charles Gatt\-, with Balfour and me. It was a 
 pleasant party, and after the ladies had left we stayed on 
 talking till past one o'clock. I had not met Balfour since 
 my Irish campaigning, and we did not talk politics, dis- 
 cussing instead literature, and especiall}' the influence of 
 Arabia on the Middle Ages. Balfour was agreeable and 
 the conversation brilliant, and he showed especial ami- 
 ability to me as if to make up for past severities, offering 
 me a place in his brougham to go home in when \\e went 
 awa}-. \\ h}-, indeed, should we quarrel? He has mitigated 
 his prison rigours in Ireland and I am aloof from politics. 
 
 "nth [illy. — Arabi's case has been brought forward 
 in Parliament by Labouchere, and the Foreign Office 
 answer is fairly satisfactory. Ferguson says that the Govern- 
 ment has uttered no non posswnus about the e.xiles, and is 
 seeing what can be done. 
 
 " All the world is agog just now about the visit of the 
 German Emperor to London, and the Liberals are just as 
 absurd (in their adulation) as the Tories. I met Justin 
 McCarth}' to-da}' in the street with his son Hunth", and 
 walked some wa}- with them. They were jubilant about the 
 Carlow election and Parnell's collapse, but Hunth- told me 
 he did not intend to come forward again in Parliament, but 
 would stick to literature. His talk about Egypt was quite 
 in the Imperialistic vein, justifying what I have alwa\-s 
 predicted that the Irish, once free, would be more English 
 than the English in enslaving the weaker nations. 
 
 " i^th July. — To see Cardinal Manning, taking with me 
 
iSgi] Mori'is Kelniscott Press 67 
 
 a basket of roses from Crabbet for his birthday, of which I 
 was reminded by Hcdgecock's remark in the morning that 
 to-day was ' Swithums.' The old man is less infirm, I 
 thought, and we talked politics and literature. He told me 
 of two new poets, Symons and Mrs. King. He is satisfied 
 with the wa)' things are going in Ireland, and asked me 
 what I thought of the Pope's Labour Encyclical. It is, in 
 truth, a rather colourless pronouncement, saying too little. 
 
 " bth Aug. — At Coombe, where I heard from Bertram 
 Currie the history of the Baring financial crisis, and the 
 part he had played in averting its being an absolute crash. 
 The collapse was due to Revelstoke's having gambled out- 
 side the line of his ordinary business. He had had his head 
 turned by the million he had made over the Guinness affair, 
 and he had come to think that everything he touched must 
 turn to gold, and he went on to his ventures in South 
 America, which let him in. The House of Baring would 
 have broken altogether if he, Bertram, had not got the 
 Bank of England to secure its liabilities for a million and 
 taken half a million himself and persuaded Lord Rothschild 
 as late as six o'clock in the evening to take another. The 
 prospects in South America are bad, as things there do not 
 settle down and Ned [Revelstoke] has only ;6'Soo a year 
 settled income. [This was a case that had made an immense 
 sensation in the City. But the House of Baring has happily 
 survived it.] 
 
 "■jth August. — Lunched at Kelmscott House when Mrs. 
 Morris took me to see the printing. Morris's own poems 
 were being struck off, most beautiful they are with their 
 rubrics. The sheet I saw being printed contained the 
 Ballad of John a Wood." 
 
 This also of nearly the same date relates to the Kelm- 
 scott Press. " Had supper with Morris and his wife and her 
 sister, Miss Burden, and a Mr. Walker [Emery Walker], 
 who helps in the printing work. Morris was busy drawing 
 a title-page for his ' Golden Legend ' and there were some 
 sheets of his new volume of poems, which is to be uniform 
 with the volume he is printing for me. He was immensely 
 pleased when I told him that I had read his 'News from 
 Nowhere,' and that Anne also had read it. He gave an 
 amusing account of an old house ' that that fellow Watts 
 (the painter) had been daubing over. But a coat of white- 
 
68 French Royalists in Scotland [it^oi 
 
 wash,' he said, ' would soon set that right.' I told him in 
 return about George Wyndham's \isit to S\\inburne at 
 Putney, a few months ago, when the other \A'atts, Theodore 
 W'atts-Dunton, had insisted on talking politics with him 
 instead of literature, to George's disgust, and how it had 
 ended in \A'atts reading out his own poems instead of let- 
 ting S\\inburne read his. \^'atts, George tells me, keeps 
 Swinburne prisoner, as a keeper keeps a lunatic. He had 
 explained to George that some years ago he had found 
 Swinburne in bed, d}-ing of what is called ' drunkard's 
 diarrhcea,' and that having got him round, he now considers 
 Swinburne as his own propert}', and treats him like a 
 naught}- boy, 'a case,' said George, ' for police interference.' 
 ^Morris was greatly amused at this." 
 
 The month of September saw me in Scotland for a fort- 
 night's grouse shooting at Castle ]\Ienzies, which had been 
 rented for the season b}- mj- friends the ^^'agrams, where I 
 had the advantage of meeting a number of French ro)-alists 
 who were stajing there to pa)- their court to the Comte de 
 Paris, who rented a moor close by, the Broglies, the Jau- 
 CL'urts, and the Hautpouls, as well as Count ]Mensdorff", 
 afterwards Austrian Ambassador in London. \A'ith these I 
 made friends, and also had more than one opportunitj- of 
 seeing the Comte and Comtesse de Paris and their beautiful 
 daughter, Princess Helene, who was at one time so nearh- 
 marrying the heir to our own English throne, and who 
 afterwards married the Duke of Aosta (I had already met 
 her once before at the \\'agram's ls\y diar}- describes the 
 life led by these most worth}- Pretenders to the throne of 
 France in their summer Highland home thus: 
 
 " iith Sept. Sunday. — \A'e drove over to Loch Kinnaird, 
 a lovel}- place in a fir wood high up on the moors. The 
 house is a wooden one without an}- kind of pretension. 
 The inside of varnished deal, no upper story, no garden, 
 and no attempt at beautifying inside or out. There we 
 found the Comte de Paris, a lean, bent, grish-bearded man, 
 on the wrong side of middle age, undistinguished in ap- 
 pearance or manner, though courteous and amiable, difficult 
 to recognize as the descendant of French kings or the 
 representative of divine right in the world. His Oueen, a 
 masculine, plain woman. 
 
 " With them, the flower of their wilderness, Princesse 
 

 
 Princesse Hilcne de France 69 
 
 Helene de France at de Navarre, a tall, very tall, slight girl 
 of immense charm and distinction, whom I taught to play 
 lawn tennis at Castle Menzies three years ago. She remem- 
 bered it well and was very nice to me in her greeting. She 
 poured out tea for us, and we all sat down to it, a regular 
 meal in the dining-room. The little conversation I had 
 with the Comte de Paris was only about shooting." I saw 
 them again on the 15th, when the)/ came to Castle Menzies 
 for a great chasse of blue hares on Shehallion. " It \vas 
 close opposite Shehallion on the tops of the hills, and to 
 these the hares were driven, poor timorous beasts of the 
 blue mountain kind. We got four hundred of them, a ter- 
 rible massacre. The party consisted of the Comte and 
 Comtesse de Paris, with three French gentlemen of their 
 suite, of Wagram, the Prince de Broglie, Lord Crawford 
 and his son Balcarres, Algy Grosvenor, Godfrey Webb, 
 Needham, and me. The Comtesse de Paris shoots \vell. I 
 walked the last two miles across the moor with her and 
 saw her kill a brace of strong flying driven grouse in ex- 
 cellent style. She marches over the heather like a grenadier, 
 shouts at the beaters, and jokes in rough country fashion 
 with those near her. The Comte is equally without pre- 
 tence. They are addressed as Monseigneur and Madame — 
 sometimes, but rarely, as Altesse — their conversation a long 
 sequence of royal com_monplace. The}' are full o{ bonhomie. 
 Coming to the high road on our way home a gipsy woman 
 stopped the Count, and he gave her two sixpences. 
 
 "20th Sept. — At I, came the Comte and Comtesse de 
 Paris, and the little Princess looking lovely in a hat with 
 pink flowers. I was put next her at luncheon, and we 
 talked all the time, Balcarres being on her right hand. We 
 talked about the East, and she promised to come to Eg3'pt 
 and that I should be her dragoman and take her to Mount 
 Sinai. She told me about her life at home at Stowe, where 
 she rides and hunts with the Duke of Grafton's hounds, 
 and at Loch Kinnaird where she walks about the hills alone 
 each summer with her dogs. I asked her, ' Have you no 
 governess with you?' ' I should like to see the governess,' 
 she said, 'who would undertake to look after me.' And she 
 looked proudly out of her blue eyes. In Spain, where they 
 spend part of their winters near Seville, they hunt wild 
 camels on horseback. We talked, too, about her brother, the 
 
70 F{7-si Visit to the Lrle>: [i"^i'i 
 
 Due d'Orleans' imprisonment at Paris, and mine in lie- 
 land." 
 
 On my way back south I paid a first visit to the Glen, 
 where most of the Tennant family were assembled, thoui;h 
 Margot «-as away. Lucy and Charty, however, were there, 
 and I made great friends with old Lady Tennant, a quiet 
 little old lad\-, ver)- well dressed, active and alert,* whom 
 I found exceedingh- pleasant and conversable, with a heart 
 overflowing with kindness. She showed me a book about 
 Souls, which gives diagrams of the various kinds of souls, 
 the surface soul, the deep soul, and the mixed soul, half- 
 clever, half-childish i^the book had something to do, I think, 
 with the name given to the set of which her daughters 
 were such notable members"^. 
 
 " Talking about Gladstone, she tells me that Gladstone's 
 grandfather lived in this neighbourhood at Peebles. He \\ as 
 a baker, spelling his name Gladstanes, but known locally 
 as ' licht bap,' on account of his selling his bread at false 
 weight, ' bap ' being the name of a kind of loaf. After 
 luncheon ^\•e all drove to Traquhair, an interesting old 
 house much fallen into decay, the present owner taking no 
 interest in it. We were shown over the rooms b}- his 
 brother, who might have been one of Scott's Osbaldistones. 
 The family pedigrees were lying littered round the librar}-, 
 hardl}' legible for damp. 
 
 " 30/// Stpt. — To Kelmscott 3^Ianor, to uish the ^lorriscs 
 good-bj-e for the winter. It was ^-ery perfect weather and 
 we did our gudgeon fishing and took our walks as usual 
 there. Jenn\- is better than she has been for se\"eral j'ears. 
 Her devotion to her father is most touching and his to her. 
 Morris in high feather. He read us out several of his poems 
 of his best, including ' The Haystack in the Floods,' but his 
 reading is without the graces of elocution. He did it as if 
 he were throwing a bone to a dog, at the end of each piece 
 breaking off with ' There, that 's it,' as much as to say, 'You 
 ma_\' take it or leave it, as }-ou please.' He is to lecture on 
 art at Birmingham on Friday. Politicalh' he is in much the 
 same position as I am. He has found his Socialism impos- 
 sible and uncongenial, and has thrown it wholl}' up for art 
 and poetry, his earlier loves. I fanc}- I maj' have influenced 
 him in this." 
 
 The earl\- autumn saw me once more in Paris, where the 
 
iSqi] Lady Salisbiuy at Paris 71 
 
 unrest of the military party wliich had given Boulanger 
 his chance two years before, a chance which he had failed 
 to take, had given place to apathy. " Poor Boulanger," 
 I \\'rite, 1st October, " has blown his brains out over the 
 grave of Madame Bonnemain. Politically he was already 
 defunct, and this is a graceful and dramatic exit"; and a 
 week later, " Parnell is dead." 
 
 Here I spent my time, as usual, mostly at the Embassy, 
 where Lady Salisbury was staying with her daughter. Lady 
 Gwendolen, and her sister-in-law, Lady Galloway, both 
 very charming women. Lady Salisbury, too, was clever 
 with much dr\' wit. I find the following in my journal: " I 
 sat between Lady Salisbury and Lady Galloway to-night 
 at dinner, and during it she told us a story of a visit she 
 had paid long ago to old Lady Palmerston, and how Lady 
 Palmerston had said to her, a propos of the bondage of 
 social observances, ' Aly dear, you will some day be in my 
 position (of Prime Minister's wife), and when you are I 
 advise you to pay no visits at all.' ' So I never pay any,' 
 she said, 'except to the Foreign Ambassadresses. Of course,' 
 she added, ' I don't include those of the South American 
 Republics or an)- others of the people who live up trees.' " 
 
 The question of the evacuation of Eg)'pt was being a good 
 deal discussed at that time in Paris, as the French Govern- 
 ment, suspecting Lord Salisbur)' of the intention, he in fact 
 had, of making the Occupation there more permanent, was 
 beginning to give trouble, and I found both Lytton and 
 Egerton, first Secretary of the Embassy, an old friend of 
 mine, who did much of the work of the Embassy, and had 
 been acting as Charge d' Affaires during Lytton's absence 
 on leave during the summer, anxious to hear what I had to 
 say on the subject, and I discussed it thoroughly with both. 
 I had learned from my Egyptian friend, Sanua, who had 
 just been at Constantinople and had had an interview with 
 Sultan Abdul Hamid, that the Sultan had declared posi- 
 tively to him that he would take action to enforce the 
 evacuation. There was a perfect understanding now be- 
 tween the Turkish Government and the French, probably 
 also the Russian Go'icrnment, who had repented the pres- 
 sure they had put upon Abdul Hamid to prevent his 
 ratifying the Wolff Convention, and were pressing the 
 Sultan to re-open the question. L)tton, poor fellow, had 
 
73 George Curzoii and Oscar Wilde [i^-o' 
 
 returned to Paris from a cure he had been taking in 
 England, ver_\- seriousl}- ill, and the doctors had enjoined 
 upon him complete idleness, a remedy which would involve 
 his giving up his Embassy, but he was interested in what 
 I told him, and asked me to write him a memorandum on 
 the whole subject of Egypt, and especially that I should 
 discuss it with Egerton. This I did and found Egerton 
 strongly in favour of my views. " To my surprise he told 
 me that he was in favour of evacuating Egypt seeing the 
 pledges that had been given. ' We have managed,' he said, 
 ' to set everybody there against us except that stupid fool 
 the Khedive who counts for nothing,' and urged me strong!}' 
 not onl\- to write but to publish my memorandum, if onl\- 
 anonymously in the 'Times.'" Later (the same day, 27th 
 October; I saw George Curzon \\\io is staying in Paris 
 with Cond}' Stephens. He, Curzon, of course, talks all the 
 other wa\', and sa}'s the whole Conservative party will 
 oppose evacuation tooth and nail. I breakfasted with him, 
 Oscar Wilde, and Willy Peel, on which occasion Oscar told 
 us he was writing a play in French to be acted in the 
 Francais. He is ambitious of being a French Academician. 
 We promised to go to the first representation, George 
 Curzon as Prime ^linister. A da}' or two later, with 
 L}'tton's approval and Egerton 's, I gave my memorandum 
 to Blowitz (the " Times " correspondent), and it appeared 
 in due course in the "Times" without m}' name, and ac- 
 companied with a leading article. Lord Salisbur}', how- 
 ever, had already made up his mind, and in a new speech 
 reiterated his intention to remain in Egypt. " Lytton," I 
 write, nth November, "is delighted with Lord Salisbur}-'s 
 boldness in refusing to evacuate. Egerton sa}'s it is fool- 
 hard}'." ' 
 
 It is worth noting that, if Egerton's view had prevailed, 
 and our quarrel with France had then been solved on the 
 basis of our evacuating Eg}^pt, it would in all probability 
 have forestalled the mistake made twelve }'ears later of 
 effecting the reconciliation, through the fatal error of basing 
 it on " compensating " France b}' encouraging her seizure 
 of Alorocco. The Entente with France, begun in 1904 b}' an 
 act of aggression on a harmless neighbour, in\-olved France 
 
 ' For my memorandum, see Appendix II. 
 
1 89 1 J Lord Lyttoris death at Paris 73 
 
 necessarily in a quarrel with Germany, who had earmarked 
 Morocco as her share of the plunder of North Africa ; it 
 revived at Paris the half-forgotten dream of a guerre de 
 revanche for Alsace-Lorraine, and strengthened the war 
 party on both sides the Rhine. England it involved in the 
 Entente with Russia, cemented with the betrayal of a 
 second weak Mohammedan state, Persia, and drove pro- 
 gressive Turkey, in fear of a third betrayal, into an alliance 
 with Kaiser Wilhelm. 
 
 I left Paris a few days later for Rome and Cairo. During 
 the fortnight that I had been at the Embassy, Lj-tton's 
 condition had rapidly grown worse, and when, on the 13th 
 of November, I was taken in to where he lay in bed to 
 say good-bye, I felt that our farewell might be the last. 
 "Give my love to Dufferin," were his last words, "when 
 you are at Rome — that h.& always has — and tell him I am 
 a wreck, but do not mean to make a vacancy yet." And 
 so we said, God bless )'0u and good-bye. It was less than 
 a fortnight later (25th November, at Fogliano) that a 
 telegram reached me, forwarded through Lord Dufferin 
 at Rome, from Paris, telling me that my friend had died. 
 His death was a loss I can hardly estimate, and to many 
 more than me, for by the public in Paris it was looked on as 
 a State calamity. He had managed to make himself beloved 
 there as no English ambassador had been since Waterloo, 
 and as Dufferin, who, as had been expected, succeeded 
 him, with all his great social gifts was never able to achieve. 
 It was not merely that Lytton was popular, but he was 
 beloved. His death was a loss to the cause of our good 
 understanding with France, and I think to Egypt too, for 
 though too pronounced an Imperialist to wish to see 
 England's hand over the Nile relaxed, no one could so 
 well have settled the conditions of an evacuation as Lytton 
 could have done had it been so decided. And he placed 
 value on my opinion in the matter. 
 
 During the few days I spent at Rome that November I 
 attended a Peace Congress, to which as member of the acting- 
 committee of the Arbitration and Peace Society I had been 
 invited, but I was very unfavourably impressed with the 
 Italian tone in regard to international matters where the 
 rights of non-European nationalities were at stake. The 
 Italians, like the French and all the Latin races, seemed to 
 
74 Si7' Jl^illiavi- Harcourt [189 ' 
 
 me incapable of grasping the idea, which \\<t in England at 
 an}' rate admit in theory if seldom in practice, that the 
 nations outside the communit\- of Christian civilization ha\'e 
 any rights at all. I did not speak on this occasion, but I 
 left the meeting convinced that the establishment of inter- 
 national peace if it could be secured for Europe would bode 
 no good for Africa or Asia, and that as far as these regions 
 of the world were concerned the old proverb probably held 
 good, " When thieves fall out honest men come, by their 
 own." 
 
 From Fogliano we went straight on without returning 
 to Rome, and su by the first boat to Alexandria, reaching 
 Sheykh Obe}'d on 7th December, where we spent the rest 
 of the winter. 
 
 About the close of the year 1891, I received the follo^\•ing 
 letter from Sir William Harcourt in answer to one of mine 
 from Paris, inclosing a copy of my Paris memorandum. 
 As it is of great importance I give it te.xtually here: 
 
 " Malwood, I6^'/^ December 1891. 
 
 " Dear Wilfrid Blunt, 
 
 '■ I ha\-e not written before to thank you for )'Our paper 
 on Egypt, as \'ou sent me at the time no address. I was 
 greatly impressed by the ability and moderation of its 
 views, and the fulness with which the question was discussed 
 in every aspect. I forwarded it to John Morley, who en- 
 tirely concurred with me, in the high opinion I had formed 
 of its merits. 
 
 " The question is, no doubt, one of great complexity and 
 cannot be rushed. At the same time I have never varied in 
 my opinion of the mischief and danger of the continued 
 occupation, as far as England is concerned, and though 
 probabh' you will not agree with me I regard this as by 
 far the most important consideration. It is quite impossible 
 for the Government to take a high line as to occupation 
 after the Drummond-Wolff negotiations. The whole thing 
 is summed up in a nutshell by Wolff in his concluding 
 despatch, after the ratification by the English Government 
 of the Convention for the Evacuation in 1887, within the 
 space of three years. He sa)-s, ' It has more than once been 
 suggested that England should take permanent possession 
 of Egypt. This would have been a violation of the tradi- 
 
iSgi] on the Evacuation of Egypt 75 
 
 tional policy of England, of her good faith to the Sultan, 
 and of public law. In time of peace it would have exposed 
 her to constant jealousy and danger. In time of war, it 
 would have been a weak point, entailing a constant drain 
 on her resources. Her Majesty's Government have dis- 
 claimed all idea of annexing Egypt or of establishing a 
 Protectorate over it.' 
 
 " This language was approved by Salisbury, and was a 
 deliberate renewal in the face of Europe of the pledges 
 given in 1881. Salisbur}- undertook to 'guarantee the 
 neutralization of Egypt as the mandatory of the other 
 Powers, that duty being regarded as a burden rather than 
 a privilege.' The great mischief, as you properly point out, 
 is that since that period the policy of Evelyn Baring has 
 been to administer the Government of Egypt in such a 
 manner as to make it constantly less instead of more able 
 to stand by itself, and so to make the task of fulfilling our 
 obligation more rather than less difficult. 
 
 '' I hope by this time \ou are enjoying your wild life in 
 the desert, ^^'e are raising our rural tribes here, who are 
 rall}-ing round the Mahdi Schnadhorst — but I forgot you 
 have sworn off British Politics, a wise determination to 
 which I advise you to adhere. 
 
 " Yrs. sincerely, 
 
 "W V. HarCOURT." 
 
 This is a very important letter, as it indicates doubtless 
 what Air. Gladstone's view at the time was, for Sir William 
 Harcourt and he worked together on questions of foreign 
 policy. It is also of importance as showing that John 
 Morle}' then shared their opinion. It was a combination of 
 Baring, and of Milner, acting under his direction on the 
 London Press, with Rosebery, that prevented an honest 
 solution of the Egyptian question when the Liberals, 
 shorti}- afterwards, returned to power. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE YOUNG KHEDIVE ABBAS 
 
 1892 to 1893 
 
 'T^HE year 1892 opened with an event which was to 
 X prove a turning-point in Eg}'ptian history, one where 
 a new opportunity was given to our (jovernment of mailing 
 a fresh start in the direction of that National Government 
 on constitutional lines, which Lord Dufferin had promised 
 and which might have enabled England to withdraw her 
 army of occupation in agreement with the Sultan, and the 
 Powers of Europe, but which was once more unfortunately 
 let slip, mainly through Sir Evelj-n Baring's fault, who 
 misjudged the character of those \\ith whom he had to deal, 
 and found in it only an opportunity of taking the reins of 
 Government at Cairo more completely into his own hands. 
 On the 7th of January of the new year the Khedive Tewfik, 
 still comparatively a young man, suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly died. He had been ailing for a few days at his 
 country palace at Helwan, and no one had at all foreseen 
 what was to happen. In the common view of native Egypt 
 he was supposed to have been poisoned, the memory of 
 such doings for political reasons being still strong in the 
 popular mind, though, in fact, it was a natural death 
 hastened only by the mistake of the doctors called in to 
 attend him. 
 
 "9/// Jan. 1892. — Yesterday at eleven o'clock Mutlak 
 (our Bedouin horse rider), came to me and told me that the 
 Khedive was dead, and immediatel)' afterwards Mohammed 
 Nassr the Berberi porter repeated the news, ' It is Husseyn 
 Pasha the Prince,' the latter said, ' who has done it, I was in 
 his service, and he is a son of sin, ibn el haram! On the 
 roof, old Ali, the plasterer, who is a Halimist, and had just 
 been to the station at Alatarieh for gossip, remarked with a 
 wink to me, ' Are you not going to the funeral ? ' and he went 
 
 76 
 
1892] Death of the Khedive Tewfik 'jj 
 
 through the pantomime of drinking a cup of coffee (meaning 
 he had been poisoned). This morning he tells me about it 
 more precisely. ' It is the Dowlah that did it (the Sultan's 
 Government). Mukhtar had advised Tewfik many times to 
 tr}' a change of air, for the air of Egypt did not agree with 
 him, but he would not listen.' I asked the old man whether 
 he meant that Mukhtar had had it done. ' Oh, no,' he 
 said, ' they have sent somebody on purpose from beyond 
 the water ' (from Stamboul). It certainly looks suspicious. 
 They hurried on the funeral with extravagant haste. Tewfik 
 died at 8 p.m. on Thursday, and was buried the next after- 
 noon, Friday. The palace physician gave his certificate 
 that the death was a natural one; no European doctor ex- 
 amined the bod)'. It takes us back to the good old times. 
 
 " For the interests of the Egyptians I cannot pretend to 
 be sorry. I was talking on Monday to Mohammed Moelhi,. 
 and we agreed that it was hopeless to look for any im- 
 provement as long as Tewfik was on the throne; he would 
 never consent to a reconstruction of the National Party or 
 work with the Constitution ; latterly he had gone over very 
 much to the French. Of the prince heritier Abbas, Moham- 
 med said he was very anti-English, though too young to 
 have fixed opinions. A Constitution might be possible with 
 him if strongl)' supported for a few years by England. Lord 
 Salisbury will have his hand forced, to make a settlement 
 of the Eg3'ptian question, and I am glad of it, as the English 
 Liberals cannot be trusted to protect native interests here, 
 and would probably hand over the Protectorate in all but 
 name to the French. I have not seen any European yet, so 
 do not know how Baring takes the event." 
 
 " iQth Jan. — Went in to Cairo to see Baring, and had a 
 few minutes' conversation with him. I suggested that on 
 the accession of the new Khedive there might be a general 
 pardon and amnesty. He said, ' Perhaps, but not for those 
 in Ceylon.' 'Why not?' I asked. ' I understood from you 
 that it was Tewfik's personal unwillingness that stood in 
 the way.' He answered, ' Anyhow, it cannot be done. They 
 (the exiles) have got nothing the matter with them, and 
 they only want to go to Cyprus.' Again I asked, ' Why not 
 to Cyprus?' But he would not hear of it. We talked about 
 the Khedive's death, and he told me he had had an in- 
 flammation of the kidneys, and passed no water for forty- 
 
78 The Young Khedive Abbas J I i:!'ni [1^9- 
 
 eight hours ; he blamed the doctors. ' The Khedive,' he 
 added, ' always had a very bad entourage' 
 
 " Lunched with theTennants. They had been to tea with 
 us on the last day of the old year, and IMargot had been \;ery 
 charming and very amusing. 
 
 " Then to Helwan to see Minshawi Pasha, and hear his 
 version of the news. ' Ah,' said ATinshawi (he ^\•as living in 
 a villa close by the Khedivial palace), ' if \'ou had only 
 come to see me a week sooner, we should have had the 
 pleasure of making Tewfik angry.' 
 
 " 20th Jan. — Dr. Abdel Razak Bey came to see me. He 
 had been with Salim Pasha a day or two ago, who was one 
 of the late Khedive's two doctors. Salim had told him 
 that what the Khedive died of was in reality a stricture. 
 Abdel Razak speaks highh' of the young Abbas as well in- 
 structed and intelligent, and we discussed the new situa- 
 tion Tewfik's death must cause for the Iilgyptian National 
 Party." 
 
 Abdel Razak had been one of Arabi's personal friends, 
 and one of his most level-headed advisers, knowing Europe 
 well, and speaking English as well as French, a rare ac- 
 complishment at that time. By his advice and that of 
 She)-kh Mohammed Abdu, who formed a favourable 
 opinion of the young Khedive Abbas, who now suc- 
 ceeded his father, I decided that the time was now come 
 for me to make my peace formally with the Egyptian 
 Government. As long as Tewfik was alive it had been 
 difficult for me to do this. I had taken too prominent a 
 part in the revolution, and had denounced Tewfik too 
 openly after it to make it possible for me to take any step 
 towards a reconciliation or pay my respects to him by 
 calling at the palace. But it was now thought by my 
 friends that I should do well in asking an audience of his 
 successor, and I consequently asked Baring to present me 
 formally to Abbas, as was the custom in the case of other 
 Englishmen visiting Egypt. In pursuance of this resolve I 
 find in my diary: 
 
 " \st Feb. — Went into Cairo with Anne and lunched 
 with the Barings, and was taken by Baring afterwards to 
 call upon the Khedive Abbas at the Abdin Palace. It is 
 rather more than eleven years since I had paid just such 
 another visit to Tewfik with Malet. When we were shown 
 
1S92] My first Audience at tlic Palace ,() 
 
 in to-day we were met at the door of the room b)- a little 
 \-oung man in military undress whom I took to be an 
 Aide-de-Camp, but who turned out to be Abbas himself, 
 a quite unmilitary figure of proportions which made him 
 look like a woman dressed up in man's clothes. He has, 
 however, a \'er_v good manner in talking, and a pleasant 
 smile, with brown ej-es, and just a tinge of russet in his 
 hair. He reminded me much of his grandfather, Ismail, 
 and has just the same sort of French accent, talking French 
 well but not perfectly. He showed no sign of shyness, and 
 treated Baring with easy politeness, without an)' sign of 
 special deference; me he treated with considerable ami- 
 ability. We talked a little about the brigandage in the 
 neighbourhood of his Koubbah Palace and Sheykh Obeyd 
 (the two places are within three miles of each other;, and 
 then about petitions, and then about certain receptions and 
 ceremonies, nothing at all interesting, but I thought he 
 showed considerable intelligence, and there was a slight 
 touch of sarcasm in his talk reminding me very especially 
 of Ismail. I shall be surprised if he does not give Baring 
 trouble. He is said about here to be very anti-English, 
 but Baring will not hear a word of this, though I expect it 
 is true." So far my journal. My recollection, however, 
 goes further than this. It is that Baring's manner on this 
 occasion was very abrupt, like that of a schoolmaster to a 
 schoolbo)-, and that on our way back from the palace I re- 
 marked to him that I thought the Khedive would not bear 
 driving with any but a very light rein, his answer being 
 that it was necessary to treat Orientals firml}-; also I 
 warned him he would have trouble. 
 
 " I have written to Sir William Harcourt to tell him 
 of Tewfik's death and my impressions of Abbas, and to 
 urge him to push forward Constitutional Government in 
 Egypt." 
 
 We left Egypt soon after this and were back in England 
 by the middle of April. 
 
 The summer that followed, like the last, I devoted more to 
 literature and society than to politics. My daughter Judith 
 was now being brought out in society, and though I did not 
 attend many of her balls and parties, it was a distraction for 
 me from serious work. There is very little of my diary con- 
 nected with politics until the middle of August, when the 
 
8o Gladstone rctiinis to Office [1892 
 
 general elections took place, which resulted in a moderate 
 triumph for the Liberal party, and Lord Salisbur)-'s retire- 
 ment from office in favour once more of Gladstone. In the 
 meanwhile there are a few entries in my journal worth 
 transcribing: 
 
 " ()th May . — Called on Lady Gregory, and found her sad 
 in her widow's weeds. Sir William died during the winter. 
 
 " I have finished ' (jriselda,' and the Arabic ballads, and 
 ' The Stealing of the Mare,' and am publishing an article 
 on L)-tton as a Poet in the ' Nineteenth Century.' 
 
 " iZth May. — Riding in the park I was joined by Frederic 
 Harrison, who told me he had been converted to Islam as 
 a living religion, and offered to support my candidature if I 
 would come forward as a Mohammedan at the elections. 
 
 " \<^th May. — To lunch with Sir William Harcourt. The 
 old man was very communicative both about Egypt and 
 about Ireland. As to the former he is for evacuation, but 
 is sound about not giving the country up to France. He 
 asked me about the Soudan danger, about which I re- 
 assured him ; then as to whether it would not be possible 
 to occupy the Suez Canal only. I said I thought it would 
 be quite possible. He would not hear of allowing the 
 Sultan to intervene. I told him that it would be easy to 
 constitute a Liberal native Government and retire. He 
 seemed surprised to hear that the land tax had not been 
 reduced. ' As to justice,' he said, 'justice is only a question 
 of personalities in any country.' Xext we discussed Ire- 
 land. He said, ' I am afraid there is no doubt we shall be in 
 office after the elections, and then our troubles will begin. 
 The Irish are impossible; they are split up into four sec- 
 tions, and there is no leader among them to treat with.' 
 We went through the various prominent men in the Irish 
 party, and he asked me about Dr. Walsh and Dr. Crook, 
 also about Persico's mission, and the politics of the Vatican. 
 I gather from him that the Home Rule Bill will be no 
 simple matter, and that he is not personally much interested 
 in it. He spoke severely of the individual Irish leaders. 
 
 " loth May. — To the Frederic Harrisons. We had a long 
 talk about Egypt, and agreed that the best chance of getting 
 an honest policy of evacuation would be to prevent Rose- 
 bery's returning to the Foreign Office. Harrison thinks that 
 Roseberywill either not join Gladstone's Ministry, or make 
 
1892] 
 
 Frede7-ic Harrison on Comie 
 
 it a condition that the status quo in Egypt should be con- 
 tinued. On Ireland he is quite pessimistic, considers Home 
 Rule for the present a lost cause, and the G.O.AI. destined 
 to retire from public life discredited. ^lorley would follow 
 him, and there would then be a reconstruction of the Liberal 
 party under Roseber)', Chamberlain, Harcourt, and Ran- 
 dolph. He thinks, nevertheless, that Ireland would some 
 day or other get its independence, while I maintained that 
 the tendency of progress was towards the amalgamation of 
 nations, not their separation. To this he said, ' You know 
 we, the Positivists, believe that in the next century there 
 will be one hundred and fifty separate States in Europe,' 
 but Mrs. Harrison dissented, and I should fancy that his 
 faith in the Comtist prediction is not very solid. 
 
 " 23^1^ May. — I am sta_\-ing at Babraham with the 
 Adeanes, and went to-day, with Adeane, to Gogmagog to 
 see the pictures of the Godolphin, and other Arabians, and 
 the former's grave. The original portrait of the Godolphin, 
 which is there, is of a second-rate Arab, with a heavy head, 
 lop ears, and a drooping quarter. It is difficult to under- 
 stand that race-horses should have sprung from his loins. 
 The view from Gogmagog over the plain is grand, but the 
 house is mean, though beloved of its ducal owner. In the 
 afternoon to Audley End, a stately place, but unfortunately 
 cleaned up, plate glassed, and adorned in recent years. 
 
 " 24//^ May. — Dined with Philip Currie in Connaught 
 Place, Mrs. Singleton doing the honours. I sat between 
 Mrs. Algy Grosvenor and Oscar Wilde. Beyond Oscar 
 Mrs. Singleton, then Godfrey Webb. There were also 
 Lady Ducane and a daughter, Lady Sykes, Lady Baring, 
 just made a peeress, O'Connor' and Trench, diplomats, 
 and three or four more. Oscar was in good form, and he 
 and I, Philip and O'Connor sat up till half-past twelve 
 talking when the rest were gone. 
 
 " 2^th Mar. — To a meeting at Lord Cowper's, respecting 
 a memorial for L)'tton. Lord Salisbury was present, and 
 made an inappropriate proposal (as I thought) that the 
 monument should be placed in the India Office. Alfred 
 Austin opposed this on literary grounds, and I seconded 
 him, asking that the Committee should first try for a place, 
 
 ' Afterwards Ambassador at Constantinople. 
 G 
 
82 Baron de Staal [1892 
 
 however small, in the Abbey. I am quite sure this would 
 have been Lytton's own wish, for he cared far more for his 
 position as a poet than for all the rest. 
 
 " \th June. — Took Judith to lunch at Hammersmith. 
 Morris in good talk, told us he had never in all his life 
 been owner of a dog, and did not care for pets — thought he 
 might perhaps make friends with a horse, if he had the time 
 and opportunity. He showed us round the printing press, 
 where his Golden Legend sheets were hanging on strings 
 to dry, the printers being away for their Whit Saturday 
 afternoon. 
 
 " i,th June. — Whit Sunday at Crabbet. Staal the Russian 
 Ambassador came to luncheon with his wife and daughter. 
 He is of all foreigners the man with whom I can talk most 
 intimately, for we were fast friends thirty-three 3-ears ago 
 at Athens, he then thirty-seven, I eighteen. Now he is 
 seventy, I fifty-one; yet we talked just as of old, and I 
 doubt if we feel much older. He was never a young man, 
 even in those days. 
 
 ''y til June. — To Mark Napier's at Fulham. Mark was in 
 his shirt-sleeves, working at the building of a steam launch 
 he is constructing with his own hands in the upstairs draw- 
 ing-room of Little Mulgrave House, a beautiful room of the 
 last century, full of china and bric-a-brac, perhaps the most 
 incongruous building yard ever chosen. The difficulty will 
 be to get the boat out of the window when finished. A 
 large circular saw stood in the dining-room downstairs. 
 [The boat was safely launched, nevertheless.] 
 
 '^ 20th June. — Breakfast with George Wyndham and 
 Sibell. George and I discussed the prospects of the 
 General Election. He says the most optimistic Tory 
 calculation is 14 majority, while Loulou Harcourt and 
 the Liberals count on lOO for their majority. 
 
 '^ <^th July. — At Kelmscott Manor. I came here yester- 
 day. Morris in fine spirits, and inexhaustible energy over 
 his new hobby, the printing press. He is beginning a 
 Chaucer, and there is great discussion whether it is to be 
 printed in single or double column. I am much in favour 
 of the single column. Burne Jones is to do illustrations. I 
 forgot to say that I was at Merton last week with the 
 Morrises, when we saw a brother of his, working in the dye 
 vats there, a dreamy man in workman's clothes, with his 
 
1892] U'^z'^A Morris to Mcrton Abbey 8 
 
 o 
 
 shirt sleeves turned up, and his arms blue with indigo to 
 the elbows. I asked Morris about him, and he tells me 
 that having begun life with a good fortune — he had a 
 country place in Herefordshire — he has gradually fallen in 
 the world, and after trying one thing and another to get a 
 living is now glad to be employed on weekly wages. He 
 lives at Merton, and is quite happy, indeed he looked so, 
 dipping wool all day in the vats, in a shed open on to the 
 garden. It is, perhaps, the nearest thing to a conventual 
 life which can be found in the lay world. We walked to- 
 day in the meadows by the river. 
 
 " 6th July. — The elections are going not too well for 
 Gladstone, and though he will probably get a majority, I 
 fear Home Rule is doomed. Ireland will never have a 
 chance again. On all other grounds I am glad, and so is 
 Morris, but politics are a weary thing. I read him part of 
 ' The Stealing of the Mare,' which he approves, and advises 
 me to publish, though he says nobody will read it; and 
 he read us some of his own Scandinavian translations in 
 return. 
 
 " i^th July. — Mark Napier has got into Parliament, I am 
 glad to see. Gladstone's majority will now be 50 or more. 
 Lord .Salisbury, George tells me, will meet Parliament, and 
 will not retire till a vote of want of confidence has been 
 passed. Gladstone's personal majority in Midlothian only 
 650. 
 
 " igth July. — Gladstone has now a majority of 46 in the 
 new House of Commons. I have not voted at all in this 
 election, or taken any part. 
 
 "23^(3? and 2A,th Jtily. — Meeting of the Crabbet Club, 
 those present were: 
 
 George Wyndham. Charles Laprimaudaye. 
 
 George Curzon. Harry Cust. 
 
 Xigel Kingscote. Hubert Howard. 
 
 Charles Gatty. George Leveson Gower. 
 
 Theobald Mathew. Dick Grosvenor. 
 
 Godfrey Webb. Mark Napier. 
 Loulou Harcourt. 
 
 George Wyndham performed a wonderful feat, writing a 
 long poem in a most complicated metre, and full of excel- 
 
84 Gerald Balfojir [1892 
 
 lent things in hardly more than an hour, between sets of 
 lawn tennis. Cust wrote another under like conditions, so 
 full of wit that we nearly gave him the prize. George 
 Leveson was also good. The tennis handicap was won by 
 Hubert Howard, the laureateship by Mathew. Hubert won 
 the cup through Grosvenor's magnanimity, who having tiie 
 last set in hand suddenly found himself lame and retired. 
 Cust is interesting, and of great abilities. George Leveson 
 a delightful butt, and cause of wit in others with un- 
 touchable good humour. These occasions are the salt of 
 life. 
 
 " i6tlL July. — To Hamilton Aide's at Ascot to meet Lady 
 Brooke, the Ranee of Borneo. She is, or rather has been, a 
 fine, fair woman, and is now perhaps thirty-seven, living in 
 England away from her husband, Aide tells me, because 
 he prefers other wives. I have had a good deal of conversa- 
 tion with her about native races and European civilization. 
 I have sent in my proofs of ' Esther,' finally corrected, with 
 five of the sonnet-stanzas cut out. George Wyndham thinks 
 the poem will not greatly suffer, though h« regrets it. 
 
 " \st Aug. — Dined at the Gerald Balfours, Betty charm- 
 ing, and a very gay evening, the other guests being Lady 
 Frances Balfour, clever, but with much of her father's 
 assertive manner, Eustace Balfour, Alfred Lyall, and Margot 
 Tennant, the conversation all the evening very brilliant, but 
 it is useless trying to reproduce it. I sat on a sofa with 
 Margot, she with a fan made of an eagle's wing. I have 
 sent a letter to Sir William Harcourt about Egypt, the 
 moment seeming to have arrived." 
 
 There are many other interesting entries of about this 
 date, but they are none of them quite germane to the 
 subject of this volume, unless it is the following, which 
 illustrates the growth among ourselves in England of those 
 doctrines of supermanity and imperial selfishness which we 
 have since ascribed to a German origin, and denounce 
 among the prime causes of our war with Germany in 1914. 
 It was at the time a surprise to me as an avowal by a man 
 of personal amiability of ruthless principles which I found 
 later to be common enough among -my ultra imperialist 
 friends. 
 
 " 5/// Aug. — To Cromer with Anne and Judith, Betty 
 Balfour also travelling with us with her children. We are 
 
IS92] 
 
 Visit to Blickline 
 
 staying with Frederick Locker in his wife's villa. Gerald 
 Balfour joined us in the evening. 
 
 ''6th A 10^. — Sat in the garden with Betty looking over 
 her father's papers (some of which she has a design to 
 print) and talking about him. Gerald is a very pretty 
 tennis player, and has been at hard exercise all day at it 
 and golf. I like him better now that I know him better. 
 
 " Jth Aug. {Sunday) — Drove with the Balfours and Conn\' 
 Lytton to Blickling, where we lunched. On the way we 
 had a grand discussion about patriotism, Gerald maintain- 
 ing that patriotism was the imperial instinct in English- 
 men, who should support their country's quarrels even when 
 in the wrong. This of course is not m}' view. Gerald has 
 all his brother's scientific inhumanit}- in politics, and it is a 
 school of thought distinctly on the increase, for it flatters 
 the selfish instincts of the strong by proving to them that 
 their selfishness is right. Blickling is a perfect place with a 
 very love!}- garden. Lady Lothian doing the honours of it, 
 and showing us all round. There is a small herd still of the 
 wild white cattle, ten cows and a bull, with some cahes. 
 They were brought original!)'. Lady Lothian told us, from 
 a park near Alanchester, which became engulfed in the 
 town smoke, a herd then of forty cows (the cowkeeper said 
 twenty), but they were almost all destroyed at the time of 
 the cattle plague, seme years since, three cows being at 
 one time all the stock left. Then they got a bull from a 
 herd that had been drafted, and so gradually have restored 
 the breed Its characteristics are well marked, white with 
 black muzzles, and the ears inside black; the bull was \ery 
 fine. The herd is tame enough now, being driven in every 
 afternoon to be milked, and the calves are brought up bj- 
 hand in sheds. 
 
 '' Constance, Lady Lothian, I knew as a very pretty 
 woman thirty years ago, with her invalid husband (elder 
 brother of my friend Schomberg Kerr), of whom a fine 
 portrait exists b}- Watts. On our way home we renewed 
 our argument as applied especially to the Irish. ' They 
 ought to have been exterminated long ago,' said Gerald, 
 ' but it is too late now.' He is confident, however, of de- 
 feating Home Rule by Constitutional means." 
 
 Gerald's argument, I recollect, was based on an applica- 
 tion to inter-racial politics of Darwin's law of the selection 
 
86 Darwin's Law misitndcrstood [189- 
 
 of the fittest, or rather of what is an exaggerated inter- 
 pretation of that \z.\\. Those who put forward this view 
 forget that Man by the abnormal development of his 
 reasoning powers and his invention of lethal weapons, has 
 put himself outside the unconscious working of the natural 
 law. Darwin is in no way responsible for this application 
 of his doctrine, as is clearly seen in the sympathy he shows 
 with the backward races of mankind, especially in his 
 " Voyage of the Beagle." Though individual strives with 
 individual in the natural world, there is never a combina- 
 tion of a whole species or race to make war with and 
 destroy a feebler race. This was my argument with Gerald. 
 Three years later he was appointed by Lord Salisbur)- 
 and his brother Arthur, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and 
 proved a kindly ruler while in office there, being by nature 
 an altogether amiable, kind-hearted man, but infected, as 
 so many of our Imperialists were beginning to be at that 
 date, by the politico-scientific doctrines so crudely preached 
 in Germany. 
 
 On the 7th of August I started on a driving tour, the 
 first of many such I made in after years, taking the northern 
 road as far as Streatley, then crossing the Berkshire Downs 
 westward, and travelling over grass a quite uninhabited 
 country, " as desolate as parts of Mesopotamia, and in the 
 bright sunlight very beautiful, coveys of young partridges 
 running here and there tamely in front of the carriage, and 
 so as far as Chilton, where I had the good fortune to find 
 entertainment at the rectory house of the parson, Morland, 
 a worthy man, living alone in that lonely place and glad to 
 see a stranger, a hospitality rare of its kind in civilized 
 England, and so oh to Kelmscott, where I stayed a couple 
 of nights. I found there my friend John Henry Middleton, 
 the Cambridge Professor, an old ally of Morris's, and 
 intimate in former days with Rossetti. Middleton had been 
 a considerable traveller in out-of-the-way places, and he 
 narrated to me in detail what I had already heard him tell> 
 his experience in Morocco with a Moorish magician. This 
 is his account of the incident: 
 
 "He was travelling in 1879 about halfway between 
 Tetuan and Morocco, and one evening an old man came to 
 his camp mounted on an ass, with a boy as servant. The 
 man said he was a magician, and proposed to perform three 
 
1892J A Moorish Alagician 87 
 
 wonders; the first to throw a ball of twine into the air, the 
 second to make a plant grow, and the third to show the 
 face of a person thought of, in a globe of ink. It was already 
 late, and the performance was put off until the following 
 morning — the magician remaining the night in the camp, 
 and in the morning when the tents were struck he was 
 invited to give his performance. It was an open place, un- 
 inhabited, and without trees or bushes. Middleton chose 
 the ground at some little distance from where the camp 
 had been. The magician first took from his wallet a large 
 ball of string, large enough to need both hands to lift it, 
 and having made a long incantation he tied the end of the 
 string to one finger of his left hand, and then with a great 
 exertion threw the ball upwards, which unravelled as it 
 went, and, growing less and less, disappeared in the air. 
 He then let go of the string's end, which continued to hang 
 from the sky. The magician and his boy sat at a little 
 distance, and Middleton went to the string and pulled it 
 downwards, as you would pull a bell-rope. It stretched to 
 within about two feet of the ground, but he felt the resist- 
 ance strongly from above, so much so that he cut his 
 fingers with the string, the mark remaining for several days 
 afterwards. The five men whom he had with him also 
 touched the string, three of these were Moors, one a Berber, 
 and the other an interpreter. It was clear daylight at the 
 time, about half an hour after sunrise. When they had all 
 satisfied themselves that the string was suspended as it 
 appeared to be, the magician came forward, and in his turn 
 pulled it, when it fell down from the sky in coils on the 
 ground ; he then rolled it up again into a ball, and put it 
 back into his wallet. 
 
 "The magician next took from his wallet a seed, and 
 when Middleton had chosen a bare place, planted it in the 
 ground; he then asked for some palm branches which they 
 had with them, and which had been cut the day before, and 
 he made an arched covering with them over the seed and 
 heaped horse rugs upon the hoops, and then sat apart and 
 made incantations. At the end of a few minutes he invited 
 them to undo the covering, and there, in the ground, a 
 plant was growing, set firmly in the earth, the first time a 
 few inches high, but when he had covered it up again and 
 built the hoops higher, it at last became three feet eight 
 
88 Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1892 
 
 inches high. Middleton measured the plant, found it firmly 
 rooted, and cut off and kept some of the leaves; the nature 
 of the plant seemed to resemble that of the India rubber 
 tree, and it had some fifty leaves. It was fresh and healthy 
 though the weather was very hot, it being the month of 
 October. In the third incantation Middleton was made to 
 look into a globe of ink. He desired to see the face of a 
 friend, but instead saw persistently and very vi\-idly a 
 certain landscape he knew well on the river Severn, near 
 Tewkesbury. The magician when asked whether he could 
 climb the string and disappear in the air (like the magician 
 Marco Folo tells of), stated that his grandfather had had 
 the power, but that he himself vvas unable. Having been 
 rewarded, he mounted his ass and rode away. Middleton 
 believes that the manifestations produced were mesmeric, 
 certainly no trick. The leaves of the plant he kept for some 
 time, but lost with other things in a shipwreck on his way 
 home." 
 
 Middleton had known Kelmscott Manor in the early 
 days when Rossetti and Morris first took the house together 
 at a rent of ;£^6o a year. The Tapestry Room, which is now 
 the sitting-room, used to be Rossetti's own room, and it was 
 there that he wrote his poetry. Rossetti, he tells me, was 
 addicted to loves of the most material kind both before 
 and after his marriage, with women, generally models, with- 
 out other soul than their beauty. It was remorse at the 
 contrast between his ideal and his real loves that preyed 
 on him and destroyed his mind. It is touching to see still 
 on the table at meals napkins marked with the initials 
 D. G. R. His ghost seems to me to be present in all the 
 rooms. From thence I drove on to Stanway, where I found 
 Arthur Balfour, to whom I narrated Middleton's experience 
 in Morocco, which interested him greatly. We had a 
 pleasant time there, and I found Balfour most agreeable, 
 glad to be relieved of office, Salisbury having just resigned. 
 
 " \6th Aug. — It is announced that Rosebery has taken 
 office after all as Foreign Secretary under Gladstone. This 
 will neutralise any good that might have come of a change 
 of Government to Egypt. Rosebery will continue to repre- 
 sent the Bondholders. Gladstone has made up his Ministiy, 
 every one of them Whigs. Asquith and Lefevre are the 
 only two who are at all advanced, the rest quite of the old 
 
1892] 
 
 I ^isit to Hawarden 89 
 
 gang, only one surprise. Houghton is to go as Lord Lieu- 
 tenant to Ireland, a triumph for the Crabbet Club! 
 
 " P'rom Stanwa)- on to Batsford, which is no«' Bertie 
 Mitford's. He inherited it about five years ago from his 
 cousin Lord Redesdale, and has spent a vast amount of 
 money pulHng the old house down and building a new 
 Victorian Tudor one. He has also laid out the grounds 
 with elaborate rockeries and a multitude of trees and foreign 
 shrubs, stabling on a vast scale, a stud of shire cart mares, 
 the most interesting feature of the place. I remember 
 Bertie as a very good-looking youth, three or four years 
 older than myself with a great reputation for ability, much 
 talent for languages, and a player of the cornet a piston — 
 this was in 1858. We went up for an examination the same 
 day, he for a clerkship in the P'oreign Office, I for the 
 diplomatic service." 
 
 Thence (i8//i -'i>'g-) on to The Glen, where I found John 
 Addington Symonds staying in the house, and where I 
 stayed ten days with i\Iargot and a number of young ladies, 
 a very delightful time, of which my diary is full, but again 
 this is not the place for it. 
 
 From Glen I went to Saighton, where one incident occurs 
 which deserves transcribing: 
 
 " ind Sept. — After luncheon we drove, George, Sibell 
 and I, three in a row, in a dog-cart to Hawarden, George 
 having been especially invited there. We were to meet the 
 G.O.M. at the new library he has constructed in the village, 
 a terrible building of corrugated iron overlooking the Sands 
 of Dee. Inside it is conveniently arranged, and must be 
 an advantage to the inhabitants. We were met there by 
 Mrs. Drew, who told us her father would come presenth', 
 and leaving George and me took Sibell off with her to the 
 castle. While waiting in the library I was glad to find little 
 Maud Gladstone whom I had known as Maud Rendel, and 
 with her we whiled away the quarter of an hour we had to 
 wait. The G.O.M. , when he arrived, was very cordial with 
 George, but not as I think with me. He talked about his 
 books in the absorbed way he has, going on, without pay- 
 ing the least attention to the person he is speaking to, 
 especially if it is his wife and she ventures to interpose a re- 
 mark. The ladies invited me to go back with them, and I 
 walked with Maud, leaving George and Mr. G. to follow. 
 
90 Tea at Hawarde72 [1S92 
 
 She showed me over the house when we arrived, Mr. G.'s 
 ' Temple of Peace,' and the rest which I knew from 
 Margot's description. There were but few old books, and 
 the modern ones were ver\- mixed in character. I looked 
 through the poetry shelves and found the usual volumes of 
 Tennyson and Browning, etc. ' In Vinculis ' was there 
 with the leaves cut open, but not the ' Sonnets of Proteus,' 
 which I had given him in 1884. Presently Miss Helen Glad- 
 stone came in, the head of Newnham College, and I had 
 some talk with her and found her agreeable in an austere 
 wa}'. Then the G.O.M. arrived with George, and we all sat 
 down to tea. I sat by Mrs. Gladstone, good old soul, who 
 speedily thawed to me, while the G.O.M. still went on talk- 
 ing about books. He had got a rare edition of the Prayer 
 Book and made it his text, with interludes of discussion, 
 about the various qualities of tea. I asked him what ' X. or 
 M.' meant in the baptismal service, but he could suggest 
 no explanation. From that he went on to the revised ver- 
 sion of the Bible, which he called ' abominable'; it was not 
 the first duty of a translator to be accurate but to render 
 the spirit of the book. This the revisers had missed. ' You 
 see,' interposed Mrs. Gladstone, in the tone of one anxious 
 and apologetic ; ' he is so conservative, and yet people say 
 of him, etc., etc' ' He has the spirit of reverence,' I said. 
 ' Ah yes,' she exclaimed, beaming, ' that is just it; you have 
 said exactly what is true.' But the old man paid no atten- 
 tion and went prattling on, talking of all things in the same 
 absorbed way, apparently without sense of their proportion, 
 and for talking's sake, heedless of our remarks, until at 
 last he settled down into a ' Quarterly Review ' article 
 and said no more. That, I fancy, is his common domestic 
 life. 
 
 " Mary Drew's little girl Dorothy was there, runlning about 
 without shoes or stockings, and the Spitz dog which Margot 
 had described to me and which had brought in a stick with 
 it to the drawing-room, but I did not notice that Mr. G. 
 paid attention to either. He did not impress me much with 
 the matter of his conversation, impressive as it was in 
 manner. All he said was essentially commonplace. Once 
 he corrected George for pronouncing ' inytliological' short as 
 ' mithologicaU Meanwhile Mrs. Gladstone gave me an ac- 
 count of an adventure Mr. G. had had two days before with 
 
iSg; Rosfor-y's Egyptian Po'iiy 91 
 
 a cow in the park. ' It was a strange cow,' she said. " which 
 had got in by accident and found itself in ^Tr. G.'s path as 
 he was walking alone, and when he would have driven it 
 out 'A his wa\-, it turned on him and knocked him down. 
 It St :od over him but did not gore him. This, said 
 Mrs. Gladstone, 'was very unusual in a cow. He tried to 
 rise, but at nrst he could not, for he had not the breath, out 
 after "vards he managed to get behind a tree and the cow 
 tr itted a.va}-.' Poor old soul, she touched me with her de- 
 votion for hi.Ti. Of himself I carried away the mixed im- 
 pression I have had of him before, one of disaooointment 
 at hading less than I should have found tc> worship. 
 
 " Hav.arden House, the modern castie, is one of the end 
 of last centur}-, ver)- comfortable and nice inside with no 
 great pretension to architecture — outside it is a poor castel- 
 lateo gothic structure. The old castle, which stands in the 
 ground- a little way oft", and to which I ran up after tea, is 
 a very interesting ruin. On the whole, we agreed, as we 
 dro^e home, that we had enio}-ed our visit, and that the 
 pi^grim^age had been well -.vortii making. The G.O.^I. saw 
 Sibe.' tj the door himself with Mrs. Gladstone and the 
 otner.T. The \ ounger men had been out shooting mean- 
 v.dniie in the Parit. 
 
 '' "iivd Sept. — Travelled in the train on my way home with 
 Fran'r; Viliiers. He has just been made Private 5ecretar\- 
 to Ro-ebery at the Foreign Office, and professes great 
 aamiration for him as ' a statesman withont tiersonal 
 ambition.' We discussed the Eg}-ptian question oretty 
 thorough!}- and the release of Arabi. With regard to 
 evacuation he said that ever\-body was agreed it would 
 be dangerous and impossible to hold Eg\-nt permanenth-. 
 Baring had been doing what he could to prepare things 
 for a V. ithdrawal of the troops, but he could find no men 
 among the Egyptians capable of carr\dng on reform.s. 
 Baring had to.d them at the Foreign Office of m}- idea of 
 having a Fellah Mini~tr;\\ but could not get capable men. 
 He would be xtrv glad if he could find them, but where 
 were the}-? I said that I had given riaring the names of 
 suitaoie Feiiah Ministers, but that he had told me the late 
 Khedive would never consent to empio}- them. I was at 
 one with Baring as to the kind of reforms wanted, but dis- 
 agreed with his way of carr}-ing them out tinrough English- 
 
92 Cardinal j\Iaiinings Last Days [1^9= 
 
 men. It could have no other result but to make evacuation 
 more and more difficult. ' Vou may wait ten )-ears,' I said, 
 'and you will find no better occasion to e\-acuate than the 
 present. I mean, of course, if you really wish it.' He assured 
 me over and over again that that was their policy and their 
 desire. About Arabi he ^'i'as not encouraging, but I am to 
 call Rosebery's attention to the matter. 
 
 " i^th Sept. — At Crabbet. I have seen Countess Hoyus 
 several times. She rode here one morning, and I have been 
 twice to tea at Paddockhurst (their country place in Sussex, 
 two miles from Crabbet). Her daughter, just married to 
 Herbert Bismarck, she tells me, is supremely happ}/, having 
 tamed her Bismarck to a point which could not have been 
 believed. He had been a great courcur de femvics, women 
 mainly of the baser sort, and she has touched him to an 
 ideal love. He is forty-three, she twenty, a beautiful 
 romance. 
 
 " I have had an answer from Rosebery, that is from 
 Villiers, of a most civil kind, but with the usual official 
 evasion of my questions. Sir \\'ilfrid Lawson has also 
 written. 
 
 " I'jth Sept. — A letter from Margot. She has been pay- 
 ing visits with her political admirers, Haldane and Asquith. 
 She describes all in a few words as well as such descriptions 
 could possibly be. 
 
 " Lady Lytton was here to-day with her girls to say 
 good-bye before starting for the Cape. Meynell also, and 
 his wife. After dinner he, Meynell, gave me a most inter- 
 esting account of Cardinal Manning's last days. Meynell 
 was the old man's confidant in his many disappointments 
 and vexations. The Cardinal's mind had grown large in 
 the later years of his life, and his view of the Catholic 
 Church, and of Christianity, comprehensive of all sects and 
 creeds. He was at odds with his fellow bishops in England, 
 who looked upon him as unorthodox, and worried him 
 a thousand wa)-s, and he had no one of them all for a 
 friend. His last hours had been troubled by the worries 
 of his clergy. There had been a dispute between two 
 of the Bishops, which he had referred to Rome, and which 
 caused him great annoyance, and when he ^\'as taken 
 ill the Bishop of Salford (Herbert Vaughan, afterwards 
 Cardinal Vaughan) was unfortunately staying with him. 
 
iSg^] Early Modernism 93 
 
 whom he specially disliked. His old servant Newman 
 had died, and there was no one to take care of him. He 
 refused to believe that he was dying, and had a strong 
 desire to live, and Vaughan was hard on him in his insist- 
 ence on certain formalities demanded of a dying Arch- 
 bishop, then having got his way Vaughan left him, and he 
 lay all night alone, and was found next morning insensible 
 and dying, his fire out in the grate and no one with him. 
 Truly death is bitter even to the righteous. 
 
 " Meynell told me also of a new movement within the 
 body of the English Catholic clergy, of the most revolu- 
 tionary kind, especially among the Capuchins, and that the 
 Cardinal in some measure sympathized with it. A move- 
 ment of the widest sort, rationalistic and mystic, which em- 
 braced all forms of religion and repudiated the finality of 
 any doctrine of the Church, a kind of positivism and creed 
 of humanity in which Plato, and Buddha, and Mohammed 
 were alike canonized as saints, and Christ himself hardly 
 more than these. He assured me that such doctrines were 
 widely held by the younger priests, and that some of their 
 most zealous and able exponents were to be found among 
 our monks at Crawley. It was no heresy, he said, and 
 the General of the Capuchins who had come from Rome 
 to put it down had gone back converted. This sounds to 
 me altogether incredible, but he promised to send me the 
 writings of the new creed in print. [This was the first word 
 I had heard of the Modernist movement, afterwards so 
 notorious.] 
 
 " iZth Sept. {^Sunday). — Meynell's talk has done me good. 
 It opens to me a view of a religious position, not absolutely 
 illogical, in which I may still be loyal to all m\' ideas with- 
 out quarrelling with the Catholic Church. I mean to talk 
 the matter over with Father Cuthbert, the young Capuchin 
 at our monastery, whom Meynell speaks of as the leading 
 light of the new doctrine. 
 
 " 22nd Sept. — Lunched at the Travellers Club with Frank 
 Bertie, whom I had not seen for years, and we had much 
 talk about men and things of a past generation. He tells 
 me Evelyn Baring is seriously ill with eczema in Scotland, 
 one of the plagues with which Moses afflicted Pharaoh. I 
 hope it may determine him to let the Egyptians go. Philip 
 Currie was also there and Sanderson. 
 
 Mr. Meynell tells me that I unintentionally mis- 
 represent the views held by Father Cuthbert and his 
 friends. " Not one," he says in particular, " of that 
 fervent group of young Franciscans but fixed all his 
 hope and all his faith on the doctrine, fundamental 
 and final, of the_di_vimLs2_Q£-Clir;ci- " 
 
 W. S. B. 
 
94 MoJ'ris and Magmisso:: [tSo; 
 
 " 26tli Sept. — Margot writes that she is starting a paper 
 to be called ' The Petticoat,' in collaboration u'ith Bett}- 
 Balfour, Mrs. Horner, Mrs. Singleton, and other women 
 friends. 
 
 " 2-jtli Sept. — On a visit to Frampton, a very prett>- place 
 with a house of the earh* eighteenth century, the period I 
 like best for domestic architecture. Our host, Brinsley 
 Sheridan, is a typical country gentleman given to sport; 
 his wife, a ?vIotle_\-, sister of Lady Harcourt, with two nice 
 daughters, and there are sons, but all the boys are at 
 school. 
 
 "There is a Miss Featherstonhaugh staying in the house 
 who showed me letters she had received from young de 
 Winton from Uganda, written in the mixed missionary and 
 fighting language one is familiar with in Gordon's letters 
 to his sister. These people believe they have a mission from 
 God to establish the British flag, ' the dear old Union Jack,' 
 throughout the world and to maintain it there with fire 
 and sword. Pizarro, no doubt, wrote in the same strain 
 from Peru, when he destro>'ed the beautiful old world of the 
 Incas. Truly ' civilization is poison.' \\'eld Blundell also is 
 staying here, a clever man with much knowledge and a 
 close reasoner, with whom I have been discussing Eastern 
 questions. His view is the commercial Imperialist one held 
 by all English civilians who have spent their lives be\-ond 
 the Suez Canal, that of seizing and keeping markets. We 
 were to have gone to Malwood, but Sir William Harcourt 
 has been summoned to London on the Uganda question 
 and our visit is deferred. 
 
 " \st Oct. — Lunched with Morris at Hammersmith and 
 his Icelandic friend Magnusson, with whom he translates 
 his Sagas. It is curious how much alike the two are 
 physicall}- — short, thick, sturdy men of the pale-haired, blue- 
 e\'ed t}-pe. Both, too, have the same socialistic views, only 
 Magnusson is much more professorial in his wa)- of talking 
 and less light in hand than Morris. 
 
 " Our ministers have taken courage and Uganda is to be 
 evacuated. The ' Daily Telegraph ' has a deliciously naive 
 article in expostulation : ' Uganda,' it says, ' was a few 
 years ago a naked people, now they are all decently clad 
 . . but there is a tendency, wherever English authority is 
 relaxed among them, to revert to their old terrible habits.' 
 
1892] French Game Laiv Episodes 95 
 
 " 6th Oct. — Tennyson died this morning at his house on 
 Blackdown. Much speculation as to his successor." 
 
 On the 1 2th Oct. I paid my now annual visit to Gros 
 Bois, the party there being made up of the Gustave 
 Rothschilds, the Comte de Turenne, Lord and Lady 
 Castletown, and the Talbots, and we had our usual shoot- 
 ings. 
 
 " 14//? Oct. — Coming home Wagram entertained us with 
 episodes of the French game laws. He remembers three 
 poachers having been shot dead at various times in the 
 park, two by himself and one by the keepers. In his own 
 case the man had first fired on him. In the third case the 
 poacher was unarmed ; in none was any inquiry made. He 
 and the keepers buried the dead men quietly where they 
 fell. The last of these three events happened as long ago as 
 1863 and ' Nobody,' he said, ' knows now where they lie but 
 myself; the keepers who helped to bury them are all dead ; 
 it has kept poachers most effectually away. E11 plaine 
 (meaning the open fields) one does not make justice thus 
 to oneself, but inside the Park it is best to do so and say 
 nothing.' Wagram is a fine survival of the old sporting daj's 
 in France, against which the revolution declaimed. . . 
 What is pleasant in the sport here is Wagram's familiar 
 way with his men ; they are all devoted to him. 
 
 " i6th Oct. {Sunday). — An excursion to Ferrieres. We 
 drove over all of us in a private omnibus, changing horses 
 on the road. Castletown and I on the top, the ladies inside. 
 I find Castletown a well-informed man, more interesting 
 than I had at first imagined. He saw a great deal of the 
 war of 1870-71, being with the Prussians at the battle of 
 Champigny in this , neighbourhood, ' when,' he says, ' if 
 Ducros had only pushed on another two hours he would 
 have broken the Prussian lines and effected his sortie.' 
 Castletown was with the Prussian headquarter staff and 
 knew how anxious they were. He was also with Chanzy 
 in the south, running great risks of being shot as a spy. 
 We talked, too, of Ireland and Egypt. He is a strong 
 Unionist, but a fair one in his reasoning, and would be a 
 Nationalist if there was hope of a complete separation. 
 
 " Ferrieres (which is the principal country seat of the 
 Rothschilds in F'rance) stands in splendid woods through 
 which ',\'e drove for some two miles before reaching the 
 
96 A Visit to Ferricres [iSqj 
 
 chateau. The house itself is disappointing, ' nnc coiiimcde 
 rcnvtisec ' as Bismarck called it when he slept there during 
 the Prussian occupation. It is surrounded with grounds 
 a rAiiglaise, a fashion which I like less than the old French 
 gardens. Inside it is like a monstrous Pall Mall Club 
 decorated in the most outrageous Louis Philippe taste, a 
 huL;e hall lit with a skylight and horribly overdone in its 
 furnishing and upholstery. In the midst, a pathetic little 
 old woman in black, ]\Iadame Alphonse Rothschild, in 
 perpetual mourning for her departed beauty. It grieved 
 me to remember her in the days of her glory: and when 
 she picked some carnations from a vase and gave us each 
 one, I asked for a red one and reminded her of how I 
 had seen Just such another in her hair nearly thirt}- \-ears 
 ag'j 'it was in 1S63 when I saw her for the first time 
 being dressed in a mantilla for a bull-fight at Madrid. A 
 faint smile illumined her gra\- face an instant but evidently 
 without recognition of me, and she relapsed into her little 
 old woman's talk about her dogs and birds, Presenth- we 
 were joined by a prett}- little young woman, her daughter, 
 Madame Effrusi, also in black, a ver\' attractive little 
 creature who showed us round the grounds, with the 
 aviaries and menageries, and entertained us with pleasant 
 talk. This gave colour to a rather colourless afternoon, and 
 in spite of its architectural monstrosities I have carried 
 away a pretty recollection of Ferrieres and the two little 
 quite diminutive gentlewomen living there. 
 
 " 17.*''' Oct. — To-day we made another expedition, there 
 being no shooting, to the Chateau of \'aux le Mcomte. 
 A\"e drove to Brunois, thence by train to ^lelun, where we 
 lunched at the Grand Monarque, and on in a fly to A'aux. 
 \"aux is without exception the most splendid dwelling-house 
 it has been my lot to visit. There is nothing in England 
 to compare with it, not Blenheim, not Castle Howard, 
 hardly Hampton Court. It is what \'ersailles ought to 
 have been and failed to be, the ideal of all that is great and 
 sumptuous in the French Renaissance style, and at the same 
 time not too vast, a house to live in, not merely a palace for 
 show. Its present proprieter, one Sommier, a sugar mer- 
 chant, bought it a few years back for £100,000, and has spent 
 another iT 100,000 on restoring and furnishing it, all fortun- 
 atei}- in the perfection of good taste. His son, a plain youth 
 
1892] Caj-olus Duran 97 
 
 w ith yellow hair, rather ungainl)', but with good voice and 
 manner, received us on the perron, and showed us over 
 everything sensibly and with knowledge. One feels happy, 
 sugar or no sugar, that this architectural gem has fallen into 
 such reverent and understanding hands. It had been offered 
 to the Gustave Rothschilds, who fortunately let it go by. 
 It is now being carefully put in order, the square mile of 
 garden brought back from the waste into which it had 
 fallen, statues and vases replaced, and water let in to the 
 ruined pieces (feau ; this is real restoration, not a stone has 
 been scraped, not an idea improved on. When one looks 
 at a creation like this, dating from two hundred and more 
 years ago, the talk of modern progress in the nineteenth 
 century sounds childish. From Vaux to Ferrieres is as great 
 a descent in the intellectual work of man as from Shake- 
 speare to Mark Twain. 
 
 " Coming into the hall this evening for dinner, I saw a 
 grey-headed man entering at the opposite door, whom for 
 a moment I took to be Leighton, but it proved to be 
 Carolus Duran, and he tells me he has been several times 
 taken for Leighton. Duran (or 1\I. Carolus, as he prefers 
 to be called, Berthe sdys, on the pretext that he is of 
 Spanish origin, his real name being Durand, of a cotton- 
 spinning family at Lille) is an excellent specimen of the 
 French artiste and liomme cTesprit. An exceedingly good 
 talker on a variety of subjects, art, poetry, languages, 
 music, and his own heart. We drew him out on ever}- one, 
 and on every one he said things worth remembering. He 
 talked of the Chicago Exhibition and the prospects of 
 painting in America. Most American artists, he said, had 
 been his own or Meissonier's pupils. Art was a matter of 
 education. The Americans would learn it in time. In 
 poetr_\' he declaimed against Victor Hugo, and exalted 
 Musset, citing corresponding passages to Musset's ad- 
 vantage. ' All great poets,' he said, ' are exponents of their 
 own country's genius and ideas, not of any other country's 
 (see Shakespeare, Moliere, Dante, Cervantes), this, although 
 they are also for all mankind.' He did not think much of 
 Byron, but quoted Goethe and one or two Italians. He 
 told us he was Spanish, and had learned Spanish entirely 
 by ear and with a perfect accent, but his quotations hardly 
 bore that out. His Italian accent was better. On music he 
 
 H 
 
98 Dufferin on Egypt [1S92 
 
 seemed to talk well, adoring \\'agner, Berlioz, and Beet- 
 hoven, and he sang snatches of Malageiias in illustration of 
 his ideas on oriental music. Lastly about his own senti- 
 ments and feelings he was very eloquent. 'J'aime lamer 
 comme on aime tout etre capricieux et qui vous fait 
 souffrir.' He regretted his • vingt-cinq-ans,' and would 
 have nothing to do vith ascetically avoiding pleasure. At 
 the same time he assured us that he now made no more 
 declarations of love, seeing that he was fifty-four. ' You 
 do this,' Lady Castletown said, ' out of timidity? ' ' Non,' he 
 answered, ' c'est par pudeun' That seemed to me a pretty 
 mot. On the whole an interesting man. 
 
 " \(^th Oct.— To Paris and called on Lord Dufterin at the 
 Embassy, who was in the same room that Lytton used to 
 work in. He was ver\' charming to me, asked me- to give 
 him a copy of my new book for his ' Helen's Tower,' a 
 library where he has got together 400 volumes presented 
 by authors, and which is named after his mother. I asked 
 him to help me about Arabi's release, and he spoke nicely 
 of him, and promised to say a word in his favour next 
 time he should have an opportunity. On the general 
 question of Egypt he also volunteered some remarks. 
 He said that on the whole policy of retaining or abandon- 
 ing a Mediterranean influence no responsible person would 
 be willing to give an opinion uncalled for; but that, 
 if Egypt was to be evacuated, there was onl}' one wa) , 
 namely, to build up some sort of self-government. He was 
 especially opposed to Turkish rule, and had alwa3-s in- 
 tended, in the settlement he made, that the Government 
 should be in the hands of the native Egyptians, not the 
 Turks. He had devised his ' Constitution ' for Eg_\'pt with 
 that idea. He was not one of those who thought popular 
 government foreign to Eastern ideas. On the contrary the 
 East had been the home of Councils and Mejlisses; and he 
 had always been of opinion that, if you could put Egypt to 
 work /// vacuo, there was nothing to prevent success. He 
 had been glad to see that Baring recognized the help 
 rendered him by the Councils, and he had written to tell 
 him so. We then discussed how the power of the Councils 
 might be increased, and also the safeguards against inter- 
 ference from Constantinople. He talked with so much in- 
 terest that his servant had to come in and remind him that 
 
1S92] Sheffield on Napoleon III 99 
 
 he had an appointment to breakfast somewhere, and so it 
 ended. I have written a sonnet for his book, ' Helen's 
 Tower.' Back to London in the evening. 
 
 '■ 2\lli Oct. — Lunched with Amir AH and his EngHsh 
 wife. They seem happy together, and have two children. 
 He gave me much Indian news, said that the Hindoos, 
 especially of Patna, were in communication with Russia, 
 and that if Russia took possession of Persia, Asia I\[inor 
 and Afghanistan, there would certainly be a rising in India ; 
 the Mohammedans have separated themselves entirelj- 
 from the Congress party. 
 
 ■' Dined with Sheffield at the Travellers'. Talking about 
 old times, when he first went with Lyons as private secre- 
 tary to Paris, the people at the Foreign Office had told him 
 to note carefully ever}' word of the Emperor's, as all he 
 said was of political value, but after a few interviews 
 Lyons perceived the emptiness of the Imperial reputation. 
 Napoleon Ill's conversation was that of ' a man threatened 
 with softening of the brain.' FIeur\' came to them and ex- 
 plained that the Emperor was often in this state, having 
 over indulged himself with women, remaining helpless in 
 bed for two or three days at a time, incapable of attending 
 to anything, and with all the affairs of the Empire left in 
 the hands of his wife. This was in 1867. Claremont (the 
 military attache,, Sheffield says, sent report after report to 
 the Foreign Office predicting a collapse of the French 
 army if there should be war, but nobody paid any atten- 
 tion. He told me that he had been invited b\- Frank 
 Lawle\- to a dinner of reconciliation between Gladstone 
 and Labouchere. It ought to be amusing, but what an 
 absurdity political life is! [The Honourable Frank Lawley 
 had been Gladstone's private secretary a good many years 
 before when Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 but having been found speculating in Consols his career 
 was put an end to, and he remained a broken man, not 
 onl)- politicalh' but socially. Public morality has strangely 
 altered since.] 
 
 " 26th Oct. — Lunched with Labouchere, who was as 
 usual most amusing. He told me the whole story of his 
 correspondence with Gladstone about their not asking him 
 to join the Cabinet. ' The best of the joke is,' he said, 'it 
 was not the Queen at all who prevented it. I arranged 
 
lOO Harcoiirt on Ugaiida [1802 
 
 \\ ith Gladstone I should lay it on the Oueen, and that lie 
 should then Ia\- it on himself. It really was Roscber_\-. At 
 the Cabinet Council about Uganda Rosebcr\- was in a 
 minorit}- of one for retaining Uganda, but Gladstone w eakh' 
 consented to his putting in the clause granting a three 
 months' respite, and Rosebery at once got up an agitation 
 in the press. ' He is an ambitious young man,' Labouchere 
 said, "and wants to be Prime ^Minister, playing the part 
 Palmerston formerly pla\-ed with the help of the Tories 
 against his own party, ^^'e shall have to join against him, 
 and get up a cry Delendum est Rosebery.' [This is pre- 
 cisely what happened, and not in Roseber_\-'s case onl\-, but 
 afterwards in that of his understud)', Sir Edward Grey.] 
 
 " yd Xov. — Dined with Esme Howard, and went after- 
 wards to hear a lecture by Captain Lugard at the Geo- 
 graphical Society. Lugard, a little, thin, dark-faced man, 
 not unpleasing, but his lecture terribl\- dull. The theatre 
 crammed, for the agitation got up for annexing Uganda 
 grows daily. Philip Currie was there." 
 
 The question of evacuating or retaining Uganda was one 
 of critical importance \\'ith the Liberal party, for it involved 
 the whole question of extending or limiting British Imperial 
 responsibilities in Africa. Our militarj' part}' was working- 
 its hardest, helped by the Tor}- opposition in the House of 
 Commons and secret!)' b\- Rosebery at the Foreign Office, 
 against Gladstone and the Radicals for the extension, and 
 eventual!}' succeeded with the results we have seen. 
 
 " Artit Nov. — 'Esther' is out. I have sent copies to 
 Gladstone, Morley, George IMeredith, William Watson, 
 and Knowles. 
 
 " To Sir William Harcourt's, whom I went to see in 
 Downing Street. I found him just going to a Cabinet 
 Council, and in high good humour. ' Well,' he said, ' will 
 }-ou go to Eg}pt as Commissioner to effect the evacua- 
 tion? ' I said, ' Yes, if you will recall Baring.' He chuckled, 
 ' It is not Egypt only the}- want us to swallow, but the 
 whole of East Africa. Rhodes was with me yesterda}-, and 
 showed me this map ' (pointing to one on the table),' where 
 }'ou will see the territories he has grabbed. He has put up 
 a telegraph alread}- as far as Niassa (? Nyanza), and means 
 to carr}- it on to Uganda, and then to Cairo. He has offered 
 to run Uganda for ^^25,000 a }ear, though he admits there 
 
1892J jMorris on the Laureaieship 10 1 
 
 is nothing to be made of it commercially. You know I am 
 not much in favour of these things myself, and am for keep- 
 ing out of Mediterranean politics, but there are others ' 
 (meaning no doubt Roseberj-J ' who won't dance to the 
 music' I said, ' 1 think you ought to make up your minds 
 on the general policy, and either go in for an African 
 Empire, or leave it alone. If you shilly shally first one way 
 and then another you will get into just the same mess that 
 you did in 1882.' Then we talked about h'.gypt. 'Baring,' 
 he said, ' has sent in a memorandum, in which he says that 
 the whole country is becoming English, and so it is to 
 remain, the Khedive has lost his popularity as he has 
 become too European.' /. ' Yes, he has brought back a 
 Viennese woman with him from Vienna.' He. ' What, only 
 one?! Baring says everything is going splendidly, and he. 
 Baring, seems to have his horses well in hand, it would be 
 a pity perhaps to meddle with him.' /. ' Yes, 1 have no 
 doubt Baring has and is driving merrily, but even a timid 
 passenger when he finds the coach is going to Brighton 
 when it ought to be going to York, may be excused for 
 taking the reins. He will drive you merrily on to annexa- 
 tion.' Ht\ ' I would ask you to luncheon, but Waddington 
 (the French Ambassador) is coming, and I am afraid your 
 views are too well known. Come on Tuesday.' And so it is 
 arranged. 
 
 " Later to Hammersmith, where I found Morris at his 
 work, but pleased to see me. 'It is all a lie,' he said, ' about 
 their having offered to make me Laureate. Bryce came 
 to see me and talked of it, but it was only on his own 
 private account. I was fool enough to tell Ellis, and he told 
 his son, who must needs repeat it at the National Liberal 
 Club, and so it got into the papers. I fancy from what I 
 heard if they don't offer it to me they will offer it to 
 Swinburne, but perhaps he won't take it.' /. ' It is five to 
 one he will take it.' He. ' That 's about the betting, but 
 Theodore Watts declares he will refuse. That 's perhaps 
 all the more reason.' 
 
 " ^tk Nov. — A note from Margot, ' a/t grand galops 
 asking me to luncheon at her sister Charlotte's. Their 
 paper is to be called ' To-morrow, a Woman's Journal for 
 Men.' I was shown the title-page. It is to come out every 
 two months, and they expect it to run for a year. They 
 
I02 Harcourt on the Souls [1892 
 
 are in straits for a political leader writer, and I suggested 
 I.ady Gregory. 
 
 ' %th Nov. — Lunched at 11, Downing Street, with the 
 Harcourts. Great joking by Sir William about the ' Souls' 
 journal. I suggested as a motto for it, solus cum sola, with 
 an armorial coat, bearing two flat fish osculant all proper. 
 ' Ah,' he said, ' it is their bodies that I like, and now they 
 are going to show us their souls all naked in print, I shall 
 not care for them. Isn't it so, Sophy?' (to his niece, Sophy 
 Sheridan, who sat next to him, pinching her arm). He went 
 on to politics : ' We have drawn out a bill this morning,' he 
 said, ' which will destroy all temperance in England for 
 many years to come. We asked Arch' (the agricultural 
 labour member) ' how many parishes in England would vote 
 against public-houses, and he said with conviction " not a 
 single one." ' 
 
 " 22nd Nov. — Crabbet. Two young monks of the Capu- 
 chins at Crawley called on me some days ago — Father 
 Cuthbert and Father Angelo de Barry — to interest me in a 
 project they have of founding a working order of St. Francis 
 instead of the old begging one. Father Cuthbert, who had 
 already spoken to me vaguely of his ideas of Church 
 reform, sent me to-day a note by Father Angelo, setting 
 forth the scheme, and asking help for them to get to Rome 
 and lay it before the Pope. I gave them the money they 
 wanted, £^0, with pleasure, for it seems a good and timely 
 undertaking which may well lead to noble things. [The 
 poor young men went to Rome, but, as was to be expected, 
 came back with a flea in their ears. They were the leaders 
 of the Modernist Reform Party in their Order, but could 
 not get a hearing at tlje Vatican. They very honourably 
 returned me the journey money.] 
 
 " I am leaving England for Sheykh Obeyd. A trouble 
 to me is the apparent failure of ' Esther.' It is not reviewed, 
 for which I care little, but even my friends are silent about 
 it, and several of them disapprove. Only from George 
 Meredith has a letter of high approval come, and one from 
 York Powell at Oxford." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE VEILED PROTECTORATE 
 
 OUR winter in Egypt of that year, 1892-93, turned out 
 to be full of incident. I found on arriving there, that 
 the trouble I had foreseen between the new Khedive Abbas 
 and Sir Evelyn Baring would speedily come to a head if 
 no attempt were made to carry out Lord Dufferin's promises 
 to the Egyptians of restoring to them their National 
 Government under a constitutional form, and a definite 
 policy adopted for preparing the country for evacuation. 
 Owing to the pre-occupation of our Liberal party in 
 England with the affairs of Ireland and other home politics, 
 the question of Egypt had been allowed to stand over and 
 nothing had been done. Lord Rosebery at the Foreign 
 Office had been left to act, or not to act, as he pleased, and 
 he in turn had left the decision of a policy to Baring, whose 
 idea of Egyptian Government was to retain all power in 
 his own hands, wtiile acting in the Khedive's name. 
 
 It was the famous policy of " the Veiled Protectorate," the 
 successful carrying out of which needed two essential con- 
 ditions, first, that the Khedive should be a consenting party 
 to the make-believe, and, secondly, that its true nature 
 should be concealed from the general Egyptian public. The 
 Khedive was expected to name his own ministers, but the 
 choice of them was to be privately dictated to him by the 
 British Agent. The Government officials were to wear the 
 Ottoman Fez, but the more important of them were to be 
 Englishmen. These were to give advice, not orders, but the 
 advice was always to be obeyed. It was an ingenious plan, 
 adopted from the Government of British India, in its dealing 
 with the native states, while a third condition was equally 
 indispensable, that was the presence behind the British 
 Agent of a sufficient armed force to give emphasis to 
 his advice and enforce his will, the Army of Occupation. 
 
 Although not a year had yet passed since Abbas' succes- ■ 
 
 103 
 
104 The Veiled Protectoraie [1S92 
 
 sion to the Khedivial dignity, he had already rebelled 
 against the position of a mere puppet, and had managed to 
 gather about him the nucleus of a new National part)', which 
 consisted of what elements there were in Egypt either of 
 discontent or of such patriotism as was to be found in the 
 countr}-, half political, half religious, which resented the 
 presence of foreign and Christian rule. The Khedive had 
 been greatly aided in this by the publication of Sir Alfred 
 Milner's book, " England in Egypt," which I have described 
 already. It had appeared about the time of the change of 
 Government in England, and had proved an entire success 
 there as a support to Baring's views, but at Cairo it had 
 had an exactly opposite effect. It had too candidly re- 
 vealed the nature of the Baring policy, unveiling to naked- 
 ness the " Veiled Protectorate," and as it had been largel}- 
 read in an Arabic translation at Cairo, it had caused more 
 alarm than satisfaction there. By the end of the year 1892 
 the young Khedive was already popular with his native 
 subjects, while even among Englishmen resident at Cairo 
 it was considered that Baring had mismanaged the matter, 
 and there was alarm at the growing ill will that was being 
 manifested between natives and foreigners. There is no 
 doubt that Baring had been in fault through his lack of 
 personal courtesy to the young prince, who, having received 
 his education in Europe, was well aware of what was due 
 to him, and had sufficient wit to know how to assert 
 himself on occasion. These things are alluded to in my 
 diary. 
 
 " \st Dec. — Landed at Alexandria and lunched at the 
 Consulate, where the Consular chaplain, Davis, gave me 
 some idea of how things were going political!)-. \\'e had 
 some talk about former Egyptian times, he having been 
 thirty years resident there. What he said bears out what 
 my Egyptian friends have always affirmed, namely, that 
 Said Pasha's reign was the best time the fellahin ever had ; 
 he is, however, like all Englishmen here, for a perpetual 
 occupation in order, as they say, ' to keep out the French.' 
 The ladies told stories of the new Khedive Abbas to his 
 disadvantage. He dislikes English soldiers and has made 
 them move farther away from his palace, and he insists 
 upon having his own will in trifles, as on one occasion 
 lately when he made the gate-keepers of the railway open 
 
1892J The New Natiofial Party 105 
 
 for him, and had forced the Directors to apologize and 
 dismiss the men because, not knowing who he was, they 
 had cursed his father. This happened near Ramleh. We 
 had tea with Sir William and Lady Butler, he being in 
 command of the English garrison. We went on to Sheykh 
 Obeyd next morning. 
 
 " 26//? Dec. — To-day a young fellow, Abderrahman 
 Effendi, was here, a proteg6 of Abdu's. Talking of Abbas, 
 he told me he was hand in glove with Riaz and Ahmed 
 Pasha Shukri, and that they all belonged to the Hesb el 
 Horiyeh (the Party of Liberty). I told him that if they 
 realh- wanted Parliamentary Government they must work 
 for it. The Khedive ought to make known his desire for it. 
 He should demand it formally in writing, and I would see 
 that their wishes were represented in the proper quarter. 
 Writing to Loulou Harcourt about the same time, intend- 
 ing it for his father, I said : ' I should be glad to know what 
 is intended at the Foreign Office. I consider that there 
 are elements here of a stronger opposition to the English 
 regime than was the case under Tewfik. For the present 
 the Khedive is young and Cromer plays with him as with 
 a young bear, humouring him in small matters and ex- 
 cluding him from all real power, and the young man 
 amuses himself after the manner of his age, but he is cer- 
 tainly strongly anti-English.' 
 
 " I understand that the Khedive is in accord with the 
 Constitutional party here. If so there will be less difficulty 
 than last year in carrying out Lord Dufferin's programme. 
 I really cannot understand how the Liberal party in 
 England can with any face refuse to do this. It is the 
 only possible chance of setting the Egyptians on their own 
 legs. 
 
 " '^ist Dec. — I have been taken up for the last forty-eight 
 hours with reading Milner's book about Egypt which is 
 just out. It is by far the ablest defence I have seen of 
 Cromer's policy, and may be considered as his own apologia, 
 for most of it must have been taken down from his dicta- 
 tion or at any rate in concert with him ; even in form and 
 arrangement of subjects it is identical with Cromer's 
 report of 1891. There is a great deal of truth in it and 
 also a great deal of the suppression of truth. 
 
 " i6th Jan. 1893. — Went in to Cairo, the first time this 
 
io6 Abbas first Coup d' Etat [1S93 
 
 winter, on business with Scott (then at the Ministry of 
 Justice). I found everybody there in a great turmoil, as 
 the Khedive has just dismissed Mustapha Pasha Fehmi 
 and other Ministers from their posts, and has appointed 
 new ones, with Fakhri Pasha as President of the Council, 
 without Baring's cognizance. Scott said it was a coup 
 d'etat, and so it seems to be, 
 
 " I'ith Jan. — Baring has refused to recognize the new 
 Ministry until he has communicated with the English 
 Government. He has given the Khedive time to reflect, 
 and the Khedive, finding himself insufficiently backed up 
 by the French, has already given in and a compromise has 
 been come to, Fakhri being replaced by Riaz. 
 
 "" zoth Jan. — Ismail Jowdat Mias been here and has told 
 me the whole story of the intrigue of the last few days, 
 though it dates in its beginning from much earlier. It is 
 one of those complicated episodes which make up Egyptian 
 history. 
 
 " Abbas, Jowdat says, arriving from Europe a year ago 
 with European notions, readily fell in at first with Baring's 
 plans. He took up the quarrel with Constantinople Baring 
 led him into, about his firman of appointment, and for a 
 while was on bad terms with the Sultan. Mukhtar Pasha, 
 however, and de Reverseaux, the French Consul-General, 
 have managed latterly to bring him round into opposition, 
 and he has made it up with the Sultan and is strongly 
 anti-English. They have managed this with the help of 
 the young Sheykh el Bekri, who was brought up with 
 Abbas and has great influence with him. This young man 
 was at first, like Abbas, under Baring's influence, and 
 Baring sent him to England last summer and introduced 
 him to Gladstone and others, boasting that the Egyptians 
 were becoming English in their sentiments. The young 
 man is of importance from his religious position, which is 
 hereditary. On his way home, however, he passed through 
 Constantinople and there fell under the contrary influence 
 of the Sultan, who gave him high orders and decorations, 
 and of Prince Halim Pasha, whose daughter it has been 
 arranged he shall marry. He returned to Egypt last 
 
 ' Ismail Bey Jowdat, director of the Cairo police under the Na- 
 tionalist Government in 1882. See my volumes, " Secret History "and 
 " Gordon at Khartoum." 
 
1893] Sheykh el Bekri 107 
 
 autumn altogether in the Sultan's interest, and has since 
 received from Mukhtar Pasha a pension of ;£^300 a month 
 out of the Sultan's privy purse. Abbas, disapproving of 
 his visit to Constantinople, refused to see him on his return. 
 Nevertheless, a reconciliation was effected through the 
 mediation of the Khedive's mother, urged thereto by a 
 certain religious Sheykh of Alexandria, entitled She3'kh 
 Tekkiet Gulshani, who desiring to have his title confirmed 
 on his son, which could only be done through the Sheykh 
 el Bekri's firman, interceded on his behalf The Khedive's 
 mother was this old Sheykh's adopted daughter (god- 
 daughter) and hence his influence. El Bekri then called 
 on the Khedive and was well received, and has since in- 
 fluenced him in favour of the Sultan's policy. Mukhtar and 
 Reverseaux planned between them with Riaz this sudden 
 coup d'etat which has just taken place, Bekri having got 
 the Khedive to join it. It was Riaz's suggestion putting 
 Fekri forward, and it has ended as planned in his own 
 substitution as Minister. The following are the chief per- 
 sonages concerned in the plot: Mukhtar Pasha, the Sultan's 
 representative, with his Turkish secretary Mohsin Bey, 
 Abd el Salaam Pasha Moelhi, Ibrahim Moelhi and his 
 son Mohammed, Prince Hussein, the Sheykh el Bekri, the 
 Sheykh Gulshani, Mohammed Bey Zoghli and his brother, 
 Rushti Bey, Yussuf Sadyk, son of the old Muffettish, 
 Ahmed Bey el Kharmili, and Ahmed Bey Sofani, of the 
 Legislative Council, Mazlum Pasha, master of ceremonies, 
 Tigrane Pasha, Zekki Pasha, and others. They have made 
 up their ministry thus : Riaz Pasha, Mazlum Pasha, Boutros 
 Pasha Ghali, Tigrane, and Zekki Pasha. 
 
 " Later in the day Fenwick Pasha called upon me. He 
 regretted that Lord Cromer had not gained a more certain 
 victory in the crisis. ' Cromer,' he said, ' had offered 
 Mustafa Fehmi to back him if he would remain in office, 
 but Mustafa declined, probably afraid.' The immediate 
 causes of the coup d'etat were first the publication at Cairo 
 of Milner's book, and second the order issued by Coles 
 Pasha (the English adviser of the Ministry of the Interior) 
 to the Mudirs in his own name instead of that of the 
 Egyptian Minister. 
 
 " I have written to Labouchere and to Sir William 
 Harcourt." 
 
io8 Sir Edgar Vutcent [1893 
 
 This was the Khedive Abbas' first revolt against Cromer. 
 The ground of the revolt was not ill-chosen, as the Khedi\'e 
 was without question within his constitutional and legal 
 right to name his own Ministers, and it at once dissolved 
 the illusion Cromer had entertained that his and not the 
 Khedive's authority was popular in Egypt. It was every- 
 where applauded, and it forced Cromer to abandon his 
 make believe and telegraph to London for English troops, 
 a clear admission of his political impotence. It was a first 
 rent made in the famous " Veiled Protectorate," and though 
 Cromer in his book describes it as a victory, it was one of 
 physical force only, not moral force. 
 
 " On the 26th of January Hardinge of the Legation ' 
 was here. He told us that when Riaz was informed of the 
 arrival of reinforcements from England he smiled a blue 
 smile and remarked that they would be welcome, as English 
 regiments had always been well-behaved in the country. 
 ' Riaz,' said Hardinge, ' may not love us, but at least he will 
 be an open enemy.' It appears that Cromer really threatened 
 the Khedive, giving him twenty-four hours to make up his 
 mind, and that the English regiments in garrison had ball 
 cartridge served out. They intended to surround the 
 palace and keep the Khedive prisoner if he refused, but 
 what more does not appear. 
 
 " -^oth Jan. — Sir Edgar Vincent and his wife, with Lady 
 Alice Portal and Mr. Eldon Gorst, came to tea. I was glad 
 to find that Vincent took quite my view of the situation. 
 He said: 'They can't go on on the old lines, and must 
 -either declare a protectorate or evacuate. The change,' he 
 said, ' in public opinion since I was at Cairo three years 
 ago, is astonishing.' He has been seeing much of Riaz. 
 As to Turkey and the Sultan he confirms all that I have 
 heard of the improvement. ' The resuscitation,' he said, ' of 
 the Ottoman Empire is the most remarkable phenomenon 
 of our day.' And so it is." 
 
 Several others have called, all telling the same story, 
 that Riaz has the whole public with him, and that the 
 Khedive is popular everywhere. Only my neighbour, Selim 
 Faraj, being a timid man and a Christian, was frightened 
 when I talked of evacuation as near. He thought it would 
 
 ' Sir Arthur Hardinge, then Secretary of Legation at Cairo, after- 
 wards our Minister at Brussels. 
 
1893] Sheykh el Bekri described 109 
 
 be followed by a persecution of Christians. ' It is not,' he 
 said, ' as it used to be in Egypt. Ever since the affair of 
 1882 there has been a growing hatred between Moham- 
 medans and Christians.' This is true; but whose fault 
 is it ? 
 
 " '^th Feb. — Parliament has met and Her Majesty has 
 made her speech, to the effect that the sending of troops to 
 Egypt does not indicate a change of policy, also that the 
 Khedive has given her assurances that he will act in co- 
 operation with her representatives. 
 
 " 14///. Feb. — Went in to Cairo to see the Sheykh el Bekri. 
 Mohammed Moelhi met me at the station and we drove to 
 a xMowlid [a religious birthday feast] in the Bab esh 
 Shariyeh, where we found the young Sheykh in a house 
 decorated for the occasion. He arrived as we arrived, and 
 we went in together. There was a great crowd of people, 
 but the Selamlik was empty, and we sat down with El 
 Bekri and talked in French, while religious Sheykhs and 
 others presently came in to pay their respects to him. The 
 Sheykh el Bekri is a young man about twenty-five, of no 
 ver)- imposing appearance, small and pale, very plainly 
 dressed in white turban gombaz and abba, you might take 
 him for one of the Azhar students, but he has a certain 
 quiet dignity and is most intelligent. He talks French per- 
 fectl}\ I discussed the situation with him both as to the 
 exiles and as to current politics. On the political situation 
 he talked very sensibly, and urged me strongly to call on 
 the Khedive and talk it over with him. I said : ' I will call 
 (in leaving Egypt to ask him pardon for the exiles, and 
 then if he chooses to speak to me on other things I will 
 discuss them with him.' But I explained that my situation 
 was rather a delicate one, as I had formerly been exiled 
 and had been put under an obligation not to interfere ; still 
 I was in communication with Sir William Harcourt, and 
 any message the Khedive might choose to give me I would 
 deliver. The Sheykh el Bekri told me that when he was 
 in England last summer he had seen Gladstone, and Glad- 
 stone had spoken strongly to him in the sense of evacua- 
 tion and against Lord Cromer's policy. He could not under- 
 stand that he should now be supporting it. 1 explained 
 the political intrigues at home and Rosebery's position 
 in the Cabinet. He seemed well acquainted with men and 
 
no Sir George Bowen [1^93 
 
 things in England. I gathered from him that the quarrel 
 between the Khedive and Lord Cromer was ver}- much a 
 personal one. At this point music began outside and chant- 
 ing, and our sofa was turned round to the window and we 
 continued our talk, but with interruptions. I arranged, 
 however, with him that he should speak to the Khedive of 
 my readiness to be of service to him, and that he was to 
 arrange an audience before I left Egypt. This \\'ill oblige 
 me to put off my journey (the one I had intended to take) 
 to the Fayum. The thing is interesting, and reminds me 
 not a little of old days. I never thought to become the 
 Khedive's confidant after all that has happened. 
 
 " \':,th Feb. — Sir George Bowen came and spent the day. 
 A man of enlightened ideas, and much practical experience 
 in English protectorates, the Ionian Islands, Malta, etc., 
 where he has served officially. We talked out the Egyptian 
 question fully, and were pretty much agreed about it. He 
 says, the Liberal Government at home would willingly 
 evacuate, but fears public opinion. He has talked much 
 since he has been in Egypt with Riaz, and Nubar, and 
 Cromer. Nubar regrets that England did not annex in 
 18S2. Cromer admits that he does not know what to do. 
 There are three possible courses: (i) To annex, which 
 would cause an European war. (2) To evacuate, which 
 English opinion would not stand, and (3) To stay on as we 
 are. This last is what he (Cromer) intends to do. Bowen 
 confirms all I have said of the universality of popular feel- 
 ing against us here, the desire that everyone has to see us 
 gone (not personal hatred). He finds the Copts quite as 
 much against us as the Mohammedans. He understands 
 the feeling as political, and patriotic, not fanatical. He 
 lays much of the blame on Cromer, who is not, he thinks, 
 the sort of man to acquire the confidence of a young 
 Oriental Prince. . . He asked me my solution, and I 
 told him that I thought the English garrison might be 
 withdrawn to Suez as a compromise, that would satisfy the 
 cry in England about the route to India. He is in com- 
 munication with Lord Kimberley and will write to him, and 
 I trust may do some good, though the Liberal party seems 
 to have gone in for a thorough debauch of Jingoism. 
 
 " 2\st Feb. — Again to see the Sheykh el Bekri, this time 
 in his own palace, formerly Abbas Pasha's, where I had 
 
1893] Abdu on the Occupation 1 1 i 
 
 once been in his father's time in 1881. He is certainly a 
 most clever and charming young man, knowing everything 
 about the politics in Europe and Constantinople as well as 
 in Egypt. He sees Riaz constantly, and vouches for Riaz 
 as a sincere opponent of Cromer, and supporter of Abbas. 
 Riaz holds other language to the English here. I told 
 Sheykh el Bekri that I thought it very important the 
 Khedive should state in some official document the exact 
 nature of the promise he made to Cromer as to his being 
 ' willing to follow the advice of Her Majesty's Government 
 on all important matters, whereas the Khedive has told 
 deputations that have waited on him that all he promised 
 was ' to considt the British Resident.' This he ought to 
 make clear. Sheykh el Bekri assured me that under 
 present circumstances Abbas could count on the Sultan's 
 support. He is advising the Khedive to act in everything 
 through and with the support and countenance of the Legis- 
 lative Council. This is the right road. 
 
 " 2yd Feb. — To Cairo to order a black coat, the Khedive 
 being punctilious on the score of clothes. Fortunately I 
 found one at the English tailor's ready made. [It had been 
 ordered for Oliver Montagu who had just died at Cairo, 
 and had never worn it.] Had a long talk with Sackville^ 
 who thinks things very unsatisfactory, the European Powers 
 would not allow our annexation, the Turks would come 
 from Constantinople if we went. 
 
 " 2/ifth Feb. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu came for lunch 
 and stayed the afternoon. I had not seen him since the 
 coup d'etat, and was anxious for his opinion. He is 
 strongly in favour of Riaz who, he says, may be depended 
 on, not so Tigrane or Boutros. Tigrane, Artin, and the 
 Christians generally do all they can to destroy Moslem 
 education. Riaz is a tyrant, but he is honest. He gave me 
 his opinions of the various Englishmen employed in the 
 country; ' the only good ones,' he said, ' are Scott, Garstein, 
 and Corbett. It has been the introduction of so many in- 
 ferior Englishmen in the last three years that has ruined 
 English influence.' He laughed much at Wallace and his 
 school of agriculture, and at Willcox with his reforms of 
 
 ^ Lionel Lord Sackville, formerly of the Diplomatic Service, and 
 Her Majesty's Minister at Washington. 
 
112 My relations with Cromer [1S93 
 
 the Arabic language. He is very glad I am to see the 
 Khedive, and wants me to impress on him the necessity of 
 keeping well with Riaz, and of taking up young Moham- 
 medans rather than Armenians and Syrians. He would 
 also work in a Constitutional sense. ' We do not mind,' he 
 said, ' the English being here for a year, or two years, or 
 five years, so long as they do not stay altogether. It would 
 be better for the country as giving time for the growth of 
 the Fellah party, but if there is danger of annexation we 
 are quite ready to run the risk of a little tyranny from the 
 Turks, rather than the other greater risk ; if you will evacuate 
 to-morrow we shall all rejoice.' Now Abdu is probably the 
 most philo-English of the Egyptians. 
 
 " On the 25th February an interview with me, which had 
 been published in the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' having been 
 reprinted in the ' Bosphore Egyptien,' I wrote to Lord 
 Cromer to explain that I was not responsible for this, or 
 for joining in any of the attacks made on him in the 
 Egyptian newspapers. ' In England,' I said, ' it is different. 
 There as long as we occupy Egypt without annexing it, 
 the Egyptian question must remain a subject of public 
 discussion, and I am sure you will not think that with the 
 strong views I hold on the injustice of destroying Egyptian 
 Nationality, my expressing myself on the subject was unfair 
 or uncalled for.' In answer he said, while thanking me for 
 my letter, ' I cannot, of course, take the smallest exception 
 to your expressing your views on Egyptian questions in 
 any form you may think fit, neither did I for a moment 
 imagine that you wished to make a personal attack on 
 myself I quote this as showing what my relations with 
 Cromer were at this and in subsequent times when we 
 quarrelled politically. 
 
 " 2^th Feb. — Went this morning by appointment to see 
 the Khedive at Abdin Palace. I found him in the same 
 room as a year ago, and he came to meet me at the door. 
 He received me very cordially, and talked throughout with 
 a great show of frankness and confidence. His manner is 
 certainly excellent, and he has a wonderful command of 
 words for so j-oung a man, with a very frank, agreeable 
 smile. He began about his farm at Koubbah, which he said 
 interested him far more than anything at Abdin, and we 
 discussed the subject of horsebreeding and the growth of 
 
'S93] 
 
 The Khedive Abbas talks 1 1 
 
 bersiin hejazi. Then he went on to politics. He thanked 
 me for having spoken in his favour in the P.M.G. interview. 
 ' The whole English Press,' he said, 'is against me.' I asked 
 him for a histor\' of what had happened. He said: 'As long 
 ag"o as the end of last summer, when Mustafa Pasha 
 (Fehmy) returned from Europe, Palmer (the Financial 
 Adviser) came to me and complained of my having spoken 
 against him. I asked him how he knew I had done 
 so. He said the people of the Palace were talking. 
 Then Hardinge came with the same complaint, but could 
 not tell me who it was that had spoken. When Lord 
 Cromer arrived he came to me and told me that I was be- 
 coming very unpopular (laughter) in the country because I 
 was not cordial with Mustafa Pasha. The fact is Mustafa 
 is an invalid, and has to go in the summer to Europe. He 
 is not fit to be Prime Minister. When he fell ill, Lord 
 Cromer objected to my taking Tigrane, and offered me a 
 choice of several quite incapable persons — Balig Pasha, who 
 is a Cypriote, Affet Pasha, who is one of the worst of men, 
 and Ahmed Shukri, who is quite incapable.' 
 
 He then gave me an account of what had happened 
 between him and Cromer as to the promise of following 
 English advice. I asked him to tell me the exact words, 
 and he said : ' We were speaking in French ' (to me he 
 was speaking in very good English, and I fancy he keeps 
 his French for his English advisers), ' and what I said was, 
 " Que j'avais tout desir d'agir de concert avec le Gouverne- 
 ment Anglais et que je ne manquerais pas de le consulter 
 sur toute chose de grande importance." ' He denied, how- 
 ever, categorically that he gave any promise of ' following 
 English advice-' I showed him Cromer's despatch pub- 
 lished in the Blue Book, which I had in my pocket with 
 the Queen's Speech, and he said the latter was correct 
 enough, not the other. I then told him that I considered 
 it very important since that was so, that he should at 
 once contradict it officially, as afterwards it would be 
 quoted against him, and he promised to make Tigrane 
 write an official despatch in that sense. I then asked him 
 whether he could rely absolutely on Riaz as against Cromer, 
 and he said 'absolutely.' ' If that is so,' I said, 'and you 
 have the Sultan with you, you have nothing whatsoever 
 to fear.' He said, ' Indeed I am not in the smallest degree 
 
 I 
 
1 14 My Advice to Abbas [iS93 
 
 afraid of any one. I consider that I have a great respons- 
 ibility here [as ruler of the country and a great duty, and 
 I mean to do it. I do not care what happens.' I noticed 
 that he was reticent about the Sultan, but I did not press 
 that matter. About Tigrane he said, ' I know that I can 
 depend better on Riaz than on Tigrane. Tigrane, being a 
 Christian, has no influence in the country, but Riaz has. 
 We must make use of Christian ministers as administrators, 
 not as heads of the Government.' I then asked him about 
 the amnesty for Arabi and the other exiles. I told him 
 I had had letters from Arabi full of loyal expressions 
 towards him, and that I was sure he could count on 
 him to be faithful to them, that Mahmud Sami might be 
 very useful to him, and that I hoped he would allow 
 them to return to Egypt. He received this very favour- 
 ably, and I went on to say that I had always regretted 
 that his father, Tewfik, had quarrelled with Arabi, and 
 so brought the English into the country — he did not 
 dissent from this — that as a matter of fact, Arabi's policy 
 was precisely the same as his. Abbas' own, namely, to get 
 rid of foreign rule. He said he could not give me a precise 
 answer about the exiles until he had consulted others, but 
 that he would take their case into favourable considera- 
 tion, and when a proper opportunity occurred he hoped to 
 be able to accede to my request. I said I would not press 
 it on him at the present moment of his strained relations 
 with Cromer. I then advised him strongly to take his 
 Legislative Council into his counsels, and act through it 
 and through the General Assembly, and I told him of 
 Labouchere's view. In all this he cordially agreed. A 
 deputation then appeared in the outer room, and I saw 
 that it was time to go. I took my leave, promising him to 
 state his case in any quarters where I might have influence, 
 and that he could always count on me for the best of my 
 advice. He walked to the door with me, making me promise 
 to come and see him, and his horses at Koubbah. As I was 
 leaving him I said, ' One word more. If Lord Cromer 
 should leave Egypt, and there is any question of appoint- 
 ing an Indian officer in succession to him, I advise Your 
 Highness strongly to object.' He said, 'Oh, certainly. I 
 know them.' And so with great cordiality we parted. 
 " I am delighted with the young man. He is able. 
 
1893] The Sultans Intrigue in Arabia 115 
 
 courageous, and self-possessed. He reminds me of his 
 grandfather, Ismail, as to wit, mais en iiiieux. He ought to 
 win his game against Cromer. 
 
 " Mohammed Moelhi came in the afternoon. I told him 
 all that has passed at the palace and he said: ' Now you 
 must go to Constantinople, the Sultan will wish to see you.' 
 So I shall do if all goes well. 
 
 " \st March. — I received a curious visit from one Abdullah 
 El Moughera, an Arab of the Moughera tribe of Aflaj, but 
 born at Shagra, in Nejd. He told me he had left Nejd as 
 servantto Abdullah Ibn Thenneyan Ibn Saoud, who went to 
 Constantinople twelve years ago, wanting to be established 
 in Nejd by the Turkish Government. He had been em- 
 ployed by the Sultan to try and raise troops among the 
 Anazeh and other tribes and had succeeded in getting 
 Sotamm Ibn Shaalan and other chiefs to go to Constantin- 
 ople. But Sheykhs Ahmed Essaad and Abul Huda had 
 been jealous of him and he had left the Sultan's service 
 and had gone back to Syria. At Jerusalem he had offered 
 his services to the British Consul to raise an insurrection 
 in Syria, and the Consul had sent him on to Lord Cromer. 
 He had seen Cromer and Boyle, but says he could not 
 make them understand him, as Boyle and he talked 
 Turkish, but most probably they would not have anything 
 to do with him, so he came on to me. 
 
 '' He came again 4th March, and I gave him £10 and 
 advised him to go back to Syria. 
 
 " 6th March. — Abderrahman Ismail came and reminded 
 me of what I had advised about the Khedive declaring 
 himself before Parliament met. ' You see,' he said, ' we 
 have taken your advice.' So it is just possible that my 
 words may have had some influence in bringing the crisis 
 on, only I wish they had consulted me as to the way of 
 doing so. I should not have advised this sudden change 
 of Ministers. But perhaps it is best as it is. It was not 
 Ahmed Shukri, but Mohammed Shukri, who, he told me, 
 was working with Riaz. He talked now in the highest 
 spirits of all that was happening. I told him I thought 
 it possible negotiations for evacuation might be begun 
 before the end of the year. 
 
 " jth March. — To-day I went to see Riaz Pasha. To 
 my astonishment he had written me a most amiable note 
 
ii6 A ]^isit to Riaz Pasha [1S93 
 
 asking to see me and signing himself Votri: bien dcvcmc. So 
 I called at three at his private house in the Helmi>-eh 
 quarter, near the citadel, I suppose the quarter where his 
 old Jew father lived. He received me with the greatest 
 cordiality, a little, wizened, gray old man, with a ner\ous, 
 twitching face (once Abbas I's dancing boy !) and poured 
 me out his griefs. He began with a long apology for his 
 conduct in past times and of how he would have saved the 
 country if it had not been for Arabi's pushing on too 
 quickly. I did not care to argue that point, as I knew it 
 would take time, and he is sorry enough now for having 
 got the English into the country. He is very angry with 
 Cromer for having humbugged him when he was last in 
 office about evacuation, and on my showing him what 
 Labouchere had written me about Rosebery's intention 
 never to evacuate, he threw up his hands in real passion. 
 
 "We discussed the necessity of action through the General 
 Assembly, and he quite agreed. But he strikes me as being 
 rather old and infirm, and I doubt if he will hurry on fast 
 enough. Unless they act here, while our Parliament is 
 sitting, they will lose their pains. I talked to him also 
 about getting the Sultan to agree to the neutralization of 
 Egypt in connection with our withdrawal, and he thought 
 it could be managed if the word neutralization was not 
 used to the Sultan. He thought also they might come to 
 an agreement to make over the town of Suez permanently 
 to England, but he begged me not to quote him, also he 
 promised to draw up a programme of reforms. About the 
 Khedive's denial that he had promised to follow English 
 advice he did not feel sure, but said that something he 
 thought had already been written about it. He is very 
 Oriental and very vague, but there is something in him 
 that inspires confidence. When I said, 'You must not 
 repeat all I have told you to Lord Cromer,' he exclaimed, 
 ' Ah, could you think it ? ' Lastl)' I talked to him about 
 Arabi's return, and he spoke much as the Khedive had 
 spoken, of there being no unwillingness on their part only 
 that the time was inopportune. He complimented me on 
 my constancy to my friend, and we parted on the best 
 possible terms. Coming with me to the head of the stairs 
 he kept repeating: ' Ah, que je suis content de vous avoir 
 vu, que je suis content, que je suis content.' 
 
J 893] The Sultan of Johore 117 
 
 " wth March. — I have written my article, ' Lord Cromer 
 and the Khedive,' for the ' Nineteenth Century,' also letters 
 to Churchill, Labouchere, and Loulou Harcourt, founded on 
 my talk with the Khedive; also 12th March to Mr. 
 Gladstone. 
 
 " 22nd March. — Mohammed Moelhi tells me of a new 
 trouble. A certain Ali Bey, Colonel of a regiment quartered 
 at Koubbah, had made himself conspicuous by his visits to 
 the Khedive, and his congratulations on the issue of the 
 coup d'etat. This has given offence to Kitchener, the new 
 Sirdar, and they have ordered the regiment back to Suakim, 
 whence it only came six months ago. The Minister of War, 
 Yussuf Shudi, one of the old gang, lets Kitchener do what 
 he likes. [This entry is of more importance than it seems, 
 for this Ali Bey was Ali Bey Kamel, brother to Mustafa 
 Kamel, afterwards leader of the National Party, who began 
 his political career b)' taking up this quarrel of his brother 
 with Kitchener.] 
 
 "31^-^' March. — Everard Fielding (he had been staying 
 with us at Sheykh Obeyd) brought the Sultan of Johore to 
 see us, a good old Indian gentleman of very simple manners 
 and much bonhomie. He lunched with us, notwithstanding 
 Ramadan, talking pleasantly in pidgin English, which did 
 not altogether mar his dignity. With him a young Malay, 
 the general of his army, and his English secretary. Captain 
 Creighton. He complained that though he had been a fort- 
 night at Cairo, he had as yet seen none but English 
 officials, and that Lord Cromer had not encouraged him in 
 his desire to go into Egyptian society. I offered to put him 
 in the way of this, which much delighted him, and as good 
 luck would have it, Mohammed Moelhi called, while we 
 were sitting on the roof, and I introduced him and sent 
 Mohammed back with him to Cairo, to take him, to-day 
 being Friday, to the Mohammed Ali Mosque for prayers, 
 and I am to take him on Sunday to the Sheykh el Bekri 
 and get Mohammed Abdu and other Sheykhs to call on 
 him, and we will put him in the right way to an intro- 
 duction to Sultan Abdul Hamid when he goes on to 
 Constantinople. 
 
 " 2nd April. — To Cairo, where I took the Sultan of 
 Johore to Sheykh el Bekri, acting for him as interpreter. 
 This was a difficult matter, as the poor old Sultan's English 
 
ii8 J ohore at Cross-Purposes [1893 
 
 is hardly intelligible, and his ideas are most embroiled, and 
 his manner, too, for an Oriental, is strangely bad, and I fear 
 he shocked el Bekri by a certain sans-faqon in speaking of 
 hol_\- things, though I was able to smooth down his more 
 unfortunate remarks, as interpreters do. The truth is they 
 were at cross purposes. What el Bekri wanted to find out 
 was whether the Sultan had an}' panislamic ideas, whether 
 he wanted to see Abdul Hamid at Constantinople for a 
 political purpose, and whether he would encourage panis- 
 lamic missionaries at Johore. The old man, on the other 
 hand, only wanted a little personal sympathy as a Moham- 
 medan from Mohammedans. He was too humble-minded 
 to expect much notice from x\bdul Hamid, and had nothing 
 of any importance to say to him. Thus each misunderstood 
 the other. ' Do the Mohammedan Princes in India,' the 
 Sheykh asked, ' communicate with each other as such, and 
 do they communicate with the Sultan at Constantinople?' 
 To which the other replied that the Malay princes knew 
 each other, but not the others. The)- had never had the 
 smallest communication with Constantinople, and the Otto- 
 mans looked on them as Kaffirs. A Turkish man-of-war had 
 once come and stayed some time st Singapore on her way 
 to Japan, and it was not till just before she sailed that the\' 
 discovered that Johore was Mohammedan. Then every- 
 body had been delighted. That was the only communication 
 that had ever taken place with the Turks. They saw many 
 Arabs of the Hedjaz at Singapore who came to trade, but 
 they were ignorant men, though some were rich. He would 
 like to go to Constantinople, but he would not put the 
 Sultan to the trouble of receiving him. He was only a small 
 sovereign, and had nothing of importance to say. As to 
 missionaries, he would be delighted if the Sheykh would 
 send them a professor to teach thpm their religion. They 
 were all Shafais at Johore. They said their prayers in 
 Arabic, but did not know the meaning of the words; the 
 Koran was not translated into Malay except some parts of 
 it. He was having a translation made, they were all very 
 ignorant. The young Sheykh el Bekri hardly knew, I think, 
 what to make of it all. The good Sultan of Johore was 
 more successful with other Egyptians whom I took him to. 
 At Abdul Salaam's the Pasha was on all fours to His 
 Highness, and me for bringing him. He described to them 
 
1893] Mukhtar Pasha Ghazi 119 
 
 his patriarchal way of governing his country with a walking 
 stick — 'like the first Caliphs' Abdul Salaam remarked — 
 and how he liked, when he was at home with his wife and 
 his mother, to sit on the floor and eat with his fingers. He 
 wanted to find somebody doing that, but at Cairo there 
 were European chairs and sofas everywhere. We have 
 promised to show him that, too, and he is to go on to 
 Mohammed Abdu. 
 
 " Later I went alone with Mohammed to call on Mukhtar 
 Pasha, and had a long talk with him on the political situa- 
 tion, the upshot of which was that he promised no time 
 should be lost in pushing things on. He would write at 
 once to the Sultan, suggesting that he should take action 
 in the direction of neutralizing Egypt, and he would urge 
 Riaz to convoke the General Assembly here after Ramadan. 
 It shows how little these people know of their own affairs, 
 and how entirely Dufferin's Charter has remained a dead 
 letter, that when I spoke to Mukhtar of the Assembly, he 
 stoutly denied that there existed such an institution. ' It 
 would be,' he said, ' a most precious instrument in our 
 hands, but I have never heard of it.' I exhorted him to 
 consult his papers. He also assured me that as long as the 
 Khedive was dans la bonne voie, he could count on the 
 Sultan's support. Also about Riaz that he was sure he 
 would work straight now with the Khedive. Riaz was much 
 changed in the last two years. He would jog him on if he 
 was slow, as he quite saw the necessity for action. Ever}'- 
 year the Occupation lasted rooted it more firmly. Lastly, 
 he promised to see the Sultan of Johore, who I hope 
 will not commit any inconvenence when they meet. It is 
 announced in the papers that Cromer's new yearly Report 
 is published, and that the ' Daily News ' in London sup- 
 ports it, and declares it must be several years before Egypt 
 can be left* to manage its own Government. 
 
 " --)tli April. — Randolph writes me an interesting letter 
 about Egypt. He says that he is still in favour of evacua- 
 tion, but at the present time cannot express his opinion 
 publicly with advantage. He wishes me, however, to tell 
 the Khedive to keep on good terms with Cromer as his 
 best chance. 
 
 " i2t]i April. — Lunched with Tigrane (the Armenian 
 Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs). He is, I think. 
 
I20 Tigrane Pasha [1S93 
 
 sound in his Nationalism, though an Armenian. We 
 talked about my article in the 'Nineteenth Centurj-,' with 
 nearly all of which he agreed, objecting onl)' that it might 
 do harm to the Khedive that I should have stated him to 
 have denied the promise to follow English advice. He said 
 he had been himself the intermediary in arranging the affair 
 between the Khedive and Lord Cromer, that he had drawn 
 up in writing with Lord Cromer the form of words the 
 Khedive was to use, namel), ^ Je suiverai volontiers Ics con- 
 seils,' etc. ; that the Khedive had read the Memorandum 
 and had learnt it by heart, and had promised to use the 
 exact words. He therefore presumed that the Khedive had 
 done so, and that the promise was in fact made. I said 
 there could be no mistake that the Khedive now denied 
 it, and we both agreed that it was a point of the utmost 
 importance. He said that the Legislative Council would be 
 convened soon after Bairam, when they would introduce a 
 programme of educational and other reforms. He would 
 see Mohammed Abdu as to a reform of the Azhar if I 
 would send him to him. As to the General Assembly the 
 country was not yet ready for it. It would have to be written 
 about first in the press. He had himself always been in 
 favour of Constitutional measures. I think I made him 
 understand that without constant action there was no 
 chance of success. ' Yes,' he said, ' we drift down the 
 stream like a log to the sea.' On the whole I am pleased 
 with Tigrane. 
 
 " 1 3^A April. — Lady H. writes that she has seen Gorst who 
 seemed immensely struck with my article, ' Lord Cromer 
 and the Khedive,' never apparently before having realized 
 what a good case can be made out for the other side. 
 
 " 15^/2 April. — Called again on Mukhtar Pasha, who 
 talked with considerable unreserve. Speaking of the neces- 
 sity there would be of England's holding Egypt *in force, if 
 she were at war with any Great Power, I had remarked we 
 should require 20,000 men — ' 50,000,' he exclaimed, ' only to 
 deal with the internal disturbance, and when I come with 
 an army from out there from Damascus you will see how 
 many more you will want.' " 
 
 This is the account given by my diary of Abbas' first 
 pitched battle with Cromer, which the latter always claimed 
 as a notable victory, though in reality it was hardl\- that in 
 
1893] By Athens to Constantinople 121 
 
 any moral sense, Cromer having got his way only by the 
 violent physical measure of calling for British reinforce- 
 ments and by the unreadiness of the French Government 
 to make it a casus belli. Relying on this he succeeded in 
 intimidating the young Khedive to the extent of obtaining 
 from him a compromise in regard to his right of appoint- 
 ing Ministers which he was able to represent in his reports 
 as dictated by himself, but it left him with the Khedive for 
 a persistent enemy, who though many times forced to sub- 
 mit was never reconciled, and who in the end defeated his 
 old enemy, and drove him out of Egypt. I have recorded 
 it here at some length, for it marks the beginning of an 
 obstinate determination on the part of our Foreign Office 
 under the Liberal, no less than under the Conservative 
 administrations in Downing Street, to cling to Egypt right 
 or wrong, wisely or foolishly, to its own hurt twenty years 
 later. 
 
 On the 1 8th April we left Sheykh Obeyd for Athens 
 and Constantinople. At Athens I found my friend Egerton 
 newly appointed Minister, and we lunched at the Legation 
 with him and Arthur Ellis, who was there in attendance on 
 the Princess of Wales on a yachting cruise, and they both 
 talked with a certain sympathy of my Egyptian views, 
 Egerton being still for evacuation as when we had talked 
 of it together in Paris; but we made no stay at Athens 
 more than the few hours allowed by our steamer, and on 
 23rd April we landed at Galata, and took up our quarters 
 at Myssiris Hotel, where all is unchanged since I was first 
 there thirty-three years before, and where we stayed for a 
 fortnight, an interesting visit, though I failed after all in 
 the chief object of it, that of getting speech of the Sultan. 
 
 Our first visitor on arrival was my old ally Ibrahim 
 Moelhi, Mohammed's father, now a Pasha by favour of the 
 Sultan, and in high favour at the Imperial Court, who put 
 me in the way of seeing various dignitaries, including 
 Munir Pasha, the Sultan's chief intermediary between 
 Yildiz Palace and strangers of distinction, who promised 
 me an early audience of His Majesty, but I soon found 
 there were obstacles in the way of an actual private audi- 
 ence of the kind usual at that time among the Court 
 officials. Mukhtar Pasha, from whom I had brought a 
 letter of introduction to Munir, had described me in it as 
 
122 Si)- Clare Ford Ambassador [1S93 
 
 " a rich Englishman who had for many years defended the 
 cause of the Arabs against the Enghsh Government." The 
 word " rich " was an unfortunate one as suggesting ideas of 
 bakshish to the official mind, and I soon discovered that 
 the doors of Yildiz would need more than one golden key 
 to open for me, a form of blackmail I was not prepared to 
 submit to, for I have made it a rule in my dealings with 
 Orientals neither to give, nor to receive, presents. Neither 
 was I disposed to waste more time than a few days waiting 
 for this and that arrangement to mature. Nevertheless I 
 had opportunities given me of seeing a good deal of the 
 inside machiner\- of that singular abode, the Sultan's 
 residence and its surroundings. I might of course have 
 obtained a formal audience in the orthodox way by getting 
 the British Ambassador to present me, but that would not 
 have served my purpose as the conversation of strangers 
 under such circumstances of introduction was never more 
 with Abdul Hamid than a polite interchange of compli- 
 ments. 
 
 Our Ambassador at the time was Sir Clare Ford, on 
 whom we all called, and who received me very cordially 
 as a former member of the Diplomatic service, and who 
 had for a while worked there in Bulwer's time as an attache, 
 but we did not talk politics except with Nelidoff, the 
 Russian Ambassador, who was announced while we were 
 there, and who had at one time been my intimate friend 
 when he and I were attaches together at Athens. Ndlidoff 
 always remembered our days there with pleasure when we 
 met, and so it was on this occasion. We talked of old times 
 at Athens when he and I were still almost boys, he three 
 or four years older than me, and of the paper chases we 
 had ridden together in the olive woods with Dufferin, he, 
 too, still a young man, travelling with his mother in the 
 East, and who had spent the winter with us there. I found 
 him much intrigued about the Sultan of Johore, who to his 
 immense surprise found himself an object of vast curiosity 
 at Constantinople, and who, thanks to Sheykh el Bekri's 
 introduction, had been received with all ceremonious 
 honour by Abdul Hamid, though the Court had refused 
 from the first to acknowledge him as having an\- claim to 
 calling himself a Sultan. Nevertheless he was credited by 
 everyone with a verj- high position as a Mohammedan 
 
1893] Stdtan of Johore in honou!' 123 
 
 Prince in the Malay States. Ndlidoff told the story of what 
 the Sultan's chamberlain had said of him when Nelidoff had 
 asked who and what he was. " Je ne connais pas de Sultan 
 de Johore, mais il y a un prince de ce nom qui a demand^ 
 audience de sa Majesty le Sultan." Ndlidoff was curious to 
 know how many subjects Johore contained, and when I 
 told him " only half a million " was greatly disappointed. 
 He had been reckoning on him, I think, as a possible ally 
 for Russia on the borders of India. 
 
 Going on the same afternoon (25th April) to a hotel 
 where he was staying " I found the Johore suite in the 
 seventh heaven of delight over their reception last night by 
 the Sultan. Two state carriages had been sent for them 
 with an escort of cavalry — this had been denied them in 
 London at the Queen's Jubilee. They had been entertained 
 at a state banquet, and Sultan Abdul Hamid had embraced 
 his brother monarch and had bestowed on him the First 
 Class of the Order of Osmanieh in diamonds, and on the 
 suite correspondingly high decorations. I did not see 
 the old gentleman himself, he being with the dentist. 
 Mohammed Moelhi alone was not decorated, though as a 
 matter of fact it was entirely owing to him that Johore 
 had been received at all. The Sultan had refused at 
 first, saying he was only an Indian Rajah, but Moelhi 
 managed to persuade the palace people through Jemal ed 
 Din, and the brilliant reception accorded was the result. 
 Jemal ed Din was at the banquet, and according to 
 Ibrahim's account, is now in high favour at Yildiz, having 
 succeeded with Abdul Hamid by his plainspoken audacity. 
 The Sultan has offered him all kinds of grades and decora- 
 tions, but Jemal ed Din has wisely refused, and the other 
 day, on being turned back by the master of ceremonies at 
 one of the Bairam Court functions, Jemal ed Din pushed 
 his way through notwithstanding, and so attracted the 
 Sultan's notice, who sent for him and made him stand 
 close to him behind his chair, nearer even than the Grand 
 Eunuch. So Jemal ed Din is the man of whom to solicit 
 favours, and I am to be taken to call on him to-morrow, 
 the episode of the umbrella in the back room at James 
 Street being consigned to oblivion. How foolish Drum- 
 mond Wolff was to change his mind at Vienna and not 
 take the Seyyid with him to Constantinople in 1885, as 
 
124 Jemal ed Dill at Yildiz [1893 
 
 I had arranged he should do. He would have got his 
 Convention ratified and succeeded where he failed.' 
 
 "26^/? April. — With Judith to luncheon at the Embassy. 
 The German Ambassador was there, with a Swedish Count 
 and Countess and Carnegie, a cousin of the Ambas- 
 sador, of a branch of the Southesk family settled in 
 Prussia, also Nicholson, our Secretary of Embassy, next to 
 vi'hom I sat. I found both Xicholson and Ford professing 
 opinions favourable to the evacuation of Egypt ; indeed, 
 Ford introduced me to the German Ambassador as ' the 
 Englishman most strongly opposed to our Occupation of 
 Egypt.' Nicholson married a sister of Lady Dufferin, and 
 was in Egypt at the time of Dufferin's special mission of 
 1882-3. He gave me a less rosy-coloured picture of Turkish 
 Finance than Vincent, who is negotiating a new loan, and 
 so makes the best of things here. 
 
 " At three on with Judith to Nishantash, in the jMusafir 
 Khaneh, an official lodging house for distinguished visitors 
 attached to Yildiz, where Jemal ed Din has rooms. The old 
 Afghan received us with open arms and embraced me on 
 both cheeks in a room filled with reverend Turks, and 
 made Judith sit in the armchair of state, and gave us tea 
 and coffee and entertained us for an hour and a half. Anne 
 had written him a note of excuse in Arabic, which was 
 read out two or three times with great admiration at its 
 style and correctness. Then we had a long talk on politics, 
 partly in Arabic, partly in French, which Jemal ed Din 
 talks pretty fluently. Ibrahim IMoelhi was there, but the 
 others did not understand us (very few Turks know Arabic). 
 Jemal ed Din asked m}' opinion of the various personages 
 in Egypt, the Khedive, Riaz, Mukhtar, Tigrane and I also 
 explained to him the situation in England. He was there 
 some months last year, and had got rather incorrect ideas — 
 for one thing, that the evacuation of Egypt was only pre- 
 vented b}^ the Khedive's coup d'etat. He did not understand 
 that the English Liberal party had long before surrendered 
 to Rosebery. About the state of things here we did not 
 talk except that the Sultan would certainl}- support Abbas 
 as long as he opposed us in Egypt, and that no claim would 
 
 ' For Seyyid Jemal ed Din Afghani's earlier career and his visit to 
 me in London see my volume, " Gordon at Khartoim." See also Pro- 
 fessor Browne's account of the .Sev\id in his book on Persia. 
 
1893] 
 
 / / \ilter Blunt Pasha 1 2 5 
 
 be put forward by Abdul Hamid of interfering with the 
 Administration there. Altogether a satisfactory visit. There 
 seems a good chance now of my getting my audience at 
 Yildiz, but I told Jemal ed Din that I cannot wait longer 
 than Monday, 
 
 " z-jth April. — To the bazaars with Judith and the Walter 
 
 Blunts(General Walter Blunt Pasha, an A.D.C. of the Sultan, 
 
 who had called two or three days ago with his wife claiming 
 
 relationship, though I hardly know on what ground). He 
 
 talked of his familyas connected with Flaw Hatch, in Sussex, 
 
 a fine-looking old man in a very smart uniform. He has 
 
 been in the Turkish service since 1878. On our return we 
 
 found Jemal ed Din and Ibrahim Moelhi calling on Anne, 
 
 who told us wonderful tales of the system of Palace 
 
 management. It is arranged that I am to be taken by the 
 
 superintendent of the Musafir Khaneh to see Munir Pasha 
 
 to-morrow during the Selamlik. I am not to ask for an 
 
 audience, but onh' to deliver my letter from Mukhtar 
 
 Pasha. They seem to think, however, that it will require a 
 
 week or more to prepare the ground for an audience, since 
 
 nothing here can be done in a hurry. I am determined all 
 
 the same to leave on Monday, for if I am to do any good I 
 
 must be back in England before Whitsuntide. The one 
 
 practical question I want to ask the Sultan is whether, if 
 
 the English Government were willing to open negotiations 
 
 on the lines of the Wolff Convention, he also would be 
 
 willing, but Jemal ed Din thinks it would be impossible at 
 
 a first audience to go so far as that. 
 
 " 28/A April. — To the Selamlik with Judith and the 
 Walter Blunts ("Anne being still laid up), a really splendid 
 spectacle. It vi'as held "in front of the new mosque at Yildiz, 
 and everything had been done to make it impressive, as 
 there were ninety officers of the French fleet present, 
 brought especially by the Sultan's yachts from the Dardan- 
 elles. Sarah Bernhardt, too, was there, to whom the display 
 must have had a special spectacular meaning. What in- 
 terested me most was the lai'ge number of Mohammedan 
 Sheykhs and dignitaries from distant provinces of the 
 empire, who followed the prayer outside the mosque and 
 took part in the procession. This has been the triumph of 
 Abdul Hamid's reign. In one of the tribunes were a couple 
 of old Druse Sheykhs in splendid attire, with whom I 
 
126 The Snltixn's Sehifu/ik [ 
 
 isg: 
 
 exchanged a few words, and one of them recognized me, 
 ha\ing been at Salkhat when Anne and I passed throuL^h 
 it on our way to Xejd in 1878. The\- were then, and as 
 late as 1881, at war with the Sultan, now they are his 
 guests, clothed in robes of honour. 
 
 " When it was over 1 went with General Blunt to call on 
 Emin Pasha, the Chamberlain, and got from him permis- 
 sion to visit the Imperial Arab stud at the Sweet Waters; 
 the General would have gone with me also to Munir Pasha, 
 but I explained that perhaps Munir would sooner see me 
 alone; so presently the superintendent came for me and 
 took me to Munir. There was with him an officious little 
 man whom I afterwards found to be Guarracino, the 
 ' Times ' correspondent; but Munir sent him away. He 
 then read my letter from IMukhtar and became cordial. We 
 talked a little about the affairs of Egj-pt, and a little about 
 m\' travels, and he said he would inform the Sultan of my 
 arrival. 
 
 " In the Diplomatic Box which we occupied at the 
 Selamlik, I found our old friend Sabunji,' now in fine 
 feather, having a permanent post as translator to the Sultan. 
 He lives at Prinkipo and comes in twice a week to Yildiz. 
 He told me he had had my article ' Lord Cromer and the 
 Khedive ' given him to translate, and that the Sultan cer- 
 tainh- had read it. He advised me to ask for an audience, 
 but i told him I had no time. General Blunt whispered 
 me that he was ' a palace spy,' which of course he is, and 
 therein lies his value; he may be of great use to us here. 
 The day was lovely, the view splendid, and 1 enjoyed the 
 pageant as I seldom do things of the sort. 
 
 " In the evening we drove to the Sweet Waters and were 
 shown the Sultan's mares. There were, I believe, about 150 
 of them, all 'mares from the Arabs,' but the greater part of 
 them of very small account. Among the herd, however, 
 one was able to pick out about a dozen really good ones, 
 and two or three of the first class. But there was no mare 
 there at all equal to AH Pasha Sherif's best, or the best of 
 our own. The best I found had come from Ibn Rashid 
 who, two years ago, sent thirty. But the Egyptian who 
 manages the establishment tells me that they will insist 
 
 ' See " Secret History.'' 
 
1893] Sulta7is Arab Stud 127 
 
 upon tall horses, and I fancy the Bedouins who send the 
 Sultan mares get the big ones on purpose for him, and keep 
 the little ones, which are the best. There was a great hulk- 
 ing mare which Sotamm Ibn Shaalan had brought with 
 him, one I feel sure was never foaled among the Roala. 
 Of horses the)- showed us seven, the best being without 
 comparison a Seglawi of Ali Pasha Sherif's, an exact 
 match to our Shahwan. This was a really beautiful and 
 perfect horse, but of diminutive size compared with the 
 others, and so less esteemed here, though the Egyptian 
 knew his worth. Next to him was an immensely showy 
 chestnut from Ferhan Jerba, a beautifully topped horse of 
 great quality, but a little overgrown, and, so the manager 
 told me, less good at the stud than the other. Beyond 
 these two there was not one I would have cared to own, two 
 or three of them being quite unfit to breed from. The 
 management of the stud is, I fancy, very defective, as there 
 were certainly four mares out of five barren. There is, how- 
 ever, enough material to make a good stud out of I should 
 pick out twenty of the best and and sell the others. There 
 were a good many black mares among them, sent as 
 rarities, but I doubt if black is ever a good Arab colour. 
 One of these came from Ibn Rashid and was the best ; 
 Sarah Bernhardt was also in the paddock looking on. 
 
 " Munir is rather a fine-looking man, with a vigorous, 
 intelligent face, and modern manner — not at all one of the 
 old-fashioned, sleepy Pashas — and in all he says he goes 
 straight to the point. He impressed me favourably. 
 
 " 2gth April. — Admiral Woods Pasha called on me and 
 talked principally aboutthe Armenian question. He says it 
 has been grossly exaggerated in the London press ; that he 
 has seen thetext of Newberry, the American Consul's Report, 
 which is entirely favourable to the Sultan's Government, 
 that the ' Times ' refused to publish it, that Sir Clare Ford 
 had sent it home, but that the Foreign Office ignores it. 
 He has written to the ' Daily Telegraph ' a rather weak 
 letter headed, ' Justice to Turkey and the Turks.' But I 
 told him justice was quite out of date now in England, and 
 that he would get a better chance of a hearing if he did 
 not speak of it. To be listened to one must threaten, not 
 plead for mercy. 
 
 " To luncheon with the Sultan of Johore and his suite, 
 
128 The Sulian s Stud at Yildiz [1S93 
 
 including Mohammed Moelhi and Ahmed Pasha AH, 
 A.D.C. to Sultan Abdul Hamid, who has been attached to 
 Johore for the period of his stay. This Ahmed is the same 
 who was sent to us by the Sultan nine years ago to show 
 us over the palaces and treasury, a good-natured, courtly 
 personage, said to be the most be-decorated of any in 
 Turkey. Our conversation at table was a regular Tower of 
 Babel, for though we were only ten people, we were talk- 
 ing five different languages, English, French, Turkish, 
 Arabic, and Malay. 
 
 '' In the afternoon we went with the Walter Blunts to see 
 the Sultan's stables at Yildiz — first, however, to call on the 
 director of it, Izzet Pasha, the most European Oriental I 
 have ever met. We found him in trouble, his son having 
 attempted to commit suicide the day before through a lo\e 
 affair. He talked of this quite as a European might. He 
 was sitting in his house near Yildiz, in a rough kind of 
 smoking suit, his hair en brosse, and no fez — rather a 
 picturesque looking man, who might have been a French 
 or Italian artist. One certainly would never have guessed 
 him an Oriental. He talked a good deal of heresy about 
 horse-breeding, declared that nine out often Arabs had 
 unsound hocks (an absurdit}), and they were all unsound 
 one way or the other. He says there is hardly a horse or 
 mare sent by the Bedouins to the Sultan which would pass 
 a veterinar}' examination. This may perhaps be true, as I 
 daresay the\- pass on their unsound ones when they are 
 making presents, to say nothing of the horses they send 
 getting changed on their road to Constantinople. 
 
 " At the stables, which are inside Yildiz Park wall, we 
 found a splendid collection of stallions arranged in stalls 
 according to their colours, gray, black, or bay — very i&\\ 
 chestnuts. Among these the most remarkable were, I think, 
 half-a-dozen brought by Nasr el Ashgar, Sheykh of the 
 jNIontefik, and several \-ery fine ones from Mohammed Ibn 
 Rashid, and others presented singly by Walys of Bagdad. 
 There were some enormously powerful horses among the 
 bays, and one ver}- fine black horse from Ibn Rashid. But 
 there was unfortunately no intelligent person to explain, 
 nor anybody who knew Arabic, except a black slave. In 
 the first stable there were about sixty horses, nearly all of 
 high quality, but we could not have more than two or three 
 
1S93] Sabunji, the Stdtatis Secretary 129 
 
 led out, so it was impossible really to judge them. Beyond 
 these were a couple of hundred more, inferior ones, in 
 another stable, and yet a third and fourth stable with 
 European animals. A very old white Arab horse was 
 shown us as the Sultan's favourite for riding, but they say he 
 seldom gets on horseback. Altogether the grandest Arab 
 collection I have seen, and far superior in quality to the 
 mares we saw yesterday. 
 
 " Dined at Ahmed All's in Stamboul with Johore and his 
 suite; a dull dinner in the modern Turkish style, with 
 music during it — which I hate. Our host showed us with 
 pride some astonishing daubs he had perpetrated at Paris 
 twenty years ago, and some of which he had even ex- 
 hibited. He had also painted his dining-room walls not 
 badly with representations of orange and lemon trees in 
 tubs. 
 
 " On my return I found that Munir had called, but I shall 
 not put off my departure unless I have an audience fixed 
 for a special day and hour. Mohammed is to find this out 
 definitely and bring me word to-morrow. 
 
 " \st May. — A dull morning, with a Black Sea fog and 
 cold. Hearing nothing from the Palace, we have taken our 
 places by to-night's Orient express. Called on Ford to 
 say good-bye, also on Woods Pasha. Yesterday I saw 
 Jemal ed Din at Nishantash. He was urgent I should 
 stay on to see the Sultan, and said he would go at once to 
 the Chief Chamberlain to get a definite answer. But no 
 answer has come. I called also on Abdullah Pasha Nejdi 
 (Ibn Thennayan Ibn Saoud) at his house in Yildiz. He 
 lamented being kept a prisoner here and longed to be back 
 in Nejd. But the Sultan is kind to him. I went with 
 Serrur the Soudani. 
 
 " To-day Sabunji called. He came here two years ago 
 with some Englishmen to get a railway concession, which 
 came to nothing, but he stayed on till the Sultan, hearing 
 of him through Munif Pasha, sent for him and made him 
 translator. He now has to read and digest all the news- 
 papers of England, France, and Italy, and to write precis 
 of their contents in Turkish for the Sultan. He sees 
 the Sultan from time to time and sometimes talks to 
 him about European politics or history or archaeology, 
 of which Abdul Hamid is fond. He gets ^^40 a month and 
 
 K 
 
130 The Plains of Rotimelia ['893 
 
 a house at Prinkipo, and so is in clover. He sa\-s the 
 Sultan is afraid to employ good men in high positions for 
 fear they should become too popular. Thus Said Pasha was 
 dismissed a year and a half ago because he had become 
 popular with the army by paying the soldiers regularly. 
 Latel}-, \^incent went to the Sultan with proofs of the 
 roguery of the Minister of Marine. The Sultan gave him 
 in return another paper wherein the same and many more 
 robberies were recorded. He had long known all about it. 
 
 " At two Ibrahim Moelhy came to beseech me to stay on 
 a few days till next Thursday, only another twenty-four 
 hours, but I was obdurate. ' I am not a. fakir,' I said, ' to sit 
 at the Palace door waiting. I am not the Sultan's servant, 
 nor will I dance attendance on any king in the world. If 
 the Sultan wants to see me he must send and say so and 
 I will come, but to-night I go home.' So he went back to 
 Nishantash. 
 
 " At five came the Sultan of Johore with Mohammed 
 Moelhi, who has just received the second class of the 
 Mejidieh from Abdul Haraid. So they are all happy. At 
 six Ibrahim and Mohammed returned to see us to the 
 train. All now is satisfactorily settled. We are to go as 
 arranged to England, but Jemal ed Din is so to manage 
 matters that the Sultan will send for me some time during 
 the summer, and he will obtain for Anne the Chefket 
 Order in diamonds as a sign of extreme favour. In the 
 meantime I am to write to Jemal ed Din letters which he 
 can show to the Sultan on political affairs in England. 
 Thus I shall be his unaccredited Ambassador. The two 
 matters they want principally to be informed about are 
 Armenia and Egypt. And so, much pleased with all that 
 has happened during our week's stay at Constantinople, we 
 are off and away." 
 
 Thus ended the eventful spring of 1893 and my part in 
 what happened during it at Cairo. On our way back from 
 Constantinople I note: 
 
 " 2nd May. — In the train all day crossing the great plain 
 of Eastern Roumelia, the Balkans to the north and the 
 Rhodope range to the south, a splendid plain full of storks 
 and large birds of prey, with a few rollers — frogs croaking 
 gaily, bright sunshine. This part of Bulgaria seems very 
 prosperous — the peasants still in their national costume, 
 
1893] The A rmeiiian Movement 131 
 
 the villages still with their minarets, though most of the 
 Mohammedan population is gone. 
 
 " Mr. Thompson, the U.S. Minister at Constantinople, is 
 in the train, Ford had given me a note of introduction to 
 him. He has told me much about Armenia, having just 
 sent in a report on the subject to his Government. Me says 
 that it is proved the .Armenians intended a revolt on the 
 5th January, but were betrayed by one of their own people. 
 The placards inciting the people to rise were printed in 
 England — no Turks were concerned in it. Also he tells me 
 the whole resident Armenian census is under three-quarters 
 of a million as against five millions of Mohammedans. The 
 only province where the Christians outnumber the Moslems 
 is Kaisariyeh, the smallest of the villayets — there they may 
 be three to one. There was some reason for their discontent 
 in the way of injustice, especially through the tyranny of a 
 certain ex-brigand, Karshid Pasha, chief of the police, but 
 the measures taken by the Government were not very 
 severe. All the prisoners have now been released except 
 200, and these he had been promised should not be 
 severely punished though reserved for trial. He has been 
 acting in concert with Ford in the matter. He says em- 
 phatically that there is not the material in Armenia to 
 make a nation, though the Christian Armenians desire it. 
 Their brethren under Russia would revolt too if they dared. 
 The Catholic Armenians are with the rest in desiring in- 
 dependence. The whole movement has been got up in 
 England and with English help. 
 
 " 2,fd ATay. — Thompson tells me there may be trouble with 
 Russia at Constantinople soon, as the young King of 
 Servia wants to go there and do homage, while the Russian 
 Emperor is opposed to it. The Russians supported the 
 Regency at Belgrade and are angry with the King. He 
 talked also of American politics and the desire in Canada 
 for annexation to the U.S., the U.S. being unwilling on 
 account of the large half-Indian, half-French population, 
 one million, and 160,000 naturalized Chinese. He sa\s, 
 however, it must come about, through reasons of interest 
 for the Canadians. 
 
 " Passed to-day through Hungary — many well bred 
 horses. The gray breed of cattle extends from Constantin- 
 ople to Pesth. It seems the same as the Roman breed, but 
 
132 Back across Europe to Engla7td [1893 
 
 with variation. In Turke\- the shape is nearer to the High- 
 land Scotch breed. 
 
 " \tli ]\Iay. — Passing through Germany we got EngUsh 
 papers with an account of the debate in Parliament on 
 Dilke's Egyptian motion. The French papers express 
 disappointment. To me it seems most reassuring. Glad- 
 stone clearly and emphatically repudiates indefinite occu- 
 pation — talks of convening a European Conference as 
 soon as the condition of things in Egypt returns to the 
 normal. This must put a stop to Cromer's annexation 
 policy." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CROMER'S HEAVY HAND 
 
 ON my return to Eng-land after this eventful winter I 
 found myself, a rare thing in my public life, almost 
 popular. I was considered to have got the better of Cromer 
 in our Egyptian battle, and that Cromer had blundered 
 badly in his diplomacy. Labouchere, whom I called on 
 first, promised help about getting up an Egyptian Com- 
 mittee, and that he would consult Dilke about it. " As to 
 Gladstone," he told me, " the question of evacuating Egypt 
 is one merely of his parliamentary majority. ' Can you 
 show me a majority?' the old man says, when questioned 
 about it; he cares nothing any longer for any political 
 question, even Ireland, only to stay in power. His answer 
 to Dilke about Egypt was a mere juggling with words and 
 meant notbing." 
 
 I write the same day. May 9, " 1 found George Wynd- 
 ham, with Henley, the hospital poet (a bitter talker, but 
 a sayer of good things), much pleased with his own parlia- 
 mentary success, now he is in opposition and free to talk 
 as he pleases. He expressed only a modified disapproval 
 of my doings in Egypt. I gather from him that even the 
 Conservatives think Baring has made a mess of things." 
 
 " Mth May. — To Downing Street, where Harcourt re- 
 ceived me with a slight show of severity at first. 'I hear,' 
 he said, 'you have been raising up no end of trouble in 
 Egypt. Cromer says you have been combining against 
 him with Mukhtar Pasha and the Sultan, and the Khedive, 
 to bring back Arabi, and that you are the instigator of all 
 that happened four months ago.' I said,' I was an accomplice 
 after the fact, not its instigator,' and gave him in brief what 
 had happened. ' Well,' he said, laughing, ' I suppose we 
 shall have to put in force the old statute, Ne exeat regno, 
 to keep you from mischief While we were talking, Eddy 
 
 133 
 
134 Harcourt about Evacuation [i^93 
 
 Hamilton came in, but this did not interrupt the conversa- 
 tion. ' The worst of it is,' said Sir WiUiam, ' that it puts 
 your friends into a difficult position. ]\Ir. Gladstone, Morley, 
 and I, are strongly for evacuation, but while there is trouble 
 in Eg)pt this is impossible.' I asked him, ' Can you real!}' 
 tell me that you would have negotiated for an evacuation 
 if nothing of this had happened? \^'ould you not have 
 argued that while things are going on so well, and we were 
 doing so much good in Egypt, it would be better to let 
 well alone? ' ^' We should certainl)- have begun negotia- 
 tions,' he said. He then asked about the influence of the 
 French in Egypt, and said that if the French were willing 
 to negotiate on the basis of the Drummond Wolff Con- 
 vention there would be no difficulty, but he had lately 
 asked Waddington (the French Ambassador), and Wadding- 
 ton had answered that the French Government could hardl)- 
 approve now what it had so strenuousl}' opposed six years 
 ago. \\'addington had also maintained that France had been 
 given definite rights in Egypt by England at the Congress 
 of Berlin. Sir William wanted to know about this, and I 
 told him of the terms made between Salisbury and Wad- 
 dington for the seizure of Tunis, equal rights in Egypt and 
 privileges in Syria. I told him, too, of my conversation with 
 d'Estournelles whom I had met as I crossed over to Eng- 
 land on the 5th, and had been introduced to by Alfred 
 L}'all who happened to be on board. I had discussed the 
 whole Egyptian question with him till halfway across the 
 Channel, when the sea stopped us, and had found him very 
 s},'mpathetic with m)- views. ' Well,' said Harcourt, when 
 j'ou write to your friends in Egypt tell them to keep quiet, 
 and we will in a very short time begin negotiations. The 
 difficulty is in the country and in the House of Commons, 
 where we should not have a majorit}- in favour of evacua- 
 tion, and also with the French Government.' I repeated to 
 him my talk with d'Estournelles, and that I was sure the 
 French Government would agree easily enough after the 
 General Elections. ' Do you authorize me,' I asked, ' to sa}- 
 to my friends at Cairo that if they will work harmoniously 
 with Cromer, we will enter on negotiations for a withdrawal 
 of the troops, say in the autumn? ' He said, ' Yes.' But at 
 this Eddy Hamilton made a grimace of dissent and he 
 corrected himself ' I can authorize )-ou to say what 
 
1893 J Salisbury angry with Cromer 135 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said in the House of Commons the other 
 day.' We parted in all amity, he joking about the possi- 
 bility of my having been seen in Downing Street at his 
 door. ' Rosebery,' he said, 'has doubtless got his touts on 
 the look out for you, and I must beg you, when you come 
 again, to put on a false nose. I will let you out through 
 the garden gate.' Eddy will, I feel sure, repeat all this to 
 Rosebery, but I do not care if he does. 
 
 " Coming home to Wentworth House (where we were 
 staying for the season), I found Lady Lytton, and took a 
 walk with her. She tells me that Lord Salisbury is so 
 angry with Cromer for his mismanagement of affairs at 
 Cairo that he says he is unfit to succeed Lord Lansdowne 
 in India, so no wonder Cromer is angry with me. I am 
 quite satisfied with the way my action has been taken in 
 the official world, and I think Lady Lytton sees that after 
 all I was right. 
 
 " \2th May. — Lunched with George Wyndham, and 
 again found Henley there, and with them a clever young 
 man, Whibley, who writes for him in the ' National 
 Observer.' George gave us some admirable descriptions 
 of battle scenes he had been present at in the Soudan, and 
 set before us the things he had seen and felt as one reads 
 them in Kipling. 
 
 " lA^th May {^Sunday). — Spent the morning writing to the 
 Sheykh el Bekri. Then to see Loulou Harcourt who is in 
 bed at a private hospital for some slight operation, but is 
 able to receive friends. He says he expects the Government 
 to win at the General Elections next year, as they will take 
 other bills besides the Home Rule Bill and appeal to the 
 country against the Lords. 
 
 " 2\st May. — Lunched with d'Estournelles. He professes 
 the greatest admiration for my politics, but that I suspect 
 is because I oppose English policy in Egypt. 
 
 " istjiine. — Dined at Lady Galloway's in Upper Grosvenor 
 Street, Philip Currie being there with others. She is by birth 
 a Cecil, half sister to Lord Salisbury, an altogether noble 
 soul." 
 
 This marks the beginning of a friendship which put me 
 in connection with the Cecil section of the Conservative 
 party and their ideas of foreign policy. Lady Galloway, 
 who spent much of her time travelling, was of considerable 
 
1 36 Peer of the House of Commons [109 3 
 
 use to her brother in regard to what was passing on the 
 
 Continent. . ,^ r-, ^ ^ -v/r 
 
 " -th lune—Gs-Vi a dinner in Mount Street to Margot 
 and^ Betty Balfour, Harry Cust and d'Estournelles; the 
 latter, who came in full uniform on his way to a State 
 Concert, was very amusing, giving us his ideas about English 
 women and English men. 
 
 " 1 2th June. — I hear from Lefevre that the despatches 
 exchanged between Rosebery and Cromer are ' most 
 curious.' Cromer was for the wildest violence against the 
 Khedive, but he was given a douche which has brought 
 him to his senses. He is, however, quite out of favour. 
 
 " T "jth June. — With Judith and Anne to a garden party 
 at Kew, given by George Lefevre in his official capacity 'as 
 Commissioner of the Board of Works;. The party was to 
 meet at the pier of the House of Commons, and go up the 
 river in two steamers. As we did not know precisely where 
 the pier was we stopped outside the House of Lords to 
 ask a policeman. 
 " Dialogue: 
 
 " /. ' Can you tell me where I shall find the pier of the 
 House of Commons? ' 
 
 " Policeman. ' What peer did you say?' 
 " /. ' The pier of the House of Commons.' 
 " Policeman. ' Xo, sir, indeed, we have plenty of peer.s of 
 the House of Lords, but I never yet heard of a peer of the 
 House of Commons.' " 
 
 On the boat with us were old Maud Stanley, Carlisle, 
 Maisie Stanley and her daughter. Lord and Lady Denbigh, 
 T. P. O'Connor and his wife and the Matthew family, Justin 
 -McCarthy, Lord Acton and Lady Harcourt, a very pleasant 
 party, and a day of tropical heat. The party had been 
 invited to meet the Teck family, who arrived for tea, with 
 the Duke of York and Princess May. 
 
 "21st June. — To a party at Lady Salisbury's, where I 
 again met Prince George and Princess May. 
 
 " 2ytk June. — Lunched with Lady Galloway, where I met 
 Mackenzie Wallace; then on to Grosvenor Square, where 
 Margot was entertaining Princesse Helene and a dozen 
 more ladies to see the performance of a Spanish dancer 
 Candida Lopez. 
 
 " 28/// June. — To an open air play at Pope's Villa at 
 
1S93] Burne-Jones on Morris 
 
 .-)/ 
 
 Twickenham, where Labouchere was our entertainer, a 
 queer omnium gatherum, conspicuous among the guests 
 being Sir William Harcourt, Monty Cbrry, and numerous 
 Irish members. Most of these last I had not seen since my 
 retirement from Home Rule politics. They were ver\' 
 cordial. ' We treated you very badly,' Healy said, ' in not 
 giving you an Irish seat, we ought to have made an excep- 
 tion in your favour.' ' Indeed,' I said, ' I am very glad you 
 did not.' Dr. Kenny and John Redmond spoke to me in 
 the same sense. I was especially glad to meet Dillon, and 
 had some talk with him about Egypt. He told me the last 
 two years had been the hardest and most thankless work 
 he had ever had to do. 
 
 " The play was ' The Tempest,' done with Sullivan's 
 music, pretty, but quite inept. Certainly Shakespeare was 
 here at his very worst. What can be stupider than Caliban 
 and the drunken sailors? The other characters pompous 
 and flat. But beautiful songs. Ariel was wonderfully well 
 acted by Dora Labouchere, a child of ten. 
 
 " 30^/2 June. — With Judith to lunch with Burne-Jones, 
 where he had asked her to sit to him. His wife and son, 
 and sister-in-law, Mrs. Kipling, were there. During the 
 two hours' sitting he had of Judith he was most entertain- 
 ing, telling us stories of William Morris's oddities. One 
 of the chairs in the studio we observed was ricketty. '\'es,' 
 he said, ' Morris has sat in them all, and he has a muscular 
 movement in his back peculiar to himself, which makes the 
 rungs fly out.' He and Morris are devoted friends, and 
 Morris comes every Sunday to spend the morning with 
 him, and has done so for, I think he said, thirt)- years. ' I 
 have never taken a fortnight's holiday away from London,' 
 he went on, ' for twenty-three )'ears. That is because I am 
 constitutionally idle. Millais used to say of me, when we 
 were young men, that I was so lazy that when I began to 
 work, I was too lazy to stop. And so it has always been. 
 I have constantly wished to get away to Eg_\'pt and to 
 Mount Sinai and to Jerusalem, but I am deterred b)- the 
 thought that I can get to any of these places in a week. I 
 should like it to take at least six months, travelling slowlj- 
 through France and Italy, and arriving gradually, so as 
 to be two years away. As this is impossible I stay on in 
 North End Grove. The garden here is a constant pleasure 
 
13S I rouble about Siam [1893 
 
 to me, because I say to myself, my neighbours are calculat- 
 ing how much it is worth a foot for building.' And so on 
 and so on, always with a delightful humour and a voice of 
 sweetest calibre. The drawing meanwhile got rapidly 
 finished, though it seemed as if he had done nothing but 
 talk. It was a lovel}- sketch in red chalk. [This drawing 
 was to have been given to Judith, but somehow it never 
 reached her, and must have been sold, we think, with the 
 rest of his drawings after his death. We liave been unable 
 to trace it.] He was ver)' complimentar)' about Judith, and 
 was quite affectionate to me at parting. This put us in 
 good spirits, and we rushed away down to Crabbet, Judith's 
 London season being over. She tells me she has enjo)'ed 
 it immensely. 
 
 " 1.5-^ July. — Crabbet. Annual meeting of the Crabbet 
 Club. We sat down over twent\- to dinner, and did not 
 lea\'c the table till half-past one. The members present 
 were : 
 
 George Curzon. Hubert Howard. 
 
 George Leveson Gore. Godfrey Webb. 
 
 George Wyndham. Percy Wyndham. 
 George Peel (the 4 Georges) Loulou Harcourt 
 
 Morpeth. Theodore Fr}'. 
 
 Mark Napier. Theobald Mathew. 
 
 Harry Cust. Charles Laprimaudaje, 
 
 Charles Gatty. and Lawrence Currie. 
 
 '• St. George Lane Fox, and two new men, Esme Howard 
 and Eddy Tennant. 
 
 " George Curzon was, as usual, the most brilliant, he never 
 flags for an instant either in speech or repartee ; after him 
 George \A'yndham, Mark Napier, and \"\'ebber. The next 
 day, Sunday, Harry Cust won the Tennis Cup, and the 
 Laureateship was adjudged to Curzon. 
 
 " \6th July. — The French have been attacking Siam in 
 a way dangerous to the general peace, ^^'e were giving a 
 Saturday to ]\Ionda\' party at Crabbet, and George Curzon 
 arrived full of the case. He was to have adjourned the 
 House yesterda)-, but Rosebery begged him not, as Develle, 
 the French Prime Minister, had explained that he was 
 isolated in his Cabinet in favour of conciliatory measures, 
 all the other Ministers backing up the French Admiral. 
 
tSqsJ 
 
 Abbas and Abdul Haniid 
 
 George asked Rosebery point blank whether he could say 
 that the English Government would resist all attempt on 
 the part of the French to violate the independence of Siam 
 west of the river Mekong, and Rosebery assured him that 
 they would do so. I had some talk also with Philip Currie 
 who is here, about it and about Egypt. He condemned 
 Baring's policy of the last few years, especially as to 
 judicial reforms, and agreed with many of my own views 
 on other points. He said of Dufferin that he had been a 
 failure in Paris. Dufferin had left Paris in a huff at the 
 continued attacks made on him in the French press. 
 George Curzon was very amusing. 
 
 " 2nd Aug. — My news from Paris is (from a source within 
 the Embassy) that Dufferin has been undoubtedly a failure 
 there; he is too fond of paying little insincere compliments, 
 and his wife is too ungenial. There is a very bitter feeling in 
 all classes now against England, and just at this moment 
 it is at fever heat about Siam. After a deal of swagger 
 Rosebery has knuckled down. It is a robbers' quarrel over 
 their spoils. " 
 
 " xjth Aug. — Osman Bey Ghaleb was here at luncheon, 
 a very intelligent man. He left Egypt in the middle of 
 June, and stayed a month or more at Constantinople, being 
 there when the Khedive came to do homage. He tells me 
 that great preparations had been made to receive Abbas, but 
 at the last moment the Sultan was frightened and counter- 
 ordered everything, so that Abbas was received meanly 
 b}' half-a-dozen inferior officials, none above the rank of 
 Be}'. In public this attitMjde was maintained throughout 
 towards him, but privately, Osman says, it was different, 
 and the Sultan received the Khedive four or five times 
 quite alone and had long talks with him. On going away 
 Abbas declared openly to his suite that his journey had 
 been a failure, but this he thinks was merely to throw dust 
 in English eyes, for he said, ' Abbas is a proud young man, 
 and if he had really been ill received by the Sultan he 
 would never have returned to Cairo, he would have thrown 
 himself overboard first.' It is difficult to understand the 
 Sultan's object in all this. Osman lays it entirely on his 
 timidity. The English Ambassador, he says, bullied him 
 (poor Ford!) on the Armenian question, and frightened him 
 \\ith threats of intervention, but what folly! Even Glad- 
 
I40 Siuinhirne and the Laureateship [1893 
 
 stone could hardl>' bombard Constantinople or seize the 
 ports of the Hedjaz.' 
 
 " 2%rdAug We had a private performance this evening 
 
 of my play/ The Bride of the Nile/ the Lytton girls acting 
 it, and Lady Clare Feilding and Judith." [N.B. I had 
 written this extravaganza while in Egypt as a relief to my 
 feelings, and to make fun of Baring and the British 
 Occupation, taking as my text an incident narrated by 
 Abulfeda as having happened at the time of the Arab 
 invasion by Amru, when the relations between Egypt and 
 the Roman Empire were not unlike those now existing 
 with the British Empire. The play with our home circle 
 at Crabbet had a considerable success.] 
 
 I spent the month of September in Scotland making a 
 family tour of visits; to the Glen, Lochnaw, and Cumloden, 
 but there is nothing in my diary of an}- public interest. 
 On our way back, I find: 
 
 " \Ot]i Oct. — At Saighton. Spencer Lyttleton came to-day 
 from Hawarden to luncheon and we had a great discussion 
 -about the Poet Laureateship. He declares that Gladstone 
 will in all probability not make any appointment to the 
 office. The general sense of the Government is in favour of 
 Swinburne, and it has been ascertained that Swinburne 
 would like to be appointed, but the Queen is opposed on 
 account of the immoralit}' of his early songs, and also on 
 account of his having written against the Russian Emperor 
 (he had suggested his assassination many years before, and 
 the Queen, who regarded the Laureateship as an office in 
 her personal household, considere.d that this made him abso- 
 lutely impossible as a candidate). ' The one thing we are 
 afraid of,' Lyttleton said, ' is having Lewis Morris thrust on 
 us. William Morris will not take it, and so no appoint- 
 ment will be made." 
 
 " 2.ird Oct.— Once more at Crabbet. Yesterday we had 
 a visit from Baron de Nolde, a Russian traveller, who has 
 just come back from Nejd, where he has seen Ibn Rashid. 
 He carried a letter of introduction with him from the 
 Sultan Abdul Hamid who, he said, made use of him as an 
 informal envoy to bring him word of the exact state of 
 affairs in Arabia. Mohammed Ibn Aruk (our old travel- 
 
 ' This Osman Ghaleb became afterwards the principal friend and 
 supporter of the Xaiional Leader, Mustapha Kamel. 
 
1S93] The Matabele War 141 
 
 ling companion in 1878) went with him, and they followed 
 the same route as we did from Damascus to Hail except 
 that they crossed the Nefud at a point farther to the east. 
 At Hail Nolde found Hamoud Ibn Rashid acting as 
 Regent, and was forwarded on by him to the Emir Ibn 
 Rashid by way of Bereyda and Shaggra to his camp near 
 Riad. The Emir entertained him there for ten days, then 
 sent him back with a present of a mare and two deluls to 
 Meshed Ali. Nolde says his journey cost him i^6,000, ours 
 cost us about ;£^200. He is a very clever man with a very 
 forbidding face, not unlike Burton's. He stayed the whole 
 day with us and showed some knowledge of Arab horses. 
 
 "' \th Nov. — I have been much occupied during this week" 
 about the Matabele War, which has at last come to fighting 
 and much slaughter of black men by white. I took counsel 
 on the subject with the good Evelj'n, who was for two 
 nights at Crabbet, and we agreed to make some demon- 
 stration of our disapproval. In the meanwhile I have written 
 strongly to T. P. O'Connor on the subject, upbraiding him 
 and the other Irish members for their silence. 
 
 " 5//; Nov. — To London early, and called upon Lady 
 Harcourt, with whom was Lord Spencer, a worthy, 
 ponderous man, who complained of the calls made on him 
 at the Admiralty from all parts of the Empire. 
 
 " Lady Lytton sends me a letter she received two months 
 ago from Sir Henry Loch (the High Commissioner at the 
 Ca'pe) giving his view of the coming Matabele difficulty. 
 ' It began,' he says, ' by Lobengula, who has not abandoned 
 his rights over the Mashonas, sending a regiment to collect 
 taxes, kill the people, and take cattle.' They did so to 
 some extent in Fort Victoria ; then Dr. Jameson ordered a 
 small mounted force to charge — when two chiefs and thirty 
 Matabeles were killed. ' The situation,' he says, ' is some- 
 what complicated, for while the Company' have administra- 
 tive authority over Mashonaland, they are still, as regards 
 political matters, under my control, and, moreover, the 
 country under my direct administration must be affected 
 by what the Company may do. Probably the Protectorate 
 would be the first to be attacked by Lobengula, should 
 there be war. I have some strong positions and a powerful 
 police force supported, if necessary, by native levies, but 
 still not strong enough to carry the war into the enemy's 
 
142 Hanoitrt on Colonial Jl'ars \_^^^>3 
 
 country and force a battle away from supports. The 
 danger is the Compan}-, as soon as they are a Httle better 
 prepared, may bring about fighting, as they can't stand 
 long armed and waiting for events with the possible view 
 of committing H.M.'s Government in their quarrel. So I 
 am obliged to watch both friend and enem)', and if fight- 
 ing once begins, the conduct of it will fall entireh- upon 
 me, while if I do anything the Compan)- can la)- hold of 
 as causing them commercial loss, either by checking their 
 fighting or by encouraging them to do so, that will enable 
 them to say to Her Majesty's Government: " If it had not 
 been for the action of the High Commissioner we should 
 not have incurred these losses, and they might in consequence 
 endeavour to obtain compensation for these alleged losses 
 out of the Government." ' 
 
 " This is a good example of the way in which these 
 Colonial wars are begun. 
 
 "gill Nov. — To Westminster with intent to see Labou- 
 chere, who is bringing on the Matabele case in Parliament 
 to-day, but he was out. 
 
 " Then to lunch by invitation of Loulou at u. Downing 
 Street. Sir William was there looking, I thought, older 
 and less healthy than when I saw him last, in less good 
 spirits, too, than is his wont, but he told us some good 
 stories as the meal went on, the other guests being Mildmay 
 and his wife, a sister of Lady Harcourt. When alone with 
 me afterwards in his official room he began complaining of 
 the brutality of the British public, which insisted upon the 
 slaughter of the Matabeles to procure itself markets for its 
 goods. ' It used,' he said, ' to be slaughter for the glory of the 
 thing, but they have given that up now, now it is slaughter 
 for trade.' I asked: ' But why do you do it? ' ' Oh,' he said, 
 ' we are all burglars now.' I said: ' If you will allow me to 
 say it, you are in the position of a bishop who burgles a 
 church. Why do you not disapprove ? ' ' Bishops,' he said, 
 ' are always the first to lay their hands on property when 
 they can do it. I remember Bright telling me that he never 
 knew a bishop express disapproval of a war but once, and 
 that was a war to put down the slave trade.' /. — ' You 
 complain of public opinion, but you let the official press, 
 " The Daily News " and the rest, either preach up these 
 wars or sit on silent till it is too late.' He. — 'The papers 
 
1S93] Russian Travellers in Arabia 143 
 
 are in the hands of the financiers.' I fancy he has done 
 what he could to stop the raid on the Matabeles, but that 
 Rosebery and the commercial Jingoes in the Cabinet have 
 been too strong for him. I asked him whether they were 
 going to do anything in the direction of evacuating Egypt. 
 He said : ' No, nothing at all. The young Khedive has 
 behaved like an ass. He insisted upon going to Constantin- 
 ople, to get the Sultan to take up his case against us, and 
 the French Government, too, has been absurd. We shall do 
 nothing.' I said,' I do not see that thesearereasons. I hold to 
 my opinion that we shall get into trouble yet about Egypt.' 
 I asked him finally whether Cromer was going to stay on 
 at Cairo. He said, ' Yes, for anything I know to the con- 
 trary.' Then he relapsed into his cigar and I went into the 
 inner room to talk with Loulou about Harry Cust's 
 marriage. 
 
 " \otIi Nov. — There has been a better debate upon the 
 Matabele case in Parliament than I expected, though the 
 Irish were dumb and the Government justified their Mata- 
 bele slaughter. Gladstone surpassed himself in the use of 
 his double tongue. He is a shameless old hypocrite as the 
 world has ever seen. I have determined to oppose him 
 what little I can at the next elections. The spectacle of 
 Gladstone, Morley, and the Irish members supporting this 
 anti-human policy in Africa is enough to make dynamiters 
 of us all. 
 
 "Baron de Nolde came again in the evening with his 
 cousin. Count de Kreutz. They are projecting a new journey 
 in Central Africa, to start from Zanzibar and go to Khar- 
 toum. On their last journey (in Arabia) they took with 
 them 300 bottles of Champagne, 100 of Madeira, and 100 
 of brandy, and drank them all their two selves. 
 
 " I have written to Labouchere offering to help him, if I 
 can, about South Africa. 
 
 " \~,th Nov. — Drove over to see Frederick Locker at 
 Rovvfant, and wish him good-bye. He and Evelyn are the 
 only two friends left me in Sussex. Our leave-taking 
 was not a little pathetic for this reason. 
 
 " 16^/2 Nov. — To London, and lunched at Hammersmith. 
 Morris full of the coal war, and the proposed settlement of 
 it by Rosebery. He said the miners had gone the wrong 
 way to work by throwing themselves out of employment 
 
144 The Government afraid of Rhodes [iJiys 
 
 and starving. They ought to have refused to work and 
 gone to the workhouse. This would have thrown the whole 
 cost of the war on the masters, ' but,' he said, ' they have an 
 idea of honour in the matter, which I suppose had to be 
 reckoned -with.' All I see in it is the strengthening of 
 Roseber\''s position, and with it the final disappearance of 
 the ideas of 1880. Evelyn has written to the Committee 
 of the Irish National League at Deptford, to say that he 
 can no longer support Gladstone at the elections. I have 
 been writing to Redmond, but doubt if I shall send my 
 letter. Dined with Lady Gregory." 
 
 It was, I think, about this time that I severed m}' connec- 
 tion with the Arbitration and Peace Society, stating as my 
 reason for doing so that I found the ideas of the Societ)- 
 would be of no profit if realized to the backward races of 
 mankind, or to prevent wars by white men against them, 
 whereas a general war in Europe might possibly give them 
 a time of peace on the principle that when thieves fall out 
 honest men come by their own. "There is talk of Philip 
 Currie going as Ambassador to Constantinople." 
 
 •■ 24^/2 Nov. — My last visit before leaving London for the 
 winter was to Frederic Harrison, whom I found preparing 
 a lecture he is to deliver to-night. He was glad, however, 
 to see me, and I had half an hour's talk with him. We dis- 
 cussed the Matabele case, on which we are in accord, though 
 neither of us having special knowledge we are unable to 
 take action, nor does he propose to do so, considering that 
 Labouchere has dealt with it as well as it can be dealt 
 with. ' The Government is afraid of Rhodes,' is the whole 
 history of the case. We then talked about Egypt, and I 
 told him of my two conversations with Harcourt in May, 
 and again the other day. He told me that as late as June, 
 Alorley had told him that he and Gladstone, and Asquith 
 and Mundella, and Lefevre were of one mind for evacua- 
 tion, and that he, Morley, had declared that he intended to 
 have it out with Rosebery, and that if a contrary policy 
 was persisted in one or other would have to leave the 
 Cabinet. I gave him my opinion of the gravity of the 
 Franco-Russian Alliance, of the ferment there was in India 
 shown by the Anti Cow-killing league, and of the position 
 at Cairo. 
 
 ■ He asked me if I knew anything of the reasons why 
 
1S93J Sir Henry Norman 145 
 
 Sir Henry Norman had -refused the Viceroyahy of India 
 after accepting it, and he told me a curious story of how 
 Norman had come to him during the Afghan campaign, 
 and while he was a member of the Indian Council, and had 
 given him the most intimate and full information of all 
 that was going on, and how he had come over and over 
 again with details and documents avowedly to help him, 
 Harrison, in his attack on the Indian Government. Nor- 
 man's appointment to the Viceroyalty would seem to be a 
 late reward by Gladstone for this political service which was 
 no doubt largely instrumental in bringing about Disraeli's 
 overthrow at the elections of 1880. I have agreed to let Har- 
 rison know how things stand in Egypt when I get there. 
 I shall also write an article for the ' Nineteenth Century.' 
 " We left in the evening for Brindisi." 
 
 My winter in Egypt of 1893-94 was made noteworthy 
 b_\- a new political crisis, and a new battle between the 
 Khedive and Lord Cromer, in which Kitchener played a 
 first prominent part, what is known as the " Frontier In- 
 cident." Here again, as in the former instance, though an 
 accessory after the fact I was not an accomplice, my advice 
 being taken about it by the Khedive when it was no longer 
 of any use to him. The entries in my diary show how 
 greatly the facts of the case differ from those recorded in 
 the Blue Books, and are therefore of interest. 
 
 " 2'&ih Nov. — On board the ' Hydaspes.' The only fellow 
 passengers I have made acquaintance with are Lady 
 Waterford and Sir John Stokes, the latter on his way to 
 the Suez Canal of which he is Director, to open the new 
 railroad from Port Said to Ismal'lia. With Stokes I have 
 had much talk about the Suez Canal, British trade and the 
 Mediterranean route in time of war. He tells me three- 
 quarters of the tonnage passing through the Canal is 
 British, of which perhaps half is for English ports, the rest 
 for other ports in Europe. In time of war with France, this 
 could not continue. The Red Sea was quite safe, but the 
 whole line of the Mediterranean would be blocked, and this 
 would continue until the British had broken up the enemy's 
 forces and confined them to their ports, then convoys could 
 
 L 
 
146 Happiness at Sheykh Obeyd ['^93 
 
 be arranged and trade resumed. He considers that it 
 would require sixty or seventy more men-of-war than we 
 have at present to effect this as against the French navy. 
 He is for making the increase, not for abandoning the 
 control of the Mediterranean. He considers that the Canal 
 will eventually be internationalized, though by the terms 
 of the concession it will revert to Egypt in 1959, but 
 ' nobody looks so far as that ahead.' Stokes reminded me 
 that our first acquaintance dates from the time of Cave's 
 Mission in 1875, of which he was a member. He is a stolid 
 old fellow of the out-of-date military type, being a General 
 in the army. 
 
 " '^th Dec. — My first twenty-four hours at Sheykh Obeyd 
 were a dream of light-hearted happiness, such as I do not 
 remember since a child ; it was a physical feeling of perfect 
 pleasure, perfect health, and perfect powers of enjoyment 
 without the least shadow of annoyance. We arri\ed at 
 Alexandria on the ist of December in time to catch the 
 9 o'clock train to Cairo, and then straight on home in 
 brilliant sparkling weather with just a little freshness in 
 the North wind, the thermometer at 72. Ever\'thing on 
 the way was a pleasure, even the new houses built at 
 Koubbah, and our little railway station at Ezbet el Xakl, 
 lovely and familiar in its palm grove. Inside the garden 
 all was paradise. No misadventure this year of an}- kind, 
 but a blooming look of extravagant growth, trees, crops, 
 and flowers, the house so shut in with green we can hardly 
 any longer get a glimpse out into the desert, hardl}' even 
 from the house top. Cows prosperous, mares in foal, every 
 servant happy. Each year decides me more to spend the 
 remnant of my days in the East, where old age is respected, 
 and its repose respectable. Of news we have as }-et heard 
 little; poor Ahmed Bey Sennari (a neighbour) is dead ; old 
 Eid Diab, too, gathered to his fathers, and Prince Ibrahim, 
 our neighbour on the other side, gone in an apoplectic fit, 
 or as the fellahin round here say, ' poisoned ' by his uncle 
 Ismail, whose daughter he recently married, but left behind 
 at Constantinople. 'Ismail,! suppose, was angry,' I suggested. 
 ' Oh, no,' they said, ' it was on account of the inheritance, 
 three twenty-fourths of which will have come to her. Ismail 
 has poisoned very many people for their money ' — such is 
 the talk. 
 
1893] The Khedives mistakes begins i^y 
 
 " 8t/i Dec. — Visitors. Mahmud Bey from Menoufieh, an 
 old fox, formerly Arabist, his object to borrow £y2, which 
 he did not get. He tells me Riaz and Mukhtar are now 
 working harmoniously with Cromer. Selim Bey Faraj, 
 another neighbour, who has let his land at £i, the feddan, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 " gth Dec. — Mohammed Moelhi called. He tells me the 
 Khedive's reception at Constantinople was as bad as could 
 be. He is now angiy with the Sultan, and angry with 
 Mukhtar, who persuaded him to go there; has quarrelled 
 with Tigrane on a personal matter ; cannot get Riaz to go 
 fairly with him. Riaz lets things slide as when last in office, 
 giving in to Cromer in all important matters, only from 
 time to time making show of opposition. Nevertheless the 
 English don't like him, and want to get rid of him ; so, he 
 says, would the Khedive, too, but he has nobod}- but 
 Mazlum to put in his place. The Khedive wished the 
 Legislative Council to oppose the estimate for the extra 
 regiments of Occupation this year, but Riaz has yielded 
 the point and nothing will be done. Thus Abbas every day 
 is losing prestige in the country, and the trimmers are 
 making their peace with Cromer. 
 
 " The journey to Constantinople was a fatal move. Some 
 strong influence must have been brought to bear on the 
 Sultan, German probably, and i\bdul Hamid was partly 
 frightened, partly bought, Mohammed thinks, by financial 
 promises. Edgar Vincent was probably the medium of 
 these. The Khedive has no option now but to keep quiet, 
 maintaining himself as he can at the head of the National 
 party and waiting his opportunity. It would be rash for 
 him to take up the strong position he held in the Spring 
 now that he can no longer count on the Sultan. The Sultan 
 was always the dangerous card in his hand. 
 
 " \Aj:h Dec. — Osman Ghaleb and Mohammed Moelhi to 
 breakfast. Osman had an interview with Gladstone in 
 England this autumn or summer. Gladstone asked him two 
 questions; whether the English officials in Egypt were 
 working hard, and whether the late Khedive Tewfik was 
 regretted. Osman's answer to the second question was that 
 ' Death was always regretted, but the Egyptians were con- 
 soled by having his son Abbas.' Gladstone hoped that 
 Abbas would become friendly to England as his father had 
 
148 Tigrane on the Khcdiz'e [1893 
 
 been. Gladstone did not ask whether the Egyptians wished 
 the Occupation to be discontinued. 
 
 " Colbeck, Director of the Bank of Egypt, on whom I 
 called, 15th December, was quite as pessimistic on the 
 English side. He said our position at Cairo was becoming 
 daily more ridiculous. Cromer could get none of his re- 
 forms carried through; he was opposed constantly by the 
 IMinistry; the Khedive was irreconcilable. Much as he ad- 
 mired Cromer he thought a change was necessary, as 
 Cromer was without power. Cromer was willing to take an 
 Embassy, and wanted Portal named in his place, but Portal 
 was not clever enough, etc., etc. He had heard nothing of 
 a split between Tigrane and the Khedive or with Riaz. 
 
 " xjth Dec. — With Anne and Judith to call on Princesse 
 Helene and her brother, the Due d'Orleans, at Shepherd's. 
 The Duke is a fresh-faced, blond young man, good 
 humoured, and good mannered. He has travelled over 
 much wild country, and I talked to him of his experiences, 
 especially in Somaliland, finding him sympathetic as to 
 the advantages of uncivilized life and a contempt of Europe. 
 He and his sister are on very pleasant terms together. On 
 their return from up the Nile in March they will come and 
 see us at Sheykh Obeyd. 
 
 " 22nd Dec. — To Cairo and lunched with Tigrane. I 
 found him very outspoken. He assured me that neither 
 the Khedive nor anyone else at Cairo held me responsible 
 for the use made of the Khedive's name in connection with 
 my 'Nineteenth Century' article of last summer, and he 
 hoped I would write another. As to the Khedive's visit to 
 Constantinople, he declared it had not been otherwise than 
 a success, that precisely the same ceremonial had been ob- 
 served towards Abbas as formerly towards Ismail, that the 
 Khedive had dined several times with the Sultan, who had 
 been most kind to him. I asked him about the Khedive's 
 proposed visit to England, but he told me nothing was yet 
 settled, and I strongly advised that the Khedi\e should not 
 go, at least as long as Cromer was here, for he would only 
 'oe paraded as a tame bear, and the thing be counted as a 
 triumph for English policy. If he insisted upon going he 
 should at least go straight from Paris, where he would be 
 feted, then possibly English people would be polite to him, 
 but it was a risk. He denied there having been any split 
 
1S93] Drink Shops in the Villages 149 
 
 between him and the Khedive; Riaz and he were on the 
 best of terms. We talked very openl}' about the prospects 
 of evacuation, and I told him that in my opinion it had 
 been mainly determined by the larger question of peace 
 and war with France, and the military advisability or 
 otherwise of having a garrison in a disaffected Egypt. 
 Tigrane is a clever man and a good talker, modest withal. 
 
 " 2.6th Dec. — One Ibrahim Shafei came with a complaint 
 arising out of the Greek drink-shop established in the 
 village of Merj. He was watering his land near the railway 
 station, and had to construct a raised channel for the water 
 across the footpath, and the Greek objected to this as 
 hindering access to his shop, though the land did not be- 
 long to him and the fellah had a right to the waterway. 
 The Greek cut the channel, the fellah protested, the Greek 
 struck the fellah with a stick, the fellah took the stick from 
 the Greek, then the Greek ran into his shop and got out a 
 gun which he pointed at the fellah, and the fellah ran awa}- 
 but came back ten minutes later to reconstruct his channel, 
 then the Greek fired at him, fired and struck him, the fellah 
 showed me his legs and I found twenty-two shot marks in 
 them, he had been three weeks in hospital and was still 
 weak. The Greek, when arrested, avowed the deed, but 
 nevertheless, after four days' detention, was let out on bail, 
 and is back at his shop. 
 
 " Nearly every day this month I have seen foxes in the 
 garden when I have ridden out before sunrise. There are 
 three which I know by sight, an old dog-fox, a vixen, and 
 a year old cub. They are very tame, and I have watched 
 them sometimes within a few yards of me for ten minutes 
 at a time. It is pretty to see them play and roll each other 
 over. This month is the breeding season and they are 
 barking very constantly in the garden (it is a peculiarity of 
 the fox's bark that whereas nearly all other wild cries 
 seem to be nearer than they really are, that of the fox 
 sounds at a distance even when close by). I have also seen 
 one of the large cats called by Hassan Hashem, kutt berri 
 (desert cat). It is exactly like a small lioness, but higher 
 on the leg, the ears tipped with black and the tail with 
 three black rings, the quarters rather drooping. It is very 
 powerfully built. The Arabs here eat these cats when they 
 can catch them and say they are very fat and good meat 
 
150 A talk with Riaz Pasha [1893 
 
 " 2']th Dec. — To Cairo to see Riaz, who had asked me to 
 come to him. I found the old man very affectionate and 
 pleased to see me. He talked just in the same strain as 
 last year about Cromer and the ill faith of the English 
 Government and Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 " About the Khedive's visit to Constantinople, he told 
 me most positively first that it had been decided before His 
 Highness went, between him and his ministers, that he 
 should not make any political proposals to the Sultan — 
 he said, ' I will swear this to you on the Koran.' Secondly, 
 that in fact His Highness had not made any, and that his 
 talk with the palace officials had been confined to his per- 
 sonal complaint of Lord Cromer's rudeness. Lastly, that 
 the Sultan had been more than kind to him and had 
 treated him more honourably than a Viceroy of Egypt had 
 ever been treated, so that the Khedive was perfectly satis- 
 fied with all. I asked him whether the Sultan might not 
 have been won over to the English policy in Egypt, and 
 his face put on the most expressively incredulous smile. 
 ' You know,' he said, ' as well as I do that even if in his 
 heart he had such a thought he would not dare express it.' 
 He told me, too, of an attempt Cromer had made to impose 
 an English doctor on the Khedive's party, which they had 
 refused. 
 
 " We talked next about the action of the Legislative 
 Council at Cairo, which has refused to approve the expenses 
 this year of the English Occupation, besides making a 
 number of other objections, almost all to my mind very 
 sensible ones. Riaz is clearly in sympathy with them, but 
 he has rather weakly followed English dictation in rejecting 
 most of them. He is doing, however, perhaps as much as 
 is prudent in his opposition to Cromer. ' At least,' he said, 
 ' we have lost no ground this year, if we have not gained 
 as much as we wished.' 
 
 " About the Merj case, which I set before him, he amused 
 me immensely by saying in answer to my remark that the 
 Greek would end by killing someone outright, ' Would it 
 not be better if tJiey killed him ? ' He promised me to see 
 justice done, and I am sure it will not be for want of his 
 goodwill if nothing results, but Riaz is too old not to be 
 timid in action. He introduced his son Mahmud to me, a 
 little round Circassian whom he has made his under secre- 
 
1S94J An audience with the Khedive 151 
 
 tary of state [a piece of nepotism which was taken hold of 
 effectively by Cromer, as the young man was quite incapable 
 and was guilty of many stupidities]. He was most cordial 
 in wanting to see me again. Riaz has a wonderful charm 
 of manner, inspiring one with affection as well as respect, 
 badly as he behaved in 1882. For this he is contrite 
 now. 
 
 " ■^jYst Dec. — In answer to a question by Labouchere, 
 Gladstone has said in Parliament that negotiations for 
 evacuating Egypt must be entered on, if at all, with the 
 Sultan, not with the Khedive. 
 
 " Mohammed Abdu lunched with us on Friday. He is 
 very well satisfied with the way things are going here ; 
 says that Riaz is working well with the Khedive, highly 
 approves the action of the Legislative Council, but as to 
 Constantinople, says the Sultan is mad and there is no 
 doing anything with him. Talking about the Azhar Uni- 
 versity he tells me there is only one of the Skeykhs there 
 fit to be made Sheykh El Azhar on a Liberal footing, 
 namely, Hassan el Naawi. 
 
 " 2nd Jan. 1894. — My audience of the Khedive. He re- 
 ceived me with great cordiality, excusing himself for the 
 mistake about last week's audience, and assuring me that 
 he was not in the smallest degree displeased at what had 
 happened last year, when Knowles announced my article 
 as authorized by him. I said, 'After all it did good' ; and 
 he chuckled at the recollection. I found him just as frank 
 and plain-spoken as last year, but more of a man. He is 
 much sunburnt and looks in perfect health. He answered 
 all my questions freely and without hesitation. 
 
 " The first was about Constantinople. I asked him 
 whether it was true that he had gone there with the inten- 
 tion of starting an active anti-English campaign? Abbas. 
 ' There is no truth in it. I was obliged to go, as it was my 
 duty to the Sultan, but from first to last we did not speak 
 a word of politics.' /. ' Then it is not true that Your High- 
 ness asked for Turkish troops?' Abbas. 'The whole thing 
 is nonsense. It was agreed beforehand that I should say 
 nothing of these things, and nothing at all was said.' 1. 'But 
 Your Highness was satisfied with the general reception? ' 
 Abbas. ' Most satisfied. The Sultan showed all possible 
 kindness. But the question of evacuation was not touched 
 
152 The Khedive explains [1894 
 
 on, nor, indeed, any international politics. I authorize you 
 to repeat this on my part.' 
 
 " I told him that I had seen Sir William Harcourt, and 
 what he had said to me about the Khedive's having gone 
 to Constantinople to raise up the Sultan against us. He 
 begged me to contradict this, as nothing of the sort had 
 taken place. I then asked about his intended visit to 
 England. He said he was thinking of it in June. I urged 
 him to decide on nothing in a hurry, as I should be sorry 
 to see him go there without being certain of being received 
 with all the honour due to his position. I feared the visit 
 might be misinterpreted and made use of against him in 
 the Press. He promised to think it over well before decid- 
 ing. About Riaz he said he was on the best of terms with 
 him, that he was quite satisfied of the sincerity of his 
 opposition to Lord Cromer, and that all was going on 
 capitally. He was immensely pleased at the conduct of the 
 Legislative Council, but told me he had had great difficulty 
 in keeping up their courage. They were so timid. One 
 member. Gait Bey Mustafa, had come one day to the 
 Council in a great state of mind because he had been the 
 day before to Kitchener to ask that his son might be 
 received into the military school, and Kitchener had been 
 ver)^ rude to him, asking whether he was not one of those 
 who were wanting to cut down the army estimates, and 
 had shown him the door. This had frightened others, and 
 they had all come to him, and he had made them a little 
 speech on their duty as independent patriots, which had 
 given them heart again. 
 
 " He then told me the story of the Sheykh el Bekri. He 
 and the Sheykh had been great friends as boys, and he had 
 had a high opinion of him, but latterly the Sheykh had 
 had his head turned by the desire to play a great political 
 part. He had gone about among the foreign consuls repeat- 
 ing this thing and that. On one occasion Lord Cromer had 
 quoted something the Sheykh had told him which should 
 not have been told, and he had sent for him and asked 
 explanations, and advised him to keep quiet, but he would 
 not be advised. Complaints had also been made to him as 
 to the Sheykh having withheld the payment of certain 
 sums passing through his hands, so that he had sent for the 
 Azhar Sheykhs and warned them to be cautious with 
 
1894] his Relations with Cromer 153 
 
 Sheykh el Bekri, and the Sheykhs had told Sheykh el Bekri 
 what he had recommended. This had made further mis- 
 chief. Finally, on the publication in the ' Bosphore' about the 
 two members of the Council having been to Lord Cromer, 
 the Sheykh had gone to Reverseaux, French Minister 
 Resident at Cairo. I had insisted upon its being contra- 
 dicted, or otherwise ' he would go over to the English.' 
 This Reverseaux had repeated to him, the Khedive — and 
 he had given Bekri a strong piece of his mind about his 
 lack of patriotism. I told the Khedive that I regretted the 
 disagreement, as I had had a high opinion of Sheykh el 
 Bekri's value both for intelligence and courage. But he 
 said he himself was disappointed in him, and things 
 were so. 
 
 " Of Lord Cromer he spoke with the same sort of boyish 
 fun as last year. ' When Lord Cromer came back from 
 Ensfland,' he said, ' he began to talk to me once more about 
 the details of Government, but I reminded him that fast 
 time we had talked of these things it was I who wanted to 
 go into details, and he who found that " it was not my 
 business to trouble myself about them." Since then we only 
 talk about the rain and the fine weather. He comes to see 
 me, but we never talk politics.' He asked me whether I had 
 been to see Cromer, and I told him ' No,' as I did not think 
 he had behaved well to His Highness, and I was unwilling, 
 being opposed to him, to frequent his house. This pleased 
 him very much. He came with me to the door, and on going 
 out I asked him whether I might publish what he had told 
 me, and he said, ' Certainly — these are the facts and my 
 opinion, and there is no reason they should not be made 
 known.' I am immensely impressed with the keenness of 
 his intelligence, and his ready power of expressing himself, 
 also with his frankness and directness. There was no beat- 
 ing at all about the bush, nor use of those vague generalities 
 so common with Eastern statesmen. 
 
 " The same day I went to the Sheykh el Bekri, who gave 
 me his own account of what, had happened, and on 9th 
 January to Tigrane, who told me more details of the 
 Khedive's reception at Constantinople. It had been most 
 cordial, he said. He was himself in the Khediv^e's suite on 
 the occasion, as he had been many years before with Ismail, 
 and the ceremonial was greater this time, greater than for 
 
154 -^ new Coup cT Etat [1894 
 
 Mohammed AH or any of the Viceroys. The Sultan saw 
 Abbas frequently alone. He does not think they talked 
 politics except, perhaps, the first time, all that was done by 
 Mukhtar. I asked him if he had any doubt of the Sultan's 
 support if things came to a pinch. He said he had not, the 
 only thing that could tempt the Sultan to intervene against 
 Abbas would be if it were proposed to turn Egypt into a 
 Vilayet of the Empire, but this the Powers would never 
 consent to. His apprehension was not from that side; what 
 he fears is that perhaps the British Government may inter- 
 vene against the Ministr}' and appoint men of their own 
 choice without reference to the Khedive. We talked also 
 about the Legislative Council and its discussion of the 
 Budget, and he told me amongst other things that both 
 Havas and-Reuter's Telegraph Agencies get ;^i,ooo a year 
 each from the Egyptian Government. 
 
 '^In a letter I wrote at this time to Sir William Harcourt, 
 I gave him an account of how things were going in Egypt. 
 ' The ideas of the day,' I wrote, ' are Liberal and modern. 
 The action of the Legislative Council (in discussing the 
 Budget) is most useful, but everything that is done here is 
 turned to the native disadvantage by the English officials, 
 who are angry at having lost much of their power since last 
 year. It is impossible that the country could be in a more 
 favourable state for evacuation, but I suppose you will not 
 do it.' And so in truth it was, it needed a new quarrel and 
 a new crisis at Cairo to prevent what these considered the 
 danger of its taking place. Lady Gregory, writing to me 
 on the i6th of January, said: 'From what I hear the 
 Government in England are most anxious to get out of 
 Egypt, and might make a volte face at any moment.' This 
 was the danger Cromer and the English officials at Cairo 
 foresaw. Gladstone might at any moment take the bit 
 between his teeth and keep his word. It will here be seen 
 how the crisis was engineered, and Cromer got his way." 
 
 I was absent from Cairo on a desert tour when the 
 clash between Cromer and the Khedive took place. That 
 a new coup d'etat was in contemplation by the former had 
 already begun to be rumoured is shown by an entry in my 
 journal oi January 21. " Mohammed Abdu and Mohammed 
 Moelhi called. Moelhi declares that Riaz' Ministry will not 
 last, that Cromer and Reverseaux have come together, and 
 
1894] 
 
 The Frontier Incident 155 
 
 that they mean to appoint Nubar in his place. He thinks 
 the Khedive will consent to this. Tigrane is on bad terms 
 with Nubar and will not join. It will be practically a re- 
 newal of the Dual Control. I think there is probably some- 
 thing in this, though I doubt the Khedive's consenting." 
 Two days later, 23rd January, we started on our journey, 
 one of those purely desert journeys on camels in the Western 
 Desert, where one is absolutely cut off from all communica- 
 tion with the civilized world, as much so as if one were in 
 a different planet, nor did we return till the 4th of February. 
 It was a pleasant and interesting tour among the then 
 isolated monasteries of the Natron Valley, and in the 
 great uninhabited wilderness beyond it. It was Judith's 
 first experience of a long camel ride, and we had with us 
 E\erard Fielding who was spending the winter in Egypt, 
 and the weather was beautiful, and all went well, but this 
 is not the place for these out of the world adventures, and 
 I reserve my description of it for another occasion. My 
 first informant about what had happened was my friend 
 Osman Bey Ghaleb who looked in the following day, and 
 gave the exciting news of what is known in official Egyptian 
 histor\- as " The Frontier Incident." 
 
 To make this understandable it must be explained that 
 Kitchener, who held the position of Sirdar of the Egyptian 
 army, was ahead}' busying himself with preparing things 
 on the Soudanese frontier for the advance he had in con- 
 templation beyond Wady Haifa against the Khalifa (who 
 had succeeded on the Mahdi's death to his power at 
 Omdurman), by endeavouring to obtain the alliance of the 
 various tribal Sheykhs in Nubia and Upper Egypt. These 
 proceedings were veiled in extreme military secrecy, the 
 details being carefully withheld from the Khedive, notwith- 
 standing the fact that Abbas was nominally Commander 
 in Chief of his own Egyptian army. This the young man 
 resented, among other British encroachments on his Vice- 
 regal power, and it was a matter that was much discussed 
 between him and his intimates, some of whom were young- 
 officers who encouraged him to assert himself as a reply 
 to Cromer's call a year before for British reinforcements. 
 Cromer on his side, as has been seen, though unwilling for 
 financial reasons to make any new move in the direction 
 of a Soudan campaign, kept the necessity of such a cam- 
 
156 The Khedive visits the Upper lYile [1^1)4 
 
 paign in reserve as a useful argument for deferring the 
 evacuation among those which he brought forward when 
 the possibiHty of withdrawing our troops was under discus- 
 sion with the home Government. It will be understood by 
 this, how in the present instance he had a double reason for 
 supporting Kitchener in his not originally serious dispute 
 with the Khedive, and making it the occasion of a new trial 
 of strength with Abbas, and a new change of Ministers. 
 
 " 5^/2 Feb. — Osman Ghaleb came and stopped to luncheon, 
 and gave me the whole history of what had happened in 
 my absence. According to him the Khedive, while making 
 a tour on the Upper Nile, was determined to find out 
 exactly the state of affairs in regard to the Soudan, and 
 insisted upon being shown everything and seeing every- 
 body. Kitchener, who was with him, and had heard of this 
 intention, tried to prevent it, and to keep him especially 
 away from visiting the prisons, where a number of 
 political persons are detained, Sheykhs of tribes and 
 others connected with the Soudanese hostilities. But the 
 Khedive insisted, and the prisoners appealed to him, and 
 told him their grievances, and he ordered a number of 
 them to be released. It has been a system on the frontier 
 to pay subsidies to certain Sheykhs of tribes (friendlies), 
 who are allowed to harry the others, and complaints on 
 this head were made to Abbas. Kitchener, who does every- 
 thing up there in the name of England, being unable to 
 contest the Khedive's right to pardon, ordered the pardoned 
 prisoners to be released, but in Queen Victoria's name. 
 There was also some trouble about a hospital which 
 Kitchener did not wish His Highness to see, saying there 
 were seventy cases of smallpox in it, but the Khedive went 
 and found there were but sixty patients in all, and no 
 smallpox case. 
 
 " Again on the frontier Abbas insisted on receiving 
 certain Sheykhs who assured him he could travel in safety 
 anywhere with them, even to Khartoum, while Kitchener 
 objected to his going outside the lines, saying there was 
 danger. But the Khedive rode out with the Sheykhs not- 
 withstanding, — Kitchener remaining behind. Lastly, at a 
 review the 2nd battalion of a black regiment officered 
 by Englishmen got into disorder while marching past. 
 Kitchener said it was through the fault of the band, but 
 
T894] 
 
 Cromer s Conditions 157 
 
 the Kliedive said they had marched disgracefull)'. At this 
 Kitchener took offence, and offered to resign, but the 
 Khedive refused to accept his resignation, and the thing 
 wah explained and settled, and it was agreed that nothing 
 further should be said about it. Kitchener, however, made 
 use of the incident later as a pretext to get the Khedi\'e 
 recalled from the frontier, and telegraphed to Cromer, who 
 telegraphed to Rosebery, who telegraphed to Paris and 
 St. Petersburgh to sa}- that he must deal separately with 
 the case (independently of the other Consuls General). The 
 French and Russian Governments agreed to this. Pressure 
 was then put on Riaz, who telegraphed to the Khedive to 
 return. 
 
 " The conditions imposed by Cromer were a commen- 
 datory order by the Khedive to the troops ; the dismissal 
 of -Alaher Pasha, whom Kitchener accused of ha^•ing in- 
 stigated the Khedive's conduct, and as third condition that 
 the English officers in the Khedive's army should have the 
 right to be tried b}' court martial in England. Abbas is 
 said to have accepted all these conditions. If it is true 
 that he was unsupported by France or the Sultan, he was 
 probabl}' right to do so, but he has reserved to himself the 
 right of e.xplaining the matter in his own wa}-, through 
 Tigrane. 
 
 " Osman Be}- is far from friendl}- to Abbas, being a 
 partisan of Prince Halim, and having a grudge against 
 Ismail and all his house, because Ismail had his brother 
 strangled at Senaar in 1878. He gave us a tragic history 
 of this. He says the Sultan has been bought over to 
 English interests, that he communicated everything that 
 passed at Constantinople between him and Abbas to the 
 English Embassy, and that he has iJ^20,ooo,ooo sterling 
 invested in English securities, especially with the Ottoman 
 Bank. 
 
 " dth Feb. — Captain Broadwood (afterwards General 
 Broad wood) came. He told me the story of the Khedixe's 
 quarrel with Kitchener as he had heard it from Colonel 
 Settle, a good authority. According to this, the Khedive 
 when receiving the officers, native and English, after the 
 review expressed his satisfaction with all, except the in- 
 fantr\ % under Colonel Lloyd's command. Kitchener was 
 not present, and coming back a few moments afterwards. 
 
158 The French at Tinibtutoo [1S94 
 
 said to Lloyd, ' Go and tell the men the Khedive is 
 pleased with them,' taking for granted that it had been 
 so. ' I am afraid I can't quite do that,' said Lloyd, ' for His 
 Highness has just expressed disapproval of my part of it.' 
 Thereupon Kitchener went after the Khedive, and no one 
 knows exactly what took place between them as they were 
 alone. ' It is all the more curious,' said Broadwood, ' be- 
 cause just before the Khedive left for the south, he received 
 us at Abbassieh and spoke in quite a friendly tone.' I have 
 no doubt Kitchener made a quarrel of it purposely to get 
 the Khedive back from the frontier, and that Cromer still 
 further exaggerated it for political reasons. The ' Daily 
 News ' has an article anything but unfavourable to my 
 article, though in common with all the English papers it 
 has been full of violent words lately against the Khedive. 
 
 " Gerald Portal is dead in England. I am sorry for this on 
 Lady Edmund Talbot's account, as she and her sister had 
 reckoned on his succeeding Cromer here. I see the news- 
 papers make great count of him, but he was a man of very 
 ordinary abilities, pushed on by Cromer, whose faithful 
 pupil and understudy he was. I don't know that he is any 
 loss to us politically here. 
 
 "7/"/% Feb. — Spent the day wading through nearly a hundred 
 newspapers from England, the arrears of the last fortnight. 
 It is quite astonishing the lies and false arguments they 
 contain about everything Egyptian, only another proof of 
 the fact that the Press is in reality an engine for the con- 
 cealment of historic truth, the most complete ever invented. 
 There is not a single English paper that treats the recent 
 incident here with even a semblance of fair dealing. Lying 
 hypocrisy and violence are everywhere the order of the 
 day. The French have pushed a military column forward 
 and have occupied Timbuctoo! I am curious to know the 
 exact position here of the Egyptian Government towards 
 the French, and have written to Tigrane proposing a 
 visit. 
 
 " %th Feb. — Lunched with Tigrane and discussed the 
 ' Frontier incident ' with him at length. It would seem 
 that the Khedive did several things while on his journey 
 that were irregular. Maher Pasha, who travelled with him, 
 was formerly Governor of the Frontier Province, and put 
 him into communication with everybody Kitchener least 
 
1894] Tigrane on the Frontier Incident 159 
 
 wished him to see. At Luxor he found Minshatti, the 
 Sheykh of the Abdabdeh, who was condemned to death 
 five years ago, but whose sentence had been commuted, 
 and who was made to reside at Luxor. Him Abbas made 
 much of, took on board his dahabiyah with him and re- 
 leased. This is the same Minshatti who appealed on one 
 occasion to me, and about whom 1 wrote to Grenfell. He 
 was at that time speciall}' obnoxious to Kitchener, then 
 head of the Intelligence department on the Upper Nile. 
 
 "Again, it is true that His Highness insisted upon making 
 a desert expedition farther than Kitchener approved; and 
 again, that Kitchener had had some Soudanese soldiers, 
 five of them, shot on the plea of desertion without the 
 Khedive's sanction. Tigrane, however, is not very certain 
 of details, and urged my seeing the Khedive. 
 
 " As to the final quarrel with Kitchener he says it was a 
 small affair, and the story given me by Ghaleb Bey sub- 
 stantially correct. Kitchener, after resigning and then with- 
 drawing his resignation, had assured the Khedive that it 
 should go no further. Cromer, however, had taken it up 
 beyond all measure, had insisted on Riaz, and then the 
 Ministry, accepting his terms without waiting to hear the 
 Khedive's story, and had threatened consequences which 
 they dared not face. I asked him what these were, but this 
 he said he could not tell me, but it was not merely their 
 own dismissal as Ministers, I fancy it was that the Khedive's 
 army should be put under the English Commander-in-Chief 
 They had no option but to get the Khedive out of the scrape 
 as they best could. The French Agency had gone entirely 
 against them, owing, he said, to des circonstances personelles 
 on the part of Reverseaux. This being so, the position is 
 of course a very dangerous one. Tigrane thinks that, if the 
 English Government were to ask the French Government's 
 leave to depose Abbas, the French Government would 
 consider it so distinct a diplomatic gain that it would 
 consent. 
 
 " Tigrane told me that the idea of addressing a circular 
 letter explaining the ' Incident ' to the Powers had been 
 abandoned, and even that of addressing such a letter to 
 Cromer, though he, Tigrane, was in favour of it. There 
 was danger of a new publication of Blue Books. Cromer 
 has been compiling things against the Khedive all the last 
 
i6o Bill Gordon on the Situation [1894 
 
 year. I asked him if these were things affecting the 
 Khedive'5 moral character and he said : ' Oh no. But the 
 Khedive has once or twice made complaints against English 
 officers which he had been unable to substantiate, of drunk- 
 enness and the like, and it would be sought to prove that 
 he was mendacious and was animated by ill-will.' He 
 thought I might publish an explanation without committing 
 the Khedive. But I cannot do this unless I see him, nor do 
 I think it would be as good a way as officially through the 
 Foreign Office. He assured me there was no truth in the 
 report of a quarrel between the Khedive and his Ministers. 
 ' We got him out of his scrape,' Tigrane said, ' as we best 
 could, and the Khedive knows it.' 
 
 " gth Feb. — The London papers are really too monstrous. 
 It is evident to me that Cromer and his partisans have 
 determined upon Abbas' removal by fair means or foul, and 
 that do he what he will, nothing now will satisfy them. I 
 am anxious all the same that he should at least put his true 
 conduct on record, and I have written to suggest my see- 
 ing him. 
 
 " Yesterday coming home I met young Gordon, General 
 Gordon's nephew, who gave me yet another account of the 
 frontier incident. He says that there are eight battalions 
 of native troops on the frontier under Lloyd, who has local 
 rank as Pasha, and that there is great dislike and jealousy 
 between the black troops and the Egyptian troops. The 
 blacks, he says, would like nothing better than to have a 
 go in at the Egyptians, whom they hate and despise. He 
 himself inspected the troops on the frontier a few weeks 
 ago as head of the Store department, and found the 
 Egyptian battalions, the 6th and 7th, in a very slovenly 
 condition. It was just these that the Khedive picked out 
 to praise, and not the others, of which he said they were a 
 disgrace to the army. Lloyd, he tells me, has been a great 
 upholder of the Egyptian soldiers, maintaining, contrary to 
 all other opinion, that they are as good as the Soudanese, 
 ' but I fancy,' he added, ' he has changed his opinion now.' 
 Gordon is very severe on the Khedive, but his post, if I 
 mistake not, is one of those newly-made ones as to which 
 there was an objection raised (by the Legislative Council). 
 
 " wtli Feb. — Brewster Bey called on me this afternoon, 
 having been sent by the Khedive to thank me for my 
 
1894] Brewster Bey s Narrative 161 
 
 article in the ' Nineteentli Century,' and to talk over the 
 situation. He is a little man of about thirty-five or perhaps 
 more, an Englishman, he told me, born in Devonshire, but 
 who has contracted a slightly foreign accent. He came to 
 Egypt the same year we did, in 1876, first as a clerk in the 
 customs at Alexandria, and then at the time of the Suakim 
 campaign for three years at Suakim, where he served under 
 Kitchener, when Kitchener was Military Governor there. 
 He did not tell me how he happened to get the post of 
 private secretary to the Khedive, but he is clearly an honest 
 man, who, from his sympathy with native Egypt, has fallen 
 into disfavour with our people. ' I am on the black list,' he 
 said, ' at the Agency, and beyond leaving cards once a 
 year, I see nothing of any of them.' 
 
 " He spoke in the warmest way of his young master. 
 Abbas, and was indignant at the treatment he had received 
 in the affair of the frontier. ' Will you believe it,' he said, 
 ' but to the present moment the Khedive does not know 
 precisely what he has been accused of saying? He has 
 never been informed.' I urged him very strongly to get the 
 Khedive to put his own story on paper, and not by word 
 of mouth, to Lord Cromer, who would repeat it to our 
 Government after his own fashion. It ought to be done 
 officially through Tigrane and at once. I asked him exactly 
 what the true story was, and he told me that what the 
 Khedive had told him was that after the review at Wady 
 Haifa, the second battalion, which is an Egyptian, not a 
 black one, under English command, had got out of order 
 in the manoeuvres ; that when alone with Kitchener he had 
 expressed himself strongly about it, saying that it was a 
 disgrace to see good troops so badly handled ; that 
 Kitchener had resigned and then withdrawn his resigna- 
 tion, and had told the Khedive the matter should remain 
 a secret between them, and that they travelled back together 
 amicably to Assouan ; but that there Kitchener, who seems 
 in the meantime to have telegraphed to Cairo, represented to 
 His Highness that before leaving Upper Egypt he should 
 issue an order declaring his satisfaction with the frontier 
 force; that the Khedive had demurred to this, and on being 
 further pressed His Highness had said, ' You mean, then, 
 to make it a political matter? I consider this is a question 
 within my limits to decide.' Whereupon Kitchener replied, 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Brewster Bey s Narrative [1894 
 
 ' I am not sure what Your Highness' Hmits are.' What more 
 happened Brewster does not know. But he says that, know- 
 ing Kitchener well and knowing the Khedive, he would in- 
 finitely sooner take the latter's word than the former's. I 
 asked him what sort of man Kitchener was, and he told me 
 he was of no particular ability, and that he was especially 
 ignorant, for a man who had seen so much employment 
 here, of native character and native ideas. At Suakim he had 
 committed the grossest blunders in this way. Kitchener's 
 original quarrel with Maher (this was told me by Kennedy) 
 was about a large sum of secret service money, as to which 
 Kitchener refused — Maher being Under Secretary at the 
 War Office — to give any account. This was the beginning 
 of the trouble, as far as Kitchener was concerned. 
 
 " Brewster spoke bitterly of the French and Russian 
 Agents, who had turned against Abbas in this difficulty, as 
 they had done the year before. With regard to Con- 
 stantinople, he also does not trust the Sultan, 'who will 
 do whatever the English Government tells him.' As for 
 Mukhtar, he had been against Abbas all through, and was 
 now playing entirely into Cromer's hands. ' He has not 
 forgotten,' he said, 'the Khedive's telegram to Constantin- 
 ople at the beginning of his reign, when he asked who 
 was the Sultan's representative here in Egypt, himself or 
 Mukhtar?' Brewster considers the situation a very danger- 
 ous one for Abbas — in which I agree with him. ' If he 
 goes,' he said emphatically, ' I shall not stay a day longer 
 in Egypt' Nevertheless, the Khedive is full of courage, 
 and Brewster promised to back up my advice about the 
 note of explanation addressed to our Government. He 
 thinks I can do no good by explaining matters to the 
 English Press. A very honest fellow is Brewster, of a kind 
 one would wish to be served by, but does not often meet. 
 
 " xyth Feb. — I have written a long private letter to the 
 Editor of the ' Daily News ' for his instruction, not for 
 publication, explaining the true state of affairs here. 
 
 " \<^th Feb. — Lady Dunmore, who was here with her 
 daughters a few days ago, gave us a thrilling account of 
 her life and sufferings in Kashmir, where they were taken, 
 she being an invalid, to spend two summers, by her husband, 
 but after all it seems to have done her good, and the girls 
 were enthusiastic about it. She told me to-day a curious 
 
1894] 
 
 Lord Diinmore aiid the Czar 163 
 
 story, which shows how things are done in Russia. When 
 her husband started from India on his journey through 
 the Pg.mir country, the Emperor of Russia — Dunmore has 
 Russian relations — gave him a private letter which secured 
 him free passage through the Russian lines. On his return 
 the Emperor wrote to him begging that he would come 
 and see him at St. Petersburg and give him an account of 
 what he had seen, the Emperor being very anxious to have 
 unbiassed evidence of the state of things in Central Asia. 
 To this Dunmore responded, and wrote as many as three 
 letters expressing his willingness to come, but never any 
 further message, until quite lately he has learned that none 
 of his letters were received by the Emperor. It appears 
 that the men about the palace exercise an absolute super- 
 vision over all the Imperial correspondence, and even the 
 Princess of Wales finds difficulty in communicating with 
 her sister. Now Dunmore has asked at the Foreign Office 
 that his letter of explanation should be presented by the 
 Ambassador, or rather the Charg6 d'Affaires, in private 
 audience. The Emperor it appears has been furious at 
 getting no answer, and Lady Dunmore says: 'When he 
 finds out the truth there will be journeys to Siberia for 
 some of those corcerned.' 
 
 " 22nd Feb. — Dormer called. He gave us the alarming 
 intelligence that there is a scheme on foot for bringing the 
 Cairo sewage into this neighbourhood. It is indeed the 
 abomination of civilization standing in the Holy Place. 
 We have always looked upon the desert as the one pure, 
 imperishable possession, but if this is to be made a stink- 
 pot for our nostrils we are indeed lost." This plan, which 
 was already in an advanced stage with coloured surveys 
 on a large scale, entitled derisively " Projets d'assainisse- 
 ment," I was the means under Providence of preventing. 
 I wrote to Lord Cromer representing the economical folly 
 of the project which had chosen the only district in the 
 neighbourhood of Cairo suitable for building a rural suburb, 
 seeing that it was the only one which possessed an abund- 
 ance of good water in a sandy soil, and he yielded to my 
 argument, with the result of what is now the populous 
 suburb of Heliopolis having grown up there. Dormer 
 who became afterwards Lord Dormer, was at that time 
 employed in the Egyptian Financial Department. 
 
164 The D^ic d' Orleans [1894 
 
 " 2ird. Feb. — Lady Francis Osborne came full of serious 
 advice to me about my ' radical politics,' and the stir my 
 writings were making among the officials here. ' Why do 
 you take pleasure in making your fellow men unhappy?' 
 
 " A visit from three little journalists, Sheykh Ali Yusuf, 
 Editor of the ' Mowayad ' (the first Nationalist newspaper 
 at Cairo since Tel el Kebir), Mohammed Mesaoud, and 
 Abderrahman Ismail. A worthy man is Ali Yusuf, with 
 nothing of civilization about him. Just a little Azhar 
 student in a turban, clever and sympathetic, but without 
 knowledge of the western world. The others with a slight 
 veneer of Europe, but hardly deeper than their clothes." 
 This is the first mention in my diary of Sheykh Ali Yusuf, 
 who played so important a part later in Cairo's journalistic 
 history. 
 
 " 2'jth Feb. — Princesse H61ene and her brother the Due 
 d'Orleans spent the afternoon here. They have been up 
 the river in a dahabiyah to Wady Haifa, and enjoyed 
 themselves immensely. He is a good young fellow, manly 
 and intelligent, and extremely nice to her. He tells me 
 that in Somaliland he has seen as many as 500 ostriches 
 together. They go in packs in the autumn and winter 
 months, males and females separately, but pair in the early 
 spring. The buffaloes even there are almost extinct. It 
 was nearly dark when they left, and I rode back with them 
 as far as the obelisk. 
 
 " 2Zth Feb. — Heavy rain, enough to make the spouts on 
 the roof run, the first time they have done so since the 
 house was finished more than two years ago. There is a 
 great deal of nonsense talked about the increase of rain in 
 Egypt since the Suez Canal was made — and of fogs since 
 the British occupation. It is pure rubbish. Reading old 
 accounts of travellers two and three hundred years ago, I 
 see that they generally remark that there is but little rain 
 in Egypt, never that there is none, and so it is now. All 
 the change there has been is a certain increase of morning 
 fogs and dampness through the increased irrigation of the 
 Delta, but I am a sceptic about the increase of rain. Old 
 West, our Consul at Suez, told me ten years ago that in his 
 experience there of forty years he had remarked no change." 
 I tested this once later by questioning my chief Bedouin, 
 Suliman, whose home is the desert between Cairo and Suez, 
 
1894] Rosebery Eritne Minister 165 
 
 on this head. " Do you not find, Suliman," I said, " a great 
 change in the climate here in your recollection? " " Oh, yes," 
 he answered, " there is a great one, and sadly for the worse. 
 When I was a boy, we had beautiful rains on the upper 
 country with eshub (green spring herbage) every year for 
 our camels, now not a single drop, all is burnt up, a sad 
 change certainly." 
 
 " ^th March. — Gladstone has really retired from public 
 life. He went to Windsor yesterday, so the telegrams say, 
 and gave in his resignation, recommending Rosebery as his 
 successor. I suppose now he is gone there will be a general 
 chorus of praise, but for my part I shall not join it. He 
 has betrayed too many good causes not to be an evil doer 
 in my eyes, and his one remaining cause, Ireland, he leaves 
 in the lurch to-day by his retirement. I am glad to see that 
 Labouchere and twenty more members of Parliament have 
 protested against Rosebery's succession. 
 
 " Qth March. — It is announced in the 'Bosphore' and other 
 local papers that the Sultan has telegraphed his entire 
 approval of the Khedive's action in the late crisis, and has 
 instructed his Ambassador in London to protest against 
 the accounts of it published in our newspapers. This, if 
 true, is most important. The Sultan has also presented 
 Abbas with a palace on the Bosphorus, a gift of more 
 doubtful omen. 
 
 " 7M March. — It appears that Rosebery has carried the 
 day and 'is to be Prime Minister. He is an astute Whig of 
 the Palmerston type, and the Radicals have got what the}- 
 deserve. The policy in Egypt can hardly long remain un- 
 changed, and I should not be surprised to see Rosebery 
 entering on a scheme for the partition of the Ottoman 
 Empire. It cannot well, however, be carried into effect 
 without war, and so I hope that under Providence it may 
 result in the partition rather of that other Empire for the 
 sake of which we in England have sold our old principles 
 of freedom and respect for International right. The Radical 
 jingo is the ugliest feature of our modern politics." Though 
 Lord Rosebery did not remain in office long enough to 
 carry out this plan in person, it was put in practice later 
 by his Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, and under- 
 study. Sir Edward Grey, with the result we have all 
 witnessed. 
 
1 66 Riaz Pasha resigns [1894 
 
 " i2,th March. — Young Aldridge called. He tells me he 
 was at the celebrated review at Haifa when the Khedive 
 was supposed to have insulted the officers. He was staying 
 with these officers, and none of them were aware of an)'- 
 thing in the way of a crisis having occurred till three days 
 after- it. He says the opinion of the officers of the Egyptian 
 army on the spot was that the Khedive had said nothing 
 but what he had a right to. He had praised the Camel 
 Corps and the artillery and the cavalry, but had criticized 
 the infantry, which in fact had been a bit in disorder. The 
 remarks, whatever they were, had been made half a mile 
 away from the men, and the men knew nothing about 
 them, nor ever would have known except for the news- 
 papers. ' What,' says Aldridge, 'was the Khedive there for 
 if not to make remarks? ' This doubtless reflects the view of 
 the English officers concerned, as Aldridge is Broadwood's 
 half-brother. 
 
 " i^tk March. — Frank Lascelles is made Ambassador at 
 St. Petersburg. It seems but the other day that we were 
 attachh together at Madrid, sharing all things in common ; 
 he deserves his promotion, for he has worked hard for it in 
 many a dull, forgotten post. Another promotion is Rendell's 
 to the House of Lords. He also deserves it for his great 
 humility. 
 
 " 20th March. — Kitchener has just come back from 
 Suakim from a military promenade in the neighbourhood 
 of Tokar, where the country was found green and well 
 watered with streams running and full of wild creatures, 
 ariels and gazelles. All this because for five years the 
 abominable animal, man, has been excluded. All the world 
 would be a paradise in twenty years if man could be 
 shut out. 
 
 " lA^th April. — To Cairo with Anne and Judith, and had 
 luncheon with Riaz Pasha and his son Mahmud. The old 
 man was gay at luncheon, and talked history and poetry 
 apparently without a care on his mind, but when the ladies 
 were gone to pay a visit to his Harem and we were left 
 alone, he suddenly told me that he had just that morning 
 that very morning, sent in his resignation and that of his 
 fellow ministers to the Khedive. I asked him, ' And did the 
 Khedive accept it?' He answered, ^ A peu pres! Then he 
 told me that ever since the affair of the frontier there had 
 
r 894] " Poor Egypt " 167 
 
 been a lack of confidence on the Khedive's part, that he 
 and the Ministers had not been supported, and that the 
 palace paper, the ' Journal Egyptien,' had entered on a 
 campaign against them. It did not suit his dignity, and it 
 injured the public service to remain under those conditions. 
 He had given many years of loyal service to his country, 
 and he was an old man, and he should retire now once and 
 for ever. A tear stood in the poor old Minister's eye, and I 
 grieved with him over his fall with all sincerity. He then 
 talked bitterly of the change that had come over the face 
 of the world since he began his official life. How the 
 English used to be trusted and believed in as the one 
 honest nation the whole East over. But he talked more 
 bitterly still of the French, and yet more of his rival, Nubar, 
 who he thinks is to succeed him. It is doubtless to the 
 French that he owes his present reverse, though Cromer 
 will profit by it to the extent of making a split between 
 Abbas and the National party. Riaz said it was a little of 
 all their doing. He talked kindly of Rivers Wilson. Of 
 Rosebery, he said he had seen him twice at Cairo, once 
 with Cromer, once alone. When alone Rosebery had asked 
 him whether it would not be better to have an English 
 Under Secretary in every department, but that, said he, ' I 
 told him would be putting two captains to a ship, it would 
 go down.' I told him Rosebery was a dangerous man in 
 power as far as Eg)'pt and the East were concerned, that I 
 should not wonder if he solved all difficulties by a partition 
 of the Ottoman Empire, a gloomy view in which the old 
 man shared. ' Poor Egypt,' he said, ' poor Egypt! ' It is a 
 strange chance that has made me, in spite of 1882, the 
 confidant of his political griefs, but in truth our views on 
 most things are identical. He hates Western civilization 
 almost as bitterly as I do myself He sent us away with 
 benedictions and loaded with roses from his door. 
 
 " l^th April {^Sunday). — Mohammed Abdu spent the day 
 with us. He says the National party is in despair at Riaz' 
 resignation, and still more at Nubar's return to power, for 
 Nubar means a reign of money makers and speculators, 
 and the government of Egypt by Europeans and Syrians, 
 strangers from every land. 
 
 " xjth April. — To Koubbah Palace (Abbas' country 
 residence, three miles from Sheykh Obeyd). I was taken 
 
1 68 Abbas explains [1894 
 
 to the garden and found Abbas sitting under some trees 
 near the stables, looking at Arab mares which were being 
 paraded before him. With him was the old Soudanese 
 Mohammed Taher, whom the Khedive introduced to me 
 as a loyal Shaggia. We talked first about the horses, six 
 of them, for which Abbas said he was offering ;£^8oo. But 
 only two of them were good ones. These were a brown 
 mare, like our Queen of Sheba, and a little grey with a fine 
 shoulder, perfectly level back, and tail grandly carried. 
 
 " Presently the young Khedive began on politics. He 
 went through the whole story of the frontier incident 
 and Riaz' resignation, and his appointment of Nubar. 
 As to the first his account was much what I had already 
 heard. He said that it was originally a quarrel between 
 Kitchener and Maher Pasha — that when Maher was ap- 
 pointed Under Secretary at the War Office, Kitchener 
 had tried to persuade him to refuse, but Maher had per- 
 sisted, though his pay was reduced thereby from ;^I20 to 
 ;^iOO a month. When Abbas started for the frontier, 
 Kitchener had tried to prevent Maher going with him. How- 
 ever, all went well till the famous review at Wady Haifa 
 when he had found fault with the second battalion, and 
 had told the English officer that his battalion had done 
 very badly — this in the presence of Kitchener and eleven 
 officers, some English, some Egyptian. Afterwards he had 
 had a private talk with Kitchener, and had told him it was 
 a shame good Egyptian troops should be so badly handled, 
 and Kitchener had tendered his resignation. But the 
 Khedive had begged him not to take it in so serious a 
 way, and the resignation was withdrawn and the thing 
 ended. 
 
 "After this they travelled two days together on excel- 
 lent terms, till on the third they came to Assouan. 
 There the Khedive wanted to telegraph to Riaz, but 
 found the wires occupied by Kitchener. Nevertheless he 
 sent his telegram to Riaz, telling him what had occurred 
 and that it was of no importance. Later, Kitchener came 
 to him and asked him to send two words of commenda- 
 tion to the officers of the frontier garrison before leaving, 
 as he said the officers were offended and were tendering 
 their resignations. The Khedive asked him whether he 
 wished to make a political question of it, and asserted that 
 
1894] his Ouaj-rel with Cromer 169 
 
 it was within his prerogative to send or not to send such a 
 message. To which Kitchener replied that he was not sure 
 whether it was so. Nevertheless the dispute ended in 
 Kitchener's promising to say no more about it. Riaz had 
 been weak in allowing his hand to be forced. As to the 
 change of Ministry, Abbas said that when he had seen 
 Lord Cromer he had consulted him as to whom he should 
 send for, and Lord Cromer had said Nubar. Abbas had 
 objected that he was a Christian, Lord Cromer had advised 
 against a Christian Prime Minister last year. Lord C. 
 then said there was no choice unless the Khedive would 
 like Mustafa Fehmi. The Khedive then proposed Fakri 
 and Mazlum. But Lord Cromer said they were both in- 
 significant. In the end Abbas had given way about Nubar, 
 and there was a compromise about the rest of the Cabinet. 
 Fakri goes to Public Instruction, Mustafa Fehmi to the 
 War Office, Mazlum to Finance, and Butros, who. Abbas 
 said, had betrayed the secrets of the late Cabinet all 
 through to Lord C, to Foreign Affairs. He asked me what 
 I thought of it. I said that I had no confidence in Nubar, 
 but recommended him as soon as he was tired of Nubar to 
 have back a Nationalist Ministry, strengthening it by add- 
 ing some European he could trust for Foreign Affairs. He 
 promised to remember my advice. 
 
 " The Khedive then talked of his camel ride to Suez, 
 and lastly consulted me about going to England this next 
 summer. I said I would try and find out for him what line 
 would be taken there about his reception, and especially by 
 the Prince of Wales, and let him know. He begged me to 
 write to him. As to publishing anything he would leave 
 that to my discretion. Then he made the old Soudani sit 
 near and talked about Zebeyr, who is evidently out of his 
 favour, and so after about an hour he got up and took me 
 to see his camels, and then with a few more words about 
 my writing to him we said good-bye. 
 
 " Although extremely friendly and nice to me person- 
 ally, I confess that he impressed me less favourably this 
 time than before. He has clearly made a dreadful hash of 
 things, and seems to attach more importance to the getting 
 rid of Kitchener than to the larger political questions. I 
 can see that he is in the hands of the intriguers that sur- 
 round him, and that he is no match for Cromer, who has 
 
I -JO Abbas Defeated [1894 
 
 won the g-ame against him through the Khedive's own 
 mistakes. Not that Xubar's appointment is much advan- 
 tage to Enghsh pohcy, for Nubar is in French interests, but 
 Lord Cromer has certainly won a persona! victory. The 
 future to me looi<s very black. The young man has lost 
 something of his frankness, and of his first sublime self- 
 confidence, which was his strength, and I fear he will de- 
 generate into the shifty intriguer his father was before 
 him. Still he is more manly than that, and with honest 
 advice may yet go well. But v.ho is to give it him? 
 
 "182"^ April.— 0\xr Mowled of Sheykh Obeyd. A calf 
 was killed for the labourers in the garden, and the girls 
 and those who have been at work on the new house, and a 
 lamb for the Sheykhs, with recitations and chauntings in 
 the evening. [This was a religious festival held annually 
 in our garden at the tomb of Sheykh Obeyd.] " 
 
 The Bee Birds have been wonderful this \-ear, three or 
 four hundred roosting every night in the trees near the 
 house. I cannot quite make out what they do in the day- 
 time, for they all disappear from the garden, coming back 
 about half an hour before sunset. Most of these birds travel 
 north at this time of year, but a few stay on during the 
 summer. There are also some of the large spotted cuckoos 
 in the garden just now. 
 
 " 20th April. — Our last day at Sheykh Obeyd. I am 
 grieved to leave it this year more than anj- year before, and 
 have half made up my mind that this shall be my last visit 
 to England. My true home is more and more in Egypt." 
 
 We left the following day, and here I close this chapter. 
 With it ends the episode as far as 1 was personally con- 
 cerned in it of the National movement of 1892- 1894. It 
 failed through the absence of any strong leader to take 
 direction of it; through the youth and inexperience of the 
 Khedive Abbas; through the unscrupulous determination 
 of Lord Cromer acting in what he considered English 
 Imperial interests, and through the still more unscrupulous 
 money interests worked through Lord Rosebery from London 
 and Paris. Lord Rosebery's family connection with the 
 Rothschilds is a sufficient explanation of this last influence. 
 French diplomacy at Cairo seems to me to have been very 
 weakly managed by M. de Reverseaux, the French Consul 
 
1894] Cromer Triumphant 17 1 
 
 General there, though how much of the vacillation between 
 encouragement given to the Nationalists when they made a 
 forward move, and their abandonment when the advance 
 had been made, was due to the French Representative at 
 Cairo or to the Ministers at the Quai d'Orsay, I cannot 
 determine. Be it as it may, the Spring of 1894 saw the 
 movement lose its force, and brought to a complete stand- 
 still a year later by the retirement in his turn of Nubar 
 Pasha, and Lord Cromer's installation as absolute despot 
 ruling Egypt through a dummy Minister, Mustafa Pasha 
 Fehmi, while the Khedive Abbas, cut off from all legitimate 
 exercise of his viceregal rights, consoled himself with the 
 follies of youth, money speculations, and impotent intrigue. 
 It was the history repeated a hundred times over of the 
 English manipulation of the native States of India. To 
 me it was a mournful spectacle, a blank period during 
 which, though still maintaining a deep interest in what 
 went on, I held a position entirely of spectator, keeping 
 touch with the local politics of the day during my winter 
 visit to Sheykh Obeyd mainly through Sheykh Mohammed 
 Abdu, whom I estalalished on a corner of my property in a 
 country house within half a mile of my own. He had an 
 advantage for me as historian and diarist of being person- 
 ally intimate with Mustafa Fehmi who concealed nothing 
 from him, while Abdu concealed nothing from me. It was 
 as an historian only that I followed the development of 
 the Cromerian regime, until in 1906 Cromer's astonishing 
 blunders of that year once more gave life to Egyptian 
 Nationalism, and it found a voice in Mustafa Kamel. My 
 diary in the meagreness of its political entries corresponds 
 with my political abstention during this weary interval. 
 Nevertheless there were moments when I said my say with 
 our politicians on Egyptian affairs, and in the London 
 " Times," notably in the year of the new invasion of the 
 Soudan under Kitchener in 1896, of Fashoda, and of the 
 fatal entente with France in 1904. The entries then have a 
 renewed importance, the rebirth of Nationalism in 1906 
 having lured me once more into the field as an active 
 combatant for Egypt's independence. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A VISIT TO TUNIS AND TRIPOLI, 1 894 
 
 THE first news that greeted me on my return to London 
 from Egypt in the Spring of 1 894 was the engagement 
 of my friend Alargot Tennant to Air. Asquith, a political 
 event, as it turned out, of the first magnitude, though perhaps 
 not fully appreciated as such at the moment. I find it re- 
 corded thus: 
 
 " 1st May. — To Grosvenor Square, where I found Sir 
 Charles Tennant very important over his daughter's ap- 
 proaching marriage. ' It has gone on now,' he said, ' for a 
 year and a half, at first all on Asquith's side, but now 
 Margot is sincerely attached to him. She has smartened him 
 up wonderfully, you would hardly know him.' Upon which 
 in walks Asquith, a little smooth-shaved middle-aged man, 
 with a beatific smile on his face, as of one to whom Heaven's 
 doors have been opened. He reminded me very cordially 
 of our former meetings on Home Rule platforms, and in 
 answer to my congratulations, said, ' Indeed \ou have 
 reason to congratulate me.' Sir Charles gives his daughter 
 £2,000 a year and a house in Cavendish Square. They are 
 to spend the honeymoon in Caroline Grosvenor's house, 
 30, Upper Grosvenor Street, which they have rented for 
 the season. 
 
 '■ ^th May. — George \V\-ndham came to see me. We 
 discussed Rosebery, and agreed that he was overrated as a 
 statesman, a clever after-dinner speaker, but nothing more. 
 He had been pushed forward by the press and the Jews as 
 a sort of Stock Exchange candidate, but he could not last 
 as leader of a party. George applauded my intention of 
 formall}- returning to the Conservative fold [a momentary 
 intention never carried out, for I joined no party]. 
 
 " yt/iMay. — Lunched with Sir William Harcourt. In spite 
 of accounts of his ill-health I found him looking better than 
 for a year or two. His budget comes on for second reading 
 
 172 
 
1894] The Asqttiih Wedding 173 
 
 to-night (he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer), and 
 Loulou told me in private that it is quite possible the 
 Government may be beaten on it. Sir William was, never- 
 theless, in high spirits, and I think enjoyed my denuncia- 
 tion of Rosebery as ' Minister of the Stock Exchange.' 
 Alfred Milner came m and we had some chaff, good- 
 naturedly, about Egypt. Nubar has been filaying his old 
 games there already, giving a concession to a land com- 
 pany he is interested in. Milner admitted he was an old 
 rogue. Afterwards in private Loulou told me that his 
 father would probably retire from public life at the end of 
 the present Parliament. He himself intends to do so as. 
 soon as the Budget is through. 
 
 " loth May. — Margot's wedding day, showery and cold, 
 but with occasional gleams of sunshine. St. George's 
 crammed to the ceiling with the gayest world of the gay. 
 It is the only church in London I have the smallest 
 romance about, but to me it is interesting and touching 
 from the vast number of marriages it has seen (including 
 my own). It is old-fashioned, with nice comfortable pews, 
 and none of the tawdry Gothic rubbish they are fond of 
 elsewhere. De Staal was there in the same pew with us, 
 and there were Rosebery and I believe all the Ministers, 
 and Gladstone, who came in late and was cheered outside, 
 and Arthur Balfour. Margot was pale, very pale, but firm 
 and decided, Asquith much smartened up. A great crush 
 in the Tennant house afterwards in Grosvenor Square, 
 Margot surrounded by a crowd of women friends. She 
 drove away in a slatey-blue dress, an apple-green straw 
 hat and dark-blue flowers. 
 
 " i%ih May. — In consequence of a talk I have had with 
 Lady Lytton I have written to Arthur Ellis on the subject 
 of the Khedive's intended visit to England. In it I said: 
 ' When I was leaving Egypt the other day the Khedive, 
 whom I went to take my leave of, spoke to me of his pro- 
 posed visit to Europe, which was then not quite decided on, 
 and asked me to find out for him confidentially whether if 
 he came to England, his reception would be a really cordial 
 one. By this he meant not so much whether there would 
 be the usual official reception, whatever that might be, due 
 to his rank, as whether he might count upon the kindly 
 feeling of the Court and especially of the Prince of Wales 
 
1/4 The Prince of ]\' ales Message [1894 
 
 towards him. From what I know of him I feel sure that 
 it is more in the power of the Prince of Wales than of 
 Lord Rosebery or of any of the officials to place things in 
 Egypt, as far as the Khedive is concerned, on a more satis- 
 factory footing than they have lately been. The Khedive 
 is very suspicious of Lord Cromer, not as I think entirely 
 without reason, for the quarrel between them is no doubt 
 largely a personal one, and I think that, if it could be con- 
 veyed to him that he could count at least on a friendly 
 reception at Marlborough House, he would be less likely to 
 listen to the advances which are pretty sure to be made to 
 him in Paris on his way through. In my opinion large 
 political interests are involved in the issue of this visit.' 
 
 " To-day the tenantry of Crabbet presented Judith with 
 a silver cup on her coming of age. They were most hearty, 
 and recalled the fact of most of them holding their farms 
 from father to son for generations. Judith made an ad- 
 mirable speech in reply, delivered in a clear voice and with 
 a charming manner. Then I showed them some of the 
 family deeds and they all drank champagne in tumblers. 
 The leaders among them were the two Caffins and young 
 Wright of Pryors Farm. The servants, too, at Crabbet are 
 making her a presentation. We have, I think, seven house 
 servants who have been over twenty years with us. 
 
 " 2\st May. — An answer has come from Arthur Ellis with 
 an informal message from the Prince of Wales. It is most 
 satisfactory. He says : ' Whilst the Prince of Wales feels 
 some hesitation in sending any message to the Khedive 
 except through the accredited official channel, I may say 
 that should His Highness determine upon a visit to Eng- 
 land, he will certainly receive from the Prince of Wales 
 and from society in general every possible attention.' I have 
 written to the Khedive, conveying to him the message." 
 
 This little piece of diplomacy I had afterwards reason to 
 regret, successful as it proved in bringing the Khedive to 
 England. The influence of Marlborough House was not a 
 wholesome one for the Khedive's patriotism, and in other 
 ways proved detrimental, as will be seen later. 
 
 " 22nd May. — I see a report in the evening paper that 
 the Sultan has forbidden the Khedive to go to England, 
 but it sounds to me hardly likely. 
 
 2d^th May. — Breakfasted with Sir Henry Loch and had 
 
1894] A Last Visit to Randolph 175 
 
 much talk with him about ' civiHzation ' in Africa. He ex- 
 pressed his fear of the spread of Mohammedanism south- 
 wards as likely to prove a danger. I wish I could think it. 
 He also asked about Arabia in a way which sounded as if 
 they may have their eye on it, too, in the scramble that is 
 going on. He told me the Chinese were driving the 
 Russians back in Central Asia. 
 
 " Anne and Judith have taken rooms at 31, South Street 
 for the season. 
 
 " 2'jth May (^Sunday). — On Wednesday I called on Ran- 
 dolph Churchill in Grosvenor Square (his mother's house) 
 and had some political talk with him. He is terribly altered, 
 poor fellow, having some disease, paralysis, I suppose, 
 which affects his speech, so that it is painful to listen to 
 him. He makes prodigious efforts to express himself clearly, 
 but these are only too visible. He talked of his election 
 prospects at Bradford and the desire of the Conservatives 
 til delay the turning out of the Rosebery Government. 
 About Egypt he said, ' You know my opinion about evacua- 
 tion is unchanged, but my tongue is tied.' " This was the 
 last time I saw him. I remember that as he came to the 
 door with me he tried again to explain to me what he wanted 
 to tell me about Egypt, but broke down and said, almost in 
 tears, " I know what I want to say, but damn it, I can't 
 say it.' 
 
 " 28//^ May. — Breakfast with George Wyndham. He is at 
 last bringing out his book of French Lyrics. With any luck 
 it should be a great success. 
 
 " \oth June {Sunday^. — To Wotton to see Evelyn, who 
 is in poor health. He wants me to act in concert with him 
 on the question of a new Conservative candidate for East 
 Grinstead. On Thursday I met Frederic Harrison, just 
 back from France. There is great excitement about the 
 Anglo-Belgian Agreement in regard to the Congo and 
 Upper Nile, the last of Rosebery 's thieves' treaties, but 
 Harrison says the wirepullers assure him that the French 
 menace will come to nothing. I am not so sure, as it is 
 being taken up in Germany also. 
 
 " wth June. — Still at Wotton. After luncheon drove to 
 Box Hill to see George Meredith. Found him with his 
 daughter, a pretty little bar maiden just engaged to Russell 
 Sturgis, and another young lady. He is terribly deaf and 
 
176 George JMeredith at Box Hill [1894 
 
 afflicted with creeping paralysis, so that he staggers from 
 time to time while walking, and once to-day nearly fell. It 
 does not, however, affect his mind, and he has a novel on 
 hand at the present moment which keeps him writing six 
 hours a day. He is a queer, voluble creature, with a play- 
 acting voice, and his conversation like one dictating to a 
 secretar\-, a constant search for epigrams. I took the bull 
 by the horns at once about his novels, said I ne\er read 
 prose and looked upon him only as a poet. This pleased 
 him, and he gave me two volumes, recommending to me 
 especially the piece called ' Attila.' He told me Tennyson 
 was the first person to discover the merits of ' Love in a 
 \'alley.' 1 asked him to explain sundry obscurities in 
 ' Modern Love,' and he said he would do so if I would come 
 up with him to a little literary den he has at the top of his 
 garden, but the \oung ladies unfortunately followed us, and 
 he was unwilling to talk about this poem before them, so I 
 missed my chance. During our talk a luncheon was brought 
 to him on a tray, as he said he was too busy to sit down to a 
 regular meal, and could not write after one o'clock, so I left 
 him to his work and drove on. I had driven my four horses 
 in at the front entrance, a difficult feat, and got them out 
 again and went on over the hill to Ockham, where I picked 
 up Judith, and back in the evening again to Wootton over 
 Ranmore Common and down the steep descent of Coom.be 
 Bottom. I fancy in all history no team of four horses was 
 ever driven before down that road, not even by Tomm\- 
 Onslow of happy memory, certainly not by a woman, for 
 Judith had the reins. 
 
 " Compare the local rhyme, for Onslow lived close b\- : 
 
 What can Tommy Onslow do ? 
 He can drive a coach and two, 
 Can Tommy Onslow do no more ? 
 He can drive a coach and four. 
 Where shall we his merits fix ? 
 He can drive a coach and six. 
 
 " \'^th June. — Dr. Leitner called to talk over Egyptian 
 and Mohammedan affairs. He is gloomy about prospects 
 as I am in the East, where the old sympathy for Eastern 
 things amongst Englishmen is fast dying out, and a reign 
 
1894] Six Poets at a Wedding 177 
 
 of Western intolerance is taking its place. There is danger 
 of a partition of the Ottoman dominions, for there is no- 
 where the smallest wish in Europe to see reform in them, 
 and all Powers alike are in arms in Africa against the 
 Mohammedan Arabs. This is for England and Germany 
 a new feature and a dangerous one for Islam. 
 
 '■ \^th J ntic. — Miss Violet Maxse's wedding, an omnium 
 gathei'um, social, political, and literary. The bridegroom, 
 Lord Salisbury's third son, brought the Tories; Maxse, 
 the Liberal Unionists, with Chamberlain and the rest; the 
 young lady, her friends. I counted six poets in the church, 
 including myself, Alfred Austin, George Meredith, Alfred 
 L\'all, Oscar Wilde, and Edwin Arnold. I found myself 
 next to Lyall, who told me the latest joke about the 
 Laureateship. ' If one must have a Laureate, choose the 
 least of evils, choose Austin.' At the bride's house the 
 crowd was immense, and I found myself for ten minutes 
 flattened like a herring between Lord Salisbury and a tall 
 Dutch clock. Truly matrimony makes strange pew fel- 
 lows. 
 
 " 22}id June. — Gave a dinner at Mount Street to Lady 
 Granby, Lucy Smith, d'Estournelles, Alfred Lyall, and 
 Godfrey Webb, all of us more or less poets. After dinner 
 we read and recited poetry, d'Estournelles being by far the 
 most effective, having an admirable manner. 
 
 " I hear that Edward Malet is going to resign his Embassy 
 at Berlin because he was not consulted on the Congo 
 arrangement. 
 
 " 26tk June. — Received a visit from M. Ducroix, Editor 
 of the Paris ' Matin.' He asked me my opinion of the 
 situation in Egypt, and I gave it him very frankly, and of 
 French policy there. ' French diplomacy,' I said, ' h^d made 
 two capital mistakes, first in not supporting native as 
 opposed to European interests, and, secondly, in making 
 the perpetual opposition it does to our English policy with- 
 out being prepared to fight.' He said they were his own 
 views. Reverseaux had to his own knowledge promised 
 the Khedive to back him in the Spring of 1893 with a 
 French fleet at Alexandria, and then had left him in the 
 lurch. It was the fault of the home Government more than 
 Reverseaux's. 
 
178 Keats Alcniorial Cerenio7iy [1894 
 
 " loth June and 1st July. — Our Annual Crabbet Club 
 Meeting. The members present were: 
 
 George Wyndham, Hubert Howard, 
 
 George Curzon, Godfrey Webb, 
 
 George Peel, Mark Napier, 
 
 George Leveson Gower, Theobald Mathew, 
 
 Esme Howard, Charles Gatty, 
 
 St. George Lane Fox, Lawrence Currie, 
 Eddy Tennant, 
 
 with three new members, Lord Cairns, Alfred Douglas, 
 and Basil Blackwood. 
 
 " ilth July. — Called on Frank Lascelles, who is just 
 starting as Ambassador for St. Petersburg. We talked over 
 old and new times. He and I were exact contemporaries, 
 both in age and in the diplomatic service, and it is just 
 thirty years ago that we were at Madrid together as 
 attaches. Without any very special abilities he has made a 
 rapid career by hard work and good sense. We talked of 
 the Asiatic question and the Egyptian question. He does 
 not believe in the possibility of saving any part of Persia 
 from Russia, who could take it whenever she has a mind 
 to. I walked with him to call on Staal, and left him at 
 the door. 
 
 " 16th July. — To the Keats memorial meeting at Hamp- 
 stead with George Wyndham, a curious ceremony. It took 
 place in the parish church, the Vicar and his choir assisting 
 in surplices, but the proceedings were entirely mundane. 
 Gosse, who presided, made a dull, platitudinous oration in 
 the tone of a sermon (his father was a Nonconformist 
 minister), and the others were even duller. Houghton alone 
 was brief and to the point. The poet's bust was then un- 
 veiled, and throughout the only allusion to religion was 
 when one of the speakers enumerated what Keats was not, 
 and included in the list that he was not a religious 
 propagandist. When all was over the worthy vicar consoled 
 himself with some prayers and an anthem. 
 
 " lyth July. — A brilliant luncheon with Margot and her 
 husband at 30, Upper Grosvenor Street, and I took her her 
 Wedding Ode, which I had written for her amusement. 
 The other guests were Mrs. Grenfell, Mrs. Daisy White, 
 Ribblesdale, his brother Reggie Lister, and Oscar Wilde, all 
 
1894] 
 
 Oscar Wilde. " I never IVal^ " 1 79 
 
 immensely talkative, so that it was almost like a breakfast 
 in France. Asquith alone rather out of it. I sat next to him 
 and was rather sorry for him, though he was probably 
 happy enough. Afterwards, when the rest had gone away, 
 Oscar remained, telling stories to me and Margot." 
 
 This is a very poor account of an interesting, and in the 
 sequel a tragic, incident which has remained strongly im- 
 pressed on my mind, as it was one that showed Oscar Wilde 
 at the height of his social glory, and as the last occasion on 
 which I found myself in his company. Of all those present, 
 and they were most of them brilliant talkers, he was without 
 comparison the most brilliant, and in a perverse mood he 
 chose to cross swords with one after the other of them, 
 overpowering each in turn with his wit, and making special 
 fun of Asquith, his host that day, who only a few months 
 later, as Home Secretary, was prosecuting him on the 
 notorious criminal charge which sent him to hard labour in 
 prison. I remember, too, as a characteristic trait of his 
 dandyism, that when at the end of the half hour we re- 
 mained on talking, we went away together from the door, 
 I to walk back to my rooms in Mount Street, and he to 
 pay a visit in the same direction, hardly farther. I said, 
 " We will walk together as far as Grosvenor Square." " No, 
 no," he said, and called a passing hansom. " I neve7'- walk." 
 
 This was the end of my London season, and the only 
 extracts I can find in my diary at all of a public character, 
 which was otherwise devoted entirely to the social care of 
 amusement and launching Judith in the world. It is a 
 record especially of dinners that I gave, and which were 
 for a moment rather the fashion with the Soul society at 
 m)' rooms in Mount Street. 
 
 '' 2'^th July. — Crabbet. With Judith on a pilgrimage to 
 see Huxley at Eastbourne. He lives in a new house he 
 has built near the cliff and with Beachy Head behind it. 
 He was very cordial and pleasant, and his wife, an excel- 
 lent old soul, most kind to Judith. We had only two hours 
 with him but we talked all the time about the origin of the 
 Arabian horse, and I think I got from him all the informa- 
 tion he had to give. He said that in reality nothing was 
 known at all clearly except that horses were unknown in 
 Eg)pt under the fourth dynasty, that there had been a 
 close connection with Arabia, and that if there had been 
 
i8o Huxley on the Arabian Horse [1894 
 
 horses in Arabia there would have been horses also in 
 Egypt, but how they eventually came to Arabia was mere 
 guesswork. Arabia had doubtless been in former times 
 well watered, and it was possible a wild horse might have 
 been isolated there in the South (this was my suggestion) 
 long after the drying up of the northern plateaux, but the 
 historical evidence, such as there was, was against it. W'e 
 might expect something from the cuneiform records when 
 thoroughly examined. Pietrement's theories were merely 
 speculative. 
 
 " Of the human race in Egypt he said that he had long 
 suspected a common origin for them with the Dravidians of 
 India, perhaps a long belt of brown-skinned men from India 
 to Spain in very early days. Of savage races, he said he had 
 no sympathy with them ; he considered there was more 
 difference between the man of the criminal class in London 
 at the present day and the high type of educated thinker, 
 than between the Australian savage and, say, the average 
 man of the time of Elizabeth. ' Yet,' I objected, ' 1 suppose 
 you could educate your young criminal into being a 
 bishop.' ' Yes,' he said, ' a bishop would be eas}- enough 
 because the other bishops would look after him, but not a 
 country parson, that would be a dangerous experiment.' 
 He was surprised to learn that grey Arab horses were not 
 foaled grey. 
 
 "6/'// Aug. — A party at Crabbet for Sunday. The Mey- 
 nells, George W'yndham, Alfred Douglas, and Blanche 
 \\"ortley. Coventry Patmore, Henley, and Locker could not 
 come. Meynell told us much that was interesting about 
 Francis Thompson, who is the latest discovered of the 
 poets. 
 
 " Thompson's history is most curious. He was educated 
 at Ushaw, and his father wanted him to become a doctor, 
 but he had a distaste for it and could not or would not 
 pass his examinations. This led to a quarrel, for the father 
 had married a second time, and Thompson was turned out 
 of the house, or left it in anger. He came to London, where 
 he fell into extreme poverty, walking the streets as a 
 beggar for five \-ears and sleeping under the arches by the 
 Thames. The money he earned he spent on opium, which 
 drugged him to endurance of his life. Nevertheless, he 
 once attempted suicide, spending what remained to him on 
 
1 894] Francis Thompson 1 8 1 
 
 a large dose of laudanum enough to kill two men. He 
 divided it into two portions and retired to I forget what 
 cemetery in the city and took the first half — whereupon he 
 had a vision in which he saw Chatterton, who took him by 
 the hand and comforted him, and reminded him how the 
 very morning after his suicide a letter had come from a 
 publisher which would have relieved him. So he did not 
 take the second dose, and recovered to find the dream ful- 
 filled by the arrival precisely of a letter from a friend en- 
 closing him the cutting of one of his poems printed by 
 Meynell in ' Merrie England.' Thompson had been in the 
 habit of writing poems on any scraps of paper he could 
 pick up and had sent several of them to Meynell, and 
 among them a paper on Paganism and Christianit}^, which 
 Meynell had pigeon-holed and forgotten till six months 
 later, when he read them and found them e.xcellent. Then 
 he had tried to get into communication with Thompson, 
 but had lost trace of him and had published the papers in 
 hope of attracting the author's attention. This succeeded, 
 and Thompson, seeing his writings in print, wrote Meynell 
 an angry letter about it, giving the address of a chemist's 
 shop near Charing Cross. Thither Meynell went, and on 
 inquiry was told that Thompson owed a bill there of four 
 shillings for opium, that he had no abode, but might be 
 found at nights in the street in front of Charing Cross 
 Station. 
 
 " Through the intervention of the chemist he was 
 eventually discovered and sent to Meynell's house ap- 
 parently with but few weeks to live, for he was dying of 
 opium. Meynell wanted him to go to a hospital, but at 
 first he refused on account of a girl with whom he had a 
 friendship in the streets. She had been kind to him, just 
 as had been the case with De Ouincy, and Thompson re- 
 fused to go anywhere where he should be unable to see 
 her. But the girl insisted that he should go to the hospital, 
 and when he came out of it cured she had disappeared. I 
 asked Meynell whether it was not a case of love rather 
 than friendship, but he said: ' No. Thompson told me that 
 it was not so, that in his condition there could have been 
 no question of physical love ; he was too constantly 
 starved.' Thus Thompson was saved. He has now for the 
 last year been sent to Fantasaph, the Capuchin monastery, 
 
1 82 A Visit to Stratford [1894 
 
 where he is taken care of and kept away from drugs. He 
 writes poetry and prose and has no other occupation. 
 Meynell will bring him here one day. He showed us a 
 fine poem of his still in manuscript, entitled ' Amphi- 
 cypellon,' which he will have printed privately." 
 
 This was followed by a pilgrimage to Stratford-on- 
 Avon, which I had long intended, and which I now accom- 
 plished, going by road with my four horses, and taking my 
 cousin xA.lfred Douglas with me, stopping at several friends' 
 houses on our way, Lady Hayter's at South Hill, and Dr. 
 Watney's at Buckholt, and Mr. Harvey's at Woodstock. 
 Then across the Wolds by Chipping Norton to Stanway, 
 where we were amongst relations, and so on, two days later> 
 to Stratford. Of this I write : 
 
 ^^ i^th Aug. — All the way to Stratford there are lovely 
 villages, houses of the seventeenth century built of stone, 
 with stone roofs, people harvesting magnificent crops, but 
 it is a thing to remark that in all this country, north of the 
 Wiltshire and Oxfordshire downs there is no single common, 
 or bit of waste land where a traveller might pitch his tent. 
 Stratford itself is a very pretty town, standing on a fine, 
 clear river, with little that is modern about it, marred only 
 by the monstrous Shakespeare memorial, a Victorian build- 
 ing, perhaps the most degraded in architecture of our 
 graceless age. Here Alfred left me in a hurry to return 
 to London, while I stayed on fulfilling the object of my 
 pilgrimage by reading the Sonnets at the poet's tomb. 
 
 " Sitting on the chancel steps and in full view of the 
 monument with the poet's portly bust and its inscription, 
 a new light broke on me with regard to his character, and 
 I seemed to see him with less mystery, the full fed pros- 
 perous citizen he doubtless was in his later years, affecting 
 gentilit}- and honoured of his neighbours. The truth is 
 there is nothing really more romantic in a poet than in 
 other men when seen at home. The original cast of his face 
 they show in Shakespeare's house, said to have been taken 
 after death, shows him a strong practical man, not over 
 refined, one who at the present day would have been a 
 successful journalist and man of letters. The Shakespeare 
 of the Sonnets does not appear in this bust, rather the play- 
 wright and ready writer of dialogue for the stage. I can 
 imagine him in this year of grace, 1894, figuring as a 
 
1894] With Morris at Kelmscott 183 
 
 George Augustus Sala, or a Druriolanus in the London 
 literary and dramatic world. Fortunately he was born 300 
 years ago.' 
 
 " On my way home I stopped at Kelmscott, where after 
 dinner we played at twenty questions, the things chosen 
 for our guessing being the white horse of White Horse 
 Hill, the pen Chaucer wrote the ftrst line of the Canterbury 
 Tales with, and the American volume of Rossetti's ' House 
 of Life,' which Morris gave his wife. It is always a pleasure 
 to find Rossetti still a living memory in this house. 
 
 " \()th Aug. — Made a late start as I dawdled on talking 
 with Morris, and trying to prove to him that he and Ruskin 
 had done more harm than good by their attempt to make 
 English people love beauty and decorate their architecture. 
 He defended himself good-humouredly, but I think has 
 doubts, nevertheless, for we are engulfed to-day in a slough 
 of ornament. I maintained that the old-fashioned square 
 cardboard box style was less abominable, as were the days 
 when it was considered bad taste to attempt any kind of 
 prettiness. However at noon I got away and drove in 
 floods of rain to Uffington, and up the face of White Horse 
 Hill. There the sun came out, and I pitched my tent under 
 lee of the ancient camp where there was a splendid crop of 
 
 ^ Not long ago, being asked to write a sonnet for the Shakespeare 
 Tercentenary I embodied my impression gathered on this occasion 
 at Stratford in the following : 
 
 " A Tercentenary Sonnet. 
 
 " Shakespeare, what wisdom shall truth tell of thee, 
 
 More than fame speaks ? The world thy playhouse is 
 
 Packed floor to roof to-night with votaries 
 Shouting thy author's name vociferously. 
 They call thee to the curtain front.. Ah me, 
 
 Hast thou no word for our sublimities. 
 
 No cryptogram of grace to crown our bliss? 
 Nay speak out all, thou man of mystery. 
 Tell us the truth. — I seem to hear a voice 
 
 From far-off Stratford, pestered at the call. 
 
 The voice of a hale man of middle age. 
 Civic, respected : ' Who are these lewd boys 
 
 Would call me back to their fool's festival? 
 
 Truce to all mummings. I have left the stage. 
 
 25 February 1916. 
 
184 The White Horse Hill [1894 
 
 grass for the horses, and stopped for the night. There was 
 a full moon, and it was bitter cold. Morris declares the 
 White Horse to be a work of the Stone Age, probably 
 20,000 years old. In the night m\- horses, which I had 
 tethered to the carriage pole, broke loose and wandered 
 away, and I had a long run after them in the moonlight 
 during which I crossed the old white chalk one, without 
 finding mine, but it is hard to track horses on the grass, 
 and we could do nothing till daylight, and not much then. 
 In the course of the morning they were fortunately brought 
 back by some farm people who had found them grazing 
 two miles away. We then 
 
 " ijth Aug. Followed the Ridgeway, a rough grass track 
 along the crest of the down as far as near Lyddington Castle, 
 when, striking a high road, we turned left and came to Aid- 
 bourne, and so to the Kennet river and Savernake Forest, 
 where just before sunset we camped under one of the beech 
 avenues, a lovely spot, drj- and secluded, except for the 
 wandering fallow deer. To-night we bivouacked, there 
 being no sign of rain. It was my birthday of fift\--four, yet 
 I feel little of the cares of age. 
 
 " \%th Aug. — Away before seven driving across the 
 forest, which is splendid. Near its centre stands a column 
 with the following inscription of supreme grandiloquence: 
 
 This column was erected 
 
 by Thomas Bruce Earl of Ailesbury 
 
 as a testimony 
 
 of gratitude 
 
 to his ever honoured uncle 
 
 Charles Earl of Ailesbury and Elgin 
 
 who left him these Estates . 
 
 and procured for him the Barony of Tottenham ; 
 
 and of loyalty 
 
 to his most Gracious Sovereign 
 
 George III 
 
 who unsolicited conferred upon him 
 
 the honour of an Earldom, 
 
 but above all 
 
 of Piety 
 
 To GOD FIRST HIGHEST BEST 
 
 whose blessing consecrateth every gift 
 
 and fixeth its true value 
 
 MDCCLXXXI 
 
1894] Savernake and Stonehenge 185 
 
 " On the other side is a second inscription hardly less 
 amusing: 
 
 In commemoration 
 
 of 
 
 a signal instance of Heaven's protecting Providence 
 
 OVER THESE KINGDOMS 
 
 in the year 1789 
 
 by restoring to perfect health 
 
 from a long and afflicting disorder 
 
 their excellent and beloved Sovereign 
 
 GEORGE THE THIRD 
 
 This tablet was inscribed 
 
 by 
 
 GEORGE BRUCE EARL OF AILESBURY 
 
 " After Savernake we came down into the Avon valley 
 at Pewsey, and followed the river on to Amesbury where we 
 baited, and so later to Stonehenge where we camped about 
 half a mile from the stones under lee of a small plantation. 
 The stones I found in possession when I arrived of American 
 tourists, but even these could do little to injure the fine 
 calm of the place, and they were soon gone, and about 
 midnight I returned and went again in full solitude to the 
 stones and spent an hour there alone, making incantations 
 in the hope of raising some ghost of ancient times, but in 
 vain, and though I repeated the Lord's Prayer backwards, 
 nothing would come. Perhaps it was the fact that in order 
 to do so without a book I had first to repeat each sentence 
 in its natural sequence, and this may have neutralized the 
 spell. Then I lay down under one of the fallen blocks and 
 dozed off for an hour or two, but still nothing. Stonehenge 
 has much in common with primitive Egypt. 
 
 " \gth Aug. {Sunday). — Moved eight miles on to Quarly 
 Hill, and camped to the west of it. All this plain must 
 once have been heath with scattered juniper bushes, for 
 every here and there on the poorer land, as here and at 
 Stonehenge, there are heath and juniper patches left. It is 
 the modern sheep grazing that has brought the grass. 
 
 " Called on Major Poore who lives at Middlecote, close 
 by, and dined with him. He is Urquhart's last disciple and 
 still preaches his doctrines. They have elected him a County 
 Councillor, and he is organizing his district on a system of 
 his own, and teaching the villagers to live according to the 
 
1 86 Japan at JVar with China [1894 
 
 Chinese idea of domestic socialism. He is doing good, or 
 at any rate is very happy in the thought that he is doing 
 so. He talked mucli of Urquhart and his personal charm. 
 We passed to-day close by Wilbury, which is sacred in my 
 recollection on account of Percy and Madeline Wyndham, 
 whose home it was for so many years. 
 
 " -zotli Aug. — I am running homewards now, a long 
 day's march, by a grass road to Stockbridge, and thence to 
 Winchester. I was determined to re-visit the scene of my 
 old slave days at Twyford School." This I accomplished, 
 but the account of it in my diary is too long and too per- 
 sonal for insertion here. Another two days, 22nd August, 
 brought me home to Crabbet, making up 345 miles by road 
 in the fifteen days and a half of my pilgrimage. 
 
 Visits to Saighton and Cumloden occupy the rest of 
 my diary of this summer of 1894, but it contains nothing of 
 any political consequence. On 2gtli September I write: 
 
 " I am preparing for a long departure from England, 
 which may be for years and may be for ever, for I am in 
 the mood for farewells. In public matters there has been 
 the war between Japan and China. My sympathies are with 
 Japan, because her victory will mean a check put to 
 European expansion in that quarter of the globe, and an 
 encouragement to Orientals everywhere to arm themselves 
 and fight against it. Old-fashioned China is a colossus, with 
 feet of clay, interesting, but doomed if it does not put its 
 house in order, somewhat on European lines. The Japanese 
 stand towards China much as Arabi and the Liberal party 
 in Egypt ■ stood towards Turkey twelve years ago. The 
 defeat of Japan by China would have meant immediate 
 European interference in Japan's affairs. 
 
 " I am leaving home for Gros Bois, Tunis, and Egypt, 
 and am making arrangements to stay abroad over next 
 summer, but I promise nothing to myself Anne and Judith 
 will meet me in Egypt in the middle of November, that is 
 far enough ahead for my hopes to look, and so to Crabbet 
 1 bid a long good-bye. I shall perhaps never go back to it 
 as my home, for I have plans of making Newbuildings 
 my Sussex home instead. We are so much abroad, that so 
 large a house and establishment are thrown away on us. 
 Newbuildings would fulfil all our purposes." 
 
 My usual autumn visit to Gros Bois lasted till i8th 
 
1894] The Japanese as Fighting Men 187 
 
 October. While there, there is one entry worth trans- 
 scribing: 
 
 " \Afii Oct. {Sunday). — To Paris for the day and break- 
 fasted with General Faverot. He had with him General 
 Descharmes, a young M. de Sivry (a grandson, Wagram 
 tells me, of the Duke of Brunswick), and a son of General 
 Fleury. Descharmes talked much of Japan, where he was 
 military instructor for some years, and in glowing terms of 
 their success in the war with China. He declares them to 
 have le diable dans le corps for fighting, and that it would 
 take a European Power all it knew to beat them. ' I would 
 not,' he said, ' undertake to land an army in Japan with less 
 than 60,000 men, all Frenchmen.' " 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A VISIT TO TUNIS AND TRIPOLI 
 
 ^/^ Y winter's journey this year began with a visit I 
 'X had long designed to pay to my cousin, Terence 
 Bourke, in Tunis, where he had bought land in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Bizerta, and had made his home, having also 
 the position there of unpaid British Vice-Consul. He was 
 a younger brother of my old ally, " Button," who figures so 
 conspicuously in my former volumes, and, like him and all 
 the Bourkes, was gifted with extreme natural abilit)- for 
 dealing with men and generally for affairs. Terence, by this 
 special quality, had made for himself an exceptional posi- 
 tion in the regency of Tunis. He had learnt to talk Tunisian 
 Arabic perfectly, and had acquired an influence with the 
 native Tunisians of all classes, unrivalled by any other 
 European. Of all the men I have known who have had 
 dealings with the East, and whom I have seen engaged 
 with them in conversation, I place him first in his power 
 of making friends with them, for he has what Englishmen 
 so seldom possess, an inexhaustible patience equal to the 
 Oriental's own, which enables him to sit as they do, hour 
 after hour, conversing with them, and show no weariness 
 however dull their talk. This is a great power, and through 
 it he has always been successful in acquiring their attentive 
 sympathy, and in obtaining from them their confidence and 
 help. I have often thought that if our Foreign Office had 
 had the wit to name Terence its Ambassador at the Sultan's 
 Court, Abdul Hamid would have remained to this day the 
 ally of England, instead of its obstinate enemy, but that is 
 a kind of intelligence seldom found in Downing Street. 
 This is my diary of my time with him. 
 
 " 2ist Oct. {Sunday). — Arrived after a smooth passage 
 at Tunis. The weather still very hot here. Terence met 
 me on the quay, and we came straight up to his house in 
 the Moslem quarter, a lovely old tile-encrusted bit of brie- 
 
1894J A Visit to Ttmis 189 
 
 a-hrac as one would wish to live in. One enters by a side 
 door in an arched passage, through which the street passes, 
 and by a steep, tortuous stair to the upper floor. One has 
 to stoop to pass into the apartment, and finds oneself in 
 a marble patio with four pillars, supporting a dome open 
 from above, the walls partly tiled, partly in white marble, 
 and the woodwork of the roof painted in red and green. 
 From this central hall, which is about 20 feet square, the 
 rooms branch off, the house being roughly speaking, though 
 not exactly, cross-shaped, with stair and passage leading to 
 the harem at two of the corners. The furnishing is simple 
 and Oriental, but without pretence. Terence keeps one 
 young man as house servant, a porter and two women, a 
 widow and her sister, whom, being in poor circumstances, 
 he took into his house, through kindness, Moslems though 
 they are, without offence in the neighbourhood, and who 
 are his servants, strong, able-bodied women who go silently 
 about the rooms with arms and legs bare and unveiled. 
 
 " After an excellent breakfast, Terence took me to the 
 bazaars, which are more beautiful and more purelj' Oriental 
 than an}- I have seen, and then to the Bey's town palace, 
 built, but on a large scale, in the same style as his own 
 little house, which I have just described. In contrast to all 
 this we then passed through the French quarter, mean, 
 noi:?y, and with stinks beyond description, whereas the 
 Arab town is sedate and clean and quiet. I have never any- 
 where seen a contrast so entireh- in favour of Islam. Tunis 
 has recently been made a seaport by the French, through 
 the device of banking up and dredging a State canal, across 
 the shallow lagoon which divides Tunis from the sea, just 
 as the Suez Canal crosses Lake Menzaleh, it is difficult to 
 understand with what commercial object, as there is not 
 sufficient space enough inside for many ships to lie A 
 better plan would have been to make the port at Goleta, 
 the site of Carthage, which is near the sea, and is already 
 connected by railway with Tunis. 
 
 " 22-iid Oct. — Drove with Terence to the site of Carthage, 
 where Cardinal Lavigerie has built an unsightly cathedral 
 and monaster}', with a buvctte attached to it for pilgrims 
 to the shrine of St. Louis. St. Louis died here on his last 
 unfortunate crusade and, Terence tells me, is venerated as 
 a saint by the [Moslems as well as b_\' the Christians of the 
 
igo Saint Louis a MosIc?u Saint [it;g4 
 
 district, who affirm that on his death-bed he made pro- 
 fession of Islam. He is known to them as Sidi Abu Said, 
 and they show his tomb at a village of that name hard by. 
 The waiting room, nevertheless, of the monaster}- is adorned 
 with huge cartoons in illustration of his victories and death 
 as a Christian saint, coloured in the vilest form of French 
 ecclesiastic art. The gasconading of these pieces is worthy 
 of Lavigerie, an ambitious prelate who pushed himself into 
 public notice, with the aid of French Chauvinism, intending 
 to become Pope. This, however, was not in the decrees of 
 Providence. 
 
 " From Carthage we went on to Marta, a summer sea- 
 side residence of rich Tunisians, and lunched with Drum- 
 mond Ha}', our Consul-General, and his famil}-. They are 
 moving in a few days to Beirout. ^^'ith Hay I had much 
 talk on North African affairs. He tells me the French are 
 trying to work their frontier round by Merzouk to the 
 south of Tripoli, where they are beginning to open markets, 
 but he thinks that eventually they will find strong resist- 
 ance in the Senussi confraternity. They are making friends, 
 however, with the Tuaregs and the negroid inhabitants of 
 the southern oases. As to Egypt, he professes to share my 
 viev,- of the danger and uselessness of our holding it. He 
 told me that he had recently been given the opinion of one 
 of our high naval experts, and that it was to the effect that 
 in case of a war with France the garrison in Egypt would 
 have at once to be withdrawn, and indeed the whole 
 Mediterranean evacuated b}' our fleet. To hold Eg}'pt 
 would not be possible. 
 
 " I find it very difficult to carry on a conversation in the 
 Tunisian dialect, even the commonest Arabic words are 
 either unknown here or* so travestied as to be unrecog- 
 nizable. There is a fondness for diminutives and for throw- 
 ing the accent on to the last syllable. Amidst the more 
 educated class a better Arabic is spoken, as also I believe 
 by the Arabs of the South and the Bedouins generally, but 
 the Berbers are nearly unintelligible to me. Terence speaks 
 to all with the greatest fluency, a vile patois but with pre- 
 cisely the native Tunisian accent. His slighth' falsetto 
 voice completing his disguise as no European. 
 
 " 23^1^ Oct. — Called with Terence on Rifault, the French 
 Resident in Charge, who told me nothing interesting, only 
 
1894] Terence Bourke at Byerta 191 
 
 the common banalities used to strangers on such occasions; 
 and on General Leclerc, the French commander-in-chief. 
 This done, we took carriage with a pair of mules for Bizerta, 
 where Terence has a European house, a distance of some 
 forty miles in less than five hours. A long, dull road with 
 long stretches of brown fields, at this time of year empty of 
 all life except that of a few poor tents, with cattle grazing 
 on the stubbles. It is not till near Bizerta that the hills 
 begin. 
 
 " 2A,th Oct. — At Bizerta. Terence's house here is less 
 interesting than the other, being modern and European in 
 style. He has told me about his domestic life in Tunis. 
 The two women who keep house for him there lived in his 
 quarter and were very poor, and he has allowed them to 
 inhabit his house, which they look after in return. At first, 
 he said, the neighbours objected to these Moslem women 
 living under the same roof with him, but now they have 
 accepted him in their quarter and find no fault. Thus he 
 has been able to lead a quite native life, has learned the 
 language (Tunisian Arabic) thoroughly, and knows more 
 of the people than any European in Tunis. Here in Bizerta 
 he manages his large property, takes contracts of all kinds, 
 speculates in oil, and acts as Her Majesty's unpaid Vice- 
 Consul at an office in the town. He seems beloved of all, 
 and it is natural, for he is kindly and quiet and full of in- 
 telligent talk, and he has that rare virtue in an Englishman 
 of being never in a hurry, or bored, or out of temper, or too 
 busy to see and speak to the poorest man that calls on 
 him. We went together to see a few details of his manage- 
 ment. 
 
 " ^'^th Oct. — We went round the old town, once a famous 
 pirates' nest, now becoming little by little invaded by 
 Europeans, but still interesting, and stopped to drink coffee 
 with a fat citizen, one of Terence's friends. In the evening 
 we rode down into the village and talked again, but I am 
 confounded to find that I understand hardly a word of 
 what is said. Terence is happy and at home with every- 
 body and has a fund of good humour which makes him 
 everywhere le bienvenu. We played chess in the evening. 
 
 " 26th Oct. — ^We have had much talk all day on Oriental 
 and religious subjects, and I find Terence to have ideas not 
 unlike mine on these matters, and we have made a plan of 
 
192 Tzmisian Horses [1894 
 
 going in the Spring to visit the Senussi in the Tripolitan 
 desert and perhaps making profession of Islam, at least I 
 hope some day to do so. I think a hermitage of the kind 
 I have been seeking might be found in the country near 
 Cyrene. In the evening we made a round of the eastern 
 shures of the lake in a steam launch belonging to the 
 Harbour Company. 
 
 " 2'8,th Oct. {Sunday). — Back to Tunis. Terence tells me 
 the agricultural colonists here are of a superior class to 
 those of Algeria, there being some young Frenchmen of 
 good family among them. These are opposed to annexa- 
 tion, and take the part of the natives as against the en- 
 croachments of the officials, but the town colonists are for 
 making Tunis a French province. The worst of all are some 
 from Algeria, where the\- are all rabid against '■ les Arabes! 
 
 " 2gth Oct. — Once more in Terence's delightful house in 
 Tunis, Rue des Silots, 41. A }'oung Tunisian came in to- 
 day to pla}' chess with me and I won two games of him, 
 but he has considerable ideas of play on the Arab lines, 
 which I fanc)- were once also those of Europe. The prin- 
 cipal differences in rule are that the pawns cannot advance 
 two steps at a time at their first move and that castling is 
 performed in three moves, the king having the right on the 
 second occasion to manoeuvre like a knight. This young 
 man, who is well educated, talked a quite comprehensible 
 Arabic, and I am beginning to understand the others. 
 
 " \\'e went in the morning to see the cavalry rcmonte and 
 were shown sixty or seventy stallions, half-a-dozen of them 
 Arab, none good, except one old horse said to be a Shoucy- 
 man from Xablous. The best were four white barbs from 
 the province of Oran, thick set, short legged, which would 
 be handsome if the)- had less drooping quarters. The 
 native Tunisians unfit to breed from in any country. 
 
 " ^oth Oct. — Started with Terence for Kerouan by road 
 with four horses abreast in a landau, very like the old 
 vtttuniio travelling in Italy of fifty years ago, very slow 
 but pleasant in fine weather. \^'e rested two hours at mid- 
 day on the road under a Carob tree, and stopped for the 
 night at a fondouk, a clean airy place the property of a 
 Sherifa, a widow of Tunis, whose husband built it as a 
 speculation forty years ago. It used to be a paying concern, 
 but the new diligence service has spoiled its trade, the re- 
 
1894] With Terence to Kerouan 193 
 
 spectable keeper of it told us. These fondouks are like 
 the khans in Turkey, a number of little empty rooms 
 paved with tiles, where the traveller pays a few piastres for 
 his night's lodging and provides his own food. We paid 
 five francs, which included a franc for stabling. I should 
 be glad to be always as well lodged in Europe. The road 
 passes over a series of plains, partly cultivated in the 
 summer, but all bare now, the hills beyond very beautiful. 
 
 " "^ist Oct. — Another long drive, crossing the Enfida 
 estate. This caused at one time a political question be- 
 tween England and France, the facts of the case being 
 these : Kheireddin Pasha (the same who was afterwards 
 Grand Vizier at Constantinople) having got together this 
 immense property sold it to a French land company, 
 whereupon a right of pre-emption was claimed by a Jew, 
 a protected British subject, as neighbouring proprietor. It 
 was before the French Occupation, and both Governments 
 backed their own clients for political reasons. The Jew's 
 claim, however, was a rather doubtful one, and as the 
 French company gave more than the land was worth, he 
 was in fact no loser, and the British Government gave 
 way. The estate consists of a vast tract of plain, most of it 
 capable of cultivation, but exposed to the south winds. 
 The company has planted many hundreds of acres with 
 vines, but on the whole Terence says it does not pay. The 
 high road passes for several miles through it, and through 
 the chief farming establishment of which they are trying 
 to make a town of the usual French kind, with poplars and 
 eucalyptus trees. 
 
 " Beyond this there is nothing more in the shape of a 
 house until one gets to Kerouan. We were so pleased with 
 our night at the fondouk that we determined to go to 
 another at Kerouan instead of to the French Hotel. (We 
 were both travelling in Eastern dress.) And so after some 
 wandering in the streets, it being alread)' dark, we have 
 taken up our quarters at a house of reception, which is 
 entirely Arab, and entirely Moslem, about the centre of 
 the town. It is an okeilah or lodging house, where 
 merchants hire rooms by the month in which to deposit 
 their goods and sleep. We pass in it for an Indian 
 Moslem merchant and his friend, a Syrian, from Da- 
 mascus. 
 
 O 
 
194 ^^^^ lodge at an Okeilah [1894 
 
 " \st Nov. — The okeilah is a poor place. We have one 
 little room between us like a prison cell, opening on to a 
 balcony which runs round the inner court, open at the top. 
 It is dirty and bug ridden, but decent and essentially 
 Oriental. The proprietor is a respectable merchant, origin- 
 ally from Sfax, who sits all day in a room on the ground 
 floor, which is his shop and counting-house. His trade is 
 to buy wool and other desert produce from the Bedouins, 
 and to sell them linen cloth. A number of them have been 
 all the morning in the courtyard, very noisy in their bargain- 
 ings, most of them of the Slasi tribe who have a good robber 
 reputation inherited from past times. Our driver, Rashid, 
 pointed out to us yesterday the sandy passage in the road 
 where caravans used to be attacked by them in the good 
 old days, and even sometimes now of dark nights. This 
 reminds me that about ten miles from the town we came 
 upon a mounted Arab who shouted to us as he passed that 
 a cousin of his had just been killed upon the road, and he 
 was riding for help. 
 
 " The proprietor has a son, a simple-minded youth in a 
 white turban, who comes to sit with us and talk, and there 
 are two servants, one a merry man who makes coffee at 
 the door, the other a vague old mendicant who occasion- 
 ally sweeps out the rooms, and goes on errands. Both 
 these are hashish smokers openly, for at Kerouan there is 
 no shame in the drug, and Terence, who went down to 
 spend the evening below after I had gone to sleep, tells me 
 the kawajiw&s most amusing, indeed they were all in roars 
 of laughter through the night. 
 
 " Terence is incomparable as a traveller for he has the 
 readiest possible wit and a pleasant word for everyone, and 
 wherever he goes smiles break forth, and a kindly feeling 
 of goodwill from man and maid. He also is an admirable 
 cook, and with Saleh his servant, has given us excellent 
 dishes stewed over a spirit lamp. He can sleep anywhere, 
 and all day long, and never is put out, or bored, or in a 
 hurry, withal of an exceeding good sense and knowledge 
 of the proportion of things, prudent, economical, persistent, 
 the reverse in fact of all that distinguishes Europeans in 
 the East, and astounding at his age (twenty- four). 
 
 "We went out last night in the streets, and again 
 this morning, and I think that no one suspects us of a 
 
1894] The Mosques of Kerottan 195 
 
 disguise, though they are somewhat puzzled at our affairs. 
 We went to the Mosques directly after breakfast, first to 
 Sidi Okba's of which we entered the outer court only, for 
 the inner shrine was being repaired, and a surly guardian 
 refused us entrance, saying that without order from Sidna 
 el ^lorakeb the doors could not be opened, so we had to be 
 content with peeping in and complaining of the tyranny. 
 We saw, however, pretty nearh' all there was to be seen 
 before we were turned out. At the other Mosque outside 
 the town we were more fortunate. Here we were admitted, 
 and saw all, and made our devotions at the tomb of the 
 Sidi Sahabi unquestioned. It was very hot all day, and we 
 lay stewing in the balcony of the okeilah till the asr and 
 plaj-ing chess, to the wonder of the proprietor's son, whom 
 we told it was an Indian game. Then we went out through 
 the bazaars and outside the town to see the walls, all very 
 interesting, and as yet little spoilt by the French invasion, 
 and spent the evening on mats under the city walls, where 
 there was an Arab coffee house, drinking lemonade, and so 
 the long dav ended. 
 
 " 2)id Nov. — This morning, being Friday, the Mueddhin 
 chaunted the whole prayer from the Minarets — and there 
 is one just outside the okeilah — beginning at four and 
 going on more than half an hour, a fine old-world ceremony, 
 disappearing alas from Islam. Kerouan, however, is a holy 
 city, and preserves some at least of its traditions. We were 
 up with the first light, and having drunk coffee prepared 
 for us by our friend the hashislii, and induced his old 
 companion to carry our baggage, which he did with great 
 unwillingness for he was still drowsy with his opium, and 
 paid our two nights' score at the okeilah, three francs and 
 a few coppers — it would have been the same if we had 
 taken our rooms for a month, and the proprietor was too 
 sleepy to get up and see to it — we went out through the 
 half awake streets to the Eastern gate, and the office of the 
 new tramwa)-, where we waited an hour and saw^ the sun 
 rise. Terence employed the time repeating to me a story 
 told in the okeilah by the merchant of Sfax, which is as 
 good as most in the Arabian Nights. (It is too long to 
 insert here, and I reserve it for another occasion.) Then we 
 took aur places in the tram, and went at a fine gallop across 
 the desolate plains in four hours to the sea at Sus, where 
 
I c)6 From Kerouan to Sus \j- 94 
 
 we once more put off our Moslem garments and washed and 
 lineSatT Frank sh restaurant. The tram journey between 
 Kerouan and Sus is a curious mixture of old and new. The 
 foach runs on rails laid across the open fields, drawn by 
 horses running beside it with a long loose trace, so that 
 when it crosses ravines the horses gallop beside it up and 
 down the steep places without checking their pace. The 
 track is all more or less down hill, so that once started the 
 coach goes by its own weight, and the horses have all they 
 can do to keep up with it in certain places, not being 
 harnessed to any pole, the only check on the coach being a 
 brake worked by the conductor in the steepest parts, a most 
 exhilarating way of travelling, and quite practical for that 
 particular journey. 
 
 " Sus is a lovely old battlemented town as )-et little 
 spoilt, though the usual obscene French houses are spring- 
 ing up outside it. I walked all over and around it and 
 through its bazaars. There is a fine citadel commanding 
 the town on which a French flag is hanging half-mast high. 
 The Emperor of Russia is dead. 
 
 " Here we both took ship, Terence to return to Tunis, I 
 to go on to Tripoli, touching at Monastir and Mehadir, two 
 lovely mediaeval strongholds by the sea. In the latter I 
 had the good luck to make a friend. Seeing a nice clean 
 Arab coffee-house in front of the mosque, I sat down in it 
 at the -Same time with a respectable Bedouin, whom I 
 saluted. He ordered at once two cups of coffee, and we 
 talked and made friends, he in good Arabic, a very worthy 
 man, living, he told me, some ten miles from the town, and 
 he has promised, if he passes through Egypt next year on 
 the pilgrimage, to alight at Sheykh Obeyd. I have seldom 
 met a better bred or more kindly man. At Sfax, where 
 we arrii'ed at daylight next morning, 4//^ Nov., I had an 
 odd adventure. Having made acquaintance with a respect- 
 able looking man in the boat which took us to the shore, I 
 was glad to accept his invitation that he should show me 
 round the town, which he did with all politeness, and then 
 invited me to his house. This was in a by street of no very 
 reputable appearance, the entrance being by a low door 
 where a donkey stood tied, and on entering I saw at once 
 that it was no Moslem house, as I had supposed my friend 
 to be, for there were women there unveiled, and it flashed 
 
1894] -rln Adventure at Sfax 197 
 
 on me what was the truth, that they were Jews. This be- 
 came clearly the case when they set a meal of greasy bread 
 before me, and tried to make me drink absinthe, and I had 
 some difficulty in finding excuse to get away and to explain 
 that I was not myself a Jew, for my conductor had come 
 to the conclusion that I must be one, for my having con- 
 descended to speak to him and enter his house, for in these 
 North African towns the Jews are treated as pariahs by the 
 Mohammedans, and he did not understand it as possible 
 that I could be other than one of his own nation treating 
 him with the politeness I had shown. It is no less char- 
 acteristic of the position Jews hold in Tunis that as soon 
 as I had explained to him the mistake he had made, his 
 manner at once became changed from one of hospitable 
 anxiety to please, to one of undignified begging for a bak- 
 shish, which I was of course only too glad to give, feeling 
 that the fault had been mine. 
 
 " Sfax is an interesting, and except for the Jew quarter, 
 a wholly Moslem town, inhabited mostly by Sherifs, every 
 other man wearing the green turban. It was bombarded 
 and barbarously treated by the French in 1881. The 
 captain of our steamer, the Ville de Ttmis, tells me that 
 this was in some measure a mistake. When the town was 
 summoned by the French fleet to capitulate, it happened 
 that, being the 14th of July, in the interval before the 
 answer was received, a salute was fired in honour of the 
 day, and the people of Sfax, thinking it an attack and that 
 the shots had fallen short of the town, refused terms of un- 
 conditional surrender offered to them. The town was then 
 bombarded in earnest, two breaches were made in the walls, 
 and the place was stormed. The French lost 706 men and 
 gave the Moslem quarter over to sack for twelve hours 
 (this the captain denies, but it is historical), during which 
 the houses were broken into and the women ravished; the 
 broken doors were long left unmended in token against 
 them, and I noticed when I walked through the Moslem 
 quarter in the morning that many doors showed new locks 
 recently put in and new panels not yet painted. The city 
 walls have been mended, but the town inside and the 
 bazaars look poor compared with Sus. The wealth of the 
 town lies outside in the gardens, several hundreds of vi^hich 
 surround it, all belonging to the Moslem inhabitants. The 
 
1 98 The Gabez Oasis [1894 
 
 French colonists have tried to buy them out but they will 
 not go. There is a bitter feeling here against the con- 
 querors. According to m)- Jew acquaintance, Braham ben 
 Gabrail Mazuz, there are a thousand houses of Jews in 
 Sfax,probablyan exaggeration. These are divided in opinion 
 about the French occupation, but most are in favour of it, 
 as they were badly treated by the Aloors. They are mostly 
 very poor, the richer ones doing trade as middle men be- 
 tween the Moors and Franks. Young Braham came on 
 board again to wish me good-bye, and brought some cake 
 and roast chestnuts and bread for me, but he could not 
 resist asking me for the fare of the steam launch he had 
 taken passage in from the shore, and a franc over. 
 
 " Our party on board is reduced to the captain, the 
 doctor, and two cabin passengers, so I have the ship practic- 
 ally to myself There are very kw European colonists in 
 these parts except the small population of drink sellers and 
 restaurateurs. The Arabs refuse to sell their good lands, 
 and the bad are not worth bu}-ing, nor has the French 
 Government yet found an excuse in rebellion to confiscate 
 these as has been done in Algeria. The taxes are low, no 
 land tax in coin but the old tenth of the gross produce and 
 a poll tax of, I think, twenty-five francs levied on rich and 
 poor. This last presses on the poor and causes discontent, 
 because in the old time it was not levied in extreme cases 
 of poverty, whereas now under the French no one is exempt. 
 Civilized governments always commit this injustice in 
 Eastern lands, falsely pleading immemorial custom. 
 
 " 5^/2 Nov. — Arrived by daylight at Gabez, a palm oasis 
 watered by a small river which rises some five miles in- 
 land, they say in several hundred springs. This feeds the 
 gardens, the rest of the country being desert. I found a 
 ramshackle carriage with an Arab driver from Tripoli, who 
 took me round and explained everjthing. There are but 
 {evi Europeans here, some warehouses on the shore but 
 nothing inland. The native population is Arab, not Berber. 
 Under conduct of m}- Tripoli driver I visited the barrage, 
 where there is a run of water about the size of our Mole at 
 Leatherhead, much overgrown with reeds and weeds, an 
 oozy unwholesome haunt of frogs and snakes. Then to the 
 mosque and tomb of Abdul Barber, a pretty place on a 
 hill, and so round. There was a tame gazelle running in 
 
1894] Tripoli 199 
 
 the desert outside the villages, for there is no town of 
 Gabez. My driver told me that before the French occupa- 
 tion this was a dangerous neighbourhood, as the Bedouins 
 were always marauding. There is a certain trade here of 
 halfa grass, which they bring from .two or three days' 
 journey inland, worth, my driver said, five francs the camel 
 load. 
 
 "We left at noon and arrived at sunset off Jerba, a long, 
 low island, wooded with olives and palms, the water so 
 shallow that our steamer had to lie six miles from shore, so 
 that we only saw it as an outline on the horizon. This they 
 say is Calypso's Island, a dreamy afternoon place, lying 
 sweltering in a stagnant sea. 
 
 " 6tli. Nov. — Tripoli. A lovely white town with walls 
 and minarets and an immense growth of palms. Here 
 there is a natural port which could be improved if the 
 Turkish Government would allow Europeans a concession 
 to do it, but it wisely refuses, knowing the consequences. 
 The foreign population consists of some 6,000 or 7,000 
 Maltese and Italians. There are many Jews, and a large 
 population of Moslems, mostly of Arab race, manly and 
 fanatical. The Tripolitans are not subject to conscription 
 for the Ottoman army, but form a kind of militia having 
 obtained certain terms of independence when the .Sultan 
 took possession, in return for their support given against 
 the Bey. 
 
 " The palm gardens, which extend for ten miles, are 
 wholly in their hands, and Europeans are discouraged, if 
 not forbidden, from living outside the town. Beyond the 
 gardens all is a sandy desert, and the general character of 
 the place is like our own palm district at Sheykh Obeyd. I 
 called at the British Consulate, and found my old friend 
 Jago officially there, who sent his son with me in a covered 
 cart through the palm groves and to the desert beyond. 
 We stopped to see the Wall's garden, newly reclaimed 
 from the sand. It has all the features of our own garden 
 in Egypt, but without the lebbuk trees. He is making a 
 number of such gardens, using the soldiers to do the labour 
 as is the way in Turkey. Then to a place they call the 
 Hahneh, which is a bit of high, stony ground kept bare 
 for the purpose of assemblies and festivities in the centre of 
 the palm gardens. From it one sees nothing but palm tops 
 
200 Malta and Coicnt Strickland [1894 
 
 all round." [The palm district here described was the scene 
 in igii of the abominable atrocities committed by the 
 Italian soldiery when, in defiance of all right or even pre- 
 text, they made their raid on Tripoli, and massacred the 
 Arabs of the oasis.] "Then to the Suk el Jumaa, and the 
 Suk el Thalatha held on the seashore. Here we found a 
 great concourse of Arabs with camels, horses, asses, and 
 cows for sale, several thousands of them on the beach. 
 Some had brought a load of halfa, others sheep, others 
 woollen shawls. I bought a grey and a white shawl for 
 fifteen francs, more than their market value, though really 
 beautiful pieces, like the best Scotch or Irish homespun, 
 only better. I should say a good trade might be made by 
 importing these to England. 
 
 " After this we went back to a midday meal at the Con- 
 sulate, a good old Moorish house, but standing un- 
 fortunately in the Maltese quarter, which is noisy and filthy 
 in the extreme,, contrasting with the Moslem quarters, 
 which are clean, silent, and decorous. The Turks keep 
 about 6,000 regular soldiers in Tripoli, but count the native 
 militia at as many more. They have Mudirs and Kaimakams 
 in the principal towns inland as far as Ghadames, but the 
 policing of the country district is done by the Arabs. They 
 say these inland districts are fairly secure for native 
 travellers, but a great caravan, which started for Wadai in 
 the far south two years ago with ^^40,000 worth of goods, 
 was plundered there by Rabagh Ibn Zebeyr when he at- 
 tacked ^^'adai last year, and none of the merchants have 
 yet returned. This has caused great lamentation and dis- 
 tress in Tripoli. 
 
 " We weighed anchor in the afternoon for Malta, there 
 being no direct steam communication between Tripoli and 
 
 Egypt- 
 
 " jth Nov. — ^^'e arrived off Malta by daylight, and got 
 inside the harbour at Valetta by nine o'clock, certainly 
 a splendid place. I called at once on Count Strickland, to 
 whom Terence had given me a letter. I was surprised to find 
 him quite a young man, he is thirty-four, and he reminded 
 me that we had met already at Cambridge, when he was 
 an undergraduate and one of the chief officials of the 
 Union and I was down there with John Dillon only seven 
 years ago; now he has been for six years secretary to the 
 
1894] 
 
 The Maltese Parliament 201 
 
 Malta Government, a post of no snnall political importance, 
 he being half a Maltese, through his mother, a Countess 
 della Catena, and having married De la Warr's eldest 
 daughter. Lady Edeline Sackville. I found him very bus}^ 
 preparing for a debate on the estimates in the Maltese 
 Legislative Council, an annual event, the principal political 
 one of the year. 
 
 " The Council was to meet at half-past two, and he took 
 me there with him to attend the debate, an interesting dis- 
 play. The Governor, Sir Arthur Freemantle, was in the 
 chair, the six official members to his left, the fourteen 
 elected members to his right, three or four benches at the 
 end of the chamber being for the public. I was given an 
 arm-chair behind the Governor's. The Council Chamber is a 
 splendid room, and the ceremonial was dignified, but with 
 a certain air of unreality as in a debating club, though it 
 was an important occasion, for politics are running high in 
 Malta just now. The leader of the opposition, Savona, is a 
 man of about fifty, keen-eyed, alert, professional, remind- 
 ing me a little of Freycinet. He knows English well, and 
 made his attacks sometimes in English, sometimes in 
 Italian, for both languages are used optionally, the more 
 animated speeches being in Italian. There seemed to be a 
 very full liberty of speech, but no applause or dissent of 
 the kind that makes our House of Commons a babel. To 
 me it was most interesting, as the questions treated turned 
 on Constitutional right, and vv'ere dealt with ably and with 
 passion. Savona on some previous occasion had been 
 taunted by an official member with having allowed the 
 Estimates to pass untouched, and he was determined now 
 to reduce this year's on certain points in protest against an 
 infringement made three years before by order of the 
 Colonial Government of the Maltese Constitution. Elected 
 members had been deprived of their right to become 
 members of the Executive. Strickland replied in an able, 
 debating speech, but without, as I thought, having the 
 better argument, or commanding the sense of the Council. 
 One of Savona's proposed reductions was ol £10 for the 
 repainting of the Government barge, and this he made 
 fun of. He found, however, support on the point in one of 
 the elected members, Mozu, and Savona lost the amend- 
 ment, though he carried another reducing the vote by 
 
202 / attend a Debate [1894 
 
 £266 in regard to other items. Freemantle then retired, and 
 a rather noisy discussion followed about his successor in 
 the chair, during which, as it was late I too went out. On 
 the whole I was pleased with the debate, which was ably 
 conducted by the opposition, there being but one ver_\- 
 foolish speaker, a deaf old man, who talked nonsense about 
 i poveri Maltesi in and out of season. There was certainly 
 more reality in it than in the Viceregal Council meetings I 
 attended at Calcutta, and must do good as putting a check 
 on the Government's autocratic vagaries, if nothing more. 
 
 " Dined with young Sitwell of the Rifles at the Club, and 
 was glad to find him talking sensibly about the exclusion 
 of the Maltese nobility from its membership. This is a 
 notorious scandal and cause of ill-feeling. Looking through 
 the Club list I can find no more than two Maltese names 
 among the English ones, Strickland's and Dingli's. The 
 tone of English society here, Sitwell tells me, is violent 
 about the Maltese and absurd. He and his regiment are off 
 next week to Bombay, where he will find race arrogance 
 more violent still. 
 
 " 8//? Nov. — Drove across the island through a series of 
 lovely villages, all of hewn stone, to Hajar Kim, where 
 there is an ancient temple of the Druidical kind, then with 
 Strickland to his country house, on the way to Citta 
 Vecchia, a fine villa of the beginning of last century, with 
 courts and fountains and an orange garden. This he in- 
 herits from his mother. He tells me there are about twelve 
 families in the island which enjoy a majorat, his being one, 
 in the rest property has been divided among all the children, 
 and so has disappeared. This dates from the time of the 
 knights. When the island was given to the Knights of 
 St. John in 1530 by Charles V a proviso was made that it 
 should revert to the Crown ; consequentl}', when the English 
 first occupied Malta it was in the name of the King of 
 Naples that they did so. The French knights had betrayed 
 the island to Bonaparte, who took possession of it as part 
 of the French Republic, ill-treated the inhabitants, robbed 
 the churches, and speedily made the French detested. The 
 Maltese rose against them and invested the fortress for 
 eighteen months and forced a capitulation which the 
 French made, not to them but to Nelson — the annexation 
 to England was an afterthought. 
 
1894] Savona the Nationalist Leader 203 
 
 " Strickland explained Savona's attitude of opposition as 
 one caused by disappointment. Savona began life as a soldier 
 in the hospital corps, but having learned English he bought 
 his discharge, set up a school and newspaper, and attacked 
 the Government. He was then taken into the Government 
 to keep him quiet, but left it when the Constitution of 1887 ' 
 was granted, he having opposed it and recorded in a minute 
 his view that Malta should be governed as a Crown Colon}- 
 of a severe type. This minute was thrown in his teeth when 
 he seceded from the Government and set up as its violent 
 antagonist. Strickland, of course, is officially prejudiced 
 against him, and will not see in him any patriotic motive, 
 but he admits that public opinion generally is anti-English 
 among the educated Maltese, while the country people are 
 indifferent. Savona, he assures me, is losing his popularit}-, 
 but he, Strickland, is tired of the worry and would be glad 
 to change his chief secretaryship for a Colonial appoint- 
 ment. I find him clever and interesting. 
 
 " gtli Nov. — Left Malta.for Egypt via Brindisi." 
 
 The winter that followed that year and the following 
 Spring in Egypt was one that has left me few political re- 
 cords, the new National movement headed the last two 
 years by the Khedive Abbas having lost its first impulse 
 through the reasons I have already described, and I stood 
 aside busying myself with other things, and beyond a single 
 visit to the Khedive at Abdin Palace, my diary contains 
 little worth transcribing. I arrived at She3'kh Obeyd on 
 I'^th Nov. and found Anne and Judith already there, and 
 on the 2 1st Fen wick Pasha, who for the last two j'ears 
 had been English Adviser at the Home Office and head of 
 the police, called on me. He had, compared with most 
 Englishmen, been favourable to native self-government, 
 and under the new regime had become out of favour : 
 
 " Fenwick leaves Eg)'pt immediately to join his regiment 
 in India. He spoke strongly and rather bitterly of the recent 
 change in the administration which has put the police once 
 
 ' Malta had been granted a Constitution of very restricted type by 
 the Enghsh Government in 1887, avowedly as an experiment, with the 
 result that many abuses in the government of the island were remedied ; 
 but a strong movement having been set on foot by the native Maltese 
 for union with the Italian kingdom the Constitution was subsequently 
 withdrawn. 
 
204 Again in Egypt [1894 
 
 more under the Mudirs, and thinks it quite uncompensated 
 by the appointment of Gorst as EngHsh Adviser at the 
 Ministry of the Interior. He thinks Cromer may have 
 yielded the point from a MacchiavelHan motive of allowing 
 the native Government to make mistakes of which he will 
 profit later, but I do not think this. 
 
 " 2gtk A^ov. — To-day being the Khedive's birthday and a 
 whole holida\", Tigrane Pasha came to see us; he is down 
 on his luck politically and looks on things as going badly, 
 regarding Gorst's appointment to the Ministry of the In- 
 terior as a new encroachment. 
 
 " ^ot/i Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu to lunch with 
 us. He tells me the Khedive's ideas are unchanged since 
 last year, that he is still bitter against Cromer and the 
 Occupation, that his visit to England was prevented last 
 summer by the Sultan, and much else. The Khedive is 
 very kind to him, Abdu, now, and gave him a private 
 audience of thirty-five minutes, and he has obtained his 
 long wished-for grant of .£^2,000 a year for the Azhar 
 University. A committee is to be appointed to see to the 
 spending of the sum. We talked over old events and 
 he gave me again the history of the Mufettish Ismail 
 Sadyk's murder by Ishak Bey on board the Khedive's 
 steamer. Ishak strangled him with his own hands. He 
 says this was certainly done on the river, immediately after 
 Ismail Sad}'k's arrest by the Khedive Ismail, opposite the 
 Jesireh palace. He told us the story of AH Pasha Sherif 's 
 slavery adventure. Ali Pasha Sherif had been recently 
 arrested b)* our people on a charge of slave dealing, he 
 being the oldest and most respectable personage perhaps 
 in Egypt, and President of the Legislative Council. The 
 Pasha had behaved very foolishly, Abdu said, ' like a 
 child.' The truth was he is in his dotage and has become 
 foolishly attached to a woman on whom he spends his time 
 and money, and it was for her that he had bought the 
 slaves, and he told us also of Nubar's money making 
 schemes now he is in office, and of other scandals that 
 have taken place during the summer. 
 
 " S^/i Dec. — Had luncheon with Riaz. He tells me the 
 Khedive's politics have not changed at all since last 
 year. He (Abbas) hates Nubar, and is sorry now, 'poor 
 young man,' for the mistake he made in allowing Cromer 
 
1894] 
 
 The Khedive and the Sultan 205 
 
 to change his Ministry. He would have gone to England 
 in the summer, but was prevented by a French intrigue 
 acting on the Sultan. He lamented the usurpation of new 
 authority by Lord Cromer in the Ministry of the Interior, 
 etc., etc. 
 
 " \oth Dec. — Saw the Khedive at Abdin palace. He 
 received me cordially, even affectionately, and on my 
 congratulating him on a domestic event expected in his 
 family, and which had been announced, said : ' Yes, it came 
 upon us quite as a surprise. Now I shall marry her. I 
 wished to do so at once, but when I consulted our religious 
 authorities they told me I must wait till the child was born. 
 But I will marry her the very day afterwards, this is 
 according to rule.' I said: 'There was no pleasure in life 
 like that of being a father, and hoped that his son would 
 be a blessing to him.' He is evidently in the highest 
 delight. Then he talked of his journey to Europe, and 
 thanked me for my letter about the Prince of Wales. ' I 
 should have liked to go to England,' he said, ' but was pre- 
 vented at Constantinople. It is impossible to do anything 
 with him (meaning the Sultan). Will you believe it, I was 
 twenty days at Constantinople, and was watched all the 
 time by spies. He gave me two of his aides-de-camp, who 
 were constantly with me, even sleeping in my palace at 
 night. Not once did he discuss any political subject with 
 me, though I several times brought them forward when 
 we were alone. Each time I did so he jumped up and shut 
 the windows, lest we should be overheard, but I could get 
 nothing from him. Even Mukhtar, who was there three 
 months, got no more than a lecture for not preventing the 
 Cairo newspapers from writing against him. He told 
 Mukhtar to spend money — he might pay each newspaper 
 ;£^i,Soo a year — but Mukhtar refused to have anything to do 
 with it. Mukhtar will never be Grand Vizier. AH who serve 
 the Sultan are expected to bow to the ground and say, 
 " Certainly, your Majesty." We shall never come to any 
 good with him for our Caliph and Emir el Mumenin.' 
 
 Abbas asked me if I had had any news of a new revolt in 
 Arabia, and I told him I had seen paragraphs in the papers 
 about it, but attached little importance to them, as such 
 paragraphs always appeared when diplomatic pressure was 
 being put at Constantinople, and just now the Armenian 
 
2o6 A Talk with the Khedive [1894 
 
 question was being pushed forward. The -new friendship 
 between England and Russia boded no good for the Otto- 
 man Empire. He said ; ' I have information that an agree- 
 ment has been come to between them by which Russia is 
 to occupy Armenia.' This seems most improbable, and with 
 it the abandonment of Cyprus by us, as we could not con- 
 sent to it without retiring from the Cyprus Convention, 
 which guarantees the integrity of the Sultan's territory in 
 Asia. As to his visit to England he said: 'The King of 
 the Belgians invited me to stay with him, and I asked per- 
 mission at Constantinople, but was told I should make 
 pretext to decline, and avoid all visits.' He is evidently 
 disgusted with the Sultan's timidity and narrow-minded- 
 ness, but I noticed that he never once mentioned him by 
 name, only as He. 
 
 " From this we went on to home matters, and the way in 
 which Nubar's hand had been forced in the matter of the 
 new arrangement at the Ministry of the Interior. Nubar 
 was old and stupid, he said, and had been made to appear 
 to demand it. I am inclined, however, to suspect that this 
 was merely Nubar's way of excusing himself to his master. 
 About the slave-trading case brought against Ali Pasha 
 Sherif, the Khedive told me that it was without doubt a 
 trap laid for him by Shaffer and the Slave Trade Bureau. 
 Dr. Shafai was an accomplice, and the three slave women 
 had been taught their parts. When Shafai was condemned 
 to hard labour he was not really sent to Toura prison, but 
 kept for a month at the caracol in comfortable rooms up- 
 stairs. He, the Khedive, had been asked to pardon him, 
 but had said the law must take its course. Then they sent 
 him to Toura, but made him second doctor there. It was 
 all a political intrigue to discredit Ali Pasha and frighten 
 the Legislative Council. He complained of the timidit}- 
 and lack of fibre in the native Egyptian members of the 
 Council. ' Look,' he said, ' at Heshmet Pasha, we all looked 
 upon him as a Nationalist and a Riazist, yet directly the 
 trouble came last year he went round at once.' It now 
 being twelve o'clock, after a little talk about Tunis, the 
 Khedive got up and, taking my hand with both his, thanked 
 me and said he knew I \\as one he could depend on, and 
 who had the welfare of Islam at heart. I am more struck 
 
iScjs] Convent of St. Anthony 207 
 
 than ever at the frankness of his character and the clearness 
 of his ideas." 
 
 The first three months of the Xew Year, 1895, were 
 devoted by us almost entirely to desert travelling, when we 
 explored the hill country that lies between the Nile and 
 the Red Sea, a piece of desert land almost entirely unknown 
 to Europeans, or indeed to the townspeople of Cairo and 
 the fellahin of the Delta, and as yet unmapped, to me a 
 great additional charm, and except for a few scattered 
 Bedouins quite uninhabited. We had on this occasion my 
 cousin Mary Elcho with us, who was spending the winter 
 in Egypt, and we pushed our explorations as far as the Red 
 Sea, and followed the coast line down it between the high 
 mountain range of Kalala and the Gulf of Suez, a narrow 
 strip of sandy shore seldom or never visited, there being 
 barely room in places for camels to pass, a rugged shore, 
 where the only sign of humanity is the occasional appari- 
 tion of a distant ocean steamer far away on its road to 
 India or Japan, and at the water's edge a continuous jetsam 
 of empty brandy and rum bottles cast up by the waves, 
 and marking the unholy track of Western civilization. The 
 whole of this precipitous Kalala chain, which runs in places 
 to a height of four and five thousand feet, was in the ancient 
 days before Islam the scattered abode of those early 
 Christian hermits who were so picturesque a feature of the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, and may still, some of them, be 
 identified as former hermitages by the possession of a trickle 
 of water and a palm or two still growing wild, and one 
 monastery, still inhabited, the convent of St. Anthony. It 
 lies in one of the ruggedest and most desolate places in the 
 world, difficult of access for camels, and parted from the 
 Nile Valley by eighty miles of inhospitable desert, and 
 twenty from the seashore on the other side. In 'all that 
 journe\- we had met with no inhabitant after our first day's 
 march, and it was with some difficulty that we made out 
 our road to it, for the Bedouins with us had never been 
 there, and we only had knowledge of it b)- the vaguest hear- 
 say. The convent is hardly ever visited by Europeans, and 
 ours was absolutely the first occasion on which women had 
 been admitted within the monastery walls since its founda- 
 tion some 1,500 years ago. All this was intensely interesting,. 
 
2o8 Death of George Lord Pembroke [1895 
 
 but descriptions of desert journeys lie outside the scope of 
 my present memoirs. It is only here and there that in the 
 interval of these expeditions I find a notice of public 
 events, as for instance : 
 
 " 2i,th Feb. — The long expected Egyptian crisis seems 
 at last approaching in Europe, if one may judge by the 
 foreign newspapers which are threshing the question of 
 the English Occupation once more out. I fancy Rosebery's 
 escapade with the Congo Company has set up the German 
 Emperor's back, and he is encouraging the French to push 
 us out of Egypt. In spite of our swagger, and it is past all 
 bounds, we shall have one day to go. Our papers repeat 
 the bravado that a great nation like England does not 
 }'ield to threats. My experience is that it is to threats only 
 of very immediate chastisement that the British public does 
 }'ield. Soft words never have effect with us." 
 
 About the same time the announcement reached me of 
 poor Randolph's death, and on the 30th of March of Prin- 
 cess Helene's engagement to the Duke of Aosta, and lastly 
 on the I ith of April of the huge scandal in London of Oscar 
 Wilde's arrest and prosecution. Of political events in Egypt 
 there is no further record worth transcribing. The 27th of 
 April saw us back at Crabbet. 
 
 This year I saw more than ever of George Wyndham, and 
 spent much of my time with him. He was at the height just 
 then of his literary activity, having become the editor of the 
 " New Review," and being pushed forward by Henley as a 
 writer, and at his instigation, and Henley's, my thoughts took 
 a more decidedly literary direction than before. He proposed 
 that I should write for him on Arabian subjects, and this I, 
 being full just then of desert memories, willingly agreed to, 
 
 " 1 2tk May. — Henley proposes to bring out a selected edi- 
 tion of my poems under his auspices, and promises to run me 
 into a more public place as poet than what I now occupy. 
 I am not particularly anxious for this, but he and George 
 may try. George is a good enthusiastic friend, and very 
 dear to me. He has given me a touching description of 
 Pembroke's funeral, at which he was present in the little 
 churchyard near Wilton, where they buried him ; the Wil- 
 ton gardens in their full Spring splendour, the birds singing 
 their hearts out, and many men, the most distinguished in 
 
iSgs] Death of Frederick Locker 209 
 
 the land, in tears. Pembroke lived a noble, if an unpro- 
 ductive, life, a man of large sympathies and high ideals, 
 but no fixed beliefs, and no results in action. He had at 
 one time an opening in politics which might have led him 
 to any sublimity when Disraeli gave him a place in his 
 Government at the age of twenty-four, but his health was 
 not sufficient for the strain, and he could not go on with 
 it. The rest of his life was spent at Wilton, a paradise 
 on earth, the possession of which I have always thought 
 hinders its possessors, by its beauty, from engaging in the 
 world's ambitions. He lived honoured and beloved by 
 women and by men. 
 
 " Sir Robert Feel, too, is dead. I met him on Friday at 
 the St. James' Club, and had a talk with him about Japan 
 and China. His death was sudden in the night. He was 
 not a wise man, but interesting, a very good speaker, full 
 of bonhomie and sometimes of wit. 
 
 " 2gth May. — My poor Locker is dead, not other than a 
 worthy ending to a happy life. His last day was a cheerful 
 one they all say, and he talked more strongly than for 
 some time past. I had called in the evening at Rowfant 
 and had seen him, and was there till seven, and then took 
 his son Godfrey back riding with me, so that he must 
 have died very shortly afterwards, for the announcement 
 is in the ' Times ' this morning. 
 
 " Later. I called again at Rowfant and found to my 
 surprise the family not in mourning. My friend, instead of 
 being dead, is a trifle better, and talks of outliving some of 
 us. It is a mystery how the thing got into the ' Times,' 
 from which it has been copied into all the evening papers 
 with long obituary notices. [It was not till two days later 
 that he died at the age of seventy-four.] 
 
 " 22nd June. — Yesterday when I was in London I called 
 at half-past five on Margot, who is invalided. While we 
 were talking Sir William Harcourt came in, and their talk 
 turned at once to politics, the Cromwell statue debate, and 
 other interests of the moment, but nothing presaged what 
 at that very hour was happening in the House, namely, the 
 defeat of the Ministry on St. John Broderick's amendment 
 in Supply. Poor Margot, as it happened, was in some 
 measure responsible for the Government minority, for as I 
 left her a little after six I found yet another visitor, John 
 
 P 
 
2IO Princesse H denes Wedding [189S 
 
 Morley, at her door, and she kept him so late giving him 
 good advice that he missed the division! To-day I see the 
 account of it in the papers. 
 
 " 24^// June. — Rosebery has resigned, a feeble statesman 
 though a clever man, whom we shall never, I fancy, see 
 Prime Minister again. It seems there is to be a coaHtion 
 between Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Devonshire, under 
 Lord Salisbury's leadership. I am glad the imposture of 
 Whig Liberalism is defunct. 
 
 " Yesterday was my last day at Crabbet, for Crabbet is 
 let for three years, perhaps for four, and we take up our 
 abode at Newbuildings to-morrow. We have no need, with 
 so small a family as ours is, of so large a house, and New- 
 buildings is enough for all our wants, and I am in a mood 
 to loathe old things and pine for new; nevertheless, it was 
 a melancholy day for me in spite of the brave sun. 
 
 " 2i)th June. — The day of Princesse Helene's wedding to 
 the Duke of Aosta. The Comtesse de Paris had sent us an 
 invitation, and I drove down to Kingston with Judith, 
 where the wedding was, and then to Orleans House at 
 Twickenham. It was a da}' of heaven, a brilliant blue sky 
 with a light north wind to freshen the sun's heat. Judith, 
 of course, was late at starting, and so we arrived too late 
 to get inside the church, and the bride and bridegroom 
 were already coming out in procession. The Duke is under- 
 sized, of extremely dusky hue, his features good, but not 
 imposing. Behind them came her brother, the Duke of 
 Orleans, his broken leg still disabling him, and a little 
 after the Prince and Princess of Wales with their daughters, 
 and the Dukes of Coburg and Connaught, Tecks, Fifes, 
 and a number of foreign Princes and Princesses. In the 
 crowd of invited persons there were many French and a 
 few Italians. There were hardl_\- any English. Indeed, all 
 the English I saw were not a dozen. Leighton was there 
 and Lady Burdett Coutts, and a few men connected with 
 the Court, but almost no one belonging to general society. 
 Nor were there any English presents, which is strange, 
 but though living so long in England, they hardly knew 
 any English people. Then we all got into our carriages 
 and drove in procession through Kingston and Twicken- 
 ham, a really pretty sight, with multitudes of flags and 
 large crowds cheering and every window filled in the old- 
 
1895] The Queen s Kind Letter 211 
 
 fa^ihioned houses. There was something Hogarthian in it 
 all. In Orleans House tables were laid for the royal 
 personages and Ambassadors, but we, the less distinguished, 
 had to be content with what we could scramble for at 
 buffets. Then we went into the garden, where the bride 
 and bridegroom were making their round of congratula- 
 tions, and I had the privilege with others of kissing the 
 bride's royal hand. My wedding present of the Kelmscott 
 poems was laid out with the rest. Sweet personage, may 
 she be happy ! 
 
 " 26th June. — Called on Lady Lytton. She has just been 
 appointed Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen in the 
 Duchess of Roxborough's place, and she showed me Her 
 Majesty's autograph letter, which was very kindly and 
 even touchingly worded, saying she admired the way she 
 had borne her troubles, recalling Lytton's good services, 
 and in a postscript saying she was glad of Victor's recovery 
 from his recent illness. Certainly the old Queen has the 
 power of conveying her meaning in a few simple, not to 
 say commonplace, words so as to give the impression of a 
 true feeling, more than most women. It affected me to read 
 the letter, I hardly know why. 
 
 " 292'/z /?«^g.— Called on Harry Cust at the "Pall Mall 
 Gazette" Office. He is much improved since last year and 
 takes his editorship seriously. He told me that when he 
 began with the " Pall Mall Gazette " he had had a promise 
 of office as soon as the Tories should come into power, but 
 that is all now swept away. 
 
 " Then to Newbuildings, where I joined Anne, and we 
 took formal possession. It pleases me much to be there, 
 for it is far more of a hermitage than Crabbet was, and one 
 can forget here the worries of the world. 
 
 "■6th July. — Called on Betty Balfour, whom I found in 
 high spirits at the appointment of her husband as Chief 
 Secretary in Ireland. Gerald is a very able fellow and 
 will doubtless do well on his brother's lines, and I had 
 some talk with him about his prospects there. 
 
 " iitk Jul}'. — Pamela's wedding to Eddy Tennant, and 
 afterwards with Judith to a dance at Sibell Grosvenor's in 
 honour of it. George (Wyndham) was in delightful vein 
 and supped with Judith and me, entertaining us with his 
 Epicurean views of life. ' What we want in modern life,' he 
 
2 12 A Modern Funeral [1895 
 
 said, ' is to have more feasting, song, and flowers, and noise, 
 and to sit long and late with beautiful ladies, ourselves 
 crowned with wreaths.' Certainly his own entertainment, 
 the first he has e\'er given, was perfection. He has just 
 been returned for Dover unopposed, the first member of 
 the new Parliament. His is a happy nature. 
 
 " ii,th July. — To my Aunt Caroline Chandler's funeral at 
 Witley, driving there and back from Newbuildings, a full 
 forty-five miles through the oak country- of the Weald — 
 an almost entirely uninhabited district, \^'itley village, with 
 the exception of some half-dozen new cottages, is unchanged 
 from what I remember it as a boy, or for that matter from 
 what my mother knew it, as her drawings of it show thirty 
 years earlier. Only the church is changed, the inside having 
 undergone the modern rage of decoration. The funeral was 
 a shock to me, as it was conducted with cheerful music and 
 a merry peal of bells, which seemed to me absurd. The 
 old English services are all made ridiculous now with 
 pseudo-catholic ' mummeries.' They have lost their dignity 
 of old days, but it is of a piece with the whole English 
 character, which has changed from top to bottom in my 
 short fifty years of recollection. Here was m)- poor old 
 aunt, who, when she came to Witley first as a pretty bride 
 in 1845, was wedded soberly and in all decorum, now in 
 1895 at the age of seventy-two launched into a grave piled 
 up with flowers like a birthday cake, to the merriest strains 
 of the organ, strains to which we might with no impropriety 
 have danced. The only old-fashioned thing in the ceremony 
 was that her son's widow, who inherits the property, fainted 
 and was carried out. 
 
 " \gth July. — Lunched with Lady Galloway. There has 
 been a regular rout of the Liberals at the Elections. 
 Harcourt, John Morley, Lefevre, Arnold Morley among 
 the slain. Much talk of all this. Asquith has won or kept 
 his seat. 
 
 " \}ith Aug. — A visit from one Oppenheim, a Jew, who 
 has been travelling in Mesopotamia, and wants to go to 
 Nejd. [This Oppenheim was afterwards an agent of the 
 German Government attached to the German Legation 
 in Cairo, much concerned in his Government's intrigues 
 there.] 
 
 "■ i^th Aug. — Lunched with George Curzon at 5, Carlton 
 
i89sj George Citrzoii Undersecretary 213 
 
 House Terrace, which he has rented. We talked of things 
 poHtical, and of his own new position in the Government 
 as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He prefers this to 
 a minor place without power in the Cabinet. About Armenia, 
 in spite of the brave words in the Queen's speech to-day, 
 he agrees with me that they can do nothing. Russia, he 
 says, will never consent to an Armenian buffer State, even 
 if there were the materials to make one, and how can we 
 put pressure on the Sultan? In, truth it is impossible, and 
 the sooner they drop it the better, which. I fancy they will 
 do. He told me all the same that the horrors were not ex- 
 aggerated. I told him of Knowles wanting an article of 
 me about Egypt. This he deprecated in due Parliamentary 
 phrase. It was embarrassing the Government and defeat- 
 ing its own end. It would be better to wait a little till the 
 Government had had time to look about it, and the rest 
 which are the common excuses of Under Secretaries. He 
 said that he himself was entirel)' opposed to evacuation, or 
 change of any kind, that the French were out of court by 
 their having refused the ratification of the Wolff Conven- 
 tion,, and that he considered Lord Salisbury would be most 
 unwilling to re-open the question, though as yet Lord 
 Salisbury had said nothing to him on the subject, the 
 matter was not pressing. The Government did not believe 
 the rumours of any joint French and Russian action about 
 Egypt. All this after luncheon. 
 
 " Then to Merton to see the new tapestry, Botticelli's 
 Spring, which Morris is making for me there, and on to 
 Coombe where I dined with Bertram and Lawrence Currie, 
 Bertram full of old and interesting reminiscences. 
 
 " 2^th Aug. — A visit to Cromer, Newhaven Court, the 
 Lockers' house. 
 
 " Francis Palgrave was here in the afternoon, an interest- 
 ing man, garrulous, but in a good sense of the word, telling 
 stories, principally of Tennyson, reminiscences of whom he 
 is writing. He talked to me about his brother Giffard (the 
 Arabian traveller), and told me that in the last three years 
 of his life he was reconciled to the Church, and that this 
 had made him much happier and more contented. I asked 
 him how matters had been arranged about the wife and 
 children, seeing that Giffard was a priest and had been a 
 Jesuit. He said his brother had told him that no difficulty 
 
2 14 Giffard Palgraves End [1895 
 
 had been made, such cases having of course often happened 
 before. He was allowed to continue his domestic life, only 
 not conjugally; that Giffard had told him laughing was no 
 great privation. He was glad to hear me corroborate the 
 accuracy of his brother's account of the politics of Nejd 
 and its social condition. He was anxious I should believe 
 Giffard was never really, or ostensibly, a Moslem. 
 
 " Miss Kate Greenaway is also staying in the house. 
 
 " 26th Aug. — I have conie to Ockham for a night, where 
 all is much improved since Ralph came into his inherit- 
 ance. Miss Lawless, the novelist, is staying here, a well- 
 informed, clever woman, and a good talker." 
 
 On 8th September I left England once more for abroad. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 POLAND AND ARMENIA 
 
 I LEFT Newbuildings on the 5th, Anne coming up to 
 London to see the last of me (for I was going abroad 
 alone), and as my first stage to Gros Bois. 
 
 " 8//^ Sept. — Gros Bois. We are much occupied here with a 
 new catalogue Wagram is having made of the family papers. 
 Many of them are most interesting. Wagram's ancestor, the 
 father of Marshal Berthier, seems to have performed on a 
 certain occasion some small service at Versailles — he was in 
 a very subordinate position — helping to put out a fire in the 
 stables and also designing a star and baton for the Marshals 
 of France, and for these was ennobled by Louis XV. The 
 son was therefore not quite a parvenu when Bonaparte 
 attached him to his fortunes. He eventually became ' Due 
 de Neuchatel et Valangin, par la grace de Dieu et I'acte 
 imperial de Napoleon I, Empereur des Frangais ' (such is 
 the inscription over one of the doors of Gros Bois) and was 
 at one time possessor of Chambord. He died while Napoleon 
 was at Elba, and so avoided the final debacle. But the 
 Marshal's son signed an act of renunciation of the Duchy 
 of Neuchatel, and restored Chambord to its royal owners, 
 since when the descendants have remained Princes ot 
 Wagram at Gros Bois, a far more enjoyable if less splendid 
 possession. M. Jusserand was here last night, and we looked 
 through these papers together, with Duphot the young man 
 who is making the catalogue. 
 
 "Jusserand is a very small dark man, with large head of 
 the brachi-cephalic type — left at the present moment in 
 charge of the Foreign Office, his superiors being away aux 
 eaux — a clever talker, and, I should say, a very able official 
 as well as literary man. He was Chauvinist enough to 
 show emotion when reading the original of the capitula- 
 tion of Ulm signed by Mack, and later the document signed 
 
 215 
 
2i6 Jusserand mid HakUty [1895 
 
 by Ney and others, settling the line of military demarca- 
 tion in France with the Allies. There are among the docu- 
 ments some interesting letters from Napoleon and one from 
 Marie Louise signed ' Louise.' 
 
 " Another interesting man here yesterday was Ludovic 
 Halevy, who gave us reminiscences of the Second Empire 
 when he was Clerk in the Chamber of Deputies, and acted 
 in some sort as temporary Secretary to Morny. His read- 
 ing of the Empire is that which all who were much behind 
 the scenes have long known to be the true one, and which 
 History will adopt — namely, that Napoleon HI was not 
 by blood really a Bonaparte, and as little by character, a 
 phlegmatic, good-natured man, fond of ease and fond of 
 women, with a certain superstitious belief in his star, and 
 ambitious less by natural taste than by position. Morny, his 
 half brother, was at the beginning his guiding spirit, but 
 was ousted from favour by the Empress several years 
 before his death in 1865. The Empress Eugenie was with- 
 out doubt the cause of Napoleon Ill's latest misfortunes. 
 A beautiful woman and of good family in Spain, she was 
 all the same an adventuress, and had had more than one 
 lover besides the Duke of Sesto, whom she loved before 
 she came to Paris. The Emperor only married her because 
 she was clever enough to refuse him on other terms. She 
 led him an unquiet life, making him constant domestic 
 scenes, from which he fled to Marguerite Bellanger, at 
 whose apartment he was free from worries. (Marguerite 
 Bellanger was, if I remember rightly, the daughter of Bel- 
 langer, who kept Voisin's restaurant, and, when I was at 
 Paris, a professional lady of pleasure.) 
 
 " Halevy recounted an incident of which he was witness 
 when Morny, coming back from the Conseil des Ministres, 
 threw down his portfolio in a rage, and swore he would 
 never go again while the Empress was allowed to talk non- 
 sense there. ' L'Empereur fera la guerre,' he exclaimed, 
 ' un de ces jours pour lui eviter una scene de famille,' and 
 this was precisely the thing that happened. At the time of 
 the quarrel with Prussia in 1870, she had come suddenly to 
 the Council Chamber and dismissed the Ministers in her 
 husband's absence, saying : ' Messieurs, il y a conge 
 aujourd'hui. Nous sommes en fete. La guerre est declarde.' 
 Halevy is a capital talker — I should imagine of Hebrew 
 
1 S95] Otir Lord Mayor at Paris 217 
 
 origin, judging by his profile and other signs — a neighbour 
 of the Prince's here at Gros Bois, and intimate, too, with 
 the Alphonse Rothschilds. His son, a most interesting 
 young man of the serious student kind one reads of in 
 French novels but so seldom meets, was here on Friday — 
 an abler man, I should say, even than his father. Poor 
 Mme. Alphonse was also here — it being Berthe's wedding- 
 day — a sad woman, mourning her lost beauty and trying 
 to be gay. There was, of course, much talk of the attempts 
 made against Alphonse by the anarchists. He goes about 
 guarded ever)'vvhere by detectives. All complained of the 
 lack of government in France, and all blamed the Parlia- 
 mentary regime. 
 
 " i2th Sept. — Antonin. I passed through Paris on Sun- 
 day afternoon (the 8th) on my way to the Potockis 
 here in Poland, and spent a couple of hours at the Embassy, 
 or rather in the Embassy garden, to which Lord Dufferin 
 invited me. I had an hour alone in it, sitting at the farther 
 end, near the grille — in some sort a sacred spot for me. 
 Then Dufferin came to fetch me, and took me off to Lady 
 Dufferin, who was holding court for the Lord Mayor of 
 London on the lawn, all sitting on gilded arm-chairs on a 
 red carpet — the Lord Mayor, Sir Francis Reinalls, a 
 ridiculous, pompous little man, who has come over to Paris 
 to make a splash, bringing his gilt coach and four horses 
 with him. Dufferin tells me that at the Elysee Reinalls 
 took upon himself to compliment the President on his 
 royal bearing, and to invite him to stay with him at the 
 Mansion House. He seems to have made a fool of himself 
 all round. He told me himself that he had been to the 
 Theatre Francais, and had been so bored that he had gone 
 away to a Cafe Chantant, and I see the French papers 
 have got hold of the story, while the English ones contain 
 a protest that he has no commission at all to represent the 
 City of London in Paris. 
 
 " Dufferin was very kind and pleasant, as he always is 
 to me, and showed me his books. Among them was a 
 volume of Gregory's Memoirs, and he fired up when I 
 noticed it, repudiating with great indignation the story 
 told there of his aunt, Mrs. Norton, having sold the in- 
 formation of Peel's change on the Corn Law question to 
 the ' Times.' He assured me it was entirely false, as he had 
 
2i8 With Count Potocki in Poland [1895 
 
 traced the truth to Peel himself, who desired to clinch the 
 matter. He considered it a cruel libel on his virtuous aunt. 
 But Dufferin is touching in his family fidelity. 
 
 " At 6.30 I took train for Vienna, arriving there the 
 night of 9th September. Stayed at Sacher's Hotel, a very 
 excellent inn, and on the morning of the 10th, after calling 
 on Barrington and Clarke at the Embassy, and getting my 
 passport from them, I again took train, and so through the 
 following night and the morning of yesterday, arriving at 
 length somewhat tired and very dirty at Czerny Ostrov, 
 my final station. At the frontier, Voloschitzka, I had some 
 difficulty about my passport, of which the Russian author- 
 ities seemed suspicious, but with the help of Count Bielski, 
 a young Pole whom I had met in the train, got through. 
 At Czerny Ostrov a carriage and four was waiting, and I 
 was driven rapidly to Antonin, the last half of the road in 
 Countess Joseph Potocka's four-in-hand of four dark bay 
 Arab mares, very beautiful ones and beautifully matched, 
 going a great pace. The roads were good, there having 
 been no rain for long, and we did the distance of twenty- 
 two miles in about two hours. 
 
 " To-day I have been shown the stud. The Arab portion 
 of it is, I am sorry to say, in a lamentable condition com- 
 pared with what it was eleven years ago when I saw it last. 
 The reason is the want of proper stallions. For one reason 
 or another Potocki has been unable to procure a really first 
 class one, and the horse, ' Euclid,' which he bought in India 
 of Lord William Beresford for, I believe, 500 guineas, has 
 proved an absolute failure at the stud. His stock are coarse, 
 without beauty or action, and are woree than the worst we 
 have ever bred at Crabbet. They have not even the merit, 
 if it is one, of exceptional size. Of the six stallions he 
 showed me there was but one preserving the Arab type, a 
 dark chestnut with four white legs, ' Iflah,' a four-year-old 
 with nice action, bred by a horse he had from the Babolna 
 stud called ' Zarif,' out of a fine old mare, ' Khanjar.' The 
 rest were not worth looking at. ' Euclid ' himself, who has 
 been re-christened ' Obeyan,' is a horse not unlike ' Kars,' 
 with a fine fore-hand and good points, too, in the quarter, 
 but with a plain head (Kars had a fine one) of the convex 
 type, and lacking distinction all through. It is only 
 another proof of the mistake of breeding from a winner of 
 
1895] 
 
 His Arab Stud at Antonine 219 
 
 races if you want to get handsome Arab stock. The fastest 
 horses are, I beUeve, never, among Arabians, the best sires. 
 The mares, which we looked over in the afternoon, are far 
 better and deserve a better sire. There are a dozen really 
 good ones — the rest inferior — but the dozen are enough to 
 refound the stud, though several of the best are old. I regret 
 immensely having sold ' Shahwan ' to America, as he would 
 have been well employed here, and, except ' Ahmar,' whom 
 I cannot well spare, I have nothing old enough left to give. 
 The mares I admired most were ' Druha ' and her daughter 
 ' Nerissa," Zalotna," Luba,' ' Khiva,' ' Poppeia,' and ' Khalifa,' 
 the dam of ' Iflah.' But most of them had unworthy 
 foals to foot by 'Euclid.' On the whole it was a disappoint- 
 ing spectacle, and I spoke frankl}- to Potocki, or at least 
 as frankly as it is possible to speak in such cases. I found 
 him well aware of ' Euclid's ' failure. Then Countess Potocka 
 drove me round the oak wood and through the grounds, 
 which have been newly laid out and very well. 
 
 " i^th Sept. — I have had much interesting talk with 
 Potocki about Polish history, and the great part played in 
 it by his ancestors, who were many of them military leaders. 
 His cousins, the Sangusckos, were independent princes in 
 Lithuania 400 years ago; and these lands at Antonin and 
 Schepetowka lay on the high road — it is still called the 
 ' black road ' — of the Tartar invasions as late as 1 50 years 
 ago. To come to later times, he talked of the famous 
 Princess Czartoriska, his great-grandmother, who was the 
 beloved of Lauzun, and he has given me Maugras' book to 
 read, which has just come out. It is founded on Lauzun's 
 memoirs, which Potocki assures me are authentic, and the 
 original of which, privately printed, he has had in his hands. 
 I asked him why Maugras, instead of giving a Bowdlerised 
 rechauffe of it, had not quoted the original, and he said it 
 entered into quite impossible details, unfit for publication. 
 I would give a great deal to read the original as it stands, 
 for nothing strikes me more strongly than the identity of 
 the highly cultivated society of our day in London with 
 that of Versailles then. Not, I think, that we are so corrupt 
 in money matters, or perhaps quite so open in our love 
 affairs, but still the human nature of it is identical, and the 
 peculiarity of the co-existence of much high ideality in 
 principle with passionate love-making in practice. 
 
2 20 Biclgarian Politics [1895 
 
 " There is much cholera going on in the villages round 
 here. Potocki showed me a village to-day where 100 
 persons have died, a local outbreak, almost confined to the 
 province of Volhynia. 
 
 " 14M Sept. — Spent the day seeing Prince Sanguscko's 
 stud at Christowka, a really magnificent collection of 
 mares, no English or other than Arab blood having been 
 admitted. The flea-bitten greys were some of them quite 
 wonderful. There is, however, a great lack of promising 
 young stallions, the stallions in stud use being away 
 at Slavuta. Christowka is 20 versts — 16 miles — from 
 Antonin across the black earth of the steppe, now all 
 under cultivation — the few villages much swept by cholera. 
 Christowka itself has lost 160 persons. 
 
 " We were received by the manager and his Viennese 
 wife, a young bourgeoise who insisted on entertaining us. 
 The Antonin Director, who was with me, is an intelligent 
 man, a Pole from near Riga, and had been for several years 
 in the service of the Bulgarian Government. On the way 
 home he gave me a long and clear account of Bulgarian 
 politics. According to him (his name is Cherkowski) 
 Prince Alexander of Battenb^rg, with his many talents, 
 was too young for the position he was given, and made 
 many mistakes. The Russians — though as a Pole he had 
 no desire to praise them — were really governing the 
 country well Their administration was excellent, and 
 they had carried out in Bulgaria the reforms they only 
 talk of in Russia, the finance being especially good. It has 
 gone down rapidly since their departure. Prince Alex- 
 ander was sustained by Austrian and English help. Prince 
 Ferdinand he likes better. He, Ferdinand, is a quiet man, 
 much addicted to science, especially botany. He would 
 never have thought of accepting a throne but for his 
 mother. Ferdinand is incapable, Cherkowski says, of hav- 
 ing been concerned in Stambuloff's assassination, though 
 Stambuloff treated him with great arrogance. Stambuloff's 
 death was in all probability a private vengeance. He was 
 a man of the most corrupt life, taking advantage of his 
 official position to get women into his power, any who 
 came or whose husbands came to him with petitions. He 
 had violated many women, notoriously a certain singer 
 who was engaged to be married, he and the chief of the 
 
t89S] 
 
 P}'incc Sa7t2usckd s Stud 221 
 
 V3 
 
 police between them. The woman committed suicide on 
 account of it. He was hated for these crimes, and they 
 were probably the reason of his end. He, Cherkowski, was 
 at the head there of the veterinary department. The 
 Bulgarian Government had required of him to become 
 naturalized, but he had refused, so left their service to 
 enter that of Potocki. The Bulgarians were a clever people 
 with much outward polish, but quite corrupt. They dis- 
 liked all foreigners, but perhaps Russians less than the 
 rest. He does not believe that Russia will succeed in re- 
 covering her lost position in the country." 
 
 Slavuta and its stud have acquired a tragic notoriety since 
 this entry was written, having been the scene of one of those 
 hideous outrages which distinguished the Bolshevik revolu- 
 tion of 1917. Prince Sanguscko, the owner of the stud, was in 
 his country house at Slavuta, when a number of disbanded 
 soldiers recently returned from the Russian army broke 
 into his house and took him out of it and brutally ill- 
 treated him, killing him at last with their bayonets, and then 
 pillaging the chateau and destroying the whole of his 
 Arabian stud. This occurred in the autumn of 1917. 
 
 " \6th Sept. — I was to have left to-day for Kiev, but 
 heavy rain has fallen and the roads are impassable. 
 
 " \Zth Sept. — Potocki and I drove last night to Czerny 
 Ostrov and dined at the house there of a certain Countess, 
 once a woman of some fashion at Paris in the days of 
 Napoleon HI, still full of gossip, ancient and modern, for 
 she goes yearly to Nice for the winter. At Czerny Ostrov 
 she has a nice villa with gardens and grounds, and a select 
 circle of such fashionable friends as the town affords, with 
 an ancient admirer much dyed and painted. 
 
 " Then Joseph and I travelled on through the night and 
 arrived in the morning at Kiev. The country for thirty 
 miles or so south of Kiev is a great oak forest with spaces 
 of cleared land — no very large trees, but growing well, 
 they say, for the first 1 00 years, till their roots come to the 
 gravel, when their growth is stopped. Oaks and birches 
 are evidently the natural growth of the country, with alders 
 in the swampy places and a few other tregs, though there 
 is a certain admixture of Scotch firs, new comers I should 
 say. The Dnieper is the boundary beyond which the great 
 fir forests of the north begin. The cleared land is a wide 
 
222 To Kiev with Potocki [1895 
 
 desolation of stubbles and beetroot, stretching for miles 
 without hedge or landmark. 
 
 " Potocki's business in Kiev is connected with the sugar 
 trade, in which he, in common with all the landed proprietors, 
 is interested. The market now is overstocked, and he tells 
 me he is working his factories at a loss. A few years ago 
 the\- were giving a prodigious income, but the production 
 has become 25 per cent, more than the home consump- 
 tion, and the general world's sugar market at Odessa has 
 fallen below cost price. He has something like 30,000 
 acres of land in hand, and his stake in beetroot sugar is 
 a large one. While he went to his sugar conference, I made 
 the round of Kiev with his agent Kosacki, who showed me 
 everything. It is a very beautiful and interesting place 
 with the finest situation, perhaps, of any town in Europe. 
 The view northwards over the Dnieper and beyond over 
 the great forest towards Moscow is splendid, and this 
 ex'ening, with a wonderful effect of light from the setting 
 sun on the gilt cupolas, and a rainbow in the east, was 
 unimaginably grand. Kiev is a very ancient and holy city, 
 with fine churches, undergoing restoration, alas, in view of 
 the Emperor's coming visit. The Petchersk is especially 
 interesting, an immense Convent in the Citadel, thronged 
 just now with pilgrims from distant places in Russia, and 
 beneath it a catacomb to which one descends by a long 
 stair towards the river — a fine old-world place, hardly yet 
 ruined by the villainous modern taste. 
 
 " At the inn I made acquaintance with Count Ladislas 
 Branicki, who has arranged that I am to go to stay with 
 his Aunt, Countess Branicka, at Biela-Tzerkov to-morrow, 
 also with Count Pothofski, who has a stud of Arab horses, 
 and other friends of Joseph's. Our inn the Grand Hotel. 
 
 " igth Sept. — By early train to Biela-Tzerkov, changing 
 at Fastov. There I was met by Prince John Sapieha, who 
 had come with his niece, Mile, de Branicka, to see another 
 niece away by the train, both the girls very pretty in their 
 different ways. We then drove with four horses, handsome 
 bays, to Alexandrie, Countess Branicka's country house, a 
 very fine place with beautiful woods and pleasure grounds 
 where presentl)-, after I had been entertained with tea and 
 peaches, we went walking to see a pond netted. There is a 
 large family party gathered here for Countess Branicka's 
 
I89S] 
 
 A Visit to the Ukraine 223 
 
 birthday. Her married daughter, Princess Radowitz, with 
 her children, her nephew, Prince John Sapieha, and his 
 wife, her unmarried daughter, the pretty one, Sophie, a 
 Countess Zeilern and her daughter, an old Count Diodati, 
 a Swiss in attendance on Princess Radowitz, and a few 
 others whose names I have not quite learned. It is rather 
 perplexing to find oneself so complete a stranger among 
 so many. 
 
 " 20th Sept. — ^With Sapieha to Uzin, a stud belonging to 
 Count Xavier Branicki, a nephew of the Countess, lying 
 about sixteen miles away. We drove with four common 
 horses, and on the road Sapieha explained to me the 
 Branicki family history. Biela-Tzerkov was the capital of 
 the Ukraine, and in former times the headquarters of 
 Mazeppa. According to tradition the wild horse brought 
 him here from Warsaw. The steppe was then all grass, 
 but hardly anything of this remains now, all being under 
 cultivation. In the latter part of the eighteenth century an 
 immense territory of about a million and a half acres was 
 given to the Branicki of the day — I fancy the same as the 
 Branicki of the Lauzun Memoirs — in lieu of a long-stand- 
 ing claim he had against the Polish Government for the 
 raising and maintenance of troops. Pie was called the 
 Hetman. The territory was worth very little in those days, 
 but is now a principality, bringing;- in about Js. an acre, 
 the current rent. On the death of the late Count, however, 
 it was divided into four, the Countess's share as widow 
 and for her children amounted to 450,000 acres. She is 
 therefore immensely rich. The stud also was divided. 
 
 " The history of the stud, of which I have looked over 
 the books, seems to begin authentically in 181 3, though 
 Sapieha claims for it forty years more antiquity. It can 
 hardly be called a pure Arab stud, as the stallions then 
 imported stand entered as Turk, Turcoman, Anatolian, 
 Persian, Arab, and even in 1828 English, while the mares 
 are equally mixed. It is clear that they have run too much 
 after size; and at Uzin the type is nearly lost. Occa- 
 sionally, however, they produce a first-class horse, and I 
 saw two such, ' Hamat' and ' Haman,' a bay and a chest- 
 nut, of great beauty and ideal action, though 15.2 or more 
 in height. The latter especially is a nearly perfect specimen, 
 and will be retained to breed from. The mares are far 
 
2 24 Countess Branicka [1895 
 
 inferior in looks to the Sanguscko mares, having coarse 
 heads, long backs, and long legs. They carry their tails, 
 however, generally well. One cannot avoid the conviction 
 about them that they are of mixed origin. I only saw one 
 inare, ' Tamisa,' one would have supposed to be an Arab, 
 They are breeding now largely from an English thorough- 
 bred, which gives more saleable stock. They have, however, 
 a ver)' beautiful imported Arab stallion, ' Heyan,' of which 
 they are proud — a dark, full chestnut, compact, strong, and 
 of the highest quality. I should judge him to be a horse 
 from Nejd, as he is not quite of the Anazeh type. But 
 they know no more about him than that he was brought 
 to Warsaw by a dealer. I strongly ad\ised his use for 
 their stud. 
 
 " Countess Branicka is a most amiable woman. Her 
 mother, she tells me, was English, a sister of Colonel 
 Wilson Patten's wife, afterwards Lord Winmarleigh. She is 
 •clever and kind, most kind to me, doing everything to make 
 me comfortable, and that I ma}- feel at home. Her daughter 
 Sophie interests me, a strange, original face, with a pretty, 
 delicate figure, and a great look of distinction [after- 
 wards Countess Strozzi]. The other daughter is Princess 
 Radziwill. Sapieha (the Countess's brother) was brought 
 up in England, served in a Dragoon regiment, and talks 
 French with a slight English accent, English with sporting 
 slang of thirty years ago. His father was concerned in the 
 Polish rising of 1830, and had his whole estate in Russia 
 •confiscated, worth, Countess Branicka tells me, thirty 
 millions of roubles. His wife, a nice plain woman, had a 
 fortune, and they live in Galicia. He is most amiable to 
 me, showing me all things with great zeal. He is or has 
 been manager of the estate and stud. Altogether a distin- 
 guished family, living a large but unpretentious life. The 
 house, Alexandrie, is less than a palace and more than a 
 •common country house, and is supplemented with several 
 smaller houses in the grounds, where the guests have their 
 apartments. I should be happy, but that the weather again 
 broke up this evening, and it has become intensely cold. 
 
 " 2ii'^ Sept. — Drove another twenty-five versts with 
 Sapieha to see the Countess's own stud — the mares better 
 than those of yesterday. But they are dreadfully in want 
 -of good stallions. 
 
1895J A Long Distance Ride in Poland 225 
 
 " 2i>id Sept. (^Sunday). — A bad cold, so did no more stud 
 seeing — in bed instead. But in the afternoon to the oak 
 wood — they call it the park — a delightful place, where we 
 gathered orange-coloured mushrooms. Mile. Sophie drove 
 a pair of chestnut mares to-day perfect in shape and type. 
 All the world drives here. We went out, three four-in- 
 hands and three pairs — one four-in-hand of ponies being 
 driven by a child of Princess Radziwill of five years old. 
 There are two very fine teams, chestnuts and bays, and a 
 third of greys, besides the ponies. All is done on a large 
 and bountiful scale, with numbers of old servants, who 
 carry the children about and kiss their mistress's hand or 
 sleeve as in the East. The park is a sanctuary for wild 
 beasts and birds, and no gun is fired in it. But they have 
 an English pack of hounds, and go outside with it twice a 
 week fox hunting. Foxes are plentiful, but get soon to 
 earth. In the winter there are wolves, and Sapieha told me 
 of a run they had had of forty-two versts after an old one, 
 which they killed. The hounds were afraid of it, but 
 brought it to bay, and a peasant killed it with a cudgel. 
 
 " There has been a race this year at Warsaw, ridden by 
 young Russian officers, of 100 versts or 120 kilometres, say 
 seventy miles. It was run in the extreme of the hot weather, 
 and, out of forty-one starters, thirty-six horses died. The 
 race began at eight minutes past two in the afternoon, and 
 the first horse, an English thoroughbred, arrived at a few 
 minutes before eight. He survived. The second and third, 
 also English thoroughbreds, died soon after coming in, and 
 the fourth, an Arab from Sanguscko's stud, arrived fresh 
 an hour after the first and took no harm. The young 
 officers seem to have ridden like lunatics, and I fancy 
 the horses were only half trained. But I am to have pre- 
 cise details from Potocki. Most of the horses died actually 
 on the road. 
 
 I took an affectionate leave of Countess Branicka, for 
 she is a really good kind woman, and we have made great 
 friends. She has a house also at Warsaw, another at Kiev, 
 and another, I think, at Vienna. The rest of the party have 
 also been most friendly to me, and I am glad to have made 
 their acquaintance, where one sees them at their best, in 
 their own country. 
 
 " We had some talk about their political misfortunes. 
 
 Q 
 
2 26 At the Constantinople Embassy [1895 
 
 They all say the cause of Poland is lost, and that there is 
 nothing more to hope. The persecution is more religious now 
 than political. ' I should not be surprised to wake up any 
 morning,' said little Mile. Sophie, ' and learn that we had 
 to become Greeks or leave the country.' All the peasantry 
 and many of the bourgeoisie have conformed, and the 
 young generation of converted Poles are among the most 
 fanatical Russians. The elder brother of Countess Branicka's 
 husband was concerned in the rebellion of 1863, the last 
 flicker of Polish nationality, and was exiled to Siberia, the 
 property passing, I fancy, to the younger brother. 
 
 " 26th Sept. — Constantinople, or, rather, Therapia. I 
 arrived at daylight this morning in the Bosphorus, coming 
 by Russian steamer from Odessa. A lovely morning, with 
 a slight fog or haze, enough to give everything a mysterious 
 look, but brightening into full sunshine later, with fresh 
 north wind rippling the blue water. As we steamed down 
 the Bosphorus the Russian ship's mate, who talked some 
 English he had learned in Japan, described what might be 
 done with such a position in the hands of a European 
 Power, the continuous streets, the railways, the electric 
 light, etc. Thank Heaven, it is still in its old-fashioned 
 way. 
 
 " Arrived at Galata I was rowed straight to the bridge, 
 and on board one of the Bosphorus boats, and was so taken 
 back to Therapia, a slow three hours' trip, zigzagging from 
 side to side, and in full enjoyment of the day and place. 
 Breakfasted at Petala's, unchanged from its condition of 
 thirty-five years ago, when I first saw it on my way home 
 from Athens in this very month of September, i860. Then, 
 going to the Embassy, I found that I was expected to take 
 up my quarters there, and here I am. It is strange to be 
 here, with Philip for Ambassador and Violet Fane for 
 Ambassadress. Philip is altogether charming, unaffected 
 by his official importance, natural and kind. 
 
 " 2,'jth Sept. — There are staying in the house Pom 
 McDonnell, who is Lord Salisbury's private secretary, 
 come out, I fancy, to gather the Ambassador's innermost 
 thoughts for his master's benefit — a charming fellow — and 
 Henry Yorke and Lady Lilian. I spent the morning 
 
1895] Philip Currie on Egypt 227 
 
 answering letters from home, and went riding in the after- 
 noon with PhiHp and Pom over the heath-covered hills 
 behind Therapia. 
 
 " 2'iith Sept. — In the Embassy caique to Buyukdereh to call 
 on Nelidoff (Russian Ambassador) who, as an old friend, 
 received me cordially, but we did not talk politics. He 
 gave me a long and interesting account of a visit he had 
 paid with Ozerofif and Haymerle in i860 to Cairo, before 
 any of the European innovations began. With Philip and 
 Pom I have had long talks about Egypt, and a little about 
 affairs here. 
 
 " 2qth Sept. {^Sunday'). — Spent the day on board the 
 hnogene (the ambassadorial despatch boat) with Philip, 
 Pom, and Yorke — a perfect summer's day. We steamed 
 down the Bosphorus to the Sea of Marmora, landed on 
 Bulwer's island, circumnavigated Prinkipo, and then crossed 
 to San Stefano, and home about sunset, the walls of Stam- 
 boul, the Golden Horn, and the Asiatic shore from Scutari 
 upwards being lit up with the evening glow, a glorious 
 apparition. 
 
 " We had much political talk, first about Egypt, which 
 Philip considers to be a danger to us, but which he says 
 can never be evacuated — never in the political sense of 
 counting votes at an English election — though we may be 
 driven out of it. He says that the exclusion of France after 
 the war of Tel-el-Kebir, from her position in the Joint 
 Control, was entirely unexpected by him. He was away 
 from the Foreign Office at the time, and nothing surprised 
 him more than to hear it had been decided on. It was con- 
 trary to all our declarations and all our policy up to that 
 point. He considers that if the French had declared from 
 the outset their willingness to help in all arrangements and 
 share expenses incurred, it would have been impossible to 
 refuse them a renewal of their position. Lord Salisbury 
 had done what he could to fulfil the promise of evacuation, 
 but the Sultan's refusal to ratify the Drummond Wolff 
 Convention had 'fortunately' prevented its accomplish- 
 ment. The French policy had throughout been childish. 
 He was inclined to agree with me that it was a pity the 
 attempt of Constitutional Government in Egypt had not 
 been encouraged, as the lack of something of the sort here 
 was what was ruining Turkey. 
 
2 28 The Armenian Trouble [1895 
 
 " Bulwer's island is a barren and not very attractive little 
 rock, of a few acres in extent, with some rubbishy buildings, 
 now ruined, which Bulwer had spent much money on. He 
 had built it for Princess Ypsilanti, a Greek lady whom he 
 loved, and one of the rooms is still decorated with a mirror 
 let into the ceiling, in which she could survey her charms. 
 The Sultan had made him a present of it, and he had 
 eventually sold it at a fancy price, iJ^io,ooo, to the Khedive 
 Ismail. It is occupied by a caretaker who keeps a few lean 
 cows, its only inhabitants. The inner court of the house, 
 overgrown with a yellow rose tree, run wild, and a clematis, 
 would be pretty if the ruined buildings were less mean. 
 
 '' At San Stefano we inspected the new Russian church, 
 a memorial, not yet finished, of the extreme advance of the 
 Russian army in 1877. 
 
 " lOth Sept. — To-day Philip told me the history of the 
 Armenian trouble, and expressed his opinion distinctly that 
 the Sultan not only knew of the massacres, but had him- 
 self given the order for them and approved of them. I 
 think this extremely probable — indeed it is almost incon- 
 ceivable that, under so strong a despotism as is the present 
 regime, any provincial governor or commandant should 
 have dared act thus on his own responsibility. The Sultan's 
 orders probably were to stamp out the rebellion. The mis- 
 take Philip seems to me to have made, is that he took the 
 French and Russian Ambassadors into his counsels. They 
 were sure to play him false. He is now in a very difficult 
 and false position, for they do not back him up fairly at 
 home, and he has used such threats that he cannot well let 
 the whole thing drop, which would have been the wisest 
 course. As far as I understand his thoughts, he intends, in 
 case of the Sultan's continued refusal to accept the English 
 ultimatum, to take some violent action with the fleet, not 
 here nor yet at Smyrna, but elsewhere. He asked me what 
 would be the effect of blockading Jeddah and proclaiming 
 that the Sultan had ceased to be sovereign of the Hejaz. 
 I told him that the Grand Sherif would doubtless succeed 
 to the Sultan's power at Mecca if that power were destroyed, 
 but that he must not count on any portion of the popula- 
 tion joining English intervention. Much as they disliked 
 the Turks, they would dislike the English more. 
 
 " Communications between the embassy and the palace 
 
i89s] Riot at Constantinople 229 
 
 are all but interrupted at the present moment, nor is Philip 
 in touch with any section of the Turkish Moslem com- 
 munit}". His information depends almost entirel)- upon 
 what he learns from Christians — no Moslem daring to call 
 on him. Now and again he receives a letter in strict con- 
 fidence, but very seldom, from members of the old Liberal 
 party. He counts on the death or deposition of the Sultan, 
 which he thinks might take place at any moment, and he 
 would favour any attempt to revive a more liberal rc^gime 
 But, until there is a question as between the Sultan and 
 his Mohammedan subjects, he says, he is powerless to take 
 action. It is a mislortune of the position that England has 
 only treaty rights of intervention in favour of the Christian 
 Armenians. I talked all these matters over with Pom as 
 we rode across the wooded hills in the afternoon to Kilia. 
 
 " On our return we found Yorke and Lad)' Lilian and 
 Clara Singleton just returned from Stamboul, where they 
 had witnessed a disturbance, which may prove to be an 
 important one, betvveen a body of Armenians and the 
 authorities. According to the accounts given us by Philip 
 of the affair, it appears that some days ago he received 
 notice from the Armenian Revolutionary Committee that 
 they intended making a demonstration in favour of the 
 prompt settlement of the Armenian case. They were to 
 assemble in Stamboul and present a petition at the Ministry. 
 This seems now to have been^ forcibly prevented — a number 
 of arrests were made — the Armenians fired shots — a Turkish 
 colonel in full uniform was seen dead in the street — the 
 Turks were allowed by the police to arm themselves with 
 cudgels — some Armenians were beaten to death — and six 
 others were bayonetted at the Zaptieh. But accounts differ 
 greatly. The cavass who escorted the Yorkes declares that 
 his party was menaced, and that he drew his revolver to 
 protect them. But Yorke assures me that nothing of the 
 sort took place as far as his party was concerned. All they 
 saw was the Turks arming themselves with the cudgels — 
 great crowds, and men being carried away in carriages with 
 their arms bound. Still it has produced much excitement, 
 and there is talk of revolution, massacres, and who knows 
 what more. 
 
 " \st Oct. — The news to-day about the Armenian riot is 
 that the deputation arranged by the Armenian Revolu- 
 
230 General Blunt Pasha [189S 
 
 tionaiy Committee consisted of 2,000 men, who were to 
 meet at Kapu and to march to the Ministry (the Porte), 
 while a deputation of women were to go to Yildiz. On 
 their assembling, however, the police, forewarned of their 
 intention, stopped and arrested the leaders. The Armenians 
 then fired revolvers, and the Bimbashi of the Police was 
 killed. Arrests were then made, the police, it is said, con- 
 niving at the Mohammedans of the quarter arming them- 
 selves with cudgels and beating the Armenian prisoners. 
 Sixty Armenians are reported killed and fifteen of the 
 police. The last news is that 1,000 Armenians, with some 
 v/omen and children, are being besieged in a church in the 
 Armenian quarter. The revolvers and knives found on the 
 Armenians arrested were all of one pattern, a fact which 
 points to premeditation of defence, if not of attack. All 
 this reminds me much of what took place at Alexandria 
 in 1882 when the fleet was ordered there. I expect to 
 see the programme repeated here. There will be a cry of 
 ' Europeans in danger ' ; the fleet will be ordered up to the 
 Sea of Marmora; some British sailors will be mobbed on 
 shore ; a British Consul will be assaulted ; and Stamboul 
 will be bombarded. I am glad I am here to exercise what 
 slight restraining power I can, though I am glad to say 
 Philip shows no sign yet of having lost his head or lost his 
 temper. We drove in the evening to the aqueduct, a very 
 lovely evening. 
 
 " 2nd Oct. — I went in the Embassy launch to Constan- 
 tinople to-day to lunch with my old relative, Walter Blunt 
 Pasha. We landed at the railway station on Seraglio Point, 
 and drove across the bridge, where all things had returned 
 to their usual quiet. The Pasha tells me the Armenians 
 who formed the deputation had been warned not to come 
 in large numbers, and not to come armed. They therefore 
 divided themselves into groups. One of these was stopped 
 by the police, and, an altercation arising, the Bimbashi 
 struck the leading Armenian with his sword, whereupon 
 the man nearest him drew a revolver and shot the Bim- 
 bashi through the head. This led to a general riot ; arrests 
 were made and men killed on both sides. There seems no 
 doubt that the Moslems of the quarter were encouraged to 
 arm themselves with staves. He says, however, that the 
 Government is afraid now that the Softas who took part in 
 
1895] Curries View of Abdttl Hamid 231 
 
 the riot against the Armenians will continue it against the 
 Government. The Sultan, he says, has become very un- 
 popular in the last two years, and everybody would really 
 be glad to get rid of him. Even the highest officials are 
 kept in a state of tutelage which galls them severely. ' I 
 myself,' he said, ' could not so much as go away for forty- 
 eight hours to Broussa without permission from the Sultan 
 himself Neither the Minister of War nor the Grand Vizier 
 could give it me.' The Softas, too, are tired of Abdul 
 Hamid, who they think is ruining the country. The army 
 has been unpaid for five months. 
 
 " Norman, a newspaper man, came in and told me tales 
 of assaults and assassinations of Armenians last night by 
 the mob. But as yet neither Europeans nor Greeks have 
 been molested. I do not think the matter is likely to go 
 much farther at present. The chief Armenians went to-day 
 to the palace to arrange terms for the men shut up in the 
 churches, and are believed to have been successful. I find 
 Philip very strong on the necessity of getting rid of Abdul 
 Hamid. ' We have come to the conclusion,' he said to-day, 
 ' that it will be necessary to kill him. To depose him would 
 be very difficult, perhaps impossible.' I do not suppose 
 that he would do this by any direct instigation, but he 
 would certainly countenance a revolution which should 
 proceed by this means. The idea is in the air, but twenty 
 years of absolute despotism have weeded out the more 
 venturesome spirits. 
 
 " I have written a long letter on the political situation 
 here to Lady Lytton, who will, as likely as not, show it to 
 the Queen, as she is now in waiting at Balmoral. Archibald 
 Lamb has arrived from England, Lady Currie's brother. 
 
 " T^rd Oct. — The Queen's Messenger, old Conway Sey- 
 mour, was despatched to-day. So I was busy writing 
 letters. Philip went in with him to the Porte to call on the 
 new Grand Vizier, Kiamil Pasha, who is supposed to be 
 more favourable to English policy than the last, Said 
 Pasha. But I fancy there is little real difference. I re- 
 member Kiamil at Aleppo in 1877, a little man of Jewish 
 origin, who had once been tutor to the Khedive Tewfik. 
 
 "4//? Oct. — In the launch to the mouth of the Black 
 Sea, and in the afternoon to the Sweet Waters of Asia in 
 the ten-oared caique, a pretty sight. Philip saw the Grand 
 
232 Armenian Secret Committee [1S95 
 
 Vizier to-day, having missed him yesterday. He tells me 
 the attacks on Armenians still continue, and the churches 
 are still full of refugees. It is certain, however, that the 
 Armenians are being pushed on by the Revolutionary 
 Committee. It is a Secret Committee prompted, Philip 
 tells me, by Russian Nihilists; and the trouble has been 
 caused by the arrest of Armenians suspected of belonging 
 to it, and their torture in prison. On the other hand 
 murders have been instigated by the Committee, of Armen- 
 ians suspected of betraying their cause. They seem to 
 count on English help, and talk of an independent .Armenia 
 under an English Prince. All this is, of course, impossible, 
 but it is the fault of our people, who have encouraged a 
 rising they are really powerless to assist. On the other 
 hand the Sultan, Philip thinks, has a design of exterminat- 
 ing the Christian Armenians in the provinces, just as the 
 Emperor of Russia is exterminating the Catholic Poles, 
 and for the same reason, to govern the country more easily. 
 The delay in settling the Armenian question, raised by 
 England, has prompted the Committee to more desperate 
 measures. It is a curious state of things, which Philip says 
 can only end in the deposition or death of Abdul Hamid. 
 We discuss these matters daily, Philip and I and McDonnell 
 and Yorke. 
 
 " On Monday I have arranged to go to Pera to stay with 
 General Blunt, and on Wednesday I depart for Egypt. 
 
 " 5^// Oct. — A long ride with McDonnell in the forest of 
 Belgrade. He asked me whether I thought Lady Currie 
 would make a good Ambassadress at Paris. I had heard 
 from Lady Galloway that Paris had been promised to Lord 
 Londonderry, and that in any case Philip would not have 
 it. McDonnell, however, being Lord Salisbury's private 
 secretary, doubtless knows best, and I trust Philip may 
 have it. He told me some interesting particulars about his 
 chief, his many virtues and his great tolerance for those 
 who had none. McDonnell is a charming fellow, with much 
 of the Kerr eccentricity, for he is through his mother a Kerr. 
 
 " In the evening a large dinner party to the Russian 
 and Austrian Ambassadors. ... A sudden change of 
 weather in the night, a violent thunderstorm with heavy 
 rain, and now a strong north wind. It is time I was away 
 in Egypt. 
 
1895] Professor Vambiry 233 
 
 " 6th Oct. {Sunday). — A day of wind and rain, no one 
 moving out of doors till about sunset, when I took Pom out 
 for a walk in the Embassy garden. There have been great 
 comings and goings between Philip and the other Em- 
 bassies, for they are preparing some joint action on the 
 Sultan to stop the rioting in Constantinople. Pom is more 
 communicative now than Philip, and I hope I have been 
 able to indoctrinate him a bit in my ideas. 
 
 "Jth Oct. — The weather has cleared, and I drove in to 
 Pera in an open carriage, and am now in the house of my 
 ' relative ' at 5 1 rue Kabristan, an old-fashioned little box 
 of a place with a bow window looking over the Golden 
 Horn. General Blunt has been some twenty years in the 
 Sultan's service, and received his promotion to the rank of 
 Ferik, General of Division, only yesterday — a fine-looking 
 old man, who has no other duty than to attend the Selamlik 
 every Friday, and wear a handsome uniform. 
 
 " Professor Vambdry came to dinner and Capt. Norman, 
 and we had a most interesting evening. The position here 
 at Constantinople, according to these, is this: The Armen- 
 ians, having unquestionably begun the disturbance, are now 
 being harried by the joint action of the police and the mob. 
 The mob are encouraged, or at any rate allowed, to break 
 into the khans at night where the Armenians congregate, 
 and sometimes into private houses, and beat the people 
 they find in them to death with sticks. In some instances 
 the police force admittance at the front door while the 
 Armenian escapes at the back door only to fall into the 
 hands of fellows waiting for him in the street. Thus several 
 hundreds seem to have been killed. The mob is ostensibly 
 headed by Softas, students of the University, but it is 
 probable that these are often police agents in the Softa 
 dress. At any rate it is certain that the police connive. 
 The Armenian churches are full of refugees. Norman has 
 been busy going round to these and to the Patriarch's 
 house, where they also congregate, and told us many tales. 
 
 " Vambdry was very communicative. He talked strongly 
 against the Sultan in this business, although he has been a 
 favourite at the palace. He declares that, though super- 
 stitious, the Sultan is at heart a free thinker, his religion 
 being with him a matter of policy, and he related several 
 anecdotes bearing on this point. It is the Sultan's brother 
 
2 34 The Armenian Question [1895 
 
 and heir presumptive, Rashid/ who is a true ' fanatic' The 
 Sultan has a deliberate political purpose, to diminish and 
 drive out the Armenians, imitating in this the Emperor of 
 Russia in his treatment of the Poles and the Jews. Vambery 
 is of opinion that Abdul Hamid cannot long retain his 
 throne, and agrees with me as to the desirability of renew- 
 ing the Constitution of 1876. This was the best chance 
 Turkey ever had of putting herself on a level with other 
 European nations. It is the best chance still. But it can 
 hardly be under the present Sultan. 
 
 '"&th Cc^. — With Godfrey Webb, Mrs. Horner, Mrs. 
 Crawshay, and Lord Llandaff (Matthews) to see the 
 Museum and St. Sophia's — and with Norman to see the 
 street door of the Armenian church in Pera. 
 
 "9^/z Oct. — Left Constantinople for Egypt. 
 
 " i2th Oct. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd, Elhamdu I'lllah. 
 
 Epitome of the Arinenian Question., written by me on board- 
 ship on my way to Alexandria. 
 
 " I. The Sultan, to prevent Armenia being given autonomy, 
 on the ground of its possessing a Christian majority in any 
 one province, encourages the Mohammedans of the Ar- 
 menian provinces to ill-treat the Christians so as to force 
 them to emigrate. 
 
 " 2. The Christian Armenians, under the direction of a 
 secret Committee organized by Russian Nihilists, and en- 
 couraged by English sympathy, refuse to pay taxes at 
 Samsun. 
 
 " 3. The Sultan orders their resistance to be crushed at 
 all cost. 
 
 "4. The Turkish military Governor crushes it with great 
 barbarity. 
 
 " 5. The English Government, under Rosebery, urged by 
 its Liberal supporters, intervenes. Philip Currie is urged to 
 activity in repeated despatches. 
 
 " 6. The ' Times,' seeing in the Armenian question a 
 useful counter-irritant to the Egyptian question, chimes in. 
 
 " 7. The English Government invites the French and 
 Russian Governments to join them. This at Philip Currie's 
 initiative. 
 
 ' Mohammed Rashid, afterwards Sultan Mohammed V. 
 
i89sj Epitomized 235 
 
 " 8. These, believing the English Government to be willing 
 to partition Turkey, accept the proposal of joint action. 
 N.B. Rosebery probably is willing to partition Turkey. 
 
 " 9. Rosebery goes out of office in England. In Russia 
 Giers dies and is succeeded by Labanov. A change of policy 
 ensues. 
 
 " 10. France and Russia, knowing that Lord Salisbury, 
 now at the Foreign Office, will not consent to the partition 
 of Turkey, back out of joint action with England. 
 
 "II. Salisbury, to avoid questions in Parliament and to 
 gain time, professes to go on alone. 
 
 " 12. The Sultan, secretly reassured at Paris and St. Peters- 
 burg, stiffens his back. The negotiations at Constantinople 
 are dawdled out. 
 
 " 13. Gladstone makes his Armenian speech at Chester. 
 Subscriptions are opened in England. 
 
 " 14. Salisbury, to make show of being in earnest, orders 
 a British fleet to the Dardanelles. 
 
 " 15. The Armenian Committee, encouraged by the ap- 
 proach of the English fleet, and believing Salisbury to be 
 in earnest, and that England will undertake the job of 
 coercing the Sultan single-handed, organizes a demonstra- 
 tion at Constantinople. This is done with Philip's privity. 
 
 " 16. The Sultan orders the Armenian demonstration to 
 be crushed. 
 
 " 17. The Armenians are crushed at Constantinople with 
 great barbarity. 
 
 " 18. ?? 
 
 " N.B. My impression, gathered from what Philip has told 
 me, strongly is (i) that he was notkeen, at the outset of the 
 Samsun affair, to intervene, but took the matter up under 
 Rosebery's orders; (2) that he was responsible for the part- 
 nership with France and Russia; (3) that having embarked 
 in the business he has since made it one personal to him- 
 self; (4) that for the last six months, at least, he has been 
 in communication with the Revolutionary Committee, prob- 
 ably acting in concert with them; (5) that he was privy to 
 the demonstration of 30th September, probably encouraged 
 it, though perhaps not its being armed. It is he who told 
 me that the Armenian Committee was organized by Russian 
 Nihilists. This Committee has for its object, not union with 
 Russia, but the establishment of an independent Armenia 
 
2 
 
 6 Armenian Objects L'^9S 
 
 under English protection. They would take annexation to 
 Russia as a pis-alkr. But that is not their object." 
 
 I found out afterwards that on Giers' death the Russian 
 policy towards Armenia underwent an entire change, 
 though Philip Currie was not aware of it at the time. In- 
 stead of the old policy of protecting the Christian sub- 
 jects of the Porte, Labanov's policy was to encourage the 
 Sultan to exterminate the Armenians as allies of Russia's 
 own Nihilists. It is doubtful whether the change was com- 
 municated to Nelidoff, a diplomatist of the old school of 
 Christian protection; and I am inclined to think that he 
 was in good faith in continuing his own sympathy with the 
 Armenians, and expressing it to Currie. But of this later. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ADVANCE ON DONGOLA 
 
 " 14/A Oct. 
 
 I ARRIVED at Sheykh Obeyd and remained there 
 only a fortnight, going on from Cairo up the Nile to 
 visit Upper Egypt and Nubia, a part of the Nile Valley 
 still new to me. I travelled on this occasion alone, my 
 family not having yet arrived, and got as far south as 
 what was then the extreme frontier of Egypt towards the 
 Soudan. 
 
 ■' 2gth Oct. — Left Sheykh Obeyd for the Upper Nile, 
 taking AH Suffraji with me as body servant. 
 
 " Passing through Cairo called on Gorst, who begged me 
 to inquire on my journey whether there was any ill-feeling 
 in Upper Egypt between Moslems and Copts, and on other 
 points to get him what information I could. He told me 
 that as to Philae, the reservoir scheme was for the time laid 
 by, the finances being not quite safe, and the political con- 
 ditions too uncertain. 
 
 " At sunset I drove out beyond the Kasr el Nil bridge, to 
 enjoy the cool breeze and see the villages still partly sur- 
 rounded by water, and at nine I started by train. I travelled 
 all night, comfortably enough but for the exceeding dust, 
 with a fine moon in its second quarter, and a splendid 
 morning star, showing the country still half inundated. 
 People are beginning to sow their beans and wheat in the 
 immense flats of mud. In other places the plain is covered 
 with sheep feeding on the new green grass before it is 
 ploughed. Sugar cane is the only growing crop. 
 
 " ipth Oct. — At half-past ten i-eached Girgeh, where the 
 railway ends, and took boat in a stern-wheel steamer 
 leaving at one. No first-class passenger besides myself, 
 except three French engineers connected with the railway 
 now being constructed to Keneh. With one of them, Megie, 
 
 ■^37 
 
238 Eggs One Hundred for a Piastre [1895 
 
 I had some interesting talk. He has been thirty-five years 
 in the country, having come as a boy with his father, a 
 protege of Linant Pasha — now for eight years in Upper 
 Egypt — intelHgent and kindly. He tells me there is abso- 
 lutely no ill-will between Moslems and Copts — never was 
 any, even in the time of Arabi — knew Arabi — considered 
 him a brave homme — had remained at Kaliub till after the 
 bombardment, when he left by the last train for Suez — ■ 
 could have stayed on, if he had liked, in securit)- at Cairo, 
 though perhaps not in the villages. I asked him whether 
 the fellahin were better off now or in Said Pasha's time. 
 ' Dans le temps de Said,' he answered, ' les oeufs se ven- 
 daient cent pour une piastre. Voila ce que j'appelle la 
 misere. Pour le bien etre, oui. lis etaient a leur aise, et les 
 impots etaient moins elev^s. Mais ils n'etaient pas aucourant 
 de la civilisation.' A characteristic French answer. This 
 is a good specimen of the ideas even intelligent foreigners 
 have, and he certainly spoke with sympathy of the fellahin. 
 Stopped for the night at Farshut, where they are making 
 the new railway bridge. It has been sweltering hot all the 
 afternoon, thermometer 85, but cool after sunset. 
 
 '' i\st Oct. — Travelling due east, a pleasant wind in our 
 faces — multitudes of birds, not yet scared awaj- by the 
 tourists' guns, herons, pelicans, little white herons, cormor- 
 ants, pied kingfishers, hoopoes — few signs of European 
 life — immense crops of millet, taller than a camel and 
 rider, this makes the banks green. The Nile has fallen 
 three metres, and the shadoufs are at work. This is the 
 season to see the Upper Nile, or any part of it for that 
 matter. I never had a pleasanter fortnight at Sheykh Obeyd 
 than since the 12th, when I returned there — the garden 
 a paradise of birds and beasts, two wolves every evening 
 in the palms at El Kheysheh, and numberless foxes — 
 millions of sparrows roosting nightly in the orange trees 
 (so that the whole garden smelt in the morning like a bird- 
 cage), everything perfection. 
 
 " Past Keneh there are splendid reaches of the river, 
 with banks beautifully wooded with sont trees in full 
 flower, besides abels, nebuks, and palms of both sorts — no 
 lebbeks nor gemeysehs, though I saw a huge dead trunk of 
 a gemejseh by the water side. The lebbek, though an old 
 Egyptian tree, seems to have become almost extinct till 
 
iS9s] 
 
 Luxor and Memnon 239 
 
 the present century, when it was reintroduced with the 
 other modern improvements. There can be none in the 
 country older than seventy or eighty years, big trees as 
 they are. 
 
 '■ ist Nov. — Luxor. The Luxor Hotel is open, but empty 
 with the exception of an invalid doctor (Dr. Ruffer) and 
 his wife, and Newbury, an archaeologist, who comes in for 
 meals, having been here through the summer. Tourists 
 there are none. I went out before sunrise and looked at 
 the temple, and later to Karnak. The ancient Egyptians 
 seem always to have built on the Nile mud, a mean 
 foundation. 
 
 " The Consul, Ahmed Eff Mustafa, called on me and 
 invited me to luncheon, an Egyptian meal served with 
 much hospitality. He is an honest, good man, of the fellah 
 type, very proud of his visitors' book, which dates from 
 1855, and is a pretty complete history of modern Egypt. I 
 found my brother Francis' name and Alice's, and Lady 
 Herbert's party, and the Mures and Spencers, who were 
 here in dahabiahs in (the autumn of) 1863, and Lady 
 Dufferin's in 1858, with a vast number of others recalling 
 old memories, Strangford's, Beaufort's, down to ' H. M. 
 Stanley's of the " New York Herald," ' and General 
 Gordon's in 1884, and Lord Waterford's last year, who shot 
 himself a month ago — nearly all dead now. 
 
 " 2nd Nov. — Across the river before sunrise to the statue 
 of Memnon and the temples of Gournah and Medinet 
 Habou. The latter is a really fine thing, and I was able to 
 see it alone without guides or fellow sightseers. But I am 
 left with the impression that the Nile itself, with its great 
 flow of water and its ever green banks and eternal youth 
 is the really interesting thing, far finer than its monuments. 
 These are interesting as part of the river's history, not the 
 Nile because of them. The greatest of human works are a 
 very small matter, after all, and the world would be hardly 
 poorer if mankind had never been — greatly richer, indeed, 
 seeing how much beauty we have destroyed. To Karnak 
 again in the evening, and rode through by the light of the 
 full moon. 
 
 " '^rd Nov. — Again across the river to see some minor 
 rnonuments not worth visiting. I was followed by a troop 
 of little girls whom the tourists have debauched with 
 
240 Minshatti Bey [1S95 
 
 bakshish. I thought at first they were Ghazawiyeh, so 
 shameless were they, a sight I have never seen before in 
 all the lands of Islam. Coming in, I received a visit from 
 Minshatti Bey the Ababdeh Sheykh to whom I had sent 
 to tell him I was here. He is a delightful old man, whom 
 our military people have quarrelled with, suspecting him 
 of Mahdist tendencies. Kitchener deposed him trom the 
 Sheykhat and put in another, Beshir Bey, in his place, 
 \\\\o now lives at Assouan under the eye of the Govern- 
 ment, and does their business with the tribe. But Minshatti 
 is the real Sheykh. The young Khedive, when he was here, 
 sent for Minshatti, and made much of him, and gave him 
 a robe of honour. This was made one of the points of 
 Kitchener's quarrel with the Khedive. The old man tells 
 me that the Sirdar now treats him better, and he is allowed 
 to go about where he likes, and is not molested by the 
 police. He promised — but I think rather doubtingly, for 
 he is probably afraid — to send one of his relations with me 
 if I went travelling, as I intend to do this winter, among 
 the Ababdeh. 
 
 " Had some talk with Dr. Ruffer, who is a distinguished 
 man of science, a bacteriologist. He had a paralytic stroke 
 six months ago (it was a case of blood poisoning caused by 
 one of his experiments), and is here for his health. He is 
 looking for bacteria in the desert sand. 
 
 " Later I went to Minshatti's house, which is just outside 
 the town, a clean, new building, where he received me with 
 carpets spread on the mastaba, a nice cool place. I asked 
 him about the Soudan, and the Mahdi, and the Khalifa, 
 and he told me much that was interesting. He never saw 
 the Mahdi himself, but several of his relations knew him 
 when he was a najar (carpenter), a boat builder at Dongola. 
 He was an aleni and ■a.faki; but his political fortunes were 
 the work originally of Jafifir Be)-, who had quarrelled with 
 the Government. He said the Mahdi was a good man; and 
 as long as he lived everybody in the Soudan believed in 
 him as the true Mahdi. But the Khalifa had ruined every- 
 thing. The reason of the Baggara power was that the 
 Khalifa had put forward all the best men of the other 
 tribes to fight, and these had got killed in the wars, while 
 the Baggaras were held in reserve and reaped the profits. 
 The Khalifa had got possession of all the firearms in the 
 
i89s] Dongola under the Khalifa 241 
 
 country on the pretext of having them in readiness to 
 resist an invasion, and so the Baggaras, his own tribe, were 
 the onl}' ones thus armed. El Nejumi had made his ex- 
 pedition, which ended at Toski [this was the battle won by 
 Grenfell, see later], because an attempt had been made to 
 poison him, and he wanted to get away somewhere where 
 he should be his own master. The chiefs of the tribes when 
 not killed in war had been got rid of on various pretexts 
 by the Khalifa. They had been accused of treason and put 
 into a kind of fetter which Minshatti described to me as 
 being a long tube of iron holding the arms straight out 
 from the shoulder to the wrist. A man with his arms thus 
 fettered wa.s helpless and died in a month. Thus only 
 children were left in the tribes, and the Baggaras, an ignoble 
 tribe with whom the Jaalin and Kababish and Hadendowas 
 and Ababdeh would not in former times intermarry, had 
 got all power into their hands. 
 
 " I did not, however, gather from him that the fellahin 
 were ill off. He told me durra was at three reals the ardeb, 
 and all things were plentiful. But the richer people suffered 
 exactions, so that it was the common cry that the Baggaras' 
 rule was worse than the rule of the Turks. He talked a 
 good deal about Salatin (Slatin) and Neufeld. He said 
 that an expedition from the Government would be joined 
 by everyone in the Soudan. I asked him if it would be so 
 if the expedition was an English one. He said that the 
 opinion now in the Soudan had changed, and that people 
 there no longer regarded the kiifara (infidels, meaning 
 Christians) as they did ten years ago. Many of them had 
 been wounded and taken prisoners, and had afterwards 
 been released, and had related at home that the kufara 
 had treated them well. As Minshatti was certainly sus- 
 pected of being in league with the Mahdists, and probably 
 was so a few years ago, his evidence is of more value than 
 most. But I expect that the Baggaras are stronger in the 
 country than he quite makes out. The noble tribes are 
 doubtless jealous of them, as there are always jealousies 
 among Arab tribes. Of his own position he said that he 
 was one of the three great Sheykhs of the Ababdeh, the 
 others being Beshir and Saleh Ibn Khalifeh, lately killed 
 at Murad. They each used to receive ^40 a month from the 
 Government, but Beshir's allowance had laeen reduced toi;'32. 
 
 It 
 
242 Koni Ombo and Assouan [1895 
 
 and his own to ;£'s. He asked me to try and get his raised. 
 I said I would try to do so, but fear there is no chance. 
 
 " A,th Nov.— On board the Ibis. We passed Erment this 
 morning where there are many lebbek and gemeyseh trees 
 apparently twenty years old, also large factories and some 
 cotton cultivation. I did not notice any dogs there, though 
 Erment is famous for its large rough breed. The dogs 
 generally of the Upper Nile are rougher than those in the 
 north. Matana, a beautifully wooded place, was one of 
 the Khedive Ismail's properties. Esneh in the afternoon, 
 away from the river with two square masses of ancient 
 stonework on mounds of rubbish. Stopped for the night at 
 Silsilis, the moon very splendid, as red and bright as a fire 
 lit just under it when it rose. 
 
 " My companions on board are three or four English 
 officers of the Egyptian army, with the limited conversa- 
 tion of their kind. But I like young Broadwood who com- 
 mands the cavalry at Wady Haifa. 
 
 " '^th Nov. — Some attractive desert places on the left 
 bank where cultivation has been abandoned and its place 
 taken by kalfa grass and green bushes — the palms gone 
 wild. There are a good many horses turned out, tethered 
 in the barley to graze, and on the durra. Some of them 
 are bays with white faces and four white legs, probably of 
 the Dongola breed — tall, with straight shoulders and droop- 
 ing quarters. Kom Ombo close to the river, temple and 
 fort on a natural mound. The river is now generally from 
 a kilometre to a mile broad, a few mud banks beginning to 
 show in places. 
 
 " At 1.30 arrived at Assouan. It has a European appear- 
 ance. The approach to it is fine. Having made acquaintance 
 on board with Mustafa Bey Shakir, deputy mamur of 
 Assouan, I inquired of him what government lands there 
 were for sale — this for Evelyn, who has an idea of purchas- 
 ing here — and he sent me on a donkey to look at a build- 
 ing belonging to the Government known as the Mukhtab 
 el Miri el Buhari, about two miles down the river. There 
 are well wooded gardens near it, which the guard said 
 might be bought from the fellahin owners for i^io and ;^I5 
 tlie feddan. The Government is asking .^300 for the build- 
 ing. In a fe\^' years the railway will be brought near it, and 
 it might not be a bad purchase. 
 
1895] Philae still Unspoiled 243 
 
 " Then by train to Shellal, put my things on board 
 the steamer, and spent the evening sailing about Philze and 
 the edge of. the cataract, one of the lovehest things I 
 remember of the kind. Indeed, the only recollection I 
 can compare with it is the boating expedition we made on 
 the great tank at Hyderabad ten years ago. It was a per- 
 fect evening, and the rocks and swirling water in the 
 twilight, and the boat with the Berber crew singing were 
 everything one could imagine of Philae. 
 
 "6th Nov. — Rode on donkey-back before sunrise to see 
 the position of the proposed dam, which is a mile or so 
 below Philae. Philae, as it is, is perhaps the one perfect 
 thing in the world, and anything added to or taken from it 
 would probably spoil it. So I trust they will leave it alone. 
 At the same time if they would be content with banking 
 the river to the natural height of the Nile at flood, I do not 
 see that it need do a great harm. But of course they want 
 more, and to make it the biggest engineering thing in the 
 universe. The situation is tempting to an engineer, as the 
 solid boulders of granite would make it an heroic bit of 
 stonework. 
 
 " At eight we started again up the river. The change of 
 scenery above the cataract is most sudden and complete, 
 made more so by the as sudden and complete change in the 
 inhabitants, who are here Berbers. Indeed, Egypt ends 
 abruptly at Assouan. The Soudan begins at Philae. These 
 upper reaches, between piled-up granite boulders, are very 
 attractive, as there are many places one might use as 
 hermitages, islands of rock with a few sont trees and palms, 
 some having the remains on them of buildings. At Kalab- 
 sheh a new and still narrower gate is passed. This is where 
 the French chose their site for the dam. It is difficult to 
 say which of the two sites would be best for the purpose. 
 Thus, all day long, between endless granite boulders on the 
 eastern shore, and the same, partly covered with drift sand, 
 on the western, the cultivation almost nil, a narrow fringe 
 of palms and sonts and sej/yals, with here and there a 
 patch of vegetables sown at the river's edge or a field of 
 durra. 
 
 " Jth Nov. — We stopped for the night at Dendur, and in 
 the morning light found ourselves outside the narrow gorge, 
 and among drifts of nefud — red sand — on the western 
 
2 44 A Patriotic Doctor [189S 
 
 bank, apparently encroaching. Broadwood tells me there is 
 a long line oinefuds running north-west which is impassable 
 for camels. This, as I understand him, west of the road to 
 the oases. But I doubt if he has been far enough to know. 
 
 " I have made friends on board with a military doctor, 
 Mohammed Eff. Towfik, who began by quarrelling with 
 me as an Englishman for the occupation of Egypt, but we 
 speedily came to an understanding, and I find him to be a 
 friend of Mohammed Abdu's, and a staunch Nationalist of 
 the fellah party. Though still a young man, perhaps thirty- 
 five, he remembers the Russian war of 1877, and knew 
 Arabi. He told me ver\' frankly that there were people 
 who suspected me of having stood in with our diplomacy in 
 1882. It was pleasant to find a man so fearless and out- 
 spoken, especially as much of our conversation was within 
 hearing of the English officers, Broadwood, Lawrie, and a 
 third, Heal)', who understands Arabic. The doctor is a 
 fellah, proprie'tor of 300 feddans near Benisouef, and de- 
 clares that the fellahin are in a worse condition materially 
 than before the rebellion. I doubt this. But I think it likely 
 he is right about Upper Egypt. Certainly all this district 
 south of Assouan shows traces of decline; and the Berber 
 population is lean and hungry. He was eager to know 
 about the Armenian question, and about the condition of 
 India, and I explained both to him. He is a very in- 
 telligent, worthy man, of the kind most required. He 
 admitted freely the personal liberty now enjoyed and the 
 liberty of the press, but complained bitterly of there being 
 no self-government, no constitution. I agree with him on 
 all points, except that of the material poverty. He is 
 opposed to the reservoirs, but in favour of an advance on 
 the Soudan, at least to Dongola. My own impression is 
 that it would have been best in 1885 to have made Assouan 
 the boundary of Egypt, instead ,of \\'ady Haifa. It is a 
 much stronger frontier and far less costl}-. The only reason 
 for an advance now is to forestall a European one, either 
 Italian or French. 
 
 " We stopped for the night at Korosko, and I went 
 ashore with the Commandant, Ibrahim Bey Fathy, a fine 
 looking fellah soldier, who showed us round the barracks 
 by starlight. They are making surveys for a railway to 
 Murad, and Broadwood tells me they intend, whenever the 
 
1895] English and Egyptian Officers 245 
 
 advance to Khartoum is made, to take that route. But 
 there is nothing in contemplation at present. The English 
 officers are good fellows, and are very polite and amiable 
 to their Egyptian brother officers ; but it is easy to see that 
 there is no real intimacy or knowledge of each other's 
 thoughts. Broadwood complains of this ; and I should think 
 that, if it came to a pinch, the Egyptian officers could not 
 be implicitly relied on. I fancy they all resent the superior 
 commands being English. They do not mess with the 
 English officers, and live much apart. This is no doubt 
 partly because the English know very little Arabic. 
 Ibrahim Bey spoke excellent English, and dined with us 
 on board. There are two young fellows, Englishmen of the 
 Royal Engineers, who have been sent out here to make 
 the railroad to Murad, excellent ingenuous youths of per- 
 haps twenty-three or twenty-four, to whom it is great fun 
 and solid advancement, as they are given the rank of 
 majors in the Egyptian army. This is a sample of what 
 leads to discontent among the native officers, for the work 
 is an absolutely simple one, and could be performed by 
 any of their own engineers. Yet these young Englishmen 
 have it. Again, the command of the cavalry at Haifa is left 
 during the summer months to a native officer, but as soon 
 as the winter begins, when there are manoeuvres and parades 
 of the kind soldiers love, young Broadwood comes to take 
 his place. My friend the doctor is eloquent on these things, 
 and I have no doubt reflects the general sentiment. 
 
 " %th Nov. — Passed the battlefields at . . . and Toski, 
 the former fought with an advanced body of the Der- 
 vishes, the latter with the main body under Wad el Ne- 
 jumi. The English officers gave me an account of the 
 two actions. By their showing, it was little more than a 
 massacre, for the Dervishes were in the last stage of ex- 
 haustion from hunger and thirst, their camels dying, an ' 
 their women and children. The way they had come is stil 
 marked by the skeletons left on the sand. They marchea 
 some five miles from the river, along the left bank, sending 
 the women and children at night to get water, the English- 
 Egyptian army meanwhile cruising comfortably parallel to 
 them in boats. They had forced the Berber inhabitants of 
 the left bank to cross over the river and take all eatable 
 things with them, so that Nejumi's army found nothing. 
 
246 The Victory of Tosh b^9S 
 
 Then, when the Dervishes were quite worn out, the troops 
 were landed and drove the Dervishes into a gully, where 
 these made their final stand, and were all shot down. 
 Mohammed Towfik, who was there, says that of all the 
 4,000 who left Dongola with Nejumi, only 30O combatant-; 
 remained to fight at Toski. The action at . was a 
 
 smaller affair than Toski, and, if I understood rightly, one 
 of cavalry on the Egyptian side. The left bank in this part 
 is a desolate region of drift sand with a few bushes, but at 
 Toski there is palm cultivation for a mile or two. The 
 right bank, where there is no sand, is mostly planted. 
 
 " At four we came to Abu Simbel and stopped for a 
 quarter of an hour, so that we were able to land and look 
 at the temple. Broadwood showed me a pompous marble 
 tablet let into the rock outside, of which he was ashamed. 
 It recorded the gallant victory of General Grenfell over 
 ' the rebels.' The temple is very fine, and has the great 
 merit of being no ruin, but a perfectly habitable place cut 
 out of the rock, and very little injured by time. There was 
 a party outside it clearing away the sand. There is a grave, 
 too, where an English officer is buried who happened to 
 die on board a passing steamer — ' a rotten place,' Laurie 
 remarked, ' to bury an Englishman in.' The Berbers are a 
 poor, narrow-chested, feeble, half-starved people, reminding 
 one much of the natives of Southern India. There can hardly 
 be a greater contrast than between them and the Egyptian 
 fellahin. The Berbers are exempted from recruitifig, and 
 should be exempted from taxation. They live almost entirely 
 on dates, and are much subject, it is said, to fever. At night 
 we passed a Government steamer having on board the 
 English acting commandant of Wady Haifa, Lewis, a little 
 talkative man of whom Broadwood and Laurie, who are fine 
 young fellows, made light. We stopped to pay him a visit 
 and then went on in the dark. 
 
 " gth Nov. — Arrived at Wady Haifa, a beautiful cool 
 morning, with a strong north wind blowing over the plain. 
 Wady Haifa has the advantage of being placed where the 
 hills are low and stand back from the river. Otherwise a 
 quite uninteresting place— low militar\- huts fronting the 
 river, with bits of trees and gardens about them, officers' 
 quarters and the rest. 
 
 " I lunched at the Commandant's quarters with Lewis, 
 
i89s] IVady Half a and Sarras 247 
 
 who has returned, and then went with Broadwood to 
 Sarras by train. From the raihvay one sees the cataracts 
 well, a wild and pretty country with plenty of small trees, 
 principally itrdi, a kind of acacia, on the islands. The 
 palms have been all cut down by the Dervishes in their 
 hunger. They occupied Sarras for two years, and, Broadwood 
 tells me, had no commissariat of any kind, living on anything 
 they could get. They used to make raids on the villages 
 under Government protection, and on one occasion cleared 
 out Towfikieh, the civilian quarter of Wady Haifa, killing 
 some 600, and driving the Greek drink-sellers into the 
 river, where several were drowned. The country between 
 Wady Haifa and Sarras has been in part re-peopled, but 
 beyond Sarras it is still No Man's Land, the Dervish out- 
 post being now at Akasheh, 100 miles away. We were 
 entertained in the fortified camp by Sellem Bey, an 
 English officer, who recaptured Sarras from the Dervishes, 
 a good fellow and intelligent. 
 
 "10th Noi'. (Sunday). — Walked round the camp with 
 Broadwood and then back to Haifa in time to see the 
 camel corps, 275 strong, marching in from a field day — a 
 really fine sight — the camels mostly white ones. 
 
 " Several Berbers came to seek my intervention with 
 Lewis to get permission to return to Dongola, their native 
 country. They told me that there would be amdn for them 
 there ; that the Khalifa was pleased at the return of refugees, 
 and that they could re-occupy their lands without hindrance; 
 that there was less oppression than there had been, and 
 that they would be better off there than here ; that the 
 population of Dongola had been so thinned by the emigra- 
 tion of seven years ago, and afterwards by the famine, that 
 there was land for all comers, dates in plenty, durra at 
 thirty piastres the ardeb, and wheat at fifty. I asked them 
 about the taxes, and they told me that the Khalifa took a 
 tithe in kind, but that the Baggaras entrusted with the 
 government did this in a very arbitrary way, as, for instance, 
 if there was an ardeb of dates, they would count it an ardeb 
 and a half; also that nobody dared make a display of 
 wealth, all superfluity being taken to the beyt el 7iial. 
 People, however, were not interfered with, if they were 
 content to cultivate a few feddans and live on the produce. 
 If they made money, they must hide it in the ground. As 
 
24S Military Talk [1895 
 
 far as I could gather from them, the}- considered the in- 
 dependence of the country [li'dtani) from the Government 
 an advantage, now that there was no longer excessive 
 oppression. The_\- assured me that, out of 4,000 or 5,000 
 refugees in Egypt, most would be glad to return. I 
 promised to talk to Lewis about it, and, failing his per- 
 mission, to bring" their general case before Cromer. It seems 
 absurd to keep them starving in Egypt, now they are 
 willing to return. 
 
 " I left Haifa with Lewis in the Government steamer for 
 Assouan — with us several of the officers who were going as 
 far as Sarras on a shooting excursion. I noticed a pair of 
 hubaras (frilled bustards) on the right bank, and had seen 
 one yesterday between Haifa and Sarras. \\'e stopped at 
 four, and they all went shooting except me, bringing back 
 a few ducks, gadwels, shovellers, and teals, also a snipe and 
 a cormorant. Sarras is a very pretty place, with a lake in 
 the sandhills well grown over with tamarisks, unlike any- 
 thing I have seen north of the Fayum — a village and a 
 little cultivation in the tamarisk scrub, just now beautifully 
 green. 
 
 " 3.1uch military talk in the evening, my host being a 
 loquacious little man with the crudest of ideas political. 
 According to him, we are to have an English fleet in two 
 years' time which will enable us to do what we like in the 
 world, when we are to annex Egypt and Constantinople 
 too. An empty-headed little fellow, who has been eight 
 years in the Egyptian service and has acquired a certain 
 command of qui-lii Arabic, most comic, which he imagines 
 to be the purest dialect — all pronounced as written, in a 
 plain English accent. But his servants and men are used 
 to it and make out his meaning. The relations between 
 the English officers and the natives seem to be much what 
 they are in India — that is to say, there is absolutely no 
 community of ideas or sympathy on either side. Broad wood 
 and one or two of them try to be polite and kind, but they 
 know so little Arabic, and have so little knowledge of 
 Eastern good manners that they are unintentionally rude 
 and inspire no affection, only just such respect as their 
 power to reward and punish gives. They would be de- 
 serted, I am sure, by their men if it came to anj- real 
 difficulty. They seem to feel their position rather a pre- 
 
i89s] Colonel Fathy Bey 249 
 
 carious one, and would all leave the Khedive's service if 
 the British occupation ceased. 
 
 " nth Nov. — Arrived at Korosko at four. Walked to the 
 top of the hill overlooking the road to Abu Hamid, the 
 road Gordon took on his last journey. It is a rough bit of 
 country, a wilderness of black wadis and ravines which 
 extends they say for twenty miles, when the open plain or 
 plateau begins. The young engineers pointed out the road 
 of their new railway. 
 
 " Dined at the Egyptian officers' mess. Here at Korosko 
 the battalion is wholly Egyptian, a really capital set of 
 fellah officers commanded by Fathy Be)', a big fellah 
 Colonel reminding me not a little of Arabi in 1881. They 
 mess together and live on the friendliest terms ; and here, 
 entertaining Lewis and me, and the two young engineers, 
 their demeanour was quite different from what I noticed at 
 Haifa, and they seemed to be most pleasant in their 
 relations with the English officers. At Haifa they chafe at 
 being under them. Here they are on an equal footing. I 
 sat between Fathy Bey and a captain. Emir Eff Fowzi,the 
 latter a very good fellow with whom I talked much in 
 Arabic about affairs in Arabia, at Constantinople, and in 
 India, and in Tunis. He had just been on the pilgrimage 
 and complained greatly of the Ottoman misgovernment 
 there. We also talked about Arabi, and I was pleased 
 when Fathy Bey, who joined our conversation, expressed 
 himself warmly about Arabi, and in favour of his being 
 allowed to return to Egypt. 
 
 " \zth Nov. — Arrived early at Shellal, and descended the 
 cataract in ^ feluka — no very hazardous affair. Lunched 
 at Assouan with the English mess and met there Beshir 
 Bey and Ahmed Bey Khalifa of the Ababdeh. Then on 
 board the steamer for Cairo. 
 
 " 13M Nov. — We stopped two hours at Edfu, which gave 
 us time to see the temple, the most perfect in Egypt. In- 
 deed, it might be ' restored to public worship ' without the 
 smallest repair. Mere ruins are tiresome, but this is not 
 one. We have half-a-dozen tourists on board, the first of 
 the season — Dr. Ruffer and his wife, a Spanish diplomatist 
 from Constantinople, an old Frenchwoman, and an English 
 geologist. Stopped at Esneh, where there is a temple partly 
 underground, and arrived at Luxor, and for the night, Kus. 
 
2 50 A Disciple of Pasteur [189S 
 
 " Nov \i,th.—\ quite cold morning with clouds to the 
 west and a feeling of dampness in the air There has 
 probably been rain at Alexandria, and ^■ery likely a south- 
 west crale in the Mediterranean, where Anne and Judith 
 are to" embark to-day. Arrived at Girgeh, where our few 
 passengers got out ; but I ha^'e decided to go on to Cairo 
 by steamer with the Ruffers. A wonderful sunset, followed 
 b\- thunder and lightning and some rain — this off Ahmin, a 
 very beautiful part of the river. The night too dark to go 
 on, so after running aground, we stopped for the rest of it. 
 " I '-,th Nov. — I have had much talk with Dr. Ruffer, who 
 is a superior man of science. He was for two years a pupil 
 of Pasteur at Paris, and speaks of him with enthusiasm. 
 He tells me that Pasteur had a physical dislike for surgical 
 operations and, he believes, never was present at the ex- 
 perimental ones made on live animals. But he did not 
 hesitate to have them performed by others. I asked him 
 how much truth there was in the accusations made against 
 him of having kept dogs for months under torture, and he 
 said that Pasteur had made a mistake in experimenting on 
 dogs for hydrophobia, as they were much more dangerous 
 to handle; that it had now been found that all the 
 symptoms of. hydrophobia could be equally well studied 
 in rabbits; that, after inoculating dogs with the disease, it 
 was necessary to keep them and watch whether or not they 
 went mad, and so he had kept some of them for years, but 
 that they were well treated — some twenty-five of them at 
 the time he was there. He said it was a choice between 
 making experiments of this kind and not proceeding with 
 the inquiry. But I gather from him that he is not certain 
 whether the object has been obtained. The difficulty of 
 being certain was that only some fifteen per cent, of cases 
 of bites from a certainly mad dog led to hydrophobia. He 
 talked of Pasteur as the one great man of Science France 
 had produced. He described him as a most simple-minded 
 man, entirely destitute of humour, and incapable of think- 
 ing about more than one thing at a time. If you started 
 him on a conversation he could not change the subject till 
 he had exhausted it. This was the secret of his success. 
 His mind was not a French one. 
 
 " Dr. Ruffer is at the head of the Pasteur Institute of 
 London. He tells me he is only thirty-six, though he has 
 
1895] Nubar Pasha resigns 251 
 
 grey hair and looks fifty. But he was junior to George 
 Curzon when at Oxford, so I suppose he is of the age he 
 says. More thunder and lightning in the evening, away to 
 the north-west. There must have been heavy rain in 
 Jendali and probably on all the hills between the Nile and 
 the Red Sea. It is cold and damp and raw. I am getting 
 weary of the Nile and cannot understand the patience of 
 travellers not inx'alids, who travel on it in dahabiahs. 
 We stopped at Beni Hassan, but I did not go ashore, 
 as I draw the line at tombs. Beni Hassan, however, 
 might, I think, be a good point of departure for our 
 winter's journey. Farther down the river there are impass- 
 able places where rocks come down to the water's edge. 
 
 " \6th Nov. — Arrived at Cairo in the afternoon, and glad 
 to get home. The Lower River seems to me vastly superior 
 to the Upper, and has a familiar and pleasant aspect. I 
 had the rare pleasure of seeing a real seyl come down into 
 the Nile some forty yards across, and strong and deep 
 enough to carry away a camel — a great turbid flood which 
 had broken through the Nile bank and was rushing some two 
 hundred yards out into the river. It must have come from 
 Wady Senhur, a few miles south of Wasta. 
 
 " There has been an earthquake at Rome and a change 
 of Ministry at Cairo. Nubar, the old rogue, has retired, and 
 Mustafa Fehmy is put into his place. 
 
 " It was dark before I got to Sheykh Obeyd, and I had 
 some difficulty in making myself heard at the gate, but all 
 is well. El hamdul illah." 
 
 The disappearance of Nubar here recorded marks the 
 beginning of the new regime in Egypt which was to last 
 for nearly ten years, during which Cromer was to be 
 supreme in every branch of the Egyptian administration, 
 governing through merely dummy native Ministers, with 
 Mustafa Fehmy at their head. Lord Salisbury, now at the 
 head of a strong Unionist Government in England, had 
 made up his mind at all hazards to continue the military 
 Occupation and retain Egypt permanently as a dependency 
 of the British Empire. He also, though we did not know 
 it at the time, had a settled design of avenging the death 
 of Gordon and the disgrace of VVolseley's defeat by the 
 Mahdi in 1884 as one of the two matters necessary for 
 
252 The Dongola Re/iiorcs [1895 
 
 England's honour, the other being the defeat at !\lajuba in 
 South Africa. We know this from his own boast in iyo2, 
 shortly before he retired from public life, and wc have 
 every reason to be sure that at the back of his determina- 
 tion on both points stood his mistress. Queen Victoria. 
 The present chapter \y\\\ show the first steps taken in 
 accordance with this policy on the Nile, in its commence- 
 ment not altogether with Lord Cromer's approval, his ob- 
 jection to it being a financial one, as certain to overburden 
 the Egyptian Budget, and as such premature, but, as will 
 be seen, his opposition on this head was oxerruled from 
 Downing Street and financial caution, in large measure 
 overcome b)- the parsimonious ability of Lord Kitchener, 
 to whom the advance up the Nile was entrusted, and who 
 ran it on the cheap. 
 
 Having made this brief explanation I resume my diary. 
 
 " lytk jVov. — There have been tremendous seyls all round 
 Shcykh Obeyd. Part of our garden wall is broken down 
 by it and the house at El Kheysheh flooded, though no 
 great damage done. Suliman Howeyti had his tent carried 
 awa\- just outside. Ai Kafr el Jamus eleven houses are 
 ruined, and at Koubba a great scf/ from the hills broke 
 through the old railway embankment and destroyed fift)- 
 houses and a French public garden, threatening even the 
 Palace with flood. The like has never been seen before. 
 Old Deifallah is dying of old age, like Job, on a dung-hill 
 t)Utside Dormer's garden wall. 
 
 " Things have gone rapidly in Turkey during the last 
 three weeks. Disturbances everywhere in the provinces, 
 the devil generally let loose. 
 
 " 20t/i Nov. — Anne, Judith, and Cowie arrived at Sheykh 
 Obeyd. I dined with Dormer last night. 
 
 " 2ith Nov. — I wrote yesterday to Lord Cromer about 
 the permission asked by the Dongola people to return to 
 their homes. I said that the story they gave me was that 
 the\' had emigrated into Egypt after the Mahdi's death to 
 escape thetyranny of the Baggara chiefs who represented the 
 Khalifa's government at Dongola ; that the)- assured me 
 that they would be subject to no vexation now; that living 
 there was cheap and land plentiful ; that I had mentioned 
 their case to the Commandant at Wady Haifa, who had 
 told me that the chief reason for the prohibition was a fear 
 
i89s] Case brought before Cromer 253 
 
 that the return of the refugees would hamper and endanger 
 the spies sent by the IntelHgence Department, but that 
 this seemed hardly a sufficient reason for retaining in 
 Egypt so man}- persons who were a burden and a trouble, 
 I suggested that perhaps the time was come when the 
 question might be reconsidered ; there seemed to be no 
 immediate prospect of a military advance and the circum- 
 stances of the case had changed hince the frontier regula- 
 tions were enacted. 
 
 " To-day I went to Cairo and saw Lord Cromer, who told 
 me he had forwarded m)- letter to Kitchener and would let 
 me know when his answer was received. He then talked 
 of other matters and of the possibility of Mohammed Abdu 
 being named head of the Awkaf This I, of course, strongly 
 commended. I also saw Gorst. 
 
 " 30/// Nov. — Started with Anne for the eastern desert. 
 On our return 
 
 " yd Dec. — Found a letter from George Wyndham with 
 an account of little Percy's accident, touchingly told. 
 
 "yt/iDec. — A visit from Ibrahim ibn Abdallah Thenne- 
 yan ibn Saoud el Nejdi, who has just escaped from Con- 
 stantinople. He gave much interesting information. The 
 Sultan is now entirely under the influence of Sheykh Abul 
 Huda; and Jemal ed Din is never received at the palace, 
 Things are going as badly there as possible. He has come 
 to Cairo, hoping through the Khedive's influence to get 
 back to Nejd. His father's grandfather, Thenne\-an, was 
 for a couple of years Emir of Nejd, while Feysul was in 
 captivity at Dar el Beyda. But when Feysul escaped and 
 returned to Nejd, he and his family were driven to Bagdad. 
 Speaking of the Anazeh he assured me their migration 
 North dated from 200 or 300 years ago. The Ibn Saouds 
 are of Anazeh stock. 
 
 " I2tk Dec. — I have written another long letter to Cromer 
 about the return of the refugees to Dongola. Kitchener, in 
 reply to my first letter, declared the road to be open to 
 them via Assouan and Berber. That would give them a 
 journey of 1,000 miles to accomplish the 100 miles which 
 separate them at Sarras from their homes. He pretends, 
 too, that the Dervishes are threatening the frontier. Our 
 people are humbugs about this almost more than about 
 anything else. The officers when I was there were all com- 
 
254 Nejd Politics [1895 
 
 plaining that there was nothing for them to do on the 
 frontier if the Dervishes would make no move. 
 
 " We went to-day to look at some desert land 280 feddans 
 outside Kafr el Shorafa, for sale by the Government at 
 50 piastres the feddan, for first price. I would give £2. 
 Ibrahim ibn Saoud came to-day to luncheon. He had been 
 tcj the palace. He asked me for a letter to Lord Cromer, 
 explaining that his business was to invite Engli.sh protec- 
 tion for Nejd. He declared that six months ago Fawzi 
 Fasha, Turkish VA'aly of El Hasa, received orders from the 
 Ottoman Government to send an expedition to take over 
 the Government of Riad and El Haryk. Fawzi was a 
 Syrian, knew Arabic, and would have been able to effect 
 his purpose through the Arab tribes. Correspondence had 
 passed between the Sultan and Ibn Rashid, who had con- 
 sented to the aggression. Now, however, Ibrahim would 
 wibh the British Government to undertake a protectorate 
 as at Bahreyn and Muscat — at least to forbid the Turkish 
 advance inland. I gave him the letter, but warned him not 
 to trust too much to English magnanimity. If we once got 
 our foot into Nejd, it would be difficult to get us out again. 
 Perhaps the Turks might be worse, but we were dangerous 
 too. For that matter the Ottoman Empire was too near its 
 dissolution to think just now of any forward movement. 
 Neither wa.s it in the least probable that England would 
 undertake a protectorate or do anything. His seeing 
 Cromer cannot do much harm. So I gave him the letter. 
 
 " There is news of a great defeat of the Italians by the 
 Abyssinians. I am much pleased at this, as their aggres- 
 sion has been one of the most abominable of our abomin- 
 able age. Perhaps now the Dervishes may drive them out 
 of Kassala." This was the least excusable of the many law- 
 less raids made by the Italians in Africa, prompted in part 
 by the vanity of the parvenu kingdom of Italy to show 
 it.self as aggressive as its older neighbours, France and 
 England, partly by mining speculation. Unlike most of 
 these raids undertaken by the Christian nations in our 
 time, it had not even the excuse of calling itself a crusade, 
 seeing that the Abyssinians were themselves Christians, of 
 a wild, old-fashioned kind, but still just as much Christians 
 as the inhabitants of Calabria, while, compared with the 
 Abyssinian Emperor who is lineally descended from the 
 
189 5 J Italian Defeat in Abyssinia 255 
 
 Queen of Sheba by King Solomon, the House of Savoj- 
 enthroned at the Ouirinal is but a stem of yesterday, \et 
 not a shadow of reproof was uttered by oUr statesmen in 
 Downing Street, and the general remark about the Italian 
 expedition in the London press was that the ending of 
 the Abyssinian monarch)' would not be ' felt upon the 
 Stock Exchange.' 
 
 " i6th Dec. — Went in to Cairo to see the Khedive. He 
 was ver\- cordial as usual, and made me a number of con- 
 fidences, some very interesting. He told me the full stor\' 
 of his visit to Constantinople this summer. His object, he 
 says, was not a political one, but to get permission from 
 the Sultan to build a house on the island of Thasos where, 
 and at Kavala, he has the direction of the Awkaf. He 
 wanted a place to spend the summer in with his wife and 
 child, instead of going to Europe. He went to Stamboul 
 in his \-acht, and found it so pleasant there that he stayed 
 two months. The Sultan was polite to him, and asked him 
 constantly to dinner, and to hear music, but would not talk 
 business. At last he got tired of waiting, and sent word 
 that he wanted permission to go to Thasos, and also to 
 lay certain papers before the Sultan connected with the 
 Halim succession and the claim of the Azhar University 
 to a part of it. But he got a number of evasive 
 answers. At one time he was told ' yes ' — at another that 
 the Sultan had a cold and could not see him — at another 
 that he had bad eyes and could not read the papers — and 
 other foolish excuses. In the meantime he had been 
 dogged by spies, and on one occasion when he had made 
 an arrangement privately to see Sheykh Jemal ed Din he 
 had been followed so closely that he had turned on the 
 spy and beaten him, and had sent a message to the palace 
 that if he was thus annoyed again he would shoot his 
 persecutors. 
 
 " At last a day of audience was fixed with the Sultan for 
 him to say ' good-bye.' But, after being kept waiting for 
 an hour, Osman Pasha came to him and began to talk 
 about the Thasos plan, and to try and dissuade him. At 
 this he lost patience, and asked Osman straight whether 
 he had been sent with the message from the Sultan, and, 
 on his admitting it, he spoke his whole mind. ' I told him,' 
 said the Khedive, 'that I was tired of the Sultan's way of 
 
2^6 Abbas and the Sultan [1S95 
 
 treating me, that I had been not ) et four }'ears on the 
 throne, and I had come three times to Constantinople to 
 see him, which was more than any of my predecessors had 
 done, and yet he had not spoken to me a reasonable word. 
 Aly great-great-grandfather, I told him, Mohammed Ali, 
 had never gone to Constantinople, though he \\as near it 
 once, by wa}- of Xezim and Koniah. M)' great-grand- 
 father Ibrahim had never been, though he had a stronger 
 army than the Sultan's. ^ly father was eleven years on the 
 throne, and he never went. I alone went, to do the Sultan 
 pleasure. I even, to please him, gave up last }-ear my \isit 
 to England. Her ?^Iajesty the Queen, who is Empress of 
 India and 300 millions of subjects, and on whose dominions 
 the sun never sets, had done me the honour of inviting me, 
 and I had accepted the invitation ; )-et, on account of a 
 nnserable bit of paper, a telegram from Constantinople, I 
 broke my engagement and went to the Sultan instead. I 
 am tired of this. Vou may tell the Sultan that this }-ear I 
 will not go to Thasos, but for the future I shall know how 
 to regulate m\- conduct towards him. While talking thus 
 — and I never talked so strongl}' in my life — Xuri Bey 
 joined us, and he and Osman were horror-struck at my 
 words, and shook with fear, and went at once to the Sultan, 
 who sent for me and apologized and loaded me with ci\il- 
 ities. But I told him that it was no case for apologies, that 
 I understood now what his diplomacy was, and that I 
 should return to my own countr)-, and forget as far as 
 possible that I stood to him in the relation of a subject. 
 And so it has been. From that day to this I have cut the 
 Sultan's name out of m}- prayer; I have never been to the 
 mosque where the prayer for the Sultan is made, and, 
 when I pray in my own mosque at Koubba, my chaplain 
 omits the Sultan's name, \^'e pray for " the welfare of Islam 
 and ali believers, but not for those (he quoted the words in 
 Arabic) who are bringing Islam to its ruin.'" 
 
 " I am not sure that I have quoted the Khedive quite 
 ^■erbally, but this is the sense of his words. He spoke with 
 animation, and told the stor\' admirably. He told me also 
 that he had seen Abdallah Xadim ' at Constantinople, and 
 that he was allowing him to return to Egypt. Of the 
 
 ' See "Secret History." 
 
1895] IVingate and S latin 257 
 
 prospects at Constantinople he said he feared the Sultan's 
 subjects would never succeed in getting rid of him, though 
 the European Powers might depose him. He asked me 
 about affairs in Arabia, and told me he had seen Ibrahim 
 ibn Thenneyan, but Sheykh Mohammed Abdu had warned 
 him that he was perhaps a spy of Sheykh Abul Huda's. 
 I told him that I did not think this to be the case, though 
 it might be well to be feautious. Then he talked about the 
 desert, and an expedition he intended to make to El Arish 
 in the Spring, and how he was having the post road repaired 
 to Dar el Beyda. He certainly is a charming young man, 
 and brim full of intelligence. 
 
 " I lunched with Gorst and talked to him about the 
 affairs of the Soudan. He told me, as an instance of the 
 humbug that went on at the frontier, of the way in which 
 Wingate had got thecredit of Slatin's escape from Khartoum. 
 This has been represented as entirely Wingate's cleverness, 
 whereas in point of fact Wingate was away at the time at 
 Souakim, and the plan was Slatin's own. Maxwell (?), who 
 was in charge at Wady Haifa, received a letter from Slatin, 
 addressed to whoever was in command, asking him to pay 
 the bearer ^lOO, and to promise another ;^iOO in case of 
 success. This Maxwell had done, but nothing more was 
 thought about it till Slatin arrived and embraced Wingate, 
 who had meanwhile returned, calling him his deliverer. 
 Wingate then looked up the papers for the first time, and 
 promptly endorsed them, ' I approve.' There has been a 
 raid quite recently thirty miles north of Wady Haifa, and 
 sixteen persons have been killed in a village. 
 
 " Left a card on the French minister, M. Cogordan, who 
 sent me a message last summer through Mile. Lagrene that 
 he would like to see me. 
 
 " 19//^ Dec. — Eldon Gorst came, with his sister, to spend 
 the day. We took them to the sand hills and set up a 
 .shelter and lunched there. I had a good deal of talk with 
 Gorst. He is a worthy young man^ very painstaking and 
 desirous to do rightly, but hardly a man of genius. One 
 does not understand why he should have been chosen, out 
 of the many thousand young men whose services are to be 
 had, to be Prime Minister of Egypt. I imagine that he 
 would command at home perhaps ;£^400 or i^500 a year. 
 But this is one of the mysteries of Anglo-Egyptian rule. 
 
 S 
 
;58 Eldon Gorst — Cogordan [i89S 
 
 He has a moderate knowledge of Arabic, having served an 
 apprenticeship under Cromer. The fact is, there is no 
 country so easy to govern as Egypt is, gi\-en fair intellig- 
 ence and perfect honesty in the governor. 
 
 '' 2\st Dec. — M. Cogordan, with his secretary, lunched 
 with us. Cogordan is a man of about forty, of good pre- 
 sence and manners and very amiable, \^'e sat on the roof 
 after luncheon and I took the opportunit)- of e.\:plaining to 
 him something of the history of Arabi's revolution, as to 
 which the French have the absurdest ideas. The origin of 
 my calling on him and of his visit was a message I re- 
 ceived in the summer from Mile, de Lagrene, sa}-ing he 
 wished to make my acquaintance. Of current politics we 
 talked little, except as to the Khedive's character, which 
 he praised highly. 
 
 " 2a^th Dec. — Kitchener gives a final answer about the 
 refugees, refusing on the ground that he does not wish the 
 district re-peopled, for fear it should serve as a basis for 
 Dervish raids. Rubbish ! 
 
 " There is a fine quarrel on between England and the 
 United States about Venezuela. Lord Salisbury is getting 
 into nice hot water. He has a war with Ashanti of the 
 most causeless kind. His diplomacy at Constantinople 
 has entirely broken down, as the Turks are massacring the 
 Armenians worse than ever — and now he will have to fight 
 or sing small — doubtless sing small — in America. I should 
 not be surprised to see the Egyptian question raised at 
 any moment as a European one. 
 
 " igtkDec. — Went in to Cairo yesterda)- to see .Ali Pasha 
 Sherif s horses. They showed us half-a-dozen which were 
 for sale. We shall bid for two, a chestnut colt, two years 
 old, very like Mesaoud, and a grey fill}-, a Jellabieh, also a 
 two year old. We did not see the best mares, but we saw 
 the stallions. They have nothing left now but Aziz, aged 
 nineteen, Ibn Nadir, aged twenty-four, and Ibn Sherara,, 
 also an old horse. They are terribh' in want of new 
 blood. 
 
 " Ali Pasha Sherif has had a decree of interdiction passed 
 on him as incapable of the management of his affairs, and 
 Shakir Pasha is appointed Wakil. He has quarrelled with 
 his seven sons and receives an allowance of ;{J^500 a year. 
 Such is the position of the man who a year ago was 
 
i89S] 
 
 Ali Sherifs Horses 259 
 
 President of the Legislative Council, by favour of the late 
 Khedive Tewfik and Lord Cromer. 
 
 " Afterwards to call on Riaz, whom I found with Tigrane, 
 showing him his estate accounts at Mehallet el Roh. These 
 bring him in ^Tio an acre, gross — expenses of cultiva- 
 tion ^4, and tax ^i. Net income iS'5 an acre. He reviewed 
 the state of agricultural things since he had first been in 
 the Government service in 1850. He said that the wars of 
 Mohammed Ali had ruined the country, much of which had 
 gone out of cultivation; but that under Abbas and Said the 
 population had nearly doubled. The taxation was then 
 one third vvhat it is now. Everyone was well off Then 
 Ismail ruined it again. The price of land went up after his 
 deposition, and stood in 1880 at its highest. It was going 
 down now with the fall in prices of produce. On the other 
 hand the public expenditure had increased since the 
 English occupation by two millions a year, and ten millions 
 capital had been added to the debt. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE JAMESON RAID 
 
 " i^th Jan. 
 
 THERE is excellent news. Those blackguards of the 
 Chartered Company in South Africa, under Doctor 
 Jameson, have made a filibustering raid on the Transvaal 
 and have been annihilated by the Boers, Jameson a prisoner. 
 I hope devoutly he may be hanged. I have seen this busi- 
 ness coming on for some weeks past in articles from the 
 ' Times.' That other high-placed filibuster, Chamberlain, 
 is, I am sure, responsible, or the ' Times ' would never have 
 taken up the matter in the \va)- it has. They seem to have 
 been encouraged, in the sort of way these things are en- 
 couraged unofficially, by Chamberlain, who would have 
 scored a victory for himself if they had succeeded. As it is 
 he will disavow them. I am much mistaken if Chamberlain, 
 with his three Colonial wars on hand in Ashanti, Venezuela, 
 and now in the Transvaal, involving quarrels with France, 
 America, and Germany, will not upset Lord Salisbury's 
 government, if he does not upset the British Empire. 
 
 " Lord and Lady Cromer came here to tea. I had a good 
 deal of talk with him. He says the Jameson episode will 
 do a ' deal of harm ' here, as people will consider it a 
 British defeat (which it is). He added : ' These filibustering 
 enterprises are only justifiable by success. I don't sax- that 
 they are justifiable at all, but if they don't succeed the 
 actors in them should pay the penalty.' I think he is rather 
 uneasy in his mind. We talked also about Egyptian affairs. 
 He told me the Khedive was spending money very foolishly 
 and would soon, at the present rate, be bankrupt, also that 
 complaints had been made to him by fellahin in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Koubbah, whose land he had been attempting 
 to take, reviving obsolete claims against squatters on 
 abandoned land, but he was not sure the complaints were 
 true, the complainants refusing to come forward openl}-. 
 
 260 
 
1896] Alfred Austin Laureate 261 
 
 They stated that they had been bulHed by the palace people 
 and beaten with kurbajs. He asked me if I had received 
 complaints on the subject, but it is new to me. He told me 
 Ibrahim Bey Ibn Saoud had been to him twice, the first 
 time to invoke his protection against the Sultan, to which 
 he had replied that, as long as he, Ibrahim Bey, remained 
 unamenable to Egyptian law he had nothing to fear. The 
 second time he had brought him a ' ridiculous paper,' the 
 copy of one he had submitted to the Khedive, charging the 
 Sultan with all sorts of crimes, and appealing to the Khedive 
 to occupy Nejd. He had had to give him ' a piece of his 
 mind ' and tell him that if he meddled with politics and the 
 Sultan heard of it and demanded his extradition, he should 
 not interfere to protect him ; if he wanted to talk Arabian 
 politics he had better go to Bagdad. 
 
 " We also discussed the appointment of Alfred Austin to 
 the post of Poet Laureate. He, Cromer, thought William 
 Watson would have been better. The Empress Frederick 
 had tried to get Renell Rodd appointed. He had never 
 heard of Austin. Indeed, Austin's appointment is a 
 ridiculous one, for, with the exception of three sonnets, 
 Austin has never written anything in the smallest degree 
 good. His sole claim is that he has been a solid supporter 
 of the Conservative party in the press. I remember him 
 well as a young man about thirty-eight years ago, when he 
 first came up to London and published his earliest verses, 
 ' The Season, a Satire,' and the rest. Some of them rather 
 smart. He was a Catholic, and moved in a small way in 
 Catholic society, but later married an Irish Protestant and, 
 I believe, joined the English church. He was the most 
 absurd little cock sparrow of a man ever seen, and childishly 
 vain of his talents. He has improved with years, but not 
 in his verses. His principal poem, ' Madonna's Child,' is 
 about the dullest and silliest tale in meagre blank verse 
 ever produced. He has floated in at last to the Laureate- 
 ship on the success of a prose volume about his garden in 
 Kent. There really was no choice, however, for the post. 
 William Morris refused, the Queen objected to Swinburne, 
 old Patmore was a Catholic, the rest were, if possible, worse 
 than Austin. He is better anyhow than Lewis Morris, the 
 Liberal candidate, or than Watson, Dobson, Davidson, and 
 the rest of the sons of their own penny trumpets. 
 
262 Kaiser Wilhehii a7td Kruger- [1896 
 
 " ()th Jan. — The German Emperor has telegraphed his 
 congratulations to Kruger, and this seems to have pro- 
 duced great anger in England. We have now managed 
 in the last six months to quarrel violent!}- with China, 
 Turkey, Belgium, Ashanti, France, Venezuela, America, 
 and Germany. This is a record performance, and if it does 
 not break up the British Empire nothing will. For myself 
 I am glad of it all, for the British Empire is the great 
 engine of evil for the weak races now existing in the world 
 — not that we are worse than the French or Italians or 
 Americans — indeed, we are less actively destructive — but 
 we do it over a far wider area and more successfully. I 
 should be delighted to see England stripped of her whole 
 foreign possessions. We were better off and more respected 
 in Queen Elizabeth's time, the ' spacious days ' when we 
 had not a stick of territory outside the British Islands, than 
 now, and infinitely more respectable. The gangrene of 
 colonial rowdyism is infecting us, and the habit of re- 
 pressing liberty in weak nations is endangering our own. I 
 should be glad to see the end. 
 
 " My old woodreeve. Bates, at Crabbet has hanged him- 
 self in his cart shed — a man of genius in his way of life, 
 who, beginning as a day labourer, rose to be the best judge 
 of timber in Sussex, as well as a successful farmer and 
 churchwarden of the parish. Having completed eighty-four 
 years of life and fifty of honest service to the Crabbet 
 Estate, and, having entertained his friends the night before, 
 he went out in the early morning to his shed and was found 
 there dead hanging from a beam. I can imagine the old 
 man carefully tying the noose, as his manner was, without 
 mistake. It was noticed by those who had been with him 
 at dinner the night before that during the meal he had a 
 hank of rope on his knees with which he was pla}'ing. 
 In the morning he had got up by candlelight, asked his old 
 wife 'How are you, old girl?' and had gone out to the 
 cart shed, where he was found hanging. 
 
 " I ithjaii. — Took Anne and Judith to Koubbah to see the 
 Khedive. He received us with great empressement, talked 
 a good deal about the petty vexations and the affronts put 
 upon him by the English officials, and showed us his stud. 
 He has got together some nice mares, but nothing quite 
 first class, except two of Ali Pasha Sherif's, one of which is 
 
1896] Cromer-' s Wrong-Headed Policy 26 
 
 J 
 
 our horse Mesaoud's dam, a very splendid mare, with the 
 finest head in the world. He has bred some promising colts 
 and altogether the thing is well done. He invited us to go 
 out with him some day on a desert expedition, and sent us 
 to the station in his barouche. 
 
 " There seems a good chance now of the Egyptian 
 question being re-opened as a European one, for the feeling 
 against us in Germany is very strong over the Transvaal 
 affair, and Egypt is the point where they can best put on 
 the screw. I am sorry it should come in this way, though 
 it is what I have always foreseen, for Egypt international- 
 ized to the profit of Europe is not a pleasant prospect. It 
 comes of Cromer's wrong-headed administration, where the 
 one object has been to Anglicize, not to establish a National 
 Government. Egypt, too, has been scandalously used for 
 the creation of highly paid posts for not very capable 
 Englishmen. I foresaw all this and protested years ago, 
 but it was of no use. Now we shall evacuate the country 
 not for the benefit of the Egyptians, but for that of the 
 scoundrel European Colonies. 
 
 " Yesterday Dawkins and his wife were here — he a new 
 man sent in Milner's place, and a friend of Milner's. I 
 talked to him a good deal about Cromer's policy, in which 
 I think he partially agreed with me, as they all do when it 
 is plainly put before them that we cannot stay on for ever 
 in Egypt. But, when things are quiet, and they see a chance 
 of holding on, then they harden their hearts. 
 
 " 15^/2 Jan. — I see in the papers that negotiations are 
 likely to come on between our Government and the French 
 about Egypt. I have therefore put my ideas about a possible 
 agreement for evacuation on paper, and shall probably 
 send it to Lord Salisbury through Pom McDonnell. It 
 ought to be a quite easy thing to arrange if only Lord 
 Salisbury was willing. His great necessities just now 
 should be our occasion. 
 
 "' i6th Jan. — Mohammed Abdu and M. Arminjan to 
 luncheon. I talked the matter of evacuation over thoroughly 
 with Abdu. He tells me that, much as he is attached to 
 the Khedive, it would not do to trust him with power — the 
 Ministry should be independent of him as far as possible, 
 and supported by some sort of Constitution. He thinks 
 this essential. There are good men to be found who would 
 
264 Sivagger and Poltroo7iery [1896 
 
 hold their own as ministers against Khedivial encroach- 
 ment, but not the men now in office, who are mere dummies. 
 The ministers ought to be irremovable as long as they have 
 the support of the Chamber of Deputies. If we could get 
 the French to agree to this, evacuation would be quite 
 simple. It realh' looks as if it might come. Lord Salisbury 
 has quarrelled with everybody, and it is about time he 
 should patch up matters with some of them — and France 
 is the most dangerous. I should prefer, m\'self to see the 
 British Empire break up. It has become a curse to the 
 world, but, for Egypt's sake, an arrangement with France 
 would be better at the present moment. 
 
 " 2yd Jan. — The English papers are sickening about the 
 Transvaal, a mixture of swagger and poltrooner\'. One would 
 have thought the less said about Jameson's ignominious 
 defeat by the Boers the better, but our blessed public must 
 needs make a hero of him, a man who fought for thirty-six 
 hours, and had only fifteen men killed and then surrend- 
 ered, not a pretence of its being in an)/ better cause than 
 money-making and land-grabbing. The ' Times ' prints a 
 poem in praise of him by the new Poet Laureate. Austin 
 has managed to turn off some spirited doggerel, and to get 
 it recited at a music hall, so low are we sunk. I have been 
 'ousy writing m)- letter to McDonnell, and also finishing 
 my article about the evacuation of Egypt for the ' Nine- 
 teenth Century.' 
 
 '' We have had several visitors here. Madame d'Hautpoul 
 and her cousin, Miss Pereira, Lady Decies and a pretty 
 daughter, and Mr. Douglas Murray. The latter told me one 
 or two new things about Egyptian history. Lesseps had 
 told him that it was he who dissuaded the French Govern- 
 ment from joining in the bombardment of Alexandria or 
 occupying the Suez Canal, thinking that the English would 
 get into militar}' difficulties ; also that when our fleet entered 
 the Canal, Admiral Hoskins threatened Victor Lesseps to 
 hang him from the yard-arm if he interfered with the opera- 
 tions. Lesseps was a vain old fool. 
 
 " 2^th Jan. — Lady Gallowav has arrived at Cairo. I went 
 in to see her at the Legation, where she is staying with the 
 Cromers. She told me that it was out of the question to 
 think of our evacuating Egypt, that if we went out the 
 French would come in, or there would be massacres and a 
 
1896] Roseberys Armenian Policy 265 
 
 lot more rubbish, which I fear represents Lord SaHsbury's 
 view. She also blamed Rosebery for the Armenian policy, 
 but excused Lord Salisbury for continuing it on the ground 
 that he had a real sympathy' for Armenia, and a real hatred 
 for the Turks. The Russo-Turkish alliance is announced 
 by the ' Pall Mall,' it cannot but be true. I fancy the Rus.sian 
 Government is glad to ally itself with a fellow suppressor 
 of Nihilism, whether Russian or Armenian. The Armenians 
 seem likely now to be exterminated between them, our 
 Government playing the most foolish figure imaginable. 
 Lady Gallowa)^ is coming to Sheykh Obeyd on Monday. 
 
 " 2jtli Jan. — Lady Galloway was here for luncheon to- 
 day. I have written my memorandum on the evacua- 
 tion of Eg5'pt, and am sending it to Lord Salisbury through 
 Pom McDonnell. In my letter to Pom I say: ' I have 
 drawn it up very carefull}^, and after consultation with 
 some of my Eg3'ptian friends, who best know the situation, 
 and in whom 1 have most confidence as honest and 
 patriotic men. I have also some reason to believe that 
 Monsieur Cogord-an, the present French Minister, would 
 enter into some such plan were it suggested to him. He is 
 a far fairer and more intelligent man than any of his pre- 
 decessors here. I have said nothing of it, however, directly 
 to him, as I only know him very slightly. You know how 
 anxious I am that Egypt should be allowed to workout her 
 political destiny in peace, and I foresee that if Lord Salis- 
 bury does nothing towards a solution of the question now, 
 it will be forced upon him later in a way which will lead 
 to the sacrifice of all Egyptian hopes. With the support of 
 Germany withdrawn from our occupation, it is impossible 
 that Europe should long delay making the question its 
 own. This sensible Egyptians fear as a worse e\"il than 
 anything in their present condition, for it would mean 
 Egypt for all the speculators of Europe.' 
 
 " Our policy at Constantinople has certainly gone an 
 absolute smash, and Philip must be feeling small. A treaty 
 is announced between Russia and Turke)-, which, whether 
 quite true or not, must be very near the truth. I strongly 
 suspect that the famous incident of Said Pasha taking 
 refuge at the British Embassy was an ingenious trick to 
 spy out the real ideas of the Ambassador. Said may very 
 well have gone there with the knowledge and privity 
 
2 66 A Long Desert Journey [1896 
 
 of the Sultan, and the result ma_\" have convinced the 
 Sultan that England was his bitterest personal enemy. 
 Certainly from the daj' of Said's return to his own house 
 things have altered at Constantinople, and the Sultan has 
 gone his own way without seeking anymore to be on terms 
 with us/ 
 
 " 2sOth Jan. — Anne and I start on iMonday for a consider- 
 able journey in the southern desert beyond Kalala. Judith 
 goes up the Nile with Lady Decies, and Sheykh Obeyd will 
 be shut up. I feel better and in better spirits, though the 
 future is dark for me. If this next summer brings me nothing 
 of value to my life I shall not return to England again. Per- 
 haps I may find my hermitage this Spring in truth and 
 reality, but I must go to England once again first, to solve 
 one or two questions and complete my memoirs. 
 
 " 2,r<i Feb. — Our party at Sheykh Obeyd is broken up. 
 Judith went this morning to Cairo, and will stay there till 
 .she starts up the Nile. Anne and I leave to-morrow for 
 our long desert journe\', it ought to be an interesting one. 
 I went to-day to the War Office, and saw Wingate, and 
 looked over maps with him. I find that almost nothing is 
 known of the country south of Kalala, so that we shall be 
 exploring a new region. I have taken tracings of such 
 maps as they have in the Intelligence Department, and 
 they are not much. Floyer has also sent me tracings. I 
 had some talk with Slatin, a commonplace little German, 
 quite unworthy of ever having served the Mahdi. He talked 
 a great deal about the prospects of reconquering the 
 Soudan. I have been reading Kipling's new 'Jungle Book,' 
 and the story of the Indian Minister who became a fakir. 
 It seems to me the only worthy ending of a public, perhaps 
 of a private life; but it wants great physical courage to 
 endure." 
 
 February 4th to 26th in my journal is taken up with 
 the diary of a camel journey made by Anne and me, with 
 Suliman Howeyti and two other Bedouins of the Howe}-tat, 
 under the guidance of Sobeyeh Ibn Zeydan of the Maaze 
 tribe, through the Maaze countrj- south of the Kalala 
 mountains to the granite range of Jebel Ghareb south- 
 wards to Kufra, Dokhan, and Kitar, regaining the Nile at 
 
 ^ Compare Dr. Dillon's " Eclipse of Russia." 
 
1896] Italian Defeat in Abyssinia 267 
 
 Keneh, a journey of 400 miles of uninhabited desert, made 
 in tvvent}' days, of the greatest possible interest. My diary, 
 however, is little more than an itinery of each day's 
 march, suited rather for a paper in the Royal Geographical 
 Society than for the present volume, and I do not transcribe 
 it here. It was for the most part through an entirely un- 
 e-xplored and unmapped region. We returned from Keneh 
 by steamer t(j Cairo. All that I will say of it here is that 
 it was the last and perhaps the hardest of all the many 
 desert journeys Lady Anne and I undertook alone together, 
 and as such stands out in my memory as one of the most 
 delightful. I made a rough map of our route for private 
 use, not for the Geographical Society (of which I am almost 
 the oldest member), because I have long convinced myself 
 that it makes itself the precursor and instrument of 
 Europe's penetrations and conquests against the wild races 
 of mankind. 
 
 " jth March. — Back at Sheykh Obeyd. Great things have 
 happened since we were away. First and foremost the Italians 
 have been smashed in Abyssinia, thoroughly and I hope 
 finally. They have most richly deserved it. The whole history 
 of their doings on the Red Sea has been a disgrace even to 
 this graceless nineteenth century. They went there at our 
 bidding in 1884, a job of Lord Northbrook's when we were 
 in straits with the Mahdi and thought they might help us. 
 We gave them Massowa, which did not belong to us, but 
 to Egypt, Egj'pt, of which we said we were acting as 
 guardians and trustees. At first they occupied the island 
 only, then little by little they encroached upon the main- 
 land on the plea of wanting a hill station, then they made 
 leonine treaties with the king and encroached more and 
 more, and then they put forward pretensions for a protec- 
 torate. Next they made a dash at Kassala and captured it 
 from the Soudanese. This turned their vanitous heads, and 
 nothing would serve them but they must make war again 
 with Menelik, wanting to grab the whole country. Menelik 
 pretended to yield, for the Abyssinians are cunning, but let 
 loose an army of Chouans upon them. The Italians were 
 defeated and shut up in a fortress. The fortress was in- 
 vested and at last capitulated on good terms granted them 
 by Menelik, who, though victorious, asked for peace. His 
 magnanimity, however, was put down at once in Italy to 
 
268 J ames07i feted ht London [1896 
 
 cowardice, the 'heroic' Italian defenders of the fortress 
 were treated as if they had been conquerors, and preten- 
 sions were put forward of annexing the whole of Abx'ssinia. 
 Menelik, however, calmly went on, all sections of the Ab}S- 
 sinians joining him, and proposed as an alternative con- 
 dition of peace, that the Italians should return to their 
 original quarters at Massowa; and war was renewed. The 
 Italians then sent 50,000 men from Italy, but their General 
 would not wait for the supports, fearing to be superseded, 
 and with 15,000 men gave battle, and has now been entirely 
 destroyed. The Italians have lost 60 cannons and 10,000 
 men, all most probabl}' killed, and are being swept into 
 the sea. This is a righteous ending to their iniquities. It 
 is enough to make one repent of ever having wasted sym- 
 pathy on liberty, to see these Italians, hardly released 
 from their Austrian bondage, counting it a glory for their 
 mushroom kingdom of Italy to attack and enslave the 
 oldest free people and kingdom in the world — for the 
 Abyssinian monarchy dates from before the time of King 
 Solomon — and there was not a voice in Europe to cr\- 
 shame ! All the English papers applauded. ' The wiping 
 out of the little kingdom of Abj'ssinia won't make much 
 difference,' they said, ' on the Stock Exchange.' But for 
 once Providence has answered ' No.' Crispi, the Italian 
 minister, formerly a revolutionist, now a renegade tyrant, 
 has fallen. He will be lucky if he does not get torn to 
 pieces in the streets, and it will fare hard with the Italian 
 monarchy. The Duke of Sermoneta, who was at Cairo 
 amusing himself, has been sent for to Rome. He has 
 always been an opponent of the Colonial policy, but he 
 will be too late even if they make him mmister. 
 
 " Next the Transvaal business has developed. Jameson 
 and his band have been feted in London, and old Kruger 
 must, I think, be sorry he did not hang them. It would have 
 been the best polic\', for Englishmen are cowards in the 
 face of hanging, and we should have had no more filibuster- 
 ing for at least a generation. Rhodes, too, has been to 
 England, and seems to have squared the Opposition. The 
 inquiry is to be put off, and, if possible, shirked, and I fancy 
 Chamberlain has saved his bacon. It is more obvious, how- 
 ever, than ever that he was in with Rhodes and Jameson, 
 though possibly they acted without his exact knowledge 
 
1896J Gilt s Account of the O' Shea Divorce 269 
 
 at the last moment. But the British public is easily gulled, 
 and Chamberlain's protestations of innocence have been 
 swallowed even by the opposition papers and Sir William 
 Harcourt. It is a base world and will not prosper — but it 
 tries one's patience to have to wait to see the end of it. 
 
 " T. P. Gill has been here twice this week. He has come 
 here for his health and to pick up ideas about evacuation, 
 and I have got him an audience of the Khedive. He saw 
 Cromer on Thursday, who told him all the usual story 
 about the wickedness of Abbas and his unfitness to reign. 
 Gill's impression is that he will try to get him deposed. 
 Cromer also fancies the French will come to terms which 
 will leave him, Cromer, still in power here, but this will not 
 be. It seems, however, certain that negotiations are going 
 on between the French and English governments relative 
 to the evacuation. McDonnell has acknowledged the 
 memorandum I sent to Lord Salisbury, who ' thinks I 
 will understand that he cannot write just now on the 
 subject of it' — which is the case. At any rate Lord 
 Salisbury has read it, and that is something. 
 
 " Gill was very interesting in his account of Parnell's last 
 days. He saw much of him in all the time, both before 
 the divorce trial and during the party split which followed. 
 It was he who carried on the negotiations with Dillon and 
 O'Brien when they were at Paris, and he left the party 
 when these failed. He tells me that Parnell had a complete 
 case in defence against O'Shea, O'Shea having connived 
 throughout and profited in a money wa)'. The house at 
 Itltham was really Parnell's, and O'Shea went there to 
 blackmail him. He showed his whole defence to Gill 
 before the trial. But Mrs. O'Shea would not allow him to 
 defend himself as she wanted a divorce so as to marry him. 
 She was a woman quite unworthy of him, who neither 
 sympathized with his politics nor at all appreciated the 
 height of his position. Later again when Parneh would 
 have agreed to retire for a while from the party, and was 
 quite willing to make peace, she always stood in the way 
 of it — and he used to come back from Brighton changed 
 and uncompromising. Lastly his devotion to her and the 
 worry of his public life was too much for him, and she 
 really hastened his end by her exigencies. I asked him 
 whether he committed suicide. But he was emphatic that 
 
270 Oicr Govcrnvietifs Fiasco [1896 
 
 it was not so. ' Parnell,' he said, ' was the last man in the 
 world to do it. He was a fighter to his last breath, and 
 would not give in. It \\as the worr\- and the strain of fight- 
 ing that ended him.' 
 
 " Evelyn has come and is staying with us. 
 
 " \2th Mnrcli. — Evelyn and Gill have gone. The Ar- 
 menian Blue Books are published. They show, as far as I 
 can judge by the extracts given, that our Government has 
 made a complete diplomatic fiasco. Philip seems to have 
 had really nothing to go upon for his trust in Russian and 
 French co-operation, and it has been exactly the old game 
 of taking a threat to be as good as a blow, which Lord 
 Gran\'ille was so fond of Of course the whole truth is not 
 given in the Blue Book. The reason for taking up the 
 question in 1895, rather than at anj^ other time was, I 
 have no doubt, to make a diversion for the Egyptian ques- 
 tion. It was probabh? the reason, too, why Lord Salis- 
 bury was .so foolish as to continue his predecessor's error. 
 Nothing can excuse his having put the threat to Turkey 
 into the Queen's speech if he was not prepared to act up 
 to it. 
 
 " ijjth March. — The English papers have come, telling 
 of the Italian defeat at Adowa, no trace in any of them of 
 the smallest sympathy with the Abyssinians or of disap- 
 proval of the wanton invasion of their country. All sense 
 of the rights of weaker nations is lost in Europe even 
 among the best and most generous of nations. 
 
 " 14th March. — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day and 
 tells me there is some prospect now of Arabi's being allowed 
 to return first to Cyprus, then to Egypt. Mustapha Fehmy, 
 the Prime Minister, has spoken to him about it, and says 
 that Lord Cromer is willing if the Khedive consents. If 
 this is so the thing ought to be managed. 
 
 " I'^th March. — Sheykh Saleh, the Sheykh of the niiihaj- 
 Jerin. the refugees from Dongola, called to-day. He says 
 that Kitchener has told him the Government intends to ad- 
 vance to Abu Hamad and Berber as soon as the railway is 
 finished to Wady Haifa. This can hardly be, however, for 
 several years. He assures me the people of Berber would 
 be willing, and of Abu Hamad, but the Khalifa is still 
 powerful. Berber he declares to be the key of the Soudan, 
 as all roads converge there. 
 
1896] The Advance on Dongola 271 
 
 " 16^/2 MarcJi. — It is announced that an advance is to be 
 made immediately to Dongola by arrangement with the 
 German and Austrian Governments, so as to make a diver- 
 sion in favour of the Italians at Kassala. There is no doubt 
 that troops have been forwarded up the river for some time 
 past, as long ago as when we were on our way down from 
 Keneh (a fortnight ago), but the final decision to advance 
 must have been come to suddenly. Even now I can hardly 
 believe it, it would be a most flagrant sacrifice of Egyptian 
 for European interests, although there would probably be 
 little resistance at Dongola; it must entail a re-opening of 
 the war with the Soudan, and what has Italy done for 
 Egypt to deserve Egyptian help? 
 
 "20th March. — I wrote to the 'Times' in the sense of 
 my first impression of the affair, but I find that the facts 
 are even more damning to our government than I had 
 supposed, and for once I have done Cromer an injustice. 
 Anne saw Lady Cromer on Thursday and she complained 
 bitterly to her of the thing having been decided by Lord 
 Salisbury ' over Lord Cromer's head,' who had strongly 
 disapproved of it. Moreover, Mohammed Abdu, who was 
 here yesterday, tells me that the Egyptian Ministry was 
 also opposed, Mustapha Fehmy saying that they had no 
 money, and that it was impossible. Even the Khedive, who 
 was keen on an advance to Dongola two years ago, ob- 
 jected to fighting for Italy, though I hear from Hadji 
 Mahmoud that His Highness is to start up the river the day 
 after to-morrow. Hadji Mahmoud got the news from AH 
 Pasha Lalla, and the vice-regal camels have already been 
 despatched by train to Girgeh. I am sorry he should intend 
 this, as he will get into trouble if he has done it off his own 
 bat, and if at the suggestion of Kitchener or Cromer they 
 will turn it to his disadvantage. Mohammed Abdu, how- 
 ever, was to see him to-morrow, and I hope will give him 
 good advice. 
 
 " I sit most of the day at Sheykh Obeyd's tomb, watching 
 the birds through a glass. There are half-a-dozen kinds 
 nesting in the sont bushes there : the Nubian shrike, a kind 
 ■of blackcap with a black throat, the Palestine redstart, 
 and two small warblers. There are also the thru.sh, the 
 Egyptian dove, the crow, a pair of spotted cuckoos, a 
 hoopoo, and a chat. 
 
-/ - 
 
 Kaiser U'ilhelm and the King of Italy [1896 
 
 ■' 22nd March. — A large party of visitors. Lad)- Gallo- 
 \va\-, who has come back from a journey up the Nile, which 
 she ha? made with Lady Jersey. Then the Potocki party, 
 Joseph and his wife, Zamoyski and his wife, Prince Radzi- 
 will and two other Poles. We had tea at the tomb and 
 showed off the horses. 
 
 "It is certain now that Cromer had nothing to do with 
 the new Soudan campaign, the thing having been arranged 
 between the Emperor of Germany and Frank Lascelles 
 (this was the account given me by our Polish friends). 
 The Emperor, I imagine, has promised to support our 
 staying on in Egypt in return for the help given by us 
 vicariously to his all)- the King of Italy. I notice already 
 an announcement that Germany does not intend to be 
 otherwise than friendly to Japan, which is also probably 
 part of the arrangement. It means in any case that we 
 are to have a new lease of occupation here. About the 
 advantage or disadvantage to Egypt nobody seems to have 
 thought or cared. I have written to John Morley, giving 
 him my view of what is going on, as I see he has brought 
 the matter forward in Parliament. It was through him 
 that we slopped the Soudan war eleven years ago. 
 
 " 2£fth March. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to tell 
 me what is going on at the palace. He sees the Khedive 
 now twice a \-\eek, and leads the prayer on Fridays at 
 Koubbah, omitting the Sultan's name. He was with the 
 Khedive some little time ago, and while he was there, 
 a letter came from Lord Cromer, complaining of the 
 Khedive's having privately expressed disapproval of the 
 Dongola campaign. The Khedive was very angry at this, 
 and afterwards saw Lord Cromer, who repeated the com- 
 plaint. The Khedive answered that upon this point he was 
 in agreement with his Lordship, to which Lord Cromer did 
 not dissent, but said that now that the thing was resolved on, 
 it was necessary to put a good face on it, and hoped that 
 the Khedive would speak in that sense to the soldiers. The 
 Khedive has done so since. Lord Cromer, too, has brought 
 him a message from Lord Salisbury, apologizing for an 
 ' error of form ' on the part of the English Government in 
 ordering an advance on Dongola without first informing, 
 His Highness. Lord Salisbury explained that the advance 
 was decided on ' to satisfy Egyptian opinion.' The Khedive 
 
1S96] The Bedouins and the Campaign 273 
 
 narrated all this to Mohammed Abdu, and I have no doubt 
 it is true. 
 
 " 25//? March. — The English papers of the 17th and i8th 
 ■came to-day. Lord Salisbury's statement in the House of 
 Lords is amazing. He has made no such deliberate mis- 
 statement of an important truth since the Congress of 
 Berlin. 
 
 " A large party to spend the afternoon, brought over by 
 Lady Galloway; Lord Yarborough, Benson, the author of 
 ' Dodo,' and others. She brought with her Arthur Balfour's 
 speech and Lord Salisbury's declaration. 
 
 " 26th March. — Sheykh Hassan Abu Towil called to tell 
 me that the Government had assembled the Sheykhs of 
 the tribes between Assouan and the Mediterranean Sea, to 
 confer with them as to the raising of 7,000 horsemen for 
 the Soudan war. Their answer so far has been that they 
 have neither horses nor arms. He asked my advice. I 
 advised him strongly to get out of the matter if he could, 
 as the war will prove a bad business for Bedouins engaged 
 in it. I doubted if one in five would return. He told me 
 that in former wars the Bedouins had never been called to 
 go out of their own district where they had acted as guards. 
 It would be better to say at once the men were unwilling 
 to go to a distance. He promised to bring Abu Shedid 
 (head Sheykh of the Howeytat) with him to-morrow to 
 consult. 
 
 " 2yth Ma]-ch. — A letter from Lady Lytton. She. tells 
 me : ' Rhodes knew about Jameson's advance on the Trans- 
 vaal, but certainly not Chamberlain, though he may have 
 encouraged Rhodes too much.' Just so. It means that 
 Chamberlain told Rhodes not to tell him the details, but 
 gave him to understand that he would be pleased at the 
 fait accompli. About the Soudan expedition she had great 
 confidence in Lord Salisbury, though ' one knows that 
 what comes out in Parliament is all arranged.' 
 
 " iptli March. — Received a note from Abdin, granting me 
 audience of the Khedive for to-day, so to-day I went there. 
 He asked me first about our journey to Ghareb and Keneh, 
 which interested him much, but we soon got to politics. 
 He gave me a full account of what happened regarding 
 the advance on Dongola. The question was begun soon 
 after the battle of Adowa by the arrival in F2gypt of our 
 
 T 
 
2 74 The Khedive on the Dongola Campaign [1896 
 
 military attache at Rome (Slade?), when a council was 
 held,' consisting of Knollys, Kitchener, the attache, and 
 Cromer. At this they decided to send a force from Tokar 
 to Kassala to take over that town from the Italians and 
 garrison it with Egyptian troops — this with the consent 
 of Italy, and Cromer telegraphed their decision to Lord 
 Salisbury. The Egyptian Government were not consulted,, 
 only informed of this, and gave consent. After this they 
 knew nothing till, on the 13th March, Lord Cromer received 
 a telegram from London, saying an immediate advance on 
 Dongola had been ordered. Kitchener was in bed, and not 
 at all expecting it. Neither he nor Cromer had recom- 
 mended it; and, in fact, they disapproved. The next day 
 was Beiram, and after the mosque, Mustapha Fehmy was 
 informed of it by Cromer or Kitchener, I am not sure 
 which, and it was not till 7.30 that the Khedive learnt it 
 from Mustapha Fehmy. He refused his consent until a 
 Council of Ministers had been called, especially because of 
 a demand made that Suakim should be handed over to 
 England. He disapproved of the expedition on account of 
 the hot time of year and the suffering of the men and the 
 increased cost of land transport at Low Nile, also because 
 it was made in no Egyptian interest. At the Council 
 Kitchener withdrew the demand for Suakim. When asked 
 about it, he said that it was not in question. Consent was 
 then formallygiven to the rest of the plan. Cromer had since 
 come to complain of his, Abbas', having talked against the 
 war, and had threatened to write against him in the Blue 
 Books. Abbas had answered that he objected on account of 
 the time of year and the cost, not in itself to the re-occupa- 
 tion of Dongola. ' Oh,' said Cromer, ' in that I am with 
 you, but you ought to be glad to help the King of Italy. 
 He gave hospitality to your grandfather for many years 
 at Naples.' ' Yes,' answered Abbas, ' and made him pay 
 pretty heavily for it too.' (Ismail lent a very large sum to 
 the King, which I believe was never repaid.) Cromer asked 
 the Khedive to write for publication an address to the Army 
 approving the objects of the campaign; but Abbas de- 
 clined, saying it was not necessary to talk politics to- 
 soldiers. He promised, however, to exhort them to obey 
 orders and do their duty. This he has repeatedly done. I 
 ' A fortnight or three weeks before Beiram. 
 
TS96J King Menelik of Abyssinia 275 
 
 asked him whether Kitchener had recommended the Don- 
 gola campaign, and he said 'No; he knew nothing of it 
 till he woke up out of his bed.' Also as to the Duke of 
 Cambridge, whom I suspected of having arranged it, ' No, 
 he is an old man, too old to conceal anything, and as we 
 had a deal of talk together I should have found out.' 
 
 " The Khedive also told me the detail of letters written to 
 the Queen and to himself by King Mangasheh of Abyssinia, 
 complaining, to the first, that he, being an old ally of 
 England, England had nevertheless supplied arms to the 
 Italians. Mangasheh is a son of King John, whom we put 
 on the throne. His letter to the Egyptian Government was 
 to propose joint action against the Khalifa, in order to 
 recover his crown, which had been taken from him and 
 carried away to Omdurman. In his letter to the Queen he 
 asked England's good offices with Italy for a peace. Both 
 these letters were written before the battle of Adowa, and 
 were conveyed to Cairo by a cousin of Mangasheh. They 
 were translated at the Cairo War Office. The Queen's 
 answer was in general terms, hoping that peace would be 
 made. The answer sent by Lord Cromer, in the name of 
 the Egyptian Government, was a proposal that Mangasheh 
 should advance on Omdurman, when they would together 
 get back the crown, and Mangasheh should be recognized 
 King of Abyssinia. Mangasheh, however. Abbas said, 
 would never go against Menelik, as his father John had 
 specially recommended him to recognize Menelik as 
 Emperor. Mangasheh's envoy went away dissatisfied, 
 especially with the presents given him, which had been 
 supplied by the Secret Service Fund of the Egyptian War 
 Office, namely, a gold watch, a musical box, a red um- 
 brella, and some dresses, which he told the Khedive he 
 should be ashamed to deliver to the King, as they were the 
 same as those worn by prostitutes in Abyssinia. They 
 were chosen by Kitchener. The Khedive said it would be 
 a good thing if I wrote an article in conformity with what 
 he had told me ; and I promised to do so, but without 
 compromising him. In going away I asked him to allow 
 Arabi to return to Egypt; and he questioned me about 
 him, and I told him what an honest patriot he was, and 
 that I would make myself answerable for his loyalty. He 
 promised me that he would speak to Mustapha Fehm\' 
 
276 Gorst on the Campaign [1896 
 
 about it, and I think he means it. He said: 'What you 
 tell me about him I must believe, for nobod}' who knows 
 you can doubt that you are the best friend that Egypt has.' 
 And so we parted. [ was again much struck with his great 
 intelligence and power of expressing his thoughts. 
 
 " 3r(3f April. — I have been writing an article, ' The 
 Truth of the Dongola Adventure,' for the ' Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury.' 
 
 '' I see they have been pushing George Curzon with 
 questions in the House of Commons about Cromer's ap- 
 proval of the campaign — this I doubt not in consequence 
 ■of a letter I wrote to Morley, telling him that Cromer had 
 •certainly not recommended it. 
 
 " Jth April. — Dawkins (the new financial adviser) was 
 here to-day, and tells me that the half million sterling 
 taken from the Caisse de la Dette has been spent already. 
 The whole savings of Egypt v/ill have been used up before 
 the campaign seriously begins. 
 
 " Young Somerset and his bride, Lady Katherine, came 
 on Saturday, a pleasing pair, who propose going to the 
 Natron lakes on camels. I tried to dissuade her, as she has 
 never yet been on a camel, and there was the chance of 
 great heat so late in the year, but on Sunday, Easter night, 
 there was a thunder shower, and the weather has become 
 almost cold. 
 
 " \oth April. — Gorst and his sister came to luncheon. 
 He, like Dawkins, evidently disapproves of the war. He says 
 that it will end in England's having to make the campaign 
 at her own cost, as Egypt has neither the money nor the 
 men. I am, however convinced that it will be put a stop 
 to as soon as a convenient pretext occurs. There is a report 
 that the Italians have evacuated Kassala. Also the Mata- 
 beles have risen and killed a number of the Chartered 
 Company's people, and are besieging Bulawayo. The 
 Chartered Company have no troops, and English regi- 
 ments will have to be sent to the Cape, and there will be 
 none to spare for a Soudanese campaign. I wish the 
 Matabeles all possible good fortune, and trust they may 
 capture Rhodes, who is said to be on his way from Fort 
 Salisbury to Bulawayo. The man, however, is too sh', 
 fancy, to be caught, or to run any personal risks, and a 
 telegram to-day says he is laid up with a fever, and unable 
 
1896] Rhodes Conscripts Black Men in Egypt 277 
 
 to move! The Dongola expedition, therefore, will, in my 
 opinion, get very little farther than Akasheh. Gorst tells 
 me it is true that Rhodes took away with him 200 negroes 
 from Cairo. He says they ' volunteered.' But the grounds 
 of his belief seem slight. ' I inquired,' he said, ' whether 
 they were going willingly, and was told that they were.' 
 He is much averse to the seizure of black men, as practised 
 by the Sirdar Kitchener, for the Egyptian army, and told 
 me confidentially that he had had the intention of putting 
 a stop to it, as it is quite illegal. But the campaign had 
 interfered with his project. There has been a general raid 
 on all negroes in Egypt. They are seized and forced to 
 serve in the army on very small pay — I think thirty piastres 
 a month, twopence halfpenny a day — and are there prac- 
 tically slaves for life — or rather for as long as they are able 
 to serve — for when past work in the army, they are piti- 
 lessly cast adrift without pension or provision of any kind. 
 Yet we English pretend that our mission in Africa is to put 
 down slav6-raiding and slavery. The English officers at 
 Wady Haifa told me last autumn that it was as precisely 
 slavery as any existing in the world. 
 
 " We are leaving for England on the 17th. I am glad to 
 go, having been seven months away. 
 
 " \2th April. — Young Gordon (General Gordon's nephew. 
 Bill) is here with his wife. He confirms about the spending 
 of the half million by Kitchener, but says the expedition is 
 being done very cheaply. He has the ordering and arrang- 
 ing of the supplies, and says that the new equipments, 
 saddles, arms, etc., have only cost ;£'20,ooo. He, like Gorst 
 and Dawkins, considers the Intelligence Department ab- 
 surdly overrated and overpaid. Wingate and Slatin between 
 them get ;^i,7oo a year. Gordon has had some experience 
 of the department, having been employed under it at 
 Souakim, and he knows how the information brought in is 
 cooked, and how the spies suit their news to the demand. 
 I asked him about the negroes taken away by Rhodes. He 
 thinks it likely that they were handed over by the agent of 
 the Zanzibar Government (which had been recruiting in 
 Egypt). He himself supplied Rhodes with uniforms for 
 them out of the public stores ' at a good price.' He saw a 
 great deal of Rhodes during the few days Rhodes was at 
 Cairo. 
 
278 Abdu on the Negro Raid [1S96 
 
 " \^th April. — They are apparently at a deadlock on the 
 frontier, the Finance Ministry being angry with Kitchener 
 for spending all the money. It must eventually fall on the 
 English exchequer, if persisted in. But I still hope Lord 
 Salisbury will be satisfied with the demonstration and go 
 no farther. 
 
 " x^th April. — We leave to-morrow morning for England. 
 Mohammed Abdu was here yesterday with a young 
 Turk of the Liberal party from Constantinople. He was 
 employed till lately in the Ottoman bank. He seems not 
 very hopeful of things on the Bosphorus, there being too 
 many persons in high places interested in keeping the 
 present system going. The army, though no better affected 
 than the rest to the Sultan, is without any leader for a 
 revolt, and as long as it can be paid it will do nothing. 
 The civilian population has no power to move. 
 
 " Mohammed Abdu gave me particulars about the raid 
 there has been made on the negroes in Egypt. Over 800 
 have been seized by the police for Kitchener and put into 
 the army. In some of the provinces every black man of 
 whatever age was taken and sent to Cairo, where the valid 
 ones were retained, the rest turned adrift in the streets. 
 Yet our Government talks of putting down the Slave 
 Trade as one of its objects in this Soudanese war. There 
 seems to be no doubt that the 200 negroes taken by 
 Rhodes to South Africa were practically purchased from 
 the Government of Zanzibar, which has ' recruited ' them 
 here. In the recent raid negroes holding respectable 
 positions were seized, among them a son of the Khedive's 
 porter, the servant of El Abbasi, Sheykh of the Azhar, and 
 a writer employed at £j a month in the Native Courts at 
 Cairo. These were rescued, but very many others were 
 driven off. 
 
 " I spent my last day, a very lovely one, in the garden — 
 the roses well in bloom, the nightingales singing, bee birds 
 flying about, a roller sitting near the tomb, and in the even- 
 ing a jackal. I lit two candles there for Sheykh Obeyd to 
 get us a good passage home. We had our Mowled there on 
 Monday. Old Sheykh Abderrahman Faki promises to say 
 prayers for me in my absence, but expostulates that I do 
 not go to his mosque. I prefer to recite my Fatha at the 
 tomb." 
 
1896] George ]]'yndhatii and Jameson 279 
 
 We reached London on the evening of the 24th, and 
 slept there. 
 
 ■' 2i,th April. — Breakfasted with George Wyndham. We 
 are to go together on a pilgrimage to Stratford in con- 
 nection with a monograph he is writing on Shakespeare. 
 He has the practical editorship now of the ' New Review,' 
 and in Parliament is making a cave against Chamberlain, 
 whom he agrees with me in considering as at the bottom 
 of all the Government mischief He says there is no doubt 
 in the world that Chamberlain was in with Rhodes and 
 Jameson in their attack on the Transvaal, and he is angry 
 with him for having backed out of it, and ruined the plot 
 at the last moment to save his own bacon. He has been 
 seeing much of Jameson, whom he likes, and of the gang 
 that have been running the Transvaal business, about a 
 dozen of them, with Buckle, the 'Times' editor, and Miss 
 Flora Shaw who, he told me confidentially, is really the 
 prime mover in the whole thing, and who takes the lead 
 in all their private meetings, a very clever middle-aged 
 woman. George made, it appears, a good speech in the 
 House ten days ago, attacking the Government on the 
 line of their having disarmed the Outlanders, and left 
 the Chartered Company defenceless. Chamberlain has 
 .since been making overtures to him of friendship, and has 
 been walking about with him ostentatiously in the Lobby ; 
 but, seeing this did not stop George's mouth, he has since 
 shown animosity. I warned George that Chamberlain was 
 a man who would do him a mischief if he could. George is 
 very happy with all this busy work. 
 
 " M)' article will be out on the 1st duly corrected in the 
 ' Nineteenth Century,' and George has asked me to write him 
 another for his June number of the ' New Review.' I shall 
 give him one on the Moallakat with my translation of 
 Antar's Ode. 
 
 " Old Alfred Montgomery is dead, and buried with a 
 wreath from the Prince of Wales ' to our dear friend.' Su 
 he ought to sleep happy to the Judgement Day. He was 
 -quite the last of the old D'Orsay set in London, and re- 
 mained a ' man of fashion,' dining out to the end, though 
 he died actually away from London at Burley, with his 
 daughter, Edith Finch. 
 
 " 28^'/? April. — To London with Anne. Ralph came to 
 
2 8o Morris ill at Hammersmith [1896- 
 
 luncheon in Mount Street, and I afterwards dined with 
 him. He showed me the whole existing correspondence 
 between Byron and Mrs. Leigh. 
 
 " li^th May. — I have been down, for the most part alone, 
 at Newbuildings, enjoying a wonderful fortnight, the woods 
 lovely in green and gold, nightingales singing night and 
 day from every hedge, quite a dozen close to the house so 
 that one can hear them at any hour of the night chorussing 
 when one opens a window. I have finished my article on 
 the ' Poetry of the Ignorance,' and am half way through 
 another on the ' Origin of the Arabian Horse,' for the June 
 and July numbers of the ' New Review.' George and I 
 and Sibell, and one of the girls, are to go to Stratford on 
 Saturday. I lunched to-day with them and young Ross- 
 lyn, a pleasant specimen of the golden youth of the day. 
 
 " Then to Hammersmith, where I found my poor old 
 Morris looking very ill and aged, toddling feebly in front 
 of his house. We went in together, and he brightened up,, 
 and told me of his maladies in a cheerful not too despond- 
 ing way, and I stayed on an hour or more and had tea with 
 him. My new tapestry, the Botticelli, is finished, and I am 
 to go with Mrs. Morris on Saturday to see it in Oxford 
 Street. Morris showed me the title-page of his Chaucer, 
 which is about the finest thing he has done, the whole has 
 been subscribed for, a matter of some ;£'9,ooo. 
 
 " Gill, whom I saw in Mount Street, repeated to me more 
 of what Cromer had told him about the Soudan. He asked 
 Cromer whether he should be in favour of an advance to 
 re-occupy the lost provinces. In reply to this Cromer had 
 told him that some time or other the Soudan would h9.ve 
 to be reconquered from the Khalifa, but the question was 
 by whom. As for imposing such a task on Egypt he was 
 most emphatic. ' I should never think,' he said, ' of propos- 
 ing that the poor fellahin in their blue shirts should be 
 charged with it.' This, it is as well to remember, was as late 
 as the beginning of March, and within a week of the ex- 
 pedition being ordered from England. 
 
 " li^th May. — Had tea with Lady Lytton at her hou.-^e 
 in Sloane Street. She thinks it a pity I should have 
 written what I have about the Dongola campaign, which 
 has set people against me just as I was coming home. By 
 ' people,' I suppose she means the Court, and I strongly 
 
1896] With George ]]^yndham at Stratford 281 
 
 suspect that Her Majesty has been the determining cause 
 of the forward policy in Africa. Lady Lytton was at pains 
 to persuade me that it was entirely Lord Salisbury, and 
 that nobody else had been consulted about it. 
 
 " \6th May. — Lunched with George and Sibell, and 
 found Madeline, his mother, there, looking fresh and well 
 and younger than I have seen her for years, and came on 
 with them in the afternoon to Stratford, where we now are. 
 We have already been to the Church and the Grammar 
 School. George is a capital companion for a visit of this 
 kind, as he enjoys sightseeing, and besides knows all about 
 Shakespeare, and has his theories about everything. We 
 are at the Shakespeare Hotel, a pleasant inn of the old 
 kind. We have spent the evening reading ' Venus and 
 Adonis ' and ' Lucrece.' I have always been a great admirer 
 of these two pieces, which are the most elaborate and sus- 
 tained of their kind, and splendidly rhetorical. I did most 
 of the reading as George has a cold. 
 
 " 17/// May. — A beautiful hot day which we spent 
 driving round the country with a jibbing horse. We 
 went to Charlcote and wandered about the park, and 
 then to Mar}' Arden's cottage, and to Anne Hathaway's. 
 Both cottages are interesting, and quite untouched and 
 unrestored, the latter inhabited still by a descendant of 
 the Hathaways. It is after all no such long way back to 
 Shakespeare's time, seven generations in my own family, 
 and I think people largely exaggerate the changes that 
 have taken place. Remote country villages can have hardly 
 at all changed. In the evening I read them translations 
 from the Moallakdt, about which George is enthusiastic. 
 My article for the ' New Review ' has put him upon the 
 track of discovery as to certain features of chivalry in the 
 Middle Ages in Europe, a subject not yet properly traced 
 to its origin in Arabia. We have had a thoroughly literary 
 two days, to me of much profit. 
 
 " i8//z May. — Mary joined us from Stanway with Miss 
 Balfour, and we all went to see the church and the tomb, 
 then back to London in the afternoon. 
 
 " 20th May. — Dined with Pamela, and then went to the 
 Foreign Office party in honour of Her Majesty's birthday, 
 an immense crush, but as always a fine sight, and many 
 people one knows. 
 
282 Morris at AT ewbuildings [1896 
 
 " 2gth May. — The Morrises have been here at Newbuild- 
 ings since Tuesday. He, poor man, very feeble and aged. 
 I fear from the look of things that it is some form of con- 
 sumption, and that he will not recover. But his spirits are 
 fairly good, and he talks at times as brilliantly as ever. The 
 new piece of tapestry he has made me, Botticelli's Spring, 
 is up and is very decorative and brilliant in the drawing 
 room, though the faces are hardly as good as they ought to 
 be. It has been a great difficulty to execute it, he says, 
 and has turned out better than he expected. X^ e think 
 the three figures with the flowers are March, April, 
 and May. We have had many interesting talks on art, 
 politics, and religion. As to the last he does not believe 
 in any God the Creator of the World, or any Providence, 
 or, I think, any future life. But he is not a pessimist, and 
 thinks mankind the ' crown of things,' in spite of man's 
 destructive action and his modern craze of ugliness. His 
 illness does not make him gloomy; only it troubles him in 
 his work. 
 
 " Swinburne's new poem was reviewed yesterdaj- in all 
 the papers. Morris thinks it poor stuff and not worth doing, 
 as the story, ' Balin and Balan,' was quite perfect in its prose 
 form in the ' Morte d'Arthur.' ' It would not do, however,' he 
 said, ' for Swinburne to hear me saying this, for he would 
 never forgive me.' Swinburne, it appears, is the most sen- 
 sitive and jealous of men, and cannot bear the smallest 
 criticism. But he and Morris have not met for some years, 
 though Mrs. Morris goes now and then to see Swinburne. 
 Tennyson, Morris says, was the same, and never forgave 
 him and Burne-Jones for having disapproved of his 
 bowdlerization of the ' Morte d'Arthur ' in the ' Idylls of the 
 King.' I drove Morris yesterday to Crookhorn and a little 
 way I'ound. He is, I think, happy here. The oak woods are 
 new to him, though he was born in Epping Forest, and 
 he likes the multitude of birds. He creeps about a little 
 among them in the sun. 
 
 "3IJ-/ May ^Sunday). — The Morrises left yesterday. I 
 think he enjoyed himself while he was here, and he talks 
 of coming back for another week later, and of our making 
 a drive together in Epping Forest, where he was born. 
 But I fear he is very ill. He has told me something of his 
 origin. His father was a bill broker in the City, and he 
 
Morris on the Love of Beauty 283 
 
 himself was destined for that trade. ' If I had gone on with 
 it,' he said, ' I should have broken the bills into very small 
 bits, \^^e had some mining shares in Cornwall, and when I 
 succeeded to them I sold them. My relations thought me 
 both wicked and mad, but the shares are worth nothing 
 now.' I took him \-esterday to see Shipley Church, a fine 
 old Norman tower, injured with restoration. He was very 
 indignant, swearing at the parsons as we walked up the 
 nave: 'Beasts! Pigs! Damn their souls!' \^^e had a long 
 discussion whether the love of beauty was natural or 
 acquired. ' As for me,' he said, ' I have it naturally, for 
 neither my father, nor my mother, nor any of my relations 
 had the least idea of it. I remember as a boy going into 
 Canterbury Cathedral and thinking that the gates of 
 heaven had been opened to me, also when I first saw an 
 illuminated manuscript. These first pleasures which I dis- 
 covered for myself were stronger than anything else I have 
 had in life.' He talked much about his Iceland journey, 
 as he often does, and has a sick man's fancy to go there 
 again, for it would do him good. ' I am a man of the North,' 
 he said. ' I am disappointed at the fine weather we are 
 having here. I had hoped it would rain, so that I could sit 
 indoors and watch it beating on the windows.' 
 
 " 1st June. — Went up to London to take Anne to a 
 Geographical meeting, where Theodore Bent gave some 
 account of his travels south of where we were last winter. 
 Like all our geographers nowadays he is an arch Jingo, 
 and talked of opening up the country by gold digging as 
 if it would be a work of piety. The Geographical Society 
 has lent itself to this sort of thing in Africa for the last 
 thirt)' 3-ears. 
 
 " 27id Juiw. — To lunch with Judith at Alargot's; a great 
 treat. Margot was delightful and most amusing. We found 
 her with Lady Greville, who had come to interview her, on 
 the subject of women cross country riders, for some magazine. 
 Margot was splendid in her description of the various styles 
 of riding, and of the falls and smashes she had had and 
 witnessed. ' There are only three women,' she said, ' who 
 really have the nerve to ride a line of their own, and I am 
 one of them.' Her baby of last year has in no wa_\- spoilt 
 her nerve, and she had seventy days' hunting during the 
 past winter. Two of her step-children were with her at 
 
284 Royal Influences in Diplomacy [1896 
 
 luncheon, and the governess, which gave her a somewhat 
 matronly appearance, but she is otherwise unchanged from 
 the days of her hoyden maidenhood — affectionate, and nice, 
 and cleverer than anyone else, with a pretty colour in her 
 cheeks, but very thin. ' I have lost two stone,' she said, 
 ' since you were with me at the Glen. I only weigh 
 7 stone 6, but I like to ride big horses. The best I ever had 
 was 16.2. 
 
 " Zrd June. — Newbuildings. I have sent the following to 
 Morley: 
 
 ' As the debate on the Soudan campaign is coming on I 
 write a line to say that I think you will find the action of 
 the Italian Government explainable on the supposition put 
 forward in my article in the " Nineteenth Century " of May, 
 viz., that the arrangement made with the German Emperor 
 was due not to the Italian Government, but to the King 
 of Italy personally through his appealing to the Emperor. 
 The Italian Government, and especially the Duke of 
 Sermoneta, whom I know well, are or were when they 
 came into office opposed altogether to the Italian Colonial 
 policy. The Duke's hobby (if one may call it so) is financial 
 economy, and he would have liked to see the whole of 
 Erythrya with Kassala, and even Massowah, given up. I 
 am sure, therefore, that it has been the King's influence 
 that has been at work overruling that of his Ministers. 
 The Italian Government's object now, I imagine, is to get 
 their expenses in Erythrya, or at any rate at Kassala, paid 
 for by the Egyptian Government or ours, on the plea that 
 they have been pacifying the country in Egyptian interests. 
 It is all nonsense of course, but our Government, by inviting 
 the Italians twelve years ago to take Massowah, has put 
 itself under some obligations to Italy, which will be made 
 the most of 
 
 ' P.S. I am convinced that the whole of this business was 
 worked in the first instance by Royal personages, including 
 our own, much more than by the various F.O's.^ ' 
 
 '^ 'iitiL June. — There is news of a 'victory' in the Soudan 
 at Ferkeh, come, however, just too late to serve as an 
 
 ^ Compare Dr. Dillon's " Eclipse of Russia.'' 
 
1896] Death of J. H. Middleton 285 
 
 answer by the Government in Parliament. Labouchere 
 rushed this debate on Friday, and it came off most success- 
 fully, whereas the battle, which I have little doubt was 
 fought by order from Downing Street, was only fought on 
 Sunday. 
 
 " Coming up to London in the morning I stopped at 
 go, Sloane Street, to see Frank Lascelles. We had some 
 talk about Egypt and the Soudan, and he admitted to me 
 that there had been a conversation between him and the 
 Emperor William, such as I allude to in my ' Nineteenth 
 Century ' article. But he professed ignorance as to the real 
 reasons of the decision come to, to advance to Dongola, 
 also surprise at its having been made. 
 
 " \oth June. — Mrs. Morris writes that Morris is less well, 
 losing weight daily and growing weaker. But the doctors 
 will have it that it is nervous exhaustion only, and recom- 
 mend a sea voyage and rest. I do not believe them. She 
 is to take rooms for him at Folkestone meanwhile, a sad 
 prospect. 
 
 " i2,tli June. — My good friend, J. H. Middleton, is dead.' 
 
 " i^th Jiuie. — An inquest has been held on poor Middle- 
 ton. The jury have returned a verdict of 'death from mis- 
 adventure.' What is carious is that it now appears that for 
 twenty years he has been a morphia taker, and his long 
 illness has been entirely due to that cause, I have so often 
 talked over with him his friend Rossetti's death from 
 •chloral, which he used to deplore! He is a great loss, or 
 rather, one should say, has been a great loss, for he has 
 been dead to the world and to his friends for something 
 like two years. 
 
 " Margot came to dinner with George Wyndham and 
 Harry Cust, a merry parti de quatre, and George stayed on 
 talking with me after the others were gone. 
 
 " \(>th June. — Lunched with Philip Carrie and his wife, 
 just back from Constantinople. There seems little chance 
 now of their being transferred to Paris. Afterwards to 
 Lady Galloway's. 
 
 " 2A,th June. — Yesterday to Folkestone to the Morrises. 
 He is distinctly better, and I hope may yet come round, as 
 the doctors declare he will. He talked a great deal about 
 
 ' John Henry Middleton, director of the South Kensington 
 Museum. 
 
286 Morns on his School Life [1896 
 
 his boyhood, said he had read the whole of Scott's novels 
 before he was seven, and had gone through the phase of 
 ' Marmion ' and the ' Lady of the Lake.' At his school, 
 Marlborough, he was neither high nor low in his form, but 
 always last in arithmetic [in this like me]; hated Cicero 
 and Latin generally, but anything in the way of history 
 had attracted him; he knew English history better than 
 Greek history, though only the latter was taught ; he had 
 learned nearly everything he knew of architecture and 
 mediaeval things running about the country round Marl- 
 borough as a schoolboy. The Morrises are at the Norfolk 
 Hotel. 
 
 " ■26th June. — With Everard Feilding to see Tissot's 
 pictures, not really good either in drawing or in taste, and 
 rather sham in their Oriental realism. 
 
 " Breakfasted with George, who was in the highest of his 
 high spirits, having been up at a ball till five at Grosvenor 
 House, and then out at nine to try a new bicycle on 
 Hampstead Heath, which is to run forty miles an hour. 
 His triumphs are my triumphs, and I delight in his 
 happiness. 
 
 " 1st July. — Lunched with Harry Cust, who is starting 
 in a few days for South Africa. 
 
 " loth Jtdy. — Went with George Wyndham to a dinner 
 given by Henley to the 'New Review' contributors, a 
 deadly dull affair, as all men's dinners are — the most in- 
 teresting person I met there was the Dane Brandes, who 
 has the honour of having invented Ibsen. Whibley also was 
 there, with whom I talked. 
 
 "Things are going badly in South Africa for the Chartered 
 Company. The blacks are in arms, and it seems doubtful 
 whether they can be put down. Rhodes is now quite 
 discredited. 
 
 " wth July. — Lunched with Lady Galloway, and down 
 by the afternoon train to Canterbury to stay with Guy 
 Wyndham and his wife, who are quartered there. They 
 have a very beautiful child, a boy called George. 
 
 " I2t]i July. — With Guy to see the Cathedral. I am dis- 
 appointed with it, after all Morris told me — that is, with 
 the inside, which has been scraped out of most of its 
 interest. Only the tombs are splendid, especially that of 
 the Black Prince. The tower outside, seen from the cloisters, 
 
iSyoJ Frederic Harrison at Cricket 287 
 
 is grand, and I have arrived just in time to see these and 
 the chapter house unspoiled. ' If you had come a week 
 later,' said the verger, ' }'ou would have found the whole a 
 mass of scaffolding.' Dean Farrar, who wants, Morris says, 
 to be made a Bishop, is bent on scraping and destroying all 
 that has hitherto escaped, a hideous madness of destruction 
 nothing can prevent. 
 
 " In the evening back to London, and dined with the 
 Morrises, to wish him good-bye, as he sails for Norway 
 next week. The garden at Kelmscott House is lovely with 
 hollyhocks. 
 
 " i^th July. — To the Horse Show at the Crystal Palace, 
 where Mesaoud has taken first Arab Prize, Meijliss second. 
 This is satisfactory, though in truth no great triumph, see- 
 ing \\\va.\. a poor competition it was. 
 
 " lyth July. — Went to see Bowles and consult him about 
 Egyptian affairs, and as to bringing forward the case of 
 Rhodes' 220 Soudanese, which certainly ought to be done. 
 Bowles has made for himself by his cleverness a certain 
 position in the House of Commons, and I would rather he 
 took the case up than the Radicals. 
 
 " \Zth July. — I have written to the 'Times' about Cecil 
 Rhodes and his 220 Soudanese recruited at Cairo, and never 
 since heard of 
 
 " In the afternoon I started for Blackdown, going by way 
 of Petworth, where I left cards, nobody being at home. 
 Then on b}- Lodsworth Common. This is, I think, the 
 easiest, though the longest road, and may be about twenty- 
 one miles. I found Harrison at cricket with his boys, now 
 grown-up young men, but they came in presently, and I 
 played a set of lawn tennis with the philosopher, and spent 
 a pleasant evening discussing his creed of Humanity and 
 mine of anti-Humanity. It seems to be pretty much the 
 same thing as far as politics are concerned, for the prin- 
 cipal wish of both of us is to see the break-up of the British 
 Empire. He has some right to believe in Humanity, as he 
 has never had a pain or ache or a sleepless night in his 
 life, and he is past sixty. Thus in half serious humour we 
 passed the evening. There is nobody in the world less 
 like a philosopher or a religious leader than the good 
 Harrison. 
 
 " \<^th July {Sunday). — Off at five in the morning, having 
 
288 Reginald Wilberforcc [1896 
 
 said good-bye overnight, going by Lodsworth and Eben- 
 hoe, Kirdford and Wisborough Green, an old-fashioned bit 
 of country as any in Sussex, belonging, I think, all to 
 Leconfield. Long may it so remain. 
 
 '' yd Aiig. — Dr. Jameson has been sentenced to fifteen 
 months imprisonment, a sentence at once too much and 
 too little. The Government has made him a first-class 
 misdemeanant, so as a punishment it is very little. At the 
 same time if the sentence had been carried out it would 
 have been a savage one. He ought to have been hanged at 
 Pretoria. The ' Times ' has refused to publish my letter 
 about Rhodes' Soudanese. 
 
 '■^ 6th Aug. — There has been heavy cholera up the Nile. 
 Captain Fenwick dead, and one of the young engineer officers 
 I saw at Korosko last November. He was under twenty- 
 four, and was receiving ;^i,ooo a year from the Egyptian 
 Government, and thought himself a lucky fellow to be 
 there. They are to advance on Dongola at the end of the 
 month. What our Jingoes want is to wait till the Egyptian 
 army is exhausted by heat, hard fighting, and cholera, and 
 then to send an Engli.sh arm}' to Khartoum in cool weather 
 to reap the profits of the campaign in English interests. 
 This is being advocated unblushingly in the ' Pall Mall ' 
 and elsewhere. I wrote to expose the scandalous intention, 
 but they would not print my letter. 
 
 " ioth Aug. — Started for a driving tour in the New Forest, 
 stopping the first day for luncheon at Lavington with 
 Reginald Wilberforce and his family. I have known 
 Reginald all my life, that is to say, from the year 1845, 
 when we lived for a while at Alverstoke after my father's 
 death, and when his father, the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, 
 afterwards Bishop of Oxford, was Rector of the parish. 
 There were three boys then — Reginald, at that time called 
 Garton; Ernest, now Bishop of Chichester; and Basil, 
 Chaplain of the House of Commons. The}' were all three 
 as bad boys as could be wished, and my mother nick- 
 named them ' the sons of Eli.' Ernest, with whom I was 
 in the same class at school, an especially wicked boy, 
 which is saying a good deal, but now just as justl}' re- 
 spected, and a Right Reverend Father in God. The only 
 good boy of the family was an older brother Herbert, but 
 he had died at sea, while the wicked ones lived on to adorn 
 
1896] Cardinal Manning and his Nephew 289 
 
 the Church of England with their virtues. Thus is the child 
 father to the man. I went over the little parish church 
 after luncheon with Reginald, who is an amusing talker. 
 
 He showed me the grave of his Aunt Caroline, who had 
 been Cardinal Manning's wife. It remains without inscrip- 
 tion of any kind. The old Cardinal visited it in 1876 and 
 talked of putting up a stone, but he was probably per- 
 plexed as to the wording of the inscription. ' Wife of 
 Cardinal Manning' would have looked strange. Reginald, 
 however, thinks now of doing this, and suggests ' Wife of 
 Henry Edward, afterwards Cardinal Manning.' Reginald 
 told me much else that was interesting about Cardinal 
 Manning's visit. He had come down for the consecration 
 of the Catholic church at Burton Park, and asked to be 
 allowed to lunch at Lavington, so they entertained him 
 there, and he saw all the old parishioners and was much 
 affected. Afterwards he walked to the top of the down 
 with Reginald and discoursed to him about his soul, ex- 
 horting him to conversion' — thus for two hours. Their last 
 words were : ' Think, my dear Reginald, if God should 
 require your soul of you to-night, where should you be ? ' 
 To which Reginald, ' Why, my dear Uncle Henry, I should 
 be in the hands of God.' As his Eminence was leaving, the 
 parishioners all came to wish him good-b\'e, and he blessed 
 them each in turn. When Reginald had put his uncle into 
 the carriage, he said: 'And is there no blessing, no little 
 blessing for me? ' They never met again, and ' he never 
 cared for me after this,' Reginald said, ' though he used to 
 see my wife and children and was always most affectionate 
 to them.' , He tells me the way Purcell, his biographer, got 
 hold of the Cardinal's diaries and letters was this. He had 
 had several conversations with Manning on the subject of 
 his biography, and Manning had given him some sort of 
 verbal promise about it and had shown him where his 
 diaries were kept, and one day he came to the house when 
 the Cardinal was out and persuaded the servant to let him 
 have them, saying that the Cardinal had told him to call 
 and take them away, he knew where they were, and had 
 authority, etc. But it was a pure theft and Manning had 
 begun legal proceedings for their recovery when he died." 
 
 I went on the same afternoon and camped on Good- 
 wood Down, and on the next day through Chichester to 
 
 U 
 
290 Auberon Hei^bert at Oldhouse [1896 
 
 Fareham and Southampton, and camped again in the 
 evening at the edge of the New Forests the immediate 
 object of my journey being to pay Auberon Herbert a visit 
 at Oldhouse. Of this I write: 
 
 " \2th Aug. — Oldhouse lies pretty well in the heart of 
 the Forest. One descends to it from the high road by a 
 grass track of a mile and a half. It is a freehold of half-a- 
 dozen acres, recently purchased by Auberon of its owner, 
 and there he has made his hermitage. The old cottage he 
 has pulled down and in its place has built up a number of 
 cheap buildings of brick and wood devoid of architecture. 
 Fortunately they lie in a hollow and so are invisible until 
 one is close by. Auberon has done so much for the Forest, 
 and fought so many battles to preserve it from the Crown 
 officers, that he must be forgiven this one lapse. I found 
 him with Stafford Howard, the Crown Commissioner, and 
 Esdale, a local squire and verderer of the Forest, Auberon's 
 ally in the Forest battle. I had much talk with them about 
 this. The chief difficulty is what to do with the great fir 
 enclosures, the firs ought to be cut down, but there is no- 
 body to buy them, and an ugly growth of them is creeping 
 over the open spaces, self-sown. It ought to be put a stop 
 to, or in fifty years' time the Forest will be like Woking 
 cemetery. 
 
 " Auberon is much aged since I saw him last, and more 
 flighty than he used to be. He is beset with a double 
 mania, a craving for fresh air and in contradiction a terror 
 of draughts, so that he is always shifting from in to out of 
 doors and putting on or taking off extra clothing. His two 
 children, Bron and Nan, wait on him with angelic devotion. 
 They do all the work of the house. When I arrived Nan 
 was in the kitchen up to her elbows in flour, making bread. 
 She is a great strong girl of sixteen, the picture of health, 
 with limbs like a boy's, great honest grey eyes, good com- 
 plexion, and good teeth. Auberon and I have talked a great 
 deal on politics, Eastern and Western, he, as his way is, 
 asking innumerable questions. We agree on most subjects, 
 but he is too tender to his countrymen's sins, excusing 
 them and comparing them favourably with the French. He 
 has become an entire vegetarian, as is his daughter, and 
 for the most part his son. Their way of life is the most 
 uncomfortable imaginable. They have no fixed hours for 
 
1896] His Children, Broii and Nan 291 
 
 meals, or for getting up in the morning, or for going to bed. 
 The first regular meal is said to be at half-past two in the 
 afternoon, and there is another at twilight in the evening, 
 but they do not sit down to either meal. Auberon sits in a 
 summer house during part of his meal, while the children 
 run in and out, and he has constantly to get up to arrange 
 and re-arrange his clothing, which is of Shetland wool 
 shawls and jerseys, and the children are called to put up 
 and take down wooden screens on this side and that as the 
 wind may seem to blow or not to blow. Nan, with in- 
 exhaustible patience, humours and serves her father, and 
 Bron is almost equally good to him. This is the best 
 tribute that can be paid to Auberon's system of education, 
 bat it is clear there must be a breaking point somewhere. 
 I don't know which child to admire the most, the boy or the 
 girl. 
 
 " i^thAug. — Spent the morning alone writing,for Auberon 
 has his occupations. He is a wonderful man, with a certain 
 ethereal beauty of the Shelley kind, which has increased 
 with years. His theories are, I believe, essentially true, and 
 he is true to them in practice, but without his children it 
 would be a desolate, impossible life. He took me for a walk 
 at luncheon time, discoursing as he went, his daughter 
 following us, all ears for our talk. She is very nice and 
 pleasant, as girls of sixteen always are, still wearing short 
 petticoats, and with hair cut short, enthusiastic at the 
 thought of going, perhaps this winter, to Egypt. 
 
 ■' \^th Aug. — On by Ringwood and up the Avon valley 
 to Salisbury, where we baited at the White Hart, an excel- 
 lent inn, but vitiated by a German waiter. I went over the 
 Cathedral, which has heen scraped inside and garnished 
 from end to end. In another hundred years it may perhaps 
 tone down again to beauty, but at present the black pillar 
 stems, newly polished, have the effect of so many tall stove 
 pipes. It was infinitely finer under the old whitewash, but 
 the deans will have their way. Then on to Wilton and 
 George Pembroke's grave. The house is shut up, as Sidney 
 finds himself too poor to live in it, and the days of their 
 joyous youth are a vanished dream. Then on across the 
 Down through Groveley Wood, the biggest mere wood in 
 England, where I remember riding with Pembroke and his 
 brothers and sisters thirty years ago, when they were 
 
292 Longleat, Mells and ]Vells [1896 
 
 children, playing a game of Puss in the Corner, with wild 
 galloping down the rides. There at nightfall I camped. 
 
 " \^th Aug. — Another short morning's drive brought us 
 to Stockton, where I spent the Sunday with my cousins 
 Pamela and Eddy Tennant. 
 
 " George has been appointed to the South African Com- 
 mittee, and is to sail for the Cape to-day." 
 
 From Stockton I went on through Warminster and 
 Longleat Park to Mells. " Longleat is very fine approached 
 from this side, but the house disappointed me. It is very 
 perfect, too perfect, and, large as it is, it is lost in the size 
 of the park. What makes it look dull is the uniform plate- 
 glass which has been put in every window. It is astonishing 
 how this destroys the beauty of old buildings. It is as 
 though the eyes in a beautiful face had been put out and 
 replaced with spectacles. I prefer Mells, where I now am, 
 a really fascinating little place, a comfortable eighteenth- 
 century house, remote and- shut in, which gives a sense of 
 immemorial quiet screened from the world's view. I arrived 
 late at half-past seven, but they had not yet gone to dress 
 for dinner, and presently out rushed the whole family. 
 Mrs. Horner, with her children, very pretty ones, and 
 Godfrey Webb, who is staying there, and Horner, who 
 went out to help me choose a camping place, and invited 
 me in to dinner. I was not expected, but travelling in this 
 way calls out the latent hospitality of the countryside 
 almost as much as if one were in the East, and Horner 
 gave himself endless trouble about my road to Wells next 
 morning. 
 
 " xjth Aug. — My day's drive to-day was along the 
 Mendip hills to Wells, where I baited the horses at the 
 Swan Inn, near the Cathedral. Wells Cathedral is the 
 most perfect in England. The inside has been scraped, but 
 not much spoiled, while the outside is quite intact. Its 
 surroundings are unique — the Bishop's palace, the famous 
 wells in the Episcopal garden, and the moat. While in the 
 Cathedral I got shut in behind the choir, and sat on a stone 
 bench listening, not unedified, to the chaunting of a service. 
 It is an interesting thing to have witnessed, as I have, from 
 its beginning, the revival of the Church of England, which 
 fifty years ago seemed almost dead. In those days a 
 Cathedral like this was left almost without ceremonial from 
 
1896] Bombardment of Zanzibar 293 
 
 Sunday to Sunday, and the officiating canon, if he read the 
 church service to his clerk, would begin with ' Dearly be- 
 loved brother,' for want of other congregation. Now all is 
 elaborately ordered, yet I confess I like the old godless 
 way best, it was more honest and marked the fact, which 
 was a fact, that the continuity of church worship had been 
 broken at the Reformation. Now all is sham mediaevalism, 
 sham seventeenth century, sham eighteenth century. We 
 shall get back presently, I hope, to our pews on eclectic 
 principles, and a new Georgian era of ecclesiastical wigs 
 and gowns. Then I ran down by train to Glastonbury and 
 back, and camped for the night in a beautiful coombe be- 
 longing to a Mr. Tudway, a local banker to whom Horner 
 had given me a letter, dining with him in a beautiful 
 Georgian house belonging to his family since 1760. Here 
 my driving journey ended, for we were overtaken with 
 heavy rains. 
 
 "30^^ Aug. — We have had three public events during 
 the week, first Cecil Rhodes has patched up a peace with 
 the Matabeles, heralded in all the daily papers as an heroic 
 act of courage, because he went personally to the Matabele 
 camp to treat. Secondly, our gallant fleet has bombarded 
 Zanzibar. The Sultan had died suddenly, and Khalid, one 
 of his relations, son of the former Sultan Bargash, had 
 seized the throne and got the native soldiery to join him. 
 These held the palace against the fleet, which bombarded 
 them from close quarters, killed five hundred of them, and 
 burnt out the remainder. Our papers are again exultant, 
 and raise a cry for annexation on the plea for abolishing 
 slavery in Zanzibar. Yet I remember fifteen years ago 
 Sultan Bargash applying to me to get the Indian Govern- 
 ment to allow him coolie labour as a substitute for the 
 slaves. Zanzibar was a model Arab State, a hundred times 
 more liberal in its ideas than the Government of India, 
 which would not hear of helping the Sultan. I know this, 
 having brought the case before Lytton. Thirdly, there has 
 been a new great slaying of Armenians at Constantinople, 
 the companion of what took place last year, but on a larger 
 scale. It was begun, as in the first instance, by the Armenian 
 Committee, which seized the Ottoman bank and threw 
 bombs into the street, their object being to force on a 
 crisis. To this the Moslems retorted with a massacre. 
 
294 
 
 Fisher s Enamels [1896 
 
 " 2.nd Sept.—'Yh.& Nile expedition has been stopped by 
 floods, great seyls from the hills, which have swept away 
 the new railway just as they had finished it. The talk is 
 now of having hardly time to get to Dongola before the 
 river goes down. If the expedition fails, all I have said 
 about the abdication of Providence has been blasphemy. 
 The good Egyptian troops have been worn out by hard 
 work in a thankless labour. They are said now to be 
 ' tired.' Broadwood wrote me this some time ago. 
 
 " yd Sept. — To Wotton to dine and sleep. The good 
 old Evelyn is packing up his trunks to go on pilgrimage to 
 Jerusalem. Next day to London to see Morris, whom the 
 doctors now declare to be in a pulmonary consumption. 
 Mrs. de Morgan was there and Cockerell, and while I was 
 sitting with them in came Madeline Wyndham, beautiful in 
 her old age. She took me away with her to see some 
 enamel work she is learning to do at the studio of one 
 Fisher, and I was shown all the process of mixing the 
 colours, ground glass with water, arranging them on a 
 silver plate and burning them on a small oven. Fisher has 
 done a beautiful triptych of a Crucifixion, and a very pretty 
 classic bit called ' Love's Chase,' but the best thing there 
 was one of Madeline's own, two peacocks. 
 
 " %th Sept. — Started on a series of visits to Scotland, and, 
 on my way north, I find the following: 
 
 " \2th Sept. — Met Lord Loch in the train, and had much 
 interesting talk with him on South African affairs and the 
 intrigues of Germany. He told me that when he was at 
 Pretoria some of the Boers explained these to him. Also 
 that the opposition of Germany in South Africa dated 
 from 1886, when Bismarck began it, as against the Empress 
 Frederick. We also discussed the possible deposition of 
 the Sultan. He thought this could only be done by Russia, 
 as our fleet could not get through the Dardanelles without 
 heavy loss." 
 
 While in one of the country houses I found in an anony- 
 mous book, dated 1722, the following admirable epitaph of 
 a Duke of Buckingham, which I cannot help transcribing 
 here, so suitable is it for the agnosticisms of our day: 
 
 " Pro rege saepe, pro Republica semper. 
 Dubius sed non improbus vixi. 
 Incertus morior sed inturbatus. 
 
1896] Gladstone on Armenia . 295 
 
 Humanum est errare et nescire. 
 Christum adveneror. Deo confido, 
 Omnipotenti benevolentissimo. 
 Ens entium, miserere mei." 
 
 Often for the King, always for the Commonweal. 
 
 Doubting but not wickedly have I lived. 
 
 I die uncertain but unperturbed. 
 It is human to err and not to know. 
 I venerate Christ. I trust in God 
 
 The omnipotent the most kind. 
 Being of beings, have pity on me ! 
 
 Back to London, where we found " great preparations 
 being made for the Emperor and Empress of Russia, who 
 are being feted in the middle of an agitation against Russian 
 pohcy at Constantinople. All our English world has gone 
 mad with self-righteousness. 
 
 " 2(iith Sept. — Gladstone has fired off his powder against 
 the Sultan at Liverpool, but there was no shot in his 
 Armenian gun. All he can think of as a means of coercion 
 at Constantinople is to break off diplomatic relations, 
 summon the Sultan to take action of some kind and go no 
 further. It is too foolish. All the time he was in office the 
 old man lifted not so much as a finger for the Armenians, and 
 now that he cannot help them he would play their champion 
 against Abdul Hamid, who owes the strength of his posi- 
 tion mainly to English diplomacy, as he should remember. 
 In 1882 Gladstone called on Abdul Hamid to help him to 
 put down liberty in Egypt by proclaiming Arabi a rebel and, 
 as he explained to an Indian Mohammedan deputation at 
 the time of Tel-el-Kebir, sent troops to Egypt ' to establish 
 the Sultan's rights there.' In all this he made the Sultan 
 his accomplice against the liberal Mohammedan party, and 
 by doing so set Islamic patriotism on reactionary lines and 
 gave the Sultan his present triuinph over his reforming 
 enemies. If liberal Islam is powerless to-day in the Sultan's 
 grasp it is distinctly Gladstone who has made it so, yet 
 now he comes forward shocked at the result. I should like 
 to write these things, but who would listen? 
 
 " 2'&th Sept. — Dined with the Morrises. He came in 
 like a man risen from the grave, and sat a few minutes at 
 the table, but seemed dazed and unable to follow the con- 
 versation. Miss de Morgan was there, and his wife waiting 
 
296 Morris Death [1896 
 
 on him, and a young man who had charitably come in to sit 
 up with him at night. He seemed absorbed in his misery. 
 
 " Afth Oct. {Sunday'). — Morris is dead. I got a letter tell- 
 ing it from Lady Burne-Jones this morning. She says, 
 ' Our dear friend \Iorris died at twenty minutes past eleven 
 this morning, as quietly as ever a babe went to sleep in its 
 mother's arms.' 
 
 " It has come sooner than I expected, though I knew his 
 case was hopeless. It is better as it is. He is the most 
 wonderful man I have known, unique in this, that he had 
 no thought for anything or person, including himself, but 
 onl)' for the work he had in hand. He was not selfish in 
 the sense of seeking his own advantage or pleasure or 
 comfort, but he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to 
 be either openl\' affectionate or actively kind. I suppose 
 he had a real affection for Burne-Jones, they saw each 
 other constantly and spent their Sunday mornings always 
 together, and I have seen him tender to his daughter Jenny 
 and nice with her and with his wife, but I doubt if he 
 thought of them much when he did not see them, and his 
 life was not arranged in reference to them. To the rest of 
 the world he seemed quite indifferent, and he never, I am 
 sure, returned the affection I gave him. He liked to talk to 
 me because I knew how to talk to him, and our fence of 
 words furbished his wit, but I doubt if he would have 
 crossed the street to speak to me. He was generous and 
 open-handed in his dealings, and I fancy did man}' kind- 
 nesses in a money way for people in distress, but he fashed 
 himself for no man and no woman. The truth is he would 
 not give an hour of his time to anyone, he held it to be too 
 valuable. Thus, while all the world admired and respected 
 him, I doubt whether he had many friends ; they got too 
 little in return to continue their affection. I should say 
 half-a-dozen were all the friends he had. I do not count 
 myself among the number, intimate as I was with him and 
 much as I loved him. It will be a great grief for Jenny, a 
 great break-up for Janey, and a great loss for the world at 
 large, for he was really our greatest man. 
 
 " i^th Oct. — I came up to London to see if I could be of 
 any use at Kelmscott House, and first I called on Burne- 
 Jones and had luncheon with him and his son. He said 
 that his interest in life had come to an end with Morris, as 
 
1896J Phil Burne Jones on Morris 297 
 
 all their ideas and plans and work had been together all 
 their lives. Phil, with whonn 1 had a private talk, gave me 
 curiously enough the exact same impression of Morris as 
 that which I wrote in this diary yesterday. His imperson- 
 ality, his Jack of personal affection for anyone except, per- 
 haps, for his, Phil's, father. Then I went on to Hammer- 
 smith. The coffin, a very plain box, lay in the little room 
 downstairs, with a beautiful old embroidered cloth over it 
 and a small wreath of leaves and sad-coloured flowers. It 
 was the room which was his bedroom, and where he died, 
 with his best and favourite books around him. The morn- 
 ing after the day I dined with him, Tuesday, was a fine 
 one and he was taken out for an airing in his chair, and he 
 enjoyed it thoroughly and said he felt well. On coming 
 in he insisted on going upstairs, but the exertion was too 
 much ; he broke a blood vessel and lay after that for the 
 most part insensible till he died on Saturday. 
 
 " ?>tk Oct. — Rosebery has resigned his leadership of the 
 Liberal party. I wrote at once to Loulou Harcourt to 
 congratulate his father. 
 
 " i^tk Oct. — I am leaving home this afternoon for Egypt, 
 stopping as usual for three nights at Gros Bois on my way. 
 Jusserand and his wife there, and Giovanni Borghese and 
 young Norton, Mrs. Norton's grandson, now at the I^aris 
 Embassy." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SnVAH 
 
 "24//- Oct. 1896. 
 
 I HAVE been reading Slatin's ' Fire and Sword in 
 the Soudan,' a sensational volume written with a 
 purpose, the style obviously Wingate's, as it is identical 
 with his ' Ohrwalder ' book. Slatin is a mean wretch to 
 have published it, and the Mahdi made a mistake in not 
 cutting off his head at once when he surrendered, and send- 
 ing him straight to Paradise. His professions of loyalty to 
 the Khedive and to our gracious Queen are fulsome, and 
 those of disloyalty to the people whose religion he adopted 
 to save his miserable life, disgusting. Gordon's judgement 
 of him is justified when he distrusted him as a traitor and 
 despised him as a renegade, for he shows himself here 
 doubly both. 
 
 " With regard to the Mahdi, Slatin declares him to have 
 been a hypocrite and an impostor, but his opinion rests 
 upon no evidence given and seems to me wholly improbable. 
 Slatin only saw him a few times and was never at all in 
 his confidence, and on the few occasions that the Mahdi 
 spoke to him he seems to have done so kindly and reason- 
 ably. Slatin is himself a witness that the whole of the 
 Mahdi's followers believed in him to the very end, and it 
 is quite incredible that they should have done so if, while 
 preaching self-denial to others, he had really been the 
 monster of depravity Slatin affirms him to have been in his 
 private life. Such a discrepancy could not have been hid- 
 den from the Soudanese world and could not but have 
 destroyed the popular belief in him. With regard to the 
 Khalifa Abdullah the position is different, as Slatin was 
 intimate with him and Abdullah had no pretensions to 
 high sanctity, nor did his followers believe in him as a saint. 
 Slatin talks about his own military honour, but how does 
 the case stand ? When he surrendered to the Mahdi he was 
 put in realitj' on parole, that is to say, he promised and 
 
 298 
 
1896] Abbas on the Dongola Campaign 299 
 
 swore -fidelit}- to the Mahdi, in return for which he was 
 allowed his freedom and an honourable position in the 
 Mahdi's army. He used this position to betray the Mahdi 
 by writing letters to Gordon in a sense contrary to his 
 orders. For this treachery he might justly have been shot, 
 but after a short imprisonment, and on his giving a new 
 parole, he was reinstated only to escape and betray again. 
 \^'e shall see this honourable soldier made a K.C.B. [And 
 so he was]. 
 
 " 2'jth Oct. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd to-day, the garden 
 very green and beautiful. The Nile is at its full, and every- 
 thing is drinking deeply in the hot sun. I am surprised, as 
 I am every year surprised, at the quality of the loveliness, 
 the vivid colours, the depths of shade, the brilliancy of the 
 light. It is an absurdity to waste one's life elsewhere. I am 
 too idle to write, I can only enjoy. 
 
 " gth Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to-day, 
 and we had a long talk about the Khedive. Abdu is dis- 
 satisfied with certain things His Highness has done, and 
 especially with a dispute about land he has had with 
 Hassan Musa el Akkdd. He calls the Khedive's conduct 
 puerile, which it doubtless is. He says that his marriage 
 was entirely his mother's doing. When Abbas first came 
 back from Europe, he wished to have a bachelor's establish- 
 ment without women, but his mother forced half-a-dozen 
 slaves on him, and eventually he chose the one he has 
 married. He has had a new disappointment this year in ' 
 the birth of a second daughter instead of a son. 
 
 " \gth Nov. — To Cairo to see the Khedive. He received 
 me in the same friendly way as always, and talked, as 
 always, without reserve. He asked me if I had been to 
 Constantinople, and we discussed the situation there and 
 the probability of European intervention, which must 
 come with the Sultan's increasing financial difficulties. 
 The power of the Porte will then be re-established and a 
 financial control set up. 
 
 " He talked much about Dongola and the unfairness 
 that had been exercised towards his own Egyptian soldiers 
 as contrasted with the English soldiers, only one baggage 
 camel was allowed to every five Egyptian officers, while 
 Kitchener took as many as 1 50 camels for himself and his 
 mess. The Egyptian soldiers had to do all the work, the 
 
300 Rhodes Exports Negroes from Egypt [1896 
 
 English got all the credit. As to the English battalion it 
 did next to no work, and did- not even march on foot, but 
 was sent by rail while all the Egyptians marched. The 
 fellah soldiers, too, had never a hot meal given them, nor 
 more than ten hours rest in the twenty-four. The\' had 
 insufficient water, and only two loaves instead of the three 
 they gave them at Cairo, the third loaf they could have, 
 but they mu.st pay for it. I asked him how much the 
 expedition had cost. He said first a half million taken 
 from the Caisse, then several 'hundred thousands taken for 
 the railway. He did not know when the expedition would 
 be renewed, but not till next autumn. 
 
 " He also told me the whole history of Rhodes and the 
 Soudanese he took from Cairo. He, the Khedive, had seen 
 them himself being embarked for Suez. There were 200 
 of them, men got together b}^ Kitchener, and made over to 
 Rhodes in a lump. Kitchener has told him they were not 
 good enough for service in the Egyptian army. They had 
 gone with Cromer's consent but without his, the Khedive's, 
 permission. Their exportation was quite illegal. Cromer 
 had apologized for the informality of not asking permis- 
 sion. The Khedive knew nothing of what had become of 
 the men, except that he had been told they had been dis- 
 embarked at Mombaza. Rhodes gave the men a month's 
 pay in advance and took their women and children with 
 them. The women were given a shilling each as bakshish. 
 ' But this is not all. A little before this happened a negro 
 came to me and told me of a case of slave dealing, of a 
 man and woman who had been bought by the sons of 
 Prince Ibrahim for their harem. To prevent a scandal I 
 told the young men they must get rid of them. Where- 
 upon they went to Lord Cromer and threw themselves at 
 his feet and begged forgiveness. Crom.er then took the 
 two slaves and married the woman to one of the soldiers 
 who was given to Rhodes, and the man was sent with the 
 rest to Suez. Also they took one of my Shaggias (soldiers 
 of his bodyguard) who went away taking my uniform with 
 him, but I had him stopped and brought back.' 
 
 " We stayed talking for three-quarters of an hour, and he 
 made me a number of pretty speeches when I went away. 
 He was rather inquisitive about a journey I had arranged 
 to Siwah, which he had heard of and seemed anxious to . 
 
1896] Abdu on Constaniinople Affairs 301 
 
 dissuade me from. I ^suppose he had heard of it from his 
 camel men. I also called on Riaz and Tigrane. 
 
 " 2gth Nov. — A long letter from George Wyndham from 
 South Africa where he has been with Rhodes getting up a 
 case for him for the Parliamentary Committee. His letter 
 is an interesting one, written at intervals of a long ride 
 from Buluwayo to the Transvaal frontier. The work done 
 in South Africa is sickening, and seems likely to lead to 
 the destruction of the whole black race south of the 
 tropics. The Rinderpest has destroyed all wild animals, 
 and is destroying their cattle. The ' rebels ' are being 
 blown up by dynamite in the caves of the Matoppo hills, 
 and their chiefs shot in cold blood, and while all this is 
 going on we are having meetings the whole of England 
 over to denounce the Sultan because he is destroying the 
 Armenians. Was there ever a nation like ours? Never, since 
 the world began. 
 
 " I had a long talk with Mohammed Abdu a few days 
 since. He has read my ' Nineteenth Century' article about 
 Armenia, and approves all I have said against Abdul 
 Hamid. He looks upon him as mad and to be deposed. 
 He gave me an interesting account of his own persecution 
 at the Azhar by the old-fashioned Sheykhs of the Ulema 
 in the days of Ismai'l, especially by Sheykh Aleysh. He 
 had, he says, at one time, as many as 4,000 students who 
 attended his lectures, but the Conservative opposition was 
 too strong for him. Still there was a good deal of liberty 
 of thought and speech at Cairo even in those days, it never 
 was as bad here as it is now at Constantinople, but all the 
 old-fashioned ideas of liberty and humanity are fast dis- 
 appearing from the world. Abdu and I find ourselves 
 almost alone in our views. The best effect my article has 
 had in England has been to make John Morley pronounce 
 himself in favour of coming to terms about evacuating 
 Egypt. His speech on this head is a paraphrase of my 
 article. 
 
 " Mrs. Morri.s and her daughter May have been staying 
 with us here at Sheykh Obeyd for the last ten days. 
 
 " 13^/^ Dec. — We went in yesterday to Cairo to see Ali 
 Pasha Sherif s horses which, with the rest of his property, 
 are to be sold by auction on Thursday. We shall probably 
 bid for three or four of the brood mares, and so save a 
 
2,02 Ali Pasha Sheriffs Shid [1896 
 
 remnant from extinction, sold to us privately before the 
 auction. 
 
 " ijth Dec. — The luck of the thing is that Ali Pasha's 
 affairs, being in the hands of trustees, it is to spite them 
 that the old man is willing to sell privately to us. He in- 
 sists on his right to dispose of them as he pleases. V\'hen 
 he had received our cheque he sent the mares off" in the 
 dark at four in the morning. Now there has been a row 
 between the old man and the trustees. Ali Pasha declares 
 that not another horse shall go out of the stable without his 
 permission. Mutlak, who arranged the whole thing for us, 
 found him this morning sitting at his window which over- 
 looks the yard of his palace and the stables, with a 
 Winchester rifle loaded at his side, \\\\k\. which he swears 
 he will shoot anyone who ventures to come near these. 
 The old man is considered mad by his relations, and his 
 sons have had him interdicted and his affairs placed in 
 Sabet Pasha's hands as trustee, but ^\-e have got the mares 
 and they are beautiful. The mere name of having purchased 
 them will be worth much to our stud, for they are celebrated 
 the whole East over, and I don't think the trustees will care 
 really to dispute our purchase. Abdu tells me that accord- 
 ing to the terms of the interdiction, Ali Pasha may do what 
 he likes with his moveable property, and Carton de Wiart, 
 the leading lawyer here whom I have consulted, gi\'es me 
 a curious account of the reason of the interdiction. It was 
 a little political job of which there are so many done at 
 Cairo. When Ali Sherif, two years ago, was involved in 
 the slave trade prosecution, feeling ran high between the 
 Khedive and Cromer about it, for in reality our people took 
 advantage of the old man's age and infirmities to force on 
 him ar\ apology which he might perfectly well have refused, 
 for he had done nothing illegal. Cromer, seeing he had 
 been in the wrong, agreed therefore to the following arrange- 
 ment by mutual concession. On his side he consented to 
 the dismissal of Shaffer, the anti slave-trade official who 
 had brought the action against Ali Sherif; and the Khedive 
 on his side agreed to Ali Sherif's being interdicted as in- 
 capable of managing his affairs. But Ali Sherif was not 
 really mad, onl)' extravagant and old. 
 
 " 22iid Dec. — Anne and I called on Princess Nazli yester- 
 day. She is looking an old woman now, but is still full of 
 
1896] Princess Nazli on the Sultan 303 
 
 life and conversation. She has thrown herself lately into 
 the Young Turkey movement at Constantinople, and has 
 written a letter to the Sultan which she asked Anne to 
 translate for her into English, though she speaks English 
 perfectly. She told us .she considered Abdul Hamid very 
 near his end now, and she only hoped that he would be 
 assassinated and not simply deposed, as it would be a good 
 lesson for his successor. Hitherto the Young Turks had 
 been averse from this extreme measure, but according to 
 the latest news they are now determined on it. In this 1 
 should not be surprised if they were following a hint from 
 our Embassy. Murad, she said, is quite sane, and would be 
 Abdul Hamid's successor. About politics in Egypt she also 
 talked, praising Cromer and the English Occupation and 
 in virulent abuse of the Khedive. A good deal of this I 
 know to be nonsense, but she is a clever woman and I 
 fancy has done much towards converting travelling English- 
 men to a belief in their ' great and noble work ' in Egypt. 
 Cromer intervened with the late Khedive to prevent his 
 cutting off her allowance as princess of the vice-regal 
 family. 
 
 " yith Dec. — Mohammed Abdu came yesterday and told 
 me the news. There has been a great row on account of 
 the confirmation by the native appeal court of Sheykh Ali 
 Yusufs acquittal. Ali Yusuf had been prosecuted for pub- 
 lishing in his newspaper, the ' Moayyad,' a telegram re- 
 lating to military events during the Dongola campaign, 
 which it was asserted he had got from a telegraph clerk of 
 the name of Kirillos. The evidence against Ali Yusuf 
 was of the slightest kind; that against Kirillos only pre- 
 sumptive. The latter had on one occasion been seen copy- 
 ing a telegram, not the one in question, presumably for the 
 press. Against Ali Yusuf there was no evidence at all. 
 Nevertheless Cromer seems to have determined on fighting 
 a battle with the native press, and when the case came be- 
 fore the Appeal Court, Cameron, the English judge, informed 
 his two native colleagues that they were expected to find 
 the accused guilty, or they would involve the Native Appeal 
 Court in strong measures of ' reform ' which would be taken 
 against it. He also accused them of having been tampered 
 with by the Khedive, and when they indignantly refused 
 to find the accused guilty, Cameron refused at first to sit 
 
304 Cromer s Interference with the Laio £1897 
 
 with them in delivering judgement of acquittal. Now 
 Cromer has announced that a number of English councillors 
 would be added to the court so as to swamp the native 
 members. Abdu assures me that as a matter of fact the 
 Khedive had nothing to do with the matter, and that the 
 judges could not have decided otherwise on the evidence 
 before them. Nothing so scandalous has happened here 
 since the Kitchener affair, and this is really worse, as it is 
 an attack on the integrity of the law. Carton de Wiart, the 
 Belgian lawyer, who is at the head of his profession here, 
 confirms the story to me, and there seems to be no doubt 
 about it. Abdu declares that Lord Cromer is led by the 
 nose by certain Syrians, of whom the editor of the ' Mok- 
 attam ' and one Shakur are the principal agents. Certainly 
 he appears to be under unfortunate inspiration. It has be- 
 come very much a personal struggle and quarrel between 
 Cromer and the Khedive. Lord Salisbury allows Cromer 
 to carry matters with a high hand. The Khedive, on the 
 other hand, is also led by intriguers, so that there is really 
 no rational authority at the head of things." This was the 
 beginning of Lord Cromer's interference with the operation 
 of the law in Egypt for political purposes, an intervention 
 which he carried afterwards to extreme results. 
 
 " 2%th Jan., 1897. — I am preparing for a long journey to 
 Siwah, and perhaps to Jebel Akdar and Benghazi.' This 
 should take forty days at least, and there is just a little risk 
 in it, especially as I am far from well, but it is a thing I 
 want to do and I feel if I put it off till another year it will 
 never be accomplished. Possibly 1 may be able to go as 
 far as to visit the Sheykh el Senussi, but this is doubtful, as 
 the Sheykh has disappeared within the last year, and it is 
 not known exactly where he is, but I shall learn all about 
 that from my friend Abdullah el Jibali, in the Fayum, to 
 u'hom, in the first instance, I intend to go. I hope all the 
 same to accomplish my journey successfully and be back 
 in time for our annual migration to England. 
 
 "2nd Feb. — I have arranged to start on my journey on the 
 5th, having by good luck met Abdullah el Jibali yesterday,' 
 when I was in Cairo, and have arranged that he is to send 
 me on to Siwah and Benghazi. I am looking forward im- 
 mensely to this trip, and only wish Anne was going with 
 me, but she will not leave Judith, so I must go alone. There 
 
1897] Start for Siwah 305 
 
 is just a little danger in the journey, principally of my 
 falling ill, so I have signed a codicil to my will. All my 
 preparations are made, and I am away on Friday with a 
 good prospect of getting through to Tripoli or Benghazi. 
 If only Anne were going too !" 
 
 The journey to Siwah proved much more difficult and 
 dangerous than I imagined, and is of sufficient political in- 
 terest to make m.e include the whole of my travelling diary 
 in this volume contrary to my general rule about desert 
 expeditions. I started in ill health and in a frame of mind 
 of unusual recklessness and depression as well, feeling that 
 it would be the last I should make of any serious kind. I 
 had, too, at the back of my mind, the thought that perhaps 
 I might find amongst the Senussis something of the better 
 tradition of Islam I had been so often disappointed of in 
 the more civilized Mohammedan lands, and possibly that 
 true desert hermitage I had so often dreamed of Some- 
 thing of this will be found noted in my diary, and I give it 
 hardly at all abridged as it stands there. 
 
 " 5//^ Feb. — Left Sheykh Obeyd at half-past seven. 
 Our travelling party consists of Suliman Howeyti, Owde 
 his cousin, and Eid, all Bedouins of the Howeytat, and 
 Salem, my Egyptian body servant for cook, with Abd-el- 
 Salaam of the Oulad Ali Bedouins, my own six camels, 
 one with foal at foot, and my mare Yemama. Anne and 
 Judith rode the first few miles with me. We passed the 
 Obelisk of Heliopolis and followed the Towfikiyeh Canal 
 to Mustorod where Anne and Judith turned back. They 
 .saw a blue kingfisher on the way, but I missed seeing it, 
 which I take for an ill omen. From Mu^tdrod we followed 
 the Helwa, the sweet water canal — overtaking many people 
 on their way to market at Cairo with loads of bersim. A 
 few white herons were about, and by the cactus gardens 
 we saw tracks of jackals, nothing European, till we reached 
 the railway station of Pont Limon at Cairo, then on through 
 the town to Kasr el Nil Bridge, mixed up with carriages, 
 people on bicycles, and the usual mongrel crowd ; and on to 
 within half a mile of Mena (nobody recognizing me) when 
 we turned' to the left and camped beyond it on the sand. I 
 have with me the following moneys for my journey, .^40 in 
 English gold, £,^ in silver dollars, and £^ in small silver. 
 £\ in half piastres — total ;^54 13J. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Across to the Fayouvi [1897 
 
 " 6th Feb. — To-day we followed up the Nile valley passing 
 to the right of Sakkara — many tracks of foxes and jackals 
 on the desert edge. Great fields of lupins {termes) — the 
 Delta very green — desert larks but few other birds, except 
 wagtails. Camped at half-past two by the birkeli, where 
 the road branches off to Tumiya — teals, coots, pochards, 
 pintails, and other small waterfowl. The water brackish. 
 A very beautiful evening. 
 
 "Abd-el-Salaam tells me he went campaigning with 1,500 
 of his tribe, in the first year of Ismail's reign, to the Soudan, 
 taking the outer road of the Oases, and as far as Darfur 
 and Kordofan. He told me also much about Jebel Akhdar 
 {the Cyrenaica). There are there five springs in it, he 
 says, with streams running from them, all well wooded 
 with trees, zeytoun (olive) and kai'ub, with much grass 
 and crops watered by rain. It is held by the Harabi tribe, 
 with whom the Oulad Ali have been goinn (enemies) from 
 the time of Said Pasha. But he, Abd-el-Salaam, has friends 
 amongst them. He has travelled to Benghazi and to all 
 the Oases, but not to Tarablus (Tripoli) or Tunis. He 
 boasts that the Oulad Ali are of Anazeh blood: as to the 
 Harabi they are of Harb blood. He is fasting for Ramadan, 
 which no one else of us is, and is rather cross and obstinate. 
 I am not sure about taking him beyond Kasr-el-Jibali. 
 There is beautiful sweet camomile here for our camels. 
 
 " yth Feb. {Sunday). — Off at half-past seven. A plain 
 desert march,- following a track made by sheep and cattle 
 the whole way. Sighted a fox in the early morning on his 
 way home to some limestone cliffs. Also passed two cattle 
 droves. No other. incident. I remember twenty-one years 
 ago travelling this way and having a tussle with a young 
 Arab horseman, who had jeered at us for our European 
 dresses. He pointed his gun at us, and I took hold of it 
 and pulled him off his horse, his girths giving way, and he 
 came a tumble, much to his discomfiture. This was in 1876. 
 We are encamped under the tamarisks, where formerly 
 Fraser, who was travelling with us, and I shot hares. 
 
 " Abd-el-Salaam has gone on with his recollections. The 
 expedition he tells me was six months away on their Soudan 
 campaign, each horseman receiving 200 piastres a month 
 and all found, including camels and horses; also their 
 families received from £13 to ii^ 14 while they were gone. 
 
1897] Abdallah Minjowar 307 
 
 There was no fighting, ' victorious without fighting.' In all 
 this Western desert southwards tliere is no pasture, except 
 a little nossi that comes up after the rain, or northwards 
 till you come near the Mediterranean. 
 
 " %t]i Feb. — A continuous march of eleven hours through 
 the Fayoum, passing by Toumiyeh, Senuris, Fidimin, 
 Senhur, Abuxeh, and Bisheh. Then, having crossed the 
 river, a branch of the Bahar Yusuf, we camped on the 
 other side, at nightfall, a couple of miles short of Kasr-el- 
 Jibali. I preferred taking excuse of the night to stop, for I 
 was tired, and I knew that going on to the castle would 
 mean sitting up till midnight waiting for a sheep to be 
 killed and cooked. The Fayoum is a bad country to camp in, 
 all black mud and crops, with hardly an open spot; and 
 we were lucky, after travelling five or six miles looking in 
 vain, at last to pitch upon a dry unoccupied field on the 
 edge of the cliff above the river. 
 
 "At Toumiyeh the land has been taken possession of and 
 cultivated by some Jews, who got a concession from the 
 Government. Otherwise the town is much as it was in 
 1876, when I remember going to see a poor notable of 
 the town who was dying, they told us, of love. The Mamur 
 of the district in those days had had taken from him forcibh' 
 one of his wives, the youngest, last, and best beloved of them ; 
 and we found him lying on his death-bed, surrounded by his 
 friends lamenting his loss, and he smelling an onion which 
 he held in his hand. 
 
 " gth Feb. — I was already asleep last night when Abdallah 
 Minjowar, hearing of my being in camp so near him, rode 
 out to see me ; and I had to get up to receive him. We 
 drank tea together and made all the arrangements neces- 
 sary for my onward journey. He will send two men with 
 me, Minshawi and another, with camels to El Wah (the 
 small Oasis), Siwah, Jerabub, and Jebel Akhdar, and will 
 write letters to the various Sheykhs, and see me through 
 to Benhazi or Dernah. Abdallah is by position a great 
 man. He has an immense territory and lives in a castle, 
 which if not mediaeval belongs to the age of Mohammed 
 Ali, and has a really beautiful stone gateway worthy of 
 any century. He tells me his father and his tribe came into 
 Egypt first in Mohammed All's time, having been invited 
 here from Jebel Akhdar in Tripoli. He was once there 
 
o 
 
 08 At Kasr cl Jibali [i 
 
 with his father, Minjowar, as a boy. In appearance he 
 reminds me of the Emir Abd el Kader, and is in truth a 
 man of high and generous character, a great personage 
 here on the desert edge. The Government has recently 
 made a high road for him to Medinet el Fa30um, of which 
 he is proud. I rode in to see him after breakfast, and we 
 are camped now inside his wall. Many poor people, par- 
 ticularly boys and women, have run up to kiss my hand 
 N'csterday and to-day. Expenses besides hersim, 10 piastres. 
 Yesterday we passed an immense swarm of bees covering 
 the rocks in a ravine by the river. 
 
 " All is satisfactorily arranged. Abdallah will send 
 Minshawi with us, and a second man with two camels, and 
 a head man, Beseys, on a deML He is to carry letters of 
 credence for us to the chief persons at Siwah and Jerabub, 
 and to the two principal Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel 
 Akhdar, at whose tents I am promised to alight within 
 twenty, say thirty days. I shall not be able to see Senussi 
 as he has. left Jerabub, but I shall see the head of the 
 Zaghwiyeh, the Monastery there, and be well received. We 
 are to start on Thursday, nth, with four ardebs of beans 
 for the camels and barley for the mare. Salem is to go 
 into Medinet-el-Fayoum to-morrow, to get what things are 
 still required, as nothingwill be procurable anywhere beyond. 
 I have spent the day slugging in my tent — very hot, with 
 many flies, an object of attention for the villagers, and of 
 attentions from Abdallah, his relations and friends. Beseys, 
 who is to go with me, is an oldish man, with a rugged, ugly 
 face, but I think that he will do. Minshawi we know 
 already. Abd-el-Salaam has left us. He was too old for 
 the journey, and required too much in the way of comfort,, 
 and did too little in the way of work. Also Abdallah 
 objected to him, and he himself was inclined to leave, so I 
 have paid him his five days, and he is gone. 
 
 " We spent the evening talking, principally with a very 
 intelligent man of fellah origin, and of good education, who 
 had been an Arabist, and now is living here, cultivating a 
 few feddans, which Abdallah has let him have more or less 
 as a charity. He gave us his views of Egyptian politics, which 
 are exactly Arabi's old ones. It is refreshing to hear them 
 in these days. Old Beseys listened with an occasional word 
 of approval, but Abdallah was sent to sleep by it and retired. 
 
1897] A Place of Piety 309 
 
 " Kasr-el-Jibali is a place of religion, and it being Rama- 
 dan, prayer goes on nearly all day long, from an hour 
 before sunrise, when a kind of matins is chanted b)' a select 
 few, till sunset, when there is a general service attended by 
 everybody. The singing is far from good, as each worshipper 
 intones in his own key, and the effect is not unlike that of 
 the old village hymn-singing of fifty years ago in England. 
 There is even a certain non-conformist popular character 
 about it, which is different from anything I have heard 
 elsewhere. The mosque is a new one, built close to the 
 castle, in excellent taste. It might be a hundred or two 
 hundred years old for all one can tell from its architecture. 
 It has no minaret, and is a plain square buttressed build- 
 ing, with a slight ornament on the top and lancet windows. 
 We are camped too near it for quiet, and have been ex- 
 posed all day to the curiosity of prayer-goers. Also the 
 ground is very dirty, and life is made difficult with flies. 
 Indoors, in the castle, it is hardly better, for the guest 
 rooms are built for the summer, and are cold to sit in, 
 being away from the sun. So I am obliged to wait on in 
 my tent till the hospitable pleasure of Abdallah is e.x- 
 hausted, and I have his permission to begin my march. 
 These days of hospitable waiting in towns and villages are 
 a heavy price one has to pay for the joys of desert travelling. 
 But my departure is promised for to-morrow at noon. 
 Suliman's expenditure in provisions for the journey comes 
 to 275 piastres, something under £^. 
 
 " Wtli Feb. — Away at last in the highest of spirits, with 
 a cool westerly wind blowing in our faces. The camels 
 arrived early, and I obtained Abdallah's permission, dear 
 good man, to mount and go. When all was settled I 
 told him I wished to have a few words with him alone ; 
 and we went into the great room of the castle, and I told 
 him that I was very anxious to see, if not the Sheykh el 
 Senussi, who has gone south to Kufra, at least one of the 
 principal Sheykhs of the tarik (the religious order) at 
 Jerabub, and I begged him to give me a letter for one of 
 them. ' You know,' I said, ' that I have for a long time 
 been with you at heart, of the inmnenin, but I have not 
 borne witness for reasons you will understand. I wish to 
 ask certain questions of the Sheykhs of the Senoussia, and 
 to understand their teaching, and it seems to me that the 
 
3IO Abdallah provides Letters [1897 
 
 members of the tarili are the onl)' good Moslems in the 
 world, or at any rate are the best.' The good man readily 
 assented, and showed me much affection, and told me that he 
 had already written to the head of the community at 
 Jerabub, introducing me as the son of Hajji Batran of 
 Aleppo, for he thought that would give me a favourable 
 reception. But I begged him to write again and tell the 
 Sheykh the truth of the case, that I was an Englishman 
 who desired instruction, and he has accordingly done so, 
 though he has left the other letters, those written to the 
 Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel Akhdar, as they were with my 
 name as Ibn Batran. Fortunatel}- I knew Hajji Batran 
 when at Aleppo, or rather I knew his son, Hajji Mahmud, 
 and may, perhaps, be able to personate a grandson from 
 so far away. A cousin of Abdallah's, one Ali, who accom- 
 panied me on horseback as far as this camp, has given me 
 particulars of the arrangement made and tells me that it 
 is necessary, inasmuch as the Arabs of the Jebel Akhdar 
 bitterly hate all of European race, whereas, if presented as 
 a relation of Hajji Batran, who had married a hatherieh, 
 townswoman, of Dernah, I should be accepted as a relation. 
 The Hannadi, he explained, were of the Beraza clan, the 
 same as the Harabi. There was a son Naif born to Batran ; 
 and I must personate him. I do not like this. But Ali said 
 there was real danger in going among people so wild as 
 his mountain kinsmen; and he besought me to be content 
 with Siwah, and to turn back from there b)' the sea-coast 
 route to Mariut. I am, however, in the mood for an adven- 
 ture, dangerous or not." [N.B. It will be seen that these 
 letters of Abdallah, whatever their precise nature, were un- 
 fortunately' conceived, and brought about the misunder- 
 standing which led to the attack made on me at Siwah.] 
 
 " We are encamped five miles from Kasr-el-Jibali in a 
 bit of tamarisk underwood well screened from the wind, at 
 the outmost edge of Nile irrigation in the direction of the 
 Oases — how happy to be at last alone ! The Nile water 
 reaches no farther westwards. A little run of it feeds the 
 last fields, which are of wheat, barley, and lielbeli (a sort of 
 clover). On the helbeh Yemama is turned out to graze, and 
 the camels eat it brought in to them. The two new camels 
 have arrived, sturdy little beasts of the Western t}'pe, brown 
 both, and rough haired — not beautiful, but good. The men,. 
 
1897] to the Scmissia and febel Akhdar 311 
 
 too, are of a wholly other type from that east of the Nile. 
 Suliman and his two Howeytat companions have almost a 
 look of breeding contrasted with them, while All's mare, of 
 which he is proud, as being of western blood, is a plain 
 barb, honestly shaped, but of no distinctive type. Beauty 
 is the natural gift, to desert man and desert beast, only of 
 peninsular Arabia. 
 
 " \2th Feb. — Abdallah appeared again last night, having 
 been preceded b\' his younger son, a pleasant youth of 
 mixed type — the son of his jari (concubine) Salem said — 
 who dined with me. Though grown up, the young man 
 has never seen more of the world than Medinet el Fayoum 
 and El Wah, not even Cairo or the Nile. Abdallah has a 
 separate establishment with the boy's mother close by 
 here. He and I embraced affectionately at parting. He 
 has done everything in his power to further my wishes 
 about the journey and has brought seven or eight letters 
 which he has written to various persons on my route, in- 
 cluding the most important of all, one to Sidi Abu Seyf, 
 the head prior of the Jerabub monastery, Senussi's right 
 hand. He has entrusted me to old Beseys, who is one of 
 the confraternity, and who is to explain to Abu Seyf how 
 matters stand with me I'eligiously. ' Abu Seyf,' Abdallah 
 said, ' is as my own heart to me, and he will treat you as 
 myself.' Letters, too, have been written for the two prin- 
 cipal Bedouin Sheykhs of the Harabi in Jebel Akhdar, and 
 I am to go on to Benghazi if I like or return by Dernah 
 and the sea route to Skanderia. 
 
 " We started to-day at sunrise and I walked an hour or 
 more on foot, it being cold, before mounting my detM. 
 Our course south by west, then turning more westward. At 
 eleven we came to the edge of Wady Ray3'an, a great 
 chaotic depression from 50 to 150 feet below the Nile. It 
 is absolutely barren, and there is no trace in it of Nile mud 
 or clay of any kind, most of the surface soil being drift- 
 sand and grit, with the bare limestone rocks showing here 
 and there. This effectually disproves the theory that 
 Rayyan was the Lake Maeris of Herodotus. It is nothing" 
 but a dried up seblzha, like the J of and many another 
 desert depression. There are curious rocks in it set in lines, 
 which look exactly like the remains of buildings ; but they 
 are all, I think, natural. Nor do I believe that any part of 
 
312 IVady Rayyan [1897 
 
 the Valley was ever inhabited except perhaps by hermits, 
 who planted the palm trees which still struggle to live on 
 near the springs. Descending into the belly of the wady, 
 we quickly found ourselves among nefuds (sandhills) which 
 run across it here and there in lines from north-west to 
 south-east, and make effective fortifications against camels. 
 Here Sulim'an's desert craft became of service (for the three 
 Harabis with us were useless for anything but pottering 
 along a track) and he and I went forward to look out the 
 easiest places for the camels to cross, while in the steepest 
 Suliman and Eid made paths for them slantwise in the deep 
 sand. The old camel man, Haj Abd-el-Rahman, not choos- 
 ing to follow us, was left behind, and we consequently had 
 to camp some four miles short of the main spring, but in a 
 nice spot, a deep hollow under sand hillocks and tarfa 
 clumps. This part of the wady has vegetation, tarfa, 
 ghurkud, erta — none, however, in green leaf — much of it 
 dead, firewood abundant. Barom. 50 feet below the Nile 
 water at Kasr-el-Jibali. 
 
 " 13^/2 Feb. — At sunrise we started, after a good night's 
 rest for me under my hejeyr'a (my carpet shelter, the one 
 with a scorpion worked on it), and on to the spring. This 
 lies due south of the khusni (snout) of Rayyan, at the 
 extreme edge of the vegetation, a number of bush palms 
 together, with a lovely spring welling up in a saqd-bottomed 
 basin, the water running in a little stream for twenty yards, 
 when it disappears. The two Harabis, Beseys and Min- 
 shawi, attribute to it miraculous virtues. The water only 
 runs, they say, when travellers come to drink, and it varies 
 its volume with the number of their camels. When there 
 are many camels you have only to encourage it by calling 
 to it ' Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ! ' and it comes bubbling up so 
 fast that you can water 200 camels in the afternoon. It is 
 hot at night, cold by day. To-day, the wind being cold, it 
 was lukewarm, rather flat water, ill-tasted but not salt, 
 therefore ' sweet,' as desert waters go. Yemama drank 
 well of it, and we took away two girbehs full, in addition to 
 our two of Nile water, as this is the last water until we 
 come to El Wah. Some ' sons of dog who have no fear of 
 God ' had fired the palms and left some of them in ruins, 
 but the palm immediately over the spring was untouched 
 in flower. We found tracks of gazelles, hares, jerboas, and 
 
1897] History of the Senussis 313 
 
 foxes there, but no recent traces of men or camels. The 
 vvady is little frequented. 
 
 " From the spring we turned south-west and mounted 
 by an even slope to the top of the nukbeh (pass), which \\e 
 found barred by a complete rampart of nefud, which we 
 had some difficulty in surmounting — then on and on 
 through a desolate land wholly barren, a cliff on our left 
 hand, until at the asr we came to a singular rock, ex- 
 quisitely poised, about twenty feet high, of friable lime 
 stone worn away on every side, below. A mile or two be- 
 yond this we descried a little pasture shgda with a seyyal 
 tree. Here at 4.15 we encamped. 
 
 " Beseys gave me some information this afternoon as we 
 rode together. The elder Senussi, he tells me, came from 
 Fez and died at Jerabub in the year A.H. 127 1. Beseys saw 
 him, an ancient man with a small white beard, regular 
 features 'like your own.' He was no or 120 years old 
 when he died. He left two sons, Mohammed Sidi el Mahdi 
 and Sherif The latter died last year. ^ The elder left 
 Jerabub in anger with the Sultan of Turkey after this, and 
 has gone with a few disciples to form a new Zaghwiyeh 
 in the South. I understood him to say that the quarrel was 
 in consequence of the stopping of a subsidy, but I may 
 have heard him incorrectly as he has lost his front teeth 
 and is hardly intelligible. He told me that from Fez to the 
 Hejaz there were about 150 Zaghwiyehs containing each 
 from twenty to thirty brethren akhwan. People exag- 
 gerated the numbers because there were many lay servitors, 
 who cultivated the crops and bought or sold for the 
 brothers. There is no brotherhood at Kasr-el-Jibali. 
 Abdallah's grandfather was the first who came to Egypt. 
 He became a wely (saint) and is buried in the koubbah at 
 Kasr-el-Jibali. He left four sons, of whom Minjowar was 
 the eldest. 
 
 " \Afth Feb. — A long monotonous tramp from sunrise to 
 sunset across a gravelly /^«/«(2:af (plain), no leafy thing all 
 day. Camped in the plain about 400 feet above the sea — 
 30 miles. 
 
 " I'^th Feb. — Again from sunrise to sunset. Passed a 
 beautiful wady with seyyal trees — gholain, shgda., 7iossi — 
 Khabra Balbal — then the Bahr beta uia (river without 
 water), whose height is 350 feet above the sea. A long 
 
314 Talk with Beseys about Religion [1897 
 
 day's tracking of the road obliterated with nefuds — hj^sena, 
 wolf, and fox tracks. We camped in the nefud. 
 
 " \6th Feb. — We are encamped at last in the basin of the 
 Wahat (oases), barom. 315 feet above the sea and 300 
 below the sand-ridge at the top of the pass, where we first 
 caught sight of the valley. This was a happy spectacle, a 
 break in the brown rags of the desert foreground, dipping 
 down and showing blue hills beyond. From this pass we 
 went down by a gradual descent for a couple of hours. We 
 are still some miles from the two villages of the oasis, with 
 their palm groves showing blackly against the rocks beyond 
 them. We are enjoying an afternoon's rest quietl)' in the 
 shadow of a great rock half a mile from a spring. The 
 sandy ground is pleasant, with hillocks tufted with green 
 rough grass, ekresh and nikeyb, tamarisk, itJiel, and dwarf 
 palm. There are two springs, one on a mound 20 feet 
 high, but the water was flat and bad — the other sweet, 
 which runs for a few yards in open ground, with a little 
 greenness round it — no trees. 
 
 " It is agreed that from this point I am to adopt a 
 Syrian identity as Sakr ibn Zeydun el Helali, related by 
 marriage to Sidi Abd el Kader at Damascus, and to Hajji 
 Batran at Aleppo, with a title of Bey from the Dowlah, 
 travelling to see his relations at Dernah and Benghazi. I 
 shall not go into the villages here, so that no questions 
 may be asked by officials. Beseys, too, is anxious to keep 
 clear of them. 
 
 " I like Beseys. As we rode ahead of our party yesterday 
 on our deltlls, I talked to him about religion and about ray 
 v\^ish for a hermit's life in the desert, and he much applauded 
 the idea and promised to take me to a spiritual father of 
 his own, Sidi Maymun, who lived just such a life in the 
 Jebel Akhdar. The wely would put me in the way of a 
 true vocation and give me all the advice 1 vi'anted. I asked 
 him about Jerabub and the Zaghwiyeh there. He assures 
 me the whole of the Akhwan have left it. Sherif, the second 
 son of Senussi, followed his brother Sidi el Mahdi in his 
 flight southwards, but came back to die at Jerabub, and is 
 buried there with his father. Abu Seyf upon this left 
 Jerabub with the rest of his following, and now there are 
 only lay brothers and poor people there who look after the 
 palms. Beseys is very pious himself, and prays every morn- 
 
1897] 
 
 The Little Oasis, El Wah 
 
 oO 
 
 ing for some time as he rides. While we were talking 
 earnestly on these pious matters we missed our track in 
 the nefiids, and were some time finding it again. It is excit- 
 ing work picking out the cold scent of an old track by odds 
 and ends of camel jelleh and doubtful landmarks, as excit- 
 ing as following hounds, and we became keen and jealous. 
 But Beseys is a really good old man, and I think takes a 
 true interest in my conversion. It is forty-three years since 
 he travelled the road before, being then a boy of an age 
 young enough to need being told not to lag behind, or get 
 separated from the rest. That would make him no older 
 than I am, but in appearance he is quite an ' ancient of 
 days.' We got back eventually into the right road by 
 following a hyaena track. Hyfenas, jackals and foxes in 
 the desert are fond of frequenting caravan roads for what 
 they may chance to pick up, and know them well — the first 
 for the hap of a dead beast, the foxes for dropped dates. 
 We passed a place where foxes had been gathering scraps 
 at the site of an encampment. At Balbal yesterday there 
 were fresh gazelle tracks, besides larks singing and wagtails 
 quite at home. There are no Bedouins in these deserts as 
 there is no water and little pasturage. The thorn trees are 
 consequently uncut, and the nossi grass of last spring stands 
 uneaten. Balbal is a beautiful spot. The Bahr is much less 
 interesting, being merely one of those long serpentine de- 
 pressions so common in the desert. This one being 350 feet 
 above sea level cannot have ever been a mouth of the Nile. 
 Its bottom is of limestone without a trace of Nile mud. A 
 caravan carrying dates was just setting out from the spring 
 as we arrived. 
 
 " lyth Fell. — We have moved camp to a spring just 
 north of Bawiti, which is the last village of the Little 
 Oasis westwards. 
 
 " Last night I had a long ride alone to get a look at the 
 Oasis, climbing on Yemama to the top of the Harra which 
 stands like an island in its midst. The top of it is level 
 ground, smooth enough to canter on from end to end, one 
 of the loneliest places I ever saw, for I crossed no single 
 track of beast or bird or reptile, nor was there trace of men 
 having ever been there, though so near the villages. It is 
 apparently volcanic. One gets a good bird's-eye view from 
 it of the palm groves and the four villages, Sabu, Mandija 
 
J 
 
 16 TAe Slave Osman for Guide [1897 
 
 and the double \illage of Kasr and Bawiti. It is clear that 
 much more land was cultivated formerl\-. The itliel and 
 tamarisk clumps must have been private property. They 
 are being fast destroyed now. There is a deal of rough 
 camel pasture in the Oasis, so that we grazed as we went. 
 
 " I met a man cutting palm leaves to-da)' to make matting 
 and asked him to get us a guide to Siwah, as neither Besej s 
 nor Haj Abderrahman, nor yet Minshawi know the road 
 any farther. I was riding alone in front on Udeyha, and 
 having stopped was sleeping under a palm tree outside 
 Bawiti when I was wakened by a man greeting me. He 
 was a Berber from Farafra who offered to be of use and 
 showed us the spring hard by. Now we have sent Minshawi 
 and Salem in to market and are camped in the sand hills. 
 
 " In the evening I rode round the Oasis with Minshawi, 
 but did not enter the village, as the Government Chiauss 
 has been inquisitive about me, and I think it prudent to 
 run no risks. There is nice halfa grazing here. Every- 
 where there are bunches of palms with springs more or 
 less in use for gardens, some of which are beautiful with 
 large olive trees, esshaar, sout, and safsaf (willow). The 
 palms are the most vigorous I ever saw, having, as the say- 
 ing is, ' their feet in the water, their heads in the fire.' We 
 passed the ruins of a building, probably Roman. 
 
 " I'&th Feb. — Haj Abderrahman has left us to go home. 
 He would have taken the two camels back with him but I 
 would not allow it, as they are Abdallah's, not his, and I 
 told him I would be answerable for the price of the beasts. 
 He was unwilling to go farther. Now Minshawi has brought 
 us a tall Soudan i, Osman, from Siwah who will travel with 
 us, and we hope to be off not later than noon. There are 
 many tracks of foxes and jackals about, and I heard an 
 owl at dawn. 
 
 "Off at 10.30, and marched till sunset. The nukbe lies 
 due north, and is steep. There was no marked track till we 
 crossed the caravan road and turned west. The plain on 
 the upper ground is an absolutely barren hamad, gravel and 
 sand grit, quite devoid of life — 500 to 600 feet above the 
 sea. No sign of recent travellers on the road. A very cold 
 north-west wind. Camped under lee of a low tell. 
 
 " i^th Feb. — Thermom. 42' and a bitter wind. I find 
 that Osman the Soudani has unh- been this way once 
 
r897j 
 
 Koheyls in Bor^iott 317 
 
 before, and that twenty-five years ago, and travelling by 
 night, and in the opposite direction to what we are now 
 going. He is a Falata from Bornu, which he left when 
 seventeen years old ' on account of a war.' [He had been 
 taken as a slave, and had been carried by his captors to 
 Merzouk, the northern oases, and ultimately to Siwah, 
 whence he had escaped to El Wah, travelling by night, 
 and hiding in the daytime. For this reason he knew 
 almost nothing of the road, except the general direction. 
 He did not tell me this till afterwards.] He has been astray 
 in the oases ever since, and may now be about fifty. I like 
 him as he is plain spoken, and with an agreeable black 
 face, nearly pure negro blood, though he boasts of the 
 Falata as Arabs. The Falata have a Sultan of their own, 
 he says, and know nothing of the Dowlah. 
 
 " Eleven hours' march to-day — thirty-two miles. Camped 
 amid driving sand, barely protected from the wind. 
 
 " 2.0th Feb. — Crossed several nefuds to-day all running 
 north-west and south-east, which obliged us to travel far 
 south, and then north-west again — then came to another 
 deep depression where the caravan track disappeared for 
 fully ten miles. We had much trouble following it, but by 
 the help of skeleton camels recovered it at the nukbe 
 beyond. At one place we came across an old menzil (en- 
 campment) with a dead camel, and the wooden frame of a 
 liedajeh (camel saddle) all at least two years old. But Fid 
 and Minshawi collected the /.?//<?// (camel dung) finding it 
 still good for firing, and Suliman made prize of the saddle- 
 tree. Beyond the nukbe at four o'clock we came for the 
 first time since leaving El Wah, on a bit of camel pasture, 
 sreygd and camomile and nossi. The nossi, though a year 
 old, had not been grazed, but 1 found the hole and track 
 of a desert mouse. Yemama eagerly devoured the nossi. 
 Osman surprised me by saying of her, ' Her sire is perhaps 
 koheyl.' I find that he knows all about the horse breeds, 
 Duheym, Jilfa, and the rest. He assures me that in Bornou 
 and Wadi they have thoroughbred koheyls, the great people 
 as many as ten of them, besides great multitudes of camels. 
 We are encamped in a pleasing spot, with just enough of 
 the pasture to feed our ten camels. 
 
 "' 2\st Feb. — To-day has been full of excitement for us. 
 After about four miles from our start we came to the edge 
 
o 
 
 1 8 IVc Lose our Road [1897 
 
 of another great depression, the nukbe being well marked 
 with stone heaps pointing to a corresponding nukbe be- 
 yond, about eight miles oft". We went down, therefore, 
 confidently, though the track quickly disappeared. The 
 depression was choked with nefiids to our right, but to our 
 left was clear, the loose soil being composed mostly of old 
 shells. Its height above the sea at the lowest point was 
 100 feet. It soon, however, became plain that we were out 
 of the track, though the westerly direction was good, and 
 we had to cross a sebkha (salt swamp) with a treacherous 
 bottom, and climb a very steep gradient to the nukbe. 
 Osman, nevertheless, maintained that all was right, but 
 soon we found ourselves in a wilderness of nefiids. Here 
 Osman's knowledge came to an end, and after floundering 
 over ridge after ridge for some time, he acknowledged that 
 he knew not where he was. We therefore sat down and 
 called a council, and having watered Yemama from the 
 skins, somewhat solemnly, for we felt that it was the last 
 we could spare her, it was agreed that Suliman and I 
 should go forward alone scouting, either to come across 
 the track or find some height from which we might get 
 sight of a landmark. It seemed an equal chance to tr\- 
 right or left for the track. At starting we crossed the tracks 
 of a gazelle, an ariel Suliman said, and it seemed to me a 
 good omen. After a while, bearing somewhat to the right, 
 we got out of the nefud, and on to a hard gravel, and I 
 sent Yemama along at a good pace in the direction of some 
 hills to the west north west, saying all the prayers I knew 
 to my saints, Mohammedan and Christian, for a good issue. 
 Nor had I long to wait. At first it seemed a very hopeless 
 quest, with a brown horizon all round me and low brown 
 hills each like the other. But it was nice cantering with 
 the fresh wind in my face, and as I got on to higher ground 
 the view opened and I saw the hill I was following rise 
 higher and higher apparently about five miles off. At a 
 point of the plain where there was a little mound I stopped 
 and looked all round me. Far away to the west there 
 seemed to be a little break in the horizon, and examining 
 through m}' glasses I felt sure it was a wady, the wady of 
 Si'ttarah (where the water was said to be which we were 
 looking for). Still it might be a mistake, an effect of mirage, 
 and I galloped back to Suliman, who was following on my 
 
1897] Deceived by the Mirage 319 
 
 delid, to ask his opinion. We then both agreed that we 
 saw a wacly with mounds of tarfa, perliaps palms, and that 
 this was our wady. So I sent him back with the good news 
 and to bring the camels on, and cantered on to the hill to 
 get a better view. From the top of it I saw everything, as 
 1 thought, clearly, the tarfa mounds, the dark green wad)-, 
 and the hill, blue beyond — almost like the Nile valley. 
 
 " We were, therefore, in the highest spirits, and Suliman 
 and the camels having joined me at the foot of the hill, and 
 he having also climbed up and convinced himself, we went 
 on singing with joy. Two more hours, I thought, and we 
 should be at the spring, and I led the wa)' over the inter- 
 vening nefitds gaily. The sun was in our faces as we topped 
 ttie last of them, and saw at last the plain of our hopes 
 before us. Suliman and I looked in each other's faces 
 blankly. There was nothing at all of what we were expect- 
 ing — only another long, low, shining plain. The tarfa clumps 
 had resolved themselves into as many bare black stones, 
 and nothing to break the horizon but a single pyramidal 
 hill far awa)', a full day's journey off. It was a bitter disap 
 pointment. We asked Osman when he arrived with the 
 camels whether he recognized the valley as Si'ttarah, and 
 he said ' no.' We were worse lost than before. Neverthe- 
 less, we were convinced that the valley must be still before 
 us, and like an old hound Suliman ran off to the left casting 
 for some sign of it, and presently came, by extraordinary 
 good fortune, on a track, and then a mile or two still farther 
 on, at the very place where the black stones were which we 
 had taken for tarfa clumps, to our exceeding joy, lay the 
 great caravan road — we had not seen it for two days — run- 
 ning with at least a hundred parallel camel paths bearing 
 due westward. This, ' if not the work of the jdn^ we know 
 must be our road. It led straight to the pyramidal hill, and 
 ' there^ said Suliman, ' the water will be.' So now we are 
 camped at sunset, once more praising God for his bounty, 
 and in good heart and hope. Old Beseys and all of them 
 had given themselves up for lost. They had made no com- 
 plaint, but also had made no effort to find the road, but 
 had ridden silently — Beseys saying his prayers at intervals. 
 Perhaps they were heard in heaven." [N.B. What is very 
 remarkable in this adventure is that both Suliman and I, 
 he being a master in desert craft, having been deceived by 
 
320 A Desert Tragedy [1897 
 
 the mirage, were so not to our own hurt but to our ad\'an- 
 tage, for the apparent vegetation lay precisely where the 
 caravan road was emerging from the sand. The mirage in 
 our case saved us. Not that we were yet in great straits for 
 water, except for the mare, for we still had skins enough 
 for our own drinking, and the weather was cold. But, if we 
 had failed to hit off Sittarah next day, we should have 
 soon been in sorr\' plight, for Sittarah is the only water be- 
 tween El Wah and Siwah. What makes travelling without 
 guides so dangerous in the western desert is that the oases 
 are mere cup-like hollows in the plains, which one may 
 pass to right or left of without sign of their being near. 
 There are almost no landmarks visible from the plain, and 
 the sands have encroached, obliterating the ancient roads, 
 which are most of them now abandoned. In former days 
 the oases must have been all inhabited, but are not so now. 
 The sand drifts are gradually overwhelming them. To pass 
 by one of these and so miss the water is for a caravan a 
 terrible disaster.] 
 
 " 22ud Feb. — Close to our encampment we found the 
 skeleton of two donkeys, which Osman recognizes as con- 
 nected with a gruesome tale. Last year at El W'ah, a 
 witness being wanted in the affairs of a certain khawajeh, 
 probably a Greek, who had died there, the Egyptian 
 authorities, urged on by an officer of the Inglis, sent to 
 Siwah for the man, who was brought to El Wah with his 
 wife and his two boys. These, when the inquiry was over, 
 wanted to return, and, notwithstanding that it was summer, 
 the man set out for Siwah with his family, and his two 
 donkeys carrying jars of water for the road. The donkeys, 
 however, broke down near Sittarah, doubtless here ; the 
 water was finished, and the father sent the elder of the two 
 boys forward with a jar to Sittarah to bring them water. 
 On his return the boy found his mother and his brother 
 already dead of thirst, while the father was still alive. But 
 having drunk, he too died, and the boy was left alone to 
 bury them and tell the tale. We found the graves by the 
 roadside near the donkey skeletons. These, Osman says, 
 were the last who travelled here, and it was two years ago. 
 
 " As I walked with Osman this morning he told me the 
 story, and also much about Burnou and Wadai. There are 
 there, he assures me, wild koheyl. The Arabs catch them 
 
1897] 
 
 JVe Reach Siitarak 321 
 
 at their watering places in pitfalls or traps which catch 
 them by the leg. They keep these horses tied up fast 
 for three days, then put bits into their mouths and ride 
 them. They can go ten days without water. I'his he told 
 me in almost the same words as those used by Leo 
 African us 400 years ago. I asked about their colours, and 
 he said the\- were ba)-, white, and dark; they had long 
 manes and tails ; some Arabs ate them, calling them h(xlal. 
 I asked him about the lant (mentioned b)' Leo Africanus), 
 and he said, ' Oh, yes, el ant,' and described it as red (bay) 
 above with a white belly and dark markings between the 
 red and the white, like a gazelle — the male alone with 
 horns, big like a cow. I am convinced this is the Eland of 
 natural history. There are also elephants, lions, and giraffes. 
 The elephant is half halal (permitted food), hsM karain (for- 
 bidden food), the fore toes halal, He has eaten the flesh. 
 He described the giraffe as a tall camel with two small 
 horns. The Falata, he said, hunt all these — and the gazelle 
 with hawks. The)- ride koheyls after the ostrich and the lant. 
 All this is most interesting. There are also wild asses. 
 
 " All this time we were following the caravan road, and 
 at about eleven we sighted bushes — this time real bushes — 
 and I galloped on some three or four miles to the dry edge 
 of the Lake of Sittarah. It lay exactly as Suliman had said, 
 under the pyramidal hill. This eastern end of the lake 
 (which is a salt lake and quite undrinkable) is clearly a 
 paradise of wild beasts. The tracks of the ariel gazelle 
 were like those of a flock of sheep, and of the hares, like 
 those of rabbits at Xewbuildings in the snow, round every 
 bush. And there were jackal tracks, and the track of a 
 wolf and of a wild boar quite fresh. ' I was surprised to find 
 the jackal tracks, as I had never seen them before far from 
 inhabited places. But their being here was later explained 
 by the dates, which they doubtless feed on. Of bushes I 
 found ghurkhud and aghur, the latter always a sign of 
 former cultivation, tamarisks on a mound or two, and a 
 single palm bush. I should have liked to encamp here on 
 the chance of seeing an ariel; but it was necessary to find 
 the water first. Osman could not recollect where the spring 
 was, except that it was under palms, and about two miles 
 farther on palms were visible. So I once more cantered on. 
 The first palms stood in a swamp near the lake, just 
 
 Y 
 
32 2 Finding Water in the Sand [1^97 
 
 opposite the pyramidal hill, with blue water beyond them for 
 quite a mile. The swamp, too, was a main home of the 
 wild beasts, but as yet I saw no birds. I was driven out of 
 it by the midges and mosquitoes, which assailed me in 
 battalions from the reeds, and I was glad to get back to 
 the desert and wait there for the camels. When they 
 arrived we all dispersed in search of the spring, which 
 Osman could not find, examining palm clump after palm 
 clump. At the western edge of the lake there is no marsh, 
 and the nefuds come down to the water's edge with only a 
 fringe of reeds and tufts of palms, which we found covered 
 with good fruit. Of these we plucked and ate. The first 
 hopeful sign of water was when with a rush and a scream 
 out of a palm clump flew a blackbird, a real English black- 
 bird. I had never seen one in the desert, or in Egypt, 
 except in my own garden of Sheykh Obeyd. This was a 
 proof there must be good water, and soon after Suliman 
 discovered good water b)- digging in the sand to his elbow 
 at a place which seemed frequented, and Osman found 
 more under the very last palm of the Oasis westwards. The 
 springs had been choked with sand drift, but were easily 
 dug out. 
 
 " Minshavvi, meanwhile, had got another supply from the 
 shore of the lake. The lake itself is salt, like all desert 
 lakes, but by digging a few yards awa}- from the edge, 
 drinkable, though brackish, water can be had ; and of this 
 Yemama drank her fill. She was very thirsty, as yesterday 
 she had been on half rations. We all felt very happy, and 
 agreed to spend two nights and enjoy the water. There is 
 all here a man with a few she-camels can require to live on, 
 good pasture, good water, and good dates. The lake is 
 covered with flamingos, and I saw a heron and heard wild 
 geese. I think I saw pelicans. I also saw one chrysippus 
 butterfly, but no land bird except the one blackbird. It 
 would be a paradise for a hermit, but for the gnats. These 
 came out in swarms at sunset, and drove me out of camp, 
 and a mile away into the nefud, where I spent the night 
 alone with Suliman and our two nagas. Of all the hermit- 
 ages I have yet found this is the best. It is never visited 
 by man. There are no Arabs anywhere within a hundred 
 miles, and it is very beautiful — a winter hermitage, I mean, 
 for in summer it must be a furnace. It is hot even now. 
 
1897J 
 
 The Sittarah Oasis 323 
 
 " 2 2,rd Feb. — After a delightful night I walked at sunrise 
 to the top of the highest nefud, from which the whole lake 
 can be seen. It is very interesting. Clearly the Oasis has 
 been inhabited, but has been overwhelmed by the ncfuds 
 advancing on it from the south and west. The lake may be 
 seven miles long, and is very beautiful. The northern shore 
 is bounded by low cliffs, the ancient limit doubtless of the 
 lake, which is shrinking, and will some day be a mere 
 chaos of nefud, as so many others ai'e. It was somewhere 
 in this desert, they say, that Cambyses disappeared with 
 his army. I can well believe it, for we were within a little 
 of such a misfortune two days ago. If the weather had 
 been less clear and cool I could not have seen the valley, 
 and with a sand wind we might easily have perished. Now 
 all seems easy and delightful. In the afternoon I went out 
 for a ride, intending to visit the pyramidal hill, but got into 
 a quicksand, crossing over a half dry arm of the lake, out 
 of which I had some difficulty in dragging my mare. The 
 blackbird I saw again at the same place, and a kestrel. It 
 is so hot to-day that I had the tent pitched for a shade — 
 the first time we have used it, as I sleep under my carpet 
 shelter. The barometer shows the lake to be 120 feet below 
 sea level, 
 
 " 24^/2 Feb. — Started at sunrise, believing our difficulties 
 to be now over, but we took a wrong track, which led us 
 south-west instead of farther north, towards some distant 
 palms we had sighted an hour after leaving. This took us 
 to what I believe to be the oasis of Bahreyn — at least such 
 an Oasis is marked on my map. [N.B. A very excellent 
 German map.] This Oasis is very like Sittarah, though with 
 two lakes instead of one — whence its name. Osman pro- 
 nounced this to be Araj, and said we were now close to 
 Zeytoun and Siwah, which I knew could not be the case, 
 and was sure when we came to the second lake it could 
 only be Bahreyn. The road, too, westwards, we found 
 blocked by a great sebkha (a dry salt marsh), and we were 
 obliged to turn north and travel several hours to recover 
 the right road. Fortunately we fell in soon with the track 
 of a donkey, and two men who had been to the oasis, we 
 think, to gather dates, a track of about ten days old, which 
 we followed. The barometer at Bahreyn showed exactly O 
 above the sea. The donkey track led us to a nukbeh, where 
 
324 A Pitiless Desert [1897 
 
 we fell in with a well-marked road bearing north-west by 
 north over a plateau of limestone hillocks, each about ten 
 feet high, like the crested waves of the British Channel in 
 rough weather, with the space between them sand. The 
 road was carefully marked with rijms (cairns), and eas_\- to 
 follow, and I cantered gaily on to find a camping place, 
 where we now snugly are, screened from the north-east 
 wind. It is fortunate we found the donke}' track, or we 
 might not have hit off the road. Yemama is now in excel- 
 lent condition, and ate up her two viclwas of corn during 
 the night. The camels were all watered before starting. 
 At Bahreyn to-day I saw a kite and a raven. 
 
 " I find Beseys is very unwilling now to go to Jerabub, 
 being afraid, I think, of displeasing the Akhwan. We have 
 agreed to find out at ZeytCun or Siwah whether Abu Seyf 
 is at Jerabub or not, and to pass by without alighting if 
 he should be absent. 
 
 " 25//? Feb. — To-day we are in a worse plight than ever. 
 We started very early, taking up our path of yesterday, 
 which brought us in a couple of hours to the end of the 
 limestone plain, and to my great delight to the edge of a 
 new and very deep oasis which I kne«- must be the Araj we 
 were looking for. Araj has no lake, only a little standing 
 water and a tamarisk marsh. But a vast number of palms 
 are scattered over a wide basin with many isolated clumps, 
 very beautiful, in the sand. It was no case here of the 
 nefud having destroyed the villages, as in the other oases, 
 but of abandonment, one cannot say why. There are palms 
 enough left to support many villages. The cliffs here are 
 on the south and west sides, the sand slopes on the north 
 and east. Still on the track of the donkey and the two 
 men we chevied along the edge of the jungle north west- 
 wards, the ground covered with the tracks of gazelles, 
 hares, and jackals. Of birds I saw only three, mourning 
 chats, black with white beaks and rumps — nothing else 
 alive. The depth of the oasis puzzled my barometer. It 
 must be about 150 feet below the sea. From the bottom 
 the track led up by some clumps of palms, where I am sure 
 there must be water underground, across deep nefuds to 
 the opposite nukbeh marked by some wonderful rocks — one 
 quite square, white as marble, and with curious architectural 
 markings, another like a tall chessman, both 100 feet high at 
 
1897] We are in Miserable Plight 325 
 
 least, their tops level with the plain above, a splendid hermit- 
 age where one might find shade and shelter at all hours 
 and in every weather. They are geologically of limestone, 
 with layers of shells, their tops black, like lava. One la^er 
 of the chessman, one of those round white flakes, Suliman 
 calls dirahem (money). This place was the vt^ildest, the 
 most romantic, the most supernatural in its natural struc- 
 ture I have ever seen, an abode of all \^<tjan. 
 
 I cantered up the sand slope to the top of the pass, 
 elated at having found Araj corresponding so well with my 
 map, and being in front forgot to give orders for water to 
 be looked for, and the girbehs filled. Hence our present 
 trouble. For on gaining the upper plain, instead of the 
 well-marked track we had expected, we found nothing but 
 a wind-swept plateau of nefiid interspersed with mounds of 
 stone, where the donkey track speedily disappeared or 
 was lost, nor could we ever again find it. We were left 
 now to our sole wits and the mercy of God, .for the wind 
 was blowing hard from the north-east and was drifting the 
 sand hopelessly. Suliman, now in command, recommended 
 descending towards some hills to the north-west, and 
 this brought us to a new formation of limestone ground, 
 arranged in flat masses with sharp edges, the most abomin- 
 able imaginable interspersed with sand. Across this we 
 floundered with our camels for several hours, when Suliman, 
 having climbed to the top of a low tell, announced that he 
 had seen a valley with palms, and it was resolved, much 
 against old Osman's wish, that we should cross the whole 
 valley on the chance of striking a track near the hills. The 
 trend of the valley was westwards, and if it was the begin- 
 ning of the Siwah valley, Suliman argued, it must have a 
 road passing up it. So Suliman and I went scouting with 
 the tall buttresses of a crag to west-north-west for our 
 object. Now we have almost reached these, but have found 
 no sign of road or life — only a poor wagtail lost in the 
 strong wind. We have camped for the night, feeling our- 
 selves to be out of all reckoning (for this according to the 
 map should have been the Siwah valley, yet it is absolutely 
 without trace of human passage, old or new). We are 
 camped in a hollow near two seyyal trees, ill screened from 
 the wind, and in very miserable plight. 
 
 " 26th Feb. — I spent a restless, uncomfortable night, dis- 
 
326 An Anxious Night [1897 
 
 turbed at finding that of our five water skins three were- 
 already empt)', and reproaching myself with having let the 
 men pass Araj without replenishing. I felt myself re- 
 sponsible, too, from having taken the direction of our route 
 out ofOsman's hands. Old Beseys and the rest, except my 
 own Bedouins, were clearl}' of opinion that I was wrong. 
 The wind, too, raged furiously, and kept me waking, and 
 in the darkness I imagined all kinds of disaster, more es- 
 peciall}' when I found the stars overhead obscured with 
 drifting sand. I said prayers to all my saints and repented 
 of my sins, and so I think did all the party. Once in the 
 night the sky cleared and I got a sight of the Pole Star 
 and made a line on the ground with my camel stick as a 
 guide in the morning, for my pocket compass is out of 
 order and cannot be relied on. There were even moments 
 when I thought gloomily of ordering a retreat to Araj. 
 
 " In the morning, however, more courageous counsels 
 prevailed, and we took our due course west towards the 
 khustn (the headland) determined to go straight forward 
 and solve the question of this being the Siwah valley or 
 no. Xor were we long in suspense. We had hardly gone a 
 mile when, riding in front, I came upon a little single path 
 leading to some scyyal trees which had been pollarded by 
 Bedouins, a sign of human neighbourhood, and presently, 
 to my delight, to the old caravan road, reappearing plain 
 and unmistakable. It relieved us from all anxiety, and 
 following it we found ourselves by mid-day at the first 
 bushes of the Siwah oasis." [N.B. It is well here to note, 
 as a general rule of travelling in the desert without guides 
 that, when looking for a lost camel track or road, there is 
 more chance of finding it at the point of a headland in the 
 wady than elsewhere, for the reason that it is there that 
 the shortest cut would be made in rounding a trend of the 
 hills. This justified Suliman in making for the kkusin 
 yesterday.] " Soon afterwards we came to sebkhas, where 
 there were tracks of many pasturing camels, and then within 
 sight of the oasis of Zeytoun and the Senussi Zaghwiyeh 
 standing on high ground a mile or more from its palm 
 trees. As it was near sunset we resolved to rest here and 
 have made a pleasant camp under some ghurkhud bushes. 
 El haindul Illah. 
 
 " 2'jth Feb. — In half an hour from leaving camp we came 
 
1897] The Semissi JMonastery at Zeitotm 327 
 
 to the Zaghwiyeh, and Yemama started at the sight of 
 strange human beings, the first she had seen since leaving 
 El Wah, who came out to receive us. These were servants 
 and slaves of the monastery, and we were shown by them 
 the well where we watered mare and camels — a small well 
 just outside the buildings. These were not different from 
 an ordinary small village, a score of low square houses 
 with a mosque attached. The servants may have been half- 
 a-dozen or more, an unhandsome set of men, especially 
 those of the Siwah type, which is one of the ugliest in the 
 world, yellow skinned, brown haired, snub nosed, hare- 
 lipped and light eyed (such one imagines the Huns to 
 have been). In marked contrast to them was the ' brother,' 
 who came out presently to entertain us, an Arab of the 
 Western type, not unlike my friend Abdallah Mijower, with a 
 singularly pleasant smile. One could imagine him having 
 great influence with the people. He had a look of goodness 
 which could not be mistaken. His name, he told us, was 
 Sidi Hamid of the Mujabara tribe of Aujla. He has with 
 him only one fellow brother, a Siwan, inferior to him in 
 every way. He gave us all the news of the brotherhood, 
 how that, after Sidi Sherif's death, Sidi Abu Seyf had 
 also died, leaving Sidi el Medani head of the community 
 at Jerabub. He said we should have no difficulty in our 
 journey to Benghazi. It was four easy days to Jerabub, and 
 from thence we could go straight to Bir Menus in nine 
 days, with one water on the sixth day. He would like to 
 go with us himself He was very kind to me, and though 
 he did not eat with us, it being Ramadan, he gave me 
 some good gaznli dates and some pomegranates, and milk 
 and dates to the servants, who were not fasting. Then he 
 called his fellow brother Mohammed, and they recited a 
 fatha for our safe journe\', all standing together outside the 
 monastery, and we went much pleased on our way. 
 
 " Old Beseys tells me it is their practice to entertain all 
 comers for two nights with milk and dates — otherwise to 
 occupy themselves only with prayer and the superintending 
 of the palm cultivation. (Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers 
 imitated in this their way of life.) One might do worse in 
 the world than be a Senussi brother. Every difficulty seems 
 now to be in the way of solution. Beseys is confident of 
 accomplishing our journey by Jerabub to Benghazi. 
 
328 U^e Camp South of Skoah Town l}"^^^! 
 
 " Thus we travelled till four o'clock, when we reached 
 the first isolated garden outside Siwah, where Beseys found 
 a friend, who inxited us to stay with him, and we 
 should have done well to accept, and presently we en- 
 camped for the night just outside the Eastern town, of the 
 two of which Siwah is composed, half a mile away south of 
 it in the sand among some groups of palms. 
 
 " 2%th Feb. — A day of disaster. Last night after dark, 
 Mohammed Said, Omdeh of the Eastern town, came out to 
 see us; a fat, well-dressed, dark-faced man whom Suliman 
 pronounced to be 'a splendid prince.' We had bought a 
 lamb (for Sheykh Obe}-d), and Suliman cooked it for us, and 
 Mohammed Said ate of it largel)- with a friend, and he had 
 just got up to say good-night and go, having promised us 
 a guide and all we wanted for next day, when we saw 
 lights coming, and a number of persons, horse and foot, 
 and the word passed that it was the hakim (government 
 representative), a viaowji (police officer), the chief man 
 being awa)- at Skanderia. He was polite and amiable, a 
 slender man with no palate to his mouth, speaking almost 
 in a whisper, and with him a number of Siwans who, as I 
 understand now, were Shej^khs of the U'estern town. These 
 all sat down, and I, too, was obliged to sta\- out their visit 
 while coffee was being made. Old Bese}-s, as his way is, 
 made most of the conversation, and he began very imprud- 
 ently to tell them we intended going to Benghazi. The 
 sheykhs, upon this, became curious and inquisitive. Old 
 Beseys strung tales of mj' being from Nejd, and I was 
 obliged to join in to the extent of saying that I was from 
 beyond Sham (Damascus^, between Sham and Bagdad, and 
 my name Sakr. They were curious to know my business, 
 but I answered vaguel)', also as to our road. I did not for 
 a moment suppose there was anj'thing hostile in their in- 
 tention, and they drank their coffee and said good night 
 amiably enough, the only disagreeable incident being that 
 during the night a thief came to my tent and stole away 
 my carpet shelter, which I had used to seat my visitors 
 upon outside. It had been carelessly put back at the door 
 of the tent, and the night was one for thieves, being with- 
 out a moon. I was awoke out of my sleep by Suliman's 
 shout, who had seen the thief stealing away between the 
 palms, but too late to stop him with his prize. I was put 
 
1897] We are Attacked by the Siwans 329 
 
 out at this and all the more resolved to move away early — 
 Mohammed Said had sugg'ested it — to another place ' near 
 his castle.' This castle was barely half a mile away (to the 
 west), a country house built upon a rock, and we accord- 
 ingly moved camp by daylight and pitched the tent a 
 hundred yards from the house on open ground. 
 
 '■ I had just settled that the servants were to go to town 
 to buy what we wanted when Suliman came to my tent to 
 tell me of an armed party approaching from the town 
 towards us, and that we ought to get our guns ready. I 
 loaded my gun, and then looked through my glass, and 
 saw in fact a little army, some 200 men, on horse and on 
 foot (and with camels), advancing from the Western town, 
 which, though evidently armed, I could not believe had 
 any intention hostile to ourselves. The servants were for 
 flight with the camels, and old Beseys and Salem and the 
 younger Arabs disappeared. Only Suliman and the good 
 old slave Osman stayed with me, and, seeing it was absurd 
 to think of defence, I told them to put up their weapons, 
 and sat down again in my tent waiting the event. Presently 
 the Siwans arrived, and I heard them call out ' Salaam 
 aleykum,' and ' am4n,' and supposed it to be all right. But 
 half a minute after I found myself surrounded by a num- 
 ber of men, mostly Soudanis, who were pulling the tent 
 over my ears. On seeing me sitting there, they rushed for- 
 ward and caught hold of me by the wrists and pulled me 
 to my feet. I expostulated with them, and they became 
 more violent, and though I made no defence except in 
 words one of them struck me a blow on the side of the 
 neck and others began to try and pull my clothes off me, 
 others pointed guns and pistols at me, and there was a 
 vast hubbub and confusion, one dragging me one way and 
 another another. I received several blows on the head and 
 one from some weapon on the cheek. All I could make 
 out of their cries (for there was an immense uproar and 
 they were shouting the most part in a language — Berberi — 
 I did not understand), was something about Sidi-el-Mahdi. 
 
 " There were half-a-dozen sheykhs on horseback, with an 
 old white-bearded man brandishing a drawn sword, others 
 with blunderbusses and every kind of impossible weapon. 
 I recognized in them several of those who had drunk coffee 
 with us the night before. My captors hustled me towards 
 
330 I am bro2ight Prisoner into Siwah [1897 
 
 the town, tearing me nearly in pieces in their desire to get 
 m,\- pistol from my belt, which at last they tore away. The 
 sheykhs on horseback were evidently in direction of the 
 whole affair. I had lost sight of Suliman and the slave 
 Osman, but I heard afterwards that they, too, were con- 
 siderably knocked about. I received a rather nasty blow 
 on the nape of the neck and another with some weapon on 
 my cheek bone, but neither very serious, and, not being 
 really hurt, I managed to keep my temper. The sheykhs 
 made no effort to protect me in an\' way ; but, when the\- 
 had got my pistol, my assailants left me more or less alone, 
 as there was a general rush to pillage the baggage. For- 
 tunately the leather bags with spring locks were a puzzle 
 to them, and they could not tear them open. But I had 
 no leisure to attend to this, and my captors marched me 
 off towards the town, every now and then having a drag at 
 my cloak or my liezain (girdle) ; 'el dirahem, el dirahem!' 
 ('the drachmas, the money ! ') they shouted ; 'you have a 
 thousand ? }'ou have two thousand ? ' 
 
 " At last a man, with a better face than most, came up 
 to me, and I made myself his dahil (according to the Arab 
 formula, 'ana dahilak^ by seizing his cloak, an act of sur- 
 render), and he took me to join a .second body which had 
 been waiting behind the first, and some of these threw their 
 cloaks over my head to protect me from further blows. It 
 was a rabble rout as ever was seen, and they marched me 
 to the town, where the women were all shrilling their 
 triumph (jilti-lu-lu-lu) from every housetop. I did not know 
 in the least what it was about or what they intended, but 
 they seemed all very angry, and at times I thought they 
 meant to kill me. But, strangely enough, I was not at all 
 frightened, and felt interested in it all almost as a spectator." 
 [The truth is it was a very lovely morning, the air spark- 
 ling and clear, and the whole thing, with its almost mediaeval 
 and quite barbaric costuming and staging, was more like a 
 pageant than a reality, so that it seemed difficult to realize 
 that it was quite in earnest; nor had I time to think much 
 or consider what it meant.] 
 
 •' Arrived inside the town, I was marched to an open 
 space vi^here there wer^ two erections not unlike gallows, 
 and for a moment I thought that I was perhaps to be 
 hanged. All I could imagine in explanation of the affair 
 
iSgy] Matters Explained at the Mejliss 331 
 
 was that some revolution had broken out in which I was 
 accidentally involved. But we did not stop at the gallows, 
 and presently I was bidden inside a house and up a stair 
 which led to a nice open room with viastabahs (seats) and 
 a pleasant outlook to the north. This proved to be the 
 mejliss (council chamber) of the Sheykhs of the Gharbieh 
 (western town), and there we sat down. I took the best 
 place, and called for water, which was brought ; and a gi eat 
 talk began among the Sheykhs, who were now by way of 
 protecting me. Having drunk and recovered my breath, 
 1 asked them the reason of all their wrath, and of the attack 
 made on me, but could get no intelligible answer except 
 that the Maown was coming. I explained that I was a 
 person well known at Cairo and a friend of Effendina's (the 
 Khedive's). But they said they knew nothing of Effendina 
 — they had a government of their own, and that I should 
 go to the diwan (government house). Soon after the Maown 
 arrived. He had made me the kindly offer of his services 
 last night, and I now whispered to him that I was an 
 Englishman. This made him still more courteous, and I 
 think, poor man, he did all he could to set things right, 
 with considerable tact, too. And, as things went on better, 
 I whispered the same intelligence also to one of the sheykhs 
 who sat next me, and with the same good effect. There 
 was now a great hurry to restore the plunder, and most of 
 the things taken were by degrees brought in, the chief 
 losses being two of my three guns, and my good Persian 
 sword (the sword Mohammed Ibn Aruk of Tadmor had 
 given me), also my little store of gold — £2^ had been 
 abstracted from my small red bag, which must have been 
 done by the sheykhs themselves, for the silver had been left, 
 and certainly the common plunderers would have left 
 nothing. And so, little by little, matters cleared. The 
 Maown brought water, and himself washed my cheeks from 
 the blood, and a katib (scribe) having arrived, I dictated a 
 statement of the case, though I don't think it was signed 
 by any one. 
 
 " Ait&c this, my servants one by one appeared all with 
 tales of the losses, and Suliman and Osman of their bruises 
 — and we were escorted by the Maown to the diwan, 
 which is the general Government House of Siwah. Here 
 we now are, in not uncomfortable quarters upstairs, with 
 
332 Lodged in the Diwan [i^97 
 
 sexeral mud-built rooms and a nice roof top. The camtls 
 are below in a great yard ; and after all the trouble nothing 
 serious has realh- happened. Onl)- it is clear our onward 
 journey is stopped. Our monej- and our arms are gone, 
 and there is a general demoralization among the servants. 
 Salem is thoroughly frightened and has given warning, 
 and the others all declare for an immediate return by 
 Alexandria. So here m)- expedition ends. The timid 
 Beseys, it turns out, ran away to his friend Mohammed 
 Said at the first news of the approaching army, and came 
 late, on the Maown's summons, to the viej'Hss, where the 
 Sheykhs set upon him, excusing themselves for the attack 
 b\- laying it on Beseys' assurance to them that I was this 
 that and the other; and, indeed, I think it has been mainly 
 his fault. It was quite unnecessary for him to talk about 
 m\- going to Benghazi to anybody but Mohammed Said; 
 and I am not sure he had not talked also about the road to 
 Jerabub. Still we must be thankful for small mercies, and 
 it has all been in the way of the adventure I was seeking. 
 None of us is hurt, and for the small losses I shall make 
 the Egyptian Government responsible. They should either 
 give up holding Siwah or keep order here. As it is, the 
 Maown, poor man, is powerless. He told me his sorrows 
 to-night. He has been twelve years here, on £'j a month, 
 and has but six men under him for the preservation of 
 the peace, four of whom are disabled b)- fever, and he him- 
 self suffers from it. His second in command is d)'ing of 
 consumption, and spits blood continually. His superior, 
 the Mamur, at £2^^ a month, has just been recalled, and I 
 think he cannot read or write. His bashkatib, chief secretary-, 
 is down with fever, and the second, too, is sick. 
 
 " 1st March. — Things look pleasanter this morning. It 
 is arranged that we are to leave to-morrow with a messenger 
 the Maown is sending to Alexandria with the news of our 
 adventure, \^^e shall take the northern road by Akabah 
 and the sea coast. Last night was a noisy one, of chaunt- 
 ing and processions, as Ramadan is ending. [N.B. The 
 diwan overlooked the great square of the mosque, which 
 was crowded all night with a multitude of devotees, and a 
 wild concourse of Oulad Ali Bedouins who had come in to 
 Siwah from the north and west to buy dates and attend 
 the coming festival. The Oulad Ali are all more or less 
 
1S97] Causes of the Attack 333 
 
 adherents of the Senussia, and what may truly be called 
 ' fanaticism,' was rampant among them. It was a curious 
 and impressive sight, and cannot have been very different 
 from the condition of things at Omdurman and el Obeyd 
 in the time of the Mahdi. At midnight and again at the 
 hour of the morning prayer a gong was sounded, apparently 
 by the blows repeated singly of an iron hammer, with the 
 effect of a series of sharp reports like those of a rifle, sharp 
 and penetrating, followed by the call to prayer splendidly 
 chaunted by the inucddhin, and then a general chaunting 
 maintained for an hour or more, wild and menacing as any- 
 thing to be heard in the world.] The best explanation of 
 the attack made on me is Ramadan. The Siwans are mad 
 with it. Beseys tells me the Akhwan took part in yester- 
 day's affair. It is quite likely. Others say it is on account 
 of our having gone on arrival to Mohammed Said, who is 
 at the head of the opposite faction, that of the Eastern 
 town. But I think plunder had not a little to do with it, 
 and the recklessness which Ramadan brings. Certainly the 
 whole of the Gharbieh town was concerned in the attack. 
 I regret it as upsetting my plans for the Jebel Akhdar, but 
 it cannot be helped. It may serve as a useful instruction 
 as to this western Islam of which I had hoped something. 
 If the condition of Siwah is all the fruit the Senussia has 
 to show, the tree can be but little worth. 
 
 " md March. — The day has passed in going to and fro 
 on the part of the Maown to arrange matters for our start 
 to-morrow. They have imposed two khabirs (guides) on 
 us, one from each village, for whom I am to pay £ii^. each. 
 This will leave me with only fifteen reals and a piastre, all 
 counted. The Sheykh of the Gharbieh, who is chief 
 guarantor in the transaction, is the same who led the attack 
 on us yesterday. There is little doubt that the prime 
 movers in the affair were the Akhwan. Some say that 
 Mohammed, the Siwahi brother who recited the prayer 
 with us at Zeytoun, followed us on his white donkey, and 
 that he was the cause of the night visit paid us, and the 
 questions asked of us as to our projected journey. The 
 Sheykh of the Western town led the ^/zrt.s^, but the men 
 who first attacked me were, I am sure, slaves of the Akhwan. 
 I remember among their cries when they struck me with 
 the gun, 'j/a kelb., la te fut and Sidi el Mahdi! Indeed it 
 
00' 
 
 The Blame laid on Hassuna [ii^y? 
 
 was all done in the name of Sidi el ^lahdi. Now old 
 Beseys says he recognized one of the Akhwan as leader in 
 the attack. 
 
 " Of the Sheykhs there were three prominent leaders, 
 Othman Habbun, the old man with the naked sword 
 (this I believe to have been Hassuna), and the _\oung 
 dark man with the prominent eyes, who afterwards sat 
 next me at the nicjliss, ?\Iohammed Kuli. All these three 
 were on horseback. I am certain, too, that the gold stolen 
 from the red bag was taken, not in the general plunder, but 
 afterwards — this because the bag, -though not locked, was 
 shut with a spring, and if the plunderers had got it open 
 they would not have left the silver or the pistol, both of 
 which were inside. I suspect it was Othman took it. 
 Beseys says that the arms are in his hands and in those of 
 the Akhwan. The name of the man who first protected 
 me is Abu Bekr Mohammed Daoud, and another was 
 Mohammed Alansur, Hassan Mansur's brother, on whom 
 they now lay all the blame. Mohammed Kuli was among 
 the advanced riders. I consider Abdallah Homeydeh 
 among the most responsible of the second division. The 
 three commanders of the advanced party are then — Othman 
 Habbun, the worst, Hassuna, and Mohammed Kuli. It was 
 Mohammed Kuli, I think, who pointed the pistol at m}' 
 head. They lay all the blame on Hassuna now, who they 
 say is asi (in rebellion) against the Government, and has 
 possession of m\' s«ord and guns. 
 
 " Othman has been to see me and has brought back the 
 money, or rather its equivalent often sovereigns and twenty- 
 five bintos. The She_\'khs of the Gharbieh have all been 
 with me, talking, and are now polite enough and anxious 
 their quarrel with me should be settled ; and I have used a 
 little i-Mi^a with them, acquiescing in their view of Hassuna's 
 sole guilt. Jhey have asked me to get hirfl removed by 
 the Government as a mischief maker. It was Abdallah 
 Homeydeh who made the remark in the viejliss ' We know 
 nothing of Effendina. We have a government of our own.' " 
 [N.B. I am sorry not to have noted more in m}' journal 
 of these She)'khs' conversation, for much of it was interest- 
 ing as connected with the affairs of the Senussia. I found 
 Othman Habbun b\- far the most able man among them, a 
 strong, capable rogue. The rest were very poor creatures, 
 
1897] We leave for the Nile 335 
 
 some of them of the most degraded physical type I have 
 ever come across, and apparently without those sentiments 
 of honour most Arabs pretend to even if they are without 
 them. The Siwahi are, however, no real Arabs, but men of 
 very mixed origin with much negro blood, and apparently 
 some northern blood too, for there were individuals with 
 )'ellow faces, pale eyes, and tow-coloured hair. They are prob- 
 ably descended from the criminals formerly sent here in 
 Roman and later times, for Siwah was a convict settlement.] 
 
 " 3.30. — I have had a last talk with Huseyn Effendi, the 
 Maown,and have learned several things from him. Othman 
 Habbun is no other, he tells me, than the VVakil of the 
 Akhwan at Siwah. This explains the whole affair, and it 
 is on him and the Akhwan that the whole responsibilit)- of 
 the attack rests. He is now anxious not to compromise 
 the Senussia with the Government, and represents Hassuna 
 as the dangerous man, making him scapegoat in his place. 
 Hassuna is Sidi el Mahdi's strongest adherent in Siwah, 
 and if the Government attempts to arrest him, he will 
 doubtless fly and take refuge with the Sidi, as he did once 
 before in the Khedive Tewfik's time. I am tired of waiting 
 here, but the delay has been fruitful in the knowledge I 
 have acquired. It is an experience not, I think, bought 
 too dear. 
 
 " yd March. — Got away at last from Siwah, accompanied 
 by the Maown on his white donkey and our four chief 
 adversaries on horseback, Othman Habbun (Wakil Sidi el 
 Mahdi), Mohammed Mansur (Hassuna's brother), Moham- 
 med Kuli, and Abdallah Homeydeh. They were riding 
 wretched underbred mares of which they professed them- 
 selves proud. But Othman cast envious eyes on Yemama, 
 who was fresh with her rest and full of spirits. 
 
 ," I have promised the Maown to try and get him named 
 Mamur. He says that with twenty-five men and a small 
 cannon he could manage the town — and I think he could 
 if Othman were removed. He is the only dangerous one 
 of the lot, as he is intelligent, unscrupulous, and bold. The 
 Senussia in these oasis towns is a mere madness and ought 
 to be suppressed. It is, all the same, picturesque and in- 
 teresting. I have slept the last two nights on the house- 
 top, and the midnight call to prayer is the most impressive 
 thing I ever heard. The town guards call their watchword, 
 
33^ --Z Friendly Farewell [1897 
 
 which is answered all over the town. Then the drum is 
 struck, in sound like the sharp crack of a rifle, I — 2, 3 I 
 —2, 3—1—2, 3. Then, after an interval, the inueddliin 
 chaunts. Till midnight the whole town is silent— dead 
 silent — there are no dogs at Siwah except those brought 
 in by the Bedouins. But afterwards there are intervals of 
 watch calling and prayers till daybreak. 
 
 " The four Sheykhs got off their horses at the outskirts 
 of the oasis gardens and were wishing us good-bye, when 
 Mohammed Said appeared in the distance. ' I think he is 
 not of your friends,' I said. ' We are all friends here,' they 
 answered, laughing. ' Fi aman Illah,'said Othman. 'Salaam 
 aleykum,' I answered, and he,' Aleykum es salaam.' Moham- 
 med Said then rode up. He talked of riding farther with 
 us, but I would not allow it. He proved useless to us at 
 the pinch, and he only compromises us now. The little 
 Maown I parted from with real regret. He has been very 
 kind and very clever. I am to deliver a letter he has 
 written to the Mudirieh (Damanhur, of which Siwah is an 
 annex), and to send him my pistol and a donkey's bridle 
 by one of our guides when these return. Mohammed Said 
 handed me a list of those who had been concerned in 
 the attack on me, and then he too departed. When all were 
 gone and we were once more in the open desert we all 
 breathed more freely, and have pushed quickly on and are 
 stopping now at the last liattieJi (palm clump) of the oasis, 
 some twenty-five miles from Siwah. 
 
 " A,th March. — A long march from 5.50 a.m. to 5.20 p.m. 
 over hard hainad (gravel plain) at best pace — say thirty- 
 five miles — and camped at the first sheltered place on 
 descending towards Garah. A hot march, as the wind was 
 behind us, followed by a bitter cold night. 
 
 " The two guides are Kheydr, an old man, tall and big- 
 nosed, a Senusite — he was one of those who rode against 
 us on the 28th at what I call the battle of Jupiter Ammon, 
 for the ruins were \A-ithin half a mile of the fight. The 
 other, a great strong blackguard of the opposite faction. 
 They are both amiable now, and made me a present of 
 Siwah bread and date cake, very good, in a pretty basket. 
 The old man I like. He said to-day, ' I have been in- 
 quiring about you from your servants, and I find we made 
 a great mistake about you. It will ruin Siwah.' 
 
1897] The Oasis of Gar ah 337 
 
 " 5^/4 March. — There are three factions at Siwah: I. The 
 Senussia, comprising 950 out of the lOOO male inhabitants. 
 
 2. The followers of one Abd es Salaam of Tuggurt, and 
 
 3. The followers of Mohammed Dhaffir el M6dani of 
 Constantinople. Of this last Mohammed Said is a member, 
 and so is our guide Khalaf Mohammed Dhaffir it was 
 that made the mischief at Yildiz against Sidi el Mahdi, and 
 caused the Sultan to cut his subsidy. It is therefore pretty 
 plain that our arriving with letters to Mohammed Said was 
 a first cause of suspicion. They seem to have jumped at 
 once to the conclusion that I was a spy, from Mohammed 
 Dhaffir or another, with plans against their chief" [N.B. 
 This Mohammed Dhaffir el Mddani is doubtless the same 
 Sheykh Zaffir who corresponded with Arabi on behalf of 
 the Sultan in 1882. See my "Secret History."] 
 
 " This morning we descended to Garah, a pretty little 
 oasis, with a quaint village perched on a mushroom rock, 
 inhabited by negroes. There are two springs and a well, 
 the western spring called Ain Makhluf, the eastern Ain 
 Faris. Makhluf has a deep hole in the middle of the spring 
 like that at Wells. We found the inhabitants of Garah 
 en fete, for to-day is the Id (festival) and their sheykh, an 
 old negro, came out to greet us and ask us to alight, but 
 I would not stop, and we have come on to the far end of 
 the oasis, and are camped under some wild palms. Some 
 fifteen miles to-day. According to the barometer we are 
 here 250 feet below the sea level. It was 400 above yester- 
 day, on the high plateau. 
 
 "In all this time of trial I have been reading 
 Doughty — certainly the best prose written in the last two 
 centuries. He is of excellent counsel for such straits as we 
 have been in; and I think it was in great measure due to 
 his influence that I took the passive line I did the day of 
 the attack. Any other would have cost me my life. 
 
 " Qth March. — Thirteen hours' march without a halt, per- 
 haps forty miles. Our course was north-east by east, to the 
 khusni of Abdel Nebbi. Thence there are two roads which 
 part company to join again at Lebbakh. We chose the 
 northern way. We are camped at the first palms of a new 
 oasis. 
 
 " Jth March. — All day till three skirting a great sebkha 
 with cliff to our left, and camped at a spring. Found a dead 
 
 Z 
 
338 A Bedouin shoiL's us U^ater [1897 
 
 pratincole and saw two falcons. Barometer shows 165 
 below sea level. The name of our camp, Gatara. Water 
 pretty good, an open spring with a run of water from 
 under palms. Chats with white heads and tails, as at 
 Siwah. A 3'ellow wagtail with black head. Twent\--five 
 miles. 
 
 " %th March. — Rounded the point of Gatara and on to 
 El Haj, six hours. El Haj, an open spring in a sandy 
 ravine, water salt. At 2.50 crossed a bay of the sebkha, 
 and camped at a hattieh — perhaps twenty-eight miles. 
 Saw a gazelle on the sebkha, and flushed a quail. We are 
 camped li miles east of the pyramidal peak of El Tartar. 
 Good ^?/z'/'«/ pasture for the camels. 
 
 " gth March. — Took water from;an open pit under Abu 
 Tartur. It might be easily passed unnoticed, being marked 
 only by some burnt palms. A great bird of prey, brown, 
 grey, and black (?), and some pippits. All day coasting the 
 sebkha, with lines of hill still in front. Eleven hours' march, 
 thirty miles. We have now travelled, according to my 
 calculation, 198 miles from Siwah in seven days. 
 
 " loth March. — To Lebbakh well, eleven hours, say 
 thirty miles, good nossi and sgaa pasture. The well is 
 about three-quarters of a mile south of the headland, the 
 last of the range eastwards. It is marked by a low tcl. 
 I am tired, and Yemama is tired. The sebkha ends here. 
 
 " Later. I was premature about the well. After three 
 hours' absence Kheydr and Eid have returned, having failed 
 to find it. So we are without water. I have given what 
 remained in my girbeh to the general stock. Yemama had 
 a jerdel, and there is now absolutely no drop in camp, 
 except one quart bottle I keep always in reserve. Kheydr 
 promises water to-morrow at noon at Maghara, ' sweet as 
 the Nile.' We are now, I calculate, 160 miles from the 
 Nile valley. 
 
 '■ wth March. — A long forced march of thirty miles. I 
 did not ride Yemama, as she is suffering from thirst, and is 
 looking thin and tucked up. They found the well this 
 morning, but it was salt, and the mare would not drink. 
 To-day we passed through herds of wandering camels. 
 There is pasture, erta, nossi, adr. At half-past two crossed 
 a party of Oulad Ali, who told us we ^&c& going wrong, 
 and took us to Maghara water — most fortunate. Masrhara 
 
1S97]' Doggedly on to Natron 339 
 
 is a small oasis three miles south-west of the first step of 
 the hill. 
 
 " \2.th March. — The Bedouin who showed us the water, 
 Abu Bekr, lives in the neighbourhood. Every ten days he 
 visits Maghara, and fetches ten girbeks of water on don- 
 keys for his household, a bright, good Bedouin, who was 
 really unwilling to take the present I offered him. I said, 
 ' For the water.' He answered, ' It was not worth it.' ("If 
 we had not chanced to meet him it would have fared ill 
 with us.) From this point I took command, as Kheydr had 
 no clear idea of the direction. Abu Bekr had told us, ' go 
 towards that star,' pointing to one rising in the east. I 
 made my course a point north of west, and made a nine 
 hours' march, perhaps twenty-three miles, letting the camels 
 feed, and am camped in a good wady, with erta and eshub. 
 Yemama eats the efta, and several kinds of eshub, besides 
 the nossi. We have our six girbehs full, to last us till the 
 Nile or the Wady Natron. 
 
 '' \},th March. — Another nine hours' march due east. I 
 insisted upon this, as they wanted, all of them but Suliman, 
 to go south-east, which I knew must be wrong. So across 
 country we went, taking careful bearings at every height to 
 keep our line true. It was all open ground. Some camel 
 herders we passed told us the Wady (Natron) was in front 
 of us, thus confirming my judgement. At 2.45 we camped 
 in a bit of pasture, whence we disturbed gazelles. These 
 are now once more of the smaller Eastern kind. (They are 
 larger in the west.) Came on a vulture on a dead camel. 
 Saw cranes passing northwards overhead. Three days 
 more should see us now at home. Twenty-seven miles' 
 march. 
 
 " \/^th March. — Held doggedly on to my course due east, 
 passing much petrified wood. There is general discontent 
 at my persisting in my own direction over hill and dale, all 
 good going on gravel. At noon we crossed a well-marked 
 caravan road, bearing north-east, but I held on by com- 
 pass, and presently got glimpses of a yellow wady about 
 three miles off I knew must be Natron, and at four found 
 ourselves within two miles of the westernmost convent 
 straight in front of us (a good bit of navigation). Here we 
 are camped. Some thirty miles to-day. 
 
 " \^th March. — This morning our party broke up, Beseys 
 
340 J^^^ reac/i Sheykh Obeyd once more [1897 
 
 and Minshawi making a line for their home in the Fayum, 
 our two khabirs also leaving us to visit friends in the Rif, 
 and we down the Natron Valle\-, passing the four convents 
 on our way to Sheykh Ahmed and Fum el Bahr. We 
 camped in the plain between Natron and the Rif. Twenty- 
 eight miles. fc^'ijiiil'bicii^ 
 
 " \6th March. — This morning we saw a strange sight. 
 The moon was setting, and we saw three moons, and the 
 sun was rising, and we saw two suns. At noon we reached 
 the Nile valley and rested awhile, feasting our eyes on the 
 greenness and the water near Sheykh Ahmed. Then on, 
 and camped at Fum el Bahr. Thirty miles. 
 
 " ijth 7J/crc//.— Reached Sheykh Obeyd on St. Patrick's 
 day, at 1 1. 15, a weary crew, having travelled 413 miles in 
 fourteen and a half days, the fortieth day from our leaving 
 it. El Hamdul Illali\ 
 
 " i^th March. — Sheykh Obeyd. I returned from my 
 Siwah journey on the 17th at a quarter past eleven, meeting 
 Anne accidentally on her way through the palm grove 
 from the station. I could hardly speak for tears of joy. I 
 had been away the forty days, during which she was to 
 expect no news from me, and this was the forty-first, and 
 during the whole of that time I had not spoken a word of 
 any language but Arabic, till I had come even to think in 
 Arabic, and 1 was weak and worn out, and famished in 
 mind and body. Our last run from Siwah, 413 miles, had 
 been accomplished in fourteen days and a half. 
 
 " Since then I have been resting, except that on the 20th 
 I went into Cairo and lunched with Gorst, and at his sug- 
 gestion drew up a memorandum in writing for him of the 
 circumstances of my journey. There have been two political 
 events during my absence, the war in Crete and Rodd's 
 mission to Abyssinia. I hardly know what to say yet on 
 either case. Personally I have come back from my journey 
 with my mind cleared on one point important to my life. 
 It is as to religion. M)' experience of the Senussia at Siwah 
 has convinced me that there is no hope anywhere to be 
 found in Islam. I had made myself a romance about these 
 reformers, but I see that it has no substantial basis, and I 
 shall never go farther now than I am in the Mohammedan 
 direction. The less religion in the world perhaps, after all, 
 the better." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OMDURMAN AND FASHODA 
 
 FROM this point my more violent activities in life 
 may be said to have ended. My health had suffered 
 seriously from the extreme hardships of my journeys, hard- 
 ships which hitherto I had borne with easily, but which 
 now at my age of fifty-six had taken their revenge on me. 
 The next two years were for this reason an unhappy period 
 in my life, and this, though I do not often make mention in 
 it of my sufferings, is reflected in my diary. 
 
 We left Sheykh Obeyd on the igth April. Four days 
 before, on 15th April, I had gone to wish the Khedive 
 good-bye. He received me pleasantly, as always, with 
 pretty speeches about my friendship for him, and the good 
 report of me he heard from everyone. He asked about my 
 journey to Siwah and the attack made on me. I made 
 rather light of it with him as a ghasiL (an accident of 
 travel), but he said he had heard it was the doing of the 
 Senussia. About the state of affairs between Greece and 
 Turkey he said things could not be going worse. The 
 Sultan was ruining the Empire, the end could not be far 
 distant. " But where can we look," he asked, " for another 
 chief? In Arabia there is only your friend Ibn Rashid, and 
 he is little more than a Bedouin." With Sheykh Moham- 
 med Abdu too I had a farewell talk. 
 
 " ijth April. — Abdu brought me news that war was de- 
 clared between Greece and Turkey. We agreed that it 
 was better things had come to actual war. Personally I 
 think that it would be no loss for the Ottoman Empire if 
 the Greeks should be able to hold their own in Macedonia 
 though I do not expect it, for a defeat of the Turkish army 
 would bring about a revolution at Constantinople, and even 
 a European war would do no harm. ' When thieves fall out, 
 honest men come by their own.' The Ottoman Empire 
 
 341 
 
342 Victory of the Ttirks ifi Greece [iS'17 
 
 cannot be made to last in Europe, and as soon as the 
 remnant of the provinces there are lost the better it will 
 be. I expect, however, to see the Turks advance on Athens, 
 when the Powers would doubtless intervene to stop the 
 fighting, which they could do by pressure at Constan- 
 tinople. Then there ma}- be a second chance for Vhe 
 establishment of a better order of things on the Bosphorus, 
 for it would be too great a scandal to all w the Sultan and 
 his palace clique to go on for another twent}' years on a 
 new lease of absolute power ; possibly the victorious general 
 might become the leader of a constitutional change in 
 Turke\', but we shall see." 
 
 " \st May. — Back in England, where we arrived at the 
 end of the month. The Greeks have been smashed badly 
 by Edhem Pasha in Thessaly ; they seem to have run 
 awa\' rather than fought, which would be more creditable 
 to them if they had not been the aggressors in the quarrel. 
 I am sorry, on the whole, as the Turkish victory is strength- 
 ening the Sultan's hand at Constantinople, and will put 
 back the clock of reform. There is little chance, I fear, of 
 Edhem's coming forward as a revolutionist, but I am nearly 
 dead to politics as, indeed, to all else but the horses and 
 the sunshine. 
 
 " ?>th Maj'. — The Greeks are again beaten and in retreat, 
 and the Turkish army will now advance on Athens and 
 dictate its terms of peace. The Sultan is entirely rehabili- 
 tated in public opinion, for the world adores military success, 
 and he will probably now go on in triumph till he dies 
 
 " 1 8//? Mar. — Newbuildings. On the 13th George Wynd- 
 ham came to spend the day with me and stopped the night. 
 He was full of his journey to South Africa and of his South 
 African Commission, where he has played the part of ad- 
 vocate for Rhodes and his gang, and is still playing it. 
 With this I am of course in little sympathy, but George 
 and I know how to differ without quarrelling. He told me 
 much of the inner working of the great intrigue and pro- 
 mised more some day. We also talked about the Henley 
 edition of my poems, and about his own ' New Review.' 
 
 " ^''^djune. — George was here yesterday. The South Afri- 
 can Committee is virtually, not virtuously, over, and no one 
 in his senses can doubt that Chamberlain was privy to the 
 raid, not indeed at the last moment but in its initial stages. 
 
1897] H. M. Hyndman 343 
 
 I asked George whether it was not so. ' Chamberlain has 
 denied it,' he answered diplomatically. 
 
 " I'^tk June. — Drove to Bramber and dined with Button 
 in his newly purchased old house there, St. Mary's, which 
 he has furnished with bric-a-brac, and had the little meadow 
 behind it laid out in miniature avenues. We talked of old 
 political times. He tells me that at the time Wolseley started 
 for Egypt in 1882, the Rothschilds had the whole of their 
 working capital in Egyptian securities, and were in such a 
 fright about theDomains lest Arabi should flood the country 
 and destroy the property pledged to them, that they got 
 Wolseley to hurry on the campaign at all costs to prevent 
 his cutting the canals. Button had this from Wolseley him- 
 self at the time, and it agrees with what he (Button) told 
 me then. 
 
 " lyth June. — Hyndman came to breakfast with me in 
 Mount Street, and we discussed the state of Europe, Africa, 
 and Asia. He knows a great deal and told me many curious 
 things, among others the genesis of the English connection 
 with the Suez canal. He assures me that it was not Beacons- 
 field's idea, but Greenwood's, who was at that time Editor 
 of the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' and on whose staff Hyndman 
 was. Greenwood conceived the plan of the Government 
 buying the shares, and after consulting with his colleagues 
 on the paper went to Lord Derby to suggest it. Derby 
 approved and sent him on to Beaconsfield, who at first 
 was much disinclined, but eventually agreed, giving the job 
 to the Rothschilds, a quite unnecessary waste of commission 
 as the shares could have been bought with Treasury Bonds 
 in the ordinary way. He told me much, too, of his dealings 
 with Lord Salisbury at election times, and about French 
 and German socialism. He stayed two hours with me. 
 
 ■' 20th June {Jubilee Sunday). — The streets decked out 
 vifith scaffolding and red cloth. London architecture lends 
 itself to these disguisements, as there is nothing to lose by 
 being hidden. 
 
 " i\st June. — Alfred Austin's 'Jubilee Ode' is published 
 in the ' Times,' and as good as a thing of the kind can be, 
 and I have written to tell him so. When he was first made 
 Laureate I did not write, because I really could not have 
 said anything about his poetry that would have pleased 
 him, but to-day I am able to do so with a good conscience. 
 
344 Alfred Austin s Idea of Heaven [1897 
 
 We are old acquaintances of something like forty years' 
 standing, and personally I am pleased at his success. 
 
 " ■22nd June. — The Queen's Jubilee Day — the evening 
 and night of which I spent on Chanclebury Down, camped 
 among the thorn bushes near the top of the Ridge, a 
 beautiful but rather hazy evening, quite warm, no moon, 
 little parties of country people out on foot, others in vans, 
 but not enough of them to injure the solitude. At half- 
 past nine rockets began to be fired away at Shoreham, and 
 a light appeared on Leith Hill, then illuminations at 
 Shoreham and Brighton, and precisely at ten bonfires were 
 lit up. I counted ninety-seven of them, and there were 
 probably more, for the clump hid part of the horizon. It 
 was an inspiriting sight, and we tried to make out our own 
 bonfire at Newbuildings, which lies in a straight line be- 
 tween Chanclebury and Leith Hill. 
 
 " 26th June. — The day of the Jubilee Review at Ports- 
 mouth. A Jingo apotheosis which contrasts strangely with 
 m\' recollection of Portsmouth seventeen years ago, when 
 our military and naval glory was at so low an ebb that 
 even I felt humiliated. 
 
 '■ I'jth June {Sunday). — I am at Swinford on a visit to 
 Austin. Austin is naive about his position and dignity as 
 Poet Laureate. He assured me that he had made it a con- 
 dition in accepting the post that he was not to write Odes 
 to order. I asked him how he had written his Jubilee per- 
 formance, suggesting that it must have been troublesome to 
 manage. On the contrary, he told me, he had done it with- 
 out more effort than just to fix his mind determine;dly and 
 reverently on Her Majesty, waiting till the inspiration 
 came, ' and (after a pause) it came.' He showed me a letter 
 from the Queen's private secretary, thanking him for the 
 verses, and saying that Her Majesty thought them very 
 pretty, but when he went to present them at \\'indsor, she 
 did not ask him to recite them. A letter from Lord Salis- 
 bury was in the same sense; however, Austin is so loyal 
 that he even apologized for depreciating Victorian archi- 
 tecture. In the afternoon we all sat talking on the lawn, 
 Lady Paget and Lady W'indsor being of the part}-, and it 
 was suggested that each of us should give his idea of 
 Heaven. Mine was to be laid out to sleep in a garden, with 
 running water near, and so to sleep for a hundred thousand 
 
I897J 
 
 Chamberlain ]]'hiiewashed 345 
 
 years, then to be woke by a bird singing, and to call out to 
 the person one loved best, ' Are you there? ' and for her to 
 answer, ' Yes, are you? ' and so turn round and go to sleep 
 again for another hundred thousand years. Austin's idea 
 was to sit also in a garden, and while he sat to receive con- 
 stant telegrams announcing alternately a British victory by 
 sea, and a British victory by land. He talked to us a good 
 deal about Irving, and told us that Irving had begun life as 
 a boy of all work in the family of a solicitor in Cornwall, 
 where his father and mother were butler and cook. The 
 solicitor put the boy into his law office as a junior clerk, 
 but dismissed him because he paid no attention to busi- 
 ness, only to play-acting in office hours. 
 
 " dth July. — A letter from Joseph Potocki telling the 
 ugly news of the burning of the Countess Branicka's stud 
 and stables: one hundred and thirty horses perished, in- 
 cluding two colts the\' bought from us last year. It is said 
 to be the vengeance of an English groom dismissed for 
 theft. Her daughter Sophie is engaged to marr\' Prince 
 Strozzi. 
 
 " \2th July. — My new room at Newbuildings which I 
 call the 'Jubilee Room ' is finished, and looks already part 
 of the old house. It was built without plan, elevation, or 
 sketch of any kind, Thorpe and I working it out together 
 as we went on." [The Jubilee Room was more than a room, 
 being a separate building with two stories. Thorpe, a plain 
 stone and bricklayer born and bred in the parish, a pain.s- 
 taking, conscientious man working slowly, but with a com- 
 plete knowledge of his trade and its older traditions. The 
 panelling inside was done by my estate carpenter, Dench.] 
 
 " \^th July. — The South Africa committee has published 
 a report, certainly the most scandalous ever jobbed. It ab- 
 solves Chamberlain in these words: ' Neither the Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies nor any of the officials of the Colonial 
 office received any information which made or should have 
 made them or any of them aware of the plot during its de- 
 velopment.' It ma\- be noticed that this pronouncement 
 carefully avoids what undoubtedly happened, namely that 
 Chamberlain's attitude to Rhodes and Beit was practically 
 this: 'Manage the matter your own wa}-, but remember I 
 am to know nothing about it.' Rhodes is condemned 
 publicly in the report, but will be let off all punishment. 
 
346 ChaTnberlain and the faincson Raid [1897 
 
 He will not even be struck off the list of the Queen's 
 Privy Councillors. I hear that the Queen personally as- 
 sured the Emperor William when the raid happened that 
 none of her Ministers were cognisant of the affair, and this 
 assurance given by the Queen accounts for the strange 
 attitude of Sir William Harcourt and other Radicals on 
 the Committee who have signed the report. The whole of 
 our public life is rotten, and will remain so till we have 
 received a serious defeat in war. The Queen is at the 
 bottom of half the Imperialistic mischief we do abroad. 
 She is pleased at her title of Empress, and likes to enlarge 
 her borders. I should not be at all surprised if she was 
 really in the Jameson affair with her ministers, indeed this 
 is the best explanation of the extraordinary manoeuvres of 
 the Government, and the connivance of the official op- 
 position. 
 
 " 2A,th July- — Our annual Arab Stud sale at Crabbet. 
 Brilliant weather; an immense gathering. 320 persons sat 
 down to lunch; a good many of these, foreigners and 
 colonials ; a successful but tiring day. 
 
 " 2'jth July. — To London and lunched with George, whom 
 I found triumphant over the issue of the debate on South 
 Africa last night. He considers the triumph of the Rhodes 
 group, which is his own triumph, due to superior ability in 
 the Parliamentary management, the skill with which they 
 split the Liberal opposition, the capture of old Harcourt, 
 the forcing of Chamberlain's hand into open support of 
 Rhodes and the bamboozling of the stupid M.P.'s. With 
 regard to Chamberlain, George admires him as the grandest 
 specimen of the courageous, unscrupulous schemer our 
 politics have ever seen. He says that Chamberlain was not 
 an accomplice of the actual armed raid made by Jameson — 
 though he certainly was in the political intrigue — and he 
 (Chamberlain) would not deny it — against the independence 
 of the Transvaal. He described Chamberlain's speech and 
 the menace he (Chamberlain) threw out to Dilke if any 
 one should dare propose the cancelling of Rhodes' position 
 in the Privy Council. Chamberlain did not name Dilke, 
 but his eye, Mrhile speaking, travelled along the benches of 
 the Opposition, so that it was clear to all what his meaning 
 was. It was a base threat, and he would certainly have 
 followed it up if the Radicals had dared accept his chal- 
 
t897] 
 
 The Herberts at Wilton 347 
 
 lenge. George triumphs in all this, but to me it is pitiful to 
 see a young man like him, the heir of all the ages, connect- 
 ing himself with such a scoundrel crew. The whole Cabinet 
 is now the duumvirate of Balfour and Chamberlain, but I 
 told George he would find one day that Arthur would be 
 the victim of some base trick in order that the other might 
 reign alone." 
 
 In August I made a driving tour through the West of 
 England and South Wales. The day before starting I 
 received a letter from Edward Malet breaking the silence 
 of fifteen years. It was very cordial and expressed regret 
 for our troubled relations in the past. I have answered 
 it in a way which I hope may bring about a renewal 
 of our friendship. The occasion of his letter was the dis- 
 covery among his mother's papers of a number of MS. 
 poems he thought were mine. In reality they were Lothian's 
 as I can see by the handwriting, and also by internal 
 evidence — poems of dates between 1861 and 1864, the 
 time Schomberg and I were most together and ntost 
 with Lady Malet. I need not give a full account of mis 
 journey. We passed through Petworth and Rogate, where 
 I found Hugh Wyndham, just retired from diplomatic 
 work after his forty years' career. Then by Bishop's 
 Waltham to Salisbury and Stockton, stopping for a couple 
 of hours at Wilton on my way. This time I found Sidney, 
 now Lord Pembroke, at home with his family of boys at 
 cricket, much as I found the former generation thirty years 
 ago. " Wilton is the paradise of England with its three 
 rivers, eternally beautiful and unchanged while its owners 
 change and perish. One passes by and finds Herberts 
 living there, happily idling their lives away, as one finds 
 swallows year after year nesting in a village, and one 
 imagines them to be the same Herberts, as one imagines 
 the others to be the same swallows. At Warminster next 
 day I stopped to bait and dined at the ordinary at the 
 Anchor Inn, it being market day among the farmers with 
 whom I talked agriculture and the price of mutton. But 
 when they found I was- not there to buy lambs they lost 
 interest in me. I found to my surprise that of the ten 
 farmers dining with me five drank water only, the rest 
 cider. Our meat was roast ducks carved by a chairman at 
 the head of the table, and at one moment I was half afraid 
 
348 .1/ SL Pagans ["8y7 
 
 the)' were going to make speeches." I spent my Sunda)', 
 8th August, at Mells, where I found a company of " Souls," 
 then on to Bristol where I put up for the night at an ofld 
 place of entertainment called "The Bath," kept by a 
 Dr. Shaw and his wife, a pretty woman, who had been 
 long in India, and who was the attraction evidently of the 
 guests, mostly retired Anglo-Indians, patients as well as 
 guests, as indicated by the menu cards, which were marked 
 with medicines as well as wines. Bristol is the refuge of 
 such broken-down officials, who live at its cheap lodging- 
 houses. The next day, crossing the Severn Channel by the 
 tunnel to Cardiff and St. Pagan's, where I spent the insidij 
 of a week delightfully with the Windsors in their romantic 
 castle, which is such a perfect thing, an old Carolan house 
 set in the enceinte of an older castle wall, spoilt by nothing 
 modern, the object of my pilgrimage, and back, still driving 
 through the romantic country of King Arthur and the 
 Knights of the Round Table, Caerphilly, (^aerleon, Chep- 
 stow, and the Forest of Dean, where I camped close to 
 what is called the Devil's Chapel, and thence by Berkeley 
 Castle, Easton Grey, Broad Hinton, and Savernake, Hurst- 
 bourne, Minley, and so home. It had been a journey of 
 385 miles, made in nineteen days with my four Arab mares, 
 not one of which had tired or been off her feed for a single 
 day, and trotted in gamely, eager to be at home. The journey 
 had done me good. My journal of this tour is extremely 
 interesting, but once more it is impossible to give it a place 
 here, as it would lead me too far along the pleasant byways 
 of social life and awaj- from the prescribed high road of 
 public things. 
 
 " A^th Sept.— For the last three weeks there have been 
 high doings in India on the Afghan frontier, and to-day 
 expeditions on a large scale are announced. This is closely 
 connected with our absurd policy at Constantinople. The 
 [josition to-day with Russia protecting the Caliphate at 
 Constantinople, France in alliance with Russia and Ger- 
 many also in the coalition against us, justifies all I wrote 
 and did in Egypt sixteen years ago. Dined at my club 
 and had some talk with Nicholas O'Connor who, heaven 
 help us! is now Her Majesty's ambassador to the Emperor 
 ■ jf all the Kussias. 
 
 ■' 25^/z Sept. — To Saighton, where I find a house full of 
 
1897] The Jameson Raid desaHbed 349 
 
 friends and acquaintance, Dick Grosvenor, Edward Clifford, 
 Gatty, Henry Milner and Lady Clifden, etc., with nothing 
 for a vegetarian to eat [Lady Windsor had persuaded me 
 to become a vegetarian], and I dined off two mushrooms 
 and a raisin; nevertheless a pleasant evening, George laying 
 down the law about Shakespeare, Ronsard, Brantome, and 
 a number more. 
 
 " 2'jtk Sept. — At Saighton. Played lawn tennis with 
 George. Spent the evening with him, arguing with some 
 heat the eternal question of the right of savage nations to 
 existence. George, who represents the general sense of 
 modern Imperial England, denies them any such right at 
 all. I am sick of their arguments from Darwin and the 
 survival of the fittest. 
 
 " 2gth Sept. — Back to London and wrote going up in the 
 train a piece of verse for Gatty's translations, the hymn 
 beginning: 
 
 If this dark valley of distress and tears 
 So green appears. 
 
 " \st Oct. — Shooting at Newbuildings with Charles Wynd- 
 ham, Scrope, and Evershed. Scrope is a nice young York- 
 shireman, very understanding about horses, but in poor 
 health. He gave us a naive account of the Jameson raid as 
 narrated to him by his brother, who took part in it. It 
 seems to have been a regular drunken frolic. Jameson had 
 up I forget how many waggon-loads of drink the week 
 before he started, including, I remember, thirty-six cases 
 of champagne which he distributed to his men, with leave 
 to get drunk for three days. There were among the men a 
 number of loafers brought up from Cape Town, some of 
 them waiters from the restaurants, who had never been on 
 horseback before, and the whole force was more or less 
 drunk when it started. Jameson had told off" three men to 
 cut the telegraph wires, but they were in such a condition 
 that they mistook a barbed wire fence for the telegraph and 
 cut off a hundred yards of it and carefully buried it instead 
 of the other. When they got near Johannesburg, Jameson 
 could not find the way and picked up Boers to show it 
 them, who of course led them wrong. Scrope's brother and 
 others knew the road but were not listened to. As to 
 drunkenness, I can well believe the stor)', for I remember 
 
350 Froissm^t's Chronicles [1897 
 
 how, on a journey in South America in 1868, some English 
 men of the party riding with me took for all provision on 
 the road, a gigantic demi-john of spirits, which they strapped 
 to the back of a horse and drove in front of them." 
 
 I left England in October once more for Egypt, still in 
 bad health, indeed in worse, for I had foolishly allowed 
 myself to be persuaded into becoming a vegetarian as well 
 as the teetotaller I had been for fifteen years, and the life at 
 Sheykh Obeyd, delightful to those in health, was too 
 primitive to be suited to an invalid. On board the ship 
 that took us to Alexandria I found Walter Harris, the 
 " Times " correspondent in Morocco, who told me a good 
 deal about his life at Tangiers where he has a garden four 
 miles from the town. He talked also about the war in 
 Thessaly where his brother was killed last summer while 
 helping the Greeks. The Greeks had abandoned the 
 brother when wounded, after robbing him of everything. 
 They had behaved abominably during the war. The Crown 
 Prince of Greece himself told Harris that he had seen the 
 Evzoni throw paraffin on the Turkish wounded and set 
 them on fire. 
 
 I found all well at Sheykh Obeyd, except that the desert 
 round us was beginning to be cultivated and enclosed. The 
 day will come when we shall be caught in a network of 
 gardens and country houses, though so far no great harm 
 has been done. People argue with me and say, '' But your 
 property must be increasing in value," as if that was any 
 consolation for losing the solitude. Foxes are still plentiful 
 in the garden and I have twice seen a very large wolf, old 
 and grey, who, they tell me, has been here all the summer, 
 frightening the boys who cut the grass for the horses. 
 Salem says the wolf pursued him one evening and tore his 
 shirt and Suliman that he has taken two of his lambs from 
 his tent outside our wall. He comes and howls under our 
 window after nightfall. There are certainly two sorts of 
 wolves here besides jackals, unless, indeed, the inter- 
 mediate size is a cross between wolf and jackal. Our 
 present guest is of the big desert kind. 
 
 ■• 22,rd Nov. — 1 have been reading Froissart's Chronicles. 
 He must have lived a happy life, if what his biographers 
 tell of him is true. The age of chivalry, brutal as it was in 
 its fighting aspect, seems to have been sweetened by a good 
 
1897] Chivalry in the Fourteenth Century 351 
 
 deal of romance, but to this Froissart hardly alludes, and 
 tells only of battles and sieges, which were most of them 
 ignoble proceedings. Edward Ill's idea of war seems to 
 have been to raid the French towns everywhere, except 
 just where the French army was. Both Cressy and Poitiers 
 were fought by the English because they could not get 
 away from the pursuing French, and the victory in both 
 cases was won by the skill of the English archers on the 
 one side and foolish generalship on the other. As a rule, it 
 was only the unarmed fighters on foot that were killed, the 
 knights and squires surrendered to ransom as soon as they 
 were knocked off their horses. This was all their chivalry of 
 war. 
 
 " i^th Nov. — Sheykh Mohammed Abdu came to see me, 
 and told me the political" and court gossip. The latest is 
 about a trial in which a young man is being prosecuted for 
 insulting and libelling the Khedive in verse. The true 
 movers in the matter, Abdu assures me, are Moharram 
 Pasha Shahin and Sheykh el Bekri in conjunction with 
 Sheykh Abul Huda at Constantinople, and it was done to 
 please the Sultan. Cromer, however, has mixed himself 
 up in it, and in order to obtain a verdict, or rather to screen 
 some persons implicated who are favourable to English 
 policy, has had the Egyptian Procureur of the native 
 courts replaced by Corbet, an Englishman. The Khedive 
 is still on bad terms with the Sultan, and the poem was 
 written to please His Majesty, but by an unfortunate mis- 
 take in the printing, one of the insulting epithets applied 
 to the Khedive is ' Turk,' so that it has given almost equal 
 offence at Yildiz. 
 
 " In India, the Afridis I am glad to see are still gallantly 
 maintaining themselves against General Lockhart, and our 
 troops are getting nicely ' punished ' in their turn. It is clear 
 from their accounts that but for the superior fighting 
 qualities of the Sikhs and Ghurkas the white regiments 
 could not be got to continue the campaign. Lockhart has 
 had to encourage them publicly not to be ' downhearted.' 
 There is talk in England of conscription for the army, and 
 our people will soon begin to understand that they can't 
 have the amusement of Empire without paying the price. 
 The British Empire is a structure that might crumble at 
 any moment, the sooner the better, say I. 
 
352 Drinking fioni a Poisoned IVcll [1897 
 
 " igth Nov. — We have a guest with us, Nasr el Mizrab, 
 nephew of that Mijuel el Mizrab, who was Lady Ellen- 
 borough's last husband. He is a well-spoken man and has 
 travelled more than once with Prankish explorers in the 
 Syrian desert, Russians and Germans, buying horses for 
 them of his Anazeh kindred. 
 
 " gth Dec. — Young John Evelyn has come to stay with 
 us. His father sent him to me on his way up the Nile, 
 saying that he wished him ' to learn Arabic, to keep a 
 diary, to acquire habits of observation and self-reliance and 
 not to imbibe Jingo principles, also to marry early.' I find 
 the young man excellently disposed to all these things ex- 
 cept the last. 
 
 "2ii-/ Dec. — I am starting on Christmas Eve for Jebel 
 Attaka near Suez, as I think I am well enough now for 
 desert travelling. Eid, Suliman's young Howeyti cousin, 
 who travelled with us last March to Siwah, and was so 
 good a desert man, is dead. He had joined in a ghazu in 
 the summer beyond Akabah, and, on his way home, being 
 parched with thirst, drank of a well whose property it is to 
 kill the drinker in fourteen days. He reached home alive, 
 but died soon after. 
 
 " z-ijvd Dec. — Had an audience with the Khedive and took 
 Walter Harris with me. The talk was principally about the 
 Turco-Greek war, as to which Harris gave us some curious 
 details. The King of Greece himself told him that the 
 reason that he left Vasos in Crete was so as to bring about 
 a blockade of the Pirseus. ' I should then,' the King said, 
 ' have been able to tell my people that but for the inter- 
 vention of the Powers I would have marched with a hundred 
 thousand Greeks to Constantinople. As it turned out, we 
 were not prevented by the Powers and so had to make a 
 war, for which none of us had bargained." 
 
 Abbas afterwards told us of his cousin Prince Aziz's 
 attempt to go to Nejd. The Prince had got as far as Sherm, 
 a small port in the Sinai Peninsula, intending to cross over 
 from there to Moelhi, and then on to visit Ibn Rashid, 
 but the Khedive had stopped him by telegram. He was 
 afraid of being compromised at Constantinople by the 
 visit, and was also unwilling that so light-headed a mem- 
 ber of the Khedivial family should be the first to visit 
 Nejd after the conquests of old da}'s. Aziz is now at Nakhl, 
 
i8c)8] Death of Mohammed I bn Rashid at Hail 353 
 
 where he is being detained by the Egyptian governor of 
 tlie fort. 
 
 " Lunched with Rennell Rodd, and called afterwards on 
 Riaz Pasha and on Gorst. Harris was to have started with 
 me to-morrow on my desert trip, but has been prevented." 
 
 The desert trip was a bit of exploration connected with a 
 map I was making of the country between Cairo and the 
 Red Sea. I returned from it on the last day of the year. 
 
 '■• \2th Jan. i8g8. — News has come of the death of 
 Mohammed Ibn Rashid at Hail, 'in his bed,' they say after 
 a seven days' illness. If truly in his bed, he may rank as 
 one of the most uniformly successful of Arabian monarchs. 
 For five and twenty years he has reigned in Nejd, warring 
 every spring upon his neighbours and always victoriously. 
 He has not once been defeated in the field, and has reduced 
 every tribe in succession to his obedience. His only mis- 
 fortune has been that he has left no son, and his inheritance 
 will probably be disputed between Abdul Hamid, son of 
 Hamoud, his first cousin once removed, and Hamoud 
 Mattaab, his nephew. Both, they say, claim 'the seat,' and 
 are appealing to Constantinople for support. This may 
 bring the Turk into Nejd, for the Sultan was never so 
 powerful in the desert as now. Still, it is a far cry to Hail. 
 
 " The Soudan campaign is being pushed on, and British 
 soldiers are being sent up the Nile, on a pretext of defence 
 against an attack by the Khalifa. How anybody can be 
 green enough to believe these official tales I cannot under- 
 stand. The true reason is the advance of the French ex- 
 pedition [under Marchand] to the Upper Nile at Fashoda, 
 and so the desire to be beforehand with them at Khartoum. 
 The sending of British troops is not at all because they are 
 needed, for our English regiments are inferior in every way 
 to the Egyptian ones for such work, but to gratify the 
 English Government, and especially the Queen, who con- 
 siders the glory of her reign tarnished by the death of 
 Gordon and who wants it avenged. If Egyptian troops 
 alone recaptured Khartoum it would be a reproach to the 
 British arm}', which was defeated in its attempts to relieve 
 Gordon there. They like, too, to be able to say that the 
 British military Occupation is necessary to Egypt for its 
 frontier defence — only another false excuse in the long list 
 of false excuses for staying in Egypt begun twenty years ago. 
 
 A A 
 
354 Death of Charles Villiers [i8y.s 
 
 " 21 st January. — Gorst and his two sisters and Captain 
 Fitzclarence lunched with us. Gorst has given me a list of 
 the people reported to have been killed at Siwah on the 
 20th April of last year in a local fight. It includes several 
 of my friends there, including Hassuna, but 1 feel sce|jtical 
 about the whole story. 
 
 " 22nd January. — A visit from Cogordan, the French 
 Minister here. We talked about the Soudan expedition. 
 He tells me Kitchener will be in command of forty thousand 
 troops including those recently taken over from the Italians 
 at Kassala, and the ten thousand English who were in 
 Egypt. Of the Marchand expedition he disclaimed its im- 
 portance, and laughed at the talk that a French flag will 
 be found flying at Khartoum. 
 
 " 26th January. — Old Charles Villiers is dead, the father 
 of the House of Commons. I remember him at Frankfort 
 as long ago as the winter of 1860-61, dining at our Lega- 
 tion with the Malets. He impressed me at the time as the 
 most wonderful and delightful talker I had listened to. He 
 seemed to take an interest in me too, and drew me out till 
 I talked a deal of boyish nonsense. The recollection of his 
 wit and charm is strong with me still." 
 
 Here follows another six days' journey in the Eastern 
 desert on deluls, travelling fast and map-making as we 
 went, as I was anxious to complete my survey of the 
 country north of the Kalala range. It was bitter cold on 
 the upper plateaux, and the hard life nearly finished me, 
 and hastened my return to England. 
 
 " 15^/2 February. — The papers report the Queen's speech 
 on the opening of Parliament. It contains, perhaps, more 
 than the usual number of insincerities. Politics in England 
 are in a hopeless condition, and will remain so until the 
 Empire begins to break up, when it will be too late to say 
 or do anything. I shall not be sorry if I live to see it. 
 The British Empire has done so much harm to so many 
 nations and peoples that it deserves to perish, and we Eng- 
 lish will be better off as a Nation shorn of our depend- 
 encies than now. It will hurt our pride, but injure no true 
 interest. 
 
 " Prince Osman is dead. He was riding to the Pyramids 
 on his camel, and fell off" suddenly; they say apoplexy. He 
 was the cleverest and most amusing of the Khedivial 
 
1898] Zola condemned in Dreyfus Case 355 
 
 family, if not the most reputable; a brother of Princess 
 Xazli, and first cousin, once removed, of the Khedive. He 
 had been brought up at Paris, and \vas always a bit of a 
 boulevardier, very pleasant and good-natured, and with an 
 extraordinary knowledge of the events, political and social, 
 of his time, a fat Falstaff in appearance, but like others of 
 the Khedivial family, with a certain bodily hardihood and 
 endurance on camel back; my oldest friend among them, 
 and I am sorry to lose him. 
 
 " 2--,tk February. — Anne and Judith lunched a few da\-s 
 ago with Bill Gordon, who told them that the real reason 
 for his uncle's resigning his post as private secretary to 
 Lord Ripon in India was as follows. \Vhen Ripon was ap- 
 pointed to India it was resolved by the Cabinet that he 
 should break up the gang of permanent officials who form 
 the Simla ring, and it was on this understanding that 
 Gordon accepted the post. A special point to be attacked 
 was the treatment of A\'ub Khan (the Emir of Afghanistan) 
 as to which Government had evidence showing our English 
 officials to have acted unjustl}- and tyrannically. Gordon 
 had drawn up a special memoir on the subject which was 
 to be acted on immediately upon Ripon's landing at Bom- 
 bay, but Ripon was no sooner on shore than the officials 
 got hold of him and persuaded him to let the matter rest. 
 Gordon, upon this, threw up the appointment, for he saw 
 his chief was too weak to carry the poHcj- through. A 
 A'iceroy of India needs to be a man of iron to hold his own 
 and Ripon was ever}" good thing except that. 
 
 "There is talk of Cromer's going to the Foreign Office. 
 What the Tories want now is a strong man to carrj- out 
 their policv of violence, and Cromer will suit them. I care 
 little how things go, for the time of reasoning is past. 
 There will be no change till the Empire breaks up and 
 Cromer may as well sit on the Imperial safety valve as 
 another. I had a long talk to-day with Mohammed Abdu 
 about this and other matters. 
 
 " In Paris Zola has been condemned to a year's imprison-v. 
 ment for bringing forward the Dreyfus case. This is an 
 event of great significance, for it means that in France as 
 in Germany and Russia, militarism reigns supreme. It will 
 be so in England, too, before man\- years are over, and 
 then good-bye to liberty of an)- kind. If the nations of 
 
356 The Dreyfus Case [1898 
 
 Europe will only cut each other's throats in a Thirty Years 
 War there might be some hope for the world, but they are 
 too cowardly for that. All they dare do is to swagger 
 hideously, and talk about their honour. It will be with 
 them as it is with the Spaniards who are ruled by military 
 pronunciamentos. With regard to the Dreyfus case, when 
 I was at Gros Bois last autumn, I asked Wagram the truth 
 of it. He told me that it was to please the Austrian Gov- 
 ernment that the case had been tried privately, that justly 
 or unjustly condemned, Dreyfus was an affreux canaille, 
 and had made some confession of guilt, but I see little 
 difference in point of canailledom between these wretched 
 military spies and their wretched military superiors, who 
 employ and pay them. Spyi'.ig, whether by a paid agent or 
 a paying agent, demoralises those that indulge in it, and 
 the military code of to-day recognizes every treachery and 
 every baseness as lawful. What nonsense to talk about 
 military honour! There is no such thing. Can one conceive 
 any greater blackguard than the soi-disant Esterhazy unless 
 it be his military backers, Pellieux and the rest. On our 
 side the Channel, too, we have some pretty blackguards to 
 show lately. 
 
 " gth March. — Left for England. Mohammed Abdu came 
 to wish me good-bye. I was suffering great pain so that I 
 felt almost dying. Two years ago under like circumstances 
 1 should have made him my profession of faith, but to-day 
 no, though I was moved at parting with him as though I 
 were saying last words to a dearest friend, but I feel now 
 there is no reality in it all. The Moslems of to-day who 
 believe are mere wild beasts like the men of Siwah, the 
 rest have lost their faith. Still less does Christianity appeal 
 to me. I do not wish to live again. I only wish for the 
 extinction of the grave. I am going home alone, Anne 
 staying on for another six weeks in Egypt. I have tele- 
 graphed to my servant, David, to meet me at Venice and 
 see me slowly home. My sole idea now is to be for a week 
 with George in Mount Street, and then to be nursed by 
 Cowie at Newbuildings. It was fortunately quite calm 
 weather on my voyage up the Adriatic, and at Venice I 
 found an invitation waiting me from Lady Paget at Bellos- 
 guardo in Florence where I stayed two nights, and then on, 
 arriving in London on the 23rd March, where I found 
 
i8gS] JJViy I Oppose the British Empire 357 
 
 George W'yndham established in my rooms in Mount 
 Street, which I had lent him ; there was room for us both 
 there, and his cheerful influence did me good. 
 
 " 2\th Mairti. — George is taking a less practical part 
 now in politics, being up to his eyes in literature, but he 
 walks home most nights with Arthur Balfour from the 
 House and hears a good deal of what is going on. He 
 tells me Lord Salisbury does not intend resigning, and 
 though he has made over the Foreign Office temporarily 
 to Balfour, he still keeps interfering with affairs there not 
 altogether to Arthur's pleasure. In talking about the 
 scramble for China, I had remarked that I should ha\e 
 thought an alliance with Japan was the obvious English 
 policy. He said, ' Yes, but it looks as if Japan had been 
 squared by Russia.' [This is the first mention I can find 
 in my diary of what was afterwards to develop into the 
 Anglo-Japanese alliance.] 
 
 "George's new edition of Shakespeare's poems is just 
 out, and he is busy editing a new weekly paper, ' The Out- 
 look,' started as 'a raft' on which to save the fortunes of 
 Henle\' and the other writers wrecked in the ' New Re- 
 view.' Gladstone is dying of cancer, poor old soul, and it 
 has been agreed to soothe his last days with morphia as 
 he cannot live long. 
 
 " 2gtk March. — Lady Gregory came to see me and 
 talked much about Ireland. She has now become a strong 
 Nationalist, and has been busying herself about the de- 
 monstrations for "98.' If I were well enough I would go 
 over for them in May. 
 
 " George is much put out at the inaction of our Go\ern- 
 ment in China, where there is a combination of Russia, 
 France, and German}' against us, and at the general failure 
 of Lord Salisbury's policy as a check to the British Empire. 
 He asked me why I wished ill to the British Empire. I 
 said, ' because we had done too much harm in the world, 
 and though the other nations of Europe also do harm, they 
 are not able to do it so effectivel}- as we do through their 
 lack of knowledge, and of those qualities that make of 
 Englishmen an administrating race, also because the Empire 
 is a poor cockney affair invented hardly twenty years ago 
 to the ruin of our position as an honest Kingdom at home.' 
 I remember well the disgust of George's father and of 
 
358 Yeats Expcriuieiits Magically [iSqS 
 
 other old-fashioned Tories, when Disraeli first foisted on 
 them the Queen's brummagem Imperial title.' 
 
 " ^ist March. — 'The Chronicle 'has a sensational but prob- 
 ably true account of an ultimatum sent by the American 
 President to Spain on account of Cuba. It seems likely to 
 lead to war. If so I hope Spain may be able to hold her 
 (iwn, not that Cuban independence lacks my sympath)', 
 but because between Spain and the United States I am 
 obliged to be on the side of the older and more barbarous 
 country. The Yankees as the coming race of the world 
 would be worse even than ourselves. 
 
 " 1st April. — At five to-day Lady Gregory brought me 
 the poet Yeats, an Irish mystic of an interesting type. He 
 is tall, lean, dark, good looking, of the same type of count- 
 enance as John Dillon's, very narrow between the eyes and 
 short-sighted. We talked much about the ' '98 ' demonstra- 
 tions of which he is organizer, and of the coming doom of 
 England, and we talked also of another mystical poet and 
 patriot, Russell (A. E.), with whom Yeats was a fellow 
 student at Dublin. Russell, in order to subdue his will, be- 
 came cashier in a haberdasher's shop, where he acquired 
 repute as an accountant, but always spent his Sundays 
 and holidays in the Wicklow Hills writing poetry and 
 seeing visions. Russell has now been removed to a higher 
 sphere as political organizer. Both believe in ghosts and 
 fairies and in the transmigration of souls, and have magic 
 powers of seeing the future and of prophecy. 
 
 ' Yeats experimented magically on me. He first took 
 out a notebook and made what he called a pyramid in it 
 which was a square of figures, then he bade me think of 
 and see a square of yellow as it might be a door, and walk 
 through it and tell him what I saw beyond. All that I 
 could see at all clearly was that I seemed to be standing 
 on a piece of green, rushy grass, in front of me a small pool 
 from which issued two streams of very blue water to right 
 and to left of me. He then bade me turn and go back 
 through the door, and told me I should see either a man 
 or a woman who would give me something. I failed to see 
 anything but darkness, but at last with some effort I made 
 out the indistinct figure of a child, which offered me with 
 its left hand some withered flowers. I could not see its 
 face. Lastly he bade me thank the person to whose inter- 
 
1898] The Tichborne Clahnant Dead 359 
 
 vention the vision was due, and read from his notebook 
 some vague sentences prefiguring this vision. The per- 
 formance was very imperfect, not to say null. 
 
 " ^th April. — Arthur Balfour made his statement in the 
 House to-day of the Government's China policy. George 
 tells me the speech was ' statesmanlike,' but I gather from 
 him that it was no very pronounced success. Indeed, how 
 should it be? The British Government has leased Wei-hai- 
 wei, which seems to be a sort of second best to Port Arthur, 
 but of no very practical value for coercing Pekin as it can- 
 not easily be connected with it by land. I should have 
 thought it would have been wiser either to make an alliance 
 with Japan and war with Russia, or else to let the whole 
 thing severely alone, but George thinks Japan has already 
 been squared by Russia. 
 
 '■'■6th April. — I had a bad return of pain which lasted all 
 night until twelve to-day when I took an infinitesimal dose 
 of morphia, which at once stopped it and raised me from 
 the depths of misery to the state of happiness of a school- 
 boy just loosed from school. 
 
 " (^th April. — There is an announcement in the papers of 
 ' A great British victory in the Soudan — Gordon avenged.' 
 
 " wth April. — Saighton. I came here for the Easter 
 holiday, arriving in a miserable plight of pain, but to- 
 morrow Sibell (Lad)' Grosvenor) is to take me to Holywell 
 to be bathed in the miraculous fountain there for my cure. 
 Some Vandals, calling themselves the Town Council, are 
 claiming the well which they want to let to a soda water 
 company at ij^soo a year, but George intends to oppose 
 this in Parliament. There is nobody here but the family, 
 including little Percy and Bendor, the latter grown into 
 a very nice young man. George has been entertaining 
 Mr. Cecil Rhodes at my room;-, in Mount Street while I 
 was away, using them, I fancy, as a place of secret com- 
 munication between the Government and Rhodes, whom 
 they dare not publicly avow. • 
 
 " I see the old Tichborne claimant is dead, asserting his 
 rights to the last. Certainly there was something about the 
 man not wholly vulgar. I sav\- a good deal of him at 
 Buenos Ayres in 1 868, and, though a mountain of flesh and 
 of no very refined clay, he seemed to me a gentleman born, 
 gone down in the world, rather than a mere plebeian. 
 
o 
 
 60 I bathe in St. Winifred's Well [1898 
 
 Richard Burton, who was there at the same time, and who 
 travelled across the Pampas with him in the Mendoza 
 diligence, believed in him as authentic at the time, and so 
 we all did. I remember seeing him once involved in some 
 vulgar dispute in a cafe, while playing billiards, and he 
 seemed to me to behave as a gentleman would have done 
 under somiewhat trying circumstances, and now they have 
 buried him with considerable pomp and a coffin plate re- 
 cording his baronetcy, attended by the licensed victuallers 
 who supported him as a show in his last days. 
 
 " i-2th April. — I have been to St. Winifred's well at 
 Holywell. After a very bad night of pain I nevertheless 
 made up my mind not to put off the visit. Fortified with a 
 dose of morphia I set out with Sibell and George. We 
 went by train from Chester, passing not far from Hawarden, 
 where the G.O.M. lies dying, and the sands of Dee. We 
 were fortunate in our day, which, though wild at starting, 
 turned into a perfect spring afternoon. Sibell had written 
 to Father Beauclerk, the Jesuit at Holywell, to expect us, 
 but he was away. I was glad of it, as thus I was free to 
 bathe as a plain pilgrim without religious supervision. I 
 suppose no pilgrim ever washed there with less Christian 
 faith and at the same time with so little of the mocking 
 spirit. I have a belief in holy places and holy people quite 
 apart from all religious creeds, and I felt a great confidence 
 in the .'^int that she would do me good. We arrived at the 
 best moment of the day, at one o'clock when everybody 
 was away at dinner, so that we were alone and there was 
 no difficulty in that sweet old place in supposing ourselves 
 back in the fifteenth century. The girl in charge of the 
 gate gave me two towels, and I had brought a nightgown 
 with me, and so plunged in. It was cold work, though the 
 water, they say, is 52 degrees, but I did the traditional 
 three journeys through the water up to my armpits, going 
 down into it by steps and up the opposite side, and then 
 •took a complete dip over my head in the outer tank and 
 knelt on St. Bruno's stone. I was quite alone while doing 
 this, except for George. Then, when I had dressed, we sat 
 awhile together in the sun, and went on to the inn for 
 luncheon, where Sibell was, and so home in the afternoon to 
 Saighton. The buildings of the well are still almost perfect, 
 the shrine just as it was put up in Henry VH's time, not 
 
1898] Its Effect of Czire 361 
 
 a stone of the pavement renewed nor anything of the 
 modern kind except some wooden dressing sheds and a few 
 stupid scrolls with texts hung up inside the shrine. 
 
 '' i-^tk April. — I have had no pain all day, thanks to 
 St. Winifred, a long night of sleep and to-day no pain. I 
 spent the afternoon with Sibell, talking about the chances 
 of life and death and of a world beyond. The longer I live, 
 the less I believe in any such, at least as far as my own 
 living again goes. I feel that I have worn out my vital 
 force and that eternity can bring me nothing but a dream- 
 less sleep. All the same, I believe in St. Winifred and her 
 Well, and include her in my canon of prayer as my patron 
 saint, which I have a right to do, seeing that I was named 
 after my great-grandmother, Winifred Scawen." 
 
 My miraculous cure thus wrought did not last long. I 
 had no sooner turned my back on St. Winifred and Saighton 
 than my pains began again, and I began to think that the 
 Saint had made a fool of me. I saw new doctors in London, 
 but they were unable to help me, and after lingering on there 
 until the 6th of May I went down to Newbuildings to bear 
 my troubles alone. " The world," I wrote, " is only meant 
 for those who are in health, and the maxim of our fore- 
 fathers was a sound one, that a dying man should keep 
 wholly out of sight." This was the last entry in my diary 
 before the crisis came. On the following Sunday, after a 
 night of great suffering I broke a blood-vessel, and for a 
 week or more lay in danger of death, nursed by the careful 
 hands of the good Cowie, our housekeeper, and of Sydney 
 Cockerell, who had just entered on his duties with me as 
 my private secretary. Between them and my hospital 
 nurse. Miss Lawrence, who then first undertook my charge, 
 they saved my life. Then I recognized that St. Winifred 
 had only deferred her benefits, and that, as in the case of 
 most miracles, she had chosen a natural road of cure. How- 
 ever that might be, the cure, though it nearly killed me, was 
 an indisputable one. The pain from which 1 had been 
 suffering so long had left me desperately weak, it is true, in 
 body but clear in mind, and able once more to take an in- 
 t-erest in life, and at the end of three weeks to resume my 
 diary. The first entry I find in it contains the following: 
 
 " 2'ith May. — To-day Mr. Gladstone is being buried in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
362 Death of }->itnic-yones [189 
 
 s 
 
 " 6th June. — Cockerel! is a treasure, arranging my books 
 and getting me others. He is full of interestin;_; recollec- 
 tions of Morris. Apropos of the lovcls' littli; KL-lni:.ci>tt 
 volume, containing 'The Niijhtingalc and the Cuckoo,' he 
 assures me that Morris had never heard the nightin;.;ale 
 sing, and that he used to complain of it; also what seems 
 even more incredible, that he had not read the poem 
 throUL;h, and was waiting to flo so for it to be in print. The 
 priiiif-sheets came the day he died, and he never read them. 
 We arc putting the new bookplate into our Kelmscott 
 bofjks, where it looks a natural part of the volumes as the 
 boukplate was cut by the man Morris employed for his 
 armorial designs. Cockerell has been of the greatest use tn 
 mc, arranging my papers and giving me new interests in 
 life. I have written several .Sonnets and an inscription in 
 verse for the table Mrs. Morris gave me; my mind is 
 vigorous and clear." [The table here referred to was the 
 dining-table used by Morris and his family when they lived 
 at the Red Hfjuse, and given to me by Mrs. Morris when 
 .she was dispersing her furniture on leaving her house in 
 Hammersmith.] 
 
 In the meantime Anne and Judith had returned from 
 Egypt. They had been lingering on at Paris, but had been 
 hastened back by my illness, and were now in London, 
 having taken a house there for Judith's London season. 
 
 " 19^/? Jnue. — Burne-Jones is dead. This is a vast mis- 
 fortune. He was to have painted Judith as one of the 
 figures for his last picture, ' The Vale of Avalon,' but that 
 will never now be. According to his wish he is to be cre- 
 mated, and then buried at Rottingdean. It is an honour 
 for .Sussex that it should hold his ashes. 
 
 " ^th July. — Percy Wyndham, who has been down to see 
 me, tells me that he had spent the afternoon with Burne- 
 Jones two days before he died. Burne-Jones was in the 
 highest possible spirits, playing at 'Bear' with Pamela's 
 children. Later, however, a friend had dined with him, to 
 whom he had talked ghjomily of the prospects of the world 
 and of the human race. The friend had remarked that no 
 one should have such pessimistic views who was not an 
 atheist. To which Burne-Jones had exclaimed, ' Thank 
 God, we are not that.' He had been taken ill suddenly in 
 the night, and had died in half-an-hour. With Madeline, 
 
iSgS] Death of Bismarck 363 
 
 too, I have had much conversation about Burne-Jones. 
 She had written me a beautiful letter about him and Morris, 
 and had asked me to write a sonnet for her about them. 
 ' I should like it better,' she says in it, ' than anything else 
 you could possibly do for me, and you are the only person 
 almost who could, if even you can, and I will wait no 
 matter how long for it, and if I depart from this life from 
 pure old age while waiting, well, I shall hope that then I 
 shall be even better able to appreciate it in my future and 
 next development than now. But, for the sake of the world, 
 a sonnet, something beautiful about them, ought to be 
 written. Such writings act as beautiful reflectors to the 
 divine light (that immortals such as those two were) have 
 left to the world, in the beauty of their work, it directs the 
 eyes of those that knew them not, to see and know them, 
 for the world in some ways is so dark that even the Divine 
 Light needs a reflector or glasses to guide the eyes, the 
 spiritual eyes, darkened eyes I had rather say, for it is the 
 darkened eyes in the human race, not the darkened world! 
 that prevents them seeing and knowing the glorious divine 
 light and beauty that is in this world, only few see it, 
 either in Nature or xA.rt. Some are blind, hopelessly blind, 
 -others have films on their eyes, but they can be removed. 
 At first they only see trees as men walking, but finally 
 they can see, see and so live, but they at first require glasses 
 and reflectors, and artificial means of help, and, to my 
 mind. Poetry can be and is the art of all others that helps 
 us most in this world to see. Each divine art acts as a 
 guide and reflector to the other; Poetry helps Music, Music 
 Poetry, both cast light and concentrate it on the other arts.' 
 This suggested the sonnet I have since published, and 
 which begins: 'Mad are we all, maids, men, young fools 
 alike and old.' 
 
 '' I'^th July. — Wotton. I find Evelyn with strong Spanish 
 sympathies in the war that is going on, on the same grounds 
 with mine. The papers announce the news of the surrender 
 of Santiago de Cuba on honourable terms, and there is 
 great talk of peace being made, but I doubt its being near. 
 Spain has less to lose than America by going on with the 
 war, her colonies being practically already gone, and 
 Europe being almost certain to prevent a Yankee invasion 
 of Spain. The financiers who inspire the Press call out. 
 
364 i\t\ Recollection of Bismarck [1898 
 
 however, for it, and would have it made at an)- price, as it is 
 injuring trade. 
 
 " 2nd August. — Bismarck is dead. Vl\ onl_\' personal re- 
 collection of him is of meeting him at old Lord Brougham's 
 in Grafton Street. Lady Malet, who was Brougham's step- 
 daughter, some say his natural daughter, asked me to tea 
 alone, to meet him, and he came and stopped talking with 
 us ver_\- pleasantly for an hour. He had been an old ad- 
 mirer of Lady Malet's when they had been together diplo- 
 matically at Frankfort, and the_\- were still on very intimate 
 terms. This may have been in [<S62. i\Iy memor}' of him 
 is of a tall rather thin man, with agreeable manners, and 
 talking English perfectly. At that time somewhat of an 
 Anglomane, he was still unrecognized b\' the general public 
 of Europe as a great statesman. Indeed, he was laughed 
 at in Germany for his reactionary, out-of-date opinions, 
 and was not a little unpopular with the masses. If he had 
 failed to win at Sadowa, he would certainly have been torn 
 to pieces by the Berlin mob. Lady Malet had alwaj-s the 
 fullest faith in his genius. 
 
 " Cjth September. — On Monday' the 6th news came of the 
 defeat of the Khalifa and the taking of Omdurman, and 
 with it of Hubert Howard's death, my only friend there 
 and almost the only one on our side to lose his life. The 
 slaughter of the Dervishes seems to have been premeditated 
 and ruthlessl}^ carried out. When I was at Bramber the 
 other day liutton told me that ' a heavy butcher's bill ' had 
 been ordered, as it was intended to make the avenging of 
 Gordon a chief feature of the business. Telegraphic com- 
 munication with England was on this account stopped (the 
 e.xcuse being that the wires had been broken by a storm) 
 lest any order of moderation should come, and as far as I 
 can read the despatches since received, there must have 
 been a wholesale massacre of the wounded and fugitives. 
 The figures given to-day are ten thousand counted corpses, 
 sixteen thousand wounded, who have crawled away to the 
 river or the desert, and three hundred or four hundred 
 more killed in the town of Omdurman after the fight, and 
 only three thousand to four thousand prisoners!!! As 
 Button told me, ' the performances of Tommy Atkins in 
 the wa\' of killing at Atbara (a few davs before the fight at 
 Omdurman), passed everything ever heard of He was like 
 
1898] The Battle of Qnidurvtan 365 
 
 a raging" wild beast.' One may be pretty sure that orders 
 were given to spare none. 
 
 " All this has moved my bile to the point that I have 
 written in protest to the ' Times,' but I doubt if they will 
 print my letter. The whole country, if one may judge by 
 the Press, has gone mad with the lust of fighting glory, and 
 there is no moral sense left in England to which to appeal. 
 It is hideous but unmistakable. 
 
 " Hubert's death is pitiful. There was nothing in the 
 world to take him there, for he was not in the army, nothing 
 but a boyish whim. He dined with Anne and Judith in 
 London almost the night before he started, and told them 
 he was determined to fight. He was a delightful boy, with 
 a ringing, merry laugh it did one good to hear, and he had 
 considerable abilities, and the best of hearts, and he ends in 
 a blind alley of Omdurman a paid servant of the 'Times.' 
 
 " lOth September. — My letter to the ' Times ' is printed, 
 which is more than I expected. 1 am curious to see whether 
 it raises an echo anywhere, but as yet no voice has spoken 
 in any London paper, except that Miss Gordon protests in 
 her brother's name against his being ' revenged.' A queer 
 Christian country ours! On the other hand there has been 
 an outbreak in Crete, a Moslem mob has risen against a 
 party of English marines sent by the Admiral to raise the 
 custom dues, and some have been killed, and the British 
 Vice-Consulate has been burnt, and Cretan Christians 
 massacred, Edhem Pasha and the Turkish garrison look- 
 ing on." 
 
 One characteristic letter was written to me at this time, 
 apparently b_\' a parson; it says," By a curious coincidence 
 an answer to your letter in the ' Times ' of yesterday is 
 given in one of the Psalms for this morning's service, viz., 
 Psalm Iviii, verses lo-i I : ' The righteous shall rejoice when 
 he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the 
 blood of the ungodly, so that a man shall say, Verily, there 
 is a reward for the righteous, doubtless there is a God that 
 judgeth the earth." A more important letter, however, was 
 to follow from no less a personage than Herbert Spencer. 
 Spencer was not at the time known to me personally, nor 
 had I at that time ranked myself among his disciples, and 
 the letter came to me as a surprise. It reached me 4th 
 October. 
 
366 Herbert Spencer proposes a Poem [1898 
 
 "4^"^ Oct. — A most interesting letter has come to me 
 from Herbert Spencer on the subject of my letter about 
 Omdurman, and mentioning also an article on my poem, 
 ' The Wind and the Whirlwind.' [This article, I afterwards 
 learned, was by Francis Thompson,] Spencer has long 
 looked out, he says, for a poet who should write a poem, 
 the main lines of which he sketches in his letter and he asks 
 me to undertake it. (It was to be a dialogue in Heaven 
 after the manner of Goethe's ' Faust,' between God and 
 Satan, Satan complaining that mankind has surpassed him 
 in wickedness, sacrificing to Thor and Odin while nominally 
 sacrificing to Jehovah.j I wish I could think myself capable 
 of doing this with any effect, but I am too hopeless of t^etting 
 such a subject listened to at the present moment and too 
 little believing in the divine government of the world." 
 
 This led to a correspondence between me and the philo- 
 sopher and eventually to my undertaking to write a poem, 
 " Satan Absolved," more or less on the lines suggested. In 
 a second letter, dated 6th October, Spencer writes: "My 
 beliefs are pretty much as pessimistic as those you express. 
 Did I think that men would remain in the far future 
 anything like what they now are I should contemplate with 
 equanimity the sweeping away of the whole human race." 
 [For these two letters see Appendix III.] 
 
 " \2th Oct. — A visit from Mrs. Meynell and her husband, 
 and Francis Thompson at Newbuildings. I had in\ited 
 them to come for the night, but Aleynell had explained 
 that this was impossible, ' the poet n hompsonj, ha\ing an 
 inconvenient habit of setting his bed on fire.' They came 
 down, however, for the day. I met them at the station, a 
 very loveh" day, and as we drove through the woods 
 Meynell pointed out to me that 'the poet of nature' was 
 wholl}' absorbed in the ' Globe' newspaper he had brought 
 down with him in the train, such being the way with London 
 poets. Thompson, though born in Lancashire and speaking 
 English with a broad provincial accent, is a true Cockney. 
 He is a little weak-eyed, red-nosed young man of the 
 degenerate London type, with a complete absence of virility 
 and a look of raptured dependence on Mrs. Mejnell which 
 is most touching. He is very shy, but was able to talk a 
 little when the general conversation was not too loud, and 
 he seems good-hearted and quite unpretending. He has 
 
1898] 
 
 The Fashoda Quarrel 367 
 
 written no poetry, Meynell tells me, now for some years, 
 being cured of his morphia. But Meynell thinks the fountain 
 may some day break forth again. Meanwhile, he gets a 
 living by literary criticism in the ' Academy ' and other 
 journals. When we all went out after luncheon to the 
 woods, I found him quite ignorant of the names of the 
 commonest trees, even the elm, which he must have seen 
 every day in London. I pointed one out to him, and he 
 said, ' I think, a maple.' On the whole, however, I liked 
 him, for he was quite simple and straightforward. Only, it 
 was difficult to think of him as capable of any kind of 
 strength in rhyme or prose. Meynell has greatly improved 
 conversationally with years, and has become a most agree- 
 able man. Thanks to him, the visit was a pleasant one and 
 they all went home in spirits. 
 
 "i^t/i Oct. — All this week has been one of excitement 
 over the quarrel with France about Fashoda. A Blue Book 
 has been published giving the English case, and, imperial 
 plunder being in question, all parties, Tories, Whig, Radical, 
 Churchmen, and Nonconformist have joined in publicl}' 
 extolling English virtue and denouncing the French. For 
 myself I see nothing in it more respectable than the 
 wrangle of two highwaymen over a captured purse, morall}' 
 both sides are on a level. The English position in the case 
 is that there has long been a scheme of appropriating the 
 Soudan with all the Upper Nile to the Lakes — this, in 
 anticipation of the event which must some day happen, of 
 the British occupation of Egypt proper coming to an end, 
 through European intervention. The scheme has so far 
 been disguised, and whenever objection has been raised, the 
 Egyptian claim to the old Soudan provinces has been put 
 forward and, as we have seen, the Egyptian army has been 
 made use of to do the rough work of re-conquest, onh' now 
 and then have there been indications given of the truth. 
 In the present Blue Book there is one where Lord Salis- 
 bury instructs Monson to declare at Paris that ' By the 
 military events of last week all the territories which were 
 subject to the Khalifa passed, ^j/ right of conquest, to Ah^ 
 British and Egyptian Government.' Yet all X.\\& gobemouclie 
 press is ringing the changes on our ' legality.' And what a 
 strange plea of legality as towards Egypt! What would be 
 said in private life if a guardian and trustee who had under- 
 
o 
 
 68 George JVyndham on Fashoda [1898 
 
 taken to manage the estate of a minor, as we forced the 
 Egyptian Government in 1884 to abandon the Soudan and 
 leave it derelict, and then, the opportunit}' having occurred, 
 should take possession of those derelict farms as belonging 
 to nobody and should do this with the approval of the 
 whole world, moral and religious! Yesterdaj', there was a 
 great public meeting in favour of universal peace, and our 
 leading Nonconformists on the platform applauded Lord 
 Salisbury for having thus swindled Egypt and defied 
 France. We live in an odd age. 
 
 "Judith's engagement to Neville Lytton was announced 
 to-day. 
 
 " idth Oct. — I think verj- seriously of the crisis between 
 England and France. It will likely enough lead to a war, 
 for both sides being in the wrong each naturally sees the 
 other's wickedness and so believes itself right. The best 
 road to an agreement between them would be that each 
 should give up its preposterous claim to the Nile Provinces. 
 Lord Salisbury, among his many reasons for renewing the 
 Soudan campaign three years ago, said that the destruction 
 of the Khalifa's power would make it easier for England to 
 evacuate Egypt. Let him keep that part of his programme 
 and France will be satisfied. Our people, however, want 
 war, fancying it is a favourable moment for dealing single- 
 handed with France. I hope we shall not be invaded in 
 Sussex. 
 
 '■ ijth Oct. — To Saighton. Things look very warlike with 
 France, and war would certainly happen if the position in 
 Europe were at all less unfavourable to the French, but as 
 it is their Government \\'ill certainly not risk a fight if they 
 can help it. The danger lies in the weakness of their 
 Government, in the long discredit into which France has 
 fallen, and in the ascendancy of the army. There may be a 
 revolution anj* day and representatives of the Jiourbons 
 and of the Bonapartes are announced as being on the 
 frontier. 
 
 '' Arrived at Saighton. I have had it out with George 
 about Fashoda. He states the English case with brutal 
 frankness. ' The da)' of talking,' he says, ' about legalit\- in 
 Africa is over, all the international law there is there con- 
 sists of interests and understandings. It is generally agreed 
 by all the Powers that the end of African operations is to 
 
1898] George on Imperial Politics 369 
 
 "civilize" it in the interests of Europe, and that to gain 
 that end all means are good. The only difference between 
 England and France is which of them is to do it in which 
 particular districts. England intends to do it on the Nile, 
 and it makes no difference what the precise legal position 
 is. We may put forward the Khedive's rights if it is con- 
 venient or we may put forward a right of conquest, or a 
 right of simply declaring our intentions. One is as good as 
 another to get our end, which is the railway from Cairo to 
 the Cape. We don't care whether the Nile is called English 
 or Egyptian or what it is called, but we mean to have it 
 and we don't mean the French to have it. The Khedive 
 may be kept on for some years as a sort of Indian Maha- 
 rajah, but it will end in a partition of the Ottoman Empire 
 between England, Germany, and Russia, France will be 
 allowed North-western Africa. It is not worth while draw- 
 ing distinctions of right and wrong in the matter, it is a 
 matter entirely of interest.' 
 
 " This of course is the true thought of our Government, 
 and has been for at least ten years, but for the first time 
 to-day it is beginning to be avowed. George represents all 
 that is most extreme, most outrageous, in modern English 
 politics, and it marks the decline of the higher traditions 
 to find one like him proclaiming and defending it. I shall 
 not write again to the ' Times,' I should only mar the 
 effect of my last letter, which has certainly been great, and 
 do no good. The dispute between France and England is 
 a dispute between rival card sharpers, and the very best 
 thing that can happen is that they should beat in each 
 other's heads. 
 
 " iZth Oct. — Worked all the morning at ' Satan in Heaven ' 
 [' Satan Absolved ']. George has gone up to London. 
 
 " igth Oct. — Made my pilgrimageof thanksgiving to Holy- 
 well in drizzle and fog, taking my nurse, Miss Lawrence, 
 with me, and my crutches, which I deposited at the Shrine, 
 bound up with a nightgown and a label thus inscribed : 
 
 " ' Set here in thankful token of a cure from long sickness 
 after bathing in St. Winifred's Well. By her servant W. S. B. 
 October 19, 1898.' 
 
 " The scene inside the shrine was the most interesting I 
 ever saw in Europe. Three men were being passed through 
 the water stark naked, but for a slight bathing drawer round 
 
 B B 
 
370 Pilgrims to Holyu'eli [1898 
 
 the loins, and each time after passing the\- knelt on the 
 pavement, dripping wet and prayed aloud. A priest was 
 reciting ' Hail Marys,' and at the end of each ' Hail Mary,' 
 ' Holy Winifred, still in an unbelieving age, miraculous.' 
 There were lighted candles and flowers, and the fervour of 
 these naked men, one a mere bag of skin and bones, was 
 tremendous. In the dim light of a foggy day nothing at 
 all congruous to the nineteenth century was visible. It was 
 a thing wholly of the middle ages, the dark ages, the darkest 
 of the dark ages, magnificent, touching — it brought tears to 
 my eyes. I hung up my crutches in a corner with other 
 relics, and placed Sibell's fio\vers which she had sent as a 
 thank offering on the altar, and knelt for some ten minutes 
 reciting the Penitential Psalms. 
 
 " Outside the shrine I found Father Beauclerk, a young, 
 good-looking Jesuit, but deaf and afflicted with some 
 ailment, perhaps paralytic. He told me that the Town 
 Council of Holywell was about to try its power of closing 
 the Well, and so of preventing the bathing, which has gone 
 on here precisely as it is to-day since the rebuilding of the 
 Shrine in the reign of Henry VII, and doubtless for many 
 hundred years before it. The true legal ownership of the 
 water seems in doubt. The Duke of Westminster is Lord 
 of the Manor, and granted some thirty years ago a long 
 lease to the Town Council, but by some accident never 
 signed it. The Town Council in its turn leased it to the 
 Jesuits, who put up a railing and established a charge of 
 twopence a head for maintenance of the place. This charge 
 the Town Council holds to have barred the free access of 
 the public to the water. Otherwise the public right would 
 seem absolutely clear. Certainl}' no bather has been re- 
 fused admission since before the Norman Conquest. Father 
 Beauclerk took me to see one Lambert, an innkeeper, 
 who gave me further particulars, and who agreed if guar- 
 anteed in costs to contest the matter as a Holywell rate- 
 payer and habitual bather. He tells me religious feud is 
 at the bottom of the mischief Father Beauclerk has been 
 imprudent in making use of the Well for purposes of con- 
 version, and in running it as a religious show. This has 
 enraged the Nonconformistr,, who have determined to put 
 down the pilgrimage as a Popish nuisance. In order more 
 completely to desecrate the Shrine they propose to lease 
 
1898] regai-ded as a Popish Nuisance 371 
 
 it to a Soda Water Company at ^500 a year, and close 
 the Well on a plea of sanitation. Lambert himself is a 
 Protestant, but having been cured of sciatica by bathing 
 there, is a partisan of the Well. As an innkeeper, too, his 
 interests are affected, for the town depends largely on 
 pilgrims for its prosperity. It is clear that steps must 
 at once be taken to save the Shrine, and I gave Father 
 Beauclerk a cheque for ii'20 towards legal expenses. He 
 seems, however, to be sadl)' unpractical, and we must put 
 the conduct of the case into other hands. 
 
 " 20th Oct. — Back to London, where I saw Treherne, the 
 Anti-Scrape lawyer, about St. Winifred's, and also Cockerell. 
 In the evening a telegram came from George to say that 
 the Duke of Westminster would take action in the matter, 
 so that relieves us of a great difficulty." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " SATAN ABSOLVED " — THE BOER WAR 
 
 " /~^ EORGE is in high spirits, as he has just been ap- 
 \jj pointed Under-Secretary for War, a less interesting 
 place than the Foreign Office, but still important, especially' 
 at the present moment. Things look more and more war- 
 like, as Russia seems to be backing France, and I suspect 
 most of the Continental Powers are against us. It is im- 
 possible Lord Salisbury should maintain the full ground 
 he has chosen, that of refusing to negotiate without a war. 
 The French will not give in like that. The way out of the 
 mess would seem to lie in the direction of a European 
 Congress, or at least of European intervention in the in- 
 terests of peace. George sajs that the British fleet has its 
 programme ready, and the French fleet would be shut up 
 in their ports in a few days. He and the ultra Jingo 
 section of the part}' are all for war. He gets i!^i,500 a year 
 by this appointment. 
 
 " 22nd Oct. — To Paris by Newhaven and Dieppe, much 
 the pleasantest route. I have not travelled by it since I 
 landed at Newhaven in a storm with a shipload of frightened 
 refugees flying from Paris after Sedan. 
 
 '■'■2yd Oct. — Neville came to breakfast with me, and 
 later old Julienne, Francis Currie's bonne, who amused us 
 with her view of the political situation. The government 
 of France, she said, was in the hands of un tas de gueu.x, 
 passez-moi le mot,' who were pillaging the countr}', and 
 there must be a new regime — Orleanist, Bonapartist, or 
 what ever else, she did not care, so long as it was not 
 Dreyfusist. As to the Fashoda trouble, it was all the 
 rapacity of ' la grosse Victoire,' meaning our own gracious 
 Majesty, who wanted all the earth for herself and would 
 leave nothing to poor France. ' Nous sommes bien bas, 
 allez.' I fancy this represents pretty fairly the general 
 opinion at Paris. 
 
1898] 
 
 The Fashoda Yellow Book 373 
 
 " At 3 to Gros Bois, where 1 found our hostess enter- 
 taining two Parisian ladies, dressed up Hke Parisian dolls, 
 a ci-devant Russian beauty, the Comtesse de Tallej'rand, 
 and Mme. Chevreau, her neighbours. We were a party of 
 six at dinner, lively in the usual French way, which means 
 all talking at once. I had some quiet conversation, how- 
 ever, with Wagram before the guests arrived. He refuses 
 to believe in a war and thinks the thing will be arranged. 
 Russia, if it came to a war, would fight too, and we should 
 be attacked in India. I see that Redmond is openly de- 
 claring himself at Dublin in favour of the French, but I 
 doubt if either Ireland or India are really attackable. 
 
 " i\th Oct. — Wagram was away all day shooting at 
 Chantilly with the Due de Chartres. Prince Henri d'Or- 
 Idans was there and showed him a number of abusive 
 letters he had received, mostly from Germans, in connec- 
 tion with the Dreyfus case, he being a violent anti-re- 
 visionist. Wagram brought back with him in the evening 
 the Fashoda Yellow Book just published. 
 
 " 2'^th Oct. — The new Yellow Book gives a much more 
 dignified form to the French argument than it has received 
 in our Blue Book, and I consider that, logic for logic, 
 M. de Courcel has the best of it. It is also clear that, as I 
 suspected, Lord Salisbury has been negotiating, though it 
 is equally clear that he has allowed his back to be stiffened 
 by the London Press and his colleagues' speeches and Lord 
 Rosebery's. The P'rench terras are now pretty fairly formu- 
 lated. The)' will evacuate Fashoda on being allowed to keep 
 the Bahr el Gazal with access to the While Nile. A Cabinet 
 has been called in London for to-morrow, when a final de- 
 cision will be come to. In face of the extraordinary out- 
 burst of Jingo violence in England I doubt such terms 
 being accepted and war seems probable ; nobody, however, 
 here seems of that opinion. 
 
 " M. Hanotaux, late Minister of Foreign Affairs, and 
 M. Vandal were here to-day and I had much conversation 
 with both. Neither would hear of war for such a trifle as 
 Fashoda. M. Hanotaux maintained that no war would be 
 popular in France, that nobody knew where F"ashoda was, 
 or cared three straws about the Marchand Mission. He even 
 considered the Egyptian question itself one of small 
 importance for France. As for the Bahr el Gazal, it 
 
374 Hanotaux 011 Fashoda [1898 
 
 was ' a country inhabited by monkeys and by black 
 men worse than monkeys.' A war with England over 
 such a dispute would be worse than a crime, a folly. 
 He was of opinion that such a war would ruin both 
 countries. It would last two years ; it would be carried on 
 interminably because neither could vitalh' attack the other. 
 ' I admit,' he said, ' that your fleet may destroy ours, that 
 you may blockade our ports, and that we could not land 
 troops in England, but what then? You could not touch 
 us in France, or even in Algeria or Tunis; it would ruin 
 your trade and leave you at the end worse off than our- 
 selves. You would find yourselves faced by a triple 
 coalition. I do not believe in the possibility of war.' I told 
 him of the militarj? fever we were suffering from in Eng- 
 land, but he refused to believe that Lord Salisbury, who 
 was ' un homme d'Etat,' who looked at the future, would 
 quarrel to this extent with France, England's only possible 
 ally, for any such cause. 
 
 " I asked him about the Army, what its feeling was, what 
 line it would take? ' The French Army,' he said, ' is always 
 ready to fight when the word is given, but it does- not busy 
 itself with politics, and will not intervene to force on any 
 policy. It can be counted on absolutely to obey its orders, 
 whether for peace or war. No war would be popular now in 
 France, and there was no such military fever now here as I 
 had described in England.' He added, however, that if the 
 Army at any time found a leader in any popular general who 
 should become Minister of War, the situation might change, 
 the public might easily become excited. If an appeal were 
 made to it by the Government against England then the 
 Army would, doubtless, show its readiness to fight. The 
 Dreyfus case was also discussed. Vandal and \^'agram were 
 against revision, Berthe and, cautiousl)-, Hanotaux for it. 
 This was continued between Berthe and Wagram to the 
 point of violence all the evening, Wagram maintaining that 
 there were secret pieces of evidence which if made public 
 would ruin the Army and ruin France, Berthe that no con- 
 ceivable evidence could have such effect, the only people to 
 be ruined being the General Staff. Personally I am much 
 charmed by Hanotaux, who talks well on many subjects 
 and without display of vanity. He has a pleasant regard 
 and a sympathetic voice. He gave me his views on archi- 
 
1898] Nobody in France wants to Fight 375 
 
 tecture and art and talked to me, as knowing him, of 
 Herbert Spencer. Vandal also talked well, but is less in- 
 teresting. Both are academicians. 
 
 " 26//? Oct. — The Brisson Ministry has resigned and all 
 is confusion in Paris. This will probably ease the tension 
 towards England and make a peaceful solution more 
 possible. 
 
 " AI. et Mme. Sommier, the owners of Vaux, and a 
 Mme. de Brie came to luncheon. Sommier is a man of 
 cultivation and intelligence, who has taken in the ' Times ' 
 newspaper for years so as to get news of the outside world, 
 a rare circumstance in France. Like all the rest he says war 
 is impossible for such a trifle as Fashoda, that France is not 
 prepared for war, and that nobody wants to iight. 
 
 " 27^/2 Oct. — Three men arrived to shoot pheasants, 
 M. Chevreau, Comte de Gontaut Biron, and Comte de 
 Kergoulet, all men of great intelligence and good talkers 
 as well as good fellows. We shot in the forest beyond the 
 park, but had no great sport. In the evening there was an 
 excellent political discussion, turning principally on the 
 overthrow of the Brisson Ministry and the chances of their 
 succession. They think it probable that Delcasse will 
 remain at the Affaires Etrangeres. None of them will 
 hear of a war with England, in which they say they would 
 be beaten. My neighbour at dinner, M. de Kergoulet, a 
 young Breton gentleman of old family, did not scruple to 
 say they would withdraw from the Nile and apologize 
 rather than that. None of the party, except Wagram, ex- 
 pressed any very different sentiment. I proposed as a 
 bridge of escape from an impossible situation that the 
 French Government should express its willingness to ac- 
 knowledge Egypt's right to the whole of the Nile pro- 
 vinces, but not the right of England. I believe that this 
 would practically save them from their dilemma without 
 loss of honour, and would leave the Nile question for a 
 more favourable moment for raising it in conjunction with 
 the whole Egyptian question. The question of Alsace- 
 Lorraine was also debated, and it was generally admitted 
 that there must be sooner or later prescription, a limit of 
 time beyond which resentment could not be continued, 
 though that time had not yet come. But for this the 
 German alliance was what would be most advantageous 
 
3 76 Abdul Haviid instructs Wilhelm [1898 
 
 to France and a coalition against England. I asked them 
 whether they thought it true that the Emperor William 
 had proposed such a coalition two years ago, and they said 
 it was most probable, but not certain. Such a coalition was 
 impossible at present on account of the sentiment about the 
 lost provinces, and nations live by sentiment, it was the 
 mainstay of their patriotism. I had it on the tip of my 
 tongue to say patriotism is the virtue of nations in decay, 
 but I felt that that would be hardly civil, though the 
 aphorism would be a good one. [A better one would be, 
 ' patriotism is the virtue of weak nations, it is the vice of the 
 strong.'] 
 
 " M. de la Siseranne was also of our party, an excellent 
 talker like the rest, but with more pose, as one would 
 expect from his position as conf^rencier and dogmatic art 
 critic, a shock-headed man taill^ en brosse, less attractive 
 than the others. He was strong on the point of the time 
 being nearly come when the animosity about Alsace- 
 Lorraine could be decently buried. ' There is,' he said, 
 ' prescription for all things, one does not now refuse one's 
 hand to the descendant of him who guillotined one's 
 ancestors in 1793,' meaning, no doubt, Carnot. 
 
 " 28^/? Oct. — To Paris on my way home. Called on Abu 
 Xaddara, who gave me some details of the Marchand 
 mission. Marchand had come to him three years ago to 
 ask his advice about penetrating to the Upper Nile, and 
 how to make friends with the Khalifa, and he (Sanua) had 
 given him papers inscribed with texts from the Koran, and 
 as I understood him, introductions from one or two persons 
 at Omdurman. Marchand's idea was to go and make friends 
 with the Mahdists and help them against England. He was 
 certainly sent by the French Government. Sanua is severe 
 on the stupidity of French diplomac)-, and considers France 
 very low down in the scale of European nations. He told 
 me a good deal about his visit to the Sultan Abdul Hamid, 
 who had received him with all honour, and allowed him 
 to speak frankly and openly about affairs. He says the 
 Sultan is acquiring an immense prestige from the Emperor 
 Wilhelm's visit, which is everywhere in the East regarded 
 as an act of homage. It was Abdul Hamid who first sug- 
 gested to the Emperor to get rid of Bismarck. On his first 
 visit to Constantinople they were talking about Bismarck's 
 
1898] how to get Rid of Ministers 377 
 
 great power in Europe, and the Sultan said, ' I should not 
 like to have so powerful a servant, would your Majesty 
 like to see how I treat mine?' William said, ' Yes.' Abdul 
 Hamid then touched a bell, and when the attendant entered 
 said, 'Send for Kiamil,' the then Grand Vizier. Instantly 
 horsemen were despatched at a gallop through the city 
 seeking the Minister, who presently appeared and stood, 
 with head bowed and folded hands, before them. The 
 Sultan for awhile took no notice, and let him stand, then 
 casually ' You need not wait, it is of no consequence, go,' 
 and the Grand Vizier went. William took this lesson to 
 heart, and dismissed his Chancellor hardly less brusquel}-. 
 
 " Dined with Neville and his friend Geoffroi, a }-oung 
 fellow art student of a modest serious kind at the hotel 
 where I was their entertainer. We discussed art, literature, 
 and politics. The young man is rather socialistic, hates the 
 army, in which he is just about to be obliged to serve, and 
 is a Dreyfusard. He assures me military service is most 
 unpopular, and was .still more so. It is clear nobody in 
 France \y\\\ take up the quarrel thrust on them b}' us over 
 Fashoda. 
 
 " 2gtli Oct. — Back to England. To-day it is announced 
 that Marchand has left for Cairo, so the quarrel solvitjfr 
 anilmlando. 
 
 " yd Nov. — Newbuildings. Knowles has agreed to my 
 writing on the Fashoda affair in the ' Nineteenth Century,' 
 but says he hopes I will not forget the motto which is his, 
 ' my country right or wrong.' What absurdity ! One would 
 think that England was a poor struggling nationality, 
 oppressed by a strong neighbour, and in need of the help 
 of all her sons, not what she is, the mill in which all the 
 nations are being ground. 
 
 "■ li^tJi Nov. — Anne and Judith left for Egypt, I staying 
 on in England for the winter. Lunched with George 
 Wyndham at Willis's Rooms, where he is near his work at 
 the War Office. We discussed the Fashoda business about 
 which there will certainly not be war, George said. Also 
 that our Government had squared the Emperor William. 
 The Duke of Devonshire and Henry Chaplin were lunch- 
 ing at another table, and greeted George as ' dear George.' 
 Of Chamberlain, George said, ' He is for war at any price.' 
 He (Chamberlain) has just come back from America, where 
 
0/ ' 
 
 Hoiu they make Bishops [1898 
 
 the\^ are going through the same absurd mihtar)- fever that 
 we are here. 
 
 " ^th Nov. — At Xewbuildings with Cockerell. Delcasse 
 has made his cHmb down about Fashoda, certainly a pitiful 
 one, which reduces France almost to the level of a second- 
 class Power. The Emperor William meanwhile has been 
 touring it in Siria, and making speeches at Jerusalem. I 
 fancy his concurrence with English policy has been bought 
 by some promise of recognizing him as the Sultan's pro- 
 tector with a future reversion of the Hoi)- Land. Our Jingo 
 papers, especiall\- the ' Chronicle,' have been clamouring 
 for the annexation of Egypt, or at least the declaration of 
 an English Protectorate, but that is probably not within 
 the limits of Lord Salisbury's present agreement with 
 Wilhelm. 
 
 " gtl'. Xov. — Left Xewbuildings for Gorsey End, near 
 Lyndhurst, for the winter, driving in beautiful weather by 
 Rogate, where we are being entertained by Hugh W'ynd- 
 ham and his daughter Florence, stopping also to call on 
 Charles Wyndham at Midhurst. Hugh, talking of the agree- 
 ment with W'addington made in 1878 at the Berlin Congress 
 in regard to Tunis, told me that he had had it from Odo 
 Russell that the thing was transacted at the British Em- 
 bassy. Odo Russell had said to him, 'You must be pre- 
 pared for some startling moves,' and told him what had 
 happened. This was soon after the agreement." [Sir Hugh 
 \V)-ndham had been Secretary of the Berlin Embassy at 
 the time.] 
 
 The whole of this winter I spent in the New Forest, 
 having been advised to go there for m)- health, as I could 
 get eas\- hunting there, and so be much out of doors. My 
 principal friend in the neighbourhood was Sir William 
 Harcourt at Malwood, whom I saw frequentl}', but other- 
 wise I was much cut off from political society, though I 
 went up now and then to London. At Lyndhurst I was 
 busy writing my poem, " Satan Absolved." 
 
 " 20th Nov. {Sundav . — To luncheon at Malwood. Sir 
 William in excellent form, principall}- about the bishops, 
 with whom he is now in violent conflict. He narrated to us 
 a conversation he had had with the Duke of Devonshire as 
 to the nomination to a bishopric. The Duke's account of it 
 was this : ' He had written two letters to Salisbury, recom- 
 
iSgS] Fareivcll Dinner to Curzon 379 
 
 mending a fellow, he couldn't remember the fellow's name, 
 and Salisbury hadn't even answered. He had written be- 
 cause Courtney and another fellow, he couldn't remember 
 his name either, had wanted it.' On inquiry it had turned 
 out that the proposed nominee was Page Ro_gers, and Sir 
 William had taken an opportunit)- of asking Lord Salisbury 
 why he hadn't made Page Rogers a Bishop. ' The fact is,' 
 said Salisbury, ' I thought they were talking of Page Hopps, 
 and we ga\'e it to some one else.' ' That,' said Sir William, 
 ' is the way they make bishops.' Our luncheon was quite a 
 feast, as Lady Harcourt has a very good cook. Rawnsley 
 and his wife were there. 
 
 " 22nd Nov. — Knowles has returned me my article on 
 ' Fashoda,' on the plea of its being too late, and that, be- 
 sides, it would not be wise to publish it, doubtless the true 
 reason. 
 
 " 28//! Nov. — Cromer has consented to give Judith away 
 at her wedding if I am prevented from being present. This 
 is as it should be, for personally I have always been on 
 pleasant terms with Cromer, much as we may tilt 
 politically. 
 
 " })rd Dec. — To London, where I saw George Wyndham. 
 He tells me they had a tremendous dinner a few nights 
 ago, all the Under Secretaries, at which, after the consump- 
 tion of much champagne, they toasted each other as ' the 
 youth of the day and the future Cabinet of 1910.' All were 
 present except Austin Chamberlain, who had been run over 
 by a cab. 
 
 " %th Dec. — Basil Blackwood came to breakfast with me 
 in Mount Street, just back from a shooting expedition in 
 East Africa. He gave me an account of it, as well as of 
 Hubert Howard's death. He and Hubert had been very 
 close friends. Basil is a nice youth, not a little like what 
 his father was when he was young. 
 
 " \oth Dec. — I have been buying books with Cockerell's 
 help at Morris's sale, his ' Gerarde's Herbal,' a Berners 
 ' Froissart,' and Malory's ' King Arthur,' the Copland edi- 
 tion of 1557, the last a book to lie always on one's table. 
 
 " Last night there was given a great private dinner to 
 George Curzon, at which most of the ladies who are our 
 friends were present. [This was a farewell dinner to Lord 
 Curzon of Kedlestone on his departure for India as Vice- 
 
380 Harcouri' s Retiroyicnt from Politics [1898 
 
 roy. I have an amusing letter from Curzon of that date, as 
 member of the Crabbet Club, excusing himself for accept- 
 ing an office which, according to our Rules, entailed a 
 resignation of membership, but I cannot print it here.] 
 Both George Wyndham and Sibell gave me an account 
 of the feast. He, George Wj-ndham, recited a poem he 
 had written for the occasion. Hugo (Elcho) proposed 
 Curzon's health in a speech which George declared beat 
 even his (Hugo's) record, and Curzon's reply was also most 
 amusing. No pressmen were invited except Harry Cust, if 
 he can still be called one. It is described in the evening 
 papers as a ' congregation of the Order of the Souls.' 
 
 " i6th Dec. — The event of the day is Harcourt's retire- 
 ment from the leadership of the Liberal party. The true 
 reason of his retirement is the conversion of the whole 
 part}', or at least the whole Liberal Press, to Jingo Im- 
 perialism. I wrote yesterday to congratulate him on his 
 published letter. To-day I have a line from him in answer. 
 He says: ' Anche io have escaped out of gaol and am a free 
 man.' I hope now that his tongue and Morley's will be let 
 loose to attack the militarism of the day, of which Rose- 
 bery is the most outrageous champion. They will have 
 plenty to say and will give dissentients heart. There must 
 be a few lovers of liberty left in England, but for the 
 moment they have no voice more powerful than Labou- 
 chere's. I consider Harcourt's retirement a distinct gain for 
 liberty, if not for Liberalism. 
 
 " I'/th Dec. — To London on business, and dined at the 
 ' Travellers,' where I was introduced by d'Estournelles to his 
 new Ambassador, Cambon. I had a long talk with the 
 latter about desert travelling, and my adventure at Siwah. 
 Having mentioned that I was at Paris at the time of the 
 late crisis they asked me ' which crisis,' and I without 
 thinking said ' the crisis of Fashoda.' Cambon's counten- 
 ance fell at the word, and he changed the conversation, 
 though heaven knows I meant no harm. It is arranged 
 between d'Estournelles and me that I should get up a little 
 dinner at Mount Street for the Ambassador after the Jour 
 de I'An, but I fear I should disappoint d'Estournelles' ex- 
 pectations. He counts, among other inducements, upon m)- 
 inviting Lady Galloway, who, being Lord Salisbury's sister, 
 he thinks would interest Cambon. He wants Cambon to 
 
1898] Cambon the new French Ambassador 381 
 
 make a good impression in English society. When he finds 
 out how little I am a pei-soiia grata with the Government 
 he will probably be less keen for my assistance ; however, 
 'that is their affair. [N.B. Cambon had been sent to England 
 after the Fashoda affair and the change of Ministry at 
 Paris, expressly to bring about a good understanding be- 
 tween France and England, and in this he succeeded 
 admirably. I believe it to have been due to him more than 
 to any other Frenchman, except perhaps Delcasse, that the 
 Entente Gordiale was come to four years later with the 
 withdrawal of all French opposition to England in Egypt. 
 It is probable that at the time of Fashoda an understand- 
 ing was come to between Lord Salisbury and Delcasse 
 for the partition of North Africa. England to have the 
 East, France the West, Germany and Russia to be event- 
 ually allowed the spoil of Turkey and Persia. The full 
 development of the plan being put off till the death, when 
 it should happen, of Sultan Abdul Hamid.] 
 
 " i^th Dec. — Old Lord Napier and Ettrick, Mark's father, 
 is dead. He was a man of distinction, and no small ability. 
 He was for many years in diplomacy, and was then sent 
 as Governor to Madras. The last I saw of him was six or 
 seven years ago, when I was at the Glen. His chief achieve- 
 ment in life was the making of Mark. 
 
 " 26th Dec. — I have been staying at the Danes for Christ- 
 mas, a family party. To-day we drove over to North 
 Mimms, to make acquaintance with \^ov\oxi!s fiancee. North 
 Mimms, a beautiful old place, but turned inside out by a 
 Victorian architect, who has been let loose on it regardless 
 of expense. Loulou's new relations are Americans, the 
 young lady simple and unaffected, and tenderly attached 
 to Loulou," 
 
 I ended the year 1898 at Ockham with Ralph and Mar)-, 
 more happily than was its beginning. " The first four 
 months were of exceeding physical pain with the final 
 breakdown, followed by a great contentment of mind and 
 body. That great act of abdication, ' the taking to one's 
 deathbed,' teaches one the value of the smaller pleasures of 
 life. Intellectually I still feel growth, and while growth 
 continues one is not yet old. Judith's marriage has been an 
 event of supreme satisfaction. 
 
 " 1st Jan., 1899. — I am back at Lyndhurst. Lady Lytton 
 
382 T try Sir IVilliain Harcoiirt's Temper [1899 
 
 tells me that the Queen was greatly opposed to Neville's 
 marrj'ing before he came of age, and that her Majesty is 
 constantly inquiring about the date of the wedding, and 
 has been soothed by being told that Neville will at least" 
 be twenty on his wedding da\-. 
 
 " /^th Jan. — To Alalwood, where I had a long talk with 
 Sir William Harcourt about the line he ought to take as 
 an independent member of the Opposition. He told me 
 that he intended to bring forward the \\hole anti-Imperial 
 case on grounds of economy. I told him that. I did not 
 think he would get much following that wa}-. Nobody 
 cared enough about economy to be enthusiastic over it. I 
 thought he would have more success if he gave his opposi- 
 tion a moral basis, exposing the demoralization of England 
 through the violence and bloodshed Imperialism entailed, 
 the fraud, lying, and hypocrisy, and the growth of militar- 
 ism. Carried awa}' by my argument I pressed him so 
 closely that he almost lost his temper, and as a final word 
 said : ' Well, what },-ou say may be true, but this is my 
 plan, and I mean to stick to it.' Lady Harcourt, however, 
 who was there, took my side, and afterwards made me go 
 with her upstairs to see her boy Bobby, and repeat to him 
 my argument. ' It will do him good,' she said, ' for he is 
 just at a moment of crisis when a \ery little may turn his 
 ideas one way or the other.' I found the boy in bed with a 
 cold, writing his views on politics in a copy-book, and I 
 turned my eloquence on him. Old Sir William's ill-humour 
 was almost pathetic, and did not last long, and Lady Har- 
 court said to me as we went upstairs, ' He will not really 
 mind, and he will remember what you said when you are 
 gone.' Really there never was a moment, when a man with 
 convictions and some knowledge of foreign affairs, could 
 do more in England. 
 
 " Bennett, one of the military correspondents in the 
 Soudan, has \\ritten a powerful article in the ' Con- 
 temporary,' exposing the barbarity of the war, about which 
 all the countr}' has been shouting triumph, and about 
 Gordon College at Khartoum. The British public are pay- 
 ing to ease their consciences for the incredible slaughter of 
 Omdurman. 
 
 "6th Jan. — The run of the season with the New Forest 
 deer hounds, in pursuit of an old roebuck from Lady Cross 
 
1899] The Best Run of the Season 3 S3 
 
 Lodge right across the open heath of BeauHeu plain, very 
 fast to the far side, when he turned back and again faced 
 the open. About the middle of the plain, on his second 
 journe}', he lay down, and jumped up in the middle of the 
 hounds, racing away for two miles in view with the pack 
 at his heels to Hackett Pond, where he took the water and 
 swam for ten minutes with the pack after him, and out 
 again, and was run into and killed in the open. They say 
 they never had so good a run before. It lasted seventy-five 
 minutes. I was riding Mahruss, who carried me in the 
 front rank all the way, the onl)' heavy weight that went 
 fairly with the hounds. 
 
 " "jth Jan. — Cromer has made a speech to the Soudanese 
 Sheykhs at Khartoum, declaring they will now be ruled by 
 the Queen of England and the Khedive of Kgypt. This 
 lets the cat out of the bag. I was quite sure the thiny was 
 in contemplation from the reticence of Lord Salisbury. All 
 these weeks he has been allowing the rest of his Cabinet 
 to make altruistic speeches about the Soudan having been 
 ' reconquered for Egypt,' but has been mute himself, re- 
 maining by his telegram to Monson. The high moral 
 nature of the transaction has been appealed to by ever)' 
 newspaper in England notwithstanding Bennett's exposure 
 of the atrocities of the campaign. I have written to con- 
 gratulate Bennett on his courage. 
 
 "13^/^ Jan. — Indoors all da)' writing about the new 
 settlement in the Soudan. It is ludicrous to follow the 
 antics of the so-called Liberal papers, the ' Chronicle,' the 
 ' Westminster Gazette,' and the rest, in their endeavour to 
 make the seizure of the Upper Nile for England fit in with 
 their moral heroics about England's duty of ' reconquering 
 it for Egypt.' What they don't understand is that Lord 
 Salisbury was very quietly playing" with them. He was de- 
 lighted at the time of his ultimatum to France to get the 
 support of the Radical Press, and he let them run on to their 
 hearts' content about England being Egypt's trustee and the 
 Nile being Egypt and Egypt being the Nile — that was Rose- 
 bery's phrase — and it pleased him that the Nonconformist 
 conscience should call heaven and earth to witness what a 
 moral and unselfish nation we were, and how abominable 
 were the French, who would pilfer Egypt's inheritance. He 
 was glad to get the support of the Exeter Hall people and 
 
^8 
 
 oo4 The Modern Practice of Confession [1899 
 
 the bishops and the clergy by letting them boast of the 
 evangehcal missions they were going to start at Khartoum, 
 all the while having up his sleeve this card of Kitchener's, 
 English Viceroyalt)- of the Soudan in the name of Her 
 Gracious Majesty and a strictly Mohammedan Protectorate. 
 The world are fools, or rather, they ask to be deceived, and 
 deceived they are. The ' Chronicle ' will very soon come 
 fully into line with the ' Telegraph,' and find it an exceed- 
 ingly clever trick to have made a cat's-paw of the Egyptian 
 Government in English interests. \Vhat can be more 
 amusing than to add the Upper Xile to the British Empire, 
 and make the Egyptian fellah pay for his conquest and 
 maintenance, the profit being wholly for England. Meynell 
 tells me that when Sir William Butler (who is his brother- 
 in-law) met Kitchener on his arrival at Dover, he said to 
 him, '\A'ell, if you do not bring down a curse upon the 
 British Empire for what you have been doing, there is no 
 truth in Christianity.' Kitchener only stared. 
 
 " \\th Jan. — Drove to Abbotsworthy to stay with George 
 Lefevre,' where we have had a deal of talk about politics. 
 Lefevre is of opinion that Rosebery's retirement from the 
 Leadership of the Liberal party was resolved on by him 
 with the idea that he could get Lord Salisbury's succession, 
 if not as Unionist Prime Minister, at least as Unionist 
 Foreign Secretary. This is likely enough. We went to 
 look at St. Cross and the Cathedral at Winchester. The 
 old ' brother ' at St. Cross, one Joyce, M'ho acted as show- 
 man, was describing to us the mechanism of an ancient 
 confessional in the wall of a church there, and I asked him, 
 ' Do you hold, sir, with the modern practice of confession? ' 
 His answer was amusing. ' Modern confession, sir. I was 
 taking a lady round the church last week, and when we 
 came to this 'ole in the wall, I invited her inside. " Now, 
 Madam," I said, " have you nothing to confess to me ? " 
 And she was a pretty woman, sir. " I confess," said she, 
 " that I 'ave been in 'ere alone with you quite long enough." 
 That 's my idea of modern confession and you may let Sir 
 William 'Arcourt know it with my compliments.' 
 
 " ii,tk Jan. — Back to Lyndhurst, stopping on the way at 
 Malwood for luncheon. Sir W^illiam is immensely pleased 
 with my confessional story, which exactly hits his humour. 
 ' Now Lord Eversley. 
 
1899] The Queen Telegraphs 385 
 
 Loulou was there, and Bobby, the younger boy, and we had 
 a great discussion about poetry and poets. I expounded 
 to them the glories of Malory's ' Morte d'Arthur.' 
 
 " 20th Jan. — The papers give the text of a convention 
 made between Cromer and Boutros Pasha — a leonine con- 
 vention indeed. The text, however, shows it less of an 
 annexation than Cromer's speech suggested. As far as I 
 can read its meaning it would become legally inoperative 
 if England evacuated Egypt, for it provides only ' a system 
 for the administration and making of laws . . . giving 
 effect to the claims which have accrued to Her Britannic 
 Majesty's Government by right of conquest to share in the 
 present settlement and future working and development of 
 the said system of legislation.' This can hardly be con- 
 strued into sovereign rights. Nevertheless, it is practically 
 as bad as possible for Egypt, for it will saddle on her the 
 whole cost and labour of the war of reconquest not yet 
 completed and make her budget responsible for Soudan 
 deficits. 
 
 " 2ist to 22,rd January. — At Hewell. I have made friends 
 here with Rowton and have talked Egyptian and other 
 matters over with him. He is, of course, a Jingo of the 
 Jingoes, as becomes a courtier of the Queen and Disraeli's 
 once private secretary, but he can talk without asperity 
 even on the delicate subject of the British flag at Khartoum. 
 
 " 2nd Feb. — To-day is Judith's wedding day. I came up 
 to London and joined Edith Lytton and the family dinner 
 party, where we drank the health of bride and bridegroom. 
 Edith had with her a telegram from Her Majesty express- 
 ing sympathy, and later another saying that she had tele- 
 graphed to Lord Cromer asking for news of the wedding 
 and giving his reply, 'marriage duly performed! This Her 
 Majesty had underlined to show, Edith explained, her dis- 
 appointment at the baldness of the answer. The Queen, she 
 said, would have liked something gushing, but, of course. 
 Lord Cromer treated it merely in an official way and would 
 go to no expense. Both telegrams were signed ' V.R.L,' 
 which, Edith says, is always Her Majesty's signature now. 
 I thought the ' I ' had been reserved for communications 
 east of Suez, but the Queen is pleased with her title of 
 Empress and uses it always. She has shown great interest 
 in the marriage all through. 
 
 cc 
 
386 Kitchener Digs tip the Malidi s Body [1899 
 
 "Jth Feb. — The 'Times' publishes my Soudan letter in 
 a prominent place, and as to-day is the opening of Parlia- 
 ment it may perhaps do good. Nubar Pasha is dead, and 
 they are giving him a public funeral at Alexandria, while 
 all the English papers are full of his praises, yet this wil\- 
 Armenian arrived penniless in Egypt fifty years ago and 
 has made four millions out of his various tenures of office. 
 For this he is applauded by the London Press as an 
 Egyptian patriot and statesman. He was unable, I be- 
 lieve, so much as to talk Arabic. 
 
 " \2th Feb. — Lord Salisbury has given certain explana- 
 tions in the House of Lords about the Soudan which are 
 better than nothing, but the Opposition is too flabby to 
 push him farther than he condescends to go. 
 
 " \6tli Feb. — Called at 44, Belgrave Square, where Mary, 
 Pamela and Madeline are sitting for their portraits in a 
 group to Sargent. It is being painted in the drawing-room. 
 In the background there will be their mother's portrait by 
 Watts. 
 
 " i(^th Feb. (^Sunday). — Faure, the French President, is 
 dead, and there is a good deal of excitement over the 
 event, but I do not anticipate anything final at present. 
 The chiefs of the Army would like to overthrow the Re- 
 public, but in the absence of any popular candidate for the 
 throne, they are afraid to move. The rank-and-file, es- 
 pecially the conscripts, would not follow them. 
 
 " 22nd Feb. — I have been helping to get up an agitation 
 against the Parliamentary grant of ;£^30,ooo to Kitchener, 
 and questions have been asked in the Commons. Brodrick 
 admits the digging up of the Mahdi's body and the throw- 
 ing it into the Nile, and they are bringing further questions 
 about the mutilation, that is to say, about young Bill 
 Gordon's having cut the head off to keep as a ' curio.' The 
 whole thing is revolting — a piece of military revenge for 
 the death of Gordori and the defeat of Wolseley and excused 
 now on the absurd plea of its having been ' a necessity in 
 view of the possibility of a fanatical revival.' What makes 
 the desecration worse is that Sir Herbert Stewart's grave 
 had remained all these years untouched in the desert where 
 he fell, but the Liberal front bench is ready to condone 
 every horror, being more Jingo than the Jingoes. 
 
 " 2i,th Feb. — To the House of Commons for the Soudan 
 
1899] Pie7're Loti at Constantinople 387 
 
 debate which was led by Morley, abl}- and courageously. 
 I heard Grey speak in good parliamentary style, but with- 
 out eloquence, the Tories applauding him. [He had become 
 Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Rosebery.] 
 
 " 26th Feb. — Morley 's speech reads well in the ' Times,' 
 and is founded for the most part on my letter published a 
 fortnight ago. There is to be a separate debate about the 
 desecration of the Mahdi's tomb. 
 
 " ist March. — Gave a dinner to the two Ambassadors, 
 Cambon and Staal — with Margot, Lady Windsor, and 
 Mrs. Benson for other guests; it was very gay, thanks to 
 Margot, who talked imperfect French with great courage 
 and volubilit)-, and amused us all. Staal was as usual \\itty 
 and charming, and after dinner Cambon, who i.s a bit of a 
 poseur, sat on a sofa between two of the ladies, telling 
 stories of Pierre Loti and his fabulous love adventures. 
 Loti, when at Constantinople, had made the acquaintance 
 of an Armenian lady of the half world, and on that slender 
 foundation of romance built up his tale of an intrigue with 
 the Turkish inmate of a harem of the Eyub quarter who 
 died of jealousy for his sake. So successfully had he done 
 it that he had convinced himself of its truth, and to the 
 point that when he returned to Constantinople, and was 
 staying at the French Embassy, he came in one day from 
 a walk, and assured Cambon, who knew the true story, and 
 Loti knew that he knew it, that he had just been to weep 
 in the spot in the Eyub quarter where he had been so 
 happy. He had found the quarter burnt, and the house 
 reduced to ashes. Cambon assured us that Loti did this in 
 all good faith, having been able to persuade himself to 
 believe in these bonnes fortunes as things that had actually 
 happened. 
 
 " 8^'/^ Marcti. — Lunched at the French Embassy. Staal, 
 Maxse and his daughter, Margot and others. I asked 
 Staal, who sat next to me, how it was that Tolstoy managed 
 to remain on in Russia, untroubled by the Government. He 
 said it was entirely due to the great literary position he 
 held in Europe. It was thought wiser to tolerate him at 
 home than to send him away to exile. 
 
 " <^th March. — George Wyndham came to see me this 
 morning, and I lunched with him and Madeline Adeane 
 Jater at Belgrave Square, where we saw the first sketching 
 
388 Waits Paints my Portrait [1899 
 
 in of Pamela's head which Sargent had just done in a 
 couple of hours' work. It is wonderful as a likeness and as 
 a bit of rapid execution, giving just her playful prettiness, 
 and the peculiar wave of her hair, a sketch in the manner 
 of Velasquez, with exactly his strong touches, unintelligible 
 when looked close into, but alive when seen at a distance. 
 Mary, too, has been sketched in not unsuccessfully, and 
 Madeline less well. It should make a remarkable picture, 
 probably Sargent's best. He is to be allowed no licence 
 with the magentas and mauves he loves. I met him on 
 the doorstep as he was going out, a rather good looking 
 fellow in a pot hat, whom at my first sight I took to be a 
 superior mechanic. 
 
 " 10th March. — By early train to Guildford to sit to 
 Watts. (It had been arranged for me by Madeline 
 Wyndham that Watts should do my portrait, a special 
 favour he accorded her in deference to their long friend- 
 ship.) The sittings were to be at his house, about three 
 miles off by the Hogsback, an ornamental, not too orna- 
 mented cottage of the usual Victorian kind, which he has 
 christened ' Limnerslease,' much to his friends' amusement, 
 Cockerell tells me. Burne-Jones used to call it ' Dauber's 
 Den,' 'Painter's Palette,' and other. nicknames. The old 
 man, well and alert, went to wOrk at once on me, talking 
 without interruption the whole time, and sometimes, find- 
 ing me a good listener, with eloquence, though he com- 
 plained of having been unable all his life to hit the right 
 word in conversation, or even in writing. He is by nature, 
 he says, a poet, but without the gift of expressing himself 
 in any form of words. That is why he has worked all his 
 life to express himself in colour, which after all he can only 
 do imperfectly. He cares for his art, and desires to do it 
 well, but principally as a means to his end of giving form 
 to his ideas. He has also wished to make these ideas in- 
 telligible to the widest circle of disciples, and for this reason 
 he has refused to connect his art with any special epoch or 
 any special creed. His figures are ideal figures, which will 
 suit all ages and all beliefs. He once received a letter from 
 a woman in Australia, who wrote to tell him that as a girl 
 in Manchester she had found life so hard, she had intended 
 to die, but by accident had seen a photograph of his ' Love 
 and Death,' which had consoled her, and now she was 
 
1899] Waits about Bitrne Jones 389 
 
 married, and prosperous, and happy. She kept the photo- 
 graph always hanging in front of her bed. This he said 
 was a greater satisfaction to him than any success he had 
 had merely as a painter. 
 
 " To some extent he blames Burne-Jones for being too 
 much a man of one age. He (Burne-Jones) had locked him- 
 self up in the fourteenth century and had stayed there. 
 Except for this he spoke warmly of him and of his charm- 
 ing qualities. He told how he had set Burne-Jones once on 
 horseback at Little Holland House, starting him to canter 
 round a ride he had made there, but he forgot some hurdles 
 which had been put up and poor Burne-Jones fell off, nor 
 would he ever be persuaded to mount again. Of Morris, he 
 spoke with less enthusiasm, and I fancy there was a cool- 
 ness between them in later years, though formerly he had 
 seen much of them both. His heroes are Ruskin, Carlyle, 
 and Rossetti, and he quofed ' The last days of my Life' as 
 the finest of all Sonnets, an opinion which has long been 
 mine. He does not think very highly of Rossetti as a 
 painter, rather as a poet. Millais and Leighton were his 
 two special friends among artists, and how many charming 
 and beautiful women ! He spoke more than once of Lady 
 de Vesci. The handsomest head he had ever painted was 
 Sir Henry Taylor's, but his best man's portrait he considers 
 to be Burne-Jones', his best woman's portrait, Madeline 
 Wyndham's. He sets greater store, however, on his allegor- 
 ical subjects than on his portraits. 
 
 " iitk March. — To Limnerslease again, having slept the 
 night at Milford. To-day we talked much on the subject 
 of the destruction of the weak races by the strong, and, like 
 so many people nowadays, while deploring it Watts ex- 
 cused it as inevitable, a law of nature and the fulfilment of 
 destiny. I thought he must have been talking about this to 
 Gerald Balfour, whose portrait he has just been painting, 
 but he told me how he had hardly had any conversation 
 with Gerald during their sittings. With me he has talked 
 uninterruptedly, sometimes leaving his work for five 
 minutes together to explain and illustrate his arguments. 
 Two of his illustrations I remember. Speaking of the 
 ritualistic controversy and the necessity of ceremony in 
 all religions, ' Ceremony,' he said, ' is the substance of 
 religious belief, it is what outline is in a picture, it ought 
 
390 Watt's Good Sayings [1899 
 
 not to be required, indeed it does not exist in nature, but 
 it is often impossible to understand what is meant without 
 it.' This seemed to me a particularly good illustration. 
 Again, speaking of the part reason plays in our religious 
 ideas, ' Here,' he said, pointing to his forefinger, ' is senti- 
 ment, here is faith, here is charity, here is hope, all four 
 fingers stand together on more or less equal terms, yet 
 they can grasp nothing without this,' bending down his 
 thumb, ' which is reason.' He v.as intensel)' pleased when 
 I applauded and said he had always thought it good. 
 
 " i2th JIa?r/i {Sunday'). — At Newbuildings, gathering 
 the first spring flowers, which I am going to colour in my 
 Gerarde's Herbal, the one bought at Morris's Sale. 
 
 " I have concluded the purchase of Fernycroft in the 
 New Forest from Lord Montagu, 31 acres of woodland. 
 It formed part of the hereditary lands of Beaulieu Abbey, 
 an outlying croft where the monks kept their cows. 
 
 " ijfik MarcJi. — Entertained Yorke Powell with others at 
 dinner. I have known him since 1863, when he was a boy, 
 and I a quite young man, travelling in the Pyrenees, but 
 we have hardly met since, though in correspondence now 
 and then on literary and political subjects, where we mostly 
 agree. He was made Professor of History at Oxford, some 
 years ago, and is a good fellow, with a larger mind than 
 Dons usually possess. 
 
 " xjtli March. — Again at Limnerslease. Mrs. Watts took 
 me to see Mrs. Hichens' house close by, where there is a 
 portrait of old Prinsep, the finest Watts ever did. Indeed, 
 I think it almost the finest portrait ever painted in England. 
 The house is set under a chalk pit looking south, and 
 screened from all cold winds. Princess Christian came in, 
 but seeing strangers, decamped. 
 
 '' 24/// March. — The Government has published a meagre 
 parliamentar}' paper upon the doings at Omdurman, and 
 the desecration of the Alahdi's tomb. Of course every- 
 thing is denied, or made to appear to be denied, except the 
 fact, which could not be concealed, of the throwing of 
 the Mahdi's body into the Nile. As to the killing of 
 the wounded, the denial does not include the general 
 order which, without doubt, was given of killing men lying 
 on the ground in battle after they had fallen. This is 
 thought to be excused by the stor_\-, much exagger- 
 
1899J A Visit to Herbert Spencer 391 
 
 ated, of wounded men getting up and firing at our 
 soldiers, but the true reason of the slaughter is that Kitch- 
 ener was campaigning on the cheap, and did not wish to 
 be encumbered with prisoners, and especially wounded 
 prisoners. This, and the desire to have ' a record bag ' as a 
 revenge for Gordon. The destruction of the tomb is a crime 
 of which Kitchener meanly excuses himself by saying he 
 was away when it was done, though he had given the order, 
 and for the political reason of preventing the tomb's be- 
 coming a centre of pilgrimage, and so of fanatical feeling. 
 This is mere fustian. The thing was done to emphasize 
 the revenge taken, young Gordon, Gordon's nephew, 
 having been .sent for from Cairo expressly for the job, and 
 given command of the bombardment during the battle, 
 with orders to fire at the tomb. Afterwards he was in- 
 trusted with the blowing-up of the ruins and the violation 
 of the grave. Kitchener admits that ' the skull was pre- 
 served and handed over to me for disposal,' which leaves it 
 to be implied that young Gordon performed the act of 
 mutilation. 
 
 " 2jth March. — To Brighton to see old Herbert Spencer 
 at his house in Percival Terrace. I found him lying on a 
 sofa in a dressing-gown, with slippers on of an ornamental 
 feminine kind. He began by talking for ten minutes about 
 his health, and explaining that his fresh, rosy colour was 
 no sign of health ; then he got round to the subject of my 
 visit, the militarisms and brutalities of the day, the idealiza- 
 tion of football and all games of force, the rehabilitation of 
 Napoleon and other war-making scoundrels who had long 
 been condemned as such, with the rewriting of history to 
 suit the aggressive ideas now in fashion. He repeated what 
 he had said in his first letter to me, that if he did not 
 believe there would be a return to humane doctrines, it 
 might be in a hundred, it might be in two hundred or three 
 hundred years, he would not move a hand to prevent the 
 destruction of the whole human race. He applauded what 
 I had said in writing to him of its being probably neces- 
 sary that we should be first beaten and invaded here in 
 England by a foreign enemy, and he thought it would be 
 the best thing that could happen. ' I am quite as pessimistic,' 
 he said, ' as \-ou are about the present, on'y I foresee a 
 change in the remote future.' ' In the remote future,' I re- 
 
392 Spencer s Life at Brighton [1899 
 
 plied, ' it will be too late, everything that is interesting and 
 beautiful and happy in the world will have been destroyed. 
 The world will be inhabited then only by the ugly and dull, 
 and miserable white races.' This made him talk of the 
 South Sea Islanders, the Burmese, and other unspoiled 
 people. He said he had intended writing to William Watson 
 to suggest a poem on the gradual degradation of a South 
 Sea Island community by the missionary and the trader. 
 Watson had not much backbone in his poetry, but he 
 thought he could do this. Trade competition was only 
 another form of war waged by the strong against the weak, 
 less abominable, perhaps, than fire and sword. For this 
 reason the Czar's peace proposals should be supported, 
 though they would not result in any real cessation of civil- 
 ized aggression. We talked also about race hatred and the 
 influence women had in fostering it, and I told him about 
 India. He showed me some beautiful photographs he had 
 had sent him from Burmah, of the happy poor people 
 there, and contrasted them with the faces of our own poor. 
 Then complaining of being tired, for he had been talking 
 very energetically, he sent me down to have my luncheon 
 with the two ladies who look after him, a housekeeper and 
 a young lady who plays the piano to him. They are both 
 new in the house, and he seems to have no relations or 
 belongings except these two, and they are strangers. After 
 luncheon I went upstairs again, but Spencer soon tired of 
 talk, and, ringing the bell, he sent for the young pianist, 
 whom he directed to play Masaniello and a piece by Purcell, 
 which she did for twenty minutes. She did this very 
 nervously, as he was continually interrupting her, begging 
 her to play either a little faster or a little slower. This 
 done, we fell to talk again about the domestication of 
 animals. While talking he occasionally gets excited, and 
 jumps up from his sofa and walks hurriedly about the 
 room, until suddenly recollecting himself and his health, he 
 stops. He explained to me that he had been an invalid 
 since he was a young man, and he will be seventy-nine next 
 Tuesday, and has a right to be careful. 
 
 " On the whole I am rather disappointed with Spencer. 
 He is so very dry, and so much wrapped up in himself, his 
 ailments, his work and his ideas, to the exclusion, it seems 
 to me, of individual sympathies. His mind is clear and 
 
IVatts on Spencer 393 
 
 and logical, he expresses himself well, but without eloquence 
 or such power as compels attention ; not once was I able to 
 feel myself in the presence of a great man, only of a very well- 
 informed one, a pedagogue and able reasoner. There was 
 nothing in him of the softening character which old age so 
 often gives, and which is so touching. Still I am glad to 
 have spent this day with him, for his is one of the great 
 names of our time, and his work has been great. His rooms 
 in Perceval Terrace are cheerful, facing the sea, and he 
 seldom moves out, the ladies tell me, except for a drive in 
 the afternoon, nor does he often see people, so I may take 
 his asking me to visit him as a very high compliment. He 
 has promised to send me a copy of his volume on Sociology. 
 At three I left him, and walked back to the station, and so 
 home to Newbuildings, glad not to be a philosopher. 
 
 " 1 2t]i April. — Yesterday and the day before I have been 
 entertaining Prince and Princess Sherbatoff, showing them 
 the stud, with her brother. Count Strogonoff, both highly 
 intelligent Russians, and breeders of Arab horses." [Sherba- 
 toff had travelled in our footsteps in Mesopotamia, and 
 had started an Arab stud on his estate somewhere between 
 Moscow and the Ural mountains, on the same principle of 
 thorough breeding as our own.] 
 
 " Sir Wilfrid Lawson sends me the heads of a speech he 
 intends making on the Soudan vote. It reads like the 
 speech of Balaam, and I have answered him: 'If English 
 Liberals and humanitarians leave it to the Irish to express 
 disapproval of Kitchener's ways with the wounded and his 
 treatment of the Mahdi's head, I can only say that they 
 had better vote in silence. You praise Kitchener for his 
 deeds as a soldier. It is all the argument needed to justify 
 the parliamentary grant. Kitchener did not make the policy 
 of the war, for that he is not responsible, but he was re- 
 sponsible for the brutal way he conducted it, a brutality 
 which makes his success, no very great one, a disgrace.' 
 
 " My final sitting to Watts. The old man was more 
 agreeable and interesting than ever, and we parted on terms 
 of real affection. The portrait is a fine one, the best, he 
 said, he ever painted, but this is more than the truth, for it 
 cannot compare with his great achievements of thirty and 
 forty years ago. Our talk has never flagged for a moment 
 during the sittings. I told him of my visit to Herbert 
 
394 History of the Mahdis Head [1899 
 
 Spencer, and asked whether he had ever painted him? 
 ' How could you expect me,' he said, ' to paint a man with 
 such an upper lip?' He has no opinion of the philosopher 
 as a man, and declares him to be wholh' selfish. 
 
 " 1 8/// April. — The first nightingale. 
 
 " Young Oliver Howard came to dine and sleep, and to 
 consult me about a hare-brained expedition he was bent on 
 to Jerabub and Kufra. I strong!}- advised him to turn his 
 thoughts elsewhere. It is quite enough that his brother 
 H^ubert should have got killed in Africa without his doing 
 the same, and for even a stupider reason. Neither he nor 
 any of his proposed companions have had the smallest ex- 
 perience of the North African desert or know a word of 
 Arabic, though one of the party has been in Somaliland 
 shooting lions. For his father's and mother's sake I dis- 
 suaded him. 
 
 '^ 22nd Apfii. — Anne returned from Egypt, having left 
 Judith and Neville at Paris. 
 
 " 2'jtli April. — X^'ith Cockerell to see the new mosaics at 
 St. Paul's about which there has been angry correspondence 
 in the ' Times.' They are not in the best st\'le of decoration, 
 but the over brilliancy of the mosaics will soon blacken 
 in the London smoke and tone down to the rest. 
 
 " On my wa}' back from London in the evening we 
 
 travelled by accident with D , who as usual was full 
 
 of interesting talk. He told us, with a little pressing and 
 on promise not to give him away, the true history of 
 the Mahdi's head. The mutilation of the body seems all 
 to have come of a mere bit of rowdy nonsense on the part 
 of certain 3'oung English officers. He says it has long 
 been a custom with the members of White's Club who are 
 in the Army to bring back trophies from any wars they 
 may be engaged in and present them to the club. He, 
 
 D , had jokingly proposed to E W to bring 
 
 back the Mahdi's toe-nails from the coming campaign. 
 Kitchener, on this hint, seems to have fancied having the 
 Mahdi's head for himself to make an inkstand of, and gave 
 Gordon the order to dig the body up and keep the head 
 for him. This accordingl}- was done, and at the same time 
 finger-nails were taken by some of the young officers, but 
 they got talking about it at Cairo and hence the trouble. 
 He says he had the whole account of the thing in detail 
 
1899] Kitchener s Early Adventures 395 
 
 from W , and that Kitchener received the head from 
 
 Gordon, who was charged with the destruction of the tomb, 
 and he actually had it (he. Kitchener) as an inkstand until 
 Cromer wrote about it, when he ' put it behind the fire.' 
 
 D was quite incredulous about its having been buried 
 
 at Wady Haifa, or anywhere else. It was just put 'behind 
 the fire.' 
 
 " He gave an interesting account of Kitchener, whom he 
 had known, he said, ever since they were both together at 
 
 Woolwich, before the French war. He, D , was at a 
 
 preparatory military school, reading for the military college, 
 but Kitchener had passed in. Kitchener was ' a rough 
 young devil,' and he and another cadet got into a row, 
 partly about a woman, partly about money, and Kitchener's 
 father, who was poor, refused to pay up for his son. The 
 son, consequently, ran away with the other boy, and was 
 tried b\- court-martial as a deserter. The two went to 
 France and enlisted in the French Army and fought in the 
 war in the Army of the North, and Kitchener got some 
 credit for his handling of a mitrailleuse on one occasion, 
 and eventually, when the war was over, came back to 
 England and got old Linthorn Simmons, then the head of 
 Woolwich School, to forgive and take him back, and he 
 
 got his commission. 'But,' said D , 'he always was 
 
 what I have said, and did not know how to behave.' His 
 conduct afterwards to the Khedive proved this. He was, 
 however, a wonderful organizer, though a bad general. He 
 had very nearly lost the battle at Atbara by his clumsy 
 handling of the troops, and again at Omdurman, when he 
 had wheeled the Egyptian army in such a manner as to 
 place it between the Dervishes and the English contingent, 
 so that these last were unable to take any part in the 
 firing. Now he had been given absolute power in the 
 Soudan, and was using it in the most arbitrary way. When 
 Carlisle went up to Khartoum to visit the grave of his son 
 Hubert, Kitchener ordered him back immediately he had 
 performed this duty. He would not hear of Carlisle's sta)'- 
 ing longer than the second day. 
 
 " yd May. — Dined at the Centenary of the Sussex Club, 
 a piece of local patriotism out of m)' usual way; indeed, it 
 is twenty-five years since I dined with the Club.> There 
 were ninety-three members present, the Duke of Norfolk 
 
396 The Queens Eightieth Birtliday [1899 
 
 presiding, who did the duties simply and well. I sat be- 
 tween Henry Campion of Danny and Brown of Holmbush. 
 They asked me to take the Chair at their next dinner, a 
 thing which would have entailed a speech on me at this 
 one, but I managed to get out of it. My father was one of 
 the first members, having been elected in 1808. 
 
 '' \Zth il/ay. — Yesterday I was in London and met my 
 friend Harry Brand,' just back from Australia, where he 
 has been Governor of a colony. He found it dull work 
 among people without literature, art, or culture of any kind, 
 except a taste for bad music. He w as offered to stay on as 
 Governor-General, but wisely refused. Harry and I are 
 contemporaries and we swore, long ago, the oath of brother- 
 hood, so I have invited him to take up his residence in 
 Mount Street with me till his country place. The Hoo, be- 
 comes vacant in August. 
 
 " \gt/i J/trj'. — Lunched with George W'yndham at Willis's 
 Rooms. He told me of a book )-oung Winston Churchill 
 is publishing, blurting out all kinds of inconvenient truths 
 about the Soudan campaign. The desecration of the 
 Mahdi's tomb \\'inston calls ' a foul deed,' as indeed it 
 was. 
 
 " 26t/i May. — 1 have written to Morle}' on the Kitchener 
 case, as he is taking it up publicly and has made a speech 
 on it at Lydney. The Liberal newspapers, however, are 
 afraid of touching the matter, and the ' Daily News ' burks 
 this portion of his speech. 
 
 " 2'jth J/crr. — I have finished m}- poem, ' Satan Absolved,' 
 and feel more content with life in consequence, having the 
 sense of having done all I could, and having made my 
 individual protest against the abominations of the Victorian 
 Age. The 24th was the Queen's birthday. Her Majesty 
 being now eight)-. There is a foolish letter in the ' Times ' 
 pointing out the wonderful fulfilment of a prophecy of 
 Sidney Smith's, \\-ho, si.xt)- years ago, exhorted Her Majesty 
 to make it the boast of her life to avoid war and to have it 
 on her conscience to say, ' I have made no orphans or 
 widows.' This for one whose reign has seen whole races of 
 beings exterminated under her rule, and only the other 
 day thanked God that her troops had destroyed 30,000 
 Dervishes ! 
 
 ' Lord Hampden. 
 
1899] England's Over lordship of the World 397 
 
 " 2?>th May. — George Wyndham came down last night 
 to dine and sleep, and to-day I drove him to Worthing, 
 where we lunched with Henley. On our way over the 
 Downs we stopped and walked up to Chanclebury Ring, 
 which George had never done, and found some white dog- 
 violets nearly at the highest point. George has told me a 
 good deal about the internal rivalries in the Cabinet, which 
 may well break out if anything happens to Lord Salisbury. 
 What he calls the reactionary Tories are headed by Hicks 
 Beach, but the young Tories, including himself, would not 
 serve under Beach. As long as Arthur Balfour is there 
 they will follow him, but if any accident sent him too 
 out of the leadership they would revolt from the main Tory 
 body and form a third party of ultra-imperialists with 
 Chamberlain. About foreign politics George says that it 
 is now simply a triangular battle between the Anglo-Saxon 
 race, the German race, and the Russian, which shall have 
 the hegemony of the whole world. France he considers 
 gone as a great Power, as much gone as Spain or Austria, 
 but the Emperor William means to be supreme overlord. 
 He is holding his hand for the moment till he can get an 
 efficient navy, but as soon as this is ready there will be a 
 coalition against England. He, George, and the young 
 Imperialists are going in for England's overlordship and 
 they won't stand half-measures or economy in pushing it on. 
 
 " '^rd June. — Young Winston Churchill has made a 
 speech in which, while condemning the desecration of the 
 Mahdi's tomb, he excuses Kitchener on the ground that it 
 was done in his absence and that he was keeping silence in 
 order not to incriminate his subordinates. This throws the 
 odium of the deed on young Gordon, a quite innocent 
 person, for both Anne and Judith, who have been seeing 
 Gordon and his ^vife at Cairo all through the winter, assure 
 me that he repudiates the deed with absolute disgust. I 
 have consequently written to the ' Daily News ' telling the 
 truth about it. 
 
 "' 4tk June {Sunday). — Lunched at Sir Wilfrid Lawson's 
 where I found John Morley. We had a long two hours' 
 talk about the Kitchener vote which is to come off to- 
 morrow. Morley is very fierce against Kitchener, and I 
 gave him what help I could, besides what I wrote to him 
 on the subject. But he is hampered by all sorts of con- 
 
39^ The jMahdis Head A gam [1899 
 
 ditions. I urged him not to admit the capture of Omdur- 
 man as a great feat of arms. It was a trumpery affair for 
 which to give a peerage, but he would not take this Hne, 
 though it really invalidates his whole argument. He is 
 already in a depressed frame of mind, for Campbell 
 Bannerman is to second the vote, and he thinks the result 
 of the debate will be to make a further cleavage between 
 the two sections of the Liberal part}', his own anti- 
 military section being left with a small minority. Even 
 Harcourt's vote he thought was doubtful. I proposed to 
 go and see Harcourt and try and persuade him to vote 
 against the grant, but Morley said, ' If you do, for God's 
 sake don't tell him you have seen me,' which shows how 
 little confidence in each other there is among the chiefs, 
 even of the anti-Jingo section. He ended, however, by 
 saying I might as well go to Harcourt without mentioning 
 him. I found Sir X^'illiam at the Avondale Hotel in capital 
 spirits, but when, after some talk about the New Forest, I 
 mentioned the Mahdi's head, I saw his countenance fall, 
 and he changed the subject to the Transvaal, where he 
 thinks trouble is coming, and then while we were talking 
 about it he was suddenly called out, and I did not see him 
 again. I asked Lady Harcourt when we were alone to try 
 and get him to support Morley, but she said, ' I have given 
 up trying to get him to do anything but what he chooses,' 
 which I take to mean he will do nothing. 
 
 " S^''' Jittie. — Again to London where I found a note 
 from Lady Harcourt, telling me that what had interrupted 
 ray talk with Sir William yesterday was the news brought 
 him of Loulou having been taken seriously ill, so that his 
 wedding, which was fixed for to-morro\^■, has had to be 
 put off 
 
 "My letter about Kitchener is in the 'Daily News' 
 neutralized according to an editorial dodge by printing 
 next to it what is headed as ' The true story ' in contradic- 
 tion to mine. At first I was alarmed le.st young Gordon 
 might have confessed, in spite of his denial, that he was 
 the real culprit, so I went down to Chelsea and lunched 
 with my kinsman, Gerald Blunt, at the Rectory (whose 
 son's wife was a sister of Gordon's), and he reassured me 
 on this point. He says that Gordon's famil\- are furious at 
 the slur cast on him. Then at four to the House of Commons. 
 
1899] Morley Bhmders Badly 399 
 
 George had got me a good seat in the special gallery, and 
 I found ms'self among friends, Rennell Rodd, George Peel, 
 Canon Wilberforce, and others. Kitchener, who returned to 
 England last night, was sitting with Roberts in the Peers' 
 gallery. .-Vfter the usual irrelevancies, Arthur Balfour 
 opened the debate in a brief speech recounting Kitchener's 
 services, for the Opposition was quite unequal to the 
 occasion. Kitchener's name had not been very warmly 
 received, and it would have been easy to appeal to the 
 better feeling of the House, though the result of the vote 
 could not have been altered, but Campbell Bannerman's 
 rising to second the vote, though he expressed himself 
 pretty strongly on the ' vulgarity ' of the desecration of the 
 tomb, put things at once into a false position, and Morle)- 
 who followed to oppose it, with the strongest of possible 
 cases, proved feeble beyond all recorded feebleness. His 
 arguments were weak to fatuity, and he gave himself away 
 over and over again till the House laughed at him. So much 
 ■was this the case that Balfour already found himself in 
 sympathy with the House before he rose to reply. He did 
 this in a speech of great skill and eloquence, which, as 
 mere oratory, it was a relief to listen to, and he succeeded 
 even to taking a high moral line with the wretched Morley, 
 and in proving to him conclusively that Kitchener was 
 absolutely justified, indeed bound by every principle of 
 right feeling to blow up the tomb, dig up the body, chuck 
 it into the Nile, and what he called ' disperse the remains.' 
 Absurd as his argument was it was conclusive with the 
 House, and Morley had not even the wit to ask what be- 
 came of the poor head, or who was entrusted with the 
 various operations. I doubt if Morley will ever make a 
 speech again in the House, I should not if I were he. 
 
 " Personally I am not altogether dissatisfied with the 
 result. We have gained at least this, that we have forced 
 Balfour and the Government and the House of Commons to 
 declare themselves in favour of the extreme abominations of 
 war, and have in so far exposed the hypocrisy of modern 
 England. It is better so than that the country should 
 have it in its power to boast that it did not approve, 
 although it did the deed. Kitchener has got his ^30,000, 
 his money perish with him! I was glad to notice that, ex- 
 cept old Roberts, who came with him to the House, none of 
 
400 Kitchena- Explains [1899 
 
 his brother Peers in the gallery offered him a congratula- 
 tion, or spoke a word to him. 
 
 " -jth June. — In all the newspaper articles on the Kitchener 
 Debate, not one has the wit to see the flaw in Balfour's 
 argument. It rests entirely on Kitchener's assertion that 
 he had the Mahdi's tomb profaned, and the body dispersed 
 deliberately with a political intention, that of publicly 
 showing the Mohammedan world of Africa that the Mahdi 
 was an impostor. The untruth, however, of this is easily 
 discoverable even in the meagre Blue Book published. If 
 it had been true it is certain Kitchener would have reported 
 the fact with the reasons to Cromer at the time, and that 
 Cromer would have reported them at the time to the Foreign 
 Office. But though the thing happened in September, and 
 though Kitchener in the meanwhile had been back in 
 London, and in personal communication with everybody, 
 including her gracious Majesty the Queen, the Government 
 professed to be ignorant of the facts until the month of 
 February, the earliest document in the Blue Book being 
 one of February 17, when Cromer sent home a communica- 
 tion of Februar)' i from Kitchener. Kitchener then for the 
 first time gives his explanation thus: 'I would add,' he 
 says, ' that my action regarding the tomb of Mohammed 
 Achmet, the so-called Mahdi, was taken after due delibera- 
 tion, and prompted solely by political considerations.' How 
 anybody at all conversant with the wa)- in which Blue 
 Books are edited can be simple enough to believe in face 
 of this comparison of dates, that the ' political considera- 
 tions ' were not an after thought, passes my understanding, 
 yet it is clear that Morley and even the Irish overlooked 
 the absurdity. The whole discussion in Parliament was 
 unreal, nobody wanted to believe, except perhaps Morley. 
 The Irish look on Kitchener with a sneaking regard, as in 
 some measure an Irishman, while Dillon has Catholic 
 sympathies which prevent his quite disapproving the 
 crusade. In this way Balfour's absurd argument held its 
 ground, and I suppose will hold it in history. 
 
 " iSfh /7tne. — The plot for annexing the Transvaal has 
 taken a new development. Chamberlain, to force the hand 
 of the Government, has published a despatch of Milner's 
 written on the 4th of May of the most aggressive kind, and 
 the newspapers are full of flame and fury, the ' Dail}' News ' 
 
1899] Milner s Mission to make War 401 
 
 leading the chorus. They talk about Milner's ' cool and 
 impartial judgement' just as if Milner had not been speci- 
 ally selected by Chamberlain to put the job through. 
 Milner was sent to Egypt ten years ago to convert English 
 Liberal opinion to the plan of remaining on there instead 
 of withdrawing the garrison, and having succeeded in that 
 mission he has been sent to the Cape to convert English 
 Liberal opinion to the idea of reannexing the Transvaal. 
 Milner, though an excellent fellow personally, is quite an 
 extremist as an imperial agent, and his journalistic ex- 
 perience on the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' has given him the 
 length of John Bull's foot very accurately, so that he is 
 invaluable to the Empire builders. Now thei'e will certainly 
 be war in South Africa. They have tried every kind of 
 fraud to get their way, but old Kruger has been too astute 
 for them, so they will try force. They seem to have squared 
 the German Emperor, France is in chaos, they think their 
 opportunity come. Chamberlain will not rest until he has 
 Kruger's head on a charger. The Boers, however, will fight, 
 and there is some chance of a general war between the 
 Dutch and the English in South Africa, which may alleviate 
 the condition of the only people there whose interests I 
 really care for in the quarrel, namely the blacks. It will 
 also be a beautiful exposure of our English sham philan- 
 thropy, if at the very moment the Peace Congress is sitting 
 at the Hague, we flout its mediation and launch into an 
 aggressive war. Anything is better than the general hand- 
 shaking of the great white thieves and their amicable 
 division of the spoils. 
 
 " I am now staying at Oxford with York Powell at Christ 
 Church. Powell is an excellent good fellow, and seems to 
 be much liked at Oxford in spite of his somewhat heterodox 
 views on politics, for he has a certain Socialistic tendency 
 enough to have widened his mind. We had a deal of talk 
 to-day, principally on poetry and literature, of which he 
 has a large knowledge. I told him, among other things, of 
 my having consulted Jowett fifteen years ago half seriously 
 about the possibility of my entering the University as an 
 Undergraduate, and how he had answered me. ' You could 
 never pass the examination for Balliol, but might try 
 Christchurch.' 'Insolent dog!' said Powell, resenting the 
 slur on his College. It is lovely weather, the Christchurch 
 
 D D 
 
402 Kriiger at Bloeiufontein [1899 
 
 meadow looking its best, and while we sat on a bench in 
 the Elm Avenue talking, a little redstart was watching us. 
 Then we went into the Cathedral to see the Burne-Jones 
 Morris windows. Prayers were going on for the Queen, the 
 Prince of Wales, and the Houses of Parliament, and they 
 were intoning, ' Give peace in our time, O Lord.' Then we 
 dined in the hall, and talked with two Dons, M)-ers and 
 another, about Eastern travel and horses, till I got awaj- 
 to bed. 
 
 "' 2ist Jiuic. — Lane will publish 'Satan Absolved.' 
 
 " 2%th June. — Herbert Spencer consents to have 'Satan 
 Absolved ' dedicated to him, but is in a terrible fright lest 
 it should be found out that he gave the idea of the poem, 
 ' on account,' he saya, ' of the odium theologicuin and the 
 injury it might do to the spread of his philosophy,' so I 
 have written a preface without exactly saying this, though 
 it is not very courageous of him to leave me alone in the 
 coming battle. 
 
 " 2gth Jime. — Breakfasted with George and Sibell, who 
 showed me two very interesting letters from her son Bendor, 
 describing the interview between Kruger and his chief, 
 Milner (whose private secretary he is) at Bloemfontein. 
 The letters were written actually during the conference, 
 and contained sketches of old Kruger, whom he described 
 as very old and infirm, and also very sly. He talked of 
 Kruger as ' bluffing.' He writes with a boy's enthusiasm 
 for his chief, and seems to be enjoying himself greatly. I 
 showed George my preface to ' Satan Absolved,' which he 
 thinks cannot fail to attract attention. 
 
 " On my way home by the late train I travelled as far as 
 Dorking with Harry Gust. I gave him my view of the wa\- 
 the Transvaal quarrel had been engineered by Chamberlain 
 and Alilner. He professed to regard this as the extreme of 
 political scepticism. ' A poet,' he said, ' should not be so 
 unbelieving in honest}'.' He was on his way down to 
 Admiral Maxse's, where he was to meet Meredith and 
 others. 
 
 " Zth July. — Our annual Arab Sale, an immense concourse 
 of people, 380 sitting down to luncheon in the tent. Colonel 
 Sdanovitch our principal buyer for the Russian Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " Zth Aug. — I have been staying for the last few weeks at 
 
1899] Chaniberlam forcing on JVm'' 403 
 
 Fernycroft, but to-day I went to London, where I found 
 Hampden at my rooms in Mount Street. He has been 
 living there all the last month. We went in the evening to 
 see the Savage South African Show. It is a return to the 
 shows of Imperial Rome, minus the bloodshed, and is 
 worth seeing as a spectacle, though it is monstrous to look 
 on at these captives brought to London to make a Roman 
 holiday. The white swaggerers who are given the beau role 
 to pla}' in the exhibition are of course disgusting, but the 
 black men managed to preserve their dignity and make 
 the others look foolish. The superiority of the black man 
 over the white was throughout conspicuous, and it did not 
 need the patter of the whites on the stage to explain that 
 it was only their maxim guns that gave the latter their 
 victory." 
 
 From 9th August to i6th August I was at Fernycroft, 
 my new acquisition in the New Forest, and after that on 
 my annual summer driving tour once more visiting St. 
 Fagans, where, amongst others, I found Lord Rowton and 
 Sanderson, of the Foreign Office. 
 
 ''2ist Aug: — Both are good company, and we have had 
 much friendly discussion of politics. Rowton tells me that 
 never with his consent will Dizzy's Memoirs be published. 
 He is light in hand and eminently reasonable, full of amus- 
 ing anecdotes, especially of his old master, and of his 
 lodging-house plans, an odd hobby, for it is not altogether 
 a charity, paying, he tells me, 4 per cent, on the capital, but 
 it doubtless does much good. Sanderson has talked freely 
 on the Transvaal quarrel, and expresses very moderate 
 opinions. He believes in a pacific arrangement. This in 
 contradistinction to Windsor our host who, though the 
 quietest and most moderate of men on other topics, takes 
 fire about the Transvaal almost as a personal matter. 
 
 " 2g(k Aug. — Back at Fernycroft. Chamberlain has made 
 another violent speech, and it is clear now, as, indeed, it 
 has been all through, that he is forcing on a war with the 
 Boers. The Liberal press is childish, and there is practically 
 no opposition. The Liberal party has swallowed so many 
 violences and so many diplomatic frauds in the last twenty 
 years that it may as well make up its mind to swallow this 
 too. I, as an enemy of Empire, shall say not a word. 
 
 " 1st Sept. — Partridge shooting with Mark Napier and 
 
404 Logic of the Game LaiL<s [18^9 
 
 Terence Bourke. I shot well, the first time since my illness, 
 killing twelve birds in as many shots, but I am no longer 
 keen for sport of any kind, and go out principally as an old 
 custom and to justify the expense of game preserving. My 
 logic about shooting here in England is, that it is the 
 on!}- way of preventing the destruction of wild animals. If 
 there was no shooting, no one would be at the expense of 
 paying gamekeepers, nor would it be possible to prevent 
 the rag-tag and bobtail of the towns from snaring and net- 
 ting. The abolition of the game laws would mean the 
 extinction not only of all game, but of the small wild birds 
 and beasts, too, which enjoy the peace of the protected 
 covers, while, if I did not go out shooting myself, my game- 
 keepers would take no trouble to prevent poaching, so I 
 kill my kw brace of partridges and pheasants, that the rest 
 may live in peace. In Egypt, where there are no game laws 
 and no birdsnesting, I never fire a gun. 
 
 " 3r^ Sept. {Szutdnj'). — I have written a long letter to 
 Frederic Harrison about the Transvaal, apropos of his open 
 letter to Lord Salisbury, which has just been published. It 
 is principally to explain to him that he is mistaken if he 
 really relies on Lord Salisbury to control Chamberlain, or 
 to do an)'thing to prevent a war which he and the Queen 
 desire. Also to let him know what Milner's position is in 
 the affair. 
 
 " iitk Sept. — The world has gone mad over the verdict 
 of guilty given in the Dreyfus case. Of course it is abomin- 
 able, but what did anyone expect? It was clear from the 
 time that Gallifet took office that there would be a com- 
 promise of the case, and that the compromise would only 
 be that Dreyfus should be found guilty and then pardoned, 
 and that will be the end of it. As to our virtuous selves, we 
 are of course in a state of splendid denunciation of our 
 neighbour's sin, this at the ver}- moment that we are push- 
 ing forward a new raid on the Boers, certainly no smaller 
 public iniquit)', huge though the other may be. I drove to- 
 day to Malwood, but Sir William was away. Lady Har- 
 court would not hear of war with the Transvaal. 
 
 " i6th Sept. — I have written again to Harrison about the 
 Transvaal. He answered me a week ago, urging me to 
 write to the ' Times ' in the same sense as I had to him, and 
 as to Salisbury saying, ' It is well to attribute virtue to a 
 
1S99] Morley Gives Away the Case for Peace 405 
 
 powerful man, even if he has it not. It must make him 
 doubt of it.' This I cannot do, as I am certain the ' Times ' 
 would not publish such a letter. I have explained to him 
 how Buckle is one of the gang acting with Rhodes, and 
 how the Jameson Raid was concocted, so to say, in the 
 ' Times ' office, and how there was no true peace party in 
 England. The only difference between Liberals and Con- 
 servatives in these cases is, that while both rob with the 
 cry of ' your money or your life,' the Liberals would like 
 the money given up peaceably, the others after a fight. 
 I ha\'e told him that I do not believe in the possibility of 
 any change of opinion until we have got a good beating 
 ourselves, and that it is by no means impossible the Boers 
 may make a formidable stand. • In any case it would be 
 better for the world that they should be destroyed fighting 
 for their independence, than that they should be bullied or 
 cheated out of it. 
 
 " \Zth Sept. — Fernycroft. A telegram came from Made- 
 line Wyndham to say she was coming to spend the day 
 here. I accordingly met her at Southampton. On the way 
 there I read in the papers the Boers' refusal of Chamber- 
 lain's ultimatum. A very dignified document it is, and one 
 very difficult for our people to answer. Morley had already a 
 da)' or two ago at a meeting in Manchester given away the 
 whole Liberal case against the war, publicly approving the 
 Franchise demand made by our Government on the 
 Transvaal, a mere red herring which the Radicals have 
 run to in full cry. The consequence is that the whole 
 English press to-day is with the Government, and war is 
 certain." [N.B. The pretext of demanding the franchise 
 for the Outlanders in the Transvaal was a trap laid by 
 Milner especially for Morley and the Radicals, who stepped 
 into it precisely as was intended. Once having approved 
 the demand it was impossible for these with any logic to 
 disapprove the military steps taken to enforce the demand 
 on Kruger, and war became a necessity.] 
 
 " 21.?^ Sept. — The news is all very ominous, indeed it will 
 be a miracle if war does not break out of itself on the 
 frontier without further waiting, and so give our Govern- 
 ment the pretext it wants. Under the circumstances I 
 have resolved to publish my letter of the 2nd to Harrison. 
 
 " Dreyfus has been pardoned ; and so the case ends ac- 
 
4o6 TVitk Frederic Harrison at SrUton Place [1S99 
 
 cording to programme. Our papers are in a righteous fury 
 and Dreyfus swears he will continue the struggle. But it 
 will not end here. It has cost France dear — her position 
 on the Nile, her position as a great European Power, and 
 her good name in the world. Gallifet deserves ^\-ell of his 
 country for the courage he has shown and the wisdom in 
 ending it. 
 
 " 2.6th Sept. — Frederic Harrison writes that he wishes to 
 see me about the Transvaal. He warns me that I should 
 have to modify my letter to liim if I sent it to the ' Times.' 
 It was 'violently actionable,' he said, and as I should 
 have no defence, it would cost me ^10,000 to have it 
 printed as it stood. But he hoped I will publish something. 
 He also tells me as a secret that, at his suggestion, the 
 Queen of Holland has, he believes, written to our gracious 
 Majesty, begging her to intervene to stop the war, which 
 otherwise is inevitable. This would seem the best chance, 
 though nothing is more certain than that Queen Victoria 
 has been a prime mover in the Government polic}-. These 
 military blood sheddings are not displeasing to Her 
 Majesty, and she has just allowed Kitchener to make her 
 a present of a white ass from Omdurman. 
 
 " On receipt of this letter I went to London and at 
 Mount Street found Hampden. He tells me Lord Salis- 
 bury has arranged with Portugal to take immediate 
 possession of Delagoa Bay.' This he has learned con- 
 fidentially from the Colonial Office. I then went down to 
 Sutton Place, in which delightful old house I now am 
 staying with Frederic Harrison and his brother, 
 
 " 27?'// Sept. — Sutton Place. I have had a long talk with 
 Harrison about the Transvaal, which we both think must 
 fight unless indeed there is royal interference in Holland. 
 We have decided not to publish m\' letter as being too 
 libellous, also the time is a little gone by for it to do much 
 good. I read him m}^ ' Satan Absolved.' He thinks it 
 should be the sensation of the year. He will write a review 
 of it in the ' Nineteenth Centurj-,' refuting its attack on 
 humanity and giving me an opportunity of defending my 
 ideas in prose. This will make it almost certainly a success. 
 
 " The Harrisons, or rather, Sidney Harrison and his 
 
 ' Compare Dr. Dillon's book, "The Eclipse of Russia." 
 
iSgg] Kitcheficr " Such a Stern Man" 407 
 
 mother, have been tenants of Sutton for twenty-five years. 
 The house is much dilapidated as to doors and windows, 
 and is a fearfully cold house to inhabit even in September, 
 having, unlike most old houses, ridiculously small fireplaces, 
 which seem to have been alwa)-s there. 1 slept in the west 
 wing, the only spare bedroom, big as the house is. I have 
 known Sutton Place as long ago as theyear 1855, when it was 
 occupied by my cousins, the Lefevres. In those days there 
 was a Catholic chapel in the east wing to which we used 
 to be sent on Sundays from West Horsley. The east wing 
 was then^ uninhabited, a melancholy romantic vacancy with 
 a great staircase, hung with family portraits mouldering on 
 the walls. The chapel was in an upper room used for mass 
 on Sundays, according to an old endowment. Now the 
 wing has been restored and is occupied and the chapel 
 placed elsewhere. 
 
 " 2gth Sept. — Back to London. Lady Lytton tells me 
 that Kitchener is a great favourite at Court. She was with 
 the Queen and Kitchener when they went to Netley 
 Hospital, and was impressed with Kitchener's manner to 
 the wounded soldiers. ' What these Royal personages 
 admire,' she said, ' is that he is such a stern man.' 
 
 " 30^/2 Sept. — My cousin, Gerald Henry Blunt and his 
 wife fshe is General Gordon's niece and sister to Colonel 
 Bill Gordon) is here at Newbuildings to dine and sleep, 
 and I have heard from her the whole story of the digging 
 up of the Mahdi at first hand, or rather, as her brother told 
 it her. ' Bill,' she said, ' was entrusted with the bombard- 
 ment of the tomb from the gunboat on the river during 
 the battle of Omdurman, and after it he was ordered to 
 blow up the ruined remains of the dome, as being already 
 shattered and unsafe. This he did, but it was no part of 
 his orders to interfere with the body of the Mahdi. It was 
 left untouched under the ruins until Kitchener's return 
 from Fashoda, when Kitchener had it dug up and thrown 
 into the river. Bill was not present at this, nor was the 
 job assigned to him, but Kitchener and most of his staff 
 were present, and Kitchener ordered the head to be 
 kept, intending to send it to the College of Surgeons, as 
 the head was a very large and remarkable one. It was sent 
 on board the steamer in a kerosene tin and taken down to 
 Cairo, but was never in Bill's charge, and he disapproved 
 
4o8 Gordon's Account of the Alahdi's Head [1S99 
 
 of the whole business. Eventually when the scandal was 
 made about it, the head was entrusted to two English 
 officers to take up the river again to Wady Haifa.' These 
 reported that they ' buried it at night, somewhere in 
 the desert,' they don't know where, so very possibly 
 
 D 's account of its having been 'put behind the fire' is 
 
 correct. Mrs. Gerald Blunt thanked me profusely for the 
 letter I had written to the ' Daily News ' in her brother's 
 defence, and said that Bill considered that Kitchener 
 had treated him unfairly in the affair. They had all made 
 a scapegoat of him because he did not stand in with them 
 in certain not very straightforward things. She is a nice, 
 cheerful little woman, enthusiastic about her ' Uncle 
 Charlie,' and not at all conventional about the militar\- 
 nonsense of the day. 
 
 " ■^oth Sept. — To the Hoo, where I found a family part}-. 
 Hampden and his wife, and sons and daughters. Nothing 
 is talked of but the Boer war. I notice that Harry, who 
 was quite moderate about it when he first came home from 
 Australia, has now imbibed all the violent Liberal-Unionist 
 views regarding it. His eldest son is ordered to the war, 
 and the younger ones talked loudly about ' exterminating 
 the Boers.' We expect hourly now to hear of guns gone off 
 on the frontier. 
 
 " 2«(/ Oct. — Back to Newbuildings. The 'Chronicle' is 
 running a new red herring to-day, and has proposed send- 
 ing the Duke of Devonshire out to South Africa, of all men 
 in the world, to arrange a peace. They are ready, however, 
 to follow e\ery false scent thrown in their way. The 
 Government's present plan is to try and make people think 
 they don't want war, and don't want to wipe out Majuba, 
 and don't want to annex the Transvaal. We shall see 
 when it is over. If, after a successful campaign, the Trans- 
 vaal is not annexed, and Milner is not made a peer, they 
 may claim not to have intended it; but both these things 
 will happen. 
 
 " Jtk Oct. — We have been expecting the Boers to ad- 
 vance on Natal all the week, but something has delayed 
 them. Perhaps the abortive attempt b\' the Queen of Hol- 
 land to intervene with our Queen. The Boers seem to be 
 losing their chance by this delay, but I fancy old Kruger 
 knows what he is about. He has, I think, to consult his 
 
iSgg] Dr. Bzidge on the Horse in Egypt 409 
 
 friends in Europe, at Berlin and elsewhere, before each 
 important nnove. He has managed to get the whole sym- 
 pathy of the Continent with him, indeed, of the whole 
 world except ourselves and the Americans. These last are 
 backing us, as we backed them in their iniquity against the 
 Filipinos. The Transvaal Committee, too, in Manchester, 
 has been telegraphing absurd messages to Kruger, telling 
 him that the Duke of Devonshire may be trusted. If this 
 has at all influenced the old man, the Transvaal Com- 
 mittee deserves hanging, for the delay of the week may 
 cost him dear. 
 
 " gth Oct. — The men at the Clubs now mock at Kruger, 
 saying he won't fight, never meant to fight, and the rest. 
 Reginald Carew, whom I met at the Travellers, talked in 
 this sense. He leaves for South Africa with Buller's staff 
 on Saturday, but I told him not to be discouraged, that 
 the Boers would certainly not cave in. He thinks they have 
 lost what chance they had by waiting. Perhaps so. Still 
 they will fight." [N.B. This was General Pole Carew, who 
 went on Buller's Staff I remember him lamenting his bad 
 luck in the belief he had that what little fighting there 
 might be would have been over long before Buller's arrival. 
 He distinguished himself during the war principally, I 
 think, as being the first to burn down the Boer farms. He 
 is a connection of mine through the Glanvilles. I had 
 known him in India when he was Lytton's A.D.C. It had 
 been arranged at that time that he was to go with me as 
 representing Lytton on the journey we proposed taking 
 that year in Arabia, but which Cavagnari's death at Kabul 
 and Lytton's recall from India prevented. (See ' India 
 under Ripon.')] 
 
 " \oth Oct. — The streets are placarded with the Boer 
 ultimatum, so I hope the end has come. 
 
 " To the British Museum with Cockerell, and savi^ Dr. 
 Budge, of the Egyptian Department. He gave us a deal of 
 information about the Hyksos and Assyrians in connection 
 with Horse History. But all these authorities differ so 
 much from each other in what they tell you, that one can- 
 not have much confidence in their knowledge. As Huxley 
 said, it is still all ' guess work.' 
 
 " \2th Oct. — Dined with Sibell and George, and Lady 
 Windsor in Park Lane, and went with them to see ' King 
 
4 1 o Kruge] ■ is Bluffing [1899 
 
 John ' at Her Majesty's theatre, an egregious performance. 
 I never cared about ' King John,' and, as acted by Tree, it 
 was a violent piece of ranting. George, with whom I walked 
 home after it, told me that Tree had chosen the play as 
 being full of Jingo tags and no Popery talk. But the 
 audience was too dull to seize the points. 
 
 " We talked much about the war, which is declared to- 
 day. George's brother Guy is on White's Staff at Lad\'- 
 smith, and he expects them to advance. White's orders 
 from England have been generally to stand on the defen- 
 sive, but George is sure he will not remain quiet, and ' of 
 course we must leave all liberty to the men on the spot.' 
 Baden Powell is at Mafeking, and there will be fighting 
 
 there. He told me a good story of a certain J , who is 
 
 notorious for keeping clear of danger. He has just tele- 
 graphed to his wife from Kimberley, seven hundred miles 
 away from Mafeking, ' War declared. Mafeking will be 
 attacked by Boers to-morrow — probably destroyed. No 
 cause for anxiety.' About the general prospects of the 
 war, George still believes in the theor\' that Kruger is 
 ' bluffing,' and that after a bit of a fight he will knock 
 under to Buller and make terms, otherwise he thinks it will 
 be a very long and tough job. He says that the Cabinet 
 v/ould really have come to an arrangement with Kruger 
 but for the bitterness of the feeling against Chamberlain. 
 There was a moment when they would have accepted terms 
 \\'hich, while giving Chamberlain an appearance of a diplo- 
 matic success, would have left the real advantage to Kruger. 
 Kruger, he thinks, ought to have accepted the proposal of 
 inquiry and discussion, have agreed to go himself to Cape 
 Town, and then have delayed and put off till everybody 
 was tired of it. He had himself heard Chamberlain say, 
 when they expected such acceptance by Kruger, ' It seems 
 my failure has been changed into &pcean.' Xow, howe\'er, 
 there is no way but to fight it out. I told him I, too, was 
 glad it was to be so. My chief fear had been lest the Boers 
 should be jockeyed out of their independence without 
 fighting. Besides, I look upon the war as perhaps the first 
 nail driven into the coffin of the British Empire. I believe 
 that if the Boers can hold out six months Europe will 
 intervene. 
 
 " \yth Oct. — In South Africa the Boers are advancing 
 
1899] Victories of Glencoe and E lajidslaagte 41 1 
 
 steadily southward, and have invested Mafeking and Kim- 
 berley. Their plan is doubtless to get the Dutch in Cape 
 Colony to rise and join them. It seems their best chance. 
 Buller went off on Saturday to take command of the British 
 Army. They gave him what is called a ' send off' at South- 
 ampton by crying a bogus victory in the streets. 
 
 " Swinburne has published a ridiculous sonnet in favour 
 of the war, and Kipling has also been in the ' Times.' My 
 ' Satan Absolved ' must stand for poetry on the other side. 
 I got an advance copy of it to-day. 
 
 " \<^th Oct. — Newbuildings. Hampden and Neville are 
 here. Much argument about the Transvaal war. Hampden 
 very fierce in defence of the Government. We shot to-day, 
 Mark Napier joining us as fourth gun. Violent discussions 
 again in the evening, Mark maintaining that, while the 
 English officers are good, the rank and file are worthless, 
 and that in a long campaign the English regiments would 
 go to pieces; Hampden annoyed, as having a son in the 
 army. But all ended pleasantly. 
 
 "2ij^ Oct. — The Boers have been beaten in an attack 
 they have made upon White's Camp. George had the 
 happy task in Parliament, as Under Secretary for War, of 
 announcing the victory. 
 
 " 2'i,rd Oct. — More victories. The ' Chronicle,' after 
 championing the Boer cause all the summer, has now gone 
 clean round, and shouts triumph with the rest. It is a 
 dastardly world. 
 
 " 2jth Oct. — To London. People are not so pleased now 
 with the war in Natal, as, in spite of the reported victories 
 at Glencoe and Elandslaagte, Dundee has had to be evacu- 
 ated, the guns and wounded being left behind. They say 
 Ladysmith will now be invested. Guy Wyndham is there, 
 with White's staff in the threatened position. 
 
 " 2^th Oct. — Herbert Spencer has written again about 
 ' Satan Absolved.' He is disappointed at my not having 
 stuck to his idea in the poem, but on the whole he approves. 
 ' Unquestionably,' he says, ' Satan's description of man and 
 his doings is given with great power, and ought to bring to 
 their senses millions of hypocrites who profess the current 
 religion. I wish you would emphasize more strongly the 
 gigantic lie daily enacted, the contrast between the Christian 
 professions and the Pagan actions, and the perpetual insult 
 
412 Harcourfs opinion of Rhodes [1S99 
 
 to One the)' call Omniscient in thinking they can compound 
 for atrocious deeds by laudator}- words.' 
 
 " \st A'ov. — News of a great defeat of the British army 
 before Ladysmith. Two of Her Majesty's best regiments, 
 the Royal Dublin and the Gloucester, laid down their arms 
 to the Boers, 2,000 men of our most veteran troops. There 
 seems now a chance of the whole British army capitulating 
 before Buller and his men can relieve them from England. 
 Letters from old Watts and Kegan Paul, both in sympathy 
 about ' Satan Absolved.' 
 
 " 2iid Nov. — To Malwood with Anne and stopped to 
 lunch. After it, old Sir William took me into his smoking 
 room, and we talked over the whole South African case. 
 The old man is, I think, secretly just as pleased as I am 
 with the success of the Boers, though, when I said I should 
 like to see the Boers established in Cape Town, he pro- 
 tested he could not go with me as far as that. However, he 
 spoke strongh' enough, and told me a number of most in- 
 teresting things about Rhodes and Milner. When he was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893, Rhodes came to him 
 about his railway project and humbugged him not a little. 
 Sir William showed me a map on which Rhodes had 
 marked his schemes, and he came again, when he was in 
 England after the Raid, ' to face the music' Sir William 
 says he is an astonishing rogue and liar, but occasionally 
 blurted out truths other rogues would hide, and he had 
 boasted how he bought up ever>'body by putting them into 
 good things on the Stock Exchange. He said that, though 
 he, Rhodes, was certainly privy to the projected revolution 
 at Johannesburg, he did not think he knew precisely of the 
 Jameson Raid. The reason the Outlanders at the last 
 moment would not rise was that they found out that 
 Jameson intended to hoist the British Flag, and that did 
 not suit them. They wanted to continue the Republic and 
 run it themselves. As to Milner, Sir William said he was 
 certain he was sent out on purpose to pick a quarrelvvith 
 Kruger. He had seen a great deal of Milner while he was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Milner came to wish him 
 good-bye — and he had told him he knew why he was going. 
 He knew, too, that Milner had told Lady Cowper at Fans- 
 hanger before he left for the Cape, ' If I come back with- 
 out having made war I shall consider my mission has 
 
iSggJ The Queen of Holland's Letter 413 
 
 failed.' ?ililner was an enthusiastic Jingo, but knew nothing 
 of Statesmanship. Sir WiUiam also told me he had seen a 
 good deal this year of Cromer, and had been charmed with 
 him. He had found Cromer very moderate, hating Rhodes 
 and hating Kitchener, and doing his best to keep them 
 within bounds. He told me that if the Liberal Government 
 had remained another fortnight in office they would have 
 made Redvers Buller Commander-in-Chief, instead of 
 Wolsele)'. Altogether my visit was a most interesting one. 
 I wish I could remember a tithe of what he told me. 
 
 '^ ^rd Nov. — A violent wind and rain, but we are snug 
 here in our wood, Ladysmith is invested and isolated. 
 There are reports of another defeat of White, I hope 
 nothing will happen to Guy. 
 
 " \otJi Nov. — There is a severe article on ' Satan Ab- 
 solved ' in the 'Chronicle' quoting Newman, and com- 
 plaining of my profanit}'. I have nice letters, however, 
 from Yorke Powell and Mallock. 
 
 " loth Nov. — At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who 
 was here }'esterday, tells me the Queen of Holland wrote 
 to Queen Victoria to beg her to make peace with the 
 Transvaal, as so many of her subjects were engaged in it. 
 He saj-s the Queen did not like the use of the word ' sub- 
 jects,' and did not answer the letter. He considers that the 
 war, as far as it has gone, has much damaged England's 
 prestige abroad. It has shown people specially that English 
 officers, though brave, are without science. They all play 
 too much instead of learning their work. He has been 
 nineteen years in England, and is an Anglophile, but like 
 all the rest he disapproves this war, and thinks it will result 
 badly for us, even if in the end successful. We have suffered 
 defeats which will encourage our enemies next time they 
 quarrel with us. 
 
 " 2yd Nov. — Fernycroft is shut up for the winter, and I 
 have gone to Newbuildings, and am to start for Eg}-pt on 
 Wednesday. Fernycroft stripped of its leaves looks melan- 
 choly enough, and the thought of Egypt with its birds and 
 butterflies is irresistible. 
 
 " They are making an immense fuss in the papers about 
 the Emperor William's visit to Windsor. He has come in 
 spite of the disgust of his own people, who are furious against 
 us on account of the Boer war. But I fancy he knows his 
 
414 ''Satan Absolved" Attacked [1899 
 
 own game, and hating us at heart has come to spy out the 
 nakedness of the land with a fresh militar}- eye. Our news- 
 paper people, however, would go down on their bellies to 
 him and lick his feet if they were allowed. 
 
 " 2A,th Nov. — To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have 
 fought a new battle in South Africa, and another in the 
 Soudan, and announced them as two British victories — 
 victories I suspect to order for the German Emperor's 
 benefit. The South African one seems nothing much to 
 boast of besides 200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards. 
 The other is probably less bogus. Dear old Evelyn still 
 sticks religiously to his political principles with me. We 
 are the last of the anti-imperialist Conservatives. 
 
 " My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the news- 
 papers where I have no friend, as it attacks the country 
 and Christianity alike, and what is worst, the newspapers 
 themselves. This, however, was to be expected, and it is 
 not the first time I have had the world on my back. 
 
 " 2'^th Nov. — Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits 
 with Neville. I am closing my accounts of all kinds for 
 the year, and shut up this journal in no sanguine mood of 
 having anything happier to relate in the diaries of another 
 year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and I am 
 obliged, alas! to leave it behind." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 LAST YEAR OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 " isi Dec. 
 
 ON board the Messageries ship 'Niger' off Corsica on 
 my way to Egypt, having for the twentieth time 
 shaken the dust of Europe' from my feet. The day I 
 started, Tuesday morning, I lunched with George Wyndham. 
 He gave me the latest news of the war. They hope at the 
 War Office to relieve Ladysmith in the course of the next 
 eight days, but not without battles, one or two. They 
 acknowledge now that the Boers are immensely stronger 
 than they thought, that they are fighting according to the 
 latest new scientific rules, and are armed with the newest 
 of new weapons — they are officered in a large measure 
 by Germans, and are holding their own determinedly. 
 George does not make too much of the latest victories, 
 Belmont and Graspan. But it seems to be part of the Boer 
 tactics to invite attack on strong positions, and to hold 
 these as long as they can inflict loss on their enemies — 
 then at the last moment to run, so that, although the 
 position is taken, the victor suffers most, and the Boers 
 reassembling at a preconcerted rendezvous are not much 
 the worse for their defeat. ' We could not let our men act 
 like this,' said George, ' for if they once began to run there 
 would be no stopping them.' So he by no means considers 
 the matter over, sanguine as he naturally is. Guy Wyndham 
 is still shut up with White at Ladysmith— and he showed 
 me a most interesting letter from him written a month ago, 
 immediately after the defeat of Nicholson's Nek, or what- 
 ever it is they call it. The letter described excellently an 
 attack in three columns delivered by White, all of which 
 failed in the presence of superior numbers, and it seemed 
 to suggest of superior generalship. Guy had been with a 
 detachment of a few hundred men pushed forward into an 
 exposed situation from which it was more by luck than 
 
 415 
 
4i6 Battle of LadysTuith described [1899 
 
 skill that they managed to extricate themselves. One of 
 the officers had suddenly obser\ed that the rest of the 
 column seemed to be in retreat, and after pooh-poohing 
 him at first they observed it too, and Guy volunteered to 
 ride across the open hill under a heavy fire to ascertain the 
 truth. This he did and discovered that the General in com- 
 mand had entirely forgotten the detachment, and sent it no 
 order of retreat with the rest. So Guy had to ride back 
 over the same rough ground with bullets and shells striking 
 the earth all about him. The detachment was not brought 
 in without considerable loss. The letter, very simply 
 written, gave a powerful picture of the haphazard character 
 of modern warfare, and of the extreme helplessness of the 
 units of an army while in action. The letter said nothing 
 of the surrender of the third column, which was perhaps 
 not known at the time by the writer, or it may have been 
 purposely omitted, for what George showed me was a type- 
 written copy of the letter made for family reading. He 
 was going down with it to his mother at Clouds in the 
 afternoon, where there is naturally a great anxiety. Of the 
 victory in the Soudan, and the death of the Khalifa, he 
 seemed to admit that it, like Methuen's victories, had been 
 timed to coincide with the Emperor William's visit to 
 \Mndsor, just as the Dundee victory was for the Parlia- 
 mentary vote. Personally, George was in the highest 
 spirits, amply consoled for his disappointment at his not 
 getting the Foreign Office instead of the War Office last 
 summer. 
 
 " I have been reading Kegan Paul's Memoirs, which are 
 extremely interesting. His description of his first school at 
 Ilminster might stand for my own experience at Twyford, 
 a mere hell upon earth — and I notice that the Ilminster 
 master had been a Twyford boy, under Bedford, whom I 
 remember as a very old man living on in retirement, near 
 the school, when I first went there in 1847. The caning 
 cupboards, on either side the head master's throne at 
 Ilminster, were clearly modelled on the Twyford ones. I 
 received a letter only the day before I left home from old 
 Roberts who used to cane me in them, begging piteously 
 for pheasants to eat in his old age. Now I am reading 
 Aubrey De Vere's Memoirs. The two books are much on 
 the same lines, and both interest me greatly, recalling 
 
1899] A Recollection of Cardinal Newman 417 
 
 memories of people I have known, and phases of thought 
 gone through. Nevertheless Kegan Paul's is by far the 
 best, being simpler and less literary. De Vere bores one a 
 little with his poems, and his explanations of them. I 
 remember him well when we lived at Mortlake for a year 
 in 1853. He used to come and see my mother while he 
 was staying with the Taylors at Shene. Mrs. Cameron 
 was another of his friends, but Taylor was the central 
 figure. For Taylor, Mrs. Cameron affected a great devo- 
 tion, and had a portrait of him by Watts hung in a recess 
 of her drawing-room before which a lamp continually 
 burned. De Vere posed as a poet, and we children 
 thought him a bore. All the same I have a very high 
 respect for him now. An honime de bieii, if ever one was 
 in the world. Many years later, I came into communica- 
 tion with him regarding the letters of ' Proteus and 
 Amadeus,' which he edited at Newman's suggestion. At 
 one time Newman had almost consented himself to do the 
 editing, for Dr. Meynell, the 'Amadeus' of the letters, was 
 much at Edgbaston just then. But for one reason or 
 another the old man changed his mind, and De Vere 
 undertook the thing for him and wrote the preface. 
 
 " It was in connection with this that, in 1876 or 1877, I 
 went to Edgbaston and stayed three days at the Oratory, I 
 do not remember if at that time I kept a journal, I think not 
 — and I may as well write here my recollection of the visit. 
 I had stopped at Edgbaston on my way back from the west 
 of Ireland, where I had been staying with Laprimaudaye 
 at Treenlawr, and I had caught a toothache fishing on the 
 Lough which worried me greatly, and I remember distinctly 
 feeling as I knocked at the door that I should be thus kors 
 de combat at the moment of my coming to consult the great 
 man. Nevertheless my distress was vain, for I was shown 
 up to him at once, and, at the instant of touching his hand 
 when he received me, my pains vanished, nor did they 
 return while I was staying m the house. Newman's was a 
 wonderful hand, soft, nervous, emotional, electric; and I 
 felt that a miracle had been wrought. I told Father Ryder 
 of it at the time, but he charged me that I should tell no 
 man, and I said no word of it, to the Saint himself. 
 Newman, though he knew well that I had come to consult 
 him for the good of my soul, and though I had much con- 
 
 E E 
 
41 8 A bdu made Grand Miifti [1899 
 
 versation indirectly with him upon spiritual things, did not 
 attempt to argue out any of the fundamental principles of 
 religious thought, and sought to influence me rather 
 through the heart by his great kindness, and by the con- 
 fidence with which I was admitted to all the life of the 
 community. It was a touching sight, indeed, to see the old 
 man taking his turn with the rest to wait on us at table 
 in the Refectory — and living his simple life of piety and 
 cheerful unselfishness. The lives of monks and nuns are 
 alone in some accordance with the life of Jesus. All the 
 rest of Christianity is an imposture and an impudent nega- 
 tion of Christ. 
 
 " $th Dec. — Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd after nearly two 
 years' absence. At Alexandria I had to wait some hours, 
 and spent them in the company of Hewatt and his family 
 at Ramleh. I found the Hewatts, to my surprise, very anti- 
 jingo about the war. There has been another ' victory ' 
 on the Modder — and another heavy loss of officers and 
 men. I am sorry to see among the killed one of Mrs. 
 Earle's two ' splendid sons,' about whom she wrote to me 
 a month ago. She did not deserve this misfortune, for 
 she was very humane in her ideas, and hated soldiering 
 and all its ways. 
 
 " Anne met me at Cairo, and we went on home at once, 
 having the good luck to travel in the same carriage with 
 Sheykh Mohammed Abdu. Of all Easterns, perhaps I 
 might say of all men, my dearest friend, Mohammed Abdu, 
 after having been imprisoned for his Liberal opinions, and 
 exiled by the Anglo-Khedivial restoration of 1882, has 
 gradually become recognized for what he is, by far the 
 ablest and most honest man in Egypt — and they have 
 made him our Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority 
 in the vice kingdom. I gave him an acre of land two years 
 ago, and he has built himself a country house on it, and so 
 is now our nearest neighbour. When we said good-bye on 
 my leaving Egypt last I little thought we should meet 
 again. 
 
 "6^/z Dec. — Coming back here is like rising again from 
 the dead. Everybody connected with the place clearly 
 took it for granted I sl)ould be seen in it no more, and 
 acted on the supposition. Nothing very bad has been done, 
 and some changes are for the better, but still they have 
 
1899] Krii^cr s Dinner Party 419 
 
 been made. My gazelles have been sent to the Zoological 
 Garden, some of the horses have been sold, the house has 
 been re-arranged. I feel like a guest in it — the i-evenant — 
 the ghost who has returned. Perhaps it is all the more 
 delightful, for the garden is in splendid leaf, and the trees 
 never had a thicker shade in a more brilliant sunshine. 
 Encroachments in the way of new wells and cultivated 
 fields have been made all round us in the desert, and we 
 are already almost completely cut off from the open plain. 
 But it is the least of the evils that threatened us four 
 years ago. First the sewage farm, and then the building 
 operations. So that the new corn fields may be looked 
 upon as a comparative blessing in an age of unscrupulous 
 progress. 
 
 "■ i^th Dec. — Two new Boer victories, or rather British 
 defeats. One at Stormberg, the other at Spytfontein. 
 People will soon be getting angry in London, and perhaps 
 leave off some of their music hall songs. There is a 
 ridiculous swaggering one in the papers, promising Uncle 
 Paul to dine with him on Christmas Day. It reminds me 
 of the Paris cry, ' a Berlin,' which became historic. 
 
 THE NEW PATRIOTIC SONG 
 
 Now Sung at the Music Halls and Theatres with immense success. 
 
 KRUGER'S DINNER PARTY; Dec. 7, 1899 
 
 or, 
 
 We'll be There. 
 
 Written by Fred. C. Smale. Composed by Geo. Le Brunn. 
 
 Oh, Uncle's giving a party and he's asked us all to come, 
 
 We'll be there ! 
 We're marching up from Durban town, behind the fife and drum 
 
 And we'll be there ! 
 There's some from Dublin City, there's some from out the West, 
 The Devon lads "be vitty," there's Gordons with the rest; 
 Oh, Uncle, don't you trouble, there is time enough to spare — 
 
 We'll be there ! 
 
 (Chorus) So please you. Uncle Paul, light the Lantern in the Hall 
 
 (We know we're welcome as the flow'rs in May), 
 Just keep the pudding hot for the lively little lot 
 
 Who are coming up to dinner Christmas Day. 
 
420 The Boer War [1899 
 
 We've got some little sailor men, we thought you wouldn't mind, 
 
 They'll be there ! 
 We are bringing them to see our Uncle Paul so good and kind, 
 
 They'll be there ! 
 They have come across the ocean, they would like some tea and buns. 
 Then they'll just give you a notion how they work their little guns. 
 No, Uncle, dear, they are not at sea— they travel everywhere. 
 
 They'll be there ! 
 
 (Chorus) So please you, Uncle Paul, just arrange a little ball 
 
 (They're having one or two upon the way) ; 
 Majuba some went through, and they want to speak to you, 
 
 So they're coming up to dinner Christmas Day. 
 
 Pretoria 's a place we've often wanted for to see. 
 
 We'll be there ! 
 The air with us, there is no doubt, will splendidly agree, 
 
 We'll be there ! 
 Perhaps I may just mention, we are coming up in style. 
 And with the firm intention of remaining for a while ; 
 Still, Uncle, don't you worry, for mother's paid the fare. 
 
 We'll be there ! 
 
 (Chorus) So please you. Uncle Paul, see that there's enough for all. 
 
 There 's fifty thousand Tommies on the way. 
 And somewhere in a bag they have got a little flag' 
 
 To stick up in the pudding Christmas Day ! 
 
 KEITH, PROWSE and CO., Cheapside, E.C. 
 
 [N.B. Several of our regiments did dine with Uncle Paul 
 that Christmas Day, but it was as prisoners of war.] 
 
 " A torrent of newspaper abuse has fallen on my ' Satan 
 Absolved.' The first notices were fairly moderate, but as 
 the war has gone more and more against our Army, they 
 have become more and more vindictive. They began by 
 admitting that the poetry had some eloquence; then it was 
 found clever, but vulgar; then blasphemous, vulgar, and 
 stupid. Now the condemnation is extended to all my 
 poems. It has been discovered that the' Songs of Proteus ' 
 were a plagiarism on Meredith's ' Modern Love ' : and that 
 in the rest of my works I have been ever sinking deeper in 
 the mire. 
 
 " ijtli Dec. — The third and main British army is badly 
 beaten on the Tugela River. MacDonald (John Murray 
 MacDonald), Anne's cousin by marriage, who is staying 
 with us, declares he shall go off himself to fight. He is a 
 mild semi-Jingo Radical of the school that believes the 
 British Empire has a divine mission to subdue and occupy 
 
1899] The Military Vino of it 421 
 
 the waste places of the earth. I have been arguing the 
 Boer case with him for the last ten days. To me it is in- 
 credible how any reasonable creature should believe such 
 trash. His wife and her niece Irene Noel are generally on 
 my side. But to-day when I say, ' Now we ought to make 
 peace with the Boers' they are all against me. Even Anne 
 thinks that the rights of the blood feud forbid that. Yet 
 what absurdity! War, when it is a war of aggression, as 
 they all admit that this is, is mere murder, and though it 
 is humiliating to make peace on a defeat, it can't be surely 
 right to go on. 
 
 " As to the wisdom of persisting, the Boers are really 
 better soldiers than ours. We had a few good regiments to 
 begin with, but they are pretty well used up now, and the 
 rest is of a feeble kind. Our army, if it can fight, cannot 
 march, and has to stick to the lines of railwaj'. Our 
 superior numbers are consequently of little advantage. 
 The Boers are making a splendid iight for their freedom, 
 and are winning all along the line. Every honest man, 
 English or not, ought to rejoice. Instead of this, we 
 English are in league with the Americans, we, who were 
 the two peoples who have posed as champions of freedom 
 in the world, to subdue two small, weak nations, the Boers 
 and the Filipines, fighting for their independence, and not 
 a word of disapproval is heard amongst us. 
 
 " Young Walter Gaisford, Talbot's A.D.C., was here 
 the other day, lamenting that the Khalifa and his dervishes 
 had all been killed, so that there would be nobody left to 
 shoot, he complained, even in the Soudan. ' There is hope, 
 however, that, when the Boers are polished off, we may go 
 on to a war with Abyssinia when more sport will be to be 
 had.' This is the way our young fellows look at war (' a 
 high old rabbit shoot'). It is good for them and the world 
 that they have at last met their match. War will be un- 
 popular enough in England soon if it goes on as at present, 
 and there will be a chance then for the weak nations to 
 remain unmolested. 
 
 " 20ih Dec. — Prince Aziz was here yesterday and told 
 me things that were interesting. He was once a lieutenant 
 in the i6th Lancers, and talks intelligently about the war. 
 Gatacre, he says, was always a fool, violent and abusive to 
 the natives in India. He had been certain he would get 
 
42 2 Kitchener sent to South Africa [1899 
 
 into trouble when it came to fighting. The Prince holds 
 the British Army cheap. They would never have been 
 able to get to Omdurman but for the Egyptian troops, 
 who did all the work and all the fighting, and in South 
 Africa they were inferior in everything to the Boers. 
 Things have come to a pretty pass when this fat Egyptian 
 Prince can hold such opinions. But they are perfectly 
 justified. Kitchener, as a last hope of saving the situation, 
 has been named Chief of the Staff to Roberts, and is to 
 start at once for the Cape. The Dutch in Cape Colony 
 are in revolt. The English newspapers say there has not 
 been such a position of things since the Indian Mutiny. 
 It is thought old Roberts, who is popular with our rank- 
 and-file, will be able to restore confidence. But he is too 
 old for serious work, and they have shoved Kitchener 
 forward to the real command. I don't believe either 
 of them are a bit better than our beaten Generals. I 
 had long talks with Roberts in India 3'ears ago, and he 
 gave me a poor notion of his intelligence, good old 
 fellow as he is. As for Kitchener, he knows nothing of 
 European war, and his Soudanese experience will serve 
 him little. He has the curse on him of the Mahdi's head, 
 and deserves to fail. There is a paragraph in the papers 
 this week giving an account of the Khalifa's end, and how 
 courageously he met it. This man has been uniformly 
 represented as a contemptible coward. Yet he met death 
 as nobly as any of Plutarch's heroes. 
 
 " 2^th Dec. — Christmas Day. Kitchener has left Egypt. 
 Though he sailed from Alexandria he had not the grace to 
 go to Montaza, where the Khedive was, to bid him good- 
 bye. Yet he has been drawing £6,000 a year latterly from 
 the Egyptian Treasury, and high pay for the last fifteen 
 years. A bearer of the white man's burden at £6,000 a 
 year ! 
 
 " 2gth Dec. — I have received a nice letter from old 
 Herbert Spencer about the attacks made on my poem by 
 the critics, and saying he thinks I was probably right 
 when I told him I thought it would need a foreign army 
 landed on our shores to bring us quite to our sober senses. 
 There is at present a lull in the South African fighting, the 
 Boers waiting to be attacked again and the English not 
 having got their second wind. 
 
igoo] Kaiser Wilhelms Rescript 423 
 
 " Margaret Talbot came to-day and spent the afternoon. 
 Her husband is in command here of the EngHsh garrison, 
 and is, of course, much grieved at the way the Boer War is 
 going. He would like to be there, but at the same time 
 would, dread the responsibility of failure where so many 
 others have failed. She described Kitchener's departure. 
 He was only half an hour at Cairo — the time between one 
 train and another, and said hardly a word to anyone. No 
 one here regrets him, for he has made no friends. 
 
 " T,ist Dec. — The last year of the i8oo's ends disastrously 
 for England, or rather for the British Empire. For England 
 can only gain by the break-up of that imposture. I think 
 now there really is some chance of such a consummation, 
 for we are sending the whole of our armed force into South 
 Africa, where it is likely to become engulfed, and we have 
 got the whole sentiment of the world, civilized and un- 
 civilized, against us. 
 
 Thou hast deserved men's hatred — they shall hate thee ; 
 Thou hast deserved men's fear — their fear shall kill ; 
 Thou hast thy foot upon the weak, the weakest 
 With his armed head shall bite thee on the heel. 
 
 "Percy Wyndham writes: 'In this terrible struggle in 
 South Africa we see a picture in little of what will be the 
 close of the present dispensation, to use the language of 
 those who believe in prophecy, when the survivors of 
 Teutonic blood will fight for the mastery of the world — in 
 that struggle the Dutch, South African or Native, will have 
 a look in.' 
 
 " Two young British officers were here this afternoon. 
 They are both agog to join the fighting, looking at the 
 whole thing entirely from the professional point of view. 
 'If we are not in this show,' they said, emphatically, "we 
 may as well hang up our hats.' 
 
 " 1st Jan., 1900. — The Emperor William, the papers say, 
 has issued a rescript, ordaining that the new Christian 
 Century is to begin in Germany to-day. This, if true, goes 
 one better than Carlyle's Emperor, who was super gram- 
 maticain. I find the Moslem centuries go down to the end 
 of the hundreds, and begin again with the year one. 
 
 " Mohammed Abdu, our Mufti, was here this afternoon. 
 And to him I read Herbert Spencer's letter, which im- 
 
424 Moslem Doctrine of Humanity [1900 
 
 mensely interested him, and after^-ards described to him 
 my poem. He considers Spencer the first of Hving philo- 
 sophers, and has translated his book on Education into 
 Arabic. I also explained to his brother Hamouda my views 
 of the rights of animals, which was one absolutely new to 
 him. Though on reflection he said that it was strictly in 
 accordance with the Koran and Moslem teaching, which 
 enjoins respect to animals, and even to inanimate objects. 
 So that it is forbidden wantonly to deface so much as a 
 stone. In truth, it is Christianity that is really responsible 
 for the brutal attitude of modern man towards animals. No 
 other religion that can be called a religion tolerates it, but 
 our Christian doctors have laid down the atrocious doctrine 
 that beasts and birds were made solel)' for man's use and 
 pleasure, and that he has no duties towards them. It is 
 only in the last hundred years that Europeans, having 
 partly freed themselves from Christian teaching, have begun 
 to take a humaner view. The doctrine of evolution has 
 pushed it a bit forwarder, for though it has injured the 
 cause of savage or coloured man as having equal rights 
 with the white man, it has established our far away kin- 
 ship with the beasts, which was formerly denied. So that 
 there are a few amongst us who begin to doubt our right 
 to bird and beast slaughter. My own view is that wild 
 birds and beasts who do no harm to man have a right to 
 be left in absolute peace. But that those whom we help to 
 breed by giving them protection may fairly pay a certain 
 tribute, just as our tame beasts are made to do, though the 
 higher law would be to let all live. We argue these things 
 nightly at dinner. 
 
 "5^;^ to loth Jan. — We were occupied with a desert ex- 
 cursion to within sight of Ismalia on the Suez Canal and 
 back, our furthermost point being a prominent dark brown 
 rock, which stands some hundred feet above the plain over- 
 looking the Bitter Lake. From this point we marched 
 north north-west to the Sand-hills and the Wady Tumey- 
 lat The following day, the 9th January, Anne and I made 
 a long camel trot of six hours across the gravel plain, 
 crossing Wady Jaffra to another conspicuous rock south of 
 Belbeis, and so on the loth back to Sheykh Obeyd. It was 
 a pleasant excursion, but contains little worth recording. 
 
 " loth Jan. — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day, and con- 
 
igoo] The British Entpire in Danger 425 
 
 firms to the full the accounts of Kitchener's dealings with 
 the Mahdi's head as I gave it last summer in the ' Daily 
 News,' especially as to Cromer's disapproval of it and his 
 dislike of Kitchener. We agreed that at last God's 
 Providence was moved to anger against these abomina- 
 tions, and that England's Empire would go the way of all 
 the rest. 
 
 " There is a letter in the ' Times ' just come which I think 
 caps everything yet wi'itten for absurd bombast. Its author 
 is old Reid, the naval constructor, a former Gladstonian 
 Radical, and still M.P. It shows to what a pass of self- 
 glorification we English have come, for the Radicals are 
 worse now than the extremest Tories, and I have had to 
 write home to tell them to cease sending me the ' Daily 
 Chronicle' and the 'Manchester Guardian,' and replace 
 them with the ' Daily Mail ' and ' Morning Post.' The only 
 London paper that speaks a word of sense is the ' West- 
 minster Gazette.' Here is the concluding paragraph: 
 
 " ' May I add. Sir, that my thoughts search history in 
 vain for any spectacle of national heroism greater than, or 
 equal to, that which Great Britain and her truly noble colonies 
 are presenting to the world at this moment. The crafty 
 and foreigner-aided enemy lies in our territory and across 
 our path, with shell guns on every available hill, and 
 trenches dug between ; with barbed v/ire stretched to pro- 
 tect their cunningly devised lairs, and cover spread to con- 
 ceal their more or less rebellious persons. Their power to 
 deal out death and mutilation is their delight; their skill 
 in doing so is their pride ; and it is known that the flag 
 which they most hate is the Union Jack, the very symbol 
 of freedom and equality throughout the world. They have 
 done their level and their unlevel best to slay our men and 
 lower our flag on our own soil. They are difficult to tackle, 
 for they fight lurking, and fly alike from cold steel and 
 the open field. All that human heroism combined with 
 animal cunning can perform they will do against us, and 
 they will add to these such prayers as even ignoble lips oft 
 dare to address to the God of battles. But have they 
 alarmed us? Have they "frightened the isle from its pro- 
 priety?" Have they detached one colony from the mother- 
 land? Have they caused young or old, citizen or noble, 
 poor or rich, small or great, worldling or worshipful, in any 
 
426 Pi^ofcssor Mivarfs Declaration [1900 
 
 part of this Imperial Realm to shrink or hold back from 
 the encounters, however deadly, to which they have chal- 
 lenged us? No, Sir, there has sprung from every part of 
 the Empire a flame of patriotism and of heroism so high 
 that the whole world is, so to speak, alight with it, and, 
 depend upon it, while we rejoice, the world wonders and 
 admires."" 
 
 N.B. The total Boer population thus described as menac- 
 ing the British Empire, with its 200,000,000 souls, is exactly 
 that of Brighton. 
 
 " \^th fan. — I have been reading Mivart's article on the 
 'Continuity of Catholicism,' which has raised a tempest 
 against him. It is certainly the most daring declaration 
 ever made in articulo mortis, for poor Mivart is, I believe, 
 dying. If, forty years ago, I had found a Catholic writer 
 equally bold, I should have been saved from much in- 
 fidelity, but now it is too late. Mivart is clinging desperately 
 to his faith, but it is at bottom an impossible thing to recon- 
 cile science with any form of Christianity. 
 
 " 2ist Jan. — A letter in verse about 'Satan Absolved,' 
 from Sir Wilfrid Lawson, which is bad verse but amusing : 
 
 Brayton, 9th Jan. 1900. 
 Your work on the Devil, dear Blunt, I have read. 
 What a curious fancy to enter your head ! 
 The World, I admit, is as bad as can be ; 
 But how he'll make it better I scarcely can see. 
 I fancy if matters were right understood 
 There's a Spirit of bad and a spirit of good, 
 They're continually fighting in battle array 
 Each pulling like mad in a different way, 
 The one is Jehovah, Jove, Lord, Names like these, 
 The other is the Devil as bad as you please. 
 Then between these two powers comes man on the scene, 
 Where he comes from there's no one can tell us, I ween; 
 But still here he is with a body and soul 
 Designed, I imagine, for filling some role. 
 His rudder is conscience by which he should steer, 
 But at present it seems to be quite out of gear. 
 But come, my dear Blunt, do not let us despair. 
 Even yet we may make something of him with care, 
 At present he is — you and 1 never flatter — 
 At present he is just as mad as a hatter. 
 His brain has undoubtedly met with a shock, 
 Which has sent him through Africa running amock. 
 
 ' Times," 1900 
 
I goo] Addu on Dumb Animals 427 
 
 The nobility, gentry, and clergy of course, 
 
 His madness by all in their power enforce. 
 
 And all in this country are cutting their capers 
 
 At the murders recorded each day in the papers. 
 
 Well, in trying my best to hunt these matters out 
 
 That the Devil is in it I haven't a doubt. 
 
 Well, I will resist him, as long as I can, 
 
 And so do my best to emancipate man. 
 
 Some good yet we may see when there comes to the front 
 
 The excellent doctrine of Lawson and Blunt. 
 
 " iZth Jan. {Sunday). — A long talk with Mohammed 
 Abdu on the whole subject of mankind and the dealings 
 of the strong with the weak. I find he is as pessimistic as 
 myself He has been reading the Towra, the Old Testa- 
 ment Pentateuch, lately, and attributes the brutalities of 
 Christianity largely to its connection with Judaism. As to 
 the treatment of dumb animals he quoted to me several of 
 the Hawaditli enjoining kindness, and it is certain that 
 wanton destruction of these is contrary to thte sentiment 
 of Moslems. Wanton destruction is indeed peculiar to 
 Christendom. Abdu believes in no good future for the 
 human race, and I fear he has as little faith in Islam, 
 Grand Mufti though he be, as I have in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 " BuUer has had another reverse before Ladysmith at 
 Spion Kop. This time it is General Warren who has 
 suffered defeat. I am glad of it. It was he that hanged 
 the Bedouins for the Palmer affair after Tel-el-Kebir. I 
 have written to Leonard Courtney to say I will join the 
 ' Stop the War Committee,' and am sending ;^50. This 
 though with some qualms of conscience, for if the war 
 goes on another six months it really may smash up the 
 British Empire. 
 
 " My once dearest friend Lothian is dead. What a grief 
 this would have been to me five-and-thirty years ago! He 
 was the lightest of all light-hearted companions, yet serious 
 too. We made our storm and stress together at Frankfort 
 when Darwinism was a novelty, and solved the riddle of the 
 universe together gazing at the stars. We have gone dif- 
 ferent roads since then. He to lead an uneventful life of 
 high and various dignities in Scotland, I to adventure in 
 what devious waj-s. It is only casually that we have met 
 for years. 
 
428 Nictschcs Docti'iiie of Force [1900 
 
 " 2gtk Jan. — I have written the following in answer to 
 one who had criticized my ' Satan Absolved ' on the ground 
 that though splendid if intended as a reductio ad absurdum 
 of Christianity, it stopped short of accepting Nietsche's 
 doctrine of Force. ' Of course the poem was a reductio 
 ad absurdum. The thing that seemed to me supremely in 
 need of being shown ridiculous was the worship of humanity 
 in any form. I am not a disciple of Tolstoi. He believes 
 in the possibility of improvement, in moral progress, and 
 in a far away Christian civilization. I do not. At the 
 same time I do not mock at Christian ideals. If Man were 
 not the ludicrous, vicious ape he is, but were capable of 
 being converted to a quiet, harmless life without thought 
 for the morrow — or ambition or desire more than to 
 praise God and enjoy himself in the sun like the lilies of 
 the field, the world would be a very happy place, as 
 it was before Man came to disturb it. But of course 
 this will never come to pass. It never even really 
 began. That, however, is no reason for adoring as you 
 say you do Force even tempered by Fraud. There is 
 nothing in the smallest degree admirable in either. If it 
 is true that )'our worship of Force is to be the creed of the 
 future, and very likely it will be so, it is only another proof 
 of the innate vulgarity of man. Nietsche is an ass. The 
 law of the strongest, as we see it in Modern Civiliza- 
 tion, is not the law of Nature, only the law of human nature, 
 which is a very different thing. The oak tree does not 
 monopolize the forest, nor are the flowers which grow there 
 trash. If Nietsche had been as many years as I have in 
 the East he would not talk of the Christian ideal as being 
 a creed of a slave for slaves. He would know it was far 
 more trulj^ the creed of the dervish, of the poor, happy 
 vagrant who scorns property and scorns what we Euro- 
 peans absurdly call the " dignity of labour," and who is as 
 free as the birds of the air. It needs Oriental experience to 
 understand this. The place for European civilization is 
 the Paris boulevard ; south of the Mediterranean a white 
 skin is only a form of leprosy, and from an aesthetic point 
 of view you might as well plant the New Forest with 
 cabbages as have anything to do with applying the doc- 
 trine of Force to the world at large.' 
 
 " Mivart has been formally excommunicated by Cardinal 
 
igoo] 
 
 Ulivart Exconuuiuiicated 429 
 
 Vaughan. It seems to me that if Catholics are really called 
 upon to believe that the first man was the Adam of the 
 Garden of Eden, and that all the books of the Old and 
 New Testaments not merely ' contain Revelation with 
 no admixture of error,' but were also ' written by the 
 inspiration of the Holy Ghost and have God for their 
 Author,' we may abandon the idea of any possible recon- 
 ciliation between religion and science. Of course one knew 
 the thing was hopeless, but still there were many Catholics, 
 even priests, who pretended it was not. 
 
 " I have had several more talks with Mohammed Abdu. 
 He tells me that several of the high English officials here 
 make money in illicit ways. He is, however, as little in 
 favour of internationalizing Egypt as I am, for that would 
 merely be to exchange one wolf for a pack of wolves. He 
 is bitter against Cromer, whom otherwise he likes, for having 
 established nothing that can survive of indigenous Govern- 
 ment when the English Occupation ends — nothing, that 
 is, that can be counted on to work on Liberal and 
 honest lines. There has been a general proscription of the 
 patriotic and enlightened element in the country, and the 
 men pushed forward have been those who had least self- 
 respect and could most surely be counted on for their 
 pliancy. 
 
 " 5//^ Feb. — Parliament has met, and the Queen's Speech 
 has been telegraphed. Pharaoh has hardened her heart, 
 and declares that she will carry the war on to a successful 
 end. Bailer has, however, clearly been badly beaten again 
 at Spion Kop and Ladysmith must fall. The famine in 
 India is a new 'judgement of God' upon the Empire, 
 and, just as in old times, the stress of the punishment falls 
 on the innocent. There are three and a half millions of 
 people now on daily relief Yet I suppose not a single 
 official of all that have fattened upon India will forgo a 
 third of his income — or a fourth or a tenth part of it to 
 feed the people — this although they are subscribing and 
 making the natives subscribe to the South African War. 
 It is the ' divine mission ' we are carrying out of making 
 the world happy! 
 
 " Osman Digna has been captured at last and brought 
 in chains to Cairo. ' A large crowd pressed forward eager 
 to see the dark, long face, brilliant eyes, large mouth, and 
 
430 To Dillon on Irish Politics , [1900 
 
 long grey beard, of a frightened and dignified old man 
 who bat with chains round his sore ankles and swollen, 
 bare feet.' I quote ' Our own correspondent.' This is how 
 the British Empire makes its ' Roman holiday'! But the 
 hour of vengeance is, I hope, now very near. 
 
 " ?itk Feb. — George Wyndham has made a very able 
 speech in defence of the War Office and his political 
 fortune is made. I am glad of this, though his principles 
 in politics have been up to now abominable. He is no 
 Philistine at heart, and will be sobered both by the defeat 
 of his policy and his personal success, and may end as a 
 great and large-minded statesman. He was wise enough 
 to confine his speech strictly to the War Office, and did 
 not attempt to explain the policy of the war : being a sub- 
 ordinate of very short standing in the Government he will 
 not be held responsible, and people will only see in him 
 what they most appreciate, a very clever parliamentarian 
 defending a bad party cause in the best possible way. The 
 only speech that was sound on the Opposition side was Sir 
 Robert Reed's, which stated the whole case against the war 
 fully and fairly. 
 
 " 14//? Feb. — I have written as follows to John Dillon in 
 honour of the reunion of the Irish Parliamentary Party: 
 
 Sheykh Obeyd, Feb. 14, igoo. 
 
 " Dear Dillon, 
 
 " I write to congratulate you and the rest of my old 
 friends of the Irish Parliamentary Party on the reunion of 
 the Party, and your resolution to be once more independent 
 of English ones. You know that for the last ten years I 
 have held aloof from politics and have been mute about 
 Ireland. But I cannot help saying now how much I 
 sympathize with you all. The moment certainly has come 
 for a new departure — for Ireland's one chance lies in the 
 check given to our English plan of a world-wide Empire 
 which has been accepted equally by both parties and which 
 leaves no room anywhere for Nationalism. I think, too, 
 that the iniquity of the war we are carrying on in South 
 Africa, and which both Parties almost equally approve, 
 should make it intolerable for an honest man to remain 
 any longer allied with either. I don't know which is the 
 more despicable, the boasting Tory who made the war 
 
igoo] Trouble in the Soiidaii 431 
 
 openly for the fun of the thing and to fill his pockets, or 
 the Radical, who has allowed himself to be persuaded that 
 he might bully the Boers cheaply and in accordance with 
 Liberal principles. At any rate I am glad to see Ireland 
 free from both of them. There was always to my mind a 
 certain danger to her high ideal in her connection, however 
 temporary, with our ambitions. Imperialism is very con- 
 tagious, and Scotch, as well as English Radicalism, has 
 been entirely perverted by it. I have often thought that 
 the 'union of hearts' we talked so much about in 1887 
 might, if it had become a reality, have only led to the per- 
 version of Ireland too. It is best as it is — at least until we 
 English are humbled to entire sanity. 
 
 " I shall be glad if you will show this letter to Harrington 
 and Healy and Redmond, as well as to Davitt and O'Brien, 
 as I intend it equally for all. It is a great pleasure to me 
 to be able to think of you fighting once more well together 
 for Liberty as in the days of our old campaign." 
 
 "15//Z Feb. — Cockerell arrived last night from London 
 very keen for sight-seeing, and to-day Evelyn also came; 
 he is strong for stopping the war, and also approves of my 
 letter to Dillon. 
 
 "Mohammed Abdu was here in the afternoon and told 
 me the true story of the military trouble at Khartoum. 
 Kitchener has long been hated by the Egyptian Officers, 
 whom he has throughout ill-treated, allowing the English 
 Officers to behave arrogantly to them, and paying no atten- 
 tion to their complaints. The Egyptian troops have been 
 made to do all the hard work, and have been given no 
 credit, while the black troops have been petted and 
 spoiled. When things began to go badly at the Cape 
 Kitchener got alarmed, and tried to prevent any news of 
 the English defeats reaching the Soudan, but he could not 
 hinder it leaking through. Then fearing a revolt he ordered 
 the ammunition to be taken away on the pretence that it 
 was old and would be renewed, but the Soudanese regiments 
 refused to give up the old till the new was supplied; the 
 Egyptian Officers were suspected of encouraging the refusal 
 and some were arrested. In the middle of it all Kitchener 
 was recalled to go to South Africa, and the thing was 
 patched up by Wingate who is less unpopular, though it is 
 
432 Kimbeidey Relieved [1900 
 
 not wholly settled yet. Abdu tells me that the idea now is 
 in the event of the Egyptian Question being brought on by 
 the European Powers to call in Turkish troops to replace- 
 our English garrison. This would be a lesser evil than the 
 advent of French or Italian troops, which would only mean 
 the Internationalization of Egypt. Mohammed Abdu knows 
 that it has been talked over among the Ministers and with 
 Lord Cromer. I am inclined to hope that it may really 
 end thus for there seems to be no chance of a simple 
 evacuation in favour of a native Egyptian Government. 
 Abdu has a good opinion of Cromer personally. But 
 says there are a number of shady things done by his sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 " \6th Feb. — Buller's third attack on the Boers and his 
 attempt to cross the Tugela has failed as abjectly as the 
 other two, and we may hear any day now of the fall of Lady- 
 smith; a final attempt I fancy to capture a victory in 
 view of the vote in Parliament for which it has served its 
 purpose, though later it turned into a defeat. 
 
 " ijth Feb. — To Cairo with Cockerell. The first time 1 
 have been there this winter, after seventy-four days at 
 Sheykh Obeyd, so that I felt strange and naked in European 
 clothes. On the road we met Prince Aziz who talked with 
 much intelligence about the management of his property. 
 These Khedivial Princes are all of them shrewd men of 
 business. He also gave us news of the relief of Kimberley, 
 a telegram having come last night. This will have the 
 practical effect of putting that sad villain Rhodes once 
 more on the scene of the world's intrigues. I am sorry 
 for it. 
 
 " I called on various necessary people, including Margaret 
 Talbot in her new official house as the General's Lady, and 
 ■on Cromer, who talked to me for half an hour about Nile 
 irrigation, the debts of the fellaheen, the famine in India, 
 and such administrative subjects as he talks best on. He 
 is certainly a. great man in his official way. We did not 
 touch on any dangerous matters, nor allude in an\' sort to 
 past differences. Personally I like him much. Amongst 
 the plans he discussed with me was one in connection with 
 the National Bank of advancing small sums of ;^s and £\o 
 to the fellaheen at 9 per cent., to enable them to get out of 
 the hands of the Greek usurers, who charge them thirty 
 
igooj Miliiers " Eqiial Jttstice ' 433 
 
 and forty per cent. This is precisely the scheme the 
 Nationahsts of 18S1 had, and its adoption by Cromer is 
 another proof of the foresight of those poor patriots whom 
 we cannoned into silence. With the single exception of 
 constitutional government, I believe every article now of 
 the National Programme has been adopted by us. 
 
 " 2A^tli Feb. — The MacDonalds and Irene, and her 
 brother are gone to Greece, after staying here three 
 months. She is an attractive child, clever and pretty — 
 and her brother, Byron, interesting, because quite un- 
 educated, with a good heart and much sense. Young Ward 
 was here yesterday, who is acting as correspondent to the 
 ' Times.' He gave us news that Roberts, having raised the 
 siege of Kimberley, has now got Kronje's army in such a 
 position that it seems likely to surrender. This is im- 
 portant, and I fear will rehabilitate Chamberlain and the 
 Rhodes gang. Lady Lytton writes to me after her waiting 
 at Osborne: ' I enjoyed my three quiet weeks at Osborne, 
 and the Queen is such a splendid example of wisdom over 
 the war and all the sorrow and things that follow from it, 
 and she always judges rightly without too much emotion. 
 . You say you wish they would stop the fighting. Every 
 one wishes it also, but we must get to Pretoria first, and be 
 able to get equal justice for all our people there, and for 
 which reason the war has been brought on England, and it 
 will be a very long business of years — so let us try and be 
 patient, and good will come out of it in the end. The 
 spirit of wishing to help is quite splendid everywhere in 
 England, and the soldiers must be allowed to do better 
 than they have done as yet before they stop fighting.' This 
 no doubt is her Majesty's sentiment. Milner who arranged 
 the 'equal justice' casus belli will now doubtless get his 
 peerage. Sibell writes in the same strain about the unselfish- 
 ness of the war, and the noble qualities of all concerned. 
 One might think it was a crusade, instead of being the 
 Stock Exchange swindle it is. The art of governing the 
 world has become the art of deceiving, not only the people, 
 but if possible one's own high-minded conscience. 
 
 " 1st March. — I went into Cairo with Cockerell, and 
 learned the relief of Ladysmith. Kronje capitulated a few 
 days ago at Paardeburg, and the Boer army has evacuated 
 Natal, and seems to be concentrating for a final stand on 
 
 F F 
 
434 ^^^^ Stai't for Mount Sinai [1900 
 
 the Drakensburg line. One thing is satisfactory in it, the 
 release of Guy Wyndham from his captivity. There have 
 been debates in the House of Commons about Chamberlain's 
 part of the Raid. He now says that his white-washing of 
 Rhodes after the Committee Report only concerned Rhodes' 
 money transactions. I remember George telling me at the 
 time (and he was in the thick of the plot) that they had 
 played a trick on the opposition in getting Harcourt and 
 the rest of them to agree to the Report on an understand- 
 ing that Rhodes was to be thrown over, and also, if I re- 
 member rightly, in forcing Chamberlain's hand to support 
 Rhodes. This one thing is certain, Rhodes remained, and 
 is still a Privy Councillor. 
 
 " 5;*-^ March. — I have been very busy getting ready for 
 our long intended pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. Anne is 
 unable to go as Judith has written hurrying her departure 
 for the expected baby, but Cockerell goes with me and mx 
 nurse, Miss Lawrence. We are to start on the 7th, and take 
 steamer to Tor on the 8th, and be met there by our 
 camels. 
 
 " 6th March. — Evelyn spent the day with us having come 
 to Egypt with his daughters. He is in trouble having just 
 received a telegram from his son to say that he has joined 
 the Imperial Yeomanry and is going to South Africa. It 
 is the smart thing to do just now, and all the world is mad 
 for fighting. 
 
 " 'jth March. — To Suez by train, a hot, disagreeable 
 journey, and put up at the ' JJpl Air,' next the .station. Suez 
 full of pilgrims, the streets crowded and gay. 
 
 " '&th Mai'ch. — Occupied in taking our places by the 
 Khedivial steamer for Tor, and getting passports for 
 Suleyman and Hassan at the Moudirieh. The people 
 there very friendly, as the Governor was formerly an 
 Arabist and the Katib had been Secretary to Mahmoud 
 Fehmy. The place was being besieged b\' pilgrims come 
 for their passports, which cost them 150 piastres, to the 
 Hedjaz. In the afternoon went on board the ' Chibine ' with 
 the agent Beyts, whom I remember twenty years ago at 
 Jeddah, where he had a house of business with one Wild. 
 He did what he could to make us comfortable, but the 
 'Chibine' is crowded with pilgrims, 350 of them, they say. 
 
 " gtk March. — I went to my berth early and woke about 
 
1900J Wreck of the "Ckidine" 435 
 
 half-past one, and opened the cabin window as it was very 
 hot below, and so was lying awake thinking over the lapse 
 of years since I was last at Mount Sinai and the poor issue 
 of our short lives, when I felt as it were a blow received by 
 the vessel, and immediately after a second blow. At the 
 first moment I thought it was an earthquake shock — we 
 had had one last Tuesday at Sheykh Obeyd — and called 
 out to Cockerell, who shared my cabin, to that effect; but 
 looking out of window I saw a line of breakers close before 
 us on the port side, and the ship began to be knocked 
 about by the waves. It was very dark, but the breakers 
 were plain enough, and I said to Cockerell, ' No. We are on 
 a Coral Reef I had not undressed and had nothing but 
 my shoes to put on to be ready for all events. And I went 
 to Miss Lawrence's cabin and told her to get up and dress 
 as we were aground. Then on Cockerell's confirming what 
 had happened I went on the upper deck where Suleyman 
 and Hassan were, and got the life-belt I always carry out 
 of the bullock trunk in which it was and put it on Miss 
 Lawrence. She was not at all frightened, nor indeed was 
 anybody else as far as I know — though the Pilgrims began 
 reciting their prayers aloud. The wind was blowing pretty 
 strong, and I could make out the line of the shore not far 
 off and the breakers, though the night was dark. There did 
 not seem to be any immediate danger, but we prepared our- 
 selves for whatever might happen, and in the darkness, 
 of course, there was room to imagine the worst. I did not 
 stay long, however, on deck,,, but after some talk with 
 Suleyman went below and lay-'down again, for it was clear 
 there was nothing to be done till daylight. I had looked at 
 my watch as soon as the vessel struck, and found it was 
 seven minutes past three. Cockerell and Miss Lawrence 
 stayed on deck, I believe, till morning. After a bit I got to 
 sleep again, for the ship was steady enough, and there was 
 nothing very tragic in the appearance of things. 
 
 By daylight we were able to make out where we were. 
 Suleyman thought at first the hills in front of us were the 
 Hamam Faraoun. But later we made out Serbal and the 
 mouth of Wady Feiran, so it is now agreed that we are 
 ashore north of Ras Jehan. The Captain, Ross, did not 
 seem to know much about it. He told us he had only left 
 the deck ten minutes when the thing happened. [This 
 
436 A A/an Droivned [1900 
 
 turned out afterwards to have been quite untrue. He had 
 come on board late, having been at some entertainment at 
 Suez, and gone to bed early without giving any proper 
 instructions as to the course. No watch was kept, and we 
 drove straight on a coral reef, without so much as slacken- 
 ing speed or with a cry of breakers ahead.] We must be 
 clear eight miles out of our course, and it looks like bad 
 seamanship. Here we are, anyhow, stuck fast on a line of 
 sand banks (they proved to be a reef about a mile from the 
 shore) and with small chance of getting off to-da}- or any 
 other day. The steamer is miserabh' ill supplied with boats, 
 and still more miserably with seamen, there are only four 
 boats capable of taking off at most a dozen passengers 
 each, and of these one is already lost. They launched it, 
 the Captain says, in order to put out a hawser for an 
 anchor to windward, but it was swamped by a breaker, and 
 at least one man has been drowned. I saw another holding 
 on to the hawser for some minutes, and we thought he 
 would be swept away too, but at last he got hold of a rope 
 and hitched it round him, and was pulled up the ship side, 
 but it was a near shave. The boat drifted away, and is now 
 on the sandbank (reef) bottom upwards, and five lifebuoys, 
 which were thrown to the drowning men, are drifting on 
 shore. The captain asked me about the nature of the 
 country on which we had run, the shore of the Sinai 
 peninsula, and I offered to let my Bedouin, Suleyman, go 
 in a boat if they could put him safeh' on shore when the 
 wind drops; he would then take a message to Tor, which is 
 not more than forty miles awa\-, asking help. Suleyman, 
 however, is very unwilling to go, now that he has seen the 
 feliica swamped and the man drowned, nor will I let him 
 attempt it until the wind goes down. [It was Sule3'man's 
 first experience of being at sea, and, like most Bedouins, he 
 was frightened at being off his own element.] Should it 
 become calm I shall propose that we are all sent on shore 
 here with our baggage, as we are the only passengers for 
 Tor, and we have provisions enough with us for a fortnight. 
 I am writing this at 9.45 a.m. 
 
 " 1.30 p.m. — Things look worse than they did. The tide 
 going down has shown that we are on a coral reef, which 
 may be half a mile in width, with, perhaps, three miles of 
 ■comparatively still water beyond it to the shore. Also the 
 
iQoo] Life on the W^reck 437 
 
 wind has become stronger, and, though the waves do not 
 break over the deck, we are beginning to heel over in 
 rather an alarming way. I finished Tolstoy's ' Resurrection ' 
 this morning. It is a most depressing book, and makes one 
 as willing as one can easily be to leave a life so miserable 
 as Tolstoy shows it. I don't know which is the more hope- 
 less, the picture of polite society en decomposition, or that 
 of his convicts and political prisoners who find a dreary 
 satisfaction in helping each other in ways which human 
 nature cannot really be satisfied with. All the same, one 
 clings a bit to life. There is a certain physical menace in 
 death which it is ill to face, and I feel it more strongly this 
 afternoon than I did last night when the danger was vaguer 
 and newer. The poor man drowned has saddened us, and 
 made the danger seem more real, but as yet we have not 
 even begun to feel discomfort. No water has reached the 
 cabins, or even the decks, except now and then the spray 
 of a wave, and the sun is shining brightly, and we are sur- 
 rounded by flights of happy seagulls. The shore is romantic 
 and beautiful between Serbal, in front to the north-east, 
 and Gareb to the south-west, both mountains which I love 
 and on which I could be content to die. It is the physical 
 repulsion that one has, that of being knocked to pieces on 
 the reef, or drowned in one's cabin. Two ships have been 
 sighted far off, but they took no notice of our signals, and 
 we are fully ten miles away from the usual Red Sea course. 
 My own only satisfaction is to think Anne did not come 
 with us. She has a terror of water, though of nothing else, 
 and would have been unhappy. Both Cockerell and Miss 
 Lawrence are cheerful and undisturbed ; indeed, every one 
 is behaving well. We are all three sitting on the upper deck 
 now, on a carpet with one of the pilgrims ne.xt us, a man 
 from Mitgamr. At every blow of a wave which shakes the 
 ship he ejaculates, ' Ya robb ! Ya robbina '! (From God are 
 all things. Yes, all. Our Lord is merciful. Ya, Robb!) 
 Below there is an old lady who puts her head out of the 
 cabin and calls to her son, ' Ya, Yusuf 1 Ya, Yusuf ! ' The 
 rest are devout and quiet, and there is none of the affecta- 
 tion of merriment one would see under like circumstances 
 on board a P. and O. 
 
 " loth March {Friday). [N.B. This part of my Diary is 
 splashed with sea water, but still legible.] We have had a 
 
438 Banged tipou the Reef [1900 
 
 very bad night, and things this morning look almost hope- 
 less. With the rise of the tide at sunset the wind increased 
 in violence, blowing still from the north-west, and the waves 
 swept the upper deck. I went up to try and persuade 
 Suleyman and Hassan to come below, but they would not 
 move. The whole night through the ship was banged upon 
 the reef — raised by each wave, and let down with a 
 thundering bang upon her keel, which prevented much 
 sleeping. At times it seemed as if she must break her back. 
 At midnight it was quieter, but it is worse than ever this 
 morning, and the ship has settled lower into the water. 
 There is only one comfort, she is now wholly aground, and 
 cannot sink lower. It depends all on the wind. If it goes 
 on like this for another night she will break up, and there 
 is no chance of a rescue. There are practically no boats 
 and no sailors. The captain would not risk trying to land 
 the passsengers except in a calm. Even the arrival of 
 another ship would be of no use, as we could not be got 
 off. If the wind does not fall, it will not be our pilgrims' 
 fault, for they pray strenuously, with a fine male devotion. 
 The women have been drilled to silence, or at any rate to 
 pray instead of complaining, even the little boys shout, 
 ' Allihu Akbar. Ya latif '! and the women add prayers to 
 Seyd el B6dawi of Tantah. For my own part I say my 
 usual prayers to the dead and to St. Winifred, who may 
 help me, as she did three years &.go, a superstition which 
 quiets the mind. I have been reading the Gospels, too, 
 in an edition Cockerell got me for our journey to Sinai, 
 parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the doctrinal parts of 
 which are splendid, and as little like our English nine- 
 teenth-century Christianity as it is possible to conceive. 
 How foolish my Nietsche correspondent's talk about it is. 
 The water is coming into the cabin, so I must leave off. 
 Miss Lawrence has been altogether admirable through all 
 this, doing her duty to me as nurse just as if at home, and 
 cheerful and courageous as I never saw anyone. I have just 
 been on deck and got wet through. It has made me feel 
 more indifferent to what may happen, and I contemplate 
 the water filling up the cabin and drowning us without 
 much repugnance. It is the getting wet that one really 
 dislikes. It is now 7.30 a.m., and we hope the wind is lull- 
 ing, otherwise our prospects are poor. 
 
igoo] Camped on the Uppei^ Deck 439 
 
 " 1 1 a.m. — Though things remain precisely as yester- 
 day, and with rather less chance of a good issue, for the 
 wind blows as hard as ever, everybody on board has settled 
 down to the situation. There are no more querulous plaints 
 of the women, and the prayers are less incessant. The 
 children are playing merrily in the saloon, the little 
 boy pretending to bastinado the little girl on the soles of 
 her feet, and there is a group of women on the ground 
 gossiping as if at market. This, I suppose, is in all human 
 nature. People go about their affairs, however much there 
 may be an earthquake or any other catastrophe impending. 
 I have settled down to a novel, which I brought with me 
 in case of accidents causing delaj' anywhere. There is no 
 sign yet of succour from any quarter, and I expect to- 
 night will be critical. The thumping and banging on the 
 reef goes on, and all our cabins are in a leaky state at the 
 portholes ; fortunately the ship stands prettj' steady on her 
 keel, with only a slight list to port. This has kept us fairl)' 
 dry, though on the main deck the pilgrims must be suffer- 
 ing terribly. There has been no cooking done to-day, as 
 the fires are out. Also salt water has got into the fresh 
 water tanks, and we may be soon short of water to drink. 
 
 " Later. In the afternoon, at Cockerell's suggestion, we 
 moved our quarters from the after-cabin, which is being 
 much battered by the sea, to the upper platform in the 
 centre of the ship. There we are sheltered by a bit of 
 awning from the wind and spray, and the waves do not 
 wash quite so high. Suleyman had already established 
 himself there, and it is pleasant to have our little camp 
 with him altogether as if we were in the desert. The sight 
 of the waves breaking over the reef is interesting, and there 
 are seagulls to watch and floating seaweed, and one can 
 mark the variations in strength of the wind ; the centre of 
 the ship, too, is free from the thumping of the stern, and 
 we have a feeling here that even if she breaks in two, the 
 fore half where we are would remain firm on the reef Nor 
 is it a small advantage to be free from the incessant prayers 
 of the rich pilgrims in the cabin, who shout in chorus all 
 day long, and of the children who, in imitation of them, 
 make treble invocations of their own. In the forecastle, 
 which we overlook, the pilgrims, mostly Persians, confine 
 themselves to an ' Alahu Akbar,' when any specially big 
 
440 A Caspian Sea Captain [1900 
 
 wave breaks over them. There is one of them stationed on 
 purpose to look out for the big waves and announce their 
 coming. Here we are settling ourselves for the night. 
 
 '' iit/i Maixh. — The sunset last night was less }'ellow 
 than the day had been, for there has been a thick haze, and 
 the stars and the moon came out, but the wind blew all 
 night as hard as ever, the waves running up to within a 
 couple of feet of our platform, making one wonder whether 
 the afterpart of the ship had not been carried away. We 
 made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would 
 permit under our awning, and I took a little dose of 
 morphia to keep me warm through the night. I had got 
 wet through in my European clothes, and have now got on 
 vox Arab things, and so dozed through the night, trying to 
 fancy myself in Jendali or on Kalala. Miss Lawrence and 
 Cockerell too, none of us in much comfort, for we could 
 not lie down. Still things might have been worse, and we 
 were able to keep dry, and the wind is not a cold one. 
 The pilgrims, among whom we are now established, began 
 by being not quite friendly, one or two thought I was 
 masquerading as a pilgrim, and asked me why I wore the 
 akliram, and whether I had a passport from Constantinople, 
 nor could I altogether satisfy them, as they did not under- 
 stand Arabic, being mostly Turks or Bokharists. But the 
 feeling amongst them has quite changed now. This is owing 
 to my having taken their side against the captain, and 
 decided him at last to send off a boat to the shore. [The 
 captain, since the ship had struck, had shut himself up 
 almost entirel>" in his cabin, refusing to do anything or take 
 any measures.] The pilgrims had insisted upon his sending 
 off a boat, and had come to the cabin door in a body, under 
 the leadership of an old sea-captain, a Moslem from the 
 Caspian, a rugged fellow in an Astrakhan cap, who declared 
 he could easily steer a boat on shore at high tide across the 
 reef, and so carry the news of our shipwreck to Tor. This 
 seemed to me a sensible plan ; and I went with them to 
 the cabin, and got the captain to consent, though there was 
 a difficulty in finding men to man the boat, as all the ship's 
 crew (there were only five of them), odd men picked up at 
 Suez, were frightened at the drowning of the sailor on 
 Thursday, and I volunteered myself, if necessar\-, to go, and 
 with me Sulej^man to run on with the ne\\'s to Tor; and 
 
I goo] Our Pilgrim Friends 441 
 
 Cockerell also would have gone and Miss Lawrence, but 
 there was no boat large enough for us all, and at last it was 
 decided that Suleyman alone should go, with five of the 
 ship's crew. He was very unwilling, as he is terribly afraid 
 of the sea, but I persuaded him there was really no great 
 danger. He bid me a solemn farewell, taking off most 
 of his clothes and handing over to me his money and his 
 passport. Then the ship's crew would have nothing to do 
 with the Caspian sea-dog as their commander, and at one 
 time the whole plan seemed as if it would break down, for 
 Captain Ross was without resource or power of command. 
 At last, however, just on the turn of the high tide, they got 
 the boat launched and across the reef, and so to the shore 
 in safet)'. \A'e were able to watch them till they landed. So 
 Suleyman at least is out of danger, and may bring us help 
 from Tor. The boat was the last one left, as one was lost 
 on Thursday, and the two others were destroyed last night 
 by the sea. Some of the ship's company are making a raft, 
 in case things come to the worst. Except the lack of drink- 
 ing water, however, I don't think there is much immediate 
 danger, as the wind has moderated and the sky has become 
 clear. The difficulty is that there is no means now of get- 
 ting the pilgrims on shore, even if it is calm, as we have 
 not a boat left, and are without water. We ourselves 
 fortunately have with us three quart bottles of water, which 
 are still intact, and a large number of oranges, but unless 
 help comes to-morrow or next day, it will fare badly with 
 all of us. One of the pilgrims, though very amiable to us, 
 has told me the captain's throat ought to be cut. They all 
 think he is hiding water, though that is not the case. There 
 never was a ship, however, sent to sea worse found, or with 
 a more incapable captain.- 
 
 " We have made special friends with two of the pilgrims, 
 Russian subjects, one a Tartar, living at St. Peters- 
 burgh, formerly an Alem of Bokhara, who has spoken to 
 me in high praise of Sheykh Jemal ed Din. He is a very 
 superior man, in a snuff-coloured robe. The other, a Mongol 
 from the Crimea, who has been a student for the last 
 fourteen years at the Azhar at Cairo. This one is a thick- 
 set, heavy man of the true Chinese type, or rather of the 
 Mongol type, from which Chinamen derive their features. 
 These have taken up their quarters next to us, and they are 
 
44- ^ Miihajjer from Medina [1900 
 
 very polite to us — with them most of their friends. We 
 have distributed a few of our oranges among them; all 
 complain of thirst. The most interesting of all, however, is 
 an Arab from Medina, a J/«/^(^r//<?r who affects the character 
 of a wely. He is the most beautiful human being I ever 
 saw, going bareheaded, with an immense shock of black 
 hair in ringlets; his face is very dark, and brilliant as a 
 hawk's, his teeth splendidly white, and his eyes of womanish, 
 gazelle-like lustre. His beard, too, like his hair, is a whole 
 mass of ringlets, and his hands and feet are of perfect 
 form. With all he is kindly and friendly, with a peculiar, 
 inconsequent way, as becomes a saint. [He was fantastically 
 dressed when he came on board, with gorgeous muslin 
 robes, but these got soon draggled with the sea water, 
 without thereby affecting his gay spirits or pleasant smile. 
 He would go about from one to other of the pilgrims with 
 a pleasant word to each, and gave away at once the oranges 
 we gave him. His exact position in life, except that he was 
 a Muliajjer, I never ascertained, but he invited me cordially 
 to his house if I visited Medina, and was especially polite 
 to all of us. Most of those that I have mentioned talked 
 Arabic, but many knew no word of it, having come from 
 distant parts of Asia.] They are evidently good, pious 
 people, and it is a relief to find ourselves among them at a 
 solemn moment like the present, when we have death, so 
 to say, staring us in the face, and away from the few un- 
 godly Englishmen who frequent the bar of the first class 
 cabin. I never marked the contrast more, and it consoles 
 me not a little for the rest. 
 
 " Miss Lawrence is wonderful in her simple courage and 
 good sense. She makes us all as comfortable as the small 
 space we have will admit, and has not said a complaining 
 word. When I said to her half in fun, ' Your poor patient 
 has almost come to the end of his tether,' she answered 
 simply, ' I cannot think we shall be drowned. God would 
 not allow all these good people who call on him to perish.' 
 Cockerell, too, is full of help. He has made friends with a 
 young Belgian and a young English accountant, who are 
 better than the rest, and gathers a deal of information 
 about all that is going on. 
 
 " It came on blowing terribly again in the afternoon, and 
 the sea has put on the pale green look it has in the 
 
1900] Lightning on Motcnt Sinai 443 
 
 northern seas — each wave capped with foam. The waves 
 are pouring over the lower decks, and the ship is sinking a 
 bit in her bed. A great ship was seen just at sunset, and 
 wild hopes were indulged. The sailors hoisted a torch at 
 the mast-head, but the vessel was too far away and soon 
 disappeared. Nor could she have helped us had she come 
 to us for no captain would put out a boat in such a sea. 
 Notwithstanding all this we under our awning on the 
 bridge have passed (12th March) a not quite uncomfortable 
 night. Only one woke ever}' few minutes with a start, and 
 thoughts forced^themselves on one's mind of things beyond 
 the world. There were signs of lightning in the hills in 
 the direction of Mount Sinai, and one seemed to see in 
 them God's anger in his dwelling place, perhaps at one's 
 impiety at seeking to set foot on it, and for the attitude I 
 have taken of having complained of his dereliction of his 
 duty and neglect of the World and Man. Towards morn- 
 ing just in front of us stood the Scorpion, for the sky was 
 clear, and it reminded me of many things. It was then 
 that Miss Lawrence used the words that I have recorded. 
 This is the worst night that we have passed, and there 
 seems little left to hope. 
 
 " \2th March. — Our fourth day on the reef, which is 
 whiter than ever with foam — the wind stronger and the 
 waves higher. The cabins aft are flooded, and the people 
 are leaving Ihem, and crowding on to the bridge. Never- 
 theless there is a more cheerful feeling, for at eight o'clock 
 a vessel appi'oached which was recognized as one of the 
 Khedivial Line Steamers, the ' Misr,' evidently sent out to 
 look for us. We could not, however, communicate with 
 her, as there is no system of signalling on board, and the 
 sea is far too big for them to launch a boat; they have 
 therefore gone back in the direction of Tor, waiting -we 
 suppose for the wind to moderate. This gives us some- 
 thing to hope for, and all agree that the gale cannot last 
 much longer, and that the ship is too fast on the reef to be 
 in immediate danger — only that the pilgrims are in straits 
 for water, and I hear that a woman and child have died. 
 The stewards, meanwhile (for the government of the vessel 
 and the administration of the supplies are abominable) are 
 selling soda water at exorbitant prices to the richer people. 
 We dare not give away our water yet, as it would be drunk 
 
444 Sharks a7id Seagulls [1900 
 
 up at once, but we give oranges. Personally I have not 
 drunk a tumbler of water in the last three days and have 
 eaten nothing but half-a-dozen oranges. The morphia I 
 have taken does awa)- with both thirst and hunger, there is 
 much dampness too in the air, and the pilgrims I think 
 suffer much less from thirst itself than the thought of it, 
 knowing there is no water. Most of them come from the 
 northern countries where water abounds, and the thought 
 of being without it frightens them, as it does not frighten 
 the Arabs. The\' make very little complaint, however, con- 
 sidering how hard!)- the\- are treated. I go on writing m_\- 
 journal and reading, and dozing between times. The sun 
 is shining brilliantl)', and we are not so uncomfortable for 
 the waves do not reach us, and the spray here and on the 
 forecastle is not very wetting. It is at night that the gloomy 
 thoughts come. 
 
 " There is a Greek boatswain or second officer who tells 
 me that he has been eight times wrecked, and twice in this 
 same ' Chibine' ' If I get safe on shore this time,' he said, ' I 
 go to sea no more. I sell oranges for a living, it is better.' 
 He is certainl}' right. The}^ have finished two rafts, or 
 rather punts, unseaworthy looking craft, which I should be 
 loth to embark in. The thought of the Red Sea sharks has 
 been, I fancy, with all of us, though we say nothing about 
 it. The still water inside the reef must be full of them — 
 here it is too rough, and there is only drifting seaweed and a 
 multitude of gulls. 
 
 " Later. The weather shows signs of impro\'cment, though 
 the sea is as high as ever, and the wind is hardly less, but 
 the sky is clearing, and the line of hills on the west coast is 
 beginning to show again. We can see Ghareb and the rest. 
 I feel confident the wind will fall at sunset. And the ' Misr ' 
 should return and take us off to-morrow — but everything 
 depends upon the fall of the wind. 
 
 " Evening. Our troubles, I hope, are over. At 4 p.m.,, 
 behold as a coup de theatre, H.M.S. ' Hebe,' a gunboat, 
 arriving from Suez to our rescue. The sea was still very 
 heav)-, and the wind as strong as ever, but Commander 
 Taylor in command of her, gallantly put off in a whale- 
 boat, and has himself come on board our wreck. His 
 arrival has relieved us entirely from our anxiety, for 
 though he cannot land us to-night he is satisfied our ship- 
 
igooj Resciied by a iMan-of- IJ^ai' 445 
 
 is in no immediate danger of breaking up. He will return 
 in the morning and take us all across the reef at high tide, 
 if it is still rough, or directly to Tor if the wind has gone 
 down. He is a good, clean shaven, grey-eyed little British 
 officer of the best type. To us personally he offered, if we 
 wished it, to take us all three off with him at once to- 
 night, but as he seemed to think it would be rather a risk, 
 especially with Miss Lawrence, we elected to stay on the 
 wreck yet another night-^and it is well we did — for the 
 whale-boat as we could see it had a narrow shave of being 
 capsized, and \\'as unable to get taken on board the ' Hebe ' 
 on her return until the ' Hebe' had moved down a mile or 
 two to leeward of the reef What has caused Taylor coming 
 is this. As long ago as Saturday the people at Suez became 
 uneasy at getting no telegram about us from Tor, but 
 imagined the ' Chibine ' must have neglected to call there 
 and gone on to Jeddah, then rumours came that something 
 was wrong, and the 'Misr' was sent out to look for us, 
 and laterCromer, having been referred to, ordered the ' Hebe' 
 out. The ' Hebe ' was to have looked for us on the West 
 Coast of the Red Sea, but fortunately just as she was 
 getting up steam our telegram, carried by Suleyman and 
 despatched from Tor, arrived, telling them where we were, 
 otherwise they would have searched the Western Coast in 
 vain, and might not have found us for some days. However, 
 as our friend the Crimean pilgrim says, 'El hamdu I'lllah' 
 (God has not forgotten his slaves). We are all congratulat- 
 ing each other now, and the pilgrims are showing their 
 good-will to us, and thanks for having helped to get 
 Suleyman sent ashore, in a number of agreeable ways. 
 
 " 132'// March {Tuesday). — Our last night on the wreck 
 was a peaceful and a joyful one. At sunset the wind, as 
 was expected, dropped — and it is now nearlj' a dead calm. 
 I slept profoundly. With the first light we got our traps 
 together, and distributed all our remaining provisions 
 among the pilgrims who were ravenous for our oranges. 
 These were rescued at last from the water which had been 
 sweeping over them on the after deck. They had been 
 well packed and were not much spoiled. The best of them 
 went to our friends. Sheikh Abdul Hamid, and the gallant 
 sea-dog of the Caspian, Suleyman Ismailoff of Astrakhan, 
 the rest I took with Hassan in a bundle to the forecastle 
 
446 On Board the '' Hebe" [1900 
 
 where the}" were eager!)' grabbed for by the Persian 
 pilgrims, especially the women. Here are the names of 
 our chief friends on board, Sheikh Abdul Hamid of 
 St. Petersburgh, one of the LJlema, and his friend, Suley- 
 man AH from Crimea, a Crim Tartar Student of the Azhar, 
 Captain Suleyman Ismailoff of Astrakhan ; our friend the 
 yiuhajjcr, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, 
 ^I'lohammed Ali, aged nine, a gay boy who was the 
 captain's servant. Gilroy, an English accountant going 
 to Jeddah, Dr. Edward Rist of the Sanitary Board of 
 Alexandria (an Alsacian Frenchman, of whom we after- 
 wards saw much). 
 
 " 3 p.m. We are on board H.]\'r.S. ' Hebe.' At eight o'clock 
 we were taken off among the first of those rescued by 
 Captain Taylor, and are once more on the clean deck of a 
 British man-of-war, feeling that after all the British Fleet 
 has its beneficent uses and was intended for other things 
 than only the bombardment of Eastern towns. Taylor tells 
 me that but for the telegram sent by Suleyman, we must 
 have been several days longer on the reef — we might well 
 have been overlooked till it was too late. All is ended 
 now, however, and we can say ' El hamdu I'lllah.' In the 
 course of the morning other ships arrived, and all the 
 pilgrims having been taken from the wreck and placed on 
 board them, they went on their way to Jeddah, while we 
 returned to Suez on the ' Hebe.' 
 
 " Names of the Officers of the ' Hebe' are: Commander 
 Taylor, Lieutenant Frederick Loder Symonds, Lieutenant 
 James Kirkness, Surgeon Herbert Gill, Chief Engineer, 
 George Pascoe. 
 
 " The officers of the ' Hebe ' are an excellent set of men ; 
 they have entertained us all last night on board, feasting 
 our hunger, and giving us stretchers for beds. Remember- 
 ing the nav}' as 1 knew it forty years ago at Athens, these 
 }oung officers seem to me superior in intelligence and 
 manners to what they then were. The ' Hebe ' is one of the 
 new and highly scientific gunboats which require men of 
 head and education to work them, and they took pleasure 
 in explaining to us everything, more indeed than 1 did in 
 listening, for machinery is the least interesting of novelties. 
 We might have been taken on to Tor if we had wished it, 
 but I decided against this, seeing the peril we had escaped, 
 
i9oo] A Vision of Wrath 447 
 
 and I have a superstition against continuing a journey in 
 face of a strong warning ; indeed to me this is more than a 
 warning. I see in it a menace forbidding me to approach 
 the Holy Mountain. Perhaps another year I may return, 
 but not now. 
 
 " In the early morning as we arrived at Suez I was 
 awoke from sleep by a very terrible dream or imagina- 
 tion, for I was between waking and sleeping. The screws 
 of the gunboat had been' reversed, and there was a fearful 
 vibration on board, so loud that it sounded like a storm. 
 I thought that we had come to the head of the gulf to that 
 place where Pharaoh and the Egyptians were overwhelmed 
 in the sea, and that an immense wind had struck us from 
 the west, so that the gunboat was being driven on to the 
 eastern shore. It was a storm so terrible that nothing could 
 live in it, and I knew that it had been sent by God, and I 
 heard a voice saying: 'There are no pilgrims here to save 
 you again by their prayers,' and I was terror struck and I 
 made my profession of faith — ' La Allah ila Allah, wa 
 Mohammed rasul Allah,' nor was I relieved of my fear 
 until I had looked out of the scuttle and seen the lights of 
 Suez, and smooth water, and the Scorpion in a quite clear 
 sky. [I think the extreme vividness of this dream was 
 probably due to the morphia I had been taking during 
 the wreck.] I remember Captain Taylor, whose cabin 1 
 was sharing, asking me what o'clock it was, and I told him 
 a quarter to three. He was surprised at my knowing this 
 when, having struck a match, he found that I was exactly 
 right. I had calculated it by the stars in the Scorpion's 
 tail, which are an excellent clock at this time of year, but 
 sailors have forgotten these old-fashioned observations of 
 the stars." 
 
 The next fortnight of my journal is defective. The 
 excitement of the shipwreck over, I felt the effect of it, and 
 was once more suffering in health. My last days in Egypt 
 before returning to Europe were occupied in laying before 
 Lord Cromer the circumstances of the pilgrim case, and 
 urging him to take up the defence of these Moslems, whose 
 safety had been so jeopardized by the disgraceful mis- 
 management of the Khedivial Government, the lack of all 
 proper provision for them on board, and the incompetence 
 
44^ The Khedive on the Scnnsiia [1900 
 
 of the captain. I also wrote a strong letter in the same 
 sense to the " Times," with the effect that a na\al court of 
 inquiry was appointed to be held at Suez on board H.M.S. 
 ■" Ha]c\-on," Consul Cameron presiding. This Court Cockerell 
 and I and Dr. Rist attended, and we gave evidence, with 
 the result that on the 28th of March, the Court found 
 against the Company, and Rist and I were publich- thanked 
 for our " public spirited action," while it eventuall)' led to 
 new regulations being issued with regard to the pilgrim 
 traffic in the Red Sea, which to some extent alleviated the 
 evils of the system so long pursued. All that I find of 
 importance in my journal is the following account of my 
 final visit to the Khedive. 
 
 " 2nd April. — To see the Khedive at Abdin, where I found 
 ?\Iohammed Abdu also waiting for an audience. He intro- 
 duced me to Mohammed Pasha Shukri, the Khedive's 
 Turkish secretary, and other functionaries, all very amiable, 
 as they had heard of the shipwreck and how I had brought 
 the pilgrim case forward. 
 
 " Abbas received me with affection, and we had a most 
 intimate and interesting conversation. It began about the 
 pilgrim traffic, as to the better regulation of which he pro- 
 mised help. Then he went on to talk of his journey to the 
 Western oasis. He told me that he had been extremely 
 well received by the Senussia, and had found out e\-er\-- 
 thing he wanted to know about them. Their principle of 
 conduct, he said, was to obey the law in all countries where 
 they resided. In the Zaghwiyahs nothing was permitted to 
 be done which could bring them into conflict with the 
 Government. i\lthough they imported arms and ammuni- 
 tion largely from Egypt, these never passed through the 
 Zaghwiyahs, but through individuals, generally poor men, so 
 that if discovered it would not bring them discredit. In the 
 Zaghwiyahs nothing compromising would be found. He 
 assured me, however, that the Arabs of the Western tribes, 
 all of whom belonged to the brotherhood, were well armed 
 with Martini rifles; the brothers were very particular whom 
 the}' would talk to; they would trust no Christian, and no 
 Moslem who served a Christian, as, for instance, no 
 Egyptian soldier, because the Sirdar and officers were 
 Christians, also no Moslem who did not pray and openl\' 
 show himself such. He was evidently much impressed by 
 
I goo] Old Sheykh Hassan on his Death-Bed i^^g 
 
 their strength and their organization, and by the instruc- 
 tion and high character of their leading men. All this 
 seems to tally with what Mohammed Abdu told me lately 
 of the Khedive's having become 'superstitious and oppos- 
 ing Liberal reform in the Azhar on the ground that he 
 feared to lose the prayers of the old-fashioned faithful.' 
 
 " He then talked of his intended visit to England. I advised 
 him to talk frankly to everybody, and promised to do what 
 little I could personally to dispose people in his favour. 
 Lastly, he told me Lord Cromer had spoken to him about 
 allowing Arabi to return to Egypt, but he had a grief on 
 this head against Lord Cromer, inasmuch as Cromer had 
 refused to allow his grandfather, Ismail, to come back and 
 die in Egypt. Ismail was suffering from cancer, and only 
 asked to see Cairo before he died, but Cromer had refused, 
 why then should he now come to him and say, ' Let Arabi 
 return.' We stood together discussing this matter for some 
 time, as I was going out, and it ended by his promising or 
 half promising, to grant Arabi's pardon. Another farewell 
 visit was to my old friend and neighbour, Sheykh Hassan 
 Abu Tawil, now very near his end. I found him {j^th April) 
 like Job upon his bed, surrounded with comforters, a mere 
 skeleton, too feeble to rise. I asked him whether he had 
 had the doctor to see him, but he said ' No, he preferred to 
 be doctored by God,' and this is probably best even scien- 
 tifically. I told him the tale of our shipwreck, and he 
 besought me to have a lamb slain for Sheykh Obeyd, and 
 I promised him so to do, though I have a quarrel with our 
 local saint for the little good he did me two years ago. I 
 shall be grieved to lose old Hassan, for he is good, and 
 much beloved by his tribes-people. We leave Sheykh Obeyd 
 for Italy to-morrow." 
 
 My journey home was made with Cockerell and Miss 
 Lawrence, Lady Anne having preceded us, and at Brindisi 
 I received a telegram from her, announcing the birth of a 
 grandson. Another fellow-traveller was M. Cogordan, the 
 French Minister at Cairo, a man of great intelligence and 
 knowledge of art and archaeology. We stopped the night 
 at Ancona and several days at Florence, where we found 
 Lady Paget and Lady Windsor, and where I made ac- 
 quaintance with Mrs. Ross, Lady Duff Gordon's daughter, 
 who was so long in Egypt, as to which she had pleasant 
 
 G G 
 
450 Ouida at Home [1900 
 
 recollections of things that happened thirt}- and more years 
 ago. Our next halting place was Lucca, which I had not 
 visited since 1852, when, as a boy of eleven, I spent the 
 summer at the Lucca Baths. I remember having been 
 taken to see the Holy Coat, and of having beheld in the 
 streets the Grand Duke and Duchess of Tuscany, with the 
 fat grand ducal children, pass in their carriage in days 
 before the invention of the Kingdom of Italy. 
 
 The next day I went with Cockerell to call on Ouida at her 
 villa at S. Alessio, some three miles from Pisa. I had been 
 in correspondence with her on literary matters, and took the 
 opportunity of paying her a visit. " Our driver did not 
 know the house or who we wanted, until he suggested 
 ' the lady with the many dogs.' We said, ' Oh yes, the lady 
 with the dogs,' and so it was. Ouida's house proved to be 
 a nice old villa with a high garden wall and an eighteenth- 
 century iron gate, towards which from inside seven or 
 eight dogs, poodles mostly and nondescripts, came at us, 
 open-mouthed, when we rang. It was some time before we 
 could make our ringing heard, and the bell was answered 
 at last by a portly man-cook in cap and apron, who, after 
 some further delay, on my sending in my card, admitted 
 us. We were shown into the front hall, and there found the 
 lady of the house seated at a small table, as one sees in the 
 opening scene of a play, arranged apparently for the occa- 
 sion. She was a little old lady, dressed in white, who rose 
 to meet us and reprove her dogs, still yelping at us in 
 chorus. A mild reproof it was, nor did it save us from their 
 caresses. The largest poodle placed himself upon my knees, 
 and another took my hat in his mouth. ' They do not often 
 bite,' she explained, ' except beggars.' I had been prepared 
 by the violence of her writings and anecdotes I had heard 
 of her from Lady Paget and others, to find a person some- 
 what loud and masculine, but Ouida proved the reverse of 
 this. In face she is much more French than English (her 
 father, she told us, was French, M. de la Ramde, and her 
 mother an Englishwoman), small featured, soft, and distin- 
 guished, with a high forehead, rather prominent blue eyes, 
 dulled and watery with age, almost white hair, and that 
 milk and roses complexion old people sometimes acquire, 
 and which gives them a beatified look. It was difficult to 
 believe her capable of such a malevolence as her novel, 
 
igoc] The Duke of Aosta at Turin 451 
 
 ^ Friendship.' She can never have been a sensual woman, 
 whatever passions she may have revelled in in her writings. 
 Her conversation is good, intellectual, without being 
 affected, or the talk of a blue stocking. It gives you the 
 impression of a woman who has thought out her ideas, and 
 has the courage of her opinions. We talked about the in- 
 humanity of modern Europe, especially modern England, 
 and the rage for slaughter, which is its chief feature. Also 
 about Italy and Crispi, who is her bete noir there, as 
 Chamberlain is in England. She talks English perfectly, as 
 she says she does also French and Italian, and complained 
 to us of the slipshod writing of the day. It was evidently 
 a pleasure to her to talk, and to find us such good listeners. 
 With Cockerell she was immensely taken, and was curious 
 to know who he could be, for I had not introduced him, 
 and persisted in thinking him a personage in disguise. At 
 the end of a couple of hours we moved to go, but she 
 would have detained us, and made us promise to come 
 again. She cannot, she says, now go to England, on her 
 dogs' account, and, indeed, they monopolize her life. Alto- 
 gether she is a pathetic figure, condemned to solitude, not 
 by choice, but by necessity, and regretting the cheerful 
 society of Florence, an exile imposed on her, I fancy, by 
 poverty and her bitter pen. ' The world,' she said, ' takes 
 its revenge on us for having despised it' We both left her 
 with feelings of respect, almost of affection, certainly of 
 sympathy and pity." [With Cockerell Ouida corresponded 
 to the day of her death, though I believe they never met 
 again.] 
 
 Yet another visit in Italy was to Princesse Hdlene, now 
 Duchess of Aosta, at her palace in Turin, where I had lun- 
 cheon with her and her husband, who struck me as a kind 
 of understudy of the Emperor William, a good talker but 
 somewhat brusque. As fourth at luncheon there was his 
 .stepmother, the Dowager Duchess Letitia Bonaparte, 
 daughter of old Plon Plon, who is much with them. I was 
 introduced to both as a revolutionary character in connection 
 with my adventures in Ireland. There was talk also of the 
 Transvaal War, which they, in common with all foreigners, 
 consider an unfortunate, not to say ridiculous, affair for 
 England. The meal was a pleasant one, and in the after- 
 noon Cockerell and I went on by the night train to Paris. 
 
452 " The Tkuig must not Occur Again " [1900 
 
 My companion in the sleeping car was Colonel Needham, 
 military secretary at the Rome Embassy, who told me that 
 Kitchener, who had been the best hated man in the British 
 army, is now becoming almost popular in South Africa. A 
 visit to Gros Bois followed where, as usual, there was much 
 interesting talk. Among other things told me was this, that 
 the seriousness of the anti-Semitic rage in France was due 
 to Alphon.se Rothschild's neglect to buy up Drumont. He 
 might have done it for a small sum earl}- in the day, but 
 did not recognize Drumont's power sufficiently and now it 
 is too late. The Jews are put in Coventry by all the great 
 French world. There, as elsewhere abroad, I found it con- 
 sidered that we had made ourselves ridiculous in South 
 Africa and that the war ought to be stopped. 
 
 We arrived at home in England 25th April. 
 
 " 1st 3Iaj'. — To the Danes to see Lady Lytton, travelling 
 there with Betty Balfour, who told amusing stories about 
 Ireland, one being of a voj^age the Queen had made in her 
 yacht. The Queen used to be a good sailor, but is disturbed 
 now if it is at all rough and likes the doctor to sit with her 
 in the cabin and look after her. It came on to blow and a 
 wave struck the ship rather roughly, which alarmed and 
 made her indignant. ' Go up at once,' she said, ' Sir James, 
 and give the Admiral my compliments and tell him the 
 thing must not occur again.' 
 
 " I talked to Lady Lytton about the Khedive's intended 
 visit. She said the Queen would certainly see him if she 
 was at Windsor, but would most probably be away at 
 Balmoral, and there was nobody else who could be depended 
 on to be polite. Lord Salisbury, now Lady Salisbury was 
 dead, would give himself no trouble, no more would the 
 Duke of Devonshire. Broderick and Lad}- Hilda were 
 worse than useless and the rest would not think it their 
 business. She knew nothing about the Prince of \\'ales. 
 There never was a time when it was more difficult to get 
 the duties of politeness done to foreign princes. 
 
 " 2nd Jllaj. — Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis's 
 Rooms, he in high feather with his parliamentary success, 
 though things are not going as smoothly as they might at 
 the War Office. They are in trouble there about despatches 
 they ha\e published blaming Buller, and George will have 
 
igoo] " Free Labour" in South AfiHca 453 
 
 to defend the Government on Friday. Evan Charteris 
 was lunching with us, which prevented any very intimate 
 talk. 
 
 " ijth May. — Button spent the day with me at New- 
 buildings, his mother having come with him. He tells me 
 the relief of Mafeking is being carried out by Kitchener, 
 though his name has not been mentioned in the newspapers 
 in connection with it. He went on to describe the different 
 systems of slavery and forced labour of the blacks in South 
 Africa. One of the great grievances of the Johannesburg 
 people was that they were not allowed by Kruger to have 
 compounds in which to keep their ' labourers.' Kruger was 
 afraid they would arm and drill their blacks, and con- 
 sequently forbade it, leaving them to hire labour as they 
 could, which cost them a good deal more. The ' compound ' 
 system of ' free labour,' as practised at Kimberley and else- 
 where in Rhodesia is an ingenious substitute for slavery. 
 The negroes are recruited with promises of very high 
 . wages, and the wages are actually paid, but once inside the 
 walls of the compound they are permanently prisoners and 
 have to spend their wages there. To prevent their leaving 
 with a show of legality, a rule is enforced that each negro 
 before going out must be dosed. This has the double 
 motive of preventing them from swallowing and carrying 
 away diamonds and, as the dose is an immense one, of 
 frightening them from undergoing it. The dose plan was 
 invented by the Jew Porges, who is now a millionaire at 
 Paris. Such negroes as, having saved money, face the dose 
 and are allowed to depart, are waylaid on their way back to 
 the Zambezi, from beyond which many are recruited by 
 Boers in league with the mining authorities, and stripped 
 of all they have. The Government, he says, is making itself 
 very unpopular in Ireland and he thinks also in England, 
 but I cannot agree with him that there is the least chance of 
 their being turned out at the General Elections. 
 
 '^ 2ist May. — The streets of London are decked with 
 flags for a foolish victory, the relief of Mafeking, and even 
 the cottages in Sussex flew their Union Jacks. This war 
 has been so little glorious that our patriots are thankful for 
 the smallest of small mercies. One vi^ould think that 
 Napoleon and all the armies of Europe had been defeated 
 by the British arms. 
 
454 Father Tyrrell in Farm Street [1900 
 
 " 22nd May. — The Poet Laureate has published an ab- 
 surd effusion in the ' Times ' about the reUef of Mafeking. 
 
 " Called in the afternoon on Kegan Paul, ^^'ho is still 
 confined to his room and chair, and learned the details of 
 Mivart's death, which are dramatically terrible. 
 
 " 2ird May. — Called on Father Tyrrell, the Jesuit, at 
 Farm Street. Kegan Paul had shown me a letter from him 
 about my poem, ' Satan Absolved,' in which he had said, 
 amongst other approving things, that my account of the 
 Incarnation was precisely the one he had always had in his 
 mind and he had suggested my calling on him, so I went. 
 I found Father Tyrrell very sympathetic, a thin, somewhat 
 ascetic figure, with a nervous, imaginative face, his age per- 
 haps forty-eight. We talked of Mivart, for whose ideas he 
 clearly had much sympathy, but he blamed him for having 
 lost his temper in the quarrel. He spoke strongly against 
 the Roman Congregations, thought Vaughan had been un- 
 fair in denying to Mivart an answer to his questions, but all 
 the same he was severe on Mivart for the final quarrel. It 
 could only be excused by the failure of his mental balance 
 through ill health. I asked him what really was the theo- 
 logy of Mivart's position, especially with regard to the in- 
 spiration of the Holy Scriptures. Was Mivart bound to 
 accept the Pope's Encyclical? He said the Pope's En- 
 cyclical, though an interesting pronouncement as being 
 made by the Pope, was in no way binding, though the ex- 
 treme theologians maintained it was. Vaughan had no 
 right to demand of Mivart adhesion to it, an adhesion 
 which was beyond what was ever demanded of converts 
 before their reception into the Church. Mivart's fault was 
 one of temper. He should have held his tongue and let the 
 Congregation say what they would. I asked him whether 
 he knew Meynell, but he said, ' No, not personally,' and 
 added that as to his Liberalism of thought, he did not mind 
 how liberal a man was so long as he retained a definite 
 basis for his ideas. By this I suppose he meant that there 
 must be a certain bed-rock of faith in the Church, however 
 ill-defined. We talked of Stonyhurst, and he was surprised 
 when I praised its system of protecting boys from all con- 
 tact with e\al. I said it had been good for me if not for 
 everybody. He called it a French system, not peculiar to 
 the Jesuits, and said it was much altered now at Stonyhurst. 
 
igooj Philip Webb 455 
 
 Certainly, Father Tyrrell is as enlightened a priest as I 
 have ever met. He agreed with me that it was impossible 
 not to believe in Evolution, whatever might be pronounced 
 at Rome. ' Rome,' he said, ' is two hundred years behind- 
 hand. The}' never read any modern work of criticism there, 
 and do not take the trouble to understand the opinions 
 they condemn.' Forty years ago a priest so outspoken 
 would have saved my faith. 
 
 " Herbert Vivian looked in on me, fresh from Abyssinia. 
 He tells me the Abyssinian army has just been beaten by 
 the Mohammedans of the Southern Province. He gave a 
 curious account of the French colonists at Zeila, who sleep, 
 he says, naked in the streets with the native women, and 
 who do every kind of violence, without restraint, against 
 the natives. 
 
 " 26th May. — Old Philip Webb came down for the day 
 with Cockerell, a worthy old fellow, who is leaving off work 
 at his trade of architect, and is searching for a hermitage 
 in which to end his days. He has been too honest to make 
 his fortune, and talks of living in a;6 10 cottage. I shall try 
 and find him one. 
 
 " 2'ith May. — All is satisfactorily settled about the Khe- 
 dive's visit to England, Lady Lytton writes from Balmoral 
 that he is to be lodged at Buckingham Palace and the 
 Queen will give him private audience. 
 
 " gth June. — Roberts is now in Pretoria. Our country 
 fools have been in ecstasies again over this, though it is 
 quite manifest that both Bloemfontein and Pretoria have 
 been purposely evacuated by the Boers who have not lost 
 a gun or hardly a man in their retreat. The papers are all 
 saying the war is over, but I think it may well last till next 
 year. The Boers' campaigning season begins in October, 
 and if they can manage to hold out in their mountains till 
 then, they may turn the tables yet. 
 
 " 26tk Jime. — -I have moved to-day from my rooms in 
 Mount Street to ^y, Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, having 
 taken the whole of that house, a small one, with Hampden, 
 as Mount Street was too small for us both. 
 
 " 27^'/? June. — -Dined with Godfrey Webb and Hugh 
 Wyndham at the Travellers. The excitement of the mo- 
 ment is the trouble in China, where the Foreign Embassies 
 are in danger from the mob. The Chinese, after a long 
 
456 The " Yellow Terror" Scare [1900 
 
 course of bullying by the Powers, worrying by missionaries, 
 and robbing by merchants and speculators have risen, and 
 are, very properly, knocking the foreign invasion on the 
 head. Admiral Seymour, with two thousand men, mostly 
 English, who was sent up to relieve the Embassy, is him- 
 self blockaded, as is Tientsin behind him, and the rumpus 
 is general. 
 
 " 2%th June. — The Khedive has arrived at last in London 
 at Buckingham Palace. 
 
 " 2,rd July. — To London and lunched with Wilfrid Law- 
 son, who told me a number of splendid new stories, and 
 took me to an Aborigines Protection Conference. Dined 
 with Charles Russell and his wife. 
 
 " yth July. — Our Arab Sale Day. An immense concourse 
 of guests but few buyers, some five hundred sitting down to 
 luncheon. Hampden proposed my health as a poet, politi- 
 cian, and horse-breeder, which, in my reply, I said was 
 unkind, seeing that in the first two characters I had been a 
 failure, and I then gave them my idea of how to breed 
 horses for war. Many were prevented from coming by the 
 news from China, where all the European Ambassadors, 
 they say, have been murdered by the mob. People are 
 shrieking against the Chinese as inhuman barbarians, and 
 there is wild talk about the Yellow Terror. I wish I could 
 believe that Europe stood in the smallest danger from it. 
 [This tale about the murder of the Ambassadors turned out 
 to be a Stock Exchange scare invented by the ' Daily 
 Mail.'] 
 
 " \})th July. — Drove with Anne to Wotton, stopping on 
 the way at Holmwood to lunch with William Gibson and 
 his wife, a pleasant Frenchwoman. He is an odd creature, 
 much engrossed in ecclesiasticism and the Irish Celtic 
 revival, in honour of which he wears a drab kilt, being by 
 birth a Dublin Irishman of the Castle persuasion. 
 
 " \^th July {Sunday'). — At Newbuildings. Alfred Austin 
 is staying here. We put him on a horse, but he was not 
 happy on it, and made ingenious excuses for ending the 
 ride. We have had long talks and discussions on theology, 
 philosophy, and the Catholic church. He is an acute and 
 ready reasoner, and is well read in theology and science. It 
 is strange his poetry should be such poor stuff, and stranger 
 still that he should imagine it immortal. 
 
1900] The Horse Shoio at Vinceiines 457 
 
 " lyt/i July. — It is certain now that the Europeans in 
 Pekin have all been massacred. [Nevertheless it turned out 
 that the whole story was a fable invented by the halfpenny 
 press.] 
 
 '' list July. — The King of Italy has been assassinated. 
 The wonder is that he has not long ago fallen a \'ictim to 
 his subjects whom he has led into miserable poverty and 
 ground down with taxes for his political ambition. He 
 wanted to be an Emperor like the rest of them, Emperor 
 of Ethiopia, and this is the end. 
 
 " 13/// Aug. — Started on my summer driving tour, going 
 by Oldhouse, where I had a long talk with Auberon Her- 
 bert about the great affairs of the world. His son Bron has 
 gone as correspondent to the ' Times ' in South Africa, 
 not much to Auberon's contentment. Then on to St. Giles', 
 where I dined and slept at the Shaftesburys'. The next 
 day by Rushmore to Clouds, where I stayed a week or 
 more. 
 
 " Aftli Sept. — Arrived by the night train in Paris, and 
 drove straight to the Horse Show at Vincennes, where I am 
 exhibiting a number of Arabs, but the feeling just now is 
 too strong against everything iinglish for much hope of 
 our getting prizes. The judges are French military men, of 
 the same class that sat in court-martial on Dreyfus. Also 
 the Sultan has a number of horses at the show which he 
 has entered in the names of various Turkish Generals, so 
 as to elude the rule making Government studs ineligible 
 for competition. There were some saises looking after them, 
 whom I cross-questioned in Arabic, and they let out to me 
 that all really belonged to the Sultan. The handsomest 
 Arab mare is one sent by Prince Sanguscko, a very great 
 beauty with a flea-bitten coat. Then on to Gros Bois. 
 
 " '^th Sept. — Gros Bois. There is nobody here but the 
 family. Alexandre, the boy, is a good talker and a good 
 fellow, very superior in intelligence to most young fellows 
 of his age, which is seventeen, while the two girls are 
 charming and begin to make a feature in the conversation 
 and amusement for the house. 
 
 " 6th Sept. — To Paris to see the International Exhibition, 
 a fatiguing affair. I went through the Pavilions Etrangers, 
 of which incomparably the best is the Spanish, most of the 
 others are cluttered up with the rubbish of modern manu- 
 
458 My First Aiitoniobile Drive [1900 
 
 factures, and even in the English Pavilion, which repre- 
 sents a Victorian Gothic country-house, has a certain 
 ■\'ulgarity, but hers in the Spanish section there is an in- 
 comparable dignity. By a stroke of genius worthy of her 
 daj'S of splendour, Spain, ignoring altogether the nineteenth 
 centur}', even to its bric-a-brac, shows us a mere empty 
 house with tapestries on the walls, tapestries the most 
 magnificent ever shown, and in two small glass cases in the 
 centre of the room, the armour of Charles V, and the dress 
 worn by Boabdil el Chico — absolutely nothing more. The 
 beautiful Morris tapestries in the English House looked 
 tawdry after these. 
 
 " Jth Sept. — To Vincennes with Wagram where we break- 
 fasted, and saw the horses paraded before President Loubet. 
 A Fourth Prize of 1,000 francs has been awarded to us for 
 Mesaoud, and one of 500 francs for Bozra. All the superior 
 prizes, however, have been got hold of by the Sultan, under 
 the name of Muzafifer Pasha, and with the help of his own 
 Inspector of Studs, Fuad Bey, and of one Hector Passega, 
 manager of the Ottoman Horse Show, both of them being 
 judges here, has manipulated the jury and swept the board. 
 There T,\'as only one first-class stallion in the Ottoman show, 
 sent from Bagdad, and that has been left out of the prize 
 list. The others are rather ordinary beasts, the First Prize 
 being taken by a small black stallion, whose colour is his 
 chief recommendation. Only one is fit to show at all with 
 ours ; however, it does not much matter, as we have had 
 many admirers of a serious kind, and have already sold one 
 mare, iNlakbula, to Count Strogonoff for 10,000 francs. 
 
 " To-day is Berthe's wedding-day, and I have written 
 her a sonnet. Giovanni Borghese and Madame de Jau- 
 court, a friend of the Prince of V\^ales, have come. After 
 dinner, there were fireworks in the park, and a crowd of 
 people from the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Zth Sept. — \Mth Berthe in her new automobile to Paris 
 for the da}', going at about fifteen miles an hour. It is cer- 
 tainly an exhilarating experience, quite new to me, and if 
 the machine could be made cheaper (hers cost .£^800, and 
 an ordinary one .:{^40o) would doubtless take the place of 
 horses and carriages. In France it is already much used, 
 but in England, where the roads are neither so broad nor 
 so straight, I doubt whether they will become popular until 
 
1900] Return of the City Volunteers 459 
 
 the mechanism has been simplified and cheapened very 
 considerably. We went a round of the Colonial shows of 
 the popular kind, representing Marchand setting fire to 
 African villages, and French generals bombarding the 
 Madagascans. Then to the Petit Palais with its splendid 
 bric-a-brac, and alongside it the Grand Palais, a modern 
 monstrosity forming together a caricature of the nineteenth 
 century. On the one side a huge show of everything 
 hideous the century has produced; on the other, giving its 
 eclectic fancy for ages gone by. 
 
 " gth Sept. — Paid a last visit to the Horse Show, where 
 we have taken four medals and prizes, 1,000 francs, 800 
 francs, 600 francs, and 500 francs. The printed list calls 
 them recompenses it being not even pretended that the 
 judging is according to merit, the medals being awarded 
 to the exhibitors rather than to the beasts. Asa rule those 
 who sent most animals got most prizes. 
 
 " lot/i Sept. — Back to Newbuildings, taking Alexandre 
 with me for some English shooting. He is a nice young 
 man, extremely well educated and full of ideas, which he 
 expresses fluently in somewhat imperfect English. ' In 
 France,' he said to-day, talking of duels, ' when men quarrel 
 and one receives & gifle, he is expected to beat himself 
 
 " 22nd Sept. — Politicall)- much has happened in the last 
 week. Kruger has abandoned the Transvaal, and the Boer 
 army, though never yet beaten in battle, seems to have 
 broken up into small bands, so that our Government has 
 some ground for saying the war is over. On this, Parlia- 
 ment has been dissolved. I shall take no part whatever in 
 the new elections, as neither political party has the slightest 
 claim on my sympathy. It is difficult to say between 
 Rosebery and Chamberlain which would be the more 
 dangerous in power. 
 
 " 1st Nov. — I left home on Monday for Egypt, this being 
 Thursday. London, when I passed through, was in an 
 absurd uproar on account of the return of the City Volun- 
 teers from South Africa. People have become idiotic over 
 this war, to the extent that they really think something 
 chivalrous and noble has been achieved, while we have been 
 making ourselves not only detested, but a laughing-stock 
 the whole world over. I found George getting ready for a 
 speech he is to make at Dover. He talked very scornfully 
 
460 Talk with a Lion Shooter [1900 
 
 of Rosebery and the Imperial Radicals, who had dished 
 the chances of their part}' by supporting the war, and had 
 put his own party in power for another fifteen years. 
 ' There will be a reaction, of course, some day,' he said, 
 ' but they won't profit by it. Rosebery will have to join us 
 altogether, as Burke did Pitt, or be left out permanently in 
 the cold. He talked of his own prospects of promotion, 
 which he said had been a little injured by his candour in 
 admitting defects in the conduct of the war, though he had 
 saved the Government by the line he took last Spring. 
 ' But it does not matter,' he said, 'politics are a long game, 
 and I shall not lose in the end by telling the truth.' As it 
 was, he had some chance, he said, of being shifted to 
 Ireland, and he said I must write and tell him what I 
 thought of it if it came to pass. I said the Irish remem- 
 bered he was Lord Edward Fitzgerald's great-grandson, 
 and it would be something to start on, but would not carry 
 him far. George's political hard work has aged him and he 
 is much greyer than I am, though only thirty-seven. 
 Hampden, who expresses Chamberlain's ideas about the 
 war, said to-day, ' It looks as if the only way of ending it 
 will be to deport all the Boer women and hang all the Boer 
 men. Roberts will come home and leave Kitchener behind 
 him to do the butcher work.' He argued quite seriously 
 that this was not only necessary but implied nothing dis- 
 graceful to us as a nation, yet Hampden was a Gladstonian 
 Radical M.P. of the most advanced non-intervention type 
 twenty years ago, and is now a respected Liberal nobleman 
 and ex-Governor of a Colony. 
 
 " 6th Nov.— On board the B. and O. ' Valetta.' Among the 
 passengers is a Mr. Seton Karr, a lion shooter, who showed 
 me photographs of his victims in various parts of the world. 
 These amateur killers for kilhng's sake, who compass the 
 four continents of the earth at vast labour and expense 
 only to destroy, are a pitiful feature of the age we live in. 
 What have the lions and elephants in Africa done to Seton 
 Karr that he should travel 20,000 miles, and spend a for- 
 tune to extinguish their race? Men of his stamp, though he 
 seems a very worthy man, need to be put under restraint, 
 far more than half the lunatics in our as\dums. They do a 
 thousand times more harm. There is no pretence with him 
 of science, missionary work, or Imperial politics, and in so far 
 
I goo] The Broivniiig Letters 461 
 
 he is respectabl)' sincere. His work of destruction does not 
 injure his moral nature, but he is a dangerous criminal all 
 the same, and ought to be straight- waistcoated. I see that 
 my letter to the ' Times ' of last winter has had the effect 
 of causing regulations to be issued in Egypt which, if 
 carried out, will do something towards saving the small 
 wild birds there from extinction at the hand of European 
 gunners. If this succeeds, the British occupation will have 
 done something to justify itself in the eye of whatever force 
 rules the world. 
 
 " I have been reading Mrs. Browning's letters. They are 
 interesting in many ways, but on the whole poor literature, 
 lacking, as they do, all wit. They are gossiping, too, in not 
 the best sense, and commonplace, far inferior to her poems, 
 for which I have the highest admiration. There is nothing 
 in them which makes one love the writer, and very few of 
 them would be worth preserving if not written by so famous 
 a poet. Browning stands out well in the volume, and the 
 few scraps that are given of his writing show the superiority 
 of the man, as an intellectual power, over his wife. Her en- 
 thusiasms are poor stuff in prose. There are a few meagre 
 allusions in them to Robert Lytton, and one, a pretty one,_ 
 to Anne, but the whole series written in Italy is infected 
 with the sentimental vulgarity of the Anglo-American 
 colon)', which had its headquarters in Story's rooms in the 
 Palazzo Barberini, and which so nauseated me thirty and 
 more years ago at Rome. Browning himself was not exempt 
 from it, though this does not appear in the volume, for 1 
 remember him in his later years, a gossipy diner-out in 
 London and teller of second-rate funny stories. He did 
 not on these occasions show to advantage, though beyond 
 question he was a thinker of a very high order, the most 
 intellectual poet we have perhaps ever had. 
 
 " Another volume I have skimmed is Watts Dunton's 
 absurd romance, ' Aylwin,' a thing of the lowest order of 
 childish melodrama. Kipling's ' Stalky ' is the third volume. 
 Here, at least, we have vigour and wit, though it is brutal 
 in its realism and displays the seamy side of our British 
 schoolboy life without mercy. It needed courage to print 
 it. Kitchener, I fancy, has served in some sort as his model. 
 Lastly, I have read Tourgueneff's ' Smoke,' which is ex- 
 cellent. 
 
462 Beauty of the Delta [1900 
 
 " "jih Nov. — A day of great enjoyment. We landed at 
 Alexandria and came on by special train to Cairo, arriving 
 at sunset, a light wind blowing from the north, which puts 
 one in the gayest of spirits. Thei'e are few things more 
 beautiful than the Delta at this time of year, or where one 
 sees more life from a railwa)' carriage window. The appear- 
 ance of plenty and happiness does one good after the 
 squalor of Europe. The country districts are still quite un- 
 touched by our \^'estern ugliness. On the whole journey 
 from Alexandria I did not see a European or a European 
 dress, \'et the fields were full of people, with their buffaloes 
 and donkeys and camels crowding the country roads, men, 
 women, and children gathering cotton in manifest enjoy- 
 ment of their lives. How different from our own agricultural 
 England, where one may travel for miles without seeing a 
 living being and where all labour is done silently, except at 
 hay and harvest times. The splendid wealth, too, of the 
 crops, especiall}' the maize, delights one. Then there are 
 the birds, I counted nine kingfishers, some blue, some pied, 
 and as many hoopoes, besides numbers of spur-winged 
 plovers, which are far more brilliant than our English ones, 
 and kestrels, kites, hen harriers and other large birds, to 
 say nothing of the flocks of smaller ones. I was met b}' my 
 mare and Mutlak at the station, and rode through the 
 moonlit garden, which was alive with cicalas and so enjoyed 
 its whole beauty. Then, after a drink of fresh milk with 
 Mutlak and a cup of his scented coffee, we got on our mares 
 again, and rode out into the desert. It was as light as da\- 
 with the full moon, and we were able to canter our mares 
 with their unshod feet noiselessly on for some miles till we 
 came in hearing of dogs barking, which showed us where 
 Suliman's tent was. It was set behind a little hillock sur- 
 rounded by sheep and camels, and we had some difficulty 
 in waking them, but Aida (his favourite \\'ife) heard us, and 
 looked out and then Suliman. Here, too, seemed an abode 
 -of happiness as good as is to be found in the world. It was 
 eleven before we got back to Sheykh Obeyd, and we must 
 have ridden ten miles. 
 
 " There are three bits of news. Aared has revolted from 
 Ibn Rashid in Nejd; the Sultan is building a railway from 
 Damascus to Medina, and a French company has bought 
 up a tract of land beyond Kafr Jamus to build a new town 
 
1900J Death of Oscar Wilde 463 
 
 near us like Helwan, Heaven forbid! There are three fox 
 earths in our stable yard, and I heard the jackals cry out- 
 side my window between one and two. 
 
 "9//^ Nov. — Mohammed Abdu called to-day. He has seen 
 the Khedive, who came back from England highly pleased 
 with the civility shown him by the Queen, the Prince of 
 Wales, and the Government, but as I had told him would 
 be the case, there had been no talk of Egyptian politics, 
 though those at Constantinople had been mentioned. He 
 sent me messages of thanks through Abdu, and said he had 
 intended going to Crabbet according to my in\-itation, if 
 his illness had not prevented him. Mohammed Abdu 
 praised him for his power of making himself agreeable 
 when he chose, as he had done in England, but said he had 
 been most indiscreet afterwards, having told everything 
 that had happened there to the editor of the ' Mokattam,' 
 who had straightway published it. 
 
 " George, according to a telegram, has got the Chief 
 Secretaryship of Ireland. I am glad of it for him as a step 
 in his ambition, but it is a thankless task, if he thinks to 
 reconcile Ireland to English rule." 
 
 During the rest of the month my diary is mostly filled 
 with an account of explorations made in the eastern desert, 
 interesting in themselves, but not of sufficient importance to 
 be here transcribed. We were back at Sheykh Obeyd the 
 first week of the month. 
 
 " loth Dec. — Oscar Wilde is reported dead. He was 
 without exception the most brilliant talker I have ever 
 come across, the most ready, the most witty, the most 
 audacious. Nobody could pretend to outshine him, or even 
 to shine at all in his company. Something of his wit is re- 
 flected in his plays, but very little. The fine society of 
 London and especially the ' Souls ' ran after him because 
 they knew he could always amuse them, and the pretty 
 women allowed him great familiarities, though there was 
 no question of love-making. Physically, he was repellant, 
 though with a certain sort of fat good looks. There was a 
 kind of freckled coarseness in his colouring I have seen at 
 times in other Irishmen. I was never intimate with 'him, 
 though on superficially cordial terms when we met. He 
 had been two or three times at our Crabbet parties and was 
 a member of our Club, but only attended one regular meeting 
 
464 Shame of the Nineteenth Ccntitry [1900 
 
 The last time I saw him was at that brilliant luncheon party 
 at Asquith's in Upper Grosvenor Street which I have already 
 described. His poetr)-, though nothing very wonderful, was 
 good, especially his ' Ballad of Reading Gaol,' as was also 
 a protest he wrote on leaving prison against prison treat- 
 ment, and if he had then begun a decent life people would 
 have forgiven him, but he returned to Paris and to his dog's 
 vomit and this is the end. I see it said in the papers that 
 he was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed, 
 a strange ending, and yet not strange! 
 
 " 22nd Dec. — The old century is very nearly out, and 
 leaves the world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire 
 is playing the devil in it as never an empire before on so 
 large a scale. We may live to see its fall. All the nations 
 of Europe are making the same hell upon earth in China, 
 massacring and pillaging and raping in the captured cities 
 as outrageously as in the Middle Ages. The Emperor of 
 Germany gives the word for slaughter and the Pope looks 
 on and approves. In South Africa our troops are burning 
 farms under Kitchener's command, and the Queen and the 
 two Houses of Parliament, and the bench of bishops thank 
 God publicl}- and vote money for the work. The Americans 
 are spending fifty millions a year on slaughtering the 
 Filipinos ; the King of the Belgians has invested his whole 
 fortune on the Congo, where he is brutalizing the negroes 
 to fill his pockets. The French and Italians for the moment 
 are playing a less prominent part in the slaughter, but their 
 inactivity grieves them. The whole white race is revelling 
 openly in violence, as though it had never pretended to be 
 Christian. God's equal curse be on them all! So ends the 
 famous nineteenth century into which we were so proud to 
 have been born. 
 
 " 25/// Dec. — Christmas Day. I have embodied some part 
 of my feeling in a letter to the ' Times,' if they will print it 
 (' The Shame of the Nineteenth Century ').' The Boers have 
 shown themselves alive within the last week and have won 
 two battles, capturing over 500 men, and are now in full 
 march forward into Cape Colony. The railroads are cut 
 behind them and Kitchener seems pretty well bewildered. " 
 There is something like a panic in London for the last 
 week of the old century. 
 
 ' See Appendix. 
 
I goo] Poor Wicked Cenhuy, Faj'ewell! 465 
 
 My old friend and neighbour here, Sheykh Hassan Abu 
 Tawil, at last is dead. I went to see him four days ago and 
 found him lying speechless with his eyes closed, in the 
 little closet he used as his sleeping room. He looked the 
 picture of frail, worn-out humanity, with a Job-like Eastern 
 patience on his fine old countenance, over which the flies 
 were crawling as they doubtless crawled in his childhood in 
 the tent where he was born. He died last night at midnight, 
 and we heard the women wailing a short mile away at day- 
 break, while we were breakfasting on the roof. Now they 
 have buried him, walking in beautiful procession, men and 
 women, past our gates to his grave in the desert. These 
 country funerals are touching things, with the flags flying 
 and the chaunting and the wailing, dignified, and with 
 something in them of triumph as well as grief, which miti- 
 gates the ugliness of death. Old Sheykh Hassan has gone 
 to his grave, full of years, the last of the old-world Arab 
 Sheykhs of Low^r Egypt. His tribe, the Aiaide, were all 
 tent-dwellers when he was young, a wicked, turbulent lot, 
 whom he has controlled with a mild humanity much to his 
 credit. With me he has always been on more than friendly, 
 on affectionate terms, and I grieve for him as sincerely as 
 his own people. It is a link broken for me with a pleasant 
 past which will not be joined again, for the fashion of the 
 old world passeth fast away at Sheykh Obeyd and we shall 
 soon be engulfed in the town. 
 
 " 3 1 J/' Dec. — I bid good-bye to the old century, may it rest 
 in peace as it has lived in war. Of the new century I 
 prophesy nothing except that it will see the decline of the 
 British Empire. Other worse Empires will rise perhaps in 
 its place, but I shall not live to see the day. It all seems a 
 very little matter here in Egypt, with the Pyramids watch- 
 ing us as they watched Joseph, when, as a young man four 
 thousand years ago, perhaps in this very garden, he walked 
 and gazed at the sunset behind them, wondering about the 
 future just as I did this evening. And so, poor wicked 
 nineteenth century, farewell! 
 
 END OF PART I 
 
 H H 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 MY PARIS DIARY OF 1870 
 
 nPHE fragment of Diary here printed was begun by me at Paris 
 J- in the early summer of 1870, a few weeks only before the 
 rupture of relations between IFrance and Prussia. I already knew 
 Paris well, having been a member of the British Embassy there in 
 Lord Cowley's time, and I had remained in pleasant personal 
 relations with my successors on the Embassy staff, and so found 
 myself in close touch with all that was going on diplomatically. 
 There were few days when I did not see one or other of my 
 Embassy friends. I had only just left the diplomatic service, and 
 now on my marriage I had come to Paris with my wife, meaning 
 to make our temporary home there, before settUng down finally 
 to country life in Sussex. I had a romantic feeling about the 
 great capital of the world's pleasure and was deeply interested in 
 all that concerned France when the war broke out, and was fired 
 with a corresponding sympathy when it resulted in her unlooked 
 for overthrow. 
 
 Of Germany, too, her adversary, I had had experience. Among 
 the many posts I had filled as attache and secretary I had been 
 twice at Frankfort, a place at that time of first diplomatic import- 
 ance as capital of the Germanic Confederation and seat of the 
 Diet, and had made there my apprenticeship in Central European 
 politics. When 1 was first appointed to Frankfort in i860, 
 Bismarck, though already noticed as leader of the Junker party at 
 Berlin, was still at the outset of his political career. The old King 
 Frederick William was still King of Prussia, and Bismarck was 
 not much in his good graces. His place at Frankfort had just 
 been taken by his rival. Count d'Usedom, who was in better 
 favour at Court. Usedom was a highly intellectual man, a leading 
 member of the Liberal party in Prussia, and his sympathies 
 were with the movement for a United Germany, then a Liberal 
 movement having for its acknowledged head the Duke of Saxe 
 Coburg, elder brother of our English Prince Consort, nor was it 
 till Frederick William's death that Bismarck's power with the 
 HohenzoUerns found its opportunity. 
 
 With Usedom I was intimate, spending most of my time at the 
 Prussian Legation, where I held in some sort the position of 
 
 469 
 
4 70 Appendix I 
 
 child of the house through the favour of Madame d'Usedom, the 
 good-natured Scotchwoman who figures in Bismarck's memoirs 
 under the name of Olympia as his bite noire, the subject of his 
 unsparing jests. Both she and Usedom were too outspoken to 
 please the Bismarckian ideas of diplomacy; and in their society, 
 though I took little interest as yet in the great world's politics, 
 I learned much that I have not forgotten of Berlin policy and of 
 the hopes and fears of German patriotism in which the Hohen- 
 zoUerns under the old King had as yet refused to play a part. I 
 remember a visit paid to Frankfort by the Crown Prince of 
 Prussia, afterwards Emperor William I, and his accession a little 
 later to the Prussian throne, which set Bismarck securely in the 
 saddle and began that intrigue which resulted in the war with 
 Denmark over Sleswig Holstein, as to which Usedom was daily 
 eloquent. 
 
 I have dreamlike memories, too, of many hours — some pleasant, 
 some wearisome — spent in attendance on the Princes and Prin- 
 cesses of the Royal and Electoral Houses to whom we at the Eng- 
 lish Legation were accredited, including Princess Alice of Hesse 
 Darmstadt, our Queen Victoria's daughter, and a vast number of 
 cousinly allied royalties assembled one summer at the family 
 chateau of Rumpenheim, where I had the privilege of paying an 
 early court to our future Queen Alexandra while she was still a 
 girl of seventeen, and her sister, afterwards Empress of Russia, 
 pretty but plainly dressed maidens of no acknowledged importance, 
 though we at the Legation had been secretly apprised of the in- 
 tended marriage of the elder with our Prince of Wales. 
 
 All these incidents were unconscious elements in my diplomatic 
 education. My thoughts, however, at the time ran more on poetry 
 than politics, and what interest I took in German thought lay 
 rather in the direction of science which was beginning to perplex 
 me, for Darwin's " Origin of Species " had only just been published. 
 
 My second appointment in Frankfort found the Bismarckian 
 policy in full swing. After three years' absence at other posts — 
 Madrid, Paris, and Lisbon — I had returned in 1866 in time to 
 witness the great duel in the Diet between Prussia and Austria 
 shortly after to be decided at Sadowa, which displayed Bismarck 
 as the leading force of his generation. 
 
 Of the great man himself I have but a single personal recollec- 
 tion, that of a couple of hours spent in his society at tea alone 
 with Lady Malet. He was then still an object of dislik'e and even 
 ridicule at Frankfort, but already recognized by Lady Malet, a 
 very clever woman, to whom he had paid a certain court while at 
 the Frankfort Legation, and who already saw in him the man of 
 genius he was soon to show himself. My memory of him is of 
 
My Paris Diary of I'&'jo 471 
 
 a tall, distinguished personage, still slight in figure, who, having 
 been told about me by our hostess favourably as having some 
 faculty of verse, talked pleasantly and well on literature and 
 science in excellent English for a couple of hours, affecting a 
 certain Anglomania, where he touched on politics. He showed 
 himself thus at his best, and left me with a feeling of the heroic 
 such as a young man gives to one already beginning to be famous 
 and who had been kind to him. 
 
 All this, however, had failed to give me when I left Frankfort 
 after Sadowa any enthusiasm for Germany, and when the war of 
 1870 broke out I was strongly anti-Prussian. My connection with 
 the Paris Embassy in the days of the Napoleonic glory had made 
 me a partisan of France, and I had come to look upon Germany 
 as intellectually the home of barbarism given up to the grosser 
 forms of social life and clumsy in its politics as in all else. 
 
 With these few words I leave my diary to tell its own story. 
 
 "Paris, 27M May, 1870. — I have taken the first floor of 
 No. 204, Rue de Rivoli, at 8,000 francs rent. My proprietor is 
 M. Desfontaines, one of Louis Philippe's councillors. He is an 
 old man who lives at Noissy, and his house is managed by his 
 concierge, whom we call the faux bon homme. He sits with his 
 wife all day under the arcade, and the people of the quarter 
 dislike him because he has made 100,000 francs. Every Monday 
 morning he brings us from the country a country bunch of 
 flowers. 
 
 " To-day I went with my cousin Francis Currie to the other side 
 of the Seine for furniture. We went to one Recapet's, a bric-k-brac 
 dealer, and having to ask the way I inquired of a shopwoman in 
 the faubourg, a dealer in religious prints, the road to the ' Passage 
 Marie.' 'The Passage S'" Marie,' she answered, correcting me. 
 There is still religion in France ! Yesterday Francis Currie saw a 
 dead man fished out of the river near the Pont Royal. A woman 
 in the crowd asked what it was all about. 'A naked man,' my 
 cousin answered. ' If it is only that ! ' said the woman. I after- 
 wards drove with my wife to the Jardin des Plantes, and back 
 through the Faubourg St. Antoine. Coming home we saw the 
 carriages of ' Le Singe ' as they call their Sovereign. 
 
 " T,oth May. — We drove down on Saturday to Chantilly by the 
 old Royal Road passing through St. Denis and Luzarches. There 
 are some fine views on the way, but the road is still paved nearly 
 the whole distance. In the Forest we noticed two large oaks on 
 the boundary between Oise and Seine. These are the only trees 
 more than twenty \_sic\ years old. The races on Sunday were 
 
472 Appendix I 
 
 pleasant and the weather fine. A horse called Bigarreau won the 
 principal stakes. 
 
 " 2nd June. — To Fontainebleau to play tennis. Our party was 
 Frank Lascelles and his wife, Henry AVodehouse and Mr. and 
 Airs. Fred Ricardo. Lascelles and I played from two till half- 
 past six. The paiimier, Garcin, is eighty-three years old. In his 
 time he has played tennis with Wellington and others of the 
 Waterloo heroes. 'Napoleon Bonaparte,' he told us, 'played in 
 the tennis court at Fontainebleau, but did not show much apti- 
 tude. II n'avait pas meme des dispositions. Quant a Wellington, 
 il ne faisait que s'y amuser, il venait de gagner la bataille de 
 Waterloo.' (The old man hobbled into the court to play us a 
 chouette, supported by a granddaughter, who picked up and 
 handed him the balls. He pretended at first not to be able to 
 send the ball over the net, but with five francs on the set he soon 
 recovered his skill and won his money. Anne made an excellent 
 drawing of the court while we were playing.) 
 
 "' yd June. — Two great fires have taken place, the one at 
 Fontainebleau, which destroyed a large part of the Forest, the 
 other at Constantinople, a thousand houses burnt at Pera, in- 
 cluding the English Embassy. 
 
 "People in Paris seem to be becoming aware hov,r grossly they 
 have been cajoled in the matter of Liberal reform. I myself 
 thought three months ago that it was sincere, and I was only sur- 
 prised that so long-sighted a policy should have been adopted by 
 the Bonapartes, who have always held by small expedients. For 
 the future of the dynasty there could have been no greater folly 
 than a sham conversion to constitutionalism and a repetition of 
 the old trick of the plebiscite. Another such victory and the dynasty 
 is lost. They complain already that OUivier is nothing else than 
 Rouere over again, and that personal government is precisely what 
 it was last year. I care nothing for all this, not being one of the 
 Singe's subjects. 
 
 " 8M June. — We dined last night at the British Embassy, 
 thirty covers. Amongt the guests were some of the new French 
 Ministry — Grammont, Mege, Richard, also Monsaud, Under 
 Secretary at the Affaires Etrangeres. Lord Lyons keeps great 
 state at the Embassy, with Sheffield managing the household, 
 and Edward Malet for Private Secretary. They all three go out 
 driving in a barouche every afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne, 
 with a dog named Toby on the fourth seat. The Parisians mock 
 at it calling Malet 'le petit brun,' and Sheffield 'le petit blond.' 
 The Duke and Duchess of Montmorency were at the dinner. He 
 is the hero of a rather mean adventure. Being by birth a Perigord, 
 he solicited through his wife, who was an Aguado and partly 
 
My Paris Diary of id>jo 473 
 
 Spanish, one of Empress Eugenie's set, a grant of the Duchy of 
 Montmorency, the direct line of the Dues de Montmorency 
 having failed, though there were still collaterals. One of these, 
 the Comte de Montmorency, who now represents the family, 
 scratched out the new Duke's arms from the panel of his carriage 
 the first time he drove up in it to the Jockey Club. It led to a 
 duel in which the Comte was slightly wounded, and the Club, 
 indignant at the affair, expelled the Duke from their house. On 
 this the Duke appealed to the Court, the Empress happening to 
 be Regent at the time, and the poHce received orders to close the 
 doors of the Jockey Club if they persisted in the expulsion. The 
 Club succumbed, and so the matter ended. [I was constantly in 
 and out of the Chancery at our Embassy during all this time, 
 having through my former official connection with the Embassy 
 still many friends there, Lascelles, Malet, Saumarez, Claremont, 
 and Atlee, thus I heard the news pretty regularly as the Embassy 
 heard it.] 
 
 " The ' Figaro ' has published a charge. Villemessent, the editor, 
 begins by announcing that he has sold his paper to the Irrecon- 
 cilables, and articles and letters follow, signed by the chiefs of 
 the revolution. The best is a piece in verse, purporting to be by 
 Victor Hugo in which his style is well imitated. Half the town 
 has been taken in by the hoax. 
 
 " nth June. — There is news from Lisbon of disturbances, 
 Saldanha being the hero of these. I used to see this curious old 
 Field Marshal very frequently during the summer I spent at Cintra 
 in 1865. He was a. poseur of the first water, and nature had given 
 him a head and figure exactly suited to the part of ancien militaire, 
 which he has been playing ever since the days of the Peninsular 
 War. He is now eighty-five. Twenty years ago he made a revolu- 
 tion in Portugal very like the present one. He got a few regiments 
 together, and when the King marched out against him with the 
 rest of the Portuguese army these at once joined the Marshal, 
 and the King had to gallop back alone with his A.D.C's to 
 Lisbon. Saldanha had no political principles, but being a restless, 
 vain old man, could not bear to be forgotten. I saw him again at 
 Rome in 1867, on his way in uniform to the Jesuit church in 
 Easter week, his whole coat, front and back, a mass of stars and 
 orders. He is the most completely decorated personage in Europe. 
 Also he has the pretension of universal knowledge, and has written 
 a book or pamphlet on every possible subject from Pisciculture to 
 the Immaculate Conception. At Cintra he had a garden of accli- 
 matisation. His wife, the widow of a British navy surgeon, was a 
 worthy Englishwoman on whom he imposed absolute silence in 
 society so as to conceal her defects of education. 
 
My Paris Diary of 1870 475 
 
 for its restoration. The court is miserably out of repair, the floor 
 chipped, and the plaster falling from the walls, the brass plate 
 commemorating the oath of 1789 was taken down by Dalmand 
 the paumier some years ago, and remise a neicf. The court had 
 not been used for four years, and there are but a few rotten old 
 balls to play with, but the court was played in this summer. 
 
 "Queen Ysabel has signed her abdication publicly of the 
 Crown of Spain, and the Prince of Asturias, her son, becomes 
 King Alphonso XII. On the same day a rival Prince of Asturias 
 was born to Don Carlos at Geneva. The Pope has sent his blessing 
 to them both. I well remember the Court of Queen Ysabel, 
 and the besa manos ceremonies in which the little Prince Alfonso 
 figured with his parents, set in a tall gilt chair, having his hand 
 kissed fast asleep. He had in those days a most beautiful little 
 Andalusian pony, a miniature horse, but only twelve hands high, 
 with silky mane and tail sweeping the ground, legs fine as a 
 gazelle's. When the revolution came which drove the Bourbons 
 from Spain, Prim gave the pony to his son. I met General Prim 
 in the summer of 1863 at the baths of Panticosa, a pale, ugly 
 little man, with no kind of distinction, suffering from an internal 
 disease which gave him constant pain, half his political energy, 
 they said, was caused by this. General Prim was the leader then 
 of the Progresista Party. He was at the baths for his health with 
 his aide-de-camp, General Milans del Bosch." 
 
 The abdication here mentioned of the exiled Queen of Spain was 
 the occasion of the quarrel between France and Prussia a week or two 
 later, which resulted in the disastrous war, the capitulation of Sedan 
 and the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty. I was, at the time 
 of writing, strongly anti-Bonapartist, a reader of the " Lantern e " 
 and other journals of that type, more than my diary shows. In 
 this I shared the general view of the Parisian mob, and even of 
 the bourgeoisie who were sick of the Empire. The gossip, of the 
 Paris streets was retailed to me daily by my old bonne Julie, who 
 had a curious faculty for gathering news as she was constantly 
 waridering about the streets where she had become a well-known 
 character by reason of her kindness to birds and beasts, and 
 sufferers of all kinds. With the sergents-de-ville of the Tuileries 
 quarter she was a favourite, for she was always ready to help in 
 cases of sickness, or accident, coming within their province. A 
 Bretonne peasant by birth, (she had had an uncle a priest, 
 massacred during the great Revolution on the steps of the altar, 
 while he was celebrating mass). Her political prepossessions 
 were strongly Orleanist, as became one who had been in their 
 domestic service, for she had been housemaid in her young days 
 under Louis Philippe in the Chateau, as she called the Tuileries, 
 
47^ Appendix I 
 
 and knew every room in it from cellar to garret. Another in- 
 formant of thfe same class was my cousin, Francis Currie's bonne 
 Julienne, a pendant of my Julie. She had a German husband, 
 waiter in a restaurant, and trought us gossip from the German 
 point of view, also an amusing woman. To these two may be 
 added our man-servant Desire who appears from time to time in 
 the diaries. 
 
 " \ih July. — The ' Constitutionel ' publishes the news that Prim 
 has offered the Crown of Spain to one of the Hohenzollerns, a 
 brother of Prince Charles of Roumania, and that the candidature 
 is accepted. On this a general outcry from all sides. A Hohen- 
 zollern, it is said, at the Escurial will complete the wild beast show 
 of Europe. We have already seen a Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, 
 a Savoy at Venice, a Hapsburg in Mexico, to-day the rage is for 
 German Kings, the most wonderful phenomenon of the age. 
 Yesterday we drove to St. Germain with a mixed company of 
 Americans, French, Jews, and Brazilians, to dine there on the 
 terrace. The event of the day was Grammont's speech in the 
 Chambers. He declared that if the candidature of Prince Leopold 
 of Hohenzollern was not withdrawn ' France would know how to 
 act without hesitation and without weakness.' This being con- 
 sidered a declaration of war with Prussia was tumultuously 
 applauded by all parties in the House. The move is considered 
 an excellent one for the Bonapartists, who need a show of 
 energy to cover their humiliations of the past four years, for the 
 'first place in Europe is everyday becoming more plainly Prussian. 
 Whether the Germans are beaten in the war, or the Emperor 
 Napoleon, I shall feel some satisfaction. St. Germain looked 
 lovely as it always does." 
 
 Though my diary does not record it, I remember well the 
 excitement there was among us that evening at the news which 
 had been brought down by Frank Lascelles, or some other 
 diplomatist of our party, and how in the beautiful summer's night 
 we walked upon the terrace after dinner, and looked across the 
 river towards Paris, and how someone suggested, though we none 
 of us had much misgiving as to the fortunate issue of the war, the 
 possible trouble there might be for the fair city which we loved. 
 Our imagination for a moment encircled it with a girdle of armed 
 men, and a gulf seemed opened suddenly at our feet of unknown 
 adversity. Yet, as I have said, none of us, not even those who 
 ought to have known it, had a suspicion of the unreadiness of 
 France for a serious campaign. There had been a comparative 
 lack of interest in the Paris newspapers at the first announcement 
 of the Hohenzollern candidature, which was treated by them as 
 only another rebuff for the Imperial diplomacy, and it was not till 
 
My Paris Diary ^y 1870 477 
 
 Grammont made his valorous speech, and after him Ollivier that 
 the cry, a Berlin, began to be raised. 
 
 '■'■Zth July. — There has been a report that Prim has abandoned 
 his HohenzoUern, but this is not true. The German papers affect 
 not to treat the French menace as serious. At Madrid the Cortes 
 are to assemble for the vote on the 20th. If the present candidature 
 is not withdrawn before that date the position of France will 
 become less simple. 
 
 " To-night I start for Southampton to meet my brother Francis, 
 leaving Anne here. He is returning from Australia via the Cape 
 and Madeira." 
 
 [A fortnight's break occurs here in my diary caused by my 
 absence from Paris.] 
 
 " 2']thjuly. — I have been more than a fortnight in England, 
 and my journal has been interrupted, but I will recapitulate the 
 events which have led to the declaration of war. In answer to the 
 French demand of a withdrawal of Prince Leopold's candidature 
 Prim denied the right of France to interfere. At first all previous 
 knowledge of the candidature was denied in Prussia, but it soon 
 appeared that King William had given his assent to the Prince's 
 acceptance. But on the matter being pressed by the French 
 Government William withdrew his consent, not as King, but as 
 head of the Hohenzollerns, saying at the same time that if Spain 
 still chose to elect the Prince he would not as King of Prussia 
 interfere. Nevertheless France insisted on a formal disavowal of 
 the plan by the Prussian Government. Things being in this 
 position, to the astonishment of all. Prince Anthony, Leopold's 
 father, writes to the Spanish Government withdrawing his son's 
 candidature, Leopold himself remaining silent, and the Prussian 
 Government professing not to know even where he is. In France 
 Leopold is thought to have gone incognito to Madrid, as his 
 brother Charles in hke circumstances went incognito to Roumania. 
 I have no doubt in my mind that some such stroke was contem- 
 plated by Bismarck, as Usedom has often told me that Prince 
 Charles' expedition was sanctioned by the Prussian Government, 
 and that it was Bismarck's policy to raise up anti-French influ- 
 ences in every corner of Europe, in Greece, in Italy, and in the 
 Turkish Provinces. In England it was very generally beheved 
 that Prince Anthony had settled the matter, and the ' Times ' sang 
 a Te Deum of peace, the stocks rose prodigiously in London, and 
 two days after, Sunday the i6th of July, as I was sitting in the 
 balcony after dinner in Belgrave Square (number 44, my cousin 
 Percy Wyndham's house), I heard the news hawkers bawling out, 
 ' Declaration of War.' A story had appeared in the ' Times ' that 
 morning, relating that M. Benedetti the French Ambassador at 
 
478 Appendix I 
 
 Berlin had accosted King William contrary to etiquette in the 
 Public Garden at Ems, and had there again urged the claims of 
 France, and that the King turning on his heel had told his aide- 
 de-camp to inform the Ambassador that he had no more to say to 
 him. This story has since been denied, but it has been made use 
 of both in France and Germany to inflame popular passions. On 
 Monday morning the ' Times ' announced the war, and declared 
 that the French Emperor had committed the greatest crime Europe 
 had witnessed for thirty years. The ' Times ' has since persisted 
 that the war is one of aggression on the part of France with the 
 Rhine Provinces for object, but I have never met for years past a 
 Frenchman who has not laughed at the idea of taking possession 
 of the Rhine, or who would have given a fig to annex. People 
 expected a battle would be fought at once, but ten days have 
 passed, and no blow has been struck. 
 
 "This morning the 'Times' gives us a new surprise, the draft 
 of a treaty between France and Prussia (undated) in which the 
 annexation of Belgium and Luxemburg by France is agreed on if 
 necessary by force of arms. The draft has no appearance of au- 
 thenticity, its style being unlike that usual in treaties, and the 
 French used is poor. Some such scheme may have been talked 
 over between the French Emperor and Bismarck, soon after the 
 late war (the war of Sadowa), but I cannot conceive its having 
 been thus put on paper. I expect the French Government to 
 deny the authenticity of the document, and perhaps ultimately 
 they may make a counter-charge against Prussia of designs on 
 Holland. Feeling in England is pretty well balanced between 
 France and Prussia, but people fail to see that France is in reality 
 fighting for her existence. This is no war of Government against 
 Government, but of race against race, of France the last of the 
 great Latin nations against Germany. If Germany is beaten she 
 will recover, if France she will go the way of the other Latins. 
 The Radical Party in England side with Prussia because they see 
 in it a triumph of atheism and socialism in Europe. France after 
 many years goes forth to the Rhine singing the Marseillaise in the 
 cause of order and religion. It is strange. 
 
 " 2?,th July. — We drove this morning to St. Cloud to see the 
 Emperor and his son start for the war. He went off by the back 
 door, and nobody saw him go. The flag was pulled down exactly 
 at ten o'clock. The Emperor has his headquarters at Metz. 
 
 " zf^th July. — It is decided that the French garrison is to leave 
 Rome. M. Visconti Venosta, the Italian Foreign Minister, has 
 engaged to protect the Holy See from the Garibaldians; the Pope, 
 however, is I am sure quite able to take care of himself at Rome. 
 The Foreign Legion is, or was, when I saw it in 1866 as fine a 
 
My Paris Diary 0/ i8yo 479 
 
 body of men as any in the south of Europe, they did not need 
 the French chassepots to beat the Garibaldians at Montana; how- 
 ever, we shall see. The announcement of the new dogma of Papal 
 infallibility has passed almost unnoticed after all, though there are 
 rumours of a schism in Germany. 
 
 " jjOth July. — To-day we have a full explanation of the pro- 
 jected treaty [that published in the 'Times' of the 27th, aboyt 
 Belgium and the Rhine provinces]. Benedetti writes to the 
 official journal, stating that soon after the war of 1866, being one 
 day with Bismarck at Berlin, and talking as they had often talked : 
 of proposed territorial changes in Europe, Bismarck said: 'What 
 is the good of always talking, why not put our ideas in writing.' \ 
 Thereupon giving Benedetti a pen and paper, he dictated the ; 
 famous draft and kept it, as he said, to show the King, a stroke '■, 
 worthy of the golden age of diplomacy. I know positively from 
 Usedom, who was in the thick of affairs in Prussia during the war 
 of 1866, that Bismarck promised the Rhine provinces, or, at least, j 
 those south of the Moselle, to France as the price of her neutrality, / 
 but never with the intention of keeping the promise. Benedetti 1 
 must have been a great donkey to be gulled by Bismarck in this \ 
 way, but the story he gives of the transaction bears the impress of \ 
 truth. It explains what was so odd in the draft, namely, that in j 
 quoting the names and titles of the high contracting parties the 1 
 King of Prussia's name stands first. Bismarck is the most wonder- 
 ful man of his age, but he has outwitted himself as well as 
 Benedetti here. Public opinion in England is veering round from 
 Prussia; and Belgium, which is most interested, acquits France 
 in the matter. 
 
 '' A skirmish has taken place on the frontier, where strangely 
 enough an Englishman in the Baden service was killed, the first 
 victim of the war, his name Winslow. The addresses of the 
 Emperor and the King to their troops are both published. The 
 King appeals to God the Emperor to Glory, quite in the old style. 
 
 "Yesterday we drove to Versailles through the Forest of Meudon, 
 a lovely old deserted road, never used apparently since Versailles 
 became a royal residence and the new high road was carried 
 through Sevres. 
 
 " Lascelles tells me the true history of the message sent by 
 King William to M. Benedetti ' Allez trouvez son Excellence,' the 
 King said to his aide-de-camp, ' et priez le de venir baiser mon 
 c — 1.' He also related an anecdote of Bismarck illustrative of 
 his equally Rabelaisian style of humour." [This anecdote is omitted 
 as unprintable.] 
 
 " Ajig. 2nd. — Went last night to the Opera to hear ' Masaniello.' 
 Between the third and fourth acts the stage represented the 
 
480 Appendix T 
 
 French camp, and Faure in the uniform of the Garde Mobile sang 
 the 'Rhin Allemand': Nous I'avons eu votre Rhin AUemand. 
 The Marseillaise was then called for and Marie Sasse came for- 
 ward with the tricolor and gave it amid great enthusiasm. It was 
 the most emotional thing 1 ever saw on the stage. Faure after- 
 wards was called for and sang the Marseillaise in his turn, kneeling 
 down at the last verse, and wrapping himself in the flag. All the 
 house stood up while it was being sung. The effect was lessened 
 to me by the uniform and by the tricolour having on it a Httle 
 gilt eagle, but in spite of this 1 have seldom been so touched. 
 [The Marseillaise was then being sung for the first time in Paris, 
 after having been proscribed there for twenty years.] 
 
 " 3?-(f Aug. — It is officially announced that a division of the 
 French army has captured the heights above Saarbruck and 
 driven the Prussians out of the town, Saarbruck being just over 
 the frontier. The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were present 
 and under fire. 
 
 " 5M Aug., 9 p.m. — Learned at the Embassy that the Prussians 
 had taken Vissembourg yesterday and that General Douai had 
 been killed, one gun captured. They told me a battle was being 
 fought to-day, the news hitherto rather unfavourable to the French. 
 MacMahon had 80,000 men under his command, so it should 
 be a great battle. [This proved to be the battle of Worth.] I have 
 arranged in case of a defeat to send my wife and Miss Noel [her 
 cousin Alice Noel, who was staying with us] to Havre with the 
 carriage and horses. I shall stay here myself. Paris has been 
 very silent this evening. I told Julie at dinner that the Emperor 
 had been killed. ' Quant a cela,' she said, ' si je vois aujourd'hui 
 passer son enterrement je ne dirai que tant mieux.' The weather 
 since noon has been sultry with an attempt at thunder. There is 
 a heavy black cloud over the sky to-night. 
 
 "6//I Aug. — Last night at half-past ten, hearing that something 
 was happening on the boulevard I went out. Bands of men were 
 marching up and down singing patriotic songs, the boulevard 
 crowded, people talking in knots. There was the rumour of a 
 defeat. (According to the ' Times ' the French had been driven out 
 of Vissemberg, one gun taken and 500 unwounded prisoners, also 
 the French camp taken. Vissembourg is a few miles from Rastadt, 
 where the Prussian Crown Prince has his headquarters.) I sat 
 down outside Bignon's to read the ' National,' and was joined 
 there by Malet and Lascelles. They are both staunch French- 
 men. They considered it looked very bad there being no news. 
 They knew a severe battle was being fought that afternoon. I 
 dreamed all night of Prussians and their victories. God rot 
 them! 
 
My Paris Diary of i?>'jo 481 
 
 ■' This morning I went to the Embassy to volunteer my services 
 to the Chancery, as they have more work there than they can do. 
 They seemed to think that after all there had been no fighting 
 yesterday. At half-past two Julie rushed into the room telling me 
 that a great victory had been won, the Prince of Prussia and 
 20,000 prisoners taken. It was too good to be true, but flags 
 were being put up everywhere in the streets. I ordered out the 
 carriage and drove down the Rue de Rivoli eastwards and on 
 round the boulevards. The Faubourg St. Antoine and all the east 
 end of Paris was a mass of flags and excitement. After the 
 Boulevard des Italiens, however, on our way back these thinned 
 and at the Madeleine all was bare as on ordinary days, till on 
 arriving at the Embassy, we found that the whole thing was a 
 gigantic canard. Somebody had posted up a telegram with this 
 news at the Bourse, and in a couple of hours the excitement 
 had reached every corner of Paris. In the afternoon an attack 
 was made by the mob on the Bourse and its frequenters. The 
 man who had posted up the telegram was nearly torn to pieces 
 and the Jews and other rascals who were there had the coats 
 torn off their backs. 
 
 " Tth Atig. — This morning the news seems bad. The ' Figaro ' 
 says that it is a time for calm and dignity. 
 
 " 4 o'clock. — MacMahon has been defeated in a great battle at 
 Reichshoffen [Worth]. He has retreated on Nancy; his com- 
 munications with Metz were cut, but seem now to be restored. 
 On the same day yesterday General Frossart was driven out of 
 Saarbruck. The Emperor in his bulletin says that great sacrifices 
 must be made by the country. There is great depression in Paris. 
 A band of respectable people came past our house shouting ' La 
 patrie en danger! Des fusils ! A la frontiire ! ' At this moment 
 a great crowd is collecting round the Tuileries. Julie has gone out 
 to see what the news is. Claremont says the French have been 
 outnumbered, that they had not 200,000 men in the field. The 
 Empress is at the Tuileries. People begin to talk ominously 
 about the present dynasty. Dalmand at the Tennis Court [he was 
 third paumier to the tennis court of which I was a member close 
 by in the north-east corner of the Tuileries Gardens] says he has 
 only one wish, to die by a Prussian bullet! 
 
 " Yesterday a mob assembled at the Place Vendome and forced 
 Ollivier to make a speech from his balcony. He promised the 
 news should be placarded every two hours. Paris is declared in 
 a state of siege. I have ordered the carriage for ten o'clock to- 
 morrow to drive to Nantes, whence Anne and Miss Noel will go 
 on to Deauville. I shall return by train. I am afraid of the horse* 
 being seized for the war. 
 
 I I 
 
482 Appendix I 
 
 " 5 o'clock. — Julie has come back to say that the Emperor's 
 despatch was that he did not know where MacMahon was. This 
 looks very bad. 
 
 " The battle where Frossart was beaten was Forbach. Mac- 
 Mahon's they call Freshvillers. If MacMahon has been cut off we 
 may expect the French centre to be attacked on both sides and 
 probably beaten somewhere in front of Metz. 
 
 "Zth August. — No news this morning. MacMahon seems to 
 have joined the main army before Metz. The Parisians are 
 rapidly becoming demoralized, the Bonapartists blaming the Re- 
 publicans, the Republicans the Bonapartists, and both blaming 
 Fortune. All parties seem inclined to lay down their arms directly 
 the army is beaten. I was not wrong in believing that twenty 
 years of Caesarism had destroyed virtue in France. It is well to 
 talk of -1792, but the Republicans then were other men than now, 
 and when their army was beaten the people fought on. To-day 
 French patriotism is limited to killing the enemy. Nobody cares 
 to be killed. Paris will probably open her gates to the Germans, 
 and having consented to a disgraceful peace she will then settle 
 matters with her rulers. I have sent Anne, Miss Noel, and the 
 horses to Deauville to wait till events declare themselves. There 
 were no particular disturbances last night. The English are flying 
 from Paris. I believe Paris to be impregnable if held by a suffi- 
 cient force. It is also too large to invest. If the remains of the 
 army after a defeat were to throw itself into the capital it might 
 form a nucleus for the whole nation. Let them proclaim a Repub- 
 lic if they will or take one of the Orleans princes for king, but let 
 them continue the war. France can never make peace on her 
 defeat or she must perish. The windows of the Tuileries were 
 lighted all last night. It is remarkable that not a word of sym- 
 pathy with the Empress Eugenie can be heard. 
 
 "7 o'clock. — It is reported, but not officially, that King William 
 crossed the Rhine last night with 120,000 men at Colmar. I have 
 been playing tennis with Lascelles. He takes a brighter view of 
 things than I do. He thinks that a defeat would not end the 
 war, but that a Republic will be proclaimed under Gambetta or 
 Jules Simon and the war be carried on. He thinks that if the 
 Prussians enter Paris they will find a Republic there, and will 
 place the Comte de Paris on the throne, but I am certain no 
 Orleans Prince would accept the Crown at such hands. Perhaps 
 Napoleon will put himself in the hands of the Prussians. Who 
 knows, perhaps Bismarck might re- seat him on his throne. All the 
 foreign Ministers have been to Lord Lyons to ask what they shall 
 do in case a Republic is proclaimed. Metternich (the Austrian 
 Ambassador) has sent his Pauline (Mme. de Metternich) to 
 
My Paris Diary of iSyo 483 
 
 Calais. As we came out of the tennis court we saw Persigny 
 driving past in his Victoria towards the Tuileries. 
 
 "12 o'clock {midfiigkt).^'X)\ntA on the Boulevard. Great crowds 
 of people. Saw a carriage attacked by twenty or thirty people, a 
 man standing up in it looking very pale and waving his arms. A. 
 troop of dragoons came down the Boulevard and people cried, 
 ^A la frontiere!' This is because they think no troops should 
 remain at Paris. The dragoons trotted on to the Louvre and are 
 now in the Carrousel. 
 
 "The Prince Imperial has come back and it is said the Emperor 
 was also there (in the Tuileries); some think he is there now. 
 Ollivier is also supposed to be in hiding at the Palace, though a 
 cordon of police guards his house in the Place Vendome at night. 
 Julienne's husband, who is head waiter at the Hotel Meurice, told 
 Julie that the Comte de Paris was there five days ago. I believe 
 he will be in Paris again as President or King before a month is 
 out. Sedition is talked openly and by respectable persons of all 
 sorts. The 'Soir' used guarded but very plain language to-night 
 and I believe it is certain that the deputies of the Left signed a 
 document requesting the Bonaparte family to withdraw from 
 France. If the French can get rid of this incubus they may find 
 heart to fight their battle out. The Emperor has shown himself 
 in this crisis what I have always held him to be, an irresolute 
 man, incapable of any great sustained policy. I believe him to 
 have permitted Grammont's original speech on the Hohenzollern 
 question with the intention and full expectation of the matter 
 being compromised, but the country carried him away and he was 
 obliged to follow. He has been carried fairly off his legs; even a 
 great victory could now hardly keep him on his throne. // a gene 
 la fiatrie." [What I did not know at the time of writing this was 
 that Napoleon III was incapacitated from playing the difficult part 
 demanded of him in the crisis by an attack of the stone, which 
 caused him great suffering. The decision, therefore, between 
 peace and war had been left practically in the Empress's hands, 
 to whom the blame of the decision rightly belongs.] 
 
 " I am more hopeful of the National honour to-night. The 
 army beaten, the French ought still to have heart to win the 
 campaign, holding as they do the sea [Prussia at that time had 
 almost no navy]. They can in time starve the enemy out. As 
 I sat at dinner the poet Morin came to speak to me He was 
 very earnest in asking my candid opinion on the state of France. 
 He seemed much emoiioni, but I noticed that he ate a capital 
 dinner. 
 
 " c)/h August, 12 o'clock {noon). — At the Embassy they talk of a 
 Republic under the dictatorship of General Trochu. I confess I 
 
484 Appendix T 
 
 never heard of him before. The Chamber opens to-day. Great 
 bands of blouses have marched there, and a great band also of 
 police. They say the Opposition will ^demand the immediate 
 arming of all the citizens of Paris inscribed on the Electoral Roll. 
 This morning Julie came in to me with my little dog Rachael 
 dying in her arms. 
 
 " Something must have happened to the Emperor; he has 
 either run away or abdicated or been shot. These ideas pass 
 through one's mind. No one ever mentions him. 
 
 " 2 p.m. — They are shutting the Tuileries garden gates. 
 " 6 p.m. — I ran out and found the gates shut, but at the Tennis 
 Court gate by saying I was a socictaire they let me in, and looking 
 over the balustrade of the terrace, saw some thousands of people 
 collected in the Place de la Concorde and on the Bridge in front 
 of the Corps Legislatif. Biboche and Serafin and Dalmand, the 
 Xkix^^ paumiers, are absurdly impressioned by the course of events. 
 Biboche is a Bonapartist, Dalmand a patriot without colour, 
 Etienne, the marker, fancies the Republic, and Serafin has tout 
 simplement a wife at home with the scarlet fever. All look upon 
 France as lost. At three o'clock we were turned out of the Tennis 
 Court, and the garden was cleared of nurses and lovers. I went 
 and sat in the Place de la Concorde for an hour, till driven in by 
 a thunderstorm, which stopped any revolution, if such was in 
 tended. 
 
 " A band came by our house just now, singing, with a ridiculous 
 young negro marching in front flourishing a wooden sword. I am 
 beginning to tire of the crisis. General Leboeuf has resigned his 
 command, Bazaine becomes Commander-in-Chief. [It was Leboeuf 
 who, when the Emperor asked him whether the army was com 
 pletely ready for war, answered 'Jusqu'au dernier bouton.''\ 
 
 "12 p.?n. {midnight). — On a motion- by Jules Favre for the 
 organization and arming of the National Guard throughout France 
 the Government have been beaten by 243 to 21. A second pro- 
 posal for the formation of a Committee of National Defence in 
 the House was also thrown out. In consequence of the first vote 
 the Ministry has resigned. Count Palikao (General Montauban)is 
 charged with the formation of a'new Ministry. This is considered 
 as being virtually an overthrow of the Empire. It is expected that 
 the new Ministry will declare the House the supreme authority, 
 and that the Imperial Family will be invited to leave France. 
 Marshal Bazaine has accepted the command in chief. General 
 Changarnier the Republican has been received by the Emperor 
 at Metz and has appeared in public with him. [Changarnier had 
 been a rival candidate to Louis Napoleon when they stood for 
 the Presidentship of the Republic in 1850.] 
 
My Paris Diary of 1870 485 
 
 ''I dined with Lascelles and met M. de Hiibner (the Austrian). 
 He is a violent hater of Prussia, but declares that she must crush 
 France. I cannot think that if only Frenchmen will be true to 
 themselves, if the army can throw itself into Paris, all may yet 
 be well. Austria, Denmark, and even England may think it the 
 moment to intervene; Prussia cannot support a long war with 
 all her ports blockaded- But if the French accept the terms 
 offered on a defeat they will be lost for ever. Imperial France 
 has no virtue to fall back upon; a Republic is their best chance; 
 it is the only name that has a power to rouse. 
 
 '' When I came home Julie talked of her recollections of the 
 Emperor. She remembered seeing him when he came back to 
 Paris in 1852, and, when kneeling on the steps of the Madeleine, 
 he was blessed by the cure. As he rode from the church and 
 entered the gate leading from the Place de la Concorde into the 
 Tuileries garden, a crown of flowers was let down from the upper 
 part of the grille upon his head, and the people called out for the 
 first time, 'Vive I'Empereur! ' Three weeks later he was crowned 
 at Notre Dame. She also talked of his marriage, and Julie knew 
 the details because she was in Henry Howard's service, and he 
 was Mrs. Gould's lover.' Mademoiselle Montijo was taken to 
 Compiegne by Mrs. Gould, though she was not invited, and there 
 the Emperor saw her out riding. She was very beautiful, and had 
 a wonderfully fair complexion. The Emperor, although he knew 
 she was the Marquis d'Aguado's mistress, had a caprice for her, 
 and wanted to make her leave Aguado, but she said he must 
 marry her and he did so, in spite of his friends and Ministers. He 
 said in his excuse that having, as they told him, done so much for 
 France, France must do this for him. According to Julie, Napo- 
 leon and Eugenie made mauvais menage at first, but the Empress 
 had never been reproached for misconduct since the marriage. 
 The child, the Prince Imperial, was certainly her's, as any one 
 could see by comparing her photograph with the boy's. People 
 had said that he was not, but this was untrue. Julie has often 
 been with letters from Howard to Mademoiselle Montijo, when 
 she lived with her mother in the Place Vendome, un miserable 
 entresol sur la cour. The house is No. 4, I think she said, in the 
 south-east corner of the square. She and her mother kept two 
 ■Wom'en servants, a cook and a bonne. Julie cited as a sign of the 
 mislre in which they lived, that these women wore handkerchiefs 
 ■on their heads instead of caps, Aguado, elder brother of the 
 Comte and Vicomte, kept a one-horse remise for her, and pro- 
 vided for them in other ways. Julie declares that Eugenie had 
 other worshippers, too, ' meme des Allemands.'' Aguado was married 
 ^ The Honble. Henry Howard, Secretary at Paris. 
 
486 Appendix I 
 
 to an Englishwoman, who is now remarried to his brother, the 
 A'icomte. He went mad when Mademoiselle Montijo married the 
 Emperor, and afterwards died. She lived on in the Place A'en- 
 dome till the week before her marriage, when she was taken to 
 the Tuileries to be married from there at Notre Dame. Such is 
 Julie's account. Julie and M. Perrier, Howard's valet, used to 
 talk these things over together, ' Ce pauvre AI. Pirrit-r (/iii est 
 mort.' History is written from such intimate talk. 
 
 " Aly own recollections of the Emperor are not very many. I 
 saw him for the first time in 1851, on the day of his coup d'etat, 
 when he became President for life. \\'e, my brother Francis and 
 I, with our mother, were passing through Paris on our way to 
 Italy, and we were staying at the Hotel Wagram, only two doors 
 from my present apartment here in the Rue de Bivoli. Francis 
 and I went out with our tutor, Edmund Coffin, to see what was 
 going on in the streets. The Rue de Rivoli was full of people, 
 and there was a cordon of gendarmes between it and the Place 
 de la Concorde. 'Liberie, Egaliti, et Fraternite' was still written 
 up everywhere on the walls. The President rode by close to us 
 with his Staff, and passed up the Rue Royale. This was a very 
 early recollection, before he was Emperor. When I next saw him 
 it was at Biarritz in 1863. He used to walk about there leaning on 
 the arm of his Chamberlain, Tascher de la Pagerie, moving slowly 
 like an old man. I went one evening to a ball at the Pavilion, and 
 was presented to him and the Empress. The Empress reminded 
 me that she had seen me at Madrid some months before, which 
 was true, for I had been to an audience of the Corps Diplomatique 
 when she was paying her visit to Queen Isabella. At the ball the 
 Emperor walked about looking bored, not at all as if he was in 
 his own house. He is a thick-set, coarsely made man (with legs 
 too short for his bodyj, and in his uniform might be taken for a 
 sergeant. He has nothing remarkable in his face, except his cold 
 green eyes, which have a strangely fascinating, but repellent power. 
 They give him a certain distmction. I have since, while at the 
 Embassy, been to balls at the Tuileries, but have never had 
 personal .speech with him. I have listened to him, however, talk- 
 ing once for twenty minutes at a time with Lord Cowley, at one 
 of the receptions while the Empress was finishing her cercle. They 
 were discussing on that occasion a review there had been of the 
 English and French fleets, and his remarks were the essence of 
 commonplace. He has none of the ease of manner, the lightness 
 of thought, the esprit Gaidois which go so far in France, a heavy, 
 slow-thinking man, talking French with a provincial accent. It 
 is strange that such a man should have ruled the French lor 
 twenty years. If he had died a month ago he would have left a 
 
My Paris Diary of i^io 487 
 
 great name in history. Now who knows? He may be ranked on 
 a level with Louis Philippe. Such are the chances of a man's 
 glory. 
 
 " loth Aug. — I have drawn ;£40 in five-franc pieces for the 
 siege. It is already difficult to change bank notes. The town is 
 quieter to-day. No news from the army. A list of the new 
 Ministry is published, Palikao, La Tour d'Auvergne, Magne, 
 Rigault, Girardin — more Bonapartist than ever. The Chamber 
 supports them for the present. Paris is full of troops, 500 Marines 
 marched past our house this morning on their way to the v.-ar, all 
 stout, smart fellows. I take it no troops have ever fought better 
 than the French have done. 
 
 "I have been reading Prevost Paradol's last book, 'La France 
 Nouvelle,' published last year. The concluding chapter reads 
 prophetically now. He gives the future of the world to the English 
 race, true enough if it includes our off-shoots, American and 
 Colonial, but he hardly foresees what must happen, the extinction 
 of England herself. England's political life will be over the day that 
 Holland is annexed to Germany. There is also little sign of the 
 continuance of the intellectual eminence of our race. Literature 
 never long survives a nation's decline, and in the English speak- 
 ing off-shoots no sign of intellectual life has yet been given, though 
 America has had a hundred years of independence. The English 
 language, however, is never likely to become a dead one. Her 
 literature will still live, even if it ceases to be productive; in France 
 it is otherwise. French will be a dead language, as dead at least 
 as Spanish is. As for German, which is to become the language 
 of Europe, it shows no sign of producing a readable literature. 
 The only German I can read is Cioethe's, who took the best of 
 his inspiration from Rousseau. Where he is purely German, he is 
 pedantic and wearisome. Germany possesses some good lyric 
 poetry, but romance, tragedy, history, all are dull. What is really 
 meritorious is the scientific writing, but that is owing to the 
 matter rather than the manner. The Volkslieder have the melan- 
 choly charm of barbarous poetry, but the serious poets are with- 
 out humour. German is bourgeois and its literature bourgeois 
 [This is a poor diagnosis. I ought to have at least excepted 
 Heine, but I left him out, I suppose, as being a Jew Hving at 
 Paris, and more of a Frenchman than of a German.] 
 
 " \\th Aug. — Deauville. I came here on the night of the nth, 
 as there was no special news at Paris. The day I left, old Barre 
 (the doyen of the Paris Tennis Court) came to breakfast with me 
 and after it we played tennis, Brinquant making us a chouette. 
 Barre was playing in better form than I can remember him. 
 Brinquant has just been called out to join the army, being be 
 
488 Appendix I 
 
 tween the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. He will have to go 
 as a 'simple pioupiou.' Substitutes are still to be had at 8,000 
 francs, but it is considered dishonourable not to march in person. 
 In the middle of our game a company of grenadiers marched in 
 through the door by the net, and took formal possession of the 
 Court, turning us out. The officer in command saluting us politely 
 from the net with his drawn sword, saying, ' Messieurs, vous etes 
 pries d'evacuer le jeu.' [This proved to be absolutely the last 
 game old Barre, the champion paumier of his day, ever pla5'ed, 
 for he died of the hardships of the siege, though not till 1872. 
 He was a wonderful player, especially on the floor of the Court, 
 so that though I was then young and active, he could still give 
 me the walls. In private life he was excellent company, and some 
 of us used to invite him to restaurant dinners, where his stories 
 were of the best of an extreme grivois kind, for he had led the 
 gayest of gay lives.] In the train, as I came down here from Paris, 
 I got into conversation with two deputies from Mantes. One 
 narrated his having asked Grammont how it was that the army 
 had been caught unprepared? Grammont had answered that 
 before making his declaration to the Chamber he had inquired of 
 Le Bceuf, ' Are you ready ' ? and Le Boeuf had replied, ' I can put 
 600,000 men on the Rhine in a fortnight.' Everybody is angry 
 with Le Boeuf. 
 
 " A letter is published from the Prince de Joinville offering his 
 services to the Emperor. Changarnier has been made Com- 
 mandant de place at Metz. He is seventy-two years old. On 
 Friday the 12th, Anne, Alice Noel, and I drove to Glanville, from 
 which village the Glanvilles of Catchfrench claim originally to 
 have come. There is a chateau there, which we visited, of the 
 time of Louis XIII, undergoing restoration by its proprietor, 
 M. de Glanville, a man of sixty, whom we found at work weed- 
 ing in his grounds. I noticed that the coat of arms over the door 
 was not our English Glanville coat, and he told me that he had 
 not the pretension of descending from the original family. It 
 must have been a picturesque old place before the restoration, 
 the avenues and the park round it good, the elms just like the 
 Cornish elms at Catchfrench, the country about it beautiful and 
 very English. We then drove on to Pont I'Eveque, a charming, 
 sleepy old town full of cats, and dined at the Bras d'or, a drum 
 was beating there, and a crier calling out all men from twenty-five 
 to thirty-five for the war. Later we saw the mayor posting up a 
 notice announcing the capture of Nancy by a detachment of the 
 enemy's cavalry. 
 
 " i6//% Aug. — Paris. I came up yesterday morning by train 
 from Deauville, and on my way to the station read a telegram 
 
My Paris Diary of 1870 489 
 
 announcing that the French army had crossed to the left bank of 
 the Moselle, and meeting the Prussians in force had repulsed 
 them. The telegram is dated Longueville and signed Napoleon. 
 The Emperor seems to have left Metz on the 14th at two o'clock 
 intending to go to Chalons. Nancy, which is in the hands of the 
 Prussians, is a town of 30,000 inhabitants. It is quite open, and 
 was occupied by them without resistance. The advance posts of 
 the enemy have been pushed on to Toul and S. Mihiel. 
 
 " Yesterday was the festival of S. Napoleon, probably the last 
 which will be ever celebrated in France. Paris was silent as the 
 grave, and when I first arrived I thought a disaster must have 
 happened. Bands of men were at work on the fortifications. 
 There is rpuch to do before Paris can resist a siege, houses to he 
 razed and trees cut down. There were no illuminations and 
 scarcely a fiag. I remember the fete of the 15th of August in 
 1864 when 1 had just joined the Embassy as attache. The 
 Emperor was then still popular, believed to be the longest head 
 in Europe. The Place de la Concorde, the Quays and the 
 Invalides were one great crowd, theatres open to the public 
 gratis, shows and entertainments at every corner. A balloon was 
 being sent up from the Champ de Mars. Carriages were forbidden 
 to circulate in the too crowded streets, all but those of the foreign 
 Ambassadors. I had only that morning arrived, and Lady Cowley 
 took me with her and her daughter. Lady Feodore, and Sudley in 
 her own barouche, and we drove up the Champs Elysees at a 
 foot's pace, a conspicuous figure in the good-natured Parisian 
 crowd for the illuminations. Now quel degringolage I 
 
 " The night before last there was an emeute in the Villette, a 
 band of men crying ' Vive la Republique,' attacked some un- 
 fortunate pompiers in their guard house, killed two or three, and 
 then fired into the mob who were coming to the rescue. They 
 were some fifty or sixty armed with daggers and revolvers, but 
 after a show of fight they ran away, some being caught and almost 
 torn to pieces. The incident has been put down to ' the gold of 
 Bismarck,' just as in former days there was talk of ' the gold of 
 Pitt.' Paris is still full of Germans; there will be a general 
 massacre of these if it comes to a siege, perhaps of us English 
 too. At this end of the town everything is quiet. Count d'Aquila 
 who arrived at Deauville with eighteen of his favourite horses the 
 day before I left, has made over his house in the Avenue de 
 rimperatrice for an ambulance, so I hear has Evans the American 
 dentist. 
 
 " S p.m. — A letter has been posted officially from the sous- 
 prefet of Verdun, stating that cannonading was heard the whole 
 of yesterday, and that it was reported the Prussians had lost 
 
490 Appendix I 
 
 40,000 men the day before near Metz. On the other hand the 
 ' Independance Beige ' gives a despatch from Berlin from King 
 William to the Queen of Prussia announcing a glorious victory. 
 Edmond About writes in the ' Soir ' describing the entry of the 
 Prussians into Saverne and MacMahon's retreat. The French, he 
 says, were ridiculously commanded. The Prussians are levying 
 contributions in France just as they did in Frankfort and 
 Homburg in the war of 1866. 
 
 '■'■ \-}th Aug. — This is my birthday of thirty, it finds me healthy, 
 wealthy, and wise, three things I never thought to be. Anne has 
 made me a birthday present of a silver coffee pot, I have long 
 coveted, a Louis XVI one of very beautiful French design. I 
 have nothing left to wish for as a birthday gift, except the destruc- 
 tion of the German army. 
 
 "' I went last night to the Gymnase theatre, where they gave 
 ' Diane de Lys,' the moral of which is, ' II a voulu garder sa femme 
 et il I'a gardee.' The French pieces now generally give the beau 
 role to the husband on the stage as is also the case sometimes in 
 real life, such as in that of Beaumont who wounded his wife's 
 three lovers one after the other. One of the three duels was with 
 Metternich. Metternich has, as all the world knows, been Mme. 
 de Persigny's lover, and then made court to Mme. de Beaumont. 
 She taxed him one day with his former devotion, and to prove to 
 her that it was at an end he made over to her Mme. de Persigny's 
 letters to him. These were found by Beaumont " in his wife's 
 drawer along with letters to her from Metternich. The Ambas- 
 sador, who is no Palladin, refused to fight. Beaumont threatened 
 to expose his treachery to Mme. de Persigny. The matter was 
 laid before the Emperor, and Metternich, it being decided he must 
 fight, was run through the body, but soon recovered. Beaumont 
 also wounded du Hallay and another, whose letters also had 
 been found. Now nobody dares approach Mme. de Beaumont. 
 Metternich is what is called a gros fat, who likes to be called 
 Monseigneur. I have played tennis with him, but he is a poor 
 performer. Du Hallay is a fat, funny young man, fond of a joke, 
 but one would think innocuous in a virtuous household. 
 
 ■' De Vogue, MacMahon's aide-de-camp, was killed at Worth, a 
 good-looking, very charming man of about thirty-five, bald, but 
 the ideal of the beau militaire. I used to know him in 1865, 
 meeting him often at Madame Arcos' (the Empress Eugenie's 
 lady in waiting). He was at that time Princess Poniatowska's 
 lover — she a very pretty woman, tall, blonde, and amusing. 
 
 "The Orleans Princes have been refused service in the army. 
 
 " 18/^ Aug. — Yesterday at half-past five Blount, the Banker, 
 came to the Embassy, and announced that a great victory had 
 
My Paris Diary of \%']0 491 
 
 been won the day before, the i6th. He stated that he had seen 
 press copies of the despatches, and that the details were most 
 complete. Schneider, President of the Chamber, fully believed 
 the news, and Ministers were only waiting to announce it till 
 written accounts should come. All the result was a telegram 
 published '' hier 16. II y a eu une affaire tres s^rieuse du cote de 
 Gravelotte. Nous avons eu I'avantage dans le combat, mais nos 
 pertes sont grandes. Comte de Palikao.' And this morning the 
 ' Figaro ' gives an account of the battle of Borny fought under the 
 walls of Metz, otherwise called of Longueville. GaUifet is reported 
 to have charged the enemy. Gallifet is a brave man, and I always 
 liked him in spite of his swagger. It used to be a fine thing to 
 see him play tennis with Smijthe of our Embassy, who is a cool- 
 headed man with one shoulder higher than the other, an accident 
 which gave him an extraordinarily heavy cut stroke on the floor, 
 most exasperating to Gallifet, who is a wild hitter. Gallifet plays 
 well, but was overmatched by Smijthe, who was the best player 
 in the tennis court three years ago. Gallifet used to call out, 
 'Ah dites done, M. Smijthe, vous m'exasperez avec votre damnee 
 patience; tappez done, M. Smijthe.' 
 
 " I have been talking with Julie. She tells me her father was 
 maire of a village in Brittany and her uncle a bishop murdered at 
 the altar during the revolution. She had a brother older than 
 herself killed in the campaign of Russia under Bonaparte, and 
 her father died of grief He left her a dot of 40,000 francs, but 
 her worthless husband ate it all. She tells me that we have a 
 mouchard here on the fifth floor, whose wife is a chatterbox. She 
 has let out to Julie that the Empress has just sent the husband 
 to England with her jewels. 
 
 " \()th Aug. — General Trochu is named Commandant of Paris. 
 I went yesterday to look at the fortifications. The guns on the 
 walls are ridiculous old pieces such as my Uncle Toby might 
 have mounted on his horn work. I was sent about my business 
 by the sergent-de-ville. Carriages still pass into the Bois de 
 Boulogne over a narrow plank bridge. The Germans describe 
 the battles of Borny and Gravelotte as victories, and say the 
 French army has been driven back into Metz. 
 
 " 2\st Aui{. — Caen. I went down on the 19th to Deauville by 
 train, where I found Anne much better, and the next day, yester- 
 day, we drove here, stopping at Dives for half an hour to see the 
 church. This is interesting on account of the list of names kept 
 there of those knights who followed William of Normandy to 
 England in ?o66. I counted some seventy names of families 
 still existing in England, among them the Byrons, de Buron. 
 Here at Caen we are at the Hotel d'Angleterre. The town is full 
 
492 Appendix 1 
 
 of conscripts, some in blouses, some in coats, all in red trousers, 
 young and happy. I have heard more singing in the streets here 
 these two nights than during all the last fortnight at Paris. 
 
 "With difficulty I procured a copy of the Paris 'Journal' 
 Things seem drifting towards a quarrel with England. The 
 ' Times,' which has taken a violent side for Prussia in the war is 
 now exasperating the French with its good advice. Now, it Miys, 
 is the moment for the neutral powers to insist on peace. I expect 
 to see proposals made for an armistice, to be followed by peace 
 on the principle of the status quo ante helium, France to retain 
 Alsace and Lorraine, but with the condition of immediate dis- 
 armament. If such be accepted tout serait sauve fort rhonneur. 
 I consider the position so critical that, instead of going to 
 Brittany as we intended, we start to-morrow for the north. 
 France, if she quarrels with England, will be virtually outlawed 
 and fighting for her life, and we cannot expect any but the laws 
 of necessity to rule her. Already the days are being recalled to 
 mind when France threw defiance in the face of all Europe in the 
 shape of 10,000 heads upon her scaffolds. She will scarcely stop 
 to distinguish between friend and foe, but I trust my precautions 
 may not be needed. The French army may yet be victorious, 
 and the 'Times' is not England, but who can say? In the case 
 of a rupture my sympathies must be with France, but I am bound 
 in form at least to my own country. 
 
 "■22nd All!!;. — Pont I'Eveque. '\Ve left Caen at ten, and driving 
 on got here at five, having stopped three hours for breakfast at 
 Dozule, our inn there the White Horse, rustic, but good. Another 
 capital country inn here, the Bras d'or. 
 
 "The news to-night is bad, none for two days from Bazaine, 
 who is shut up in Metz. A letter has come from Lytton in 
 Vienna, who expects nothing but disaster for the French army. I 
 still believe the Prussians will be driven out of France. Prussia 
 is blockaded and nearly bankrupt. 
 
 " 25M Aug. — On the night of the 23rd we slept at La Bouille, a 
 village on the Seine to which Rouen merchants go out to dine on 
 summer evenings, and yesterday to Rouen, Hotel de France. We 
 shall have to wait here two days until our carriage wheels have 
 been new tyred. 
 
 " The news to-day is better. Communication with Bazaine 
 restored. Bazaine declares that if he is still in Metz it is that he 
 chooses to stay there. The news from Prussian head-quarters 
 absolutely contradicts this. In England they choose to believe 
 the Prussian account. I do not. Neither Bazaine nor Palikao 
 would dare in the present state of France to publish news directly 
 false. The position of Englishmen inF'rance is becomingprecarious, 
 
I\Iy Paris Diary of \%']0 493, 
 
 indeed of any person without visible occupation. Prince Lubomirsky 
 was arrested two days ago as a spy, and many quite innocent 
 people have been mal-treated by the mob. I shall go back to Paris 
 for a night to see how things are going on, and then drive to 
 Dieppe and send Anne and Miss Noel to England. 
 
 " Strasburg is being besieged. There was a report yesterday 
 that Phalsburg had been taken. The King of Prussia has ap- 
 pointed Governors of Alsace and Lorraine as Prussian provinces. 
 
 " 2']th Aug. — Rouen. 1 have been again to Paris. Going up 
 in the train I heard another spy story. The man who told it 
 seemed to be a Rouen merchant and the victim a friend from the 
 country, a Normand, a bel homme of fifty years. He had asked 
 some questions about the mobiles in front of the barracks, had 
 been arrested by a sergent-de-ville, and got his clothes torn by 
 the mob. In Paris a decree has been issued expelling ' les boiickes 
 inutiles.' A letter in the ' Figaro ' asks whether the ladies of 
 pleasure may be properly so styled. The Government has 
 answered the question seriously by sending 2,000 of these women 
 to the Conciergerie, ready to be packed off at a moment's notice. 
 
 "At the Embassy I found them in little anxiety. Brinquant is 
 not yet ordered off. Webster, the old Queen's messenger and 
 Philip Currie's boon companion, is dead. Lord Hertford has 
 also chosen the moment to die at Bagatelle, his house in the Bois 
 de Boulogne. He also was a type, the original of Thackeray's 
 Lord Steyne. He remained to the day of his death a patron of 
 the half world, and has left illegitimate children and no will they 
 say. He was fond of jokes, a la Regence. The m^ost amusing of 
 them was connected with a young clergyman he had engaged as 
 chaplain [but I forbear transcribing it]. His Lordship has long 
 been legendaire in Paris, yet such is the disturbance in the public 
 mind, his death is mentioned without special comment in the 
 papers. 
 
 " The Prussians are at Chalons, and in a Few days, unless great 
 events happen, must be in front of Paris. The city will be 
 summoned to surrender and threatened with destruction on 
 refusal. The army is far away and the garrison insufficient for 
 defence. The Prussians will hardly postpone a bombardment, and 
 it is possible Paris may be taken by storm and burnt. The 
 Crown Prince, who is believed to be marching in advance, prob- 
 ably counts on an insurrection as soon as he shall make his 
 appearance at the gates, or he would hardly risk so desperate an 
 adventure with two French armies in his rear. The Chamber is in 
 an uproar, Garabetta calhng for news of the army, but the town 
 is quiet and cheerful and the Parisians seem ready to do their 
 duty. Trochu has command of the place. Edmond About, in 
 
494 Appendix I 
 
 the ' Soir,' croaks ominously. He has been in the jaws of the 
 Hon and dreads its teeth. The ' Gaulois ' says that the Emperor is 
 in such a state that a surprising announcement might be any day 
 made. How strange it is to remember the early days of the war a 
 month ago when the Empress told her son ' Va done mon enfant 
 et sois digne du sang des Bonapartes et des Guzmans,' and when 
 the train was out of sight, 'Sa Majesty redevint femme.' At 
 the first engagement at Saarbruck we were told : ' Le Prince Im- 
 periale ne se laissa nullement impressioner; les vieux soldats le 
 voyant si calm fondirent en larmes . Quand commenca la 
 canonade le Prince demanda a I'Empereur " Dites done Papac'est 
 une balle qui siflfle aupres de nous, ou bien un boulet." " On ne 
 peut jamais savoir au juste mon fils," repondit I'Empereur. . . . 
 Apres la defaite de I'ennemi le Prince Imperiale presenta au jeune 
 Conneau [his favourite playfellow] une balle qu'il avait ramassde 
 sur le champ de bataille.' This is what the ' Gaulois ' used to 
 tell us. 
 
 " I left Paris last night, looking sorrowfully on the Tuileries and 
 its garden, with the trees brown in it like autumn. The sergent- 
 de-ville and the sentinel stood as usual at the garden gate, the 
 fountain played, the sun shone, and the children and bonnes 
 chattered as though the world were not already crumbling about 
 their ears. Julie is left with orders to bring away the plate and 
 pictures in case of the worst, and I shall take Anne over to 
 England and then come back if the siege is not begun, but one 
 cannot foresee. I dream every night of armies and victories and 
 defeats." 
 
 This was my last visit to Paris before the city was invested 
 by the German armies and the siege began. 
 
 There is not much in my diary worth quoting after this. Having 
 had our carriage wheels new tyred we drove on to Dieppe, arriving 
 there 29th August, in heavy rain, to find the whole place full of 
 refugees. " There are a thousand men drilling here on the beach 
 in blouses with a red cross on their left sleeves. I am struck with 
 the number of able-bodied men one sees everywhere idle, although 
 the whole country has been called to arms. Perhaps there is a 
 want of weapons. Dieppe is full of English who affect sympathy 
 with Prussia. General Trochu has at the eleventh hour ordered 
 all the Germans out of Paris within three days, one would have 
 expected within three hours. The bombardment of Strassburg has 
 done great damage. Kehl has been burnt. A shell burst in a 
 Pensionnat at Strassburg where the young ladies were at their 
 history lesson. Seven were killed. Phalsbourg holds out bravely. 
 
 " T,oth Aug — Juhe has just arrived from Paris; very amusing 
 about her troubles in getting away. The Hotel Meyerbeer, where 
 
My Pans Diary of i^yo 495 
 
 I used in former days to lodge, has been sacked. Some French- 
 men came to dine there, and the landlord (a German), seeing 
 them out at elbows, thought fit to remark, ' You are too poor to 
 dine here. I have just got an order from the King of Prussia for 
 a dinner of ninety covers for this day week.' The men, upon this, 
 fell on him and wrecked his house. There are said to be 40,000 
 Germans in Paris. Our Proprietaire, M. Desfontaines, has come 
 into No. 204 from Noissy, through fear of the invasion. 
 
 "315/ Aug. — The Embassies are to remain at Paris, the 
 Empress Regent having declared her intention of remaining. 
 Princesse Mathilde has sent away her valuabltjs, as have probably 
 most others who are rich. The heroism of non-combatants in 
 Paris will be shown mainly in their purses. I go to England to- 
 morrow to see Francis [my elder brother J, who starts shortly 
 on his way back to Madeira. 
 
 "2nd Sept. — At Worth Forest Cottage. The 'Daily News' 
 announces in large capitals, ' Decisive Battle, MacMahon totally 
 routed,' and prints a telegram from William to Augusta: ' iVIay 
 God, who has hitherto befriended us, continue his protection to 
 our arms.' I felt very sick and angry, the more so because I have 
 found everybody here at home crowmg over this final result of 
 the war. Awake half the night, thinking bitter things. There was 
 a great battle before Sedan yesterday. 
 
 " yd Sept. — Spent the morning fishing at Cinderbanks. On 
 coming in I heard the news of the surrender of the remains of the 
 French army by General Wimpfen, MacMahon's second in com- 
 mand, and of the Emperor. Great numbers of French and many 
 German soldiers, driven on to Belgian soil, have laid down their 
 arms. Count Flahault, one of the last men of the First Empire, 
 died yesterday. Many years ago he eloped to Gretna Green with" 
 the heiress of the Keith Barony, and always after Madame de 
 Flahault came to England for her coaches, so that her children 
 should be British subjects, and her son have a right to his seat in 
 the House of Lords. 
 
 " c^th Sept. — To London for the day, and saw Philip Currie at 
 the Foreign Office, who gave me an alarming account of the dis- 
 turbed state of France. He showed me a letter just come from a 
 girl who was governess at a French chateau in the south. She 
 wrote that the peasantry were surrounding the house. 
 
 "6th Sept. — Back to Dieppe. 
 
 " ?ith Sept. — Crossed back again with Anne to Newhaven in a 
 gale of wind. We were thirteen hours at sea, and ran some risk 
 of being driven on to Beachy Head. At Newhaven we found our 
 Swiss horses, and drove on to Worth Forest. Before leaving 
 Dieppe I sent Julie a box containing loo lb. of ship's biscuits 
 
496 Appendix T 
 
 with a letter of instructions as to her conduct during the siege. 
 I also offered my apartment to the maire as an ambulance, but 
 my proprietor refused his consent. [The biscuits fortunately 
 reached Julie just before communication with Paris ceased, and 
 proved a Godsend to her during the four months the siege lasted. 
 My cousin, Francis Currie, whom, though I have said nothing 
 about him in my diary, I had seen constantly during my last 
 weeks at Paris, making our speculations on the course of events 
 together, remained on quietly in his rooms in the Palais Royal 
 right through both siege and Commune, continuing his philosophic 
 occupation, the pursuit of pleasure, without disturbance or much 
 hardship. I should have stayed on with him, but for my wife's 
 expected confinement, and seen the drama out. It was an oppor- 
 tunity missed I still regret.] 
 
 " 25M Sept. — Since my return to England I have not read a 
 newspaper, nor shall till peace is made." 
 
 A few extracts from letters, written me just then by my friend 
 Robert Lytton, dealing with public events, may here be added. 
 He was at the time first Secretary of Embassy at Vienna, but on 
 leave in England, and in close touch with all our chief diplo- 
 matists. 
 
 " wth Sept., 1870. — Knebworth. I am very doubtful as to the 
 Germans claiming Alsace and Lorraine, but if they do claim it, 
 it will be baseless, abominable, unprecedented, and irredeemable 
 should England stand by quiescent while her boasted ally of 
 yesterday is being dismembered. Yet a colleague whom I met 
 yesterday, fresh from the Foreign Office, told me the Government 
 is firmly resolved to do nothing, and does not seem to think the 
 situation worth a Cabinet Council. We shall pay dearly and per- 
 haps more than we can afford by and by for the excessive 
 prudence of our present policy, which is, I am told, strongly 
 recommended by Lyons, who is afraid of burning his fingers and 
 losing his reputation as a safe man. France will, of course, be 
 thrown into the arms of Russia, and sell her support in the East 
 for a European alliance of vengeance on her faithless friend across 
 the Channel." 
 
 I remember that my own feeling at the time about Alsace 
 Lorraine was one of rejoicing that the Germans, whom I hated, 
 should have let slip an opportunity of high-minded moderation 
 which would have redoubled the glory of their victories. While 
 at Worth Forest with my brother Francis, we used to argue the 
 French and the German case, he strongly maintaining against me 
 
My Paris Diary o/ i8yo 497 
 
 that the French defeat had delivered Europe from its chief 
 danger. Germany, he thought, could never be a serious menace. 
 
 " Ttfd Oct., 1870. — Ormeskirk. Odo Russell [our Ambassador 
 at Berlin] who sees all the despatches now as soon as they 
 arrive, and is therefore a good authority, writes to his wife, who i.s 
 here, that Bismarck has intimated to us his intention of eventually, 
 after taking Paris I suppose, sending the Emperor back to France 
 with a slice of Belgium by way of a letter of recommendation to 
 the French people. You may fancy how this has fluttered our 
 Downing Street dovecote. I can myself hardly believe the story, 
 but if Bismarck really does play off this practical joke on us what 
 a reductio ad absitrdiim it will be of the lauded prudence of the 
 Gladstone Cabinet in regard to that absurd Belgian treaty. Odo 
 adds that Bismarck wishes to keep Bazaine locked up in Metz 
 with the whole garrison till the end of the war, but not to attack 
 them or destroy them, because it is his wish to hand over to the 
 Emperor at the end as large a remnant as can yet be saved of the 
 Imperial army. Meanwhile Russia is certainly arming fast, and 
 the Russian merchants in the city have already created a panic 
 there by their expressed apprehension, which seems to me per- 
 fectly well founded that she is about to attack Turkey. I take it 
 that whenever she pleases Russia can do this with perfect impunity 
 and success." 
 
 " -^th Oct., 1870. — Knebworth. In connection with the story I 
 mentioned in my last, Odo says that Bismarck avers that, although 
 it is necessary to keep Bazaine safe in Metz, he is anxious, if 
 possible, not to starve or otherwise destroy the army shut up in 
 that town, in order that at the end of the war he may hand over 
 to the Emperor as much as can be spared of the Imperial forces 
 for the preservation of order in France. However, I still disbelieve 
 the story. In a letter which Lady Emily received from her husband 
 the day I left Lathom, he said: 'The French Government has 
 again for the third, and it says for the last time made a most 
 earnest and pathetic appeal to us as the old friends and allies of 
 France to come to the rescue, to which we have replied by a long 
 despatch to the effect that we pity France, but can't help her. 
 This document is a very painful one to read, and it is one which 
 I am certain your dear father [Lord Clarendon] would never have 
 written.' 
 
 " Lady Cowley, who did not go to see the Emperor at the request 
 of the Empress but on her own hook from Frankfort, said he 
 was looking in much better health than she expected to find him 
 that he seemed deeply mortified by the abuse of the French Press 
 
 K K 
 
498 Appendix I 
 
 but maintained tliat he was still the favourite of the French people, 
 and seemed to count on returning to the Tuileries. The Empress 
 wrote him a most insulting and heartless letter calling him a 
 ' lache,' the receipt of which was the occasion of that fainting fit 
 which gave rise to the rumour of his attempted suicide. He told 
 Lady Cowley that he was literally without a sixpence. Grammont, 
 who has been staying with Lord Malmesbury, declares this to be 
 perfectly true, and that the utmost the Emperor's few remaining 
 friends hope to be able to make up for him is _;^i,2oo a year. 
 The Empress, I believe, has some fortune of her own, but they 
 are on the worst possible terms. I hope I shall soon be able to 
 invite myself to Worth as Lady Cowley invited herself to 
 Wilhelmshohe. 
 
 " Did you see that the French papers, learning from the English 
 Press that the Prussians were supplied with the best information 
 from their general staff, exclaimed in chorus : ' Nous savons main- 
 tenant qui est cet espion qui a fourni aux Prussiens tant de 
 pr^cieux renseignements; c'est M. le General Staff, homme d'une 
 astuce remarquable.' " 
 
 END OF MY PARIS DIARY OF 1870 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 MEMORANDUM AS TO THE EVACUATION OF EGYPT 
 
 THE evacuation of Egypt is a question partly of honour, partly 
 of prudence. Of honour, in view of the pledges given: of 
 prudence on military grounds. 
 
 If Egypt could be held honourably and without risk of war, 
 there is much to be said in favour of continuing the English 
 protectorate. It secures our Mediterranean route to India at a 
 small cost. Its prestige to us is of value, and we should be spared 
 the discredit of a withdrawal under French pressure. We owe it, 
 too, to the Egyptians, whose army and political aspirations we 
 destroyed in 1882, to continue to them our assistance in their 
 weakness as against other Powers. 
 
 Nevertheless the risks appear to me great. Egypt's position on 
 the Suez Isthmus is too important geographically to be allowed 
 permanently to any one European Power by the rest of the Powers. 
 It stands marked out for neutrality as between them, and France 
 will certainly not consent to our holding it permanently without a 
 war. As a question of near danger I have reason to feel sure that 
 a complete agreement has been come to between France and the 
 Sultan (probably, too, the Czar) regarding it, and that the return 
 of the Liberal Party to office in England will determine their joint 
 action. 
 
 It is therefore of some urgency to consider whether we are 
 strong enough by land and sea to refuse at all hazards. 
 
 I agree entirely with Mr. Gladstone when he hopes that Lord 
 Salisbury rather than himself may negotiate the evacuation. Mr. 
 Gladstone's position abroad will be weak, as he will be without 
 cordial support from the Central Powers, while his position in 
 honour towards France will be hampered by his many pledges. 
 Lord Salisbury could get better terms for the Egyptians, and 
 would be less likely to sacrifice them to the exigencies of European 
 diplomacy. 
 
 I believe an evacuation might be effected on one or other of 
 the following lines: 
 
 (i) The simplest and most expeditious plan would probably be 
 
 499 
 
500 Appendix II 
 
 to hand over the mihtary responsibiHty to the Sultan._ This would 
 have the advantage of postponing the ultimate question. It would 
 place Egypt, as regards European ambitions, under whatever 
 degree of integrity the Ottoman Empire enjoys. Ottoman troops 
 could certainly guard her southern frontier and prevent surprise 
 from other quarters. England, this quarrel about Egypt settled, 
 wo.uld then revert to her former friendly relations with Turkey, 
 and in the event of a break-up of the Empire would be free to 
 take whatever steps her interests required. As regards Egyptian 
 opinion, I believe that on the whole it would be not unfavourable 
 to such a solution. There is no love for the Turks among the 
 fellahin, but the Sultan's authority would be accepted by them as 
 natural and legal, while it must be remembered that the Khedivial 
 rule is also Turkish. The Sultan, indeed, might be expected to 
 protect in some measure the Arabic-speaking population against a 
 renewal of oppression by the Turkish Circassian Pashas, and, in 
 any case, he would be jealous in their favour of European 
 aggression. 
 
 No administrative interference, however, need be conceded if 
 the transfer of military protection be made under agreement. It 
 is probable that, if the right claimed for England in the Wolfif 
 Convention of ultimate intervention were withdrawn, France and 
 Russia would not oppose such a solution. 
 
 (2) A better plan, if honestly attempted by England, and as 
 honestly accepted by the Powers, would be to re-establish the 
 National Government on liberal and progressive lines, under 
 guarantee of neutrality. 
 
 Although much time and opportunity have been wasted during 
 our nine years of occupation in repressing political life among the 
 Egyptians, I am still of opinion that something in the shape of 
 Constitutional Government would give them their best chance of 
 permanent independence and progress as a race. It must not be 
 forgotten that in 1882 a Constitution on a European model 
 (decree of March 1882) was obtained by the Egyptian National 
 Party, which gave considerable promise of efficiency as a means 
 of asserting native right against both the Turkish ruling caste and 
 the European colonists. If it had not been put down by England's 
 armed intervention, it would in all likelihood have given a new 
 impulse of progress not only to Egypt, but to the surrounding 
 Mohammedan lands. I am of opinion that even yet its restoration 
 at Cairo would have this effect, and is not impossible. The 
 National Constitutional Party, though broken as an organization, 
 exists in the individuals who composed it, and in younger men of 
 a new generation holding similar ideas. From among these a 
 Ministry could be formed to set the Constitutional machine in 
 
Memorandum as to the Evacuation of Egypt 501 
 
 motion under sympathetic English auspices, nor do I doubt that 
 within a couple of years it would be found competent to conduct 
 the business of the country without further military aid. It is by 
 men of this party alone that Sir Evelyn Baring's better work in 
 Eg)'pt is appreciated, and it is only to their hands that the work 
 of continuing it could be reasonably entrusted. 
 
 Unfortunately for such a solution, the Constitutional idea finds 
 many adverse influences under present conditions. The Khedive 
 and the Turkish Party, which we have replaced in ofifice, are 
 wholly opposed to it. The European officials representing financial 
 interests consider any form of popular government less manageable 
 by them than the present absolute regime. And Sir Evelyn Baring 
 would as little approve. Lastly — and this is perhaps the greatest 
 obstacle — the French and foreign poUcy generally in the East 
 desires nothing so little as to see a genuine resuscitation of 
 political vitality among the native races. Under the present des- 
 potic yet feeble regime., France counts on succeeding England in 
 controlling a weak prince and weaker people until such time as 
 Egypt may fall to her share of the Ottoman spoils. 
 
 The attempt, therefore, if made at all, must be made honestly 
 and with the thoroughgoing support of a sympathetic English 
 representative, otherwise it cannot but fail. 
 
 (3) The third solution of placing Egypt under joint European 
 guardianship and political control, is one against which, however 
 it may recommend itself as a settlement of European differences, 
 I feel bound to protest in native Egyptian interests. 
 
 Under English rule the native populations have been carefully 
 protected, and their rights maintained against the encroachment 
 of foreign colonists. But under any other European rule than 
 England's the reverse would certainly be the case. Egypt under 
 French or Italian or joint European control would be exploited in 
 whatever direction it was thought that revenue could be best in- 
 creased. The fellahin now enjoying their hereditary lands would 
 be speedily dispossessed and reduced to a practical slavery worse 
 than any they have hitherto known, and as a race would probably 
 be little by little displaced, demoralized, and extirpated. 
 
 As already remarked, the fellahin in 1882, alarmed at this very 
 danger under the Anglo-French control, had asserted themselves 
 politically and forced their rulers to grant them a means of self- 
 defence in the form of a Constitutional Government. They had 
 acquired the support of a large army with sufficient prestige to 
 deter attack from more than one of the Powers, and they were 
 backed by much sympathy east and west in their attempted 
 reforms. Having for our own reasons suppressed all these pos- 
 sibihties of good for them, it would be a supreme injustice to 
 
502 Appeiidiv II 
 
 overlook their interests now in the settlement to be made. To 
 Mr, Gladstone especially, who is so largely responsible for the 
 intervention, it should be a matter of honourable concern that this 
 race and people should not perish. 
 
 (4) To withdraw the British garrison under present conditions 
 and without a political settlement would be to court future diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 Sir Evelyn Baring's pohcy of the last five years, based as it has 
 been on the view that Egypt was to remain a permanent annexe 
 of the Indian Empire, has practically destroyed all authority there 
 but that of the English Occupation. Egypt's present government 
 is a mixed European, Armenian, and native bureaucracy controlled 
 by half-a-dozen Englishmen with the British garrison at their 
 back. No native government in any sense of authority exists. 
 The Khedive, indolent and without initiative, is a mere dummy 
 Prince. His Ministers, most of them Turks of advanced years, 
 have been chosen for their pliancy rather than their ability. Their 
 names have no weight, and their duties are little more than to 
 sign without reading the documents placed before them. The 
 great departments of Finance, Irrigation, War, and latterly Justice, 
 are directed by Englishmen. The army and police have English 
 superior officers ; and even the Interior is, I believe, in process of 
 being taken over by us. 
 
 This Anglicized condition of the Government could not long 
 survive a withdrawal of the English troops. Even were it con- 
 sented to by France, it would rapidly lose its authority. English 
 control, though not unpopular with the fellahin, is disliked by 
 every class in Cairo and the towns, and would at once be the 
 object of attack, open or secret. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose the Khedive attached to English 
 influence, or to be depended on in any way to support it. On 
 the contrary, while leaning on English support these last ten 
 years he has deeply resented the usurpation of his authority, and 
 the many indignities he has been made to accept. It is more 
 than probable that seeing French influence in the ascendant, be 
 would secretly favour the intrigues which would be begun against 
 the English commands in the Army and the English Civil officials. 
 A couple of years would thus see the downfall of the whole structure 
 of English influence so elaborately reared. In the absence of any 
 native political organization in the country its government would 
 then become practically French ; and this is doubtless what the 
 French Foreign Office counts upon. I deprecate such a result 
 both for English interests, and especially for the Egyptians for the 
 reasons already given. 
 
 Such, I take it, are the various lines on which evacuation could 
 
Memorandiini as to the Evacuation of Egypt 503 
 
 be effected. If the Liberal Party is prepared with a definite plan 
 by which Egypt could be provided with a satisfactory Government 
 preparatory to withdrawing our troops under settlement with the 
 Sultan and Powers, I think its leaders do well to press evacuation 
 on public attention. But it is idle for them to entertain the idea 
 that any such Government has been already formed, or even that 
 a first step in that direction has been already taken. Sir Evelyn 
 Baring's policy is entirely one of remaining in Egypt, and each 
 year sees more and more authority placed in English hands. 
 Otherwise I see no alternative but to re-establish the Sultan's 
 military authority, or to brave the danger of European complica- 
 tions, as Lord Salisbury will doubtless do. and remain. An 
 English protectorate would be a lesser evil to the Egyptians than 
 any form of European Joint Control. 
 
 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. 
 Paris, Nov. 5, 1891. 
 
 N.B. This memorandum was written for Lytton while staying 
 at the Paris Embassy, but I am not sure whether he ever read it, 
 for he was lying on his death bed. Edwin Egerton, however, then 
 first Secretary and charge d' affaires of the Embassy, highly approved 
 of it — so much so that he gave a copy of it to Blowitz, who sent 
 it to the "Times," where it may be found, though not quite in its 
 full text. 
 
 W. S. B. 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 MR. HERBERT SPENCER TO MR. BLUNT 
 
 [Reed. October i^, 1898] 
 
 5, Percival Terrace, 
 
 Brighton. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 For some years I have been casting about for a poet who might 
 fitly undertake a subject I very much want to see efficiently dealt 
 with. At one time I thought of proposing it to Mr. Robert 
 Buchanan, who, in respect of vigour of expression and strength 
 of moral indignation seemed appropriate, but I concluded that 
 the general feeling with regard to him would prevent a favourable 
 reception — would, in fact, tend very much to cancel the effect 
 produced. Afterwards the name of Mr. William Watson occurred 
 to me as one who had shown feelings of the kind I wished to see 
 expressed. But admirable as much of his poetry is, the element 
 of power is not marked; he does not display a due amount of 
 burning sarcasm. Your recent letter in "The Times," and since 
 then a review in " The Academy," in which there were quotations 
 from your poem, " The Wind and the Whirlwind," lead me to 
 hope that you may work out the idea I refer to. 
 
 This idea is suggested by the first part of Goethe's " Faust " — 
 "The Prologue in Heaven," I think it is called. In this, if I 
 remember rightly (it is now some fifty years since I read it), 
 Mephistopheles obtains permission to tempt Faust: the drama 
 being thereupon initiated. Instead of this I suggest an interview 
 and dialogue in which Satan seeks authority to find some being 
 more wicked than himself, with the understanding that if he suc- 
 ceeds this being shall take his place. The test of wickedness is to 
 be the degree of disloyalty — the degree of rebellion against divine 
 government, 
 
 Satan gives proof that his rebellion has been less flagitious 
 than that of men. 
 
 He confesses to having been a rebel, but an avowed one. 
 
 He has not, like men, professed to worship the Christian God 
 while perpetually worshipping the pagan gods; he has not day by 
 
 5°4 
 
Mr. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Blunt 505 
 
 day sacrificed with zeal to Thor and Odin, while nominally 
 sacrificing to Jehova. 
 
 He is not like men who, tepidly joining in praises of Christ as 
 a model on one day in the week, on the other six days bring up 
 their sons in glowing admiration of blood-stained Homeric 
 heroes. 
 
 He is not like men who, nominally admitting on Sunday that 
 forgiveness is a virtue, emphatically insist on and practice on all 
 other days the duty of blood-revenge. 
 
 He has never done like men who, professing the Christian 
 principle of submitting to injuries, ridicule as idiots the few 
 Christians who propose to act on that principle. 
 
 He has not, while professing to relinquish the savage law of 
 retaliation — a life for a life — adopted the far more savage law — 
 for one life many lives. 
 
 Satan goes on to urge that he has never with rebellion joined 
 perpetual insults as men have done. 
 
 I have never turned your churches of mercy into pagan temples 
 by hanging up in them the torn flags of conquered peoples. 
 
 I have never blasphemed by thanking you for aiding in mowing 
 down tens of thousands of iiien who worshipped you under 
 another name. 
 
 I have never blasphemed by calling you Omniscient while 
 ascribing to you unutterable stupidity — the stupidity of being 
 ready to accept perpetual professions of obedience as sufficient to 
 cancel perpetual acts of absolute disobedience : being so pleased 
 with laudations, prayers, and obeisances as to overlook the con- 
 temptuous disregard of peremptory commands. 
 
 The Reply 
 
 If while sacrificing to me in name men have sacrificed to Pagan 
 gods in act, it is your doing. You have betrayed them into this 
 rebellion. Only by your delusions has it been possible to make 
 them think that I should accept words in place of deeds. Joined 
 though it is with lying and hypocrisy, the rebellion of these beings 
 is not worse than your rebellion, because you have prompted it. 
 
 Satan 
 
 But if I deceived them it was only because they wished to be 
 deceived. They wished to gratify their revenge while having the 
 blessings promised to those who forgive. 
 
 Reply 
 You cannot be pardoned. 
 
5o6 Appendix III 
 
 Satan 
 
 But may I mete out their punishments according to their own 
 measure? They ask to be forgiven their sins as they forgive the sins 
 of others. May I torture them in proportion to their unforgive- 
 ness? For every time they have professed the religion of love and 
 practised the religion of hate, may I thrust them a step lower 
 down in hell? 
 
 Might not some such ideas as these, presented with power, 
 produce considerable effects upon a few men, though not perhaps 
 on many? 
 
 I am faithfully yours, 
 
 Herbert Spencer. 
 
 END OF APPENDICES 
 
INDEX 
 
 AARIF, Mohammed Bey, secret- 
 ary to Mukhtar Pasha Ghazi, 
 14. 
 
 Abbas II, Khedive of Egypt, 76- 
 79, loi, 103-106, 108, 109, III 
 115, 119, 120, 124, 133, 136, 139 
 143, 145. 147-161, 165-171, 173, 
 174, 177, 203-206, 240, 255, 256, 
 258-263, 269-273, 275, 278, 299, 
 300, 302-304, 331, 334, 341, 351, 
 352, 369, 383, 395- 422, 448, 449, 
 452, 456, 463, App. II, 502. 
 
 Abdallah, the Khalifa, of Omdur- 
 man, 16, 155, 240, 247, 252, 270, 
 280, 298, 353, 364, 376, 421. 
 
 Abdu, Sheykh Mohammed, after- 
 wards Grand Mufti of Egypt, 38, 
 39, 55, 59. 60, 78, 105, III, 119, 
 120, 151, 154, 167, 171, 204, 244, 
 253, 257, 263, 270, 271-273, 278, 
 
 299, 301-304, 341, 351, 355, 356, 
 418, 423, 424, 427, 429, 431, 432, 
 
 448, 449, 463- 
 
 Abdul Hamid, Ottoman Sultan, 19, 
 24, 36, 53, 54, 71, 76, 106-108, 
 113, 117, 118, 121-130, 133, 139, 
 140, 143, 147, 150-152, 154, 157, 
 165, 188, 204-206, 227-229, 231- 
 235, 254, 255, 257, 261, 266, 278, 
 295, 301, 303, 337, 342, 351, 353, 
 376, 377, 381, 457, 462, App. li, 
 499, 500, 503. 
 
 Abdul Kader, Mohammed Ibn, the 
 Emir, 19. 
 
 Abdullah Pasha Nejdi, Ibn Then- 
 neyan Ibn Saoud, 115, 129, 253. 
 
 Abu Naddara. See Sanua. 
 
 Abul Huda, Sheykh, 253, 257, 351. 
 
 Adye, General Sir John, 21. 
 
 Ali Pasha Sherif, 18, 126, 127, 204, 
 206, 258, 262, 301, 3&2. 
 
 Aosta, Duke of, 68, 208, 210. 
 
 Arabi Pasha, 4, 5, 14, 20-22, 36, 
 38-40, 55, 66, 78, 91,92,98, 114, 
 238, 244, 249, 258, 270, 275, 295, 
 308, 449. 
 
 Armenian Question, Epitome of, 
 
 234- 
 Asquith, H. H., M.P., 88, 144, 172, 
 
 179, 212, 464. 
 Austin, Alfred, Poet Laureate, 177, 
 
 261, 264, 343, 344, 456. 
 Ayub Khan, Emir of Afghanistan, 
 
 355- 
 
 Balfour, Rt. Honble. Arthur James, 
 
 M.P., 27, 66, 86, 88, 273, 347, 
 
 357, 359, 397, 399, 40o. 
 Balfour, Rt. Honble. Gerald, M.P., 
 
 84-86,211,389. 
 Baring, Sir Evelyn. See Cromer. 
 Barre, celebrated French tennis 
 
 champion, App. i, 487, 488. 
 Benedetti, M., French Ambassador 
 
 at Berlin, App. 477, 479. 
 Bismarck, Prince, 12, 22, 96, 294, 
 
 364, 376, App. 469-471, 477-479 
 
 482, 489, 497. 
 Blunt Pasha, General Walter 
 
 A.D.C. to the Sultan, 125, 126, 
 
 128, 230, 233. 
 Boulanger, General, 3-5, 25, 26,71 
 Bourke, Honble. Terence, 188-196, 
 
 404. 
 Bovven, Sir George, 1 10. 
 Bowles, Thomas, M.P., 287. 
 Brand, Harrj'. See Hampden. 
 Branicka, Countess, 222, 224-226 
 
 345- 
 Branicki, Count Ladislas, 222. 
 Branicki, Count Xavier, 223. 
 Brewster Bey, Khedive Abbas 
 
 private secretary, 160-162. 
 
 507 
 
5o8 
 
 Index 
 
 Broadwood, Captain, afterwards 
 
 General, 157, 158, 166, 242, 244- 
 
 247, 294. 
 Buckle, George Earle, Editor of 
 
 the"Tjmes," 279, 405. 
 Budge, Dr., 409. 
 Buller, General Sir Redvers, 411- 
 
 413, 427, 432, 452- 
 Burne Jones, Sir Edward, 82, 137, 
 
 282, 296, 362, 363, 388, 389. 
 Burton, Sir Richard, 141, 360. 
 " Button," Hon. Algernon Bourke, 
 
 188, 343, 364, 453. 
 
 Cambon, M., French Ambassador 
 in London, 380, 381, 387. 
 
 Carlisle, Countess of. Sec Howard. 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Honble. Joseph, 
 M.P., 81, 177, 260, 268, 273, 279, 
 342, 343, 345-347, 377, 400-404, 
 433, 434, 459, 460. 
 
 " Chibine," wreck of, 435-448. 
 
 Churchill, Rt. Honble. Lord Ran- 
 dolph, M.P., 38, 61, 64,81, 117, 
 119, 175, 208. 
 
 Churchill, Rt. Honble. Winston, 
 M.P., 396, 397- 
 
 Cockerell, Sydney, private secre- 
 tary for two years to Author, 
 now Director of the Fitzwilliam 
 Museum, Cambridge, 361, 362, 
 371, 378, 388, '394, 409, 431-435, 
 439, 440, 442, 448-450. 
 
 Cogordan, M., French Minister at 
 Cairo, 257, 258, 265, 354, 449. 
 
 Convention, The Drummond Wolff, 
 15, 71, 74, 125, 134, 213, 227, 
 App. li, 500. 
 
 Crabbet Club, The, 50-52, 83, 138, 
 178, 380. 
 
 Cromer, Earl of, 13, 15, 20, 37-40, 
 42, 43, 53, 54-61, 75-79, 91, 93, 
 98, 100, loi, 103-117, iig-i2i, 
 132-136, 140, 143, 145, 148, 150- 
 155, 157-161, 163, 167, 169, 170, 
 171, 174, 204, 205, 251-254, 258- 
 261, 263, 264, 269-272, 274, 276, 
 280, 300, 302-304, 351, 355, 379, 
 385, 400, 413, 425, 429, 432, 433, 
 447, 449, App. ii 501-503- 
 
 Currie, Francis Gore, 52, 53, App. 
 471, 476, 496. 
 
 Currie, Sir Philip, afterwards Lord, 
 Ambassador'at Constantinople, 
 81, 93, 100, ij35, 144, 226-229, 
 231-236, 265, 285, App. 493, 495. 
 
 Curzon, Honble. George, afterwards 
 Earl Curzon of Kedleston, 52, 72, 
 83, 138, 139, 178, 212, 213, 251, 
 276, 379, 380. 
 
 Cust, Harry, M.P., 52, 136, 138, 
 143, 211, 285, 286, 402. 
 
 Dawkins, Financial Adviser, 276, 
 
 277. 
 De Vere, Aubrey, 116, 117. 
 Dilke, Rt. Honble. Sir Charles, 
 
 M.P., 132, 133. 
 Dillon, John, M.P., 137, 358, 400, 
 
 430, 431- 
 Dufferin, Marquess of, 9, 1 6, 34, 36, 
 37, 63, 73, 76, 98, i03, 105, 119, 
 122, 139, 217 
 
 El Bekri, Sheykh, of Cairo, 106, 
 107, 109-111, 117, 118, 122, 135, 
 
 153, 351- 
 Ellis, the Honble. Sir Arthur, 
 Equerry to the Prince of Wales, 
 
 121, 173, 174. 
 Emin Pasha, 21, 36. 
 Estournelles, M. Constant d', 135, 
 
 380. 
 Evelyn, John, M.P., of Wotton, 
 64, 141, 143, 144, 175, 242, 270, 
 294, 352, 363, 414, 434- 
 
 Fenwick Pasha, 107, 203, 288. 
 Ford, Rt. Honble. Sir Clare, British 
 Ambassador at Constantinople, 
 
 122, 124, 127, 129, 131, 139. 
 
 Galloway, Countess of, 71, 135, 136, 
 
 212, 264, 265, 272, 273, 286, 380. 
 Gambetta, M. Leon, French Prime 
 
 Minister, 3, App. i, 482, 493. 
 Ghaleb, Osman Bey, Egyptian 
 
 Nationalist, 139, 140, 147, 155, 
 
 156, 159. 
 Gill, T. P., M.P., 269, 270, 208. 
 
Index 
 
 509 
 
 Gladstone, Rt. Honble. W . E., 
 M.P., 2, 22, 50, 54, 55, 64, 6s, 70, 
 75, 80, 83, 88-91, 99, 100, 109, 
 132-135, 139, 140, 143-145, 147, 
 148, 150, 151, 154, 165, 235, 295, 
 357, 361, App. ii, 499, 502. 
 
 Gordon, General C. G., of Khar- 
 toum, 21, 40, 249, 251, 299, 353, 
 
 355> 359, 364, 391, 398, 408. 
 Gordon, Colonel Bill, nephew to 
 
 General Gordon, 160, 277, 355, 
 
 386, 391, 395, 397, 407, 408- 
 Gorst, Mr., afterwards Sir Eldon, 
 
 108, 120, 237, 257, 276, 277, 240, 
 
 353, 354- 
 
 Goschen, Rt. Honble. George Joa- 
 chim, M.P., afterwards Lord, 54. 
 
 Greece, author's visit to, 8-1 1. 
 
 Gregory, Lady, 80, 102, 144, 154, 
 
 357, 358- 
 Grey, Rt. Honble. Sir Edward, 
 Bart., afterwards Lord Grey of 
 Falloden, loo, 165, 387. 
 
 Halevy, Ludovic, 216. 
 Halim, Prince, 16, 61, 106. 
 Hamilton, Sir Edward, permanent 
 official of the Treasury, 65, 134, 
 
 )35- 
 
 Hampden, Harry Brand, Lord, 396, 
 403, 406, 408, 411, 456, 460. 
 
 Hanotaux, M., 373, 374. 
 
 Harcourt, Rt. Honble. Lewis, M.P., 
 afterwards Lord, 51, 82, 117, 135, 
 138, 142, 143, 173, 381, 385, 398- 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William, M.P., 74, 
 75, 79-81, 84, 100, 102, 107, 109, 
 134, 135, 137, 142-144, 152, 154, 
 172, 173, 209, 212, 269, 346, 378, 
 380, 382, 384, 398, 404, 412, 413. 
 
 Hardinge, Rt. Honble. Sir Arthur, 
 of the Diplomatic Service, 108, 
 
 113- 
 
 Harris, Walter, " Times " corre- 
 spondent in Morocco, 350, 352, 
 
 353- 
 Harrison, Frederic, 80, 81, 144, 
 
 145, 175, 287, 404, 406. 
 Haymerle, Baron, Prime Minister 
 
 at Vienna, 8, 227. 
 
 Hdlfene, Princess of p' ranee, Duch- 
 ess of Aosta, 68, 69, 136, 148, 
 164, 208, 210, 451. 
 Henley, W. E., poet, 133, 135, 208, 
 
 286, 342. 
 Herbert, The Honble. Auberon, 
 
 64, 290, 291, 457. 
 Holywell, St. Winifrid's Well in 
 Flintshire, 359, 360, 361, 369, 
 370, 37 I.- 
 Howard, Hubert, The Honble., 52, 
 84, 138, 178, 364, 365, 379, 394, 
 
 395- 
 Howard, Rosalind, Countess of 
 
 Carlisle, 28. 
 Hoyos, Count and Countess George, 
 
 23, 24, 92. 
 Huxley, Professor, 179, i8o, 409. 
 Hyndman, H. M., 28, 343. 
 
 Jameson, Dr., 141, 260, 264, 268, 
 273, 279, 288, 346, 405, 412. 
 
 Jemal-ed-Din, Afghani, Seyyid, 
 religious leader of Reform at 
 Constantinople, 123-125, 129, 130, 
 
 253, 255, 441- 
 Johore, Sultan of, 117-119, 122, 123, 
 
 127-129. 
 Jowdat, Ismail Bey, Director of the 
 
 Cairo police under the Nationalist 
 
 Government, 106. 
 Jusserand, M., 215, 216, 297. 
 
 Kame], Mustafa Pasha, Egyptian 
 
 National Leader, 117, 140, 171. 
 Khalifa. See Abdallah. 
 Kiamil Pasha, Grand Vizier, 13, 
 
 231, 377- 
 
 Kitchener, General Lord, 117, 155- 
 157, 159, 161, 166, 168, 169, 240, 
 252, 253, 258, 270, 271, 274, 275, 
 277, 278, 299, 300, 304, 354, 384, 
 386, 39r, 393-400, 407, 413, 422, 
 423, 425, 431, 452, 453, 460, 461, 
 464. 
 
 Knowles, James, Editor of the 
 "Nineteenth Century," 100, 151, 
 
 377, 379- 
 Kruger, President, 262, 402, 410, 
 419, 420, 459- 
 
5'0 
 
 Index 
 
 Labouchere, Rt. Honble. Henry, 
 .M.P., 64, 66, 99, 100, 107, 117, 
 133, 142, 144, 151. 285. 
 
 Lacretelle, M., French artist, 3-6. 
 
 Lascelles, Rt. Honble. Sir Frank, 
 Ambassador at Berlin, 166, 178, 
 285, App. 472, 473, 476, 479, 480, 
 482, 485. 
 
 Lawson, Sir Wilfrid Bart., M.P., 
 64, 92, 393. 397, 426, 456- 
 
 Leboeuf, General, App. i, 484, 488. 
 
 Leo X, Pope, 34, 67, 434. 
 
 Locker, Frederick, 85, 143, 180, 
 209. 
 
 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 84, 134, 177. 
 
 Lytlon, Robert, Earl of, 32, 49, 53, 
 63, 71-73, 81, 211, 293, 409, 461, 
 App. i, 492, 496, App. ii, 503. 
 
 MacMahon, Marshal, App. 480, 
 
 481, 4S2, 490, 495. 
 Malet, Rt. Honble. Sir Edward, 
 
 Ambassador at Berlin, 78, 177, 
 
 347, 354, App. 47^-474, 480. 
 Malet, Lady, App. 470, 474. 
 Manning, Cardinal, 62, 66, 92, 93, 
 
 289. 
 Marchand, General, 353, 354, 373, 
 
 376. 
 Margot, Miss Margot Tennant, 
 
 afterwards Mrs. Asquith, 70, 78, 
 
 84, 89, 92, 94, loi, 136, 172, 173, 
 
 178, 209, 283, 284, 285, 387. 
 McDonnell, Schomberg, 226, 227, 
 
 232, 233, 263-265, 269. 
 Meredith, George, 100, 102, 175, 
 
 176, 420. 
 Meynell, Wilfrid, 92, 93, 180, 181, 
 
 182, 366, 367, 454. 
 Meynell, Mrs., 180, 366. 
 Meynell, Dr. Charles, 417. 
 Michel, Louise, 6-8. 
 Middleton, John Henry, 86-88. 
 Milan, King of Servia, 24. 
 Milner, Sir Alfred, afterwards 
 
 Lord, 54, 55, 104, 105, 173, 263, 
 
 400 402, 403, 408, 412, 413, 433. 
 Jlinjowar, Sheykh, of Kasrel Jibali, 
 
 307-311,313. 
 Minshatti Bey, 240, 241. 
 
 Minshawi Pasha, Egyptian Xation- 
 
 ahst, 20, 78. 
 Mivart, Professor, D.D., 426, 428, 
 
 454- 
 Modernism, 93, 102. 
 Moelhi, Ibrahim Bey, 14. 107, 121, 
 
 124, 125, 130. 
 Moelhi, Mohammed, 14, 38, 59, 77, 
 
 107, 109, 115, 117, 123, 128, 129, 
 
 147, 154- 
 
 Morley, Rt. Honble. John, M.P., 
 afterwards Lord Morley of Black- 
 burn, 75, 81, 100, 134, 143, 144, 
 210, 212, 272, 276, 284, 301, 380, 
 387, 396-399, 405- 
 
 Morris, William, 28-30, 65, 67, 68, 
 70, 82, 83, 86, 94, loi, 137, 140, 
 143, 183, 261, 280, 282-285, 287, 
 294-296, 362, 579, 390. 
 
 Mukhtar Pasha Ghazi, the Sultan's 
 representative at Cairo, 14, 106, 
 107, 119, 120, 124, 126, 133, 147, 
 154, 162, 205. 
 
 Munir Pasha, in the Sultan's serv- 
 ice, 121, 125-127, 129. 
 
 Mustafa Fehmi Pasha, Prime 
 Minister at Cairo, 106, 107, 1 13, 
 169, 171, 251, 270, 271, 274, 275. 
 
 Nadim, Abdallah, Egyptian patriot, 
 256. 
 
 Napier, Mark, The Honble., 83, 
 138, 178, 381, 403, 411. 
 
 Xapoleon III, Emperor of the 
 French, 3, 99, 216, 221, App. 478, 
 481-486, 489, 490, 494, 497, 498. 
 
 Nassar, Shdhir Ibn, Sheykh of the 
 Harb Bedouins of Hejaz, 40, 41. 
 
 Kazli, Princess, 14, 302, 303, 335. 
 
 Nelidoff, M. de, Russian Ambas- 
 sador at Constantinople, 8, 122, 
 123, 227. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, 417,418. 
 
 Noel, Edward of Eubaea, 9. 
 
 Noel, Frank, of Eubaea, 8, 11, 14. 
 
 Xolde, Baron de, Russian traveller 
 in Arabia, 140, 143. 
 
 Nubar Pasha, Prime Minister at 
 Cairo, 39, 55, 60, no, 155, 167, 
 169-171, 204, 206, 251, 386. 
 
Index 
 
 5ii 
 
 O'Connor, T. P., JI.P., 31, 136, 
 
 141. 
 Orleans, Due d', 148, 164, 210. 
 Osman Digna, Mahdist leader, 16, 
 
 21, 36, 429. 
 Osman Pasha, Prince, 13, 14, 255, 
 
 354, 355- 
 "Ouida," 450, 451. 
 
 Palgrave, Francis, 213, 214. 
 
 Palgrave, GifFard, 213, 214. 
 
 Palmer, Edward, Financial Adviser 
 in Egypt, 113. 
 
 Paris, Comte and Comtesse de, 
 68, 69, 210, App. i, 482. 
 
 Pamell, Charles Stuart, 50, 62, 63, 
 66, 269, 270. 
 
 Pembroke, George, Earl of, 50, 51, 
 208, 209. 
 
 Potocki, Count and Countess Jo- 
 seph, Polish nobleman, 25, 218- 
 222, 272, 345. 
 
 Prim, General, App., 475, 477, 
 
 Rashid, Mohammed Ibn, Emir of 
 Xejd, 16, 19, 127, 128, 141, 254, 
 
 341, 352> 353- 
 Redmond, John, M.P., 137, 144, 
 
 373, 431- 
 Reverseaux, M. de, French Minister 
 
 at Cairo, 106, 153, 154, 159, 170, 
 
 177. 
 Rhodes, Cecil, Rt. Honble., 100, 
 
 144, 268, 273, 276-279, 287, 293, 
 
 300-302, 345, 346, 359, 405, 412, 
 
 413,433,434- 
 
 Riaz Pasha, Prime Minister in 
 Egypt, 38, 40, 43, 53, 54-56, 59, 
 60, 64, 105-108, no, 111-116, 119, 
 124, 147, 149-152, 154, 166, 167, 
 168, 204, 259, 353. 
 
 Ribblesdale, Lord, 20, 178. 
 
 Ripon, Marquess of, 355. 
 
 Rodd, Rt. Honble. Sir J. Renell, 
 Ambassador at Rome, 10, 261, 
 
 340, 353, 399- 
 Rosebery, Rt. Honble., The Earl of, 
 31, 34, 75, 80, 81, 88, 92, 100, loi, 
 109, 124, 135, 136, 138, 139, 143, 
 144, 157, 165, 167, 175, 208, 210, 
 235, 265, 383, 384, 459, 460. 
 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 86, 88, 285, 
 
 389- 
 Rothschild, Mme. -Alphonse, 96. 
 Rowton, Lord, 385, 403. 
 Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria, 
 
 23, 24- 
 Ruflfer, Dr., Head of the Medical 
 
 Service at Alexandria, 239, 240, 
 
 249, 250. 
 Russell, "A. E.," Irish poet, 358. 
 
 Sabunji, Louis, secretary to Sultan 
 Abdul Hamid, 126, 129, 130. 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, 13, 33, 53, 
 61, 64, 65, 71, 72, 75, 77, 83, 86, 
 88, 134, 135, 177, 210, 213, 227, 
 232, 235, 251, 258, 260, 263-265, 
 269, 271-274, 304, 343, 344, 357, 
 367, 368, 372-374, 378-381, 384, 
 386, 397, 404, 406, App. ii, 499, 
 503- 
 
 Sanderson, Sir Thomas, head of 
 the Foreign Office, afterwards 
 Lord, 403. 
 
 Sanguscko, Prince and Princess, 
 PoUsh nobleman, 24, 220, 221, 
 
 225, 457- 
 
 Sanua, James (Abu Naddara), in 
 
 exile at Paris, 71, 376. 
 Sapieha, Prince John, 222-224. 
 Sargent, J. S., R.A., 386, 388. 
 Senoussia, The, Chap, xii, 298. 
 Sermoneta, the Duke and Duchess 
 
 of, 34-36, 268, 284. 
 Shaw, Miss Flora, 279. 
 Sherei, Hassan, leader of the 
 
 Egyptian Fellah part)', 59, 60, 61. 
 Singleton, Mrs. (Violet Fane), 
 
 afterwards Lady Currie, Si, 94, 
 
 226, 232. 
 
 Siwah, Expedition to, 298. 
 
 Slatin, Sir Rudolf Pasha, 241, 257, 
 
 266, 277, 298. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 365, 366, 375, 
 '391-393, 402, 411, 422, 423- App. 
 
 iii, 504-506. 
 Staal, M. de, Russian Ambassador 
 
 in England, 8, 82, 173, 178, 387. 
 Stanley, H. M., African traveller, 
 
 16, 36. 
 Stonor, Monsignore, 33, 34, 62. 
 
512 
 
 Index 
 
 Strickland, Count, 200-203. 
 
 Suliman Howeyti, Bedouin in au- 
 thor's service, 164, 165, 266, 305, 
 311, 312, 319, 321, 322, 325, 326, 
 328, 330, 331, 352, 434-436, 438, 
 439, 446, 462. 
 
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 68, 
 140, 261, 282, 411. 
 
 Tewfik, Khedive, 13, 21, 38-40, 53, 
 61, 72, 76-78, 91, 105, J 14, 147, 
 259. 
 
 Thompson, Francis, poet, 180-182, 
 366, 367- 
 
 Tichborne, Sir Roger, " the Claim- 
 ant," 359. 
 
 Tigrane Pasha, Armenian Under- 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs at 
 Cairo, 43, 107, iii, 113, 114, 119, 
 ISO, 124, 148, 153, 155, 158-161, 
 204, 259. 
 
 Towfik, Dr. Mohammed, 244-246. 
 
 Tricoupi, M., Prime Minister in 
 Greece, 10, 11. 
 
 Tiirr, Aladame, 11, 12. 
 
 Tyrrell, Father, S. J., 454, 455. 
 
 Usedom, Count d', Prussian Am- 
 bassador at Frankfort, afterwards 
 in Italy, 11,12, App. 469, 470, 474, 
 477, 479- 
 
 Vambery, Professor, 233, 234. 
 
 Vaughan, Cardinal, 92, 93, 429, 
 454- 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 20, 53, 100, 156, 
 211, 231, 252, 256, 275, 281, 298, 
 344, 346, 353, 354, 372, 382, 383, 
 385, 396, 406-408, 413, 429, 433, 
 452, 463, 464, App. 470. 
 
 Vincent, Rt. Honble. Sir Edgar, 
 M.P., 108, 124, 130, 147. 
 
 Wagram, Prince and Princess, 32, 
 37, 68, 69, 187, 215, 373, 374, 458. 
 
 Wales, Prince of, afterwards King 
 Edward VII, 169, 173, 174, 205, 
 210, 452, App, 470. 
 
 Walsh, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin, 
 62, 63, 80. 
 
 Watts, George Frederick, R.A. 
 67, 8s, 388, 390, 393, 394, 412, 
 417. 
 
 Webb, Philip, architect, 455. 
 
 Wilberforce, Reginald, 288, 289. 
 
 Wilde, Oscar, 52, 72, 81, 177-179, 
 208, 463. 
 
 Wilhelm I, German Emperor, App. 
 470, 477-479, 482, 493-495- 
 
 Wilhelm II, German Emperor, 34, 
 36, 66, 73, 262, 284, 285, 346, 
 376-378, 397, 401, 413, 414, 416, 
 423, 464- 
 
 Wilson, Sir Charles Rivers, 64, 167. 
 
 Wingate, General Sir Reginald, 
 257, 266, 277, 298, 431. 
 
 Wyndham, Colonel Charles, re- 
 lative of the Author, 15. 
 
 Wyndham, Rt. Honble. George, 
 M.P., Irish Chief Secretary, 
 cousin of the author, 27, 52, 66, 68, 
 82-84, 89, 135, 138, 139, 172, 175, 
 178, 180, 208, 211, 253, 279, 280, 
 281, 285, 286, 292, 301, 342, 343, 
 346, 347, 349, 356, 357, 359, 360, 
 368, 369, 372, 377, 379, 380, 387, 
 
 396, 397, 399, 402, 409, 410, 415, 
 416, 430, 452, 459, 463. 
 Wyndham, Colonel Guy, 286, 410, 
 
 411, 413, 415, 416, 434- 
 Wyse, Rt. Honble. Sir Thomas, 8, 
 12. 
 
 Yusuf, Sheykh Ali, Cairo journalist, 
 
 164, 303- 
 Yeats, William Butler, poet, 358. 
 
 Zaghloul, Saad Effendi, afterwards 
 Pasha, member of the Egyptian 
 Fellah party, afterwards Minister, 
 59, 60. 
 
 Zebehr, Pasha, 20-22, 169. 
 
 Zeyd, Bedouin from Nejd in the 
 Author's service, 19, 40, 41, 44- 
 48. 
 
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