CHAPTER XI

THE JAMESON RAID

“_5th 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 devoutly hope he may be hanged. I have seen this business

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 way it has. They

seem to have been encouraged in the sort of way these things are

encouraged 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 say

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

neighbourhood 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 openly. They stated that they had been bullied 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 that Ibrahim

Bey Ibn Saoud had been to him twice, the first time to evoke 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 Rennell 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 Laureateship

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.

“_9th Jan._—The German Emperor has telegraphed his congratulations to

Kruger, and this seems to have produced great anger in England. We have

now managed in the last six months to quarrel violently 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 repressing liberty in weak nations is

endangering our own. I should be glad to see the end.

“My old woodreeve, Bates, at Crabbet has hanged himself 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 in 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 playing. 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.

“_11th Jan._—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 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 internationalized 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.

“_15th 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.

“_16th 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 hold their own as ministers against

Khedivial encroachment, 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 really 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, myself, 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.

“_23rd Jan._—The English papers are sickening about the Transvaal, a

mixture of swagger and poltroonery. 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 surrendered,

not a pretence of its being in any 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

busy writing my letter to McDonnell, and also finishing my article about

the evacuation of Egypt for the ‘Nineteenth 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 Government from

joining in the bombardment of Alexandria or occupying the Suez Canal,

thinking that the English would get into military 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

operations. Lesseps was a vain old fool.

“_25th Jan._—Lady Galloway 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 lot

more rubbish, which I fear represents Lord Salisbury’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

real hatred for the Turks. The Russo-Turkish alliance is announced by

the ‘Pall Mall,’ it cannot but be true. I fancy the Russian 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 Galloway is coming to Sheykh Obeyd on Monday.

“_27th Jan._—Lady Galloway was here for luncheon to-day. I have written

my memorandum on the evacuation of Egypt, and am sending it to Lord

Salisbury through Pom McDonnell. In my letter to Pom I say: ‘I have

drawn it up very carefully, and after consultation with some of my

Egyptian friends, who best know the situation, and in whom I have most

confidence as honest and patriotic men. I have also some reason to

believe that Monsieur Cogordan, 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 predecessors 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 work

out her political destiny in peace, and I foresee that if Lord Salisbury

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 evil 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

Turkey, which, whether quite true or not, must be very near the truth. I

strongly suspect that the famous incident of Saïd Pasha taking refuge at

the British Embassy was an ingenious trick to spy out the real ideas of

the Ambassador. Saïd may very well have gone there with the knowledge

and privity of the Sultan, and the result may have convinced the Sultan

that England was his bitterest personal enemy. Certainly from the day of

Saïd’s return to his own house things have altered at Constantinople,

and the Sultan has gone his own way without seeking any more to be on

terms with us.[15]

“_30th Jan._—Anne and I start on Monday for a considerable 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. Perhaps

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.

“_3rd 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 journey, 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 Howeytat, under the guidance of Sobeyeh Ibn Zeydan of the Maaze

tribe, through the Maaze country south of the Kalala mountains to the

granite range of Jebel Gháreb southwards to Kúfra, Dokhán, and Kitár,

regaining the Nile at Keneh, a journey of 400 miles of uninhabited

desert, made in twenty days, of the greatest possible interest. My

diary, however, is little more than an itinerary 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 unexplored and unmapped region. We returned

from Keneh by steamer to 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.

“_7th 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, Egypt, 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 mainland 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 protectorate. 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 invested 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 cowardice, the ‘heroic’ Italian defenders of the

fortress were treated as if they had been conquerors, and pretensions

were put forward of annexing the whole of Abyssinia. Menelik, however,

calmly went on, all sections of the Abyssinians joining him, and

proposed as an alternative condition 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 probably 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 sympathy 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 cry shame! All the English papers

applauded. ‘The wiping out of the little kingdom of Abyssinia 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

minister.

“Next the Transvaal business has developed. Jameson and his band have

been fêted in London, and old Kruger must, I think, be sorry he did not

hang them. It would have been the best policy, for Englishmen are

cowards in the face of hanging, and we should have had no more

filibustering 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, however, than ever that he was in with

Rhodes and Jameson, though possibly they acted without his exact

knowledge 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 way. The house at Eltham 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

Parnell 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 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 was the worry and the strain

of fighting that ended him.’

“Evelyn has come and is staying with us.

“_12th March._—Evelyn and Gill have gone. The Armenian 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 Granville 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 any other time was, I have no doubt, to

make a diversion for the Egyptian question. It was probably the reason,

too, why Lord Salisbury 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.

“_13th 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 disapproval 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.

“_15th March._—Sheykh Saleh, the Sheykh of the _muhajjerin_, the

refugees from Dongola, called to-day. He says that Kitchener has told

him the Government intends to advance to Abu Hamad and Berber as soon as

the railway is finished to Wady Halfa. 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.

“_16th March._—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 diversion 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, objected 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 Ali 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, however, 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

thrush, the Egyptian dove, the crow, a pair of spotted cuckoos, a

hoopoo, and a chat.

“_22nd March._—A large party of visitors. Lady Galloway, who has come

back from a journey up the Nile, which she has made with Lady Jersey.

Then the Potocki party, Joseph and his wife, Zamoyski and his wife,

Prince Radziwill 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 ally 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 stopped the

Soudan war eleven years ago.

“_24th March._—Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to tell me what is going on

at the palace. He sees the Khedive now twice a week, 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

complaint. 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

narrated all this to Mohammed Abdu, and I have no doubt it is true.

“_25th March._—The English papers of the 17th and 18th came today. Lord

Salisbury’s statement in the House of Lords is amazing. He has made no

such deliberate misstatement 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.

“_27th March._—A letter from Lady Lytton. She tells me: ‘Rhodes knew

about Jameson’s advance on the Transvaal, 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.’

“_30th 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 Egypt of our military attaché at Rome (Slade?),

when a council was held,[16] consisting of Knollys, Kitchener, the

attaché, 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 recommended 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 formally given to the rest of 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-occupation 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.’ (Ismaïl 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

declined, 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 asked him whether Kitchener had recommended

the Dongola 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 umbrella, 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 Fehmy about it, and I think he means it. He said: ‘What you

tell me about him I must believe, for nobody who knows you can doubt

that you are the best friend that Egypt has.’ And so we parted. I was

again much struck with his great intelligence and power of expressing

his thoughts.

“_3rd April._—I have been writing an article, ‘The Truth of the Dongola

Adventure,’ for the ‘Nineteenth Century.’

“I see they have been pushing George Curzon with questions in the House

of Commons about Cromer’s approval 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.

“_7th 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 will 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.

“_10th 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 Matabeles have risen and

killed a number of the Chartered Company’s people, and are besieging

Bulawayo. The Chartered Company have no troops, and English regiments

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 sly, I 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 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 half-penny a day—and are there practically

slaves for life—or rather for as long as they are able to serve—for when

past work in the army, they are pitilessly cast adrift without pension

or provision of any kind. Yet we English pretend that our mission in

Africa is to put down slave-raiding and slavery. The English officers at

Wady Halfa 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.

“_12th 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 arranging of the supplies, and says that the new

equipments, saddles, arms, etc., have only cost £20,000. He, like Gorst

and Dawkins, considers the Intelligence Department absurdly overrated

and overpaid. Wingate and Slatin between them get £1,700 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.

“_15th 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.

“_17th 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 £7 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 evening 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.”

We reached London on the evening of the 24th, and slept there.

“_25th April._—Breakfasted with George Wyndham. We are to go together on

a pilgrimage to Stratford in connection 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.

“My 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 Moallakát 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.’ So he ought to sleep happy to the

Judgment Day. He was quite the last of the old D’Orsay set in London,

and remained a ‘man of fashion,’ dining out to the end, though he died

actually away from London at Burley, with his daughter, Edith Finch.

“_28th April._—To London with Anne. Ralph came to luncheon in Mount

Street, and I afterwards dined with him. He showed me the whole existing

correspondence between Byron and Mrs. Leigh.

“_14th 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 Rosslyn, 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

desponding 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 £9,000.

“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 have 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 proposing 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 expedition

being ordered from England.

“_15th May._—Had tea with Lady Lytton at her house 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 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.

“_16th 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 sustained of their kind, and

splendidly rhetorical. I did most of the reading as George has a cold.

“_17th 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 Mary 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 Moallakát, 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.

“_18th 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.

“_29th May._—The Morrises have been here at Newbuildings since Tuesday.

He, poor man, very feeble and aged. I fear from the look of things that

it is some form of consumption, 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. We

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 yesterday 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

sensitive 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 round. 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.

“_31st 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 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. We 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 yesterday 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!’ We 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 discovered 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 thirty years.

“_2nd June._—To lunch with Judith at Margot’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 way spoilt her nerve, and she had seventy days’

hunting during the past winter. Two of her step-children were with her

at 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 any one 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.

“_3rd 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 Massówah, 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 Massówah,

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.’[17]

“_8th June._—There is news of a ‘victory’ in the Soudan at Ferkeh, come,

however, just too late to serve as an answer by the Government in

Parliament. Labouchere rushed this debate on Friday, and it came off

most successfully, 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 90, 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.

“_10th 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 recommend a sea voyage and rest. I do not

believe them. She is to take rooms for him at Folkestone meanwhile, a

sad prospect.

“_13th June._—My good friend, J. H. Middleton, is dead.[18]

“_15th June._—An inquest has been held on poor Middleton. The jury have

returned a verdict of ‘death from misadventure.’ What is curious 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.

“_16th June._—Lunched with Philip Currie and his wife, just back from

Constantinople. There seems little chance now of their being transferred

to Paris. Afterwards to Lady Galloway’s.

“_24th 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 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 mediæval things running about the

country round Marlborough as a schoolboy. The Morrises are at the

Norfolk Hotel.

“_26th June._—With Everard Fielding 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.

“_10th July._—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 interesting 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

black are in arms, and it seems doubtful whether they can be put down.

Rhodes is now quite discredited.

“_11th 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.

“_12th July._—With Guy to see the Cathedral. I am disappointed 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, 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, ‘you 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.

“_15th 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, seeing what a poor competition it was.

“_17th 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.

“_18th 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 by 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 principal 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.

“_19th July (Sunday)._—Off at five in the morning, having said good-bye

overnight, going by Lodsworth and Ebenhoe, 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.

“_3rd Aug._—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 £1,000 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 English army 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.

“_10th Aug._—Started on 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. They were all three as bad boys as

could be wished, and my mother nicknamed 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 justly respected, 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 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 inscription of any kind. The old

Cardinal visited it in 1876 and talked of putting up a stone, but he was

probably perplexed 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, exhorting

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-bye, 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 Goodwood Down, and on the

next day through Chichester to Fareham and Southampton, and camped again

in the evening at the edge of the New Forest, the immediate object of my

journey being to pay Auberon Herbert a visit at Oldhouse. Of this I

write:

“_12th 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 nobody

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 complexion, 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 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 inexhaustible 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, but 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.

“_13th Aug._—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.

“_14th Aug._—On by Ringwood and up the Avon valley to Salisbury, where

we baited at the White Hart, an excellent inn, but vitiated by a German

waiter. I went over the Cathedral, which has been 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 children, playing a game of Puss in the Corner, with wild galloping

down the rides. There at nightfall I camped.

“_15th 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 Committee, 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.

“_17th 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 Sunday to

Sunday, and the officiating canon, if he read the church service to his

clerk, would begin with ‘Dearly beloved 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 mediævalism, 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 belonging 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.

“_30th 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 Government 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.

“_2nd Sept._—The Nile expedition has been stopped by floods, great

_seyls_ from the hills, which have swept away the new railway just as

they have 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.

“_3rd 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.

“_8th Sept._—Started on a series of visits to Scotland, and, on my way

north, I find the following:

“_12th 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 anonymous 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 sæpe, pro Republica semper.

Dubius sed non improbus vixi.

Incertus morior sed inturbatus.

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 fêted in the middle of an

agitation against Russian policy at Constantinople. All our English

world has gone mad with self-righteousness.

“_26th 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 position 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 triumph 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?

“_28th 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 conversation. Miss de Morgan was there, and his

wife waiting on him, and a young man who had charitably come in to sit

up with him at night. He seemed absorbed in his misery.

“_4th Oct. (Sunday)._—Morris is dead. I got a letter telling it from

Lady Burne-Jones this morning. She says, ‘Our dear friend Morris 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 only 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 openly

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 many kindnesses 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.

“_5th 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 all their ideas and plans and work had been together all

their lives. Phil, with whom I had a private talk, gave me curiously

enough the exact same impression of Morris as that which I wrote in this

diary yesterday. His impersonality, his lack of personal affection for

anyone except, perhaps, for his, Phil’s, father. Then I went on to

Hammersmith. 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 morning 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.

“_8th Oct._—Rosebery has resigned his leadership of the Liberal party. I

wrote at once to Loulou Harcourt to congratulate his father.

“_15th 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 Paris Embassy.”