"By a stretch of power slavery might readily be abolished in the island

of Zanzibar, and in due time, after the first confusion, the measure

would doubtless be found as profitable as it is now unpalatable to

the landed proprietors and to the commercial body. A 'sentimental

squadron,' like the West African, would easily, by means of steam,

prevent any regular exportation to the Asiatic continent. But these

measures would deal only with effects, leaving the causes in full

vigour; they would strike at the bole and branches, the root retaining

sufficient vitality to resume its functions as soon as relieved of the

pressure from without. Neither treaty nor fleet would avail permanently

to arrest the course of slavery upon the seaboard, much less would it

act in the far realms of the interior. At present the African will not

work; the purchase of predial slaves to till the harvest for him, is

the great aim of his life. When a more extensive intercourse with the

maritime regions shall beget wants which compel the barbarian, now

contented with doing nothing and having nothing, to that individual

exertion and that mutual dependency which render serfdom a moral

impossibility in the more advanced stages of human society--when man,

now valueless except to himself, shall become more precious by his

labour than by his sale, in fact an article so expensive that strangers

cannot afford to buy him--then we may expect to witness the extinction

of the evil. Thus, and thus only, can 'Rachel, still weeping for her

children,' in the evening of her days, be made happy.

"Meanwhile, the philanthropist, who after sowing the good seed has

sense and patience to consign the gathering of the crop to posterity,

will hear with pleasure that the extinction of slavery would be hailed

with delight by the great mass throughout the length and breadth of

Eastern Africa. This people, 'robbed and spoiled' by their oppressors,

who are legionary, call themselves 'the meat,' and the slave-dealers

'the knife:' they hate and fear their own demon Moloch, but they lack

unanimity to free their necks from his yoke. Africa still 'lies in her

blood,' but the progress of human society, and the straiter bonds which

unite man with man, shall eventually rescue her from her old pitiable

fate."

APPENDIX H.

REPORT AFTER GOING TO SEARCH FOR PALMER.

"_It is said to be generally believed in official quarters that the

whole of the troops forming the army of occupation in Egypt will have

been withdrawn by the end of the financial year_ (Daily Papers).

"'Many will consider the following statement sensational and

exaggerated, while it is distinctly, confessedly realistic. There is no

second opinion upon the subject amongst foreigners in Egypt, whatever

Egyptians may say, not think. When the last English soldier leaves

Alexandria, the last European had better embark with him. Shortly after

the final eclipse of our Redcoats and our Bluejackets the Nile Valley

will witness a human hurricane which its lively annals have not yet

chronicled. As we are here so here we must perforce rest. It is our

second conquest of the glorious land which--all know--was offered in

gift to England some years before its final fall. We honestly declined

the "Protectorate," or whatever it may be called. Now, the tyranny of

circumstance forces--nay! has forced--it upon us.'

"These lines were written in early 1883, and time has brought with it

no change. Our occupation of Egypt is compulsory as ever. We only have

made matters worse by those 'extra-parliamentary utterances,' those

pledges for withdrawal which have kept the Nile Valley in a state of

chronic excitement. As for our newly raised 'Army' and Police force,

these men would be the first to turn upon Europeans and to rend them.

"A few words concerning the voyage.

"Nothing can be pleasanter, if aught of the kind can please, than

a steamer-trip from Trieste to Alexandria. This, too, despite

the _visages patibulaires_ of a First Class which should travel

Second Class, of a Second which ever intrudes into the domains and

dominions of a First Class, and despite the terrible infantry which

makes an irritable Italian exclaim aloud, '_Sancte Herode ora pro

nobis!_' The weather is sometimes perfect even in gloomy November,

boisterous December, and roaring January. The scene-shifting of the

five days, which may be six, is ever various and ever picturesque.

The first, which begins at noon, is the Trieste-Dalmatian, showing

the many-featured and historic shores of Trieste, vice-queen of the

Adriatic and the Istrian coasts, which want only a secret something

to make them thoroughly classical and Italian. It ends as morning

rises splendid over the snowy crest and the bold seafront of the

Dinarian Alps; and forenoon and afternoon are spent in gazing at the

grey archipelago sharply thrown out from the Mediterranean blue;

the rock-stuck Pomo; 'piscous' Sant' Andrea; romantic Lissa, whose

Egypto-Greek art-remains make the fortune of the Spalato Museum; Cazza,

the 'spoon' with bulging handle and bowl; broken Lagosta; the Sabbion

cello Promontory, tossed and towering in azure air; and Pelagosa, the

last remnant of a volcanic rim where lightning is deadly and where

wind-storms are unknown.

"No. 2, the Albanian-Corfu day, opens with a near prospect of the

grand and grandly named Akrokeraunian (Cimariot) Rocks. Whatever

gales, Tramontana or Scirocco, may roar outside, the basin of Korkyra,

forty-eight hours from Trieste and seventy-two from Alexandria, is a

haven of rest tranquil as a dry dock. We have time to land and to note

that transfer from England to Greece has by no means ruined the city,

and to hear Mr. Gladstone roundly abused for what was done by Lord

Palmerston.

"At Corfu we shipped for Egypt 245 Arnauts, the sweepings of the

Albanian hills. These men, who were popularly described as 'Bathmen

(Hammámjís) in Stambul and Pharaohs in Cairo,' are now returning to

Nile-land, whence they were expelled by Said Pasha. We know them

a mile off by their broad brows and long straight uncombed locks;

their cats' moustachios and peaky chins; their felt caps and 'shaggy

capotes;' their foul _fustanella_-skirts, girt with leather-belts for

the nonce void of weapons; their archaic leggings (_knemides_) and

their barbarous hide-sandals, the Slav _upanke_. These savages would

doubtless train to good light infantry; but they are engaged as police.

Set a thief to catch a thief may be true, but when the latter is caught

how does the former occupy himself?

"Six hours beyond Corfu we draw inshore, but not too near on account

of a lately found shoal, the deposit of a supposed submarine volcano.

Hard by us to port a tall white precipice, Leucatos, in inverted

bow-window-shape, breaks the seaward front of Leukadia Island, _alias_

Sta. Maura; and a long red streak shows 'Sappho's Leap.' Like Abel,

whose slaughter-place is near Damascus, the poetess must have contained

more 'curious juice' than a school of whales. A narrow strait separates

Leukadia from Theaki (Ithaca), and we see distinctly the cause why

Ulysses could not rest from travel. A double lump of grey-red limestone

patched with dwarf evergreens, a few olives, and fewer cypresses; here

and there a slip of field-slope no larger than a courtyard; sundry

windmills on the hill-tops and rude tenements on the lower levels; a

road gashed on the scaur-side leading to a 'port,' that consists of

a covelet and one house and the general look of a place fit only for

convicts, could have offered few charms to the crafty one who had seen

the manners of many men and their cities. Cefalonia, the opposite

feature, shows more fertility, because we see her landward face, and

her tall cones Georgio and Elato, which make sunset about three p.m.,

condense the vapours and water her with 'Scotch mist.'

"Then comes the Zante-Morea day, the fair island fronted by the Skopo

block with its white-walled monastery. Its huge old citadel overhanging

the town, which stretches herself lazily upon the sunny slope, is still

desert; not so the inner valley, 'O Kampos,' bounded by a hill-range

which Zantiotes compare with the Jura line. On the fronting mainland

south of grey Cape Glarenza (Clarence?) rises the once doughty pile

Kastro Tornesi. Leaving the Zante-Channel we run near enough to

distinguish the features of Pylus Bay, now Navarino ('of the Avars'),

with its natural breakwater, Sphacteria, _hodie_ Sphagia, Island,

where the Spartans were made captives. Then Methone (Modon) Port and

Town, sister of Pylus,[1] whence the Mekhitaris Fathers spread through

Upper Italy and Lower Austria; Cervera Islet, with its lighthouse; and

Matapan, where Southern Europe ends. A very bad name has this terminal

point, Tænorum, the Matapan (forehead) amongst Moderns as amongst

Ancients, despite the good auspices of Poseidon, Herakles, and Orion.

A western in-draught through the Sicilian and Gibraltar Straits or the

return current of the same blows up high side-seas. The Corinth cut

is intended for a cure, but will it ever be cut? Dim in haze beyond

Matapan we see the long outlines of Malta or St. Angelo Promontory,

distinguished only by a hermitage which is never vacant.

"Despite frequent disillusions we open our eyes at the sight of

Cerigo and Cerigotto. What dull, commonplace, miserable lumps of

limestone to represent poetic Cythera! Did Greek fancy go mad when

it chose such a home for lovely Cytheræa? During the night we run by

Candia, Crete, a huge front of calcareous wall, with green-flecked

sides and copings snow-powdered and mist-feathered. The last land we

shall see (thirty-six hours from Corfu) is the Gavdo or Gozzo Islet,

distinguished only by its French lighthouse. And now patience after

Gavdo day (No. 4); we shall have nothing in view but air and water, and

look forward to Alexandria on the morrow.

"At length a passenger, with eyes glued to his binoculars, screams that

he sees _le Phare_ or Eunostus light. All crowd around him, striving

to see as much. Presently it stands up distinct, a white thimble-top

capping the sheet of indigo. Running in we note the effects of the

bombardment. Far to starboard rise the Marabút works, all knocked to

pieces. Meks, over the bow, shows as much light through it as the

shell of bulbous palace which it guarded: only one high flank now

stands upright. Eastward lie the battered mainland batteries, between

the harbour and Mareotis, the lake basin which we attempted, and this

time failed, to flood. On the seaward side of the port are the works

of Ras el-Tín, the headland (not 'of figs,' but) of clay, where rude

potteries were once made. The walls are smashed, the big guns point

wildly in all directions, and a white patch upon the tall light-tower

marks where one of the heaviest bolts struck. The interior was found in

fragments, but the sailors soon rigged up the apparatus. Further east

Adda stands disconsolate, a series of breaches. Towered Fort Pharos,

traditional site of the World's Wonder, at the heel of the Alexandrian

sock, also shows huge chasms in the masonry. Picnics visit the ruins,

but the artists of the various 'Illustrateds' have made the scene

perfectly familiar to us. There has, however, been treasure-trove among

the _débris_, such as stones with hieroglyphs, and a Latin inscription

built up in the ashlar.

"A good result of this 'knocking about' will be to abolish the

Alexandrian bar, which has kept thousands of tall ships rolling in the

dangerous offing through livelong nights. The City of Zu'l-Karnayu

(Alexander of the Two Horns) has built for herself a fine house,

neglecting only the doorway, even as Balzac forgot only his villa

staircase. The object of retaining the obstacle was to prevent the

entrance of a fleet in war-time--incredible; but such was the policy

of modern Egypt's short-sighted sons! The Bughaz, or Central Passage,

flanked by Corvette Passage east, and west by Marabút Passage, is

the main line, marked by buoys invisible at night--hence the delays.

The scattered reefs of coralline must be blown up and the fragments

removed, otherwise bad will wax worse. The work should be entrusted

to an English contractor of repute, say Sir G. Elliot: a host of

Levantines, Greeks and others, are proposing to do the job cheaply and

badly. I heard £40,000 as the inadequate sum proposed.

"Very gay and lively is the glorious new Harbour, where warships of

all nations, even Turkish, are alive with martial sounds. Steamers are

puffing in and out, tugs are plying, and small craft under sail and oar

are dotting the broad expanse. Three transports embark homeward-bound.

The much-abused hospital ship _Carthage_, a whited sepulchre,

lies apart, sulking as it were. Colliers and merchantmen line the

landing-places, and even the Dry Dock is at work. Near the inner Mole

stand the old Egyptian men-of-war, suggesting Greenwich pensioners; the

sooner they are sold and broken up for building material the better.

Presently appears the ubiquitous Cook's boat, as we learn from white

calico letters sewn upon raiment red as the mediæval Headsman's. We

surrender at discretion, leave a card at the custom-house, and take

carriage at the Marina or quay.

"The burnings begin at once in the Darb el-Gumruk (Custom-house

Street). A 'house of refreshment' was fired by the mob because

frequented by the hated Frank, and the flames spread, but not far.

Reaching the Darb Ras el-Tín, which connects the sea-palace with the

main square, the ruins show in force, and extend in lines and patches

through the Place to the walls that defend the city on the south and

east.

"The Place des Consuls, or de Mahomet Ali, now shows its third phase.

That of utter bareness and barrenness was described by the Pilgrim in

1852.[2] Then came the polished epoch of tall trees, round tanks and

flower-plots, heavy chains, band-stand, and gravelled walks, which

attracted hosts of nursery-maids and their sallow charges. The Great

Old Man of Cavala still sits his bronze steed, but since 1882 he looks

upon a Fair, a Kermesse, or rather a brand-new mining city in the Far

West, set in a framework of ruins, an unburied Pompeii.

"On the west side of the square the huge Okem (Wakálat) Gharbi and

its large _café_ have bodily disappeared. Its northern neighbour,

the Palazzo Zizinia, is reduced to a mere shell eight feet high. The

northern houses between the main square and the old or eastern harbour

are burnt in blocks, but the Club and Penasson's Library show no

damage: the English church also escaped; and, as a rule, little harm

was done to places of worship, Giaour or Moslem. More 'loot' was to be

had out of the laity. The fire began, they say, with the English and

French Consulates, a kind of poetic justice for the _Condominium_. At

the east end of the square the large building labelled 'Tribunal and

Police Office' is wholly unhurt, and the Redcoats on guard are good to

see. The long block to the south of the square, and dividing it from

Place Sainte Cathérine, formerly the fine property of Prince Ibrahim

Pasha, displays the typical scene of destruction. The bases have been

piled up to clear the thoroughfares. The midway heights show shells of

painted and papered chambers, with here and there a scorched chair or

bedstead still standing on the airy edge of the precipice; there are

_débris_ of archways and balconies, charred timbers and fragments of

furniture, windows, doors, and shutters; iron work curiously twisted by

the fire, toasted inscriptions and blistered advertisements, and fallen

blocks of limestone burnt to lime. The sky-line of broken and blackened

wall forms points and pinnacles of chimney and coping, thrown well out

by the gold and azure of sun and air; many of these frets have fallen,

and the first high wind after the first heavy rains will bring down

showers of stones upon workmen's heads. The latter, however, are few.

Little or nothing has been done, or will be done, till 'indemnity' is

forthcoming. But--

'Wait: my faith is large--in Fire,'

as in Time. Cities gain by being burnt. Several companies have

submitted plans for rebuilding; and now the only want is a

Town-architect to regulate the façades, and to see that the masonry is

good and solid. Only let him avoid arcades which shelter damp and Greek

coffee-houses.

"A stroll through the Place des Consuls shows a parallel line of

board-booths along the northern and southern faces. Gaps were left

where men caught red-handed had been carefully shot and carelessly

buried. Now tables are spread, and people dine merrily over the dead.

This is essentially Egyptian, the mummy at the feast. The booths supply

everything, from a needle to a ready-made suit: the staples, however,

are bad liquor and worse women. The names mostly appeal to the fighting

class; for instance, 'Admiral Seymour's Bazar,' 'Crocforde's,' 'Duke

of Connaught's Rest,' and the 'Hole in the Wall.' Here and there are

Birrerie, generally next door to the coiffeur's; καφφενεῑα, _a cucina

economica alla Triestina_, and unclean card-tables, domino-tables, and

billiard-tables. The number of tobacco-shops is a study.

"During my thirty years' experience I never saw Alexandria look so

picturesque or so happy. The magic word INDEMNITY has much to

do with her high spirits, and the indemnistists jauntily fixed their

figure somewhere between four and five millions sterling. Life swarms

and surges through the burnt thoroughfares. All are bustling about,

busy as bees, except those who are eating and drinking, smoking and

fighting. It is a _Pays de Cocagne_, where money seems to be a drug.

About mid-September, 1882, not a carriage was to be seen; before the

year ended they were everywhere; and the 'bus, a new introduction,

heralds the advent of the tramway. Donkey-boys, never more free and

easy than now, group, grin, and chatter at every corner. Cheeky

shoeblacks, here the unerring test of well-doing, assail you like

swarms of Nile-flies. The Redcoats give points of light, and riders

in brown with M.P. (military police) on the arm afford a sense of

security. The topboot-and-revolver period of invasion soon passed away,

but the military tailor soon came well to the fore; and not a few

uniforms reminded old hands of a Volunteer Review in London after the

Crimean War.

"Alexandria is ordered to be in bed before twelve, but she enjoys her

evenings. The Café Paradiso offers a hall full of billiard-tables

('balyards far unfit'), like bagatelle-boards, and music in the

normal shape of a masculine and feminine Austrian band. The

demoiselles-violinists are bound by contract to the best of behaviour

during engagements. In descending scale is the Café Bel Ain, and a

host of estaminets, groggeries, and beereries, till you touch bottom

at depôts for Greek dancing and native music. Of the Teatro Rossini

the less we say the better. The Theatre Zizinia opened with an

Anglo-American troupe, distinguished by _Le Cabinet infernal, Le Negre

Paganini,_ and _Le Jolly Coons, excentriques et high Kickers_. It

finally rose to _Madame Angot_ in Italian.

"Standing before the ruins, we ponder over the events of June and

July 11th, which confounded all 'old Egyptians'--myself included. The

universal belief was that Alexandria had everything to fear, not from

her Moslems, but from her mean white Christians--Italians, Greeks, and

Levantines. Numerically they had the advantage, and all were more or

less armed with long pistols and longer knives.

"How then came they to show such utter poltroonery? The only

explanation is that they were surprised, scared, demoralized, by the

soldiery and the murderous police taking part with a mob, dastardly,

fanatic, and bloodthirsty as it was in the days of Hypatia. Whenever

and wherever a knot of Europeans combined to defend themselves against

the _canaille_, they fled like a flock of sheep. It is well to note and

remember the fact, especially in the country parts of Egypt, where bad

days may still be coming. Men who run are rarely merciful; after order

was restored they would be cruel as they were cowardly. It was a sight

to see their hangdog looks when they learnt that Arábi and Co. were not

to be _sus. per coll._, or even shot.[3]

"For the English garrison of Alexandria much remained to be done. Of

two thousand men (round numbers), four were buried per diem, at the

yearly rate of 1460, and at an expense of £20,000, against £3200 per

mensem. This excessive mortality of last autumn did not extend to

the officers. The men died because fed with over-driven beef where

mutton should have been preferred, and the horses were killed by

rations of heating oats, where the natives use only cooling barley.

The chief scourge, enteric fever, was attributed to 'bad water,'

for which I should read 'strong waters.' It was the same in the

time of Abercrombie. Men of both services might be seen at midday

'half-seas over' amongst the poison-selling booths. A Maltese lately

convicted of 'hocussing' (vending drugged coffee) was let off without

a flogging--_-pour encourager les autres_. It is to be feared that in

a land where the rod only is respected, we shall govern too little,

and thus distinguish ourselves from our French 'friends' who govern

too much. The prime want was a Soldiers' Home in addition to canteens,

where good liquor is to be bought. Men must leave their barracks for

change of air and scene, but they should be ordered to walk about in

knots, not singly, and they should be under agreement to drink nothing

stronger than tea or coffee in the booths.

"The Police has been another serious consideration. The new

'Gendarmerie,' as it was called, consisted of a mongrel lot--jödelling

Swiss, chestnut-sellers from Friuli, veteran soldiers from Dalmatia

and Bosnia, Albanian shepherd-brigands, and a scatter of cosmopolitan

mongrels. Far better to raise a brigade of three thousand 'Bobbies,'

officered, drilled, and dressed (with due modification) after our

London fashion. These men, who would not speak a word of any language

but English, should be stationed in the port and capital, with

detachments, relieved every quarter, at the six important towns,

Damanhúr and Tantah, Zagázíg and Mansúrah, Port Said and Suez. Those

who object forget that Swiss and Italians, Dalmatians and Arnauts, are

as ignorant of Arabic as Englishmen are. The difference is, the latter

are to be trusted; the former proved that they were not: some mutinied,

others deserted, and all were dismissed.

"The environs of Alexandria had escaped any damage. The fair gardens

and villas on 'the Canal' are as they were. Sídi Gábir was presently

altered for better and for worse. The race-course served only to tether

mules: the grand stand stood nodding to its fall, and 'Effendina's'

palace and outhouses afforded shelter to the 18th Royal Irish. The

fane of the old Maroccan Saint looks fresher and more flourishing than

before. On the other side of the city the Boulevard de Ramleh suffered

severely as its neighbours, Sherif Pasha and Tewfík[4] Streets: the

station however remains, and the rails were not injured. As we issue

from the land-fortifications we see them still crested by sand-bags. At

that ticklish time, when Alexandria was left defended by few men and

fewer cannon, Arábi might have attacked, and, aided by the half-cowed

mob inside, might have driven us to extremes. Fortunately for Egypt,

nothing less heroic than this hero. Ramleh, the 'Sand-heap' suburb, had

nothing to complain of save the felling of trees and the plundering of

gardens. The only changes we note there are the field-works near the

water-tower thrown up to exchange long shots with the Rebels at Kafr

Dawár. Here Abercrombie had his head-quarters before he was carried

dying into the nearest mosque. Also the gypsy-like Bedawi who claimed

the land have struck their foul black tents; and it will be the fault

of the Ramleyites if the mean thieves are allowed to return.

"Leaving picturesque Alexandria behind us, we take the rail to

Cairo. This, the main artery as well as the minor veins, so far from

progressing under English management, of late years has distinctly

retrograded. The rails are looser, the carriages dirtier, the

_employés_ less civil and obliging; the prices higher and the danger

greater than under Egyptian direction. All that can be said for this

trunk line is that it appears somewhat less risky than its dependents.

One of Egypt's latest curses is the rule of superannuated Anglo-Indian

officials, who, with some notable exceptions, draw large salaries for

doing little work. Their early training is worse than useless, as we

saw in the Crimea, where Sepoy officers were sent to command Turks,

_because_, forsooth, they had commanded Hindí Moslems and Hindú Pagans.

For the Egyptian services I should prefer to these seniors, juveniles,

even clerks, fresh and direct from England.

"The main interest of the railway-trip is the aspect of Kafr Dawár,

the 'village of tent-encampments,' which I last saw in the guise

of a sleepy little hamlet-station. The outer and inner lines of

Rebel-earthworks, with rude batteries commanding the iron road, and

resting upon Lake Mareotis and the Mahmudiyah Canal, contrast with the

heap of beehive huts and the white villas embosomed in tree-mottes.

The framework of the picture is a glorious sky and a flat fatiguing to

the eyes as the South American Pampas. The reason for our declining

this line of attack is obvious: the land is a bog, cut moreover by deep

ditches and drains. Here Arábi made his first fatal mistake. Instead of

keeping his half-disciplined troops well in hand, and cuddling their

courage for the decisive day, he separated them and allowed detachments

to be beaten in detail. But he had neglected the studies of a military

college, and his staff did not contain a single officer versed in

strategic science. It was a child playing against a master of chess.

May the British Army enjoy few such easy triumphs; similar Algerian

victories spoilt the French soldiers for European service.

"The main stations, Damanhúr, Kafr Zayyát, and Tantah, all made

themselves infamous in the late Rebellion. The 'mild Fellah' and

his milder wife tied the limbs of murdered Franks to dogs' tails,

poured petroleum upon the poor brutes, and set them on fire. These

horrors have sunk a great gulf between native and stranger which will

not be bridged over during this generation. One regrets not to see

a detachment of Redcoats, or at least a body of British policemen,

holding fortified barracks in these three old centres of furious

bigotry. The jails of Tantah were long crammed, but the contents were

paupers, not rich culprits.

"The villages improve as we approach the capital, and square houses

take the place of round African clay huts. The land is the same

everywhere--a virgin-mother younger only than the hills. Black ants,

brown ants, and white ants crawl over her ample bosom, come and go, are

born to work and fight and die, but the Nile flows and floods for ever.

"Cairo promises ruins, but shows none beyond the railway-station.

Nizr el-Kahíreh, the city of (planet) Mars, is still rejoicing over

her narrow escape: she was saved one day before death by the gallant

march of the British cavalry: the mean foreigners jealously suggest the

'horseman of St. George,' which is the golden sovereign. She is gay

as Alexandria. The Shubra road that showed in 1879-80 some half-dozen

_shandridans_ is now a line of Arab riders and neat equipages, of

uniforms, un-uniforms, and of Parisian toilettes. Dinner-parties are

the rule; balls are in prospect; Giroflé Giroflá is rehearsing at the

Opera-house, and even that abomination the grind-organ has found its

way into the city of the Mamelukes.

"Yet good old 'Shepherd's' is half-empty, and the New Hotel

quasi-desert. Despite bogus lists and vamped-up reports this year will

be, touristically speaking, a failure. And tourists are right. The

tone of the population is disagreeable; the situation is unpleasant if

not dangerous. Next season will be a success, on two conditions--the

absence of cholera, and the non-withdrawal of the occupying army. But

Cairo has suffered greatly in the loss of Lord Dufferin. It takes away

one's breath (so rare is the sight) to see the right man in the right

place; to miss the square peg in the round hole; to meet, for instance,

General Feilding (a Hapsburg) at the Austro-Hungarian manœuvres, and to

find Earl Dufferin sent to Egypt. The diplomat is a host in himself.

His personal experience of 'the East' began nearly a quarter-century

ago, when he organized the Libanus. He is a hard and conscientious

worker; he has a priest's will with the 'courage of his opinions,' and

he owns the gift of common sense which does not always characterize

his profession. With one reservation (to err is human) we may hold

_primâ facie_ that what Lord Dufferin determines is right will be

rightly done. If he fail it will be from being ordered to attempt the

impossible, to make an England of Egypt. Meanwhile we ardently wish he

would abate the plague of locust-strangers that flock to batten upon

the land. They are reviving all the conditions which led to the late

troubles; and they will lead to a repetition of the drama with only the

part of Arábi left out.

"One of Cairo's marvellous escapes is the unique Bulak Museum. It was

offered for sale to a commercial house, _they say_; but here we must

now believe little of what we see and less of what we hear. The old

station-house is rebuilt, and may now be pronounced safe. MM. Maspero

and Brugsch Bey are doing their best, but slowly: they want more

assistance, which means money; and their revised catalogue will not

be ready for this season. Their recovery of the old Pharaohs reads a

lesson not only to the antiquary but to the political. How little the

Egyptian has changed from what he was under the Double Crown may be

seen in Brugsch Bey's report. The Fellah women ran bare-headed and

dishevelled along the Nile-banks, keening the death-cry, as it were,

for their husbands or brothers, when they heard that the mummies of

their olden kings were being boated down stream by the French. The

corpses were pickled some three thousand years ago, but what is that in

the land of Kemi?

"Sunday, November 12th, corresponded with the first Muharram A.H.

1300. No Moslem, however, could or would tell me whether A.H. 1299

was, or 1300 is to be, the _Annus Mirabilis_ of Mohammedanism; even

the comet had complicated the question by living too long. The popular

expectation was a general uprising of the Moslem world, which, however,

shows no sign; a kind of 'Battle of Armageddon;' the universal

conquest of El-Islam and a general preparation for the end of time

(_Akhir el-Zamán_), which is to follow in the fourteenth century. The

superstitious noted a terrible omen. The Mahmal-litter, in which

Rogers Bey finds a survival of the Covenant-ark (why not go back to

Osiris?), was torn off its dromedary by a telegraph wire opposite the

British camp, Suez, and (horrible to relate!) was mended by a Káfir,

Mr. Campbell, engineer to the Compagnie Khédiviale.

"We wished the compliments of the season, _Kull ám antum bi'l-Khayr!_

(may every year find you fair!), to all our Egyptian friends who were

not in durance or under surveillance. Every second man seemed to be

in trouble, and with rare exceptions none from Caliph to churl would

have come out with clean hands. Even the little black and whity-brown

Beys, who haunted English dames and demoiselles at Shepherd's, found

it advisable to make themselves 'scarce.' A very few words will resume

the long story. Political imbecility, financial mismanagement, and the

greed of bourgeois-shareholders raised up a powerful party against

Europeans, and it found a fitting leader in Arábi, the Fellah-pasha.

The Porte, hoping once more to conduct into shrunken and impoverished

Constantinople a Nile flowing _lire_ and piastres, resolved that the

Khedivial family should, in Napoleonic phrase, 'cease to reign.' Grand

old Mohammed Ali was to be succeeded by a mere Pasha, or general,

removable at will and retainable only whilst douceurs, _avances_, and

tributes were regular. Hence the scandalous gift of the Medjidiah

decoration to a palpable rebel. But the Fellah is _né malin_. He

countered the Turkish project by transferring his allegiance from

a 'Caliph' (successor), whose claims rest upon no legal base, to

the Sheríf (Prince) of Meccah, the lineal descendant of the Apostle

of Allah, whose right to succeed, if he choose to assert it, is

indefeasible. How England was left to hack at, and lastly to cut, the

Gordian knot need hardly be told.

"Finishing my work at the capital, I 'hardened my heart' to face the

dangers of the Cairo-Suez railway. It is reported that the old direct

line _viâ_ the Desert, where Burckhardt saw ostriches in 1816, will

be relaid, and that a section of twenty-one miles is almost ready.

Despite the expense and the waste of coin in carrying water, at the

rate of three waggons to one full of passengers, our occupation will

require this move. Nor must we forget the artesian wells, of which the

old Olympiodorus thus speaks when describing the Lybian waste: 'In

this oasis the people used to scoop out excavations one hundred to

two hundred and fifty feet deep, when jets of pure water rose in tall

columns.'

"At the still Burnt Station we found a trainful of half-uniformed

peasants, bearing bag and baggage, including Remingtons. They will be

mustered to the tune of ten thousand at Suez, and sent to the Sudan or

Upper Nile Provinces with the view of putting down the long-standing

insurrection. They look already beaten, and I do not envy the man who

is to command. The Arch-enemy is the Mahdí, the 'False Prophet' of the

European Press, a title which describes exactly enough what he is not.

D'Herbelot has told the world that the twelfth Imam, or Antistes, the

lineal blood-descendant of the Apostle of Allah and the legal religious

head of El-Islam, was born in A.H. 255 (= A.D. 868), was named Abu 'l

Kásim Mohammed, and assumed the style of El-Mahdí, or the Director,

_i.e._ in the path of the True Faith. He mysteriously disappeared

(probably murdered) under the rule of the Abbaside, El Mohtade, the

fourteenth of the Baghdad House. Hence his title El-Mutabattan--the

Concealed; but of the many _Redivivi_ noticed in history, he declared

that he would return before the Last Day and lead a reformed Islamism

to universal dominion in preparation for certain other Second Comings.

Consequently every great political heave of Mohammedanism, in Africa

as in Asia, has thrown up and still throws up one or more Mahdís.

Of the latest 'Director' I could learn little, save that he is an

inspired Carpenter: Cairo ignored even his real name. 'Mohammed Ahmed'

of Dongola means nothing. Great men, religious or laical, always on

promotion prefix to their own names 'Mohammed' or some variant. Thus

Tewfík is Mohammed Tewfík, and Arábi is Ahmed Arábi. This Mahdí will,

probably, like most of his predecessors, meet his death at the hands

of his fanatical and infuriated mob of followers. Meanwhile, despite

recurring reports of his being beaten, he is still formidable, and he

will give trouble during the coming winter. The one only remedy will be

an English expedition--costly, but not so costly as doing nothing.

"We detrained at Zagázíg after two hours and a half of dusting, which

seemed to begin the process of burying alive. The modern town is

the successor of Bubastis, Pi-Pasht, city of Pasht, Isis with the

tabby-cat's head. Its position--a central point where roads, railways,

and canals meet--has made it a Cottonopolis, and its factories, with

tall stacks and huge warehouses, have entitled it the 'Manchester of

Egypt.' It is the military key of the Delta; Napoleon Buonaparte, at

the beginning of the century, drew his base from Bilbays to Sálihíyah,

and the Arabists intended to do the same.

"I passed a day in the house of my friend M. Vetter, for the purpose

of consulting with Mr. Charles Clarke, Chef des Télégraphes. He had

been the managing man during my two expeditions to the Gold Lands of

Midian; and his topographical and linguistic knowledge had enabled

him to render the army valuable service during the late campaign. His

house was carefully looted by English soldiers, who may have thought it

belonged to some employé of M. de Lesseps, and by Indian sepoys, who

tore up his wife's dresses to adorn their turbans, and his comfortable

rooms were still bare and desolate. He had been invited to join the

Palmer Expedition, but although on friendly terms with the powerful

Bedawin chief, Sulayman Pasha El-Abázeh, he had declined. The game

was not worth the candle. On my next visit I hope to find Mr. Clarke

travelling Director of Telegraphs, a post which will suit him and which

he will suit down to the ground. As yet he has received only the barren

honour of a C.M.G., and H.H. the Khedive has shirked conferring any

distinction to show that Mr. Clarke acted in his interest.

"The Zagázítes showed a peculiar, independent, free-and-easy bearing,

and the resident Europeans, who lately begged two English officers in

uniform to walk through the town, do not hold themselves safe without

the protection of a detachment, British soldiers or policemen. For

many reasons this should be granted to them. The adjoining villagers

absolutely refuse to believe that Arábi has been fairly beaten:

his defeat and capture are known in Southern Syria, but not within

cannon-shot of Tel el-Kebir. Here, too, the Fellahs are ready to rise

again at any given moment. They differ in blood from the inhabitants

of the Nile Valley proper, but they are no improvement upon their

neighbours.

"Prodigious is the iteration of books concerning the 'poor down-trodden

Fellah,' serving sentimentality to contrast him with his Pharaohs, the

Pashas and Beys who oppress him and his. This philanthropic and most

ignorant twaddle began (not honestly) with the French invasion, endured

through the age of Lane and Gardner Wilkinson, and is repeated in the

old stock phrases by the latest writers, Baron de Mahortié and Dicey.

Foreigners mostly know the city folk; their 'manners and customs of the

modern Egyptians' should be called the 'manners and customs of Cairo.'

Ask Mr. Charles Clarke of Zagázíg, or Mr. Curzon Tompson of Cairo, men

who, never holding high official positions, could study the Fellah in

his own home. They will confirm my statement that there is nowhere

a more dogged and determined, turbulent and refractory, furious and

fanatical, cruel and bloodthirsty race than these clowns of the 'Black

Land.' Compared with them the 'finest pisantry' are a weak and violent

race; nor do they produce, like the Felláhin, typical and remarkable

men. This generation has seen the Mufattish, a son of the soil, who

could hold his own against the ablest financiers of Europe, and who had

amassed millions of money, when one fine night he was tumbled into the

Nile. It has produced Arábi the Reb., who, despite his notorious want

of physical pluck, has graved his name upon the memorial tablets of his

native valley. Aided by the weakness of his opponents, he placed the

captor between the horns of an exceptional dilemma. If put to death he

would have become a _Shahíd_ or martyr. If allowed to live, even in

exile, it was because the Káfir feared to slay him, and because it will

soon be found advisable to recall him.

"A few words concerning the early career of this modern Prætorian may

be acceptable; his later career is known to all. Arábi, not Ourabi, and

mispronounced Arăby, probably an echo of 'Araby the blest,' is neither

a Frenchman, nor a Spaniard, nor an Irishman, nor a green-turban'd

Sayyid. His father, an honest Fellah, ploughed the old paternal

fields about Kafr el-Taur ('Bull village'), between Tantah and Birkat

el-Saba', stations on the Alexandria-Cairo railway. His mother, who

has been interviewed by more than one Englishwoman, and who is now

living at El-Hurríyyah ('Liberty'), her son's proprietary village near

Zagázíg, sent her three boys as volunteers to serve and die for Said

Pasha. This remarkable step, for the Egyptian parent invariably did

and does the reverse, attracted the ruler's attention to the lads. He

placed them in the military college, and he was heard to say, according

to his widow, an honest Anglophobe, that he expected great things from

Arábi.

"But Arábi preferred studying theology, which means bigotry, at

El-Azhar, the University-mosque of Cairo, where professors are numbered

by hundreds, and pupils by thousands. He had risen to be _Kaimmakám_

(Major), when his patron died. Ismail Khedive would have nothing to

do with him: 'the man,' he said, 'has the eye of a _Hayyeh_' (snake).

So he was kept on outpost duty till circumstances brought him to the

fore, especially on February 1st, 1881, when his Azhar training proved

peculiarly valuable. In 1882 he became the pivot of the situation. His

right was that of being, after a fashion, the representative man; his

claim was having posed before Egypt, England, and Europe as the Leader

of the National Party.

"Returning to the Fellah, I would note that this race stands aloof from

and above all its neighbours. As hair, features, and figure prove, the

Nilote is of African not of Asiatic provenance, partly white-washed by

foreign innervation. Mr. Lane dubbed him an 'Arab,' and derived him

from the invading soldiery of Amru and other early Moslem conquerors,

a handful whose nationality would be at once absorbed, would disappear

in the next generation. You have only to place the Bedawi by the side

of the Fellah, and the fallacy of the theory becomes palpable. The

Fellah's half-brother is the Copt, who has kept his blood freer from

'miscegenation.' Both are perforce peculiar peoples. The climate of the

Nile Valley allows no foreign-born to be viable; in its media neither

Greek nor Roman, Persian, Turk, nor Circassian, German, Italian,

Frenchman, nor Englishman, can permanently increase and multiply. It

has thus an atmosphere of perfect conservatism. From the days of the

monuments and of Herodotus, the Fellah has altered little but his

faith: he preserves all the good and every bad and bitter quality of

his forbears.

"The Home Press, when commenting upon the bloodshed and arson of June

11th, asked with wonder, how these 'lambs had suddenly turned wolves?'

Lambs, indeed! why, no fighting ram is more obstinate and pugnacious,

or less open to pity and mercy, than an Egyptian Fellah. And if the

men are brutal and barbarous, the women are, if possible, worse; as

mostly happens in hot damp climates, their morals are abominable, and,

as Mr. Lane and the 'Arabian Nights' show, their modes of murdering are

unutterably horrible. The account of these bestial beings, promenading

the streets of Alexandria with the legs and arms of slaughtered

Europeans, borne like flags on long staves, should open eyes that can

be opened.

"The morbid philanthropy and the mawkish humanitarianism of modern

days have created a theoretical, an ideal, Fellah; the factual man

would start to see his own portrait. They must deserve compassion who

have anything to do with him. There is hardly a European in Egypt who

has frequented the villages as a sportsman or antiquary without being

assaulted by the villagers, while several of my friends have been

nearly killed. The peasants also act as their own police and 'ministers

of high justice,' trying and punishing all criminal cases within their

mud walls. If man or woman break the law, especially that of _Rasm_,

or immemorial custom, the offence is kept from the guardians of

society--policemen and magistrates, the worst robbers in the land. If

certain 'commandments' be violated, he, she, or it, is carefully tied

and trussed up, gagged, and thrown into the Great River. Father Nilus

could tell more tales of murder than all the streams in the United

Kingdom.

"Among the Fellah's good qualities we must not neglect his persistence

and his bravery. A drive to the Pyramids will show you troops of

half-naked urchins running a mile in the forlorn hope of a copper;

and in this point the boy is the father of the man. The adult will be

bastinado'd within an inch of his life before he pays his lawful rent,

and his wife praises him as she dresses his wounds. Under Sesostris,

who invented the phalanx, the Fellah-soldier overran the nearer East.

Under Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas he beat the Arabs at Bissel and

the Turks at Nezíb. Even a Moltke could not then save the Ottoman,

and the late General Jochmus told me that he escaped defeat, when

commanding the Tartar cavalry, only by systematically declining battle

with Ibrahim Pasha and his Nilotic armies.

"The dogged pluck of the gunners at the Alexandrian forts and at Tel

el-Kebir proves, that the stock has not degenerated; the easy final

defeat is readily explained. There was treachery in the air, and the

best and bravest men will not stand firm when they suspect that their

right-hand, or left-hand neighbours, have been paid to leave them in

the lurch. Had the rebels been disciplined, and led by English or

French Officers, there would have been a very different tale. As a rule

the sight of blood does not excite or terrify the Egyptian; it only

makes him an 'uglier customer.'

"Such is the Fellah, the peculiar growth of long centuries. There are

races, says M. Gambetta bluntly and truly, which want the rule of the

rod. 'The green wand,' declares the Arab proverb, 'is from the trees of

Paradise.' The abolition of the Kurbáj, or cowhide, had something to do

with the late movement. The hill-peasant must either be beaten or beat;

be tyrannized over or tyrannize: in the latter case, like the beggar

on horseback, he beats to the death. Here it is no mercy to spare the

stick; all forbearance is attributed to the ignoblest motive, craven

fear; and the fancy that he is 'funked' makes even the coward brave. It

is bad to bastinado, but it is better than to hang and shoot.

"From Zagázíg to Suez is one of the most rickety and dangerous bits

of railway travelled over by Europeans. I have seen a single train

catch fire twice in one day. You are pretty sure to be told of one

which, a few hours ago, 'derailed' and made the hapless passengers

pass a cold and hungry night in the waste. The only interest of the

dangerous line is the casualty of running through the theatre of our

latest campaign. War which, they say, teaches the British Public its

geography, also brings into prominence and ennobles names known only to

a local peasantry. Such are Kassásín, a lock-bridge over the Sweetwater

Canal; Tel el-Mahútah, a mean ground-swell, where the Campaign and Mr.

Neville have brought to life certain marvellous Pharaohnic remains;

Mahsamah, an outpost station on the edge of Wady Tumilát, southern

limit of the Land of Goshen; and Tel el-Kebír, which minor poets are

invited to pronounce Keb-eer, not Kee-ber. The latter in 1878 was a

mean village, distinguished only by tumble-down cavalry barracks of the

Khedivial age, the Age of Modern Ruins. The name 'great mound' (Tel)

alludes to a rubbish-heap which was removed for building-ground. There

is a brother-hamlet, Tel el-Sagher (Little-mound) hard by, and it has

suffered sorely in the maps.

"Amongst other _on dits_ the papers report that Sir Garnet Wolseley,

before leaving London and Richmond, not only determined mid-September

as the term of the campaign, but also, placing his finger upon Tel

el-Kebír, predicted that the decisive action would be fought there. Is

this possible? The rebels intended their field-works to be a simple

outpost, a first line of trenches dug in the desert; the main defence

was to be near Zagázíg, where the hoe'd and irrigated ground, cut by a

network of small canals, would have been ugly to cross, as that about

Kafr Dawár. But with an inconsequence, which denoted all their actions,

Arábi and his Arábists wholly neglected to lay out a second line.

Thus the battle was fought at the outer and provisional trenches, on

open ground, with gentle rises and falls, where half-disciplined and

unofficered men had no chance against regular troops, and the admirable

arrangements of their General.

"Messrs. Cook, who took charge of the Commander-in-Chief and the

head-quarter staff on their homeward journey--right sensibly they

ignored those twin pests, the Courier and the Dragoman--and who

will personally conduct the future Princes of the West to the

'Morning-Land,' soon advertised a 'trip to Tel el-Kebír,' where a

large Dahabíyeh-barge, moored in the Sweetwater Canal, acted hotel.

Here sundry sight-seers 'detrain,' each provided with Major Ardagh's

'lithographic sketch showing the attack.' They may find donkeys, but

they prefer a four miles' trudge, over sand and gravel, in the November

sun, hotter than an August semi-sun in England, to the British right,

where the Highlanders attacked. The battle-field was long unpleasant;

the dead might have been buried deeper; and the Bedawi took to

'resurrecting' the Egyptians for loot. Spoils presently disappeared and

mementoes became rare, chiefly confined to water-bottles and old hats,

bundles of cartridges, and fragments of weapons and missiles.

"A shaky stretch of twenty-six miles places us at ill-fated Ismailíyeh.

When I first saw the pretty station in 1869, it boasted a delicious

climate, combining the perfume of flowers and trees with the ozone

and the 'champagne air' of the Desert. In 1878 the Ismailíyeh Canal,

carrying Nile-water which sank into the loose gravelly ground, had bred

dangerous malaria-fevers; and now the place is pestilential, hardly

inhabitable. Worse still, no one knows what manner of sanitation it

requires.

"Here the 'great engineer,' as our scribes will style M. F. de Lesseps,

a retired Consul, innocent of all engineering but the amateur's, did

us, unconsciously and right unwillingly, the best of good turns. His

open patronizing of the arch-rebel, his phrasing, his posing, and his

promises of immunity from attack, kept the Canal open, although all

arrangements had been made for closing it. This is not to be done by

shovelling in earth and sand, which can be shovelled out almost as

fast. The best way is to lash together two or three ships or dredgers

and simply to scuttle them: the obstruction would require blowing

up, and even dynamite wastes valuable time. During future troubles

merchant-craft should be convoyed with all precaution up and down the

line, each convoy headed and followed by a gunboat. But the real want

is a second waterway running parallel with the present. The cost need

hardly exceed one-third of the first; and the lessons of the past will

make the work easy as well as economical. This subject would require an

article for itself: it has already appeared before the public, rather

unpleasantly, and it will appear again. The pompous claim to monopoly

of the Isthmus, the preposterous demands for millions, and the general

tone of the Gallic chanticleers, followed by a loud gobbling from the

bubbly-jock of Stamboul, rather amused than offended England. But it is

no laughing matter, and some measure is the more necessary as the days

of the Euphrates Valley Railway are either done or have not yet dawned.

With the Russian at Kars, ready to march ten thousand men down south,

we should be building a road for the especial benefit of the invader.

Ten years ago it would have served to check the enemy; now it can only

facilitate his attack. Not that we have any cause for alarm in the

final result, whatever the Russophobe may think or say. Chinese armies,

led by English officers, will occupy Moscow before the Muscovite

reaches Calcutta.

"From Ismailíyeh we enter the wilderness; we are already in Arabia

Deserta. The features are familiar, but they are ever fresh and they

never pall. On our left, beyond the bush-green, rushy line of the

_rigolle_, lies the chain of indigo-coloured lakelets, Timsah and the

'Waters of Marah;' and ships upraised by refraction course over the

dry land. To our right rise the cliffy prolongations of Cairo's Jebel

Mukattam, fading away into the distance-dwarfened mounds of Jebel

Atákah and Abu Diráj beyond Suez. The broken plain around us, uniformly

tawny as a lion's fell, dons ethereal tints as day is about to die,

and borrows from the evening skies every colour of the rainbow. It

has none of the charms of earthly landscape, grassy hill and wooded

dale and park-like plain. All its beauties are reflected from the air

and are assimilated till they become its own. No rose can be rosier

than its blush-tints; no verdure delicater than its green glazing, the

blend of chrome with lilac and cobalt; no yellow more golden than its

foreground, no Tyrian purple more gorgeous than its middle distances;

no azure more soothing and gracious than what clothes its horizon; no

shift of scenery more pronounced than its rippling of alternate light

and shade, flushing and paling under the acuter angles of the slanting

sun-rays. Presently the giant grey shadow, or wall of night, rises

slowly in the east; the blazonry of evening waxes faint and wan in the

west, and without a shade of 'gloaming;' for here night comes on with

a single stride, earth looks old and pallid and cold--_alt, kalt und

ungestalt_--the spectre of her former self. Then follows the final

transformation scene. The mysterious Zodiacal light, a pyramid whose

base is the region of the setting sun, and whose apex towers towards

the zenith, stands distinctly out of the black-blue velvety darkness,

made visible by the golden lamps of star, planet, and constellation.

'--Contentez-vous mes yeux

Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle!'

"Poor Suez is the sole exception to the general rule of gaiety and

merry-making in Egypt. She is actually in the throes of house-changing.

She knows that the flitting must be done, but she has no heart to

do it. This will be her third remove: even as Heroöpolis on the

Bitter Lakes shifted to Arsinoë and Arsinoë migrated to Suez, so

Suez must transfer herself to the New Docks--Waghorntown. She must

rebuild herself, hotel and inns, Consulates and offices, agencies and

counting-houses, leaving the-present tenement to Egyptian officials

and native population. The causeway run out to the New Harbour, has

so swallowed the bays on either side of it, like the Alexandrian

Heptastadium, that even light-draft steamers find shoal water, and in a

few years there will be dry ground where the wave still rolls. Medieval

Suez, like Sandwich, will presently become an inland town.

"And yet another change for the worse awaits her. We shall in a few

years land from Malta at Gurnah, the famous old Cyrene south-east

of the island which did _not_ shelter St. Paul. Lying near the

north-eastern shore of the Sidra Gulf (Syrtis Major), with a safe port

distant ten miles, it was famous in Roman days as the Capital of the

Cyreniaca, one of the granaries of the Empire; and the splendour of its

ruins shows a high degree of civilization. Through this ancient land,

Pentapolis, where there are no mechanical difficulties, a railroad will

carry us to Alexandria. We shall then run up _viâ_ Cairo to Keneh, turn

eastward, and embark at El-Kusayr (Cosseir). This line, proposed about

a decade ago, is sure to be built. It will spare us the mortification

of the disagreeable and dangerous Suez-gulf, which is ever too stormy

or too still; moreover, it will be a gain of three clear days, and in

this section of the nineteenth century the shortest line surely wins. I

say nothing about the proposed 'Jordan Canal,' which proposes to deluge

half the 'Holy Land,' beyond an expression of admiration that men in

their senses can be induced to listen to it. The next move will be for

the Man in the Moon to apply for a railway.

"And Suez has been for some time _en petite santé!_ She has suffered

from Dengué fever, which she calls _Abú rukab_, or 'Father of Knees,'

because those articulations make themselves prominently felt. The

complaint, unpleasant though not perilous, used to rage in Syrian

Bayrút, and of late years Cairo suffered from it severely. The locally

learned attribute its origin to impure drinking-water; if so, Suez has

to blame herself for not cleaning her Canal. Perhaps her constitutional

delicacy has prevented, during the Rebellion, her normal display of

uproarious temper. All 'old Egyptians' were notably deceived in their

forecasts about Suez as about Alexandria. The so-called National

Movement never made head here, and yet with certain remarkable

exceptions Englishmen and Europeans showed the normal poltroonery.

It moves laughter to hear of men armed to the teeth sneaking home at

night to find all the world peacefully asleep. It would be invidious

to mention the names of those who manfully stood their ground, and who

won the respect of the natives whilst the runaways fell into the utmost

contempt. But it is to be hoped that their services in keeping the

peace will be duly recognized by either Government.

"Before Suez can settle down in her fourth home she has hard work to

do. The apparently solid masonry of the north and south basins in

the French Docks is being washed away by mètres: the walls resemble

the bombarded Alexandrian Forts; and here we have another fine study

of modern ruins compared with the ancient which were built with the

express purpose of defying Time. The only remedy will be to fill up

both areas and fit them for building-ground. There is already space

enough to begin with; but Suez No. 4 must have room to grow. The

Harbour of the future will be formed, like Port Saíd, by the broad

space between the Canal piers, where dredging and deepening are the

only things needful. It is to be hoped that modern Suez will be laid

out on a regular plan and with due attention to drainage. Moria Pasha

should look to this.

"The Suez Caravanserai, whose cloistered court has received so many

generations of Thelemi monks, is now occupationless as Othello--

'A dismal hostel in a dismal land.'

Like the Town, it must fare south with bag and baggage, and the fine

old building will become warehouses--possibly an _usine_ when the

gold mines of Midian come to be worked. For some years, however,

it will accommodate travellers to 'Sinai,' Petra, and long Desert.

Moreover, there is now no climate in Lower Egypt like that of 'Suez

the Sanitarium;' it has none of the wet reeking heat of Alexandria, or

the raw rheumatic damp of Cairo, which tree-planting, street-flooding,

and irrigation have so soon changed from good to bad. It is a treat to

breathe the ozoned air of Gulf and Desert, a sensation _sui generis_

like the flavour of Nile-water. Those who seek the Cairo-climate of

1852 must find it at Thebes or at Philæ.

"At the Suez Hôtel I found Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren and his

party. They had lately arrived from Ismailíyeh, whither they had been

driven by the illness of one of the subalterns; a fiery march of a

hundred and twenty miles without water had caused a sunstroke. Here,

too, were Mr. and Miss Charrington, and Messieurs Gill and Houndle,

and Captain Stephenson of H.M.S. _Carysfort_ occasionally put in an

appearance. Having all one and the same occupation and preoccupation,

we discussed the chances _pro_ and _con_ most anxiously. The general

conclusion was that the deaths were 'not proven.' At the same time the

cumulative circumstantial evidence was strong against hope of saving

life; also the negative proof that of the many Bedawi witnesses daily

examined not one could state that he had heard of a survivor. And yet

there was still a bare chance. For some weeks a white man had been

reported to be wandering about the wilderness. At Ghazzah (Gaza), the

turbulent, half-Bedawi town in Southern Syria, a Fellah, Mohammed bin

Khaysh, had mentioned the rumour to some Christian acquaintances as

lately as November 10th. He refused to communicate with the Rev. Mr.

Schapira, the Church Missionary there stationed; but his story appeared

credible enough. The white man, looking _talkhán_ (sick and sorry), had

fallen in with a wandering tribe (name not specified) near El-'Akabah,

and had accosted one of them, saying after Arab-fashion, '_Ana fi

'irzak_'--'I am under thy protection!' When the search became hot, the

white man, who may have been the dragoman or the servant, was carried

inland, but where, deponent could not specify. Also at Ghazzah an

English-made gun had been brought in, showing direct communication with

the plunderers.

"And here it may be well to note that the original and universally

accepted account of the murder was a mere fabrication. It stated

that the captives 'had been led by the Governor of Nakhil' (the

Fort El-Nakhl, midway between Suez and El-'Akabah) 'to the edge of

a precipice, and had there been offered the alternative of throwing

themselves over or of being shot. Professor Palmer covered his eyes

with his hand and leapt, and Messieurs Gill and Charrington chose the

other alternative, and were shot.' This romance, which utterly ignored

the two servants, dragoman and cook, was the invention of some 'Own

Correspondent,' telegraphed from Cairo on October 26th. Being of the

category circumstantial and picturesque, it at once found its way into

the newspapers of the civilized world; and it caused sore doubts to

rise in the minds of all experts. No wonder that Colonel Warren was

displeased by the publication of the silly tale.

"The next account appeared in El-Ahrám (_Les Pyramides_) of November

8th. The details were literally correct; it mentioned the guide Abú

Sufíh; the attack in the Wady Sadr; the destruction of the whole party,

including the servants, and the disappearance of the £3000 in gold. I

had hoped to see the extract reprinted by the _Egyptian Gazette_, but

_Le Phare_ had been beforehand, and professional sensitiveness left the

public in ignorance.

"Mr. Walter Besant, in his biographical sketch of Professor Palmer

(_Athenæum_, November 11th) preceding his detailed memoir, declared

that he would be grateful for any information likely to make it more

complete. I therefore make no apology for intruding my few personal

reminiscences upon the reader.

"On July 11, 1870, when we were in summer quarters at Bludán,

Anti-Libanus, I suddenly found two Englishmen camping with a gypsy-tent

below the garden. These were Palmer and C. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake, brown

and sunburnt by travel in the service of the 'Sinai Survey Expedition'

led by Captain (now Sir Charles) Wilson. They proved the most pleasant

of companions during a trip to Ba'albak, to the sources of the Litani

(_not_ Leontes), and to the unvisited crests of the northern Lebanon.

We parted at the Cedars, promising ourselves to meet again, and we did

live and travel together often afterwards. How little we thought that

within four years one would find a grave at Jerusalem, the victim of

its fatal climate; and that the other would return to seek death on the

scene of his old labours!

"Of Palmer I remarked that he was a born linguist, a rarity among all

races except, perhaps, the Armenian. He had the linguistic instinct,

an insight which required only to hear or to be shown a tongue. He

mastered it as a musical genius learns an instrument; he picked up

words, sentences, and idioms like a clever child with the least

possible study of grammar and syntax. The truth is, he was _supra

grammaticans_. During his energetic winter wanderings he had collected

a whole vocabulary of Bedawi words, and he evidently revelled, like

the late Percy Smythe, Lord Strangford, in his exceptional power of

appreciating dialectic differences. He read and wrote Arabic like

English, and he took delight in surprising the people by out-of-the-way

phrases, by peculiar forms of blessing and unblessing, and by the

rhymed prose of the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' He kept also for

times of need a vocabulary which terrified the superstitious: this

served his turn amongst the vagrant bandits of Petra and the Nejeb,

or South Country. He then knew something of Hindostani, which he

afterwards cultivated, and which assisted him in so mastering the

Romani (Gypsy) dialect, that he printed metrical translations in

Mr. Leland's volume. Although he had learned Persian in London and

at Cambridge, he spoke it as well as I could, and he had acquired

the pure Shirázi twang. Lamenting his ignorance of German and the

Scandinavian tongues, which he mastered at a later period, he proposed

to devote three years to Arabia, Persia, and Egypt. _Diis aliter

visum!_ His last volume, 'Hindūstāni, Persian, and Arabic,' one of

'Trübner's Collection of Simplified Grammars,' a series which will

suffer by his loss, lies before me; and I note with sorrow that his

translation of Háfiz, a taste for which he had carefully trained

himself, will lack the delicate final touches.

"Returning to England in the summer of 1870, Palmer published his

valuable reports, memoirs, and papers in the organ of the Palestine

Exploration Fund. He also printed, in two volumes (Bell and Daldy,

1871), 'The Desert of the Exodus,' a popular account of his two walking

journeys, in company with Tyrwhitt-Drake, and without dragoman or

servants, which occupied parts of 1869 and 1870. He had not then learnt

that the so-called 'Sinai' is simply a modern forgery, dating probably

after the second century A.D.; that the Jewish nation never knew where

the true 'Mountain of the Law' was; that it is differently placed by

St. Paul and his contemporary Josephus, who describes it after the

fashion of Sinbad the Sailor; that the first Mount Sinai (Jebel Sarbál)

was invented by the Copts, the second (Jebel Musa) by the Greeks, the

third (also Jebel Musa) by the Moslems, and the fourth (Jebel Safsáfeh)

by Dr. Robinson the American; that the Exodists would naturally travel

by the present Haj highway from Suez to El-'Akabah; and that learned

Jews now incline to the belief that the real Tor Síná lay somewhere in

the Tíh Desert north of the great Pilgrimage-line. Jebel Aráif has,

as far as we know, the strongest claims. Moreover, Palmer insisted

upon translating, with the vulgar, 'Tíh' by 'Wilderness of _the_

Wanderings,' when it means a wilderness where man may wander. Much

friendly banter upon these points passed between us as often as we met

in Syria and London, and, finally, he seemed to agree in opinion with

me. I may note that his details concerning the Bedawi of the 'Phárán

Peninsula,' as it is called by my late friend, Dr. Charles Beke,

require copious revision; and it is to be hoped that Colonel Warren

will correct them and supply the deficiencies.

"Professor Palmer spent twelve years in England, chiefly at Cambridge,

working most energetically the professional, literary, and especially

the Oriental veins. His friends lamented that he devoted so much

valuable time to what Sir W. Jones calls the 'avenues and porticoes

of learning,' dictionaries and vocabularies, grammars and manuals,

instead of cultivating his high gifts of fancy and imagination. Yet

he found time for a spirited metrical version of the Arab poet Buhá

El Dín of Egypt, for a romantic life of Harún El-Rashíd, and for the

charming 'Song of the Reed,' a title redolent of Persian mysticism.

His Biography told his various gifts, as a traveller, a professor,

a University lecturer and examiner, an improvisatore and rhymer, a

barrister, an actor, a conjurer and thought-reader, a draughtsman and

caricaturist, a writer of many books, and lastly, a politician and

journalist.

"About the end of last June, when the troubles in Egypt became serious,

'The Palmer' resolved to make practical use of his linguistic studies,

and gallantly volunteered to take part in putting down the rebellion.

His project was to dissuade the Bedawi from attacking the Suez Canal,

to collect camels for transport, and to raise the Wild Men of the Tíh

against the Rebels. He was duly warned, I believe, that in case of

capture he would be treated as a prisoner of war, perhaps as a spy; but

no consideration of personal danger had any weight with his gallant

spirit.

"The brave heart landed at Jaffa in the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's.

During his few days of preparation he became immensely popular; three

months afterwards I found every one full of his praises. Mr. Besant

is right: 'Perhaps it would not be too much to assert that he had no

business or private relations with any man who did not straightway

become his friend.' He engaged a dragoman, a Christian pupil of the

American College, Bayrút; and as servant a young Jew of Jaffa, who,

by-the-by, has left a large family utterly destitute. He then visited

the Rev. Mr. Schapira at Ghazzah, and set out by 'Short Desert,' as

older travellers called it, for Suez. An obituary article in the

_Academy_ (November 18th) declares that he 'turned back a Bedawy

invasion of the Suez Canal.' I could hear nothing of this exploit on

the spot. He might, and perhaps he would, have done it had he had the

opportunity; but he also had grossly exaggerated in his own mind the

numbers and the importance of the Tíh tribes. For his thousands we must

read hundreds.

"On August 1st Shaykh Abdullah El Shámi (the Syrian) met at Suez his

future companions, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N. The

former was a well-known and admirable traveller, who had spent the

last winter studying Arabic in North Africa, and who had already done

good service by cutting the telegraphic wires connecting Egypt with

Syria. The latter was a young officer of great promise, burning to win

his spurs. And now the fatal series of mistakes seems to have begun. I

cannot but think that, after so many quiet, peaceful years in England,

the laborious Desert march through the fiery heats of July must have

affected, to a certain extent, Palmer's strong clear brain.

"Before entering the Arabian wastes, strangers always hire and pay a

_Ghafír_--guide and protector. He ought to be a powerful chief, who

can defend his 'guests' by the prestige of his name, and if necessary

by the number of his matchlocks. Palmer may have preserved some

sentimental reminiscences of his Bedawi friends and acquaintances; and

may even have trusted to the exploded prestige of 'bread and salt.' The

old chivalrous idea has gradually weakened till it has well-nigh died

out. It may linger amongst the highest and noblest clans of the Anazeh,

but it no longer extends beyond El-Nejd. The partial modification

consists of feeding the Bedawi every day; otherwise, if you plead

_Nahnu málihín!_ ('We are salt-fellows'), they rejoin, 'The salt is not

in my belly.' The great majority of these 'sons of 'Antar,' who '_have_

ceased to be gentlemen,' ignore or rather deride the rococo practice of

their forefathers. And there are scoundrels who will offer you a bowl

with one hand and stab you with the other.

"Palmer engaged as his _Ghafír_ one Matr (Abú) Nassár, so named after

his son; his family name is Abú Safíh. The man is not, and never

was, a 'Bedouin Sheik,' but a mere hirer of camels to pilgrims and

travellers. He had quarrelled with, and parted from, his kinsmen the

Lahiyát, to take refuge with the Dabbúr, a clan or sub-tribe of the

Huwaytát. This Matr, moreover, was judged by those who knew him best to

be light-headed and half-witted. His proceedings with Colonel Warren

and his conduct on board the _Carysfort_, where he was detained for

his own safety, confirm the suspicion. Yet he and his nephew--the

camel-men do not count--were the only defence of an expedition which

carried, amongst other valuables, the sum of £3000 in gold. Travellers

in Bedawi-land never even name the noble metal, and the venerable Arab

proverb says, '_Ikhfi zahab-ak, wa mazhab-ak wa Ziháb-ak_'--'Hide thy

gold, thy God-faith, and thy goings forth.' It has been asserted that

the Englishmen had no firearms. This is an absurdity at first sight,

and it is disproved by the gun produced at Ghazzah.

"The ill-starred party left Suez on August 8th, and passed the first

night upon the sea-sands. On the 9th they marched _viâ_ 'Moses' Wells'

to the Wady Kahabín, and next day, leaving their luggage in the rear,

they entered the Wady Sadr, which heads near El-Nakhl. On the right jaw

of this fiumara rises the Tel el-Sadr, _alias_ Tel Bishr, the 'Barn

Hill' of our Hydrographic Charts, a broken tabular block within sight

of the Suez Hotel.

"About midnight on August 10th, the expedition was surprised by a large

body of the Terábín, or Bedawi of the Tíh, who trade with Ghazzah, and

the Huwaytát, a mongrel tribe of Egypto-Arabs who are settled upon the

Nile banks, nomads in the 'Sinaitic' peninsula and semi-nomads in the

Land of Midian.[5] Palmer, they say, was the only one of the little

party who fired and wounded a Bedawin in the foot.

"I pass rapidly over the deplorable scene which followed the attack.

Palmer, seeing the extreme danger, expostulated with the horde of

hired assassins; but all his sympathetic faculty, his appeals to Arab

honour and superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift

of eloquence which had so often prevailed with the Wild Men, were

unheeded. As vainly, Matr covered his _protégés_ with his _'abá_

(cloak), thus making them part of his own family. On the evening of

August 11th, the captives were led, according to the general voice of

the Bedawi informants, to the high bank of the Wady Sadr, where it

receives another and a smaller fiumara yet unnamed. Here they were

slaughtered in cold blood and thrown down the height. The object of

not burying the bodies, according to-Bedawi practice, was the dread

lest they should afterwards be discovered by means known to the Frank.

It was thought safer to leave them to the birds and beasts of the

wilderness. Moreover, the first rain-torrent would sweep away all

traces of the foul deed.

"And here let me note that on this occasion the Bedawi behaved as

Bedawi never behaved before. The Wild Men will attack strangers for the

smallest inducement. They will plunder their captives, strip, beat, and

even wound them. They will shoot the enemy when maddened by fight; but

their almost superstitious terror of the _Dam_, or _Thár_ (Vendetta,

blood-feud) prevents their taking life in cold blood. Nor have I ever

heard of their keeping prisoners for a whole day and then deliberately

massacring them after the fury of battle had cooled down. The whole

conduct of the crime evidently suggests the far-seeing iniquity of

civilized men; nor is it hard to divine whence came the suggestion.

"The evil report soon spread far and wide, and the public mind grew

more and more excited. This mishap was the only black spot in the

bright roll of continued successes. Colonel Warren, R.E., was directed

to conduct the search for the missing expedition. He does not speak

Arabic, nor had he any personal acquaintance with the Terábín and the

Huwaytát. But he had taken a notable part in the Palestine Exploration,

which necessarily brought him into frequent and familiar contact with

the Bedawi. He is a man of unusual energy and tenacity, and he has

shown great tact and _savoir faire_ in his dealings with the Wild Men.

After a preliminary visit to Tor, in company with Mr. Consul West, on

September 6th, he had some hopes of rescuing the captives, and he took

the properest measures to secure success. In company with Lieutenants

Burton and Haynes, and provided with an escort of some hundred and

fifty friendly Bedawi, by the chiefs Salám El-Shadíd of Cairo and

Musá Nasr of Tir, he scoured the Desert in all directions and made

some important captures, which will lead to satisfactory results.

On October 23rd he reached the reported scene of the murders; but

it was too late to find the remains of his countrymen. The expected

rain-torrent had swept them away. He picked up a truss belonging to

Palmer--no conclusive proof of death; a traveller would carry more

than one article of the kind. A sock bearing Captain Gill's name, and

containing the fragment of a foot, seemed to forbid hope in this case.

Lieutenant Charrington's overalls, marked 'Bombay,' and a caoutchouc

tobacco-pouch, showed clear evidence of plunder, but nothing more. The

other articles found in the neighbourhood were torn books, letters, and

papers. All were temporarily deposited in the Egyptian fort El-Nakhl,

whose garrison at first turned out to attack the search-party. Of the

burial in Westminster Abbey nothing need be said.

"That all the culprits, even those still at large, will eventually

be surrendered I have no doubt. It is a mere question of time. And

until justice is thoroughly done there will be no safety for English

or European travellers in the 'Sinaitic' Peninsula. No more hanging

will be required, but all concerned in the foul deed should undergo

imprisonment _in terrorem_ at Cairo. But it is sad to punish these poor

tools when the guiding hands escape even blame.

"Of my proceedings after leaving Suez I need say nothing: they were

disconnected with Egypt. Let me briefly resume the results of my three

weeks' observations.

"The occupation of the Nile Valley has been thrust upon us by _force

majeure_--the force of events. France was similarly circumstanced with

respect to Tunis, Italy will be in the case of Tripoli: the rotten old

fabric of the Porte is surely though slowly falling to pieces, and the

fragments are being fitted into their right places.

"What form our Protectorate of the Nile Valley will eventually assume

has not yet been determined; but if we can only come to a decision, the

Public may rest assured that our tenure of the Nile Valley will be a

success. At present it is not, and by the very condition of things it

cannot be. Egypt hardly deserves a 'caravan government;' what it wants

is stability, repose, and the training of a child to the way it should

go. The unnatural excitement of looking forward to a complete change,

which will mean anarchy, disorder, and violence, is doing immense and

lasting damage. It interferes with revenue, _the_ difficulty of the

present hour, a problem which seems to be puzzling even the experienced

Sir Evelyn Baring. With diminished floating power and the millstone of

debt ever weighing him down, his friends can only wish him well out of

the scrape.

"The first to be considered are the sons of the soil. They have the

strongest right to fair play, and they should at least share the

goods of which the stranger has once more spoiled them. The ring of

foreigners, who would exclude all except their own small cliques, must

be broken up, and the monopoly of highly paid employments be exchanged

for free selection and for competition amongst Egyptian candidates.

But this is a work of time. 'Egypt for the Egyptians' as much as

you please; but at present the Egyptians must be trained for Egypt.

Meanwhile the supervision of imperial questions, matters of finance,

and those involving income and outcome, the magistracy and the Police,

cannot but remain under English surveillance.

"The _Condominium_, or Joint Control, has done in its day excellent

work, but its work and day are alike done. It has tabulated the

resources of the Nile Valley, and has introduced order into the chaos

of native revenue. Moreover, during the last few centuries the Fellah

has never been so happy or so well-to-do as under its administration.

But a rule by the representatives of only two great creditors, to the

neglect of all others, was an invidious measure irritating the rest of

Europe. Nor would it be possible to govern by means of a board: the

more votes the more discord. The old _Condominium_ must be modified to

suit a permanent Protectorate.

"Modern Egypt has suffered severely from the _latifundia_ which,

according to Pliny, _perdidere Italiani_. What Egypt especially

requires is the maintenance of that class of peasant proprietors to

which she owed all her ancient prosperity. This is the institution

for which the Gracchi 'sedition'd' in vain; which modern Italy has

attempted in Apulia; which Russia holds in view, and which Ireland

must and _will_ have--the only Land Act that can ever satisfy her. The

most fertile of countries has been sorely injured by the absorption

of small properties into immense Khedivial domains, monopolizing

one-fifth of the area, and into the large tracts belonging to 'the

Pashas.' The sooner these model 'landed estates' are redistributed the

better. However, as a trip to the Helwán les Bains will show, there is

still a large proportion of waste ground--Nile mud buried in shallow

sand-sheets--which can be fertilized by canals drawn from up-stream.

The Great Valley can still support ten millions, and even more when a

system of damming shall be applied to her river. In the mean time all

attention should be given to the Cadastre, or Revenue Survey, which

wants a radical reform. The dawdling, feckless system of General Stone

would have carried it well into the twentieth century. Better pension

off 'hard bargains' than pay and retain them as standing obstructions.

"Egypt no longer wants the disproportionate armies and fleets with

which Mohammed Ali and Ibrahim Pashas conquered their neighbours. But

she must have a small body of Regulars--not less than ten thousand--to

defend her against Abyssinian raids, and to protect her Equatorial

Provinces, where (Chinese) Gordon (Pasha) did such noble work. As

regards the harbour on the Red Sea, proposed for the acceptance

of the 'king of kings,' Johannes, I may say that the measure is

theoretically good and practically evil. The port would serve only for

the importation of arms and ammunition, and would make the troublesome

'Highlanders of Æthiopia,' ever a nest of hornets, more dangerous

than at any time of their turbid history. As it is, the Egyptians

cannot fight in the mountains nor the Abyssinians in the plains, a

consideration which tends to keeping the peace. But the breech-loader

and the magazine-gun, when provided with cartridges, will wholly change

the condition of the Æthiopian. It is to be hoped that the Egyptian

army of the future, composed of Fellahs and negroes from the Súdán, and

officered by Englishmen and natives, will be built on the lines of the

old East India Company's force, a return to which is one of the crying

wants of India. The management may safely be left in the experienced

hands of (Val.) Baker Pasha, unless he has to work in the chains of

home orders.

"And as with the army, so with the Egyptian fleet--a mere show, an

article of luxury, costly moreover as it was useless. The country wants

only a few heavily armed gunboats to guard her African coast, to put

down the slave-export, and to prevent Arab piracy. Subsidized lines

of steamers, the more the better, suffice to connect her with Asia as

well as with Africa. The old doddering Egyptian men-o'-war which rot in

Alexandria and Suez harbours, melancholy remnants of past power, may be

carted away as soon as possible.

"Part of the duty of the Police force will be to suppress that cruelty

to animals which is one of Egypt's many abominations. The want of some

active measure has long been felt, and during the last ten years a

succession of _dilettanti_ has attempted to take the matter in hand.

The Khedive has been interviewed; a Princess or two has been secured

as patroness, and even subscription-lists have been opened. But the

work is too serious, too continuous, for amateurs. Here we require an

experienced delegate from the parent society in London, who, in concert

with a local committee, will lay down the lines of work, and will

determine what ought not to be done as well as what ought to be done.

But the 'sinews of war' must also be forthcoming; and they can readily

be supplied by military and naval economies.

"Lastly of the slave, who, theoretically free, is as much a bondsman

as ever. Egypt yielded with her usual good grace, the moment serious

pressure was brought to bear upon her. This is her way, the way of

the universal East. She grants every demand, and takes especial care

that nothing be granted. Pashas were appointed to issue certificates

of freedom and to inquire into the case of runaways, whom the masters

invariably denounced to the police as criminals, and proved their

crimes by false witnesses--a drug in the market. As soon as the first

excitement was over, a reaction set in and action slumbered: this was

all the Government wanted. The one thing needful is still needed--a

standing mixed committee of Europeans and Egyptians, presided over by a

responsible English official. Its duties will be to make the abolition

of slavery generally known throughout the length of the land, and to

see that emancipation is fairly worked. As for that other abomination,

the neutral, penalty of death should be unflinchingly inflicted upon

those with whom it originates. All their names are well known, yet it

causes us no surprise that the law has been and still is impudently

broken, while the law-breakers have invariably escaped punishment.

"Egypt is now virtually independent of Turkey: during the court-martial

of the Rebels not an allusion was made to the 'Suzerain.' It is

unfair that she should continue to transmit money which is wanted for

public works and internal improvements, because the so-called Tribute

has been mortgaged to Frankish creditors of Turkey. The Porte is

still rich enough to pay her debts, and, if she chooses again to be

bankrupt, shareholders must put up with the losses which, for a high

consideration, they have so long risked. Egypt now expects a complete

disruption of the injurious tie: the living land must no longer be

bound, in Mezentiaes-fashion, to the Ottoman corpse. She will have a

fair field, and favour enough, under an English Protectorate if we only

govern like men, not like Philanthropes and Humanitarians.

"RICHARD F BURTON."

[1] "Mekhitar the Armenian, nat. 1676 at Sebastia in ancient Media,

est. a congregation confirmed by Clement IX. in 1712, and ob. in the

island of S. Lazzaro, Venice, 1749. The Mekhitarists have educational

establishments in Paris, Vienna and Rome, Constantinople, Venice,

Trieste, etc."

[2] Richard Burton whilst preparing for Mecca.--I. B.

[3] Native Christians mingled with Moslems are generally cowardly.

They do not unite to make a stand; if they did, they would never be

attacked.--I. B.

[4] "The word should be Taufík, but we have adopted an ugly Gallicism

derived from Turkish, in which it would be pronounced Tewfík."

[5] "I spent some months amongst the Huwaytát, and have described

them in three volumes ('The Gold Mines of Midian,' 1878, and 'Midian

Revisited,' 1880), besides a number of detached papers."

APPENDIX I.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND OF SCHOLARS ON THE "ARABIAN NIGHTS."

"To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.

"Sir,--Your correspondent 'Sigma' has forgotten the considerable number

of 'students' who will buy Captain Burton's translation as the only

literal one, needing it to help them in what has become necessary to

many--a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The so-called 'Arabian

Nights' are about the only written halfway house between the literary

Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of which they need, and need

introductions to. I venture to say that its largest use will be as a

grown-up school book, and that it is not coarser than the classics in

which we soak all our boys' minds at school.

"ANGLO-EGYPTIAN.

"September 14th, 1885."

* * * * *

The _Bat_, September 29th, 1885.

"Captain Burton, in his way, renders a gigantic service to all students

of literature who are not profound Orientalists, and to many who are,

by giving them a literal, honest, and accurate translation of the

'Arabian Nights.'

"The blatant buffoons who have spoken of Captain Burton's work

indifferently only show their own ignorance of the literature of the

East. Captain Burton's work is well worth the price he charges for it

to students of Eastern literatures and Eastern manners, and Eastern

customs; but the misguided lunatic who invests in it in the hope of

getting hold of a good thing, in the Holywell Street sense of the term,

will find indeed that the fool and his money are soon parted."

* * * * *

_Morning Advertiser_, September 15th.

"There is one work not entered in the publishers' announcements of 'new

books,' though for years scholars and others have looked forward to it

with an eagerness which has left far behind the ordinary curiosity

which is bestowed on the greatest of contributions to current

literature, and to-day the new fortunate possessors are examining it

with an interest proportionate to the long toil which has been bestowed

on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's 'Arabian Nights.'

Hitherto all the editions have been imperfect, and more or less

colourless versions of the original. They throw a flood of light on

hundreds of features of Oriental life on which the student has failed

to be informed. But the work only a few limited students can ever see,

and is simply priceless to any one thus interested in the subject,

and may be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental

translation. Burton writes: 'Many a time and oft, after the day's

journey was over, I gathered the Arabs around me and read or recited

these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks and

they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. Nor was it only in

Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found

the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline; no

one was deaf to the charm, and the two women workers of my caravan on

its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men Shehrazade and

Deenarzade.'"

* * * * *

The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Captain Burton's first volume in sombre black and dazzling gold--the

livery of the Abassides--made its appearance three weeks ago, and

divided attention with the newly discovered star. It is the first

volume of ten, the set issued solely to subscribers. And already, as in

the case of Mr. Payne's edition, there has been a scramble to secure

it, and it is no longer to be had for love or money. The fact is, it

fills a void; the world has been waiting for this _chef d'œuvre_, and

all lovers of the 'Arabian Nights' wonder how they have got on without

it."

* * * * *

The _Lincoln Gazette_, October 10th, 1885.

"Another speciality of Captain Burton's edition is the notes. He

is celebrated for sowing the bottom of his pages with curiously

illuminating remarks, and he has here carried out his custom in a way

to astonish. He tells us that those who peruse his notes in addition

to those of Lane would be complete proficients in the knowledge of

Oriental practices and customs. Lane begins with Islam, from Creation

to the present day, and has deservedly won for his notes the honour of

a separate reprint. Captain Burton's object in his annotations is to

treat of subjects which are completely concealed from the multitude.

They are utterly and entirely esoteric, and deal with matters of

which books usually know nothing. Indeed, he has been assured by an

Indian officer who had been forty years in the East, that he was

entirely ignorant of the matters revealed in these notes. Without these

marvellous elucidations, the 'Arabian Nights' would remain only half

understood, but by their aid we may know as much of the Moslems as the

Moslems know of themselves."

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, September 17th, 1885.

"The publication of the first volume of Captain Burton's translation

of the 'Alf Layla' enriches the world of Oriental investigation with

a monument of labour and scholarship and of research. The book is

advisedly, and even inevitably, printed for private circulation, and is

intended, as Captain Burton says in his preface, only for the eyes of

such persons as are seriously students of Oriental life and manners,

and are desirous of making a more complete acquaintance with the great

masterpieces of Eastern literature than has hitherto been possible,

except to finished Arabic scholars. In the name of the whole world of

Oriental scholarship, we offer our heartfelt thanks and congratulations

to Captain Burton upon the appearance of this first volume; and we look

forward with the keenest interest for its successors."

* * * * *

_Nottingham Journal_, September 19th, 1885.

"To scholars and men who have sufficient love of the soul of these

sweet stories to discern the form in its true proportions, the new

edition will be welcome. From an Oriental point of view the work is

masterly to a degree. The quatrains and couplets, reading like verses

from Elizabethan mantels, and forming a perfect rosary of Eastern love,

the constant succession of brilliant pictures, and the pleasure of

meeting again our dear old friend Shahrázád, all these combine to give

a unique charm and interest to this 'perfect expositor' of the mediæval

Moslem mind."

* * * * *

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland.

_Academy_, October 3rd, 1885.

"The real question is whether a word-for-word version of the 'Arabian

Nights,' executed with peculiar literary vigour, exact scholarship, and

rare insight into Oriental modes of thought and feeling can, under any

shadow of pretence, be ignored."

* * * * *

_Lincoln Gazette_, November 2nd, 1885.

"In announcing the issue of the first volume of Captain Burton's

long-expected edition of the 'Arabian Nights,' the _Standard_ reminds

its readers that the book is printed for subscribers only, and is sold

at a price which is not likely to be paid by any save the scholars and

students for whose instruction it is intended. Many of those who know

the ordinary epitome prepared for the nursery and drawing-room have

little idea of the nature of the original. Galland's abridgment was a

mere shadow of the Arabic. Even the editions of Lane, and Habricht,

and Torrens, and Payne, represented but imperfectly the great corpus

of Eastern folklore, which Captain Burton has undertaken to render

into English. To Captain Burton the preparation of these volumes must

have been a labour of love. He began them in conjunction with his

friend, Steinhaüser, soon after his return from the Mecca pilgrimage,

more than thirty years ago, and he has been doing something to them

ever since. In no other work of the same nature is Eastern life so

vividly portrayed. We see the Arab knight, his prowess and his passion

for adventure, his love and his revenge, the craft of his wives and

the hypocrisy of his priests, as plainly as if we had lived among

them. Gilded palaces, charming women, lovely gardens, caves full of

jewels, and exquisite repasts, captivate the senses and give variety

to the panorama which is passing before our eyes. Indeed there is a

tinge of melancholy pervading the preface in which the Editor refers

to his 'unsuccessful professional life,' and to the knowledge of

which his country has cared so little to avail itself. When the great

explorer discovered the African lakes he was a captain. He is a captain

still. No University has thought fit to make him a Doctor; and while

knighthoods have been distributed with a profusion which has gone far

to lower the value of these distinctions, the foremost of English

travellers and the greatest of European Arabists is still untitled.[1]

Even in the recent Egyptian troubles--which are referred to somewhat

bitterly--his wisdom was not utilized, though after the death of Major

Morrice, there was not an English official in the camps before Suakin

capable of speaking Arabic. On this scandal, and on the ignorance of

Oriental customs which was everywhere displayed, Captain Burton is

deservedly severe.

"There is only one 'Arabian Nights' in the world, and only one Captain

Burton. The general tone of the London Press has been distinctly

favourable, the _Standard_ leading the way and other journals following

suit. The 'Thousand Nights and a Night' offers a complete picture of

Eastern peoples. But the English reader must be prepared to find that

the manners of Arabs and Moslems differ from his own. Eastern people

look at things from a more natural and primitive point of view, and

they say what they think with the unrestraint of children. At times

their plain speaking is formidable; it is their nature to be downright,

and to be communicative on subjects about which the Saxon is shy or

silent, and it must be remembered that the separation of the sexes adds

considerably to this freedom of expression.

"It is only knowledge that knows how to observe; and it is satisfactory

that Captain Burton's amazing insight into Eastern peculiarities has

been put to its best use in giving a true idea of the people of the Sun

and a veritable version of their book of books. The labour expended on

this edition has been enormous. The work could only have been completed

by the most excessive and pertinacious application. All the same we

are told it has been 'a labour of love,' a task that has brought its

exceeding great reward. There is only one regret, the circulation is

limited. We cannot help hoping, at some future time, a selection may be

made from the ten volumes. If the public cannot have the whole work,

at least it might have a part, and not be entirely shut out from a

masterpiece unparalleled."

* * * * *

_Home News_, September 18th, 1885.

"Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription

translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and its fortunate possessors

will now be able to realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling.

They will now have the great storehouse of Eastern folklore opened to

them, and Captain Burton's minute acquaintance with Eastern life makes

his comments invaluable. In this respect, as well as in the freeness

of the translation, the version will be distinguished from its many

predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be observed, bears

traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed it seems curious that

his services could not have been utilized in the Soudan, when the want

of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt."

* * * * *

_Daily Exchange_, September 19th, 1883.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's 'Thousand Nights and a Night,'

printed at Benares by the Kamashastra Society, for private subscribers

only, has been delivered to the latter. If the other nine portions

equal the first, English literature will be the richer by a work the

like of which is rare. The English is strong and vitally idiomatic.

It is the English of Shakespeare and Jeremy Taylor, the English of

Robert Browning, with a curiously varied admixture of modern colloquial

phraseology. I confess that I was not prepared, familiar as I was with

Captain Burton's other work, to find so perfect a command of clear and

vigorous style on the part of the great traveller and Oriental scholar.

I must say that the tone of the work is singularly robust and healthy.

What a treasurehouse Captain Burton has opened! Until he turned the key

we knew little or nothing of the 'Nights,' and the notes which he has

added to the work have a value that is simply unique."

* * * * *

_Standard_, September 12th.

"The first volume of Captain Burton's long-expected edition of the

'Arabian Nights' was issued yesterday to those who are in a position

to avail themselves of the wealth of learning contained in this

monumental labour of the famous Eastern traveller. The book is printed

for subscribers only, and is sold at a price which is not likely to be

paid by any save the scholars and students for whose instruction it is

intended.

"Moreover, no previous editor--not even Lane himself--had a tithe of

Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the

Moslem East. Hence, not unfrequently, they made ludicrous blunders,

and in no instance did they supply anything like the explanatory notes

which have added so greatly to the value of this issue of 'Alf Laylah

wa Laylah.'

"On the other hand, apart from the language, the general tone of the

'Nights' is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour, as

Captain Burton justly claims, often rises to the boiling point of

fanaticism, and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender,

simple and true. Its life--strong, splendid, and multitudinous--is

everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional

melancholy which strikes deepest root under the brightest skies.

The Kazi administers poetical justice with exemplary impartiality;

and so healthy is the morale that at times we descry vistas of a

transcendental morality--the morality of Socrates and Plato.

"In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This work,

illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation an

opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain

Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express."

* * * * *

_St. James's Gazette_, September 12th.

"One of the most important translations to which a great English

scholar has ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three decades

Captain Burton has been more or less engaged on his translation of the

'Arabian Nights,' the latest of the many versions of that extraordinary

story which has been made into English, the only one at all worthy of a

great original."

* * * * *

_South Eastern Herald_, October 31st.

"At Mr. Quaritch's trade sale the other day, Captain Burton made an

interesting speech regarding the 'Thousand and One Nights,' of which

the gist was to show that his translation performs a double office.

It is not only a faithful and racy version of the true original, but

it also represents a better text than any which has been hitherto

accessible in print or manuscript. He, in fact, produced for his own

use, and by collation of the existing materials, a careful, critical

recension of the original; and his rendering may, therefore, claim to

stand towards the 'Alf Laylah' in the same manner as the Latin version

of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus, towards the Greek text."

* * * * *

_Morning Advertiser_.

"Captain Burton, thirty-three years ago, went in the disguise of an

Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving

the world the result of his experience has so minute, so exhaustive

a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally. Hence the work now

begun--only a limited number of students can ever see--which is simply

priceless to any one who concerns himself with such subjects, and may

be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation."

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, October 29th, 1885.

"The second volume of Captain Burton's translation of the 'Arabian

Nights' has just been issued to the subscribers, who had already

become impatient for a second instalment of this great and fascinating

contribution to literature. The new volume is, if possible, of even

greater interest than the first. It contains the whole of the

fantastic semi-chivalrous story of King Omar Bin al-Nu'uman and his

sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, a knowledge of which has hitherto been

confined chiefly to Oriental scholars, as Lane only admitted an episode

from it into his version of 'Alif Laila.' Some of Sharrkan's adventures

will remind students of other Eastern stories of some of the adventures

recorded of the hero of Persian romance, Hatim Taī. As usual, Captain

Burton's notes are rich, varied, and copious, of the greatest service

to all serious students of Arabic manners and customs, and of Oriental

life in general."

* * * * *

_Montreal Daily Herald_, September 21st, 1885.

"Captain Burton has translated the 'Arabian Nights,' but will only

publish it for private distribution. A correspondent says that 'all

these years we have been reading Lane's turgid emasculated selections

we have been kept in the dark as to their singular beauty and vitally

human strength. I have been amazed at the "Nights" as Englished by

Captain Burton in strong, vital, picturesque prose. The stories,

instead of being pieces of wild extravagance, unreal and theatrically

tinselly, with the limelight instead of daylight, and paste instead of

diamonds, are full of abounding life.'"

* * * * *

"JEHU JUNIOR," _Vanity Fair_, October 24th, 1885.

"As a bold, astute traveller, courting danger, despising hardship,

and compelling fortune, Captain Burton has few equals; as a master of

Oriental languages, manners, and customs he has none. He is still very

young, very vigorous, very full of anecdote and playful humour, and,

what is remarkable in a linguist, he has not disdained even his own

mother tongue, which he handles with a precision and a power that few

can approach. He has recently crowned his literary labours by the most

complete, laborious, uncompromising, and perfect translation of that

collection of stories known to us as the 'Arabian Nights,' but more

correctly called 'A Thousand Nights and a Night.' He is a wonderful

man."

* * * * *

_Morning Post_, January 19th, 1886.

"Everything comes to him who waits--even the long-promised, eagerly

expected 'Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights,'

by Richard F. Burton. It is a whole quarter of a century since

this translation of one of the most famous books of the world was

contemplated, and we are told it is the natural outcome of the

well-known pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton's fitness

for the task who can doubt? It was during that celebrated journey to

the Tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab--indeed,

he says, in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he

not for months at a stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful,

eat, drink, sleep, dress, speak, pray, like his brother devotees, the

sharpest eyes failing to pierce his disguise? He knows the ways of

Eastern men--and women--as he does the society of London or Trieste.

How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren he showed at

Cairo, when, to the amazement of some English friends who were looking

on at the noisy devotions of some 'howling' Dervishes, he suddenly

joined the shouting, gesticulating circle, and behaved as if to the

manner born. He has qualified as a 'howler,' he holds a diploma as a

master Dervish, and he can initiate disciples. Clearly, to use a phrase

of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning--and

fate and fortune have arranged--that Captain Burton should be the one

of all others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine

unsophisticated 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' In the whole of our

literature no book is more widely known. It is spread broadcast like

the Bible, Bunyan, and Shakespeare: yet although it is in every house,

and every soul in the kingdom knows something about it, nobody knows

it as it really exists. We have only had what translators have chosen

to give--selected, diluted, and abridged transcripts. And of late some

so-called 'original' books have been published, containing minor tales

purloined bodily from the 'Nights.'"

* * * * *

_Whitehall Review_, May 24th, 1886.

"The sixth volume of Sir Richard Burton's 'Arabian Nights,' which

has just been issued to subscribers, is one of the most interesting

of the series to Anglo-Orientalists. For it contains that story--or

set of stories--which is, perhaps, of all the tales of the 'Arabian

Nights,' the dearest to legend-loving mankind, whether Oriental or

Occidental--the story of the voyages of 'Sindbad the Sailor,' or of

'Sindbad the Seaman,' as Sir Richard Burton prefers to call him.

Perhaps the only tale which at all competes in popularity with the

wandering record of the 'Eastern Odysseus' is the story of 'Ali Baba,'

and that, unfortunately, does not belong to the 'Arabian Nights' at

all, and can only, as far as we know, be traced to a modern Greek

origin. Lovers of the story of 'Sindbad the Sailor' will be pleased to

learn that their old friend remains to all intents and purposes the

same in Sir Richard's literal Translation as he was in the fanciful

adaptation of Galland, and the more accurate rendering of Lane. He

does not 'suffer a sea change,' but remains, what he has always been,

the most wonderful wanderer in the whole range and region of romance.

Sir Richard Burton's sixth volume contains, besides, that story of

the 'Seven Viziers,' which in so many forms is a favourite in all the

languages of the East."

* * * * *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"As regards his translation, however, Captain Burton is certainly

felicitous in the manner in which he has Englished the picturesque

turns of the original. One great improvement in this version over

that of Mr. Lane will be found in the fact that the verses so freely

interspersed throughout the 'Nights' are here rendered in metre, and

that an attempt also has often been made to preserve the assonants and

the monorhyme of the Arabic. Mr. Lane frankly stated that he omitted

the greater part of the poetry as tedious, and, through the loss of

measure and rhyme, 'generally intolerable to the reader,' as, in truth,

the specimens inserted mostly proved to be on account of the bald

literalism of the rendering. Captain Burton has naturally inserted

the poetry with the rest; and has often shown much skill in doing

into English verse the rippling couplets of the original. Take as an

instance, the verses which Mr. Lane renders:--

'Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety that anxiety will not last.

As happiness passeth away, so passeth away anxiety.'

"Almost equally literal, and certainly more poetical, is Captain

Burton, who gracefully turns this:--

'Tell whoso hath sorrow, Grief never shall last;

E'en as Joy hath no morrow, so Woe shall go past.'

"And since, in proverbs and epigrams, so much depends on the form, the

spirit of the original is well observed, when, for instance, we read in

a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al Sumam:--

'Hold fast thy secret, and to none unfold:

Lost is a secret when that secret's told.

And fail thy breast thy secret to conceal,

How canst thou hope another's breast shall hold?'

"Doubtless, too--and in this not following Mr. Lane--Captain Burton

is right in retaining the original division into Nights: for, as he

justly observes, 'Without the Nights, no Arabian Nights!' And, besides

this being a prime feature of the original, a grateful pause is thereby

introduced into these intricate and interminable stories. In the

translation, Captain Burton's English is generally picturesque and

always fluent. As it is frankly stated, too, he has 'never hesitated to

coin a word when wanted.' Captain Burton, who has passed the greater

portion of his life in Arab-speaking countries, mixing freely in

Moslem society, and often passing--as during his pilgrimage--himself

for a True Believer, is naturally well qualified to translate this

'Great Eastern Saga Book.' Also, since the scene of the stories is

laid successively in every country of Islam, from Tangier to India,

and beyond, the translator's intimate acquaintance, made during his

wanderings, with all these peoples and places, stands him in good stead

in elucidating peculiar manners and customs, and in this gives him the

advantage over Mr. Lane, who had only seen Islam as domiciled in Egypt."

* * * * *

_Court Society_, March 4th, 1886.

"Not a little disgust has been excited by the vulgar sneer which a

morning paper has indulged in at the expense of Sir Richard Burton.

Long neglected by successive Governments, Captain Burton received,

after forty-four years, a tardy recognition of his services.

Straightway, it was suggested that he is made a knight because he

translated the 'Arabian Nights.' It need scarcely be said that his

translation has nothing to do with the distinction conferred upon him;

but, as it is the habit in a certain quarter to denounce the literal

translation of the 'Nights,' it cannot be too distinctly understood

that Captain Burton never meant his work to fall into any hands save

those of a thousand students."

* * * * *

The _Sporting Life_, July 17th, 1886.

"The more I see of this splendid translation, the more do I feel that

we are indebted to the translator for the first real idea in English

of the immortal original, and to him alone, for a complete reflection

of the 'Arabian Nights.' The lustre and vigour of the English compel

one's admiration at every step.... It is palpable enough that, until

Sir Richard Burton's wonderful work first saw the light, _we had no

'Arabian Nights_.'"

* * * * *

The _Bat_, July 7th, 1886.

"Book-lovers will be glad to learn that Sir Richard Burton's 'Thousand

and One Nights' will shortly be reprinted, and that also with

revision which will remove it from the top shelf of a library to the

drawing-room. Lady Burton is to be congratulated on her enterprise in

taking up the matter, for, unquestionably, so admirable, and, indeed,

instructive a work should be placed within the reach of all. A copy of

the privately printed edition is now worth £25, and undoubtedly its

reappearance as revised will be hailed with satisfaction by all lovers

of Orientalism."

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM SCHOLARS.

_Mr. Floyer, at the Telegraphic Conference, has secured Egypt

telegraphic independence, and an annual gain of_ £7000.

"Government Telegraphs, Berlin, September 16th, 1885.

"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I cannot tell you how delighted I am with the translation. The

language is wonderful. Only you in the world could have written it. How

did you find out 'ensorcelled,' instead of the vulgar 'bewitched'? And

how did you find out a hundred other words equally graceful and exact?

It is the most wonderful translation in the whole of literature. In

accuracy, in swing, it breathes Egypt to me. I could take it and read

it straight out to my Effendis almost word for word. But the language

is wonderful. As compared with Eastwick's _Anw'ar i Suhayli_ it is

Tennyson to Gladstone. My sense of the feelings inspired by the first

pages of the Foreword it is impossible to express, and I congratulate

you most sincerely on your absolutely unique achievement.

"Yours very truly,

"(Signed) ERNEST A. FLOYER."

* * * * *

"October 24th.

"DEAR SIR,

"I do not know whether a letter which I wrote to the _Academy_ about

your 'Arabian Nights' has come under your notice. If so, I beg you to

excuse the chary words I used in commendation of a work which now,

from the literary point of view, I regard as one of great original

excellence."

* * * * *

"November 13th.

"I wish you _had_ issued more numbers of your book, as you well deserve

to be rewarded for such an admirable work. I delight in the vigour and

Oriental character of the language. Even a few months in India were

enough to make me appreciate and perhaps better understand the charm of

the 'Arabian Nights.'"

* * * * *

"DEAR CAPTAIN,

"The joy which your volume has occasioned me I will not attempt to

express in a short letter. Let us meet soon, and talk of nothing else."

* * * * *

"DEAR BURTON,

"This is merely a line of greeting in appreciation of your first

volume, which I have been reading, just to say how pleased I am with

everything--intrinsic and extrinsic."

* * * * *

"September 25th.

"DEAR CAPTAIN BURTON,

"I have received the first volume of the 'Nights,' and beg you to

accept my most heartfelt and sincere thanks for the valuable gift. I

cannot express the pleasure which it affords me to see this wonderful

book reproduced in a form which is as faithful a rendering of the

original as it will remain an admirable '_monumentum aere perennius_'

of the English language.

"Moreover, I am not ashamed to acknowledge that in reading again the

text, together with your translation, I have learned more Arabic in a

few months than in as many years of former toilsome study."

* * * * *

"I want to tell you how thoroughly I have enjoyed your 'Arabian

Nights,' and how greatly they have contributed to making life endurable

during these months. Your 'Arabian Nights' is a revelation of

Orientalism, and the finest study of words that I have ever met with.

It will remain a literary text-book as long as the English language

lasts."

* * * * *

"Volume I. awaiting me.

"I congratulate Captain Burton heartily. The book looks very handsome,

and the notes are most valuable. Altogether a great success."

* * * * *

"Your 'Nights' are admirable, fascinating--the true thing at last! I

delight in my volume.

"I can hardly express to you how highly I appreciate the 'Nights,' the

first two volumes of which are at hand. The work is interesting, too,

and permits another edition."

* * * * *

"September 26th.

"I have been devouring your first volume of the 'Nights,' and cannot

tell you how much I enjoyed the book, and how anxiously I am looking

for the next volume."

* * * * *

EDWARD PEACOCK, Bottesford Manor, Brigg, October 3rd, 1885.

"I have read every word of the first volume of Captain Burton's

'Arabian Nights,' and, as I am not an Arabic scholar, _am very grateful

to him for having given us_ an English version."

[1] This was written some weeks before the author was made a K.C.M.G.

THE END