Chapter XIV: “satan Absolved”—the Boer War (2)

“_27th April._—With Cockerell to see the new mosaics at St. Paul’s about which there has been angry correspondence in the ‘Times.’ They are not in the best style of decoration, but the over brilliancy of the mosaics will soon blacken in the London smoke and tone down to the rest.

“On my way back from London in the evening we travelled by accident with D——, who as usual was full of interesting talk. He told us, with a little pressing and on promise not to give him away, the true history of the Mahdi’s head. The mutilation of the body seems all to have come of a mere bit of rowdy nonsense on the part of certain young English officers. He says it has long been a custom with the members of White’s Club who are in the Army to bring back trophies from any wars they may be engaged in and present them to the club. He, D——, had jokingly proposed to E—— W—— to bring back the Mahdi’s toe-nails from the coming campaign. Kitchener, on this hint, seems to have fancied having the Mahdi’s head for himself to make an inkstand of, and gave Gordon the order to dig the body up and keep the head for him. This accordingly was done, and at the same time finger-nails were taken by some of the young officers, but they got talking about it at Cairo and hence the trouble. He says he had the whole account of the thing in detail from W——, and that Kitchener received the head from Gordon, who was charged with the destruction of the tomb, and he actually had it (he, Kitchener) as an inkstand until Cromer wrote about it, when he ‘put it behind the fire.’ D—— was quite incredulous about its having been buried at Wady Halfa, or anywhere else. It was just put ‘behind the fire.’

‘He gave an interesting account of Kitchener, whom he had known, he said, ever since they were both together at Woolwich, before the French war. He, D——, was at a preparatory military school, reading for the military college, but Kitchener had passed in. Kitchener was ‘a rough young devil,’ and he and another cadet got into a row, partly about a woman, partly about money, and Kitchener’s father, who was poor, refused to pay up for his son. The son, consequently, ran away with the other boy, and was tried by court-martial as a deserter. The two went to France and enlisted in the French army and fought in the war in the Army of the North, and Kitchener got some credit for his handling of a mitrailleuse on one occasion, and eventually, when the war was over, came back to England and got old Linthorn Simmons, then the head of Woolwich School, to forgive and take him back, and he got his commission. ‘But,’ said D——, ‘he always was what I have said, and did not know how to behave.’ His conduct afterwards to the Khedive proved this. He was, however, a wonderful organizer, though a bad general. He had very nearly lost a battle at Atbara by his clumsy handling of the troops, and again at Omdurman, when he had wheeled the Egyptian army in such a manner as to place it between the Dervishes and the English contingent, so that these last were unable to take any part in the firing. Now he had been given absolute power in the Soudan, and was using it in the most arbitrary way. When Carlisle went up to Khartoum to visit the grave of his son Hubert, Kitchener ordered him back immediately he had performed this duty. He would not hear of Carlisle’s staying longer than the second day.

“_3rd May._—Dined at the Centenary of the Sussex Club, a piece of local patriotism out of my usual way; indeed, it is twenty-five years since I dined with the Club. There were ninety-three members present, the Duke of Norfolk presiding, who did the duties simply and well. I sat between Henry Campion of Danny and Brown of Holmbush. They asked me to take the Chair at their next dinner, a thing which would have entailed a speech on me at this one, but I managed to get out of it. My father was one of the first members, having been elected in 1808.

“_18th May._—Yesterday I was in London and met my friend Harry Brand,[20] just back from Australia, where he has been Governor of a colony. He found it dull work among people without literature, art, or culture of any kind, except a taste for bad music. He was offered to stay on as Governor-General, but wisely refused. Harry and I are contemporaries and we swore, long ago, the oath of brotherhood, so I have invited him to take up his residence in Mount Street with me till his country place, The Hoo, becomes vacant in August.

“_19th May._—Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis’s Rooms. He told me of a book young Winston Churchill is publishing, blurting out all kinds of inconvenient truths about the Soudan campaign. The desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb Winston calls ‘a foul deed,’ as indeed it was.

“_26th May._—I have written to Morley on the Kitchener case, as he is taking it up publicly and has made a speech on it at Lydney. The Liberal newspapers, however, are afraid of touching the matter, and the ‘Daily News’ burks this portion of his speech.

“_27th May._—I have finished my poem, ‘Satan Absolved,’ and feel more content with life in consequence, having the sense of having done all I could, and having made my individual protest against the abominations of the Victorian Age. The 24th was the Queen’s birthday, Her Majesty being now eighty. There is a foolish letter in the ‘Times’ pointing out the wonderful fulfilment of a prophecy of Sidney Smith’s, who, sixty years ago, exhorted her Majesty to make it the boast of her life to avoid war and to have it on her conscience to say, ‘I have made no orphans or widows.’ This for one whose reign has seen whole races of beings exterminated under her rule, and only the other day thanked God that her troops had destroyed 30,000 Dervishes!

“_28th May._—George Wyndham came down last night to dine and sleep, and to-day I drove him to Worthing, where we lunched with Henley. On our way over the Downs we stopped and walked up to Chanclebury Ring, which George had never done, and found some white dog-violets nearly at the highest point. George has told me a good deal about the internal rivalries in the Cabinet, which may well break out if anything happens to Lord Salisbury. What he calls the reactionary Tories are headed by Hicks Beach, but the young Tories, including himself, would not serve under Beach. As long as Arthur Balfour is there they will follow him, but if any accident sent him too out of the leadership they would revolt from the main Tory body and form a third party of ultra-imperialists with Chamberlain. About foreign politics George says that it is now simply a triangular battle between the Anglo-Saxon race, the German race, and the Russian, which shall have the hegemony of the whole world. France he considers gone as a great Power, as much gone as Spain or Austria, but the Emperor William means to be supreme overlord. He is holding his hand for the moment till he can get an efficient navy, but as soon as this is ready there will be a coalition against England. He, George and the young Imperialists are going in for England’s overlordship and they won’t stand half-measures or economy in pushing it on.

“_3rd June._—Young Winston Churchill has made a speech in which, while condemning the desecration of the Mahdi’s tomb, he excuses Kitchener on the ground that it was done in his absence and that he was keeping silence in order not to incriminate his subordinates. This throws the odium of the deed on young Gordon, a quite innocent person, for both Anne and Judith, who have been seeing Gordon and his wife at Cairo all through the winter, assure me that he repudiates the deed with absolute disgust. I have consequently written to the ‘Daily News’ telling the truth about it.

“_4th June (Sunday)._—Lunched at Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s where I found John Morley. We had a long two hours’ talk about the Kitchener vote which is to come off to-morrow. Morley is very fierce against Kitchener, and I gave him what help I could, besides what I wrote to him on the subject. But he is hampered by all sorts of conditions. I urged him not to admit the capture of Omdurman as a great feat of arms. It was a trumpery affair for which to give a peerage, but he would not take this line, though it really invalidates his whole argument. He is already in a depressed frame of mind, for Campbell Bannerman is to second the vote, and he thinks the result of the debate will be to make a further cleavage between the two sections of the Liberal party, his own anti- military section being left with a small minority. Even Harcourt’s vote he thought was doubtful. I proposed to go and see Harcourt and try and persuade him to vote against the grant, but Morley said, ‘If you do, for God’s sake don’t tell him you have seen me,’ which shows how little confidence in each other there is among the chiefs, even of the Anti- Jingo section. He ended, however, by saying I might as well go to Harcourt without mentioning him. I found Sir William at the Avondale Hotel in capital spirits, but when, after some talk about the New Forest, I mentioned the Mahdi’s head, I saw his countenance fall, and he changed the subject to the Transvaal, where he thinks trouble is coming, and then while we were talking about it he was suddenly called out, and I did not see him again. I asked Lady Harcourt when we were alone to try and get him to support Morley, but she said, ‘I have given up trying to get him to do anything but what he chooses,’ which I take to mean he will do nothing.

“_5th June._—Again to London where I found a note from Lady Harcourt, telling me that what had interrupted my talk with Sir William yesterday was the news brought him of Loulou having been taken seriously ill, so that his wedding, which was fixed for to-morrow, has had to be put off.

“My letter about Kitchener is in the ‘Daily News’ neutralized according to an editorial dodge by printing next to it what is headed as ‘The true story’ in contradiction to mine. At first I was alarmed lest young Gordon might have confessed, in spite of his denial, that he was the real culprit, so I went down to Chelsea and lunched with my kinsman, Gerald Blunt, at the Rectory (whose son’s wife was a sister of Gordon’s), and he reassured me on this point. He says that Gordon’s family are furious at the slur cast on him. Then at four to the House of Commons. George had got me a good seat in the special gallery, and I found myself among friends, Rennel Rodd, George Peel, Canon Wilberforce, and others. Kitchener, who returned to England last night, was sitting with Roberts in the Peers’ gallery. After the usual irrelevancies, Arthur Balfour opened the debate in a brief speech recounting Kitchener’s services, for the Opposition was quite unequal to the occasion. Kitchener’s name had not been very warmly received, and it would have been easy to appeal to the better feeling of the House, though the result of the vote could not have been altered, but Campbell Bannerman’s rising to second the vote, though he expressed himself pretty strongly on the ‘vulgarity’ of the desecration of the tomb, put things at once into a false position, and Morley who followed to oppose it, with the strongest of possible cases, proved feeble beyond all recorded feebleness. His arguments were weak to fatuity, and he gave himself away over and over again till the House laughed at him. So much was this the case that Balfour already found himself in sympathy with the House before he rose to reply. He did this in a speech of great skill and eloquence, which, as mere oratory, it was a relief to listen to, and he succeeded even to taking a high moral line with the wretched Morley, and in proving to him conclusively that Kitchener was absolutely justified, indeed bound by every principle of right feeling to blow up the tomb, dig up the body, chuck it into the Nile, and what he called ‘disperse the remains.’ Absurd as his argument was it was conclusive with the House, and Morley had not even the wit to ask what became of the poor head, or who was entrusted with the various operations. I doubt if Morley will ever make a speech again in the House, I should not if I were he.

“Personally I am not altogether dissatisfied with the result. We have gained at least this, that we have forced Balfour and the Government and the House of Commons to declare themselves in favour of the extreme abominations of war, and have in so far exposed the hypocrisy of modern England. It is better so than that the country should have it in its power to boast that it did not approve, although it did the deed. Kitchener got his £30,000, his money perish with him! I was glad to notice that, except old Roberts, who came with him to the House, none of his brother Peers in the gallery offered him a congratulation, or spoke a word to him.

“_7th June._—In all the newspaper articles on the Kitchener Debate, not one has the wit to see the flaw in Balfour’s argument. It rests entirely on Kitchener’s assertion that he had the Mahdi’s tomb profaned, and the body dispersed deliberately with a political intention, that of publicly showing the Mohammedan world of Africa that the Mahdi was an impostor. The untruth, however, of this is easily discoverable even in the meagre Blue Book published. If it had been true it is certain Kitchener would have reported the fact with the reasons to Cromer _at the time_, and that Cromer would have reported them _at the time_ to the Foreign Office. But though the thing happened in September, and though Kitchener in the meanwhile had been back in London, and in personal communication with everybody, including her gracious Majesty the Queen, the Government professed to be ignorant of the facts until the month of February, the earliest document in the Blue Book being one of February 17, when Cromer sent home a communication of February 1 from Kitchener. Kitchener then for the first time gives his explanation thus: ‘I would add,’ he says, ‘that my action regarding the tomb of Mohammed Achmet, the so-called Mahdi, was taken after due deliberation, and prompted solely by political considerations.’ How anybody at all conversant with the way in which Blue Books are edited can be simple enough to believe in face of this comparison of dates, that the ‘political considerations’ were not an afterthought passes my understanding, yet is clear that Morley and even the Irish overlooked the absurdity. The whole discussion in Parliament was unreal, nobody wanted to believe, except perhaps Morley. The Irish look on Kitchener with a sneaking regard, as in some measure an Irishman, while Dillon has Catholic sympathies which prevent his quite disapproving the crusade. In this way Balfour’s absurd argument held its ground, and I suppose will hold it in history.

“_15th June._—The plot for annexing the Transvaal has taken a new development. Chamberlain, to force the hand of the Government, has published a despatch of Milner’s written on the 4th of May of the most aggressive kind, and the newspapers are full of flame and fury, the ‘Daily News’ leading the chorus. They talk about Milner’s ‘cool and impartial judgment’ just as if Milner had not been specially selected by Chamberlain to put the job through. Milner was sent to Egypt ten years ago to convert English Liberal opinion to the plan of remaining on there instead of withdrawing the garrison, and having succeeded in that mission he has been sent to the Cape to convert English Liberal opinion to the idea of reannexing the Transvaal. Milner, though an excellent fellow personally, is quite an extremist as an imperial agent, and his journalistic experience on the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ has given him the length of John Bull’s foot very accurately, so that he is invaluable to the Empire builders. Now there will certainly be war in South Africa. They have tried every kind of fraud to get their way, but old Kruger has been too astute for them, so they will try force. They seem to have squared the German Emperor, France is in chaos, they think their opportunity come. Chamberlain will not rest until he has Kruger’s head on a charger. The Boers, however, will fight, and there is some chance of a general war between the Dutch and the English in South Africa, which may alleviate the condition of the only people there whose interests I really care for in the quarrel, namely the blacks. It will also be a beautiful exposure of our English sham philanthropy, if at the very moment the Peace Congress is sitting at The Hague, we flout its mediation and launch into an aggressive war. Anything is better than the general hand-shaking of the great white thieves and their amicable division of the spoils.

“I am now staying at Oxford with York Powell at Christ-Church. Powell is an excellent good fellow, and seems to be much liked at Oxford in spite of his somewhat heterodox views on politics, for he has a certain Socialistic tendency enough to have widened his mind. We had a deal of talk to-day, principally on poetry and literature, of which he has a large knowledge. I told him, among other things, of my having consulted Jowett fifteen years ago half seriously about the possibility of my entering the University as an Undergraduate, and how he had answered me. ‘You could never pass the examination for Balliol, but might try Christ- Church.’ ‘Insolent dog!’ said Powell, resenting the slur on his College. It is lovely weather, the Christ-Church Meadow looking its best, and while we sat on a bench in the Elm Avenue talking, a little redstart was watching us. Then we went into the Cathedral to see the Burne-Jones Morris windows. Prayers were going on for the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the Houses of Parliament, and they were intoning, ‘Give peace in our time, O Lord.’ Then we dined in the hall, and talked with two Dons, Myers and another, about Eastern travel and horses, till I got away to bed.

“_21st June._—Lane will publish ‘Satan Absolved.’

“_28th June._—Herbert Spencer consents to have ‘Satan Absolved’ dedicated to him, but is in a terrible fright lest it should be found out that he gave the idea of the poem, ‘on account,’ he says, ‘of the _odium theologicum_ and the injury it might do to the spread of his philosophy,’ so I have written a preface without exactly saying this, though it is not very courageous of him to leave me alone in the coming battle.

“_29th June._—Breakfasted with George and Sibell, who showed me two very interesting letters from her son Bendor, describing the interview between Kruger and his chief, Milner (whose private secretary he is) at Bloemfontein. The letters were written actually during the conference, and contained sketches of old Kruger, whom he described as very old and infirm, and also very sly. He talked of Kruger as ‘bluffing.’ He writes with a boy’s enthusiasm for his chief, and seems to be enjoying himself greatly. I showed George my preface to ‘Satan Absolved,’ which he thinks cannot fail to attract attention.

“On my way home by the late train I travelled as far as Dorking with Harry Cust. I gave him my view of the way the Transvaal quarrel had been engineered by Chamberlain and Milner. He professed to regard this as the extreme of political scepticism. ‘A poet,’ he said, ‘should not be so unbelieving in honesty.’ He was on his way down to Admiral Maxse’s, where he was to meet Meredith and others.

“_8th July._—Our annual Arab Sale, an immense concourse of people, 380 sitting down for luncheon in the tent. Colonel Sdanovitch our principal buyer for the Russian Government.

“_8th Aug._—I have been staying for the last few weeks at Fernycroft, but to-day I went to London, where I found Hampden at my rooms in Mount Street. He has been living there all the last month. We went in the evening to see the Savage South African Show. It is a return to the shows of Imperial Rome, minus the bloodshed, and is worth seeing as a spectacle, though it is monstrous to look on at these captives brought to London to make a Roman holiday. The white swaggerers who are given the _beau rôle_ to play in the exhibition are of course disgusting, but the black men managed to preserve their dignity and make the others look foolish. The superiority of the black man over the white was throughout conspicuous, and it did not need the patter of the whites on the stage to explain that it was only their maxim guns that gave the latter their victory.”

From 9th August to 16th August I was at Fernycroft, my new acquisition in the New Forest, and after that on my annual summer driving tour once more visiting St. Fagans, where, amongst others, I found Lord Rowton and Sanderson, of the Foreign Office.

“_21st Aug._—Both are good company, and we have had much friendly discussion of politics. Rowton tells me that never with his consent will Dizzy’s Memoirs be published. He is light in hand and eminently reasonable, full of amusing anecdotes, especially of his old master, and of his lodging-house plans, an odd hobby, for it is not altogether a charity, paying, he tells me, 4 per cent. on the capital, but it doubtless does much good. Sanderson has talked freely on the Transvaal quarrel, and expresses very moderate opinions. He believes in a pacific arrangement. This in contradistinction to Windsor our host who, though the quietest and most moderate of men on other topics, takes fire about the Transvaal almost as a personal matter.

“_29th Aug._—Back at Fernycroft. Chamberlain has made another violent speech, and it is clear now, as, indeed, it has been all through, that he is forcing on a war with the Boers. The Liberal press is childish, and there is practically no opposition. The Liberal party has swallowed so many violences and so many diplomatic frauds in the last twenty years that it may as well make up its mind to swallow this too. I, as an enemy of Empire, shall say not a word.

“_1st Sept._—Partridge shooting with Mark Napier and Terence Bourke. I shot well, the first time since my illness, killing twelve birds in as many shots, but I am no longer keen for sport of any kind, and go out principally as an old custom and to justify the expense of game preserving. My logic about shooting here in England is, that it is the only way of preventing the destruction of wild animals. If there was no shooting, no one would be at the expense of paying gamekeepers, nor would it be possible to prevent the rag-tag and bob-tail of the towns from snaring and netting. The abolition of the game laws would mean the extinction not only of all game, but of the small wild birds and beasts, too, which enjoy the peace of the protected covers, while, if I did not go out shooting myself, my gamekeepers would take no trouble to prevent poaching, so I kill my few brace of partridges and pheasants, that the rest may live in peace. In Egypt, where there are no game laws and no birdsnesting, I never fire a gun.

“_3rd Sept. (Sunday)._—I have written a long letter to Frederic Harrison about the Transvaal, apropos of his open letter to Lord Salisbury, which has just been published. It is principally to explain to him that he is mistaken if he really relies on Lord Salisbury to control Chamberlain, or to do anything to prevent a war which he and the Queen desire. Also to let him know what Milner’s position is in the affair.

“_11th Sept._—The world has gone mad over the verdict of guilty given in the Dreyfus case. Of course it is abominable, but what did anyone expect? It was clear from the time that Gallifet took office that there would be a compromise of the case, and that the compromise would only be that Dreyfus should be found guilty and then pardoned, and that be the end of it. As to our virtuous selves, we are of course in a state of splendid denunciation of our neighbour’s sin, this at the very moment that we are pushing forward a new raid on the Boers, certainly no smaller public iniquity, huge though the other may be. I drove to-day to Malwood, but Sir William was away. Lady Harcourt would not hear of war with the Transvaal.

“_16th Sept._—I have written again to Harrison about the Transvaal. He answered me a week ago, urging me to write to the ‘Times’ in the same sense as I had to him, and as to Salisbury saying, ‘It is well to attribute virtue to a powerful man, even if he has it not. It must make him doubt of it.’ This I cannot do, as I am certain the ‘Times’ would not publish such a letter. I have explained to him how Buckle is one of the gang acting with Rhodes, and how the Jameson Raid was concocted, so to say, in the ‘Times’ office, and how there is no true peace party in England. The only difference between Liberals and Conservatives in these cases is, that while both rob with the cry of ‘your money or your life,’ the Liberals would like the money given up peaceably, the others after a fight. I have told him that I do not believe in the possibility of any change of opinion until we have got a good beating ourselves, and that it is by no means impossible the Boers may make a formidable stand. In any case it would be better for the world that they should be destroyed fighting for their independence, than that they should be bullied or cheated out of it.

“_18th Sept._—Fernycroft. A telegram came from Madeline Wyndham to say she was coming to spend the day here. I accordingly met her at Southampton. On the way there I read in the papers the Boers’ refusal of Chamberlain’s ultimatum. A very dignified document it is, and one very difficult for our people to answer. Morley had already a day or two ago at a meeting in Manchester given away the whole Liberal case against the war, publicly approving the Franchise demand, made by our Government on the Transvaal, a mere red herring which the Radicals have run to in full cry. The consequence is that the whole English press to-day is with the Government and war is certain.” [N.B. The pretext of demanding the franchise for the Outlanders in the Transvaal was a trap laid by Milner especially for Morley and the Radicals who stepped into it precisely as was intended. Once having approved the demand it was impossible for these with any logic to disapprove the military steps taken to enforce the demand on Kruger, and war became a necessity.]

“_21st Sept._—The news is all very ominous, indeed it will be a miracle if war does not break out of itself on the frontier without further waiting, and so give our Government the pretext it wants. Under the circumstances I have resolved to publish my letter of the 2nd to Harrison.

“Dreyfus has been pardoned; and so the case ends according to programme. Our papers are in a righteous fury and Dreyfus swears he will continue the struggle. But it will not end here. It has cost France dear—her position on the Nile, her position as a great European Power, and her good name in the world. Gallifet deserves well of his country for the courage he has shown and the wisdom in ending it.

“_26th Sept._—Frederic Harrison writes that he wishes to see me about the Transvaal. He warns me that I should have to modify my letter to him if I sent it to the ‘Times.’ It was ‘violently actionable,’ he said, and as I should have no defence, it would cost me £10,000 to have it printed as it stood. But he hoped I will publish something. He also tells me as a secret that, at his suggestion, the Queen of Holland has, he believes, written to our gracious Majesty, begging her to intervene to stop the war, which otherwise is inevitable. This would seem the best chance, though nothing is more certain than that Queen Victoria has been a prime mover in the Government policy. These military blood sheddings are not displeasing to Her Majesty, and she has just allowed Kitchener to make her a present of a white ass from Omdurman.

“On receipt of this letter I went to London and at Mount Street found Hampden. He tells me Lord Salisbury has arranged with Portugal to take immediate possession of Delagoa Bay.[21] This he has learned confidentially from the Colonial Office. I then went down to Sutton Place, in which delightful old house I now am staying with Frederic Harrison and his brother.

“_27th Sept._—Sutton Place. I have had a long talk with Harrison about the Transvaal, which we both think must fight unless indeed there is royal interference in Holland. We have decided not to publish my letter as being too libellous, also the time is a little gone by for it to do much good. I read him my ‘Satan Absolved.’ He thinks it should be the sensation of the year. He will write a review of it in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’ refuting its attack on humanity and giving me an opportunity of defending my ideas in prose. This will make it almost certainly a success.

“The Harrisons, or rather, Sidney Harrison and his mother, have been tenants of Sutton for twenty-five years. The house is much dilapidated as to doors and windows, and is a fearfully cold house to inhabit even in September, having, unlike most old houses, ridiculously small fireplaces, which seem to have been always there. I slept in the west wing, the only spare bedroom, big as the house is. I have known Sutton Place as long ago as the year 1855, when it was occupied by my cousins, the Lefevres. In those days there was a Catholic chapel in the east wing to which we used to be sent on Sundays from West Horsley. The east wing was then uninhabited, a melancholy romantic vacancy with a great staircase, hung with family portraits mouldering on the walls. The chapel was in an upper room used for mass on Sundays, according to an old endowment. Now the wing has been restored and is occupied and the chapel placed elsewhere.

“_29th Sept._—Back to London. Lady Lytton tells me that Kitchener is a great favourite at Court. She was with the Queen and Kitchener when they went to Netley Hospital, and was impressed with Kitchener’s manner to the wounded soldiers. ‘What these Royal personages admire,’ she said, ‘is that he is such a stern man.’

“_30th Sept._—My cousin, Gerald Henry Blunt and his wife (she is General Gordon’s niece and sister to Colonel Bill Gordon) is here at Newbuildings to dine and sleep, and I have heard from her the whole story of the digging up of the Mahdi at first hand, or rather, as her brother told it her. ‘Bill,’ she said, ‘was entrusted with the bombardment of the tomb from the gunboat on the river during the battle of Omdurman, and after it he was ordered to blow up the ruined remains of the dome, as being already shattered and unsafe. This he did, but it was no part of his orders to interfere with the body of the Mahdi. It was left untouched under the ruins until Kitchener’s return from Fashoda, when Kitchener had it dug up and thrown into the river. Bill was not present at this, nor was the job assigned to him, but Kitchener and most of his staff were present, and Kitchener ordered the head to be kept, intending to send it to the College of Surgeons, as the head was a very large and remarkable one. It was sent on board the steamer in a kerosene tin and taken down to Cairo, but was never in Bill’s charge, and he disapproved of the whole business. Eventually when the scandal was made about it, the head was entrusted to two English officers to take up the river again to Wady Halfa.’ These reported that they ‘buried it at night, somewhere in the desert,’ they don’t know where, so very possibly D——’s account of its having been ‘put behind the fire’ is correct. Mrs. Gerald Blunt thanked me profusely for the letter I had written to the ‘Daily News’ in her brother’s defence, and said that Bill considered that Kitchener had treated him unfairly in the affair. They had all made a scapegoat of him because he did not stand in with them in certain not very straightforward things. She is a nice, cheerful little woman, enthusiastic about her ‘Uncle Charlie,’ and not at all conventional about the military nonsense of the day.

“_30th Sept._—To the Hoo, where I found a family party. Hampden and his wife, and sons and daughters. Nothing is talked of but the Boer war. I notice that Harry, who was quite moderate about it when he first came home from Australia, has now imbibed all the violent Liberal-Unionist views regarding it. His eldest son is ordered to the war, and the younger ones talked loudly about ‘exterminating the Boers.’ We expect hourly now to hear of guns gone off on the frontier.

“_2nd Oct._—Back to Newbuildings. The ‘Chronicle’ is running a new red herring to-day, and has proposed sending the Duke of Devonshire out to South Africa, of all men in the world, to arrange a peace. They are ready, however, to follow every false scent thrown in their way. The Government’s present plan is to try and make people think they don’t want war, and don’t want to wipe out Majuba, and don’t want to annex the Transvaal. We shall see when it is over. If, after a successful campaign, the Transvaal is not annexed, and Milner is not made a peer, they may claim not to have intended it; but both these things will happen.

“_7th Oct._—We have been expecting the Boers to advance on Natal all the week, but something has delayed them. Perhaps the abortive attempt by the Queen of Holland to intervene with our Queen. The Boers seem to be losing their chance by this delay, but I fancy old Kruger knows what he is about. He has, I think, to consult his friends in Europe, at Berlin and elsewhere, before each important move. He has managed to get the whole sympathy of the Continent with him, indeed, of the whole world except ourselves and the Americans. These last are backing us, as we backed them in their iniquity against the Filipinos. The Transvaal Committee, too, in Manchester, has been telegraphing absurd messages to Kruger, telling him that the Duke of Devonshire may be trusted. If this has at all influenced the old man, the Transvaal Committee deserves hanging, for the delay of the week may cost him dear.

“_9th Oct._—The men at the Clubs now mock at Kruger, saying he won’t fight, never meant to fight, and the rest. Reginald Carew, whom I met at the Travellers, talked in this sense. He leaves for South Africa with Buller’s staff on Saturday, but I told him not to be discouraged, that the Boers would certainly not cave in. He thinks they have lost what chance they had by waiting. Perhaps so. Still they will fight.” [N.B. This was General Pole Carew, who went on Buller’s Staff. I remember him lamenting his bad luck in the belief he had that what little fighting there might be would have been over long before Buller’s arrival. He distinguished himself during the war principally, I think, as being the first to burn down the Boer farms. He is a connection of mine through the Glanvilles. I have known him in India when he was Lytton’s A.D.C. It had been arranged at that time that he was to go with me as representing Lytton on the journey we proposed taking that year in Arabia, but which Cavagnari’s death at Kabul and Lytton’s recall from India prevented. (See ‘India under Ripon.’)]

“_10th Oct._—The streets are placarded with the Boer ultimatum, so I hope the end has come.

“To the British Museum with Cockerell, and saw Dr. Budge, of the Egyptian Department. He gave us a deal of information about the Hyksos and Assyrians in connection with Horse History. But all these authorities differ so much from each other in what they tell you, that one cannot have much confidence in their knowledge. As Huxley said, it is still all ‘guess work.’

“_12th Oct._—Dined with Sibell and George, and Lady Windsor in Park Lane, and went with them to see ‘King John’ at Her Majesty’s theatre, an egregious performance. I never cared about ‘King John,’ and, as acted by Tree, it was a violent piece of ranting. George, with whom I walked home after it, told me that Tree had chosen the play as being full of Jingo tags and no Popery talk. But the audience was too dull to seize the points.

“We talked much about the war, which is declared to-day. George’s brother Guy is on White’s Staff at Ladysmith, and he expects them to advance. White’s orders from England have been generally to stand on the defensive, but George is sure he will not remain quiet, and ‘of course we must leave all liberty to the men on the spot.’ Baden Powell is at Mafeking, and there will be fighting there. He told me a good story of a certain J——, who is notorious for keeping clear of danger. He has just telegraphed to his wife from Kimberley, seven hundred miles away from Mafeking, ‘War declared. Mafeking will be attacked by Boers to- morrow—probably destroyed. No cause for anxiety.’ About the general prospects of the war, George still believes in the theory that Kruger is ‘bluffing,’ and that after a bit of a fight he will knock under to Buller and make terms, otherwise he thinks it will be a very long and tough job. He says that the Cabinet would really have come to an arrangement with Kruger but for the bitterness of the feeling against Chamberlain. There was a moment when they would have accepted terms which, while giving Chamberlain an appearance of a diplomatic success, would have left the real advantage to Kruger. Kruger, he thinks, ought to have accepted the proposal of inquiry and discussion, have agreed to go himself to Cape Town, and then have delayed and put off till everybody was tired of it. He had himself heard Chamberlain say when they expected such acceptance by Kruger, ‘It seems my failure has been changed into a _pæan_.’ Now, however, there is no way but to fight it out. I told him I, too, was glad it was to be so. My chief fear had been lest the Boers should be jockeyed out of their independence without fighting. Besides, I look upon the war as perhaps the first nail driven into the coffin of the British Empire. I believe that if the Boers can hold out six months Europe will intervene.

“_17th Oct._—In South Africa the Boers are advancing steadily southward, and have invested Mafeking and Kimberley. Their plan is doubtless to get the Dutch in Cape Colony to rise and join them. It seems their best chance. Buller went off on Saturday to take command of the British Army. They gave him what is called a ‘send off’ at Southampton by crying a bogus victory in the streets.

“Swinburne has published a ridiculous sonnet in favour of the war, and Kipling has also been in the ‘Times.’ My ‘Satan Absolved’ must stand for poetry on the other side. I got an advance copy of it to-day.

“_19th Oct._—Newbuildings. Hampden and Neville are here. Much argument about the Transvaal war. Hampden very fierce in defence of the Government. We shot to-day, Mark Napier joining us as fourth gun. Violent discussions again in the evening, Mark maintaining that, while the English officers are good, the rank and file are worthless, and that in a long campaign the English regiments would go to pieces; Hampden annoyed, as having a son in the army. But all ended pleasantly.

“_21st Oct._—The Boers have been beaten in an attack they have made upon White’s Camp. George had the happy task in Parliament, as Under- Secretary for War, of announcing the victory.

“_23rd Oct._—More victories. The ‘Chronicle,’ after championing the Boer cause all the summer, has now gone clean round, and shouts triumph with the rest. It is a dastardly world.

“_27th Oct._—To London. People are not so pleased now with the war in Natal, as, in spite of the reported victories at Glencoe and Elandslaagte, Dundee has had to be evacuated, the guns and wounded being left behind. They say Ladysmith will now be invested. Guy Wyndham is there, with White’s staff in the threatened position.

“_29th Oct._—Herbert Spencer has written again about ‘Satan Absolved.’ He is disappointed at my not having stuck to his idea in the poem, but on the whole he approves. ‘Unquestionably,’ he says, ‘Satan’s description of man and his doings is given with great power, and ought to bring to their senses millions of hypocrites who profess the current religion. I wish you would emphasize more strongly the gigantic lie daily enacted, the contrast between the Christian professions and the Pagan actions, and the perpetual insult to One they call Omniscient in thinking they can compound for atrocious deeds by laudatory words.’

“_1st Nov._—News of a great defeat of the British army before Ladysmith. Two of Her Majesty’s best regiments, the Royal Dublin and the Gloucester, laid down their arms to the Boers, 2,000 men of our most veteran troops. There seems now a chance of the whole British army capitulating before Buller and his men can relieve them from England. Letters from old Watts and Kegan Paul, both in sympathy about ‘Satan Absolved.’

“_2nd Nov._—To Malwood with Anne and stopped to lunch. After it, old Sir William took me into his smoking room, and we talked over the whole South African case. The old man is, I think, secretly just as pleased as I am with the success of the Boers, though, when I said I should like to see the Boers established in Cape Town, he protested he could not go with me as far as that. However, he spoke strongly enough, and told me a number of most interesting things about Rhodes and Milner. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893, Rhodes came to him about his railway project and humbugged him not a little. Sir William showed me a map on which Rhodes had marked his schemes, and he came again, when he was in England after the Raid, ‘to face the music.’ Sir William says he is an astonishing rogue and liar, but occasionally blurted out truths other rogues would hide, and he had boasted how he bought up everybody by putting them into good things on the Stock Exchange. He said that, though he, Rhodes, was certainly privy to the projected revolution at Johannesburg, he did not think he knew precisely of the Jameson Raid. The reason the Outlanders at the last moment would not rise was that they found out that Jameson intended to hoist the British Flag, and that did not suit them. They wanted to continue the Republic and run it themselves. As to Milner, Sir William said he was certain he was sent out on purpose to pick a quarrel with Kruger. He had seen a great deal of Milner while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Milner came to wish him good-bye—and he had told him he knew why he was going. He knew, too, that Milner had told Lady Cowper at Panshanger before he left for the Cape, ‘If I come back without having made war I shall consider my mission has failed.’ Milner was an enthusiastic Jingo, but knew nothing of Statesmanship. Sir William also told me he had seen a good deal this year of Cromer, and had been charmed with him. He had found Cromer very moderate, hating Rhodes and hating Kitchener, and doing his best to keep them within bounds. He told me that if the Liberal Government had remained another fortnight in office they would have made Redvers Buller Commander-in-Chief, instead of Wolseley. Altogether my visit was a most interesting one. I wish I could remember a tithe of what he told me.

“_3rd Nov._—A violent wind and rain, but we are snug here in our wood. Ladysmith is invested and isolated. There are reports of another defeat of White. I hope nothing will happen to Guy.

“_10th Nov._—There is a severe article on ‘Satan Absolved’ in the ‘Chronicle’ quoting Newman, and complaining of my profanity. I have nice letters, however, from York Powell and Mallock.

“_20th Nov._—At Inchmery. The Belgian Minister, who was here yesterday, tells me the Queen of Holland wrote to Queen Victoria to beg her to make peace with the Transvaal, as so many of her subjects were engaged in it. He says the Queen did not like the use of the word ‘subjects,’ and did not answer the letter. He considers that the war, as far as it has gone, has much damaged England’s prestige abroad. It has shown people specially that English officers, though brave, are without science. They all play too much instead of learning their work. He has been nineteen years in England, and is an Anglophile, but like all the rest he disapproves this war, and thinks it will result badly for us, even if in the end successful. We have suffered defeats which will encourage our enemies next time they quarrel with us.

“_23rd Nov._—Fernycroft is shut up for the winter, and I have gone to Newbuildings, and am to start for Egypt on Wednesday. Fernycroft stripped of its leaves looks melancholy enough, and the thought of Egypt with its birds and butterflies is irresistible.

“They are making an immense fuss in the papers about the Emperor William’s visit to Windsor. He has come in spite of the disgust of his own people, who are furious against us on account of the Boer war. But I fancy he knows his own game, and hating us at heart has come to spy out the nakedness of the land with a fresh military eye. Our newspaper people, however, would go down on their bellies to him and lick his feet if they were allowed.

“_24th Nov._—To Wotton to dine and sleep. They have fought a new battle in South Africa, and another in the Soudan, and announced them as two British victories—victories I suspect to order for the German Emperor’s benefit. The South African one seems nothing much to boast of besides 200 of our men lost, mostly of the Guards. The other is probably less bogus. Dear old Evelyn still sticks religiously to his political principles with me. We are the last of the anti-imperialist Conservatives.

“My poem is getting fearfully maltreated in the newspapers where I have no friend, as it attacks the country and Christianity alike, and what is worst, the newspapers themselves. This, however, was to be expected, and it is not the first time I have had the world on my back.

“_25th Nov._—Back to Newbuildings and shot rabbits with Neville. I am closing my accounts of all kinds for the year, and shut up this journal in no sanguine mood of having anything happier to relate in the diaries of another year. The only thing I love now is my cat, and I am obliged, alas! to leave it behind.”