Chapter XV: Last Year of the Nineteenth Century (1)

“_1st Dec._—On board the Messageries ship _Niger_ off Corsica on my way to Egypt, having for the twentieth time shaken the dust of Europe from my feet. The day I started, Tuesday morning, I lunched with George Wyndham. He gave me the latest news of the war. They hope at the War Office to relieve Ladysmith in the course of the next eight days, but not without battles, one or two. They acknowledge now that the Boers are immensely stronger than they thought, that they are fighting according to the latest new scientific rules, and are armed with the newest of new weapons—they are officered in a large measure by Germans, and are holding their own determinedly. George does not make too much of the latest victories, Belmont and Graspan. But it seems to be part of the Boer tactics to invite attack on strong positions, and to hold these as long as they can inflict loss on their enemies—then at the last moment to run, so that, although the position is taken, the victor suffers most, and the Boers reassembling at a preconcerted rendezvous are not much the worse for their defeat. ‘We could not let our men act like this,’ said George, ‘for if they once began to run there would be no stopping them.’ So he by no means considers the matter over, sanguine as he naturally is. Guy Wyndham is still shut up with White at Ladysmith—and he showed me a most interesting letter from him written a month ago, immediately after the defeat of Nicholson’s Nek, or whatever it is they call it. The letter described excellently an attack in three columns delivered by White, all of which failed in the presence of superior numbers, and it seemed to suggest of superior generalship. Guy had been with a detachment of a few hundred men pushed forward into an exposed situation from which it was more by luck than skill that they managed to extricate themselves. One of the officers had suddenly observed that the rest of the column seemed to be in retreat, and after pooh-poohing him at first they observed it too, and Guy volunteered to ride across the open hill under a heavy fire to ascertain the truth. This he did and discovered that the General in command had entirely forgotten the detachment, and sent it no order of retreat with the rest. So Guy had to ride back over the same rough ground with bullets and shells striking the earth all about him. The detachment was not brought in without considerable loss. The letter, very simply written, gave a powerful picture of the haphazard character of modern warfare, and of the extreme helplessness of the units of an army while in action. The letter said nothing of the surrender of the third column, which was perhaps not known at the time by the writer, or it may have been purposely omitted, for what George showed me was a typewritten copy of the letter made for family reading. He was going down with it to his mother at Clouds in the afternoon, where there is naturally a great anxiety. Of the victory in the Soudan, and the death of the Khalifa, he seemed to admit that it, like Methuen’s victories, had been timed to coincide with the Emperor William’s visit to Windsor, just as the Dundee victory was for the Parliamentary vote. Personally, George was in the highest spirits, amply consoled for his disappointment at his not getting the Foreign Office instead of the War Office last summer.

“I have been reading Kegan Paul’s Memoirs, which are extremely interesting. His description of his first school at Ilminster might stand for my own experience at Twyford, a mere hell upon earth—and I notice that the Ilminster master had been a Twyford boy, under Bedford, whom I remember as a very old man living on in retirement, near the school, when I first went there in 1847. The caning cupboards, on either side the head master’s throne at Ilminster, were clearly modelled on the Twyford ones. I received a letter only the day before I left home from old Roberts who used to cane me in them, begging piteously for pheasants to eat in his old age. Now I am reading Aubrey De Vere’s Memoirs. The two books are much on the same lines, and both interest me greatly, recalling memories of people I have known, and phases of thought gone through. Nevertheless Kegan Paul’s is by far the best, being simpler and less literary. De Vere bores one a little with his poems, and his explanations of them. I remember him well when we lived at Mortlake for a year in 1853. He used to come and see my mother while he was staying with the Taylors at Shene. Mrs. Cameron was another of his friends, but Taylor was the central figure. For Taylor, Mrs. Cameron affected a great devotion, and had a portrait of him by Watts hung in a recess of her drawing-room before which a lamp continually burned. De Vere posed as a poet, and we children thought him a bore. All the same I have a very high respect for him now. An _homme de bien_, if ever one was in the world. Many years later, I came into communication with him regarding the letters of ‘Proteus and Amadeus,’ which he edited at Newman’s suggestion. At one time Newman had almost consented himself to do the editing, for Dr. Meynell, the ‘Amadeus’ of the letters, was much at Edgbaston just then. But for one reason or another the old man changed his mind, and De Vere undertook the thing for him and wrote the preface.

“It was in connection with this that, in 1876 or 1877, I went to Edgbaston and stayed three days at the Oratory. I do not remember if at that time I kept a journal. I think not—and I may as well write here my recollection of the visit. I had stopped at Edgbaston on my way back from the west of Ireland, where I had been staying with Laprimaudaye at Treenlawr, and I had caught a toothache fishing on the Lough which worried me greatly, and I remember distinctly feeling as I knocked at the door that I should be thus _hors de combat_ at the moment of my coming to consult the great man. Nevertheless my distress was vain, for I was shown up to him at once, and, at the instant of touching his hand when he received me, my pains vanished, nor did they return while I was staying in the house. Newman’s was a wonderful hand, soft, nervous, emotional, electric; and I felt that a miracle had been wrought. I told Father Ryder of it at the time, but he charged me that I should tell no man, and I said no word of it to the Saint himself. Newman, though he knew well that I had come to consult him for the good of my soul, and though I had much conversation indirectly with him upon spiritual things, did not attempt to argue out any of the fundamental principles of religious thought, and sought to influence me rather through the heart by his great kindness, and by the confidence with which I was admitted to all the life of the community. It was a touching sight, indeed, to see the old man taking his turn with the rest to wait on us at table in the Refectory—and living his simple life of piety and cheerful unselfishness. The lives of monks and nuns are alone in some accordance with the life of Jesus. All the rest of Christianity is an imposture and an impudent negation of Christ.

“_5th Dec._—Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd after nearly two years’ absence. At Alexandria I had to wait some hours, and spent them in the company of Hewatt and his family at Ramleh. I found the Hewatts, to my surprise, very anti-Jingo about the war. There has been another ‘victory’ on the Modder—and another heavy loss of officers and men. I am sorry to see among the killed one of Mrs. Earle’s two ‘splendid sons,’ about whom she wrote to me a month ago. She did not deserve this misfortune, for she was very humane in her ideas, and hated soldiering and all its ways.

“Anne met me at Cairo, and we went on home at once, having the good luck to travel in the same carriage with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu. Of all Easterns, perhaps I might say of all men, my dearest friend, Mohammed Abdu, after having been imprisoned for his Liberal opinions, and exiled by the Anglo-Khedivial restoration of 1882, has gradually become recognized for what he is, by far the ablest and most honest man in Egypt—and they have made him our Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the vice kingdom. I gave him an acre of land two years ago, and he has built himself a country house on it, and so is now our nearest neighbour. When we said good-bye on my leaving Egypt last I little thought we should meet again.

“_6th Dec._—Coming back here is like rising again from the dead. Everybody connected with the place clearly took it for granted I should be seen in it no more, and acted on the supposition. Nothing very bad has been done, and some changes are for the better, but still they have been made. My gazelles have been sent to the Zoölogical Garden, some of the horses have been sold, the house has been re-arranged. I feel like a guest in it—the _revenant_—the ghost who has returned. Perhaps it is all the more delightful, for the garden is in splendid leaf, and the trees never had a thicker shade in a more brilliant sunshine. Encroachments in the way of new wells and cultivated fields have been made all round us in the desert, and we are already almost completely cut off from the open plain. But it is the least of the evils that threatened us four years ago. First the sewage farm, and then the building operations. So that the new corn fields may be looked upon as a comparative blessing in an age of unscrupulous progress.

“_15th Dec._—Two new Boer victories, or rather British defeats. One at Stormberg, the other at Spytfontein. People will soon be getting angry in London, and perhaps leave off some of their music hall songs. There is a ridiculous swaggering one in the papers, promising Uncle Paul to dine with him on Christmas Day. It reminds me of the Paris cry, ‘à Berlin,’ which became historic.

THE NEW PATRIOTIC SONG

Now Sung at the Music Halls and Theatres with immense success.

KRUGER’S DINNER PARTY; DEC. 7, 1899

or,

We’ll be There.

Written by Fred C. Smale. Composed by Geo. Le Brunn.

Oh, Uncle’s giving a party and he’s asked us all to come,

We’ll be there!

We’re marching up from Durban town, behind the fife and drum

And we’ll be there!

There’s some from Dublin City, there’s some from out the West,

The Devon lads “be vitty,” there’s Gordons with the rest;

Oh, Uncle, don’t you trouble, there is time enough to spare—

We’ll be there!

(Chorus) So please you, Uncle Paul, light the Lantern in the Hall

(We know we’re welcome as the flow’rs in May),

Just keep the pudding hot for the lively little lot

Who are coming up to dinner Christmas Day.

We’ve got some little sailor men, we thought you wouldn’t mind,

They’ll be there!

We are bringing them to see our Uncle Paul so good and kind,

They’ll be there!

They have come across the ocean, they would like some tea and buns,

Then they’ll just give you a notion how they work their little guns.

No, Uncle, dear, they are not at sea—they travel everywhere.

They’ll be there!

(Chorus) So please you, Uncle Paul, just arrange a little ball

(They’re having one or two upon the way);

Majuba some went through, and they want to speak to you,

So they’re coming up to dinner Christmas Day.

Pretoria’s a place we’ve often wanted for to see,

We’ll be there!

The air with us, there is no doubt, will splendidly agree,

We’ll be there!

Perhaps I may just mention, we are coming up in style,

And with the firm intention of remaining for a while;

Still, Uncle, don’t you worry, for mother’s paid the fare.

We’ll be there!

(Chorus) So please you, Uncle Paul, see that there’s enough for all.

There’s fifty thousand Tommies on the way,

And somewhere in a bag they have got a little flag

To stick up in the pudding Christmas Day!

* * * * *

KEITH, PROWSE and CO., Cheapside, E.C.

[N.B. Several of our regiments _did_ dine with Uncle Paul that Christmas Day, but it was as prisoners of war.]

“A torrent of newspaper abuse has fallen on my ‘Satan Absolved.’ The first notices were fairly moderate, but as the war has gone more and more against our Army, they have become more and more vindictive. They began by admitting that the poetry had some eloquence; then it was found clever, but vulgar; then blasphemous, vulgar, and stupid. Now the condemnation is extended to all my poems. It has been discovered that the ‘Songs of Proteus’ were a plagiarism on Meredith’s ‘Modern Love’: and that in the rest of my works I have been ever sinking deeper in the mire.

“_17th Dec._—The third and main British army is badly beaten on the Tugela River. MacDonald (John Murray MacDonald), Anne’s cousin by marriage, who is staying with us, declares he shall go off himself to fight. He is a mild semi-Jingo Radical of the school that believes the British Empire has a divine mission to subdue and occupy the waste places of the earth. I have been arguing the Boer case with him for the last ten days. To me it is incredible how any reasonable creature should believe such trash. His wife and her niece Irene Noel are generally on my side. But to-day when I say, ‘Now we ought to make peace with the Boers’ they are all against me. Even Anne thinks that the rights of the blood feud forbid _that_. Yet what absurdity! War, when it is a war of aggression, as they all admit that this is, is mere murder, and though it is humiliating to make peace on a defeat, it can’t be surely _right_ to go on.

“As to the wisdom of persisting, the Boers are really better soldiers than ours. We had a few good regiments to begin with, but they are pretty well used up now, and the rest is of a feeble kind. Our army, if it can fight, cannot march, and has to stick to the lines of railway. Our superior numbers are consequently of little advantage. The Boers are making a splendid fight for their freedom, and are winning all along the line. Every honest man, English or not, ought to rejoice. Instead of this, we English are in league with the Americans, we, who were the two peoples who have posed as champions of freedom in the world, to subdue two small, weak nations, the Boers and the Filipinos, fighting for their independence, and not a word of disapproval is heard amongst us.

“Young Walter Gaisford, Talbot’s A.D.C., was here the other day, lamenting that the Khalifa and his dervishes had all been killed, so that there would be nobody left to shoot, he complained, even in the Soudan. ‘There is hope, however, that, when the Boers are polished off, we may go on to a war with Abyssinia when more sport will be to be had.’ This is the way our young fellows look at war (‘a high old rabbit shoot’). It is good for them and the world that they have at last met their match. War will be unpopular enough in England soon if it goes on as at present, and there will be a chance then for the weak nations to remain unmolested.

“_20th Dec._—Prince Aziz was here yesterday and told me things that were interesting. He was once a lieutenant in the 16th Lancers, and talks intelligently about the war. Gatacre, he says, was always a fool, violent and abusive to the natives in India. He had been certain he would get into trouble when it came to fighting. The Prince holds the British Army cheap. They would never have been able to get to Omdurman but for the Egyptian troops, who did all the work and all the fighting, and in South Africa they were inferior in everything to the Boers. Things have come to a pretty pass when this fat Egyptian Prince can hold such opinions. But they are perfectly justified. Kitchener, as a last hope of saving the situation, has been named Chief of the Staff to Roberts, and is to start at once for the Cape. The Dutch in Cape Colony are in revolt. The English newspapers say there has not been such a position of things since the Indian Mutiny. It is thought old Roberts, who is popular with our rank-and-file, will be able to restore confidence. But he is too old for serious work, and they have shoved Kitchener forward to the real command. I don’t believe either of them is a bit better than our beaten Generals. I had long talks with Roberts in India years ago, and he gave me a poor notion of his intelligence, good old fellow as he is. As for Kitchener, he knows nothing of European war, and his Soudanese experience will serve him little. He has the curse on him of the Mahdi’s head, and deserves to fail. There is a paragraph in the papers this week giving an account of the Khalifa’s end, and how courageously he met it. This man has been uniformly represented as a contemptible coward. Yet he met death as nobly as any of Plutarch’s heroes.

“_25th Dec._—Christmas Day. Kitchener has left Egypt. Though he sailed from Alexandria he had not the grace to go to Montaza, where the Khedive was, to bid him good-bye. Yet he has been drawing £6,000 a year latterly from the Egyptian Treasury, and high pay for the last fifteen years. A bearer of the white man’s burden at £6,000 a year!

“_29th Dec._—I have received a nice letter from old Herbert Spencer about the attacks made on my poem by the critics, and saying he thinks I was probably right when I told him I thought it would need a foreign army landed on our shores to bring us quite to our sober senses. There is at present a lull in the South African fighting, the Boers waiting to be attacked again and the English not having got their second wind.

“Margaret Talbot came to-day and spent the afternoon. Her husband is in command here of the English garrison, and is, of course, much grieved at the way the Boer War is going. He would like to be there, but at the same time would dread the responsibility of failure where so many others have failed. She described Kitchener’s departure. He was only half an hour at Cairo—the time between one train and another, and said hardly a word to anyone. No one here regrets him, for he has made no friends.

“_31st Dec._—The last year of the 1800’s ends disastrously for England, or rather for the British Empire. For England can only gain by the break-up of that imposture. I think now there really is some chance of such a consummation, for we are sending the whole of our armed force into South Africa, where it is likely to become engulfed, and we have got the whole sentiment of the world, civilized and uncivilized, against us.

Thou hast deserved men’s hatred—they shall hate thee;

Thou hast deserved men’s fear—their fear shall kill;

Thou hast thy foot upon the weak, the weakest

With his armed head shall bite thee on the heel.

“Percy Wyndham writes: ‘In this terrible struggle in South Africa we see a picture in little of what will be the close of the present dispensation, to use the language of those who believe in prophecy, when the survivors of Teutonic blood will fight for the mastery of the world—in that struggle the Dutch, South African or Native, will have a look in.’

“Two young British officers were here this afternoon. They are both agog to join the fighting, looking at the whole thing entirely from the professional point of view. ‘If we are not in this show,’ they said, emphatically, ‘we may as well hang up our hats.’

“_1st Jan._, 1900.—The Emperor William, the papers say, has issued a rescript, ordaining that the new Christian Century is to begin in Germany to-day. This, if true, goes one better than Carlyle’s Emperor, who was _super grammaticam_. I find the Moslem centuries go down to the end of the hundreds, and begin again with the year one.

“Mohammed Abdu, our Mufti, was here this afternoon. And to him I read Herbert Spencer’s letter, which immensely interested him, and afterwards described to him my poem. He considers Spencer the first of living philosophers, and has translated his book on Education into Arabic. I also explained to his brother Hamouda my views of the rights of animals, which was one absolutely new to him. Though on reflection he said that it was strictly in accordance with the Koran and Moslem teaching, which enjoins respect to animals, and even to inanimate objects. So that it is forbidden wantonly to deface so much as a stone. In truth, it is Christianity that is really responsible for the brutal attitude of modern man towards animals. No other religion that can be called a religion tolerates it, but our Christian doctors have laid down the atrocious doctrine that beasts and birds were made solely for man’s use and pleasure, and that he has no duties towards them. It is only in the last hundred years that Europeans, having partly freed themselves from Christian teaching, have begun to take a humaner view. The doctrine of evolution has pushed it a bit forwarder, for though it has injured the cause of savage or coloured man as having equal rights with the white man, it has established our far away kinship with the beasts, which was formerly denied. So that there are a few amongst us who begin to doubt our right to bird and beast slaughter. My own view is that wild birds and beasts who do no harm to man have a right to be left in absolute peace. But that those whom we help to breed by giving them protection may fairly pay a certain tribute, just as our tame beasts are made to do, though the higher law would be to let all live. We argue these things nightly at dinner.

“_5th to 10th Jan._—We were occupied with a desert excursion to within sight of Ismalia on the Suez Canal and back, our furthermost point being a prominent dark brown rock, which stands some hundred feet above the plain overlooking the Bitter Lake. From this point we marched north north-west to the Sand-hills and the Wady Tumeylat. The following day, the 9th January, Anne and I made a long camel trot of six hours across the gravel plain, crossing Wady Jaffra to another conspicuous rock south of Belbeis, and so on the 10th back to Sheykh Obeyd. It was a pleasant excursion, but contains little worth recording.

“_10th Jan._—Mohammed Abdu was here to-day, and confirms to the full the accounts of Kitchener’s dealings with the Mahdi’s head as I gave it last summer in the ‘Daily News,’ especially as to Cromer’s disapproval of it and his dislike of Kitchener. We agreed that at last God’s Providence was moved to anger against these abominations, and that England’s Empire would go the way of all the rest.

“There is a letter in the ‘Times’ just come which I think caps everything yet written for absurd bombast. Its author is old Reid, the naval constructor, a former Gladstonian Radical, and still M.P. It shows to what a pass of self-glorification we English have come, for the Radicals are worse now than the extremest Tories, and I have had to write home to tell them to cease sending me the ‘Daily Chronicle’ and the ‘Manchester Guardian,’ and replace them with the ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Morning Post.’ The only London paper that speaks a word of sense is the ‘Westminster Gazette.’ Here is the concluding paragraph:

“‘May I add, Sir, that my thoughts search history in vain for any spectacle of national heroism greater than, or equal to, that which Great Britain and her truly noble colonies are presenting to the world at this moment. The crafty and foreigner-aided enemy lies in our territory and across our path, with shell guns on every available hill, and trenches dug between; with barbed wire stretched to protect their cunningly devised lairs, and cover spread to conceal their more or less rebellious persons. Their power to deal out death and mutilation is their delight; their skill in doing so is their pride; and it is known that the flag which they most hate is the Union Jack, the very symbol of freedom and equality throughout the world. They have done their level and their unlevel best to slay our men and lower our flag on our own soil. They are difficult to tackle, for they fight lurking, and fly alike from cold steel and the open field. All that human heroism combined with animal cunning can perform they will do against us, and they will add to these such prayers as even ignoble lips oft dare to address to the God of battles. But have they alarmed us? Have they “frightened the isle from its propriety?” Have they detached one colony from the motherland? Have they caused young or old, citizen or noble, poor or rich, small or great, worldling or worshipful, in any part of this Imperial Realm to shrink or hold back from the encounters, however deadly, to which they have challenged us? No, Sir, there has sprung from every part of the Empire a flame of patriotism and of heroism so high that the whole world is, so to speak, alight with it, and, depend upon it, while we rejoice, the world wonders and admires.’”[22]

N.B. The total Boer population thus described as menacing the British Empire, with its 200,000,000 souls, is exactly that of Brighton.

“_15th Jan._—I have been reading Mivart’s article on the ‘Continuity of Catholicism,’ which has raised a tempest against him. It is certainly the most daring declaration ever made _in articulo mortis_, for poor Mivart is, I believe, dying. If, forty years ago, I had found a Catholic writer equally bold, I should have been saved from much infidelity, but now it is too late. Mivart is clinging desperately to his faith, but it is at bottom an impossible thing to reconcile science with any form of Christianity.

“_21st Jan._—A letter in verse about ‘Satan Absolved,’ from Sir Wilfrid Lawson, which is bad verse but amusing:

Brayton, 9th Jan. 1900

Your work on the Devil, dear Blunt, I have read.

What a curious fancy to enter your head!

The World, I admit, is as bad as can be;

But how _he_’ll make it better I scarcely can see.

I fancy if matters were right understood

There’s a Spirit of bad and a spirit of good,

They’re continually fighting in battle array

Each pulling like mad in a different way,

The one is Jehovah, Jove, Lord, Names like these,

The other is the Devil as bad as you please.

Then between these two powers comes man on the scene,

Where he comes from there’s no one can tell us, I ween;

But still here he is with a body and soul

Designed, I imagine, for filling some rôle.

His rudder is conscience by which he should steer,

But at present it seems to be quite out of gear.

But come, my dear Blunt, do not let us despair.

Even yet we may make something of him with care,

At present he is—you and I never flatter—

At present he is just as mad as a hatter.

His brain has undoubtedly met with a shock,

Which has sent him through Africa running amock.

The nobility, gentry, and clergy of course,

His madness by all in their power enforce,

And all in this country are cutting their capers

At the murders recorded each day in the papers.

Well, in trying my best to hunt these matters out

That the Devil is in it I haven’t a doubt

Well, I will resist him, as long as I can,

And so do my best to emancipate man.

Some good yet we may see when there comes to the front

The excellent doctrine of Lawson and Blunt.

“_28th Jan. (Sunday)._—A long talk with Mohammed Abdu on the whole subject of mankind and the dealings of the strong with the weak. I find he is as pessimistic as myself. He has been reading the _Towra_, the Old Testament Pentateuch, lately, and attributes the brutalities of Christianity largely to its connection with Judaism. As to the treatment of dumb animals he quoted to me several of the _Hawadith_ enjoining kindness, and it is certain that wanton destruction of these is contrary to the sentiment of Moslems. Wanton destruction is indeed peculiar to Christendom. Abdu believes in no good future for the human race, and I fear he has as little faith in Islam, Grand Mufti though he be, as I have in the Catholic Church.

“Buller has had another reverse before Ladysmith at Spion Kop. This time it is General Warren who has suffered defeat. I am glad of it. It was he that hanged the Bedouins for the Palmer affair after Tel-el-Kebir. I have written to Leonard Courtney to say I will join the ‘Stop the War Committee,’ and am sending £50. This though with some qualms of conscience, for if the war goes on another six months it really may smash up the British Empire.

“My once dearest friend Lothian is dead. What a grief this would have been to me five-and-thirty years ago! He was the lightest of all light- hearted companions, yet serious too. We made our storm and stress together at Frankfort when Darwinism was a novelty, and solved the riddle of the universe together gazing at the stars. We have gone different roads since then. He to lead an uneventful life of high and various dignities in Scotland, I to adventure in what devious ways. It is only casually that we have met for years.

“_29th Jan._—I have written the following in answer to one who had criticized my ‘Satan Absolved’ on the ground that though splendid if intended as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of Christianity, it stopped short of accepting Nietsche’s doctrine of Force. ‘Of course the poem was a _reductio ad absurdum_. The thing that seemed to me supremely in need of being shown ridiculous was the worship of humanity in any form. I am not a disciple of Tolstoy. He believes in the possibility of improvement, in moral progress, and in a far away Christian civilization. I do not. At the same time I do not mock at Christian ideals. If Man were not the ludicrous, vicious ape he is, but were capable of being converted to a quiet, harmless life without thought for the morrow—or ambition or desire more than to praise God and enjoy himself in the sun like the lilies of the field, the world would be a very happy place, as it was before Man came to disturb it. But of course this will never come to pass. It never even really began. That, however, is no reason for adoring as you say you do Force even tempered by Fraud. There is nothing in the smallest degree admirable in either. If it is true that your worship of Force is to be the creed of the future, and very likely it will be so, it is only another proof of the innate vulgarity of man. Nietsche is an ass. The law of the strongest, as we see it in Modern Civilization, is not the law of Nature, only the law of _human_ nature, which is a very different thing. The oak tree does not monopolize the forest, nor are the flowers which grow there trash. If Nietsche had been as many years as I have in the East he would not talk of the Christian ideal as being a creed of a slave for slaves. He would know it was far more truly the creed of the dervish, of the poor, happy vagrant who scorns property and scorns what we Europeans absurdly call the “dignity of labour,” and who is as free as the birds of the air. It needs Oriental experience to understand this. The place for European civilization is the Paris boulevard; south of the Mediterranean a white skin is only a form of leprosy, and from an æsthetic point of view you might as well plant the New Forest with cabbages as have anything to do with applying the doctrine of Force to the world at large.’

“Mivart has been formally excommunicated by Cardinal Vaughan. It seems to me that if Catholics are really called upon to believe that the first man was the Adam of the Garden of Eden, and that all the books of the Old and New Testaments not merely ‘contain Revelation with no admixture of error,’ but were also ‘written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and have God for their Author,’ we may abandon the idea of any possible reconciliation between religion and science. Of course one knew the thing was hopeless, but still there were many Catholics, even priests, who pretended it was not.

“I have had several more talks with Mohammed Abdu. He tells me that several of the high English officials here make money in illicit ways. He is, however, as little in favour of internationalizing Egypt as I am, for that would merely be to exchange one wolf for a pack of wolves. He is bitter against Cromer, whom otherwise he likes, for having established nothing that can survive of indigenous Government when the English Occupation ends—nothing, that is, that can be counted on to work on Liberal and honest lines. There has been a general proscription of the patriotic and enlightened element in the country, and the men pushed forward have been those who had least self-respect and could most surely be counted on for their pliancy.

“_5th Feb._—Parliament has met, and the Queen’s Speech has been telegraphed. Pharaoh has hardened her heart, and declares that she will carry the war on to a successful end. Buller has, however, clearly been badly beaten again at Spion Kop and Ladysmith must fall. The famine in India is a new ‘judgment of God’ upon the Empire, and, just as in old times, the stress of the punishment falls on the innocent. There are three and a half millions of people now on daily relief. Yet I suppose not a single official of all that have fattened upon India will forgo a third of his income—or a fourth or a tenth part of it to feed the people—this although they are subscribing and making the natives subscribe to the South African War. It is the ‘divine mission’ we are carrying out of making the world happy!

“Osman Digna has been captured at last and brought in chains to Cairo. ‘A large crowd pressed forward eager to see the dark, long face, brilliant eyes, large mouth, and long grey beard, of a frightened and dignified old man who sat with chains round his sore ankles and swollen, bare feet.’ I quote ‘Our own correspondent.’ This is how the British Empire makes its ‘Roman holiday’! But the hour of vengeance is, I hope, now very near.

“_8th Feb._—George Wyndham has made a very able speech in defence of the War Office and his political fortune is made. I am glad of this, though his principles in politics have been up to now abominable. He is no Philistine at heart, and will be sobered both by the defeat of his policy and his personal success, and may end as a great and large-minded statesman. He was wise enough to confine his speech strictly to the War Office, and did not attempt to explain the policy of the war: being a subordinate of very short standing in the Government he will not be held responsible, and people will only see in him what they most appreciate, a very clever parliamentarian defending a bad party cause in the best possible way. The only speech that was sound on the Opposition side was Sir Robert Reed’s, which stated the whole case against the war fully and fairly.

“_14th Feb._—I have written as follows to John Dillon in honour of the reunion of the Irish Parliamentary Party:

Sheykh Obeyd, _Feb. 14_, 1900.

“DEAR DILLON,

“I write to congratulate you and the rest of my old friends of the Irish Parliamentary Party on the reunion of the Party, and your resolution to be once more independent of English ones. You know that for the last ten years I have held aloof from politics and have been mute about Ireland. But I cannot help saying now how much I sympathize with you all. The moment certainly has come for a new departure—for Ireland’s one chance lies in the check given to our English plan of a world-wide Empire which has been accepted equally by both parties and which leaves no room anywhere for Nationalism. I think, too, that the iniquity of the war we are carrying on in South Africa, and which both Parties almost equally approve, should make it intolerable for an honest man to remain any longer allied with either. I don’t know which is the more despicable, the boasting Tory who made the war openly for the fun of the thing and to fill his pockets, or the Radical, who has allowed himself to be persuaded that he might bully the Boers cheaply and in accordance with Liberal principles. At any rate I am glad to see Ireland free from both of them. There was always to my mind a certain danger to her high ideal in her connection, however temporary, with our ambitions. Imperialism is very contagious, and Scotch, as well as English Radicalism, has been entirely perverted by it. I have often thought that the ‘union of hearts’ we talked so much about in 1887 might, if it had become a reality, have only led to the perversion of Ireland too. It is best as it is—at least until we English are humbled to entire sanity.

“I shall be glad if you will show this letter to Harrington and Healy and Redmond, as well as to Davitt and O’Brien, as I intend it equally for all. It is a great pleasure to me to be able to think of you fighting once more well together for Liberty as in the days of our old campaign.”

“_15th Feb._—Cockerell arrived last night from London very keen for sight-seeing, and to-day Evelyn also came; he is strong for stopping the war, and also approves of my letter to Dillon.

“Mohammed Abdu was here in the afternoon and told me the true story of the military trouble at Khartoum. Kitchener has long been hated by the Egyptian Officers, whom he has throughout ill-treated, allowing the English Officers to behave arrogantly to them, and paying no attention to their complaints. The Egyptian troops have been made to do all the hard work, and have been given no credit, while the black troops have been petted and spoiled. When things began to go badly at the Cape Kitchener got alarmed, and tried to prevent any news of the English defeats reaching the Soudan, but he could not hinder it leaking through. Then fearing a revolt he ordered the ammunition to be taken away on the pretence that it was old and would be renewed, but the Soudanese regiments refused to give up the old till the new was supplied; the Egyptian Officers were suspected of encouraging the refusal and some were arrested. In the middle of it all Kitchener was recalled to go to South Africa, and the thing was patched up by Wingate who is less unpopular, though it is not wholly settled yet. Abdu tells me that the idea now is in the event of the Egyptian Question being brought on by the European Powers to call in Turkish troops to replace our English garrison. This would be a lesser evil than the advent of French or Italian troops, which would only mean the Internationalization of Egypt. Mohammed Abdu knows that it has been talked over among the Ministers and with Lord Cromer. I am inclined to hope that it may really end thus for there seems to be no chance of a simple evacuation in favour of a native Egyptian Government. Abdu has a good opinion of Cromer personally. But says there are a number of shady things done by his subordinates.

“_16th Feb._—Buller’s third attack on the Boers and his attempt to cross the Tugela has failed as abjectly as the other two, and we may hear any day now of the fall of Ladysmith; a final attempt I fancy to capture a victory in view of the vote in Parliament for which it has served its purpose, though later it turned into a defeat.

“_17th Feb._—To Cairo with Cockerell. The first time I have been there this winter, after seventy-four days at Sheykh Obeyd, so that I felt strange and naked in European clothes. On the road we met Prince Aziz who talked with much intelligence about the management of his property. These Khedivial Princes are all of them shrewd men of business. He also gave us news of the relief of Kimberley, a telegram having come last night. This will have the practical effect of putting that sad villain Rhodes once more on the scene of the world’s intrigues. I am sorry for it.

“I called on various necessary people, including Margaret Talbot in her new official house as the General’s Lady, and on Cromer, who talked to me for half an hour about Nile irrigation, the debts of the fellahin, the famine in India, and such administrative subjects as he talks best on. He is certainly a great man in his official way. We did not touch on any dangerous matters, nor allude in any sort to past differences. Personally I like him much. Amongst the plans he discussed with me was one in connection with the National Bank of advancing small sums of £5 and £10 to the fellahin at 9 per cent., to enable them to get out of the hands of the Greek usurers, who charge them thirty and forty per cent. This is precisely the scheme the Nationalists of 1881 had, and its adoption by Cromer is another proof of the foresight of those poor patriots whom we cannoned into silence. With the single exception of constitutional government, I believe every article now of the National Programme has been adopted by us.

“_24th Feb._—The MacDonalds and Irene, and her brother are gone to Greece, after staying here three months. She is an attractive child, clever and pretty—and her brother, Byron, interesting, because quite uneducated, with a good heart and much sense. Young Ward was here yesterday, who is acting as correspondent to the ‘Times.’ He gave us news that Roberts, having raised the siege of Kimberley, has now got Kranje’s army in such a position that it seems likely to surrender. This is important, and I fear will rehabilitate Chamberlain and the Rhodes gang. Lady Lytton writes to me after her waiting at Osborne: ‘I enjoyed my three quiet weeks at Osborne, and the Queen is such a splendid example of wisdom over the war and all the sorrow and things that follow from it, and she always judges rightly without too much emotion. . . . You say you wish they would stop the fighting. Every one wishes it also, but we must get to Pretoria first, and be able to get equal justice for all our people there, and for which reason the war has been brought on England, and it will be a very long business of years—so let us try and be patient, and good will come out of it in the end. The spirit of wishing to help is quite splendid everywhere in England, and the soldiers must be allowed to do better than they have done as yet before they stop fighting.’ This no doubt is her Majesty’s sentiment. Milner who arranged the ‘equal justice’ _casus belli_ will now doubtless get his peerage. Sibell writes in the same strain about the unselfishness of the war, and the noble qualities of all concerned. One might think it was a crusade, instead of being the Stock Exchange swindle it is. The art of governing the world has become the art of deceiving, not only the people, but if possible one’s own high-minded conscience.

“_1st March._—I went into Cairo with Cockerell, and learned the relief of Ladysmith. Kronje capitulated a few days ago at Paardeburg, and the Boer army has evacuated Natal, and seems to be concentrating for a final stand on the Drakensburg line. One thing is satisfactory in it, the release of Guy Wyndham from his captivity. There have been debates in the House of Commons about Chamberlain’s part of the Raid. He now says that his white-washing of Rhodes after the Committee Report only concerned Rhodes’ money transactions. I remember George telling me at the time (and he was in the thick of the plot) that they had played a trick on the opposition in getting Harcourt and the rest of them to agree to the Report on an understanding that Rhodes was to be thrown over, and also, if I remember rightly, in forcing Chamberlain’s hand to support Rhodes. This one thing is certain, Rhodes remained, and is still a Privy Councillor.

“_5th March._—I have been very busy getting ready for our long intended pilgrimage to Mount Sinai. Anne is unable to go as Judith has written hurrying her departure for the expected baby, but Cockerell goes with me and my nurse, Miss Lawrence. We are to start on the 7th, and take steamer to Tor on the 8th, and be met there by our camels.

“_6th March._—Evelyn spent the day with us having come to Egypt with his daughters. He is in trouble having just received a telegram from his son to say that he has joined the Imperial Yeomanry and is going to South Africa. It is the smart thing to do just now, and all the world is mad for fighting.

“_7th March._—To Suez by train, a hot, disagreeable journey, and put up at the ‘Bel Air,’ next the station. Suez full of pilgrims, the streets crowded and gay.

“_8th March._—Occupied in taking our places by the Khedivial steamer for Tor, and getting passports for Suliman and Hassan at the Moudirieh. The people there very friendly, as the Governor was formerly an Arabist and the Katib had been secretary to Mahmoud Fehmy. The place was being besieged by pilgrims come for their passports, which cost them 150 piastres, to the Hedjaz. In the afternoon went on board the _Chibine_ with the agent Beyts, whom I remember twenty years ago at Jeddah, where he had a house of business with one Wild. He did what he could to make us comfortable, but the _Chibine_ is crowded with pilgrims, 350 of them, they say.

“_9th March._—I went to my berth early and woke about half-past one, and opened the cabin window as it was very hot below, and so was lying awake thinking over the lapse of years since I was last at Mount Sinai and the poor issue of our short lives, when I felt as it were a blow received by the vessel, and immediately after a second blow. At the first moment I thought it was an earthquake shock—we had had one last Tuesday at Sheykh Obeyd—and called out to Cockerell, who shared my cabin, to that effect; but looking out of the window I saw a line of breakers close before us on the port side, and the ship began to be knocked about by the waves. It was very dark, but the breakers were plain enough, and I said to Cockerell, ‘No. We are on a Coral Reef.’ I had not undressed and had nothing but my shoes to put on to be ready for all events. And I went to Miss Lawrence’s cabin and told her to get up and dress as we were aground. Then on Cockerell’s confirming what had happened I went on the upper deck where Suliman and Hassan were, and got the life-belt I always carry out of the bullock trunk in which it was and put it on Miss Lawrence. She was not at all frightened, nor indeed was anybody else as far as I know—though the Pilgrims began reciting their prayers aloud. The wind was blowing pretty strong, and I could make out the line of the shore not far off and the breakers, though the night was dark. There did not seem to be any immediate danger, but we prepared ourselves for whatever might happen, and in the darkness, of course, there was room to imagine the worst. I did not stay long, however, on deck, but after some talk with Suliman went below and lay down again, for it was clear there was nothing to be done till daylight. I had looked at my watch as soon as the vessel struck, and found it was seven minutes past three. Cockerell and Miss Lawrence stayed on deck, I believe, till morning. After a bit I got to sleep again, for the ship was steady enough, and there was nothing very tragic in the appearance of things.

“By daylight we were able to make out where we were. Suliman thought at first the hills in front of us were the Hamam Faraoun. But later we made out Serbal and the mouth of Wady Feiran, so it is now agreed that we are ashore north of Ras Jehan. The Captain, Ross, did not seem to know much about it. He told us he had only left the deck ten minutes when the thing happened. [This turned out afterwards to have been quite untrue. He had come on board late, having been at some entertainment at Suez, and gone to bed early without giving any proper instructions as to the course. No watch was kept, and we drove straight on a coral reef, without so much as slackening speed or with a cry of breakers ahead!] We must be clear eight miles out of our course, and it looks like bad seamanship. Here we are, anyhow, stuck fast on a line of sand banks (they proved to be a reef about a mile from the shore) and with small chance of getting off to-day or any other day. The steamer is miserably ill supplied with boats, and still more miserably with seamen, there are only four boats capable of taking off at most a dozen passengers each, and of these one is already lost. They launched it, the Captain says, in order to put out a hawser for an anchor to windward, but it was swamped by a breaker, and at least one man has been drowned. I saw another holding on to the hawser for some minutes, and we thought he would be swept away too, but at last he got hold of a rope and hitched it round him, and was pulled up the ship side, but it was a near shave. The boat drifted away, and is now on the sandbank (reef) bottom upwards, and five lifebuoys, which were thrown to the drowning men, are drifting on shore. The captain asked me about the nature of the country on which we had run, the shore of the Sinai peninsula, and I offered to let my Bedouin, Suliman, go in a boat if they could put him safely on shore when the wind drops; he would then take a message to Tor, which is not more than forty miles away, asking help. Suliman, however, is very unwilling to go, now that he has seen the _feluca_ swamped and the man drowned, nor will I let him attempt it until the wind goes down. [It was Suliman’s first experience of being at sea, and, like most Bedouins, he was frightened at being off his own element.] Should it become calm I shall propose that we are all sent on shore here with our baggage, as we are the only passengers for Tor, and we have provisions enough with us for a fortnight. I am writing this at 9.45 a.m.