Chapter XV: Last Year of the Nineteenth Century (2)

“1.30 p.m.—Things look worse than they did. The tide going down has shown that we are on a coral reef, which may be half a mile in width, with, perhaps, three miles of comparatively still water beyond it to the shore. Also the wind has become stronger, and, though the waves do not break over the deck, we are beginning to heel over in rather an alarming way. I finished Tolstoy’s ‘Resurrection’ this morning. It is a most depressing book, and makes one as willing as one can easily be to leave a life so miserable as Tolstoy shows it. I don’t know which is the more hopeless, the picture of polite society _en décomposition_, or that of his convicts and political prisoners who find a dreary satisfaction in helping each other in ways which human nature cannot really be satisfied with. All the same, one clings a bit to life. There is a certain physical menace in death which it is ill to face, and I feel it more strongly this afternoon than I did last night when the danger was vaguer and newer. The poor man drowned has saddened us, and made the danger seem more real, but as yet we have not even begun to feel discomfort. No water has reached the cabins, or even the decks, except now and then the spray of a wave, and the sun is shining brightly, and we are surrounded by flights of happy seagulls. The shore is romantic and beautiful between Serbal, in front to the north-east and Ghareb to the south-west, both mountains which I love and on which I could be content to die. It is the physical repulsion that one has, that of being knocked to pieces on the reef, or drowned in one’s cabin. Two ships have been sighted far off, but they took no notice of our signals, and we are fully ten miles away from the usual Red Sea course. My own only satisfaction is to think Anne did not come with us. She has a terror of water, though of nothing else, and would have been unhappy. Both Cockerell and Miss Lawrence are cheerful and undisturbed; indeed, every one is behaving well. We are all three sitting on the upper deck now, on a carpet with one of the pilgrims next us, a man from Mitgamr. At every blow of a wave which shakes the ship he ejaculates, ‘Ya robb! Ya róbbina’! (From God are all things. Yes, all. Our Lord is merciful. Ya, Robb!) Below there is an old lady who puts her head out of the cabin and calls to her son, ‘Ya, Yusuf! Ya, Yusuf!’ The rest are devout and quiet, and there is none of the affectation of merriment one would see under like circumstances on board a P. and O.

“_10th March (Friday)._ [N.B. This part of my Diary is splashed with sea water, but still legible.] We have had a very bad night and things this morning look almost hopeless. With the rise of the tide at sunset the wind increased in violence, blowing still from the north-west, and the waves swept the upper deck. I went up to try and persuade Suliman and Hassan to come below, but they would not move. The whole night through the ship was banged upon the reef—raised by each wave, and let down with a thundering bang upon her keel, which prevented much sleeping. At times it seemed as if she must break her back. At midnight it was quieter, but it is worse than ever this morning, and the ship has settled lower into the water. There is only one comfort, she is now wholly aground, and cannot sink lower. It depends all on the wind. If it goes on like this for another night she will break up, and there is no chance of a rescue. There are practically no boats and no sailors. The captain would not risk trying to land the passengers except in a calm. Even the arrival of another ship would be of no use, as we could not be got off. If the wind does not fall, it will not be our pilgrims’ fault, for they pray strenuously, with a fine male devotion. The women have been drilled to silence, or at any rate to pray instead of complaining, even the little boys shout, ‘Alláhu Akbar. Ya latif’! and the women add prayers to Seyd el Bédawi of Tantah. For my own part I say my usual prayers to the dead and to St. Winifred, who may help me, as she did three years ago, a superstition which quiets the mind. I have been reading the Gospels, too, in an edition Cockerell got me for our journey to Sinai, parts of Mathew, Mark, and Luke, the doctrinal parts of which are splendid, and as little like our English nineteenth-century Christianity as it is possible to conceive. How foolish my Nietsche correspondent’s talk about it is. The water is coming into the cabin, so I must leave off. Miss Lawrence has been altogether admirable through all this, doing her duty to me as a nurse just as if at home, and cheerful and courageous as I never saw anyone. I have just been on deck and got wet through. It has made me feel more indifferent to what may happen, and I contemplate the water filling up the cabin and drowning us without much repugnance. It is the getting wet that one really dislikes. It is now 7.30 a.m., and we hope the wind is lulling, otherwise our prospects are poor.

“11 a.m.—Though things remain precisely as yesterday, and with rather less chance of a good issue, for the wind blows as hard as ever, everybody on board has settled down to the situation. There are no more querulous plaints of the women, and the prayers are less incessant. The children are playing merrily in the saloon, the little boy pretending to bastinado the little girl on the soles of her feet, and there is a group of women on the ground gossiping as if at market. This, I suppose, is in all human nature. People go about their affairs, however much there may be an earthquake or any other catastrophe impending. I have settled down to a novel, which I brought with me in case of accidents causing delay anywhere. There is no sign yet of succour from any quarter, and I expect to-night will be critical. The thumping and banging on the reef goes on, and all of our cabins are in a leaky state at the portholes; fortunately the ship stands pretty steady on her keel, with only a slight list to port. This has kept us fairly dry, though on the main deck the pilgrims must be suffering terribly. There has been no cooking done to-day, as the fires are out. Also salt water has got into the fresh water tanks, and we may be soon short of water to drink.

“Later. In the afternoon, at Cockerell’s suggestion, we moved our quarters from the after-cabin, which is being much battered by the sea, to the upper platform in the centre of the ship. There we are sheltered by a bit of awning from the wind and spray, and the waves do not wash quite so high. Suliman had already established himself there, and it is pleasant to have our little camp with him altogether as if we were in the desert. The sight of the waves breaking over the reef is interesting, and there are seagulls to watch and floating seaweed, and one can mark the variations in strength of the wind; the centre of the ship, too, is free from the thumping of the stern, and we have a feeling here that even if she breaks in two, the fore half where we are would remain firm on the reef. Nor is it a small advantage to be free from the incessant prayers of the rich pilgrims in the cabin, who shout in chorus all day long, and of the children who, in imitation of them, make treble invocations of their own. In the forecastle, which we overlook, the pilgrims, mostly Persians, confine themselves to an ‘Alahu Akbar,’ when any specially big wave breaks over them. There is one of them stationed on purpose to look out for the big waves and announce their coming. Here we are settling ourselves for the night.

“_11th March._—The sunset last night was less yellow than the day had been, for there had been a thick haze, and the stars and the moon came out, but the wind blew all night as hard as ever, the waves running up to within a couple of feet of our platform, making one wonder whether the afterpart of the ship had not been carried away. We made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit under our awning, and I took a little dose of morphia to keep me warm through the night. I had got wet through in my European clothes, and have now got on my Arab things, and so dozed through the night, trying to fancy myself in Jendali or on Kalala. Miss Lawrence and Cockerell too, none of us in much comfort, for we could not lie down. Still things might have been worse, and we were able to keep dry, and the wind is not a cold one. The pilgrims, among whom we are now established, began by being not quite friendly, one or two thought I was masquerading as a pilgrim, and asked me why I wore the _akhram_, and whether I had a passport from Constantinople, nor could I altogether satisfy them, as they did not understand Arabic, being mostly Turks or Bokharists. But the feeling amongst them has quite changed now. This is owing to my having taken their side against the captain, and decided him at last to send off a boat to the shore. [The captain, since the ship had struck, had shut himself up almost entirely in his cabin, refusing to do anything or take any measures.] The pilgrims had insisted upon his sending off a boat, and had come to the cabin door in a body, under the leadership of an old sea-captain, a Moslem from the Caspian, a rugged fellow in an Astrakhan cap, who declared he could easily steer a boat on shore at high tide across the reef, and so carry the news of our shipwreck to Tor. This seemed to me a sensible plan; and I went with them to the cabin, and got the captain to consent, though there was a difficulty in finding men to man the boat, as all the ship’s crew (there were only five of them), odd men picked up at Suez, were frightened at the drowning of the sailor on Thursday, and I volunteered myself, if necessary, to go, and with me Suliman to run on with the news to Tor; and Cockerell also would have gone and Miss Lawrence, but there was no boat large enough for us all, and at last it was decided that Suliman alone should go, with five of the ship’s crew. He was very unwilling, as he is terribly afraid of the sea, but I persuaded him there was really no great danger. He bid me a solemn farewell, taking off most of his clothes and handing over to me his money and his passport. Then the ship’s crew would have nothing to do with the Caspian sea-dog as their commander, and at one time the whole plan seemed as if it would break down, for Captain Ross was without resource or power of command. At last, however, just on the turn of the high tide, they got the boat launched and across the reef, and so to the shore in safety. We were able to watch them till they landed. So Suliman at least is out of danger, and may bring us help from Tor. The boat was the last one left, as one was lost on Thursday, and the two others were destroyed last night by the sea. Some of the ship’s company are making a raft, in case things come to the worst. Except the lack of drinking water, however, I don’t think there is much immediate danger, as the wind has moderated and the sky has become clear. The difficulty is that there is no means now of getting the pilgrims on shore, even if it is calm, as we have not a boat left, and are without water. We ourselves fortunately have with us three quart bottles of water, which are still intact, and a large number of oranges, but unless help comes to-morrow or next day, it will fare badly with all of us. One of the pilgrims, though very amiable to us, has told me the captain’s throat ought to be cut. They all think he is hiding water, though that is not the case. There never was a ship, however, sent to sea worse found, or with a more incapable captain.

“We have made special friends with two of the pilgrims, Russian subjects, one a Tartar, living at St. Petersburgh, formerly an Alem of Bokhara, who has spoken to me in high praise of Sheykh Jemal el Din. He is a very superior man, in a snuff-coloured robe. The other, a Mongol from the Crimea, who has been a student for the last fourteen years at the Azhar at Cairo. This one is a thick-set heavy man of the true Chinese type, or rather of the Mongol type, from which Chinamen derive their features. These have taken up their quarters next to us, and they are very polite to us—with them most of their friends. We have distributed a few of our oranges among them; all complain of thirst. The most interesting of all, however, is an Arab from Medina, a _Muhajjer_ who affects the character of a wely. He is the most beautiful human being I ever saw, going bareheaded, with an immense shock of black hair in ringlets; his face is very dark, and brilliant as a hawk’s, his teeth splendidly white, and his eyes of womanish, gazelle-like lustre. His beard, too, like his hair, is a whole mass of ringlets, and his hands and feet are of perfect form. With all he is kindly and friendly, with a peculiar, inconsequent way, as becomes a saint. [He was fantastically dressed when he came on board, with gorgeous muslin robes, but these got soon draggled with the sea water, without thereby affecting his gay spirits or pleasant smile. He would go about from one to other of the pilgrims with a pleasant word to each, and gave away at once the oranges we gave him. His exact position in life, except that he was a _Muhajjer_, I never ascertained, but he invited me cordially to his house if I visited Medina, and was especially polite to all of us. Most of those that I have mentioned talked Arabic, but many knew no word of it, having come from distant parts of Asia.] They are evidently good, pious people, and it is a relief to find ourselves among them at a solemn moment like the present, when we have death, so to say, staring us in the face, and away from the few ungodly Englishmen who frequent the bar of the first class cabin. I never marked the contrast more, and it consoles me not a little for the rest.

“Miss Lawrence is wonderful in her simple courage and good sense. She makes us all as comfortable as the small space we have will admit, and has not said a complaining word. When I said to her half in fun, ‘Your poor patient has almost come to the end of his tether,’ she answered simply, ‘I cannot think we shall be drowned. God would not allow all these good people who call on him to perish.’ Cockerell, too, is full of help. He has made friends with a young Belgian and a young English accountant, who are better than the rest, and gathers a deal of information about all that is going on.

“It came on blowing terribly again in the afternoon, and the sea has put on the pale green look it has in the northern seas—each wave capped with foam. The waves are pouring over the lower decks, and the ship is sinking a bit in her bed. A great ship was seen just at sunset, and wild hopes were indulged. The sailors hoisted a torch at the mast-head, but the vessel was too far away and soon disappeared. Nor could she have helped us had she come to us for no captain would put out a boat in such a sea. Notwithstanding all this we under our awning on the bridge have passed (_12th March_) a not quite uncomfortable night. Only one woke every few minutes with a start, and thoughts forced themselves on one’s mind of things beyond the world. There were signs of lightning in the hills in the direction of Mount Sinai, and one seemed to see in them God’s anger in his dwelling place, perhaps at one’s impiety at seeking to set foot on it, and for the attitude I have taken of having complained of his dereliction of his duty and neglect of the World and Man. Towards morning just in front of us stood the Scorpion, for the sky was clear, and it reminded me of many things. It was then that Miss Lawrence used the words that I have recorded. This is the worst night that we have passed, and there seems little left to hope.

“_12th March._—Our fourth day on the reef, which is whiter than ever with foam—the wind stronger and the waves higher. The cabins aft are flooded, and the people are leaving them, and crowding on to the bridge. Nevertheless there is a more cheerful feeling, for at eight o’clock a vessel approached which was recognized as one of the Khedivial Line Steamers, the _Misr_, evidently sent out to look for us. We could not, however, communicate with her, as there is no system of signalling on board, and the sea is far too big for them to launch a boat; they have therefore gone back in the direction of Tor, waiting we suppose for the wind to moderate. This gives us something to hope for, and all agree that the gale cannot last much longer, and that the ship is too fast on the reef to be in immediate danger—only that the pilgrims are in straits for water, and I hear that a woman and child have died. The stewards, meanwhile (for the government of the vessel and the administration of the supplies are abominable) are selling soda at exorbitant prices to the richer people. We dare not give away our water yet, as it would be drunk up at once, but we give oranges. Personally I have not drunk a tumbler of water in the last three days and have eaten nothing but half- a-dozen oranges. The morphia I have taken does away with both thirst and hunger, there is much dampness too in the air, and the pilgrims I think suffer much less from thirst itself than the thought of it, knowing there is no water. Most of them come from the northern countries where water abounds, and the thought of being without it frightens them, as it does not frighten the Arabs. They make very little complaint, however, considering how hardly they are treated. I go on writing my journal and reading and dozing between times. The sun is shining brilliantly, and we are not so uncomfortable for the waves do not reach us, and the spray here and on the forecastle is not very wetting. It is at night that the gloomy thoughts come.

“There is a Greek boatswain or second officer who tells me that he has been eight times wrecked, and twice in this same _Chibine_. ‘If I get safe on shore this time,’ he said, ‘I go to sea no more. I sell oranges for a living, it is better.’ He is certainly right. They have finished two rafts, or rather punts, unseaworthy looking craft, which I should be loath to embark in. The thought of the Red Sea sharks has been, I fancy, with all of us, though we say nothing about it. The still water inside the reef must be full of them—here it is too rough, and there is only drifting seaweed and a multitude of gulls.

“Later. The weather shows signs of improvement, though the sea is as high as ever, and the wind is hardly less, but the sky is clearing, and the line of hills on the west coast is beginning to show again. We can see Ghareb and the rest. I feel confident the wind will fall at sunset. And the _Misr_ should return and take us off to-morrow—but everything depends upon the fall of the wind.

“Evening. Our troubles, I hope, are over. At 4 p.m., behold as a _coup de théatre_, H.M.S. _Hebe_, a gunboat, arriving from Suez to our rescue. The sea was still very heavy, and the wind as strong as ever, but Commander Taylor in command of her, gallantly put off in a whale-boat, and has himself come on board our wreck. His arrival has relieved us entirely from our anxiety, for though he cannot land us to-night he is satisfied our ship is in no immediate danger of breaking up. He will return in the morning and take us all across the reef at high tide, if it is still rough, or directly to Tor if the wind has gone down. He is a good, clean-shaven, grey-eyed little British officer of the best type. To us personally he offered, if we wished, to take us all three off with him at once to-night, but as he seemed to think it would be rather a risk, especially with Miss Lawrence, we elected to stay on the wreck yet another night—and it is well we did—for the whale-boat as we could see it had a narrow shave of being capsized, and was unable to get taken on board the _Hebe_ on her return until the _Hebe_ had moved down a mile or two to leeward of the reef. What has caused Taylor coming is this. As long ago as Saturday the people at Suez became uneasy at getting no telegram about us from Tor, but imagined the _Chibine_ must have neglected to call there and gone on to Jeddah, then rumours came that something was wrong, and the _Misr_ was sent out to look for us, and later Cromer, having been referred to, ordered the _Hebe_ out. The _Hebe_ was to have looked for us on the West Coast of the Red Sea, but fortunately just as she was getting up steam our telegram, carried by Suliman and despatched from Tor, arrived, telling them where we were, otherwise they would have searched the Western Coast in vain, and might not have found us for some days. However, as our friend the Crimean pilgrim says, ‘El hamdu l’Illah’ (God has not forgotten his slaves). We are all congratulating each other now, and the pilgrims are showing their good-will to us, and thanks for having helped to get Suleyman sent ashore, in a number of agreeable ways.

“_13th March (Tuesday)._—Our last night on the wreck was a peaceful and a joyful one. At sunset the wind, as was expected, dropped—and it is now nearly a dead calm. I slept profoundly. With the first light we got our traps together, and distributed all our remaining provisions among the pilgrims who were ravenous for our oranges. These were rescued at last from the water which had been sweeping over them on the after deck. They had been well packed and were not much spoiled. The best of them went to our friends, Sheykh Abdul Hamid, and the gallant sea-dog of the Caspian, Suleyman Ismailoff of Astrakhan, the rest I took with Hassan in a bundle to the forecastle where they were eagerly grabbed for by the Persian pilgrims, especially the women. Here are the names of our chief friends on board, Sheikh Abdul Hamid of St. Petersburgh, one of the Ulema, and his friend, Suleyman Ali from Crimea, a Crim Tartar Student of the Azhar, Captain Suleyman Ismailoff of Astrakhan; our friend the _Muhajjer_, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, Mohammed Ali, aged nine, a gay boy who was the captain’s servant. Gilroy, an English accountant going to Jeddah, Dr. Edward Rist of the Sanitary Board of Alexandria (an Alsacian Frenchman, of whom we afterwards saw much).

“3 p.m. We are on board H.M.S. _Hebe_. At eight o’clock we were taken off among the first of those rescued by Captain Taylor, and are once more on the clean deck of a British man-of-war, feeling that after all the British Fleet has its beneficent uses and was intended for other things than only the bombardment of Eastern towns. Taylor tells me that but for the telegram sent by Suliman, we must have been several days longer on the reef—we might well have been overlooked till it was too late. All is ended now, however, and we can say ‘El hamdu l’Illah.’ In the course of the morning other ships arrived, and all the pilgrims having been taken from the wreck and placed on board them, they went on their way to Jeddah, while we returned to Suez on the _Hebe_.

“Names of the Officers of the _Hebe_ are: Commander Taylor, Lieutenant Frederick Loder Symonds, Lieutenant James Kirkness, Surgeon Herbert Gill, Chief Engineer George Pascoe.

“The officers of the _Hebe_ are an excellent set of men; they have entertained us all last night on board, feasting our hunger, and giving us stretchers for beds. Remembering the navy as I knew it forty years ago at Athens, these young officers seem to me superior in intelligence and manners to what they then were. The _Hebe_ is one of the new and highly scientific gunboats which require men of head and education to work them, and they took pleasure in explaining to us everything, more indeed than I did in listening, for machinery is the least interesting of novelties. We might have been taken on to Tor if we had wished it, but I decided against this, seeing the peril we had escaped, and I have a superstition against continuing a journey in face of a strong warning; indeed to me this is more than a warning. I see in it a menace forbidding me to approach the Holy Mountain. Perhaps another year I may return, but not now.

“In the early morning as we arrived at Suez I was awoke from sleep by a very terrible dream or imagination, for I was between waking and sleeping. The screws of the gunboat had been reversed, and there was a fearful vibration on board, so loud that it sounded like a storm. I thought that we had come to the head of the gulf to that place where Pharaoh and the Egyptians were overwhelmed in the sea, and that an immense wind had struck us from the west, so that the gunboat was being driven on to the eastern shore. It was a storm so terrible that nothing could live in it, and I knew that it had been sent by God, and I heard a voice saying: ‘There are no pilgrims here to save you again by their prayers,’ and I was terror struck and I made my profession of faith—‘La Allah ila Allah, wa Mohammed rasul Allah,’ nor was I relieved of my fear until I had looked out of the scuttle and seen the lights of Suez, and smooth water, and the Scorpion in a quite clear sky. [I think the extreme vividness of this dream was probably due to the morphia I had been taking during the wreck.] I remember Captain Taylor, whose cabin I was sharing, asking me what o’clock it was, and I told him a quarter to three. He was surprised at my knowing this when, having struck a match, he found that I was exactly right. I had calculated it by the stars in the Scorpion’s tail, which are an excellent clock at this time of year, but sailors have forgotten these old-fashioned observations of the stars.”

The next fortnight of my journal is defective. The excitement of the shipwreck over, I felt the effect of it, and was once more suffering in health. My last days in Egypt before returning to Europe were occupied in laying before Lord Cromer the circumstances of the pilgrim case, and urging him to take up the defence of these Moslems, whose safety had been so jeopardized by the disgraceful mismanagement of the Khedivial Government, the lack of all proper provision for them on board, and the incompetence of the captain. I also wrote a strong letter in the same sense to the “Times,” with the effect that a naval court of inquiry was appointed to be held at Suez on board H.M.S. _Halycon_. Consul Cameron presiding. This Court Cockerell and I and Dr. Rist attended, and we gave evidence with the result that on the 28th of March, the Court found against the Company, and Rist and I were publicly thanked for our “public spirited action,” while it eventually led to new regulations being issued with regard to the pilgrim traffic in the Red Sea, which to some extent alleviated the evils of the system so long pursued. All that I find of importance in my journal is the following account of my final visit to the Khedive.

“_2nd April._—To see the Khedive at Abdin, where I found Mohammed Abdu also waiting for an audience. He introduced me to Mohammed Pasha Shukri, the Khedive’s Turkish secretary, and other functionaries, all very amiable, as they had heard of the shipwreck and how I had brought the pilgrim case forward.

“Abbas received me with affection, and we had a most intimate and interesting conversation. It began about the pilgrim traffic, as to the better regulation of which he promised help. Then he went on to talk of his journey to the Western oasis. He told me that he had been extremely well received by the Senussia, and had found out everything he wanted to know about them. Their principle of conduct, he said, was to obey the law in all countries where they resided. In the Zaghwiyahs nothing was permitted to be done which could bring them into conflict with the Government. Although they imported arms and ammunition, largely from Egypt, these never passed through the Zaghwiyahs, but through individuals, generally poor men, so that if discovered it would not bring them discredit. In the Zaghwiyahs nothing compromising would be found. He assured me, however, that the Arabs of the Western tribes, all of whom belonged to the brotherhood, were well armed with Martini rifles; the brothers were very particular whom they would talk to; they would trust no Christian, and no Moslem who served a Christian, as, for instance, no Egyptian soldier, because the Sirdar and officers were Christians, also no Moslem who did not pray and openly show himself such. He was evidently much impressed by their strength and their organization, and by the instruction and high character of their leading men. All this seems to tally with what Mohammed Abdu told me lately of the Khedive’s having become ‘superstitious and opposing Liberal reform in the Azhar on the ground that he feared to lose the prayers of the old-fashioned faithful.’

“He then talked of his intended visit to England. I advised him to talk frankly to everybody, and promised to do what little I could personally to dispose people in his favour. Lastly, he told me Lord Cromer had spoken to him about allowing Arabi to return to Egypt, but he had a grief on this head against Lord Cromer, inasmuch as Cromer had refused to allow his grandfather, Ismaïl, to come back and die in Egypt. Ismaïl was suffering from cancer, and only asked to see Cairo before he died, but Cromer had refused, why then should he now come to him and say, ‘Let Arabi return.’ We stood together discussing this matter for some time, as I was going out, and it ended by his promising or half promising to grant Arabi’s pardon. Another farewell visit was to my old friend and neighbour, Sheykh Hassan Abu Tawil, now very near his end. I found him (_5th April_) like Job upon his bed, surrounded with comforters, a mere skeleton, too feeble to rise. I asked him whether he had had the doctor to see him, but he said ‘No, he preferred to be doctored by God,’ and this is probably best even scientifically. I told him the tale of our shipwreck, and he besought me to have a lamb slain for Sheykh Obeyd, and I promised him so to do, though I have a quarrel with our local saint for the little good he did me two years ago. I shall be grieved to lose old Hassan, for he is good, and much beloved by his tribes-people. We leave Sheykh Obeyd for Italy to-morrow.”

My journey home was made with Cockerell and Miss Lawrence, Lady Anne having preceded us, and at Brindisi I received a telegram from her, announcing the birth of a grandson. Another fellow-traveller was M. Cogordan, the French Minister at Cairo, a man of great intelligence and knowledge of art and archæology. We stopped the night at Ancona and several days at Florence, where we found Lady Paget and Lady Windsor, and where I made acquaintance with Mrs. Ross, Lady Duff Gordon’s daughter, who was so long in Egypt, as to which she had pleasant recollections of things that happened thirty and more years ago. Our next halting place was Lucca, which I had not visited since 1852, when, as a boy of eleven, I spent the summer at the Lucca Baths. I remember having been taken to see the Holy Coat, and of having beheld in the streets the Grand Duke and Duchess of Tuscany, with the fat grand ducal children, pass in their carriage in days before the invention of the Kingdom of Italy.

The next day I went with Cockerell to call on Ouida at her villa at S. Alessio, some three miles from Pisa. I had been in correspondence with her on literary matters, and took the opportunity of paying her a visit. “Our driver did not know the house or who we wanted, until he suggested ‘the lady with the many dogs.’ We said, ‘Oh, yes, the lady with the dogs,’ and so it was. Ouida’s house proved to be a nice old villa with a high garden wall and an eighteenth century iron gate, towards which from inside seven or eight dogs, poodles mostly and nondescripts, came at us, open-mouthed, when we rang. It was some time before we could make our ringing heard, and the bell was answered at last by a portly man-cook in cap and apron, who, after some further delay, on my sending in my card, admitted us. We were shown into the front hall, and there found the lady of the house seated at a small table, as one sees in the opening scene of a play, arranged apparently for the occasion. She was a little old lady, dressed in white, who rose to meet us and reprove her dogs, still yelping at us in chorus. A mild reproof it was, nor did it save us from their caresses. The largest poodle placed himself upon my knees, and another took my hat in his mouth. ‘They do not often bite,’ she explained, ‘except beggars.’ I had been prepared by the violence of her writings and anecdotes I had heard of her from Lady Paget and others, to find a person somewhat loud and masculine, but Ouida proved the reverse of this. In face she is much more French than English (her father, she told us, was French, M. de la Ramée, and her mother an Englishwoman), small featured, soft, and distinguished, with a high forehead, rather prominent blue eyes, dulled and watery with age, almost white hair, and that milk and roses complexion old people sometimes acquire, and which gives them a beatified look. It was difficult to believe her capable of such a malevolence as her novel, ‘Friendship.’ She can never have been a sensual woman, whatever passions she may have revelled in in her writings. Her conversation is good, intellectual, without being affected, or the talk of a blue stocking. It gives you the impression of a woman who has thought out her ideas, and has the courage of her opinions. We talked about the inhumanity of modern Europe, especially modern England, and the rage for slaughter, which is its chief feature. Also about Italy and Crispi, who is her _bête noir_ there, as Chamberlain is in England. She talks English perfectly, as she says she does also French and Italian, and complained to us of the slipshod writing of the day. It was evidently a pleasure to her to talk, and to find us such good listeners. With Cockerell she was immensely taken, and was curious to know who he could be, for I had not introduced him, and persisted in thinking him a personage in disguise. At the end of a couple of hours we moved to go, but she would have detained us, and made us promise to come again. She cannot, she says, now go to England, on her dogs’ account, and, indeed, they monopolize her life. Altogether she is a pathetic figure, condemned to solitude, not by choice, but by necessity, and regretting the cheerful society of Florence, an exile imposed on her, I fancy, by poverty and her bitter pen. ‘The world,’ she said, ‘takes its revenge on us for having despised it.’ We both left her with feelings of respect, almost of affection, certainly of sympathy and pity.” [With Cockerell Ouida corresponded to the day of her death, though I believe they never met again.]

Yet another visit in Italy was to Princess Hélène, now Duchess of Aosta, at her palace in Turin, where I had luncheon with her and her husband, who struck me as a kind of understudy of the Emperor William, a good talker but somewhat brusque. As fourth at luncheon there was his stepmother, the Dowager Duchess Letitia Bonaparte, daughter of old Plon Plon, who is much with them. I was introduced to both as a revolutionary character in connection with my adventures in Ireland. There was talk also of the Transvaal War, which they, in common with all foreigners, consider an unfortunate, not to say ridiculous, affair for England. The meal was a pleasant one, and in the afternoon Cockerell and I went on by the night train to Paris. My companion in the sleeping car was Colonel Needham, military secretary at the Rome Embassy, who told me that Kitchener, who had been the best hated man in the British army, is now becoming almost popular in South Africa. A visit to Gros Bois followed where, as usual, there was much interesting talk. Among other things told me was this, that the seriousness of the anti-Semitic rage in France was due to Alphonse Rothschild’s neglect to buy up Drumont. He might have done it for a small sum early in the day, but did not recognize Drumont’s power sufficiently and now it is too late. The Jews are put in Coventry by all the great French world. There, as elsewhere abroad, I found it considered that we had made ourselves ridiculous in South Africa and that the war ought to be stopped.

We arrived at home in England 25th April.

“_1st May._—To the Danes to see Lady Lytton, travelling there with Betty Balfour, who told amusing stories about Ireland, one being of a voyage the Queen had made in her yacht. The Queen used to be a good sailor, but is disturbed now if it is at all rough and likes the doctor to sit with her in the cabin and look after her. It came on to blow and a wave struck the ship rather roughly, which alarmed and made her indignant. ‘Go up at once,’ she said, ‘Sir James, and give the Admiral my compliments and tell him the thing must not occur again.’

“I talked to Lady Lytton about the Khedive’s intended visit. She said the Queen would certainly see him if she was at Windsor, but would most probably be away at Balmoral, and there was nobody else who could be depended on to be polite. Lord Salisbury, now Lady Salisbury was dead, would give himself no trouble, no more would the Duke of Devonshire. Broderick and Lady Hilda were worse than useless and the rest would not think it their business. She knew nothing about the Prince of Wales. There never was a time when it was more difficult to get the duties of politeness done to foreign princes.

“_2nd May._—Lunched with George Wyndham at Willis’s Rooms, he in high feather with his parliamentary success, though things are not going as smoothly as they might at the War Office. They are in trouble there about despatches they have published blaming Buller, and George will have to defend the Government on Friday. Evan Charteris was lunching with us, which prevented any very intimate talk.

“_17th May._—Button spent the day with me at Newbuildings, his mother having come with him. He tells me the relief of Mafeking is being carried out by Kitchener, though his name has not been mentioned in the newspapers in connection with it. He went on to describe the different systems of slavery and forced labour of the blacks in South Africa. One of the great grievances of the Johannesburg people was that they were not allowed by Kruger to have compounds in which to keep their ‘labourers.’ Kruger was afraid they would arm and drill their blacks, and consequently forbade it, leaving them to hire labour as they could, which cost them a good deal more. The ‘compound’ system of ‘free labour,’ as practised at Kimberly and elsewhere in Rhodesia is an ingenious substitute for slavery. The negroes are recruited with promises of very high wages, and the wages are actually paid, but once inside the walls of the compound they are permanently prisoners and have to spend their wages there. To prevent their leaving with a show of legality, a rule is enforced that each negro before going out must be dosed. This has the double motive of preventing them from swallowing and carrying away diamonds and, as the dose is an immense one, of frightening them from undergoing it. The dose plan was invented by the Jew Porgés, who is now a millionaire at Paris. Such negroes as, having saved money, face the dose and are allowed to depart, are waylaid on their way back to the Zambezi, from beyond which many are recruited by Boers in league with the mining authorities, and stripped of all they have. The Government, he says, is making itself very unpopular in Ireland and he thinks also in England, but I cannot agree with him that there is the least chance of their being turned out at the General Elections.

“_21st May._—The streets of London are decked with flags for a foolish victory, the relief of Mafeking, and even the cottages in Sussex flew their Union Jacks. This war has been so little glorious that our patriots are thankful for the smallest of small mercies. One would think that Napoleon and all the armies of Europe had been defeated by the British arms.

“_22nd May._—The Poet Laureate has published an absurd effusion in the ‘Times’ about the relief of Mafeking.

“Called in the afternoon on Kegan Paul, who is still confined to his room and chair, and learned the details of Mivart’s death, which are dramatically terrible.

“_23rd May._—Called on Father Tyrrel, the Jesuit, at Farm Street. Kegan Paul had shown me a letter from him about my poem, ‘Satan Absolved,’ in which he had said, amongst other approving things, that my account of the Incarnation was precisely the one he had always had in his mind and he had suggested my calling on him, so I went. I found Father Tyrrel very sympathetic, a thin, somewhat ascetic figure, with a nervous, imaginative face, his age perhaps forty-eight. We talked of Mivart, for whose ideas he clearly had much sympathy, but he blamed him for having lost his temper in the quarrel. He spoke strongly against the Roman Congregations, thought Vaughan had been unfair in denying to Mivart an answer to his questions, but all the same he was severe on Mivart for the final quarrel. It could only be excused by the failure of his mental balance through ill health. I asked him what really was the theology of Mivart’s position, especially with regard to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Was Mivart bound to accept the Pope’s Encyclical? He said the Pope’s Encyclical, though an interesting pronouncement as being made by the Pope, was in no way binding, though the extreme theologians maintained that it was. Vaughan had no right to demand of Mivart adhesion to it, an adhesion which was beyond what was ever demanded of converts before their reception into the Church. Mivart’s fault was one of temper. He should have held his tongue and let the Congregation say what they would. I asked him whether he knew Meynell, but he said, ‘No, not personally,’ and added that as to his Liberalism of thought, he did not mind how liberal a man was so long as he retained a definite basis for his ideas. By this I suppose he meant that there must be a certain bed-rock of faith in the Church, however ill-defined. We talked of Stonyhurst, and he was surprised when I praised his system of protecting boys from all contact with evil. I said it had been good for me if not for everybody. He called it a French system, not peculiar to the Jesuits, and said it was much altered now at Stonyhurst. Certainly, Father Tyrrel is as enlightened a priest as I have ever met. He agreed with me that it was impossible not to believe in Evolution, whatever might be pronounced at Rome. ‘Rome,’ he said, ‘is two hundred years behind-hand. They never read any modern work of criticism there, and do not take the trouble to understand the opinions they condemn.’ Forty years ago a priest so outspoken would have saved my faith.

“Herbert Vivian looked in on me, fresh from Abyssinia. He tells me the Abyssinian army has just been beaten by the Mohammedans of the Southern Province. He gave a curious account of the French colonists at Zeila, who sleep, he says, naked in the streets with the native women, and who do every kind of violence, without restraint, against the natives.

“_26th May._—Old Philip Webb came down for the day with Cockerell, a worthy old fellow, who is leaving off work at his trade of architect, and is searching for a hermitage in which to end his days. He has been too honest to make his fortune, and talks of living in a £10 cottage. I shall try and find him one.

“_28th May._—All is satisfactorily settled about the Khedive’s visit to England, Lady Lytton writes from Balmoral that he is to be lodged at Buckingham Palace and the Queen will give him private audience.

“_9th June._—Roberts is now in Pretoria. Our country fools have been in ecstasies again over this, though it is quite manifest that both Bloemfontein and Pretoria have been purposely evacuated by the Boers who have not lost a gun or hardly a man in their retreat. The papers are all saying the war is over, but I think it may well last till next year. The Boers’ campaigning season begins in October, and if they can manage to hold out in their mountains till then, they may turn the tables yet.

“_26th June._—I have moved to-day from my rooms in Mount Street to 37, Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, having taken the whole of that house, a small one, with Hampden, as Mount Street was too small for us both.

“_27th June._—Dined with Godfrey Webb and Hugh Wyndham at the Travellers. The excitement of the moment is the trouble in China, where the Foreign Embassies are in danger from the mob. The Chinese, after a long course of bullying by the Powers, worrying by missionaries, and robbing by merchants and speculators have risen, and are, very properly, knocking the foreign invasion on the head. Admiral Seymour, with two thousand men, mostly English, who was sent up to relieve the Embassy, is himself blockaded, as is Tientsin behind him, and the rumpus is general.

“_28th June._—The Khedive has arrived at last in London at Buckingham Palace.

“_3rd July._—To London and lunched with Wilfrid Lawson, who told me a number of splendid new stories, and took me to an Aborigines Protection Conference. Dined with Charles Russell and his wife.

“_7th July._—Our Arab Sale Day. An immense concourse of guests but few buyers, some five hundred sitting down to luncheon. Hampden proposed my health as a poet, politician, and horse-breeder, which, in my reply, I said was unkind, seeing that in the first two characters I had been a failure, and I then gave them my idea of how to breed horses for war. Many were prevented from coming by the news from China, where all the European Ambassadors, they say, have been murdered by the mob. People are shrieking against the Chinese, as inhuman barbarians, and there is wild talk about the Yellow Terror. I wish I could believe that Europe stood in the smallest danger from it. [This tale about the murder of the Ambassadors turned out to be a Stock Exchange scare invented by the ‘Daily Mail.’]

“_13th July._—Drove with Anne to Wotton, stopping on the way at Holmwood to lunch with William Gibson and his wife, a pleasant Frenchwoman. He is an odd creature, much engrossed in ecclesiasticism and the Irish Celtic revival, in honour of which he wears a drab kilt, being by birth a Dublin Irishman of the Castle persuasion.

“_15th July (Sunday)._—At Newbuildings. Alfred Austin is staying here. We put him on a horse, but he was not happy on it, and made ingenious excuses for ending the ride. We have had long talks and discussions on theology, philosophy, and the Catholic church. He is an acute and ready reasoner, and is well read in theology and science. It is strange his poetry should be such poor stuff, and stranger still that he should imagine it immortal.

“_17th July._—It is certain now that the Europeans in Pekin have all been massacred. [Nevertheless it turned out that the whole story was a fable invented by the halfpenny press.]

“_31st July._—The King of Italy has been assassinated. The wonder is that he has not long ago fallen a victim to his subjects whom he has led into miserable poverty and ground down with taxes for his political ambition. He wanted to be an Emperor like the rest of them, Emperor of Ethiopia, and this is the end.

“_13th Aug._—Started on my summer driving tour, going by Oldhouse, where I had a long talk with Auberon Herbert about the great affairs of the world. His son Bron has gone as correspondent to the ‘Times’ in South Africa, not much to Auberon’s contentment. Then on to St. Giles’, where I dined and slept at the Shaftesburys’. The next day by Rushmore to Clouds, where I stayed a week or more.

“_4th Sept._—Arrived by the night train in Paris, and drove straight to the Horse Show at Vincennes, where I am exhibiting a number of Arabs, but the feeling just now is too strong against everything English for much hope of our getting prizes. The judges are French military men, of the same class that sat in court-martial on Dreyfus. Also the Sultan has a number of horses at the show which he has entered in the names of various Turkish Generals, so as to elude the rule making Government studs ineligible for competition. There were some _saises_ looking after them, whom I cross-questioned in Arabic, and they let out to me that all really belonged to the Sultan. The handsomest Arab mare is one sent by Prince Sanguscko, a very great beauty with a flea-bitten coat. Then on to Gros Bois.

“_5th Sept._—Gros Bois. There is nobody here but the family. Alexandre, the boy, is a good talker and a good fellow, very superior in intelligence to most young fellows of his age, which is seventeen, while the two girls are charming and begin to make a feature in the conversation and amusement for the house.