to Lord Ripon, then to Lyall, and afterwards to the provinces; that the subjects I wished principally to study were the financial condition of the country, that is to say, to find out whether our administration was really ruining India, and to ascertain the views of the natives with regard to Home Rule. Of both these plans Eddy seemed to approve, said that Baring would be sure to wish to see me, and listen to all I had to say, and, though he did not commit himself to anything very definite about the rest, did not disapprove. With regard to India, he said he would write to Primrose, Lord Ripon’s private secretary, to show me all attention; so on the whole I am highly satisfied with my visit. I had some talk with Eddy about Randolph Churchill. He said that my connection with him in Egyptian affairs did me harm, but I don’t believe that, and I look upon Churchill as quite as serious a politician as the rest with whom I have had to deal. On Egypt I think he is sincere, because he has an American wife, and the Americans have always sympathized with freedom there. I believe, too, that he is at a turning point in his character, and means to have done with mere random fighting, and we both agreed that he has a career before him. For my own part I like Churchill. He does not affect any high principles, but he acts squarely.”

The next day I left with my wife for Paris, where our principal interest was to see the small group of Egyptian exiles congregated there.

“13th Sept.—We arrived by the night train at Paris, and alighted at the Hôtel S. Romain, a quiet place where we can see our friends. Presently Sabunji came in with Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din.[1] When I saw the Sheykh in London in the spring, he wore his Sheykh’s dress. Now he has clothes of the Stambouli cut, which, however, sit not badly on him. He has learned a few words of French, but is otherwise unchanged. Our talk was of India, and of the possibility of my being able to get the real confidence of the Moslems there. He said that my being an Englishman would make this very difficult, for all who had any position to lose were in terror of the Government, which had its spies everywhere. He himself had been kept almost a prisoner in his house and had left India through fear of worse. Any Sheykh who gained notoriety in India was tracked and bullied, and if he persisted in an independent course he was sent on some charge or other to the Andaman Islands. People, he said, would not understand that I wished them well, and would be too prudent to talk. The poorer people might, not the Sheykhs or the Princes. He thought Hyderabad would be my best point, as there were refugees there from every province of India, and they were less afraid of the English Government. He said he would write me some private letters to explain my position, and to the editors of some Mohammedan newspapers. I told him what the political position was, and how necessary it seemed to me that the Moslems should show that they joined the Hindus in supporting the Ripon policy. All depended on the Indians showing a united front. He said they might have courage, if it could be proved to them that there were people in England who sympathized with them, but they only saw the officials, who never smiled when they spoke to them. I asked him about the language I should most prudently hold regarding the Sultan, and he advised me to say nothing against the Sultan in India, or about an Arabian Caliphate; it had been spread about that the English were going to set up a sham Caliphate in Arabia, under a child, whom they would use to make themselves masters of the holy places; the Sultan’s name was now venerated in India as it had not formerly been.

“14th Sept.—Jemal-ed-Din and Sanua and Sabunji came to breakfast, and we stayed talking all day. The Sheykh brought with him letters which he had written to the Nawab Abd-el-Latif of Calcutta, and the Nawab Rasul Yar Khan of Hyderabad, both of which I hope may be of great value. He told us some interesting particulars as to his own people and family, repudiates the idea of the Afghans being a Semitic people, says on the contrary that they are Aryans, like the inhabitants of Northern India, but his own family is Arabian, and they have always preserved in it the tradition of the Arabic language. He also discoursed on history. I read them my poem ‘The Wind and the Whirlwind,’ which Sabunji in part translated to the Sheykh. He said that, if he had been told there was in the world an Englishman who really sympathized with the misfortunes of India, he would not have believed it. Sanua exhorted me to have the poem translated into good Arabic verse by El-Rakkam, a pupil of Abdu’s. I also went through with him a programme I have drawn up for the restoration of the National Party in Egypt, and talked over with the Sheykh a scheme of restoring the Azhar as a real university for all Islam, and he explained how it had been in old days.”

The same evening we took train to Marseilles, and went on by Messageries steamer to Egypt, where we spent a fortnight. Our stay there was productive only of disappointment as far as the political situation went. I found Sir Evelyn Baring, when I called on him, willing enough to talk things over with me, but half-an-hour’s conversation was sufficient to convince me that, whatever Mr. Gladstone might dream or pretend to dream about restoring the National Party and recalling the exiles, nothing was further from Sir Evelyn’s mind. He had no intention whatever but that of supporting the Khedive and the party of reaction. We consequently turned our steps once more eastwards, and embarked at Suez on the 9th of October, in the British India ship “Ghoorkha,” having so far altered our original plan of travel as to include in it Ceylon, where we desired to visit our exiled Egyptian friends, Arabi Pasha and his four companions. We intended to stay with them a few days only and pass on thence into Southern India.

We were delayed, however, longer than we thought. I had hardly got on board when I began to develop a malarious fever, which, before the end of the voyage had become serious. The “Ghoorkha” was a detestable conveyance, overcrowded, swarming with vermin, and miserably provided. There was no doctor on board, nor any means of comfort for a sick person. Driven out of my cabin by the heat and its discomforts, I was laid on a table in the saloon, and there passed my days in extreme wretchedness but nursed by my wife and her maid Cowie, who was devoted and admirable on such occasions. Our fellow passengers were a rough set of Colonial English and planters from India, Assam and Burmah. With these we had a constant battle for existence. In the early days of the voyage I still tried to write my journal, and I give such extracts from it as have anything of public interest.

“10th Oct.—The only persons on board we know anything of are the half-caste Russell going to Jeddah, and a young fellow, Mrs. Palmer’s brother, who has been given a Government place worth £800 a year in the Mint at Calcutta. He is to stay there two years, and then to be transferred to the London Mint, this doubtless through Lord Northbrook.”

This is a good instance of the way the Indian revenue is sometimes made use of to evade the difficulties of jobbery in England. Professor Palmer had been sent by Lord Northbrook, then at the Admiralty, on a secret mission connected with the intended invasion of Egypt, and had lost his life (see “Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt”), and his widow had applied to