1890] / Call on Baring 31 



more reconciled to the state of affairs, that Riaz was allowing rather 

 more personal liberty, and that Tewfik had retired altogether from 

 political action. Nearly all the exiles had been allowed to return, and 

 Mohammed Abdu had been appointed judge at Benha. Under" the 

 circumstances he strongly advised me in Arabi's interest to respond 

 to Baring's advance. He said it would increase my opportunities of 

 influence, for now people were afraid to come to me for fear of 

 Baring's displeasure. He did not think that Riaz was hostile, though 

 the Khedive doubtless was. The Khedive, however, was malleable, and 

 if he saw that Baring was friends with me he would think it safest to 

 follow suit. I believed this to be sound advice, and I consequently 

 wrote a note to Baring saying that I had received this informal message 

 from Wagram and asking when I could see him. He replied very 

 politely and so my visit was arranged. 



" I found Baring at two in his study, and stayed with him for about 

 half an hour. People say that he is stiff and ill-mannered. I did 

 not find him so. On the contrary he was courteous and kindly. We 

 spoke pretty frankly about things. I said I had not called before be- 

 cause I was not sure whether he would wish to see me. He replied 

 that the only thing he had thought unfair in our political quarrel was 

 Randolph Churchill's having accused him in the House of Commons of 

 having attacked me through my property in Egypt ; he had not been 

 there to answer him, and he thought it unfair ; as a fact he had entirely 

 forgotten the existence of my property, and he certainly had had 

 nothing to do with the proceedings taken against me concerning it. I 

 answered that to the best of my recollection I had never supposed him 

 to have intervened personally in the affair, and that it was doubtless the 

 Khedive's doing. Randolph had, moreover, exceeded my instructions 

 in pushing the case as far as he had done. We did not discuss this 

 long. I told him the Khedive had had me spied upon, and he said it 

 was natural his Highness should not be very friendly to me, and should 

 want to know what I was doing in Egypt, but the Khedive had not 

 spoken to him about me for a long while. 



" We then went on to the state of the country, and I told him I 

 thought things were going better now he had got rid of Nubar and was 

 working with a Mohammedan Ministry. He said the Nubar Ministry 

 was a mistake, but the difficulty is to get Mohammedans who are cap- 

 able of the work. They are either of the old-fashioned sort who will 

 hear of no improvement, or else young fellows who take some modern 

 European plan, and wish to pitchfork it into Egypt whether it is suitable 

 or not. I said that as to that it was just Arabi's merit that he stood 

 between these two extremes. Arabi knew nothing of Europe, but 

 wanted to improve on Oriental lines. I mentioned that I had heard 

 Mohammed Abdu had returned and received an appointment, and he 



