1892] Morris and Magnnsson 77 



with in Gordon's letters to his sister. These people believe they have 

 a mission from God to establish the British flag, ' the dear old Union 

 Jack,' throughout the world and to maintain it there with fire and 

 sword. Pizarro, no doubt, wrote in the same strain from Peru, when 

 he destroyed the beautiful old world of the Incas. Truly ' civiliza- 

 tion is poison.' Weld Blundell also is staying here, a clever man with 

 much knowledge and a close reasoner, with whom I have been discuss- 

 ing Eastern questions. His view is the commercial Imperialist one 

 held by all English civilians who have spent their lives beyond the 

 Suez Canal, that of seizing and keeping markets. We were to have 

 gone to Malwood, but Sir William Harcourt has been summoned to 

 London on the Uganda question and our visit is deferred. 



" 1st Oct. — Lunched with Morris at Hammersmith and his Icelandic 

 friend Magnusson, with whom he translates his Sagas. It is curious 

 how much alike the two are physically — short, thick, sturdy men of 

 the pale-haired, blue-eyed type. Both, too, have the same socialistic 

 views, only Magnusson is much more professorial in his way of talk- 

 ing and less light in hand than Morris. 



" Our ministers have taken courage and Uganda is to be evacuated. 

 The ' Daily Telegraph ' has a deliciously naive article in expostulation : 

 ' Uganda,' it says, ' was a few years ago a naked people, now they are 

 all decently clad . . . but there is a tendency, wherever English au- 

 thority is relaxed among them, to revert to their old terrible habits.' 



" 6th Oct. — Tennyson died this morning at his house on Blackdown. 

 Much speculation as to his successor." 



On the 1 2th Oct. I paid my now annual visit to Gros Bois, the party 

 there being made up of the Gustave Rothschilds, the Comte de Turenne, 

 Lord and Lady Castletown, and the Talbots, and we had our usual 

 shootings. 



" 14th Oct. — Coming home Wagram entertained us with episodes 

 of the French game laws. He remembers three poachers having been 

 shot dead at various times in the park, two by himself and one by the 

 keepers. In his own case the man had first fired on him. In the third 

 case the poacher was unarmed; in none was any inquiry made. He 

 and the keepers buried the dead men quietly where they fell. The last 

 of these three events happened as long ago as 1863 and ' Nobody,' he 

 said, ' knows now where they lie but myself ; the keepers who helped to 

 bury them are all dead; it has kept poachers most effectually away. 

 En plaine (meaning the open fields) one does not take justice thus to 

 oneself, but inside the Park it is best to do so and say nothing.' 

 Wagram is a fine survival of the old sporting days in France, against 

 which the revolution declaimed. . . . What is pleasant in the sport 

 here is Wagram's familiar way with his men; they are all devoted to 

 him. 



