1893] Abdu on the Occupation 9 1 



may be depended on, not so Tigrane or Boutros. Tigrane, Artin, and 

 the Christians generally do all they can to destroy Moslem education. 

 Riaz is a tyrant, but he is honest. He gave me his opinions of the 

 various Englishmen employed in the country ; ' the only good ones,' he 

 said, ' are Scott, Garstein, and Corbett. It has been the introduction 

 of so many inferior Englishmen in the last three years that has ruined 

 English influence.' He laughed much at Wallace and his school of 

 agriculture, and at Willcox with his reforms of the Arabic language. 

 He is very glad I am to see the Khedive, and wants me to impress on 

 him the necessity of keeping well with Riaz, and of taking up young 

 Mohammedans rather than Armenians and Syrians. He would also 

 work in a Constitutional sense. ' We do not mind,' he said, ' the 

 English being here for a year, or two years, or five years, so long as 

 they do not stay altogether. It would be better for the country as giv- 

 ing time for the growth of the Fellah party, but if there is danger of 

 annexation we are quite ready to run the risk of a little tyranny from 

 the Turks, rather than the other greater risk ; if you will evacuate to- 

 morrow we shall all rejoice.' Now Abdu is probably the most philo- 

 English of the Egyptians. 



" On the 25th February an interview with me, which had been pub- 

 lished in the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' having been reprinted in the ' Bos- 

 phore Egyptien,' I wrote to Lord Cromer to explain that I was not 

 responsible for this, or for joining in any of the attacks made on him 

 in the Egyptian newspapers. ' In England,' I said, ' it is different. 

 There as long as we occupy Egypt without annexing it, the Egyptian 

 question must remain a subject of public discussion, and I am sure you 

 will not think that with the strong views I hold on the injustice of 

 destroying Egyptian Nationality, my expressing myself on the subject 

 was unfair or uncalled for.' In answer he said, while thanking me for 

 my letter, ' I cannot, of course, take the smallest exception to your 

 expressing your views on Egyptian questions in any form you may 

 think fit, neither did I for a moment imagine that you wished to make 

 a personal attack on myself.' I quote this as showing what my rela- 

 tions with Cromer were at this and in subsequent times when we quar- 

 relled politically. 



" 2W1 Feb. — Went this morning by appointment to see the Khedive 

 at Abdin Palace. I found him in the same room as a year ago, and he 

 came to meet me at the door. He received me very cordially, and 

 talked throughout with a great show of frankness and confidence. 

 His manner is certainly excellent, and he has a wonderful command of 

 words for so young a man, with a very frank, agreeable smile. He 

 began about his farm at Koubbah, which he said interested him far 

 more than anything at Abdin, and we discussed the subject of horse- 

 breeding and the growth of bersim hejazi. Then he went on to politics. 



