132 Lord Dunmore and the Czar [^894 



story, which shows how things are done in Russia. When her hus- 

 band started from India on his journey through the Pamir country, the 

 Emperor of Russia — Dunmore has Russian relations — gave him a 

 private letter which secured him free passage through the Russian 

 lines. On his return the Emperor wrote to him begging that he would 

 come and see him at St. Petersburg and give him an account of what 

 he had seen, the Emperor being very anxious to have unbiassed evi- 

 dence of the state of things in Central Asia. To this Dunmore re- 

 sponded, and wrote as many as three letters expressing his willingness 

 to come, but never any further message, until quite lately he has learned 

 that none of his letters were received by the Emperor. It appears that 

 the men about the palace exercise an absolute supervision over all the 

 Imperial correspondence, and even the Princess of Wales finds diffi- 

 culty in communicating with her sister. Now Dunmore has asked at 

 the Foreign Office that his letter of explanation should be presented by 

 the Ambassador, or rather the Charge d'Affaires, in private audience. 

 The Emperor it appears has been furious at getting no answer, and 

 Lady Dunmore says : ' When he finds out the truth there will be 

 journeys to Siberia for some of those concerned.' 



" 22nd Feb. — Dormer called. He gave us the alarming intelligence 

 that there is a scheme on foot for bringing the Cairo sewage into this 

 neighbourhood. It is indeed the abomination of civilization standing 

 in the Holy Place. We have always looked upon the desert as the one 

 pure, imperishable possession, but if this is to be made a stink-pot for 

 our nostrils we are indeed lost." This plan, which was already in an 

 advanced stage with coloured surveys on a large scale, entitled de- 

 risively " Projets d'assainissement," I was the means under Providence 

 of preventing. I wrote to Lord Cromer representing the economical 

 folly of the project which had chosen the only district in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cairo suitable for building a rural suburb, seeing that it was 

 the only one which possessed an abundance of good water in a sandy 

 soil, and he yielded to my argument, with the result of what is now the 

 populous suburb of Heliopolis having grown up there. Dormer, who 

 became afterwards Lord Dormer, was at that time employed in the 

 Egyptian Financial Department. 



" 2yd Feb. — Lady Francis Osborne came full of serious advice to 

 me about my ' radical politics,' and the stir my writings were making 

 among the officials here. ' Why do you take pleasure in making your 

 fellow men unhappy?' 



" A visit from three little journalists, Sheykh AH Yusuf, Editor of 

 the ' Mowayad ' (the first Nationalist newspaper at Cairo since Tel el 

 Kebir), Mohammed Mesaoud, and Abderrahman Ismail. A worthy 

 man is Ali Yusuf, with nothing of civilization about him. Just a little 

 Azhar student in a turban, clever and sympathetic, but without knowl- 



