1895] The Dongola Refugees 205 



of Gordon and the disgrace of Wolseley's defeat by the Mahdi in 1884 

 as one of the two matters necessary for England's honour, the o'dier 

 being the defeat at Majuba in South Africa. We know this from his 

 own boast in 1902, shortly before he retired from public life, and we 

 have every reason to be sure that at the back of his determination on 

 bo'th points stood his mistress, Queen Victoria. The present chapter 

 will show the first steps taken in accordance with this policy on the Nile, 

 in its commencement not altogether with Lord Cromer's approval, his 

 objection to it being a financial one, as certain to overburden the 

 Eyptian Budge't, and as such premature, but, as will be seen, his opposi- 

 tion on this head was overruled from Downing Street and financial 

 caution, in large measure overcome by the parsimonious ability of 

 Lord Kitchener, to whom the advance up the Nile was entrusted, and 

 who ran it on the cheap. 



" 'Having made this brief explanation I resume my diary. 



" lyth Nov. — There have been tremendous seyls all round Sheykh 

 Obeyd. Part of our garden wall is broken down by it and the house 

 at El Kheysheh flooded, though no great damage done. Suliman 

 Howeyti had his tent carried away just outside. At Kafr el 

 Jamus eleven houses are ruined, and at Koubba a great seyl from the 

 hills broke through the old railway embankment and destroyed fifty 

 houses and a French public garden, threatening even the Palace with 

 flood. The like has never been seen before. Old Deifallah is dying 

 of old age, like Job, on a dung-hill outside Dormer's garden wall. 



" Things have gone rapidly in Turkey during the last three weeks. 

 Disturbances everywhere in the provinces, the devil generally let loose. 



"20th Nov. — Anne, Judith, and Cowie arrived at Sheykh Obeyd. 

 I dined with Dormer last night. 



" 28th Nov. — I wrote yesterday to Lord Cromer about the permis- 

 sion asked by the Dongola people to return to their homes. I said that 

 the s'tory they gave me was that they had emigrated into Egypt after 

 the Mahdi's death to escape the tyranny of the Baggara chiefs who 

 represented the Khalifa's government at Dongola ; that they assured 

 me that they would be subject to no vexation now ; 'that living there was 

 cheap and land plentiful; that I had mentioned their case to the Com- 

 mandant at Wady Haifa, who had told me that the chief reason for 

 the prohibition was a fear that the return of the refugees would hamper 

 and endanger the spies sent by the Intelligence Department, but that 

 this seemed hardly a sufficient reason for retaining in Egypt so many 

 persons who were a burden and a trouble. I suggested that perhaps 

 the time was come when 'the question might be reconsidered; there 

 seemed to be no immediate prospect of a military advance and the cir- 

 cumstances of the case had changed since the frontier regulations were 

 enacted. 



