224 Gorst on the Campaign [1896 



knows you can doubt 'that you are the best friend that Egypt has.' And 

 so we parted. I was again much struck with his great intelligence and 

 power of expressing his thoughts. 



" yd April — I have been writing an article, ' The Truth of the 

 Dongola Adventure,' for the ' Ninteenth Century.' 



' I see they have been pushing George Curzon with questions in the 

 House of Commons about Cromer's approval of the campaign — this I 

 doubt not in consequence of a letter I wrote to Morley, telling him 

 that Cromer had certainly not recommended it. 



" yth April. — Dawkins (the new financial adviser) was here 'to-day, 

 and tells me that the half million sterling taken from the Caisse de la 

 Dette has been spent already. The whole savings of Egypt will have 

 been used up before the campaign seriously begins. 



" Young Somerset and his bride, Lady Katherine, came on Saturday, 

 a pleasing pair, who propose going to the Natron lakes on camels. I 

 tried to dissuade her, as she has never yet been on a camel, and there 

 was the chance of great heat so late in the year, but on Sunday, Easter 

 night, there was a thunder shower, and the weather has become almost 

 cold. 



" 10th April.-^- Gorst and his sister came to luncheon. He, like 

 Dawkins, evidently disapproves of the war. He says that it will end in 

 England's having to make the campaign at her own cost, as Egypt has 

 neither the money nor the men. I am, however convinced that it will 

 be put a stop to as soon as a convenient pretext occurs. There is a 

 report that the Italians have evacuated Kassala. Also the Matabeles 

 have risen and killed a number of the Chartered Company's people, 

 and are besieging Bulawayo. The Chartered Company have no troops, 

 and English regiments will have to be sent to 'the Cape, and there will be 

 none to spare for a Soudanese campaign. I wish the Matabeles all 

 possible good fortune, and trust they may capture Rhodes, who is said 

 to be on his way from Fort Salisbury to Bulawayo. The man, how- 

 ever, is too sly, I fancy, to be caught, or to run any personal risks, and 

 a telegram to-day says he is laid up with a fever, and unable to move ! 

 The Dongola expedition, therefore, will, in my opinion, get very little 

 farther than Akasheh. Gorst tells me it is true tha't Rhodes took away 

 with him 200 negroes from Cairo. He says they ' volunteered.' But 

 the grounds of his belief seem slight. ' I inquired,' he said, ' whether 

 they were going willingly, and was told that they were.' He is much 

 averse 'to the seizure of black men, as practised by the Sirdar Kitchener, 

 for the Egyptian army, and told me confidentially that he had had the 

 intention of putting a stop to it, as it is quite illegal. But the campaign 

 had interfered with his project. There has been a general raid on all 

 negroes in Egypt. They are seized and forced to serve in the army 

 on very small pay — I think thirty piastres a month, twopence half- 



