1896] Rhodes Conscripts Black Men in Egypt 225 



penny a day — and are there practically slaves for life — or rather for 

 as long as they are able to serve — for when past work in the army, they 

 are pitilessly cas't adrift without pension or provision of any kind. 

 Yet we English pretend that our mission in Africa is to put down 

 slave-raiding and slavery. The English officers at Wady Haifa told 

 me last autumn that it was as precisely slavery as any existing in the 

 world. 



" We are leaving for England on the 17th. I am glad to go, having 

 been seven mon'ths away. 



" 12th April. — Young Gordon (General Gordon's nephew, Bill) is 

 here with his wife. He confirms about the spending of the half million 

 by Kitchener, but says the expedition is being done very cheaply. He 

 has the ordering and arranging of the supplies, and says that the new 

 equipments, saddles, arms, etc., have only cost £20,000. He, like Gorst 

 and Dawkins, considers the In'telligence Department absurdly over- 

 rated and overpaid. Wingate and Slatin between them get £1,700 a 

 year. Gordon has had some experience of the department, having been 

 employed under it at Souakim, and he knows how the information 

 brought in is cooked, and how the spies suit their news to 'the demand. 

 I asked him about the negroes taken away by Rhodes. He thinks it 

 likely that they were handed over by the agent of the Zanzibar Govern- 

 ment (which had been recruiting in Egypt). He himself supplied 

 Rhodes wi'th uniforms for them out of the public stores ' at a good 

 price.' He saw a great deal of Rhodes during the few days Rhodes 

 was at Cairo. 



" i$th April. — They are apparently at a deadlock on the frontier, 

 the Finance Ministry being angry with Kitchener for spending all the 

 money. It must eventually fall on the English exchequer, if persisted 

 in. But I s'till hope Lord Salisbury will be satisfied with the demon- 

 stration and go no farther. 



" 17^/1 April. — We leave to-morrow morning for England. Moham- 

 med Abdu was here yesterday with a young Turk of the Liberal party 

 from Constantinople. He was employed till lately in the Ottoman 

 bank. He seems not very hopeful of things on 'the Bosphorus, there 

 being too many persons in high places interested in keeping the present 

 system going. The army, though no better affected than the rest to 

 the Sultan, is withou't any leader for a revolt, and as long as it can 

 be paid it will do nothing. The civilian population has no power to 

 move. 



" Mohammed Abdu gave me particulars about the raid there has 

 been made on the negroes in Egypt. Over 800 have been seized by the 

 police for Kitchener and put into the army. In some of the provinces 

 every black man of wha'tever age was taken and sent to Cairo, where 

 the valid ones were retained, the rest turned adrift in the streets. Yet 



