PART II 



I900 TO I914 



CHAPTER I 



DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA, I9OI 



"23 Jan., 1901. Sheykh Obeyd. 



The Queen is dead of an apoplectic stroke and the great Victorian 

 age is at an end." 



Such is almost the first entry in my diary of the new year and 

 the new century. I was in Egypt when the tidings reached me. 

 It was the second day of the Bairam festival, and all our country 

 folk at Sheykh Obeyd were keeping holiday, a glorious morning 

 of sunshine, and I had been watching the foxes in the garden at 

 play among the beans which were coming into flower. It was thus 

 the news reached me. The entry goes on : 



" This is notable news. It will mean great changes in the world, 

 for the long understanding amongst the Emperors that England is 

 not to be quarrelled with during the Queen's lifetime will now 

 give place to freer action. The Emperor William does not love his 

 uncle, our new king. On the other hand, it may possibly lead to a 

 less bloody regime in South Africa; not that the Prince of Wales very 

 likely is any more humane than his mother, who had a craze for 

 painting the map Imperial red, but because he knows European opin- 

 ion better and the limitations of England's power and the necessity 

 of moderating English arrogance. The Queen it was easy to flatter 

 and mislead, the only paper she read was the ' Morning Post,' and 

 the people about her did not dare tell her the real truth of things, 

 but the Prince of Wales hears and knows everything that goes on 

 abroad far more than does Lord Salisbury. All this is to the good. 

 I suppose there must be a new dissolution of Parliament — this also 

 is for the good. As to Her Majesty personally, one does not like 

 to say all one thinks even in one's journal. By all I have ever heard 

 of her she was in her old age a dignified but rather commonplace 



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