12 AraWs Return to Egypt t^ 01 



" nth Oct. — At Gros Bois on my way to Egypt, and find here a 

 large party of French people come over from Paris for the day, 

 the Duchesse de Trevise and her daughters, and her son-in-law, de 

 Brissac, and with them Lady Windsor and Lady Paget. In the after- 

 noon I was taken out shooting by Wagram, the other two guns being 

 country neighbours, de Kergoulet and Lagrange, in the Foret de Notre 

 Dame. Berthe's two girls are growing up charming, with the prettiest 

 possible manners, and quite unspoilt. 



" 13th Oct. (Sunday). — The ladies all went off in Berthe's new 

 automoblie to Vaux, and I with Wagram to Paris. There we were 

 met by Alexandre, and after breakfasting at Durand's we went to 

 see a new play at the Theatre Antoine, ' L'honneur,' a piece trans- 

 lated from the German of an exaggerated Ibsen kind, which inter- 

 ested me not a little. Alexandre acted the cicerone there to his father 

 and me, explaining the play to us learnedly as it went on. 



" 14th Oct. — Shooting again with Wagram. All his ground here 

 is beautiful and of great extent, and he has pride in every inch of 

 it. Some 7,000 acres, if I understand him rightly, in a ring fence, 

 for France a very large estate, and only surpassed anywhere near 

 Paris by those of the Rothschilds, who have between them about 

 30,000 acres. 



" i$th Oct. — After a last day's shooting I left in the evening for 

 Marseilles and Egypt with Anne, who had joined me in Paris. 



"24th Oct. — At Sheykh Obeyd. Mohammed Abdu came to spend 

 the morning. He tells me he has incurred the Khedive's displeasure 

 by having performed the marriage ceremony for one of the Khedivial 

 Princes in Switzerland this summer. The Khedive had given his per- 

 mission, but had intended to back out of it. We discussed the Fox- 

 hunting case. This, he assures me, contains not merely strainings of 

 the law, but positive illegalities on the part of the English authorities. 

 Then we talked of Arabi's return to Egypt. Mohammed Abdu blames 

 him for having held communications with the newspapers, and without 

 waiting to ascertain the true state of things, having proclaimed that 

 everything done by the English in Egypt was good. This has got him 

 into trouble with the native official world, which has given him the 

 cold shoulder, though he is much run after by the common herd. 

 Boys follow him in the street shouting 'Allah yensurak ya Arabi! ' 

 (God give you the victory O Arabi !), and in the mosque when he goes 

 to pray the poorer sort kiss his hands. He, Abdu, disapproves of this, 

 and has not called on him, but I think I have persuaded him that it 

 will be best to make the most of the popularity, and he has promised 

 to meet Arabi at my house when he comes. I am of opinion that a 

 deal might be profitably made of Arabi in the cause of Egyptian free- 



