42 The Mufti and the Khedive [ I 9°3 



riding behind them. The lady was in European dress, with a gay 

 hat, as if for a garden party, and they were all mounted on hand- 

 some white camels. It was in the desert near Kafr el Jamus. 



' To-day he began at once to me about the different troubles 

 he had had in the Waili and other affairs, and he went on to com- 

 plain of Mohammed Abdu's ingratitude, in having continued to be 

 friends with a certain Reshid who had sinned against him. I de- 

 fended the Mufti on this point and exhorted the Khedive to make 

 up the quarrel. I cannot help liking Abbas in spite of his many 

 vacillations and inconstancies. He has this merit, that he always 

 speaks out his mind, and is never offended at one's speaking one's 

 own. I fancy Cromer must hold some secret rod over him and make 

 him feel it from time to time. 



" There is a scandal at Cairo which is grieving English society, 

 Lady R. having gone to a ball with her legs bare and dressed as a 

 sa'is. This is considered a terrible impropriety, not so much for the 

 thing itself as because ' she had just been dining with Lady Cromer,' 

 and ' natives were present.' There has been a case of assault by two 

 Bedouins on Englishmen at Mariut about which the Khedive also told 

 me, the matter concerning him personally as he has property at 

 Mariut. 



" 26th Feb. — Lunched at the Mufti's, Professor Browne beinjj alsr 

 there. It is surprising with what fluency Browne now speaks Arabic, 

 which he only knew as a scholar without having ever spoken it when 

 he came here two months ago. He has been attending the Mufti's 

 lectures at the Azhar, and tells me they are admirable and very fear- 

 less, and that he has a ready facility in answering objections made to 

 him by the old-fashioned interpreters of the Koran. I talked to the 

 Mufti about the Khedive's complaint against him and he will write 

 to His Highness and explain the mistake. A reconciliation between 

 them is most necessary in public interests. Acting together they are 

 able to effect much, apart they neutralize each other and are power- 

 less. 



" 6th March. — Mohammed Abdu brought Sheykh Reshid, the cause 

 of the Khedive's wrath, to see me, who seems a worthy man, and 

 with him Hafiz Ibrahim, a Fellah poet, with whom we discussed the 

 Moallakat. They all three maintained that the best Arabic poetry 

 was not that of the Ignorance but of the second century of the 

 Hejrah. This is quite contrary to our English ideas, but for East- 

 ern ears the standard of merit is different from ours. What the 

 learned here admire in poetry is the prosody, not the meaning of the 

 verse. They care very little for the naivetes of the pre-Islamic poets, 

 regarding them only as blemishes, and they cannot understand that 



