1903] Lord Stanley of Alderley's Death 81 



when I was so much with him before I married. Alderley has been 

 a beloved place for many generations. God bless those who go out 

 and those who come in.' I consider that a most touching account 

 and most true. He was one of the best and least selfish of men, 

 a sincere Moslem without parade. The last time I saw him I re- 

 member he was rather hurt with me because I said something im- 

 plying a disbelief in the divine ordering of things in the world. In 

 his domestic life he was unfortunate, his Spanish wife, Fabia, being 

 socially impossible and mad. Yet he was kind to her, though she 

 weighed like a niill-stone round his neck, and he spent half of his 

 time with her at Alderley. He told me once that he had consulted 

 the Grand Mufti at Constantinople as to whether he might avail 

 himself of his Moslem right and put Fabia away, but he never 

 had the heart to do so, nor would he do anything which might 

 cause a scandal to his religious profession. He did an enormous 

 deal of good to those about him whatever their beliefs, and helped 

 to the best of his power in Parliament all Orientals who were suf- 

 fering wrong. For this he got scant thanks and no credit. His 

 deafness made public life almost an impossibility, and his many 

 eccentricities and strange manner and appearance caused him to be 

 more laughed at in the House of Lords than listened to. Yet he 

 achieved from time to time success by his insistence for the causes 

 he took up. Personally I had a great regard for him, indeed affec- 

 tion, and we remained for forty-three years firm allies. 



" 23rd Dec. — I have finished Jabarti, whose Chronicle is as good 

 as Stowe's, and written much in the same style, and with certain 

 characters of men he had known as good as Plutarch's." 



Jabarti was by birth a Somali and by position an Alem of the 

 Azhar at Cairo, who, finding himself there from the middle of the 

 eighteenth century till well into the nineteenth, in a position of knowl- 

 edge, though he took no part in public affairs, kept an accurate 

 Chronicle of Egyptian events, relating all with strict impartiality. His 

 history includes the episode of Bonaparte's invasion, as seen through 

 Egyptian eyes, and is of the utmost value. He continued keeping 

 it till the year 1820, when he was waylaid as he was riding home 

 one evening on his ass from Shubra and murdered — it has been as- 

 serted — by Mohammed Ali's order. 



" 2$th Dec. — I am glad to see that Stanley was buried accord- 

 ing to the Mussulman rite, in his Park at Alderley, in presence of 

 the Imam of the Turkish Embassy and one of the Secretaries, as 

 well as of members of his own family. 



" The Mufti came in the afternoon with Minshawi Pasha, the 

 same who played an honourable part at the time of the bombard- 

 ment of Alexandria, saving many Christian lives at Tantah, near 



