1905] Revolution in Russia 115 



which a little trench had been dug. Poor Suliman was sitting like Job 

 in his sorrow on one of the gravel hillocks, and hobbled feebly to meet 

 us. His palsy has grown on him and he can hardly walk, his left 

 arm powerless. He smiled a little and said the conventional hamd id 

 illah (Praised be God!) when he had narrated his sufferings. The 

 elder boys are now past the worst of the disease, but nothing can make 

 up for A'ida. We left our sack of provisions with him and money 

 to buy clothes for his children. One can do nothing really in a case 

 like this, an accident of desert life and the ' act of God.' 



" 2jth Jan. — There has been something in the nature of a revolution 

 in Russia. I wish I could think it could succeed, but unless the soldiers 

 make common cause with the people I do not see how this can be. 

 The armed power of modern troops is so great that a mob, however 

 determined, has no chance. Russia, too, is so immense a country, and 

 the towns in it are so small and far apart that cohesion between them 

 is difficult. The mass of the peasantry has little in common with the 

 townspeople and cannot and will not help them. It is all a question of 

 the army's fidelity to orders. 



" iqth Feb. — Mohammed Abdu has returned from Khartoum. He 

 is pleased with what he saw there; says the Government is better 

 managed than in Egypt, that the people are content, especially in the 

 matter of the slave trade, and that the education at the College is being 

 sensibly given. The Soudanese criminal code is simpler and better than 

 the Egyptian. Wingate's rule is mild, and there is good feeling between 

 the English and the Soudanese. 



" Lady Gregory writes that Yeats has read my play ' Fand ' to his 

 company and that they are anxious to act it, and perhaps it will be put 

 on the stage in April. Yeats, she says, has declared that if I had 

 begun to write plays when I was thirty, I should now have a European 

 reputation. I fear it is too late for that now, also Gilbert Murray has 

 written in praise of it and Mackail. 



" George Meredith has been appealing for funds to help the revolu- 

 tion in Russia, and I have subscribed £10, and yesterday came news 

 that the Grand Duke Serge had been blown up with a bomb, so I 

 am subscribing again. Assassination is the only way of fighting a 

 despotism like that of Russia. It shows that the revolutionists mean 

 business. I have taken my place for Europe by the steamer of the 1 ith 

 March. 



" 2&th Feb. — I see in the papers that George has got into trouble 

 with his Irish policy, as I feared he would, over the Dunraven pro- 

 gramme. His defence in the House of Commons reads well, but there 

 is something behind. To the best of my knowledge, though I do not 

 know it from George, the sudden policy of conciliation he adopted two 

 years ago, was at the suggestion of the King who, when he came to the 



