1905] I Leave Egypt for Ever 117 



plunged him deeper than ever in the slongh of Imperial politics, but 

 they had already appointed Selborne, so George is free. 



" 12th March. — Mukden has been taken by the Japanese and the 

 Russian army under Kuropatkin seems on the point of capitulation. It 

 is the biggest thing that has happened in war since Sedan, but it is more 

 than this, it is the first great victory of the East over the West since 

 the Ottoman conquests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and 

 may change the whole face of the world's history for as many cen- 

 turies to come. 



" The inquiry into the attack made on our fishermen at Dogger 

 Bank has turned out pretty much as I expected, the Russian admiral 

 is hardly blamed for his ' mistake,' and nobody will be punished. We 

 have had our ears boxed very prettily and everybody is pleased, includ- 

 ing it seems the British public, which has as much sense of its dignity 

 as a clown in a circus ; however, the Japanese have done the fighting 

 so effectually for us that the Russians cannot raise much of a crow. 



" 15th March. — Harold Spender of the ' Daily News ' has been here, 

 come out to study the Egyptian question. Cromer delights in men of 

 this sort and has been cramming this one with his confidences. He has 

 told him that he wants the whole Army of Occupation withdrawn, that 

 he can depend for order on his native police, that he would like a native 

 administration, but can't find any Egyptians fit for responsibility, etc., 

 all which the good man has swallowed and admits it as an axiom that 

 England has come to Egypt to stay. Mohammed Abdu happened to 

 come in while Spender and his wife were with us, and stopped to dine, 

 and has given Spender another picture of the position, but I fear it 

 has been casting pearls before swine. 



" iyth March. — I left Sheykh Obeyd this morning, as it seems to 

 me for ever. The place is very dear to me with its perpetual sunshine 

 and its wild beasts and birds. Woe is me, who will look after them 

 all when I am gone? Mohammed Abdu came to see me off at the 

 Cairo station and we stayed on talking to the last minute with sad 

 farewells." [I never thought to see him again when we parted, but it 

 was not I, it was he that died within the year.] 



" 24th March. — Venice. The last week has been a terrible experi- 

 ence of fever and pain, and but for some fresh milk found for me at 

 Brindisi, I could hardly have got through, and for being met here by 

 the good Cockerell, who came out from London to see me home, and 

 Van Someren, an English doctor, who has put me to bed, saying that 

 if I go on to England as I am it will mean that I shall die in the 

 train. He allows me no food of any sort, only Vichy water with a 

 tea-spoon of brandy in it twice a day, so here I am stuck fast. 



"1st April.- — The regime of starvation readied its climax yester- 

 day. I was reduced to such a point of weakness that I could hardly 



