1906] Denshawai Execution 147 



been killed, and Reuter's telegrams are violent for punishment of the 

 natives. I got Dillon to ask some questions in Parliament on Monday, 

 and yesterday there was a special telegram in the ' Daily Chronicle ' 

 saying that Cromer had decided to have the villagers shot. This, be 

 it remarked, before any trial had taken place, and all treat it as a case 

 of murder with prearrangement, not on the part of the officers, but of 

 the fellahin. It is the usual course these affairs take in Egypt, but a 

 more than usually plain demonstration of the kind of justice dealt 

 out between Englishman and native. Fortunately the ' Manchester 

 Guardian ' has taken up the matter strongly, and may perhaps save some 

 lives, but I doubt it. English feeling on these matters has become 

 absolutely callous, and I believe if Cromer ordered a dozen of the 

 villagers to be crucified or impaled, no serious objection would be made 

 to it here, still I have done what I could, and there is a chance. The 

 ' trial ' is to be on Sunday. 



" 23rd June. — I see a telegram in the ' Pall Mall ' which seems to 

 show that Cromer has received a hint to be moderate in his zeal. It 

 is reported that he has ordered Captain Bull's body to be exhumed and 

 examined medically, with the result that it has been discovered that 

 he died not of wounds but of sunstroke. 



" 27th June. — Still writing to Dillon, the ' Manchester Guardian,' 

 and the ' Tribune,' about the abominable Denshawai affair which is to 

 be judged to-day, or rather to be sentenced, for the whole thing has 

 been judged by Cromer already and the so-called 'trial' will simply 

 record his decision. 



" 28th June. — They have condemned four of the Denshawai villagers 

 to death, four to penal servitude for life, three to fifteen years' impris- 

 onment, six to seven years, three to one year with fifty lashes, and 

 five to fifty lashes, thirty-one acquitted. This is a monstrous sentence 

 and ought, I think, to do more to break up the legend of Cromer's 

 paternal rule in Egypt than anything we have seen since its commence- 

 ment. Dillon is bringing forward the case in parliament, but nothing 

 is likely to stop the executions. 



" 2gth June. — I have worried myself all day about the Egyptian 

 villagers, and I see now that they were hanged yesterday under cir- 

 cumstances of revolting barbarity. All day I have been writing, and 

 the thing is weighing on me like a nightmare still. 



" 30th June. — Terence Bourke came down from London for the 

 clay and gave me news of Tunis. The French, he said, have turned 

 over a new leaf there and are trying to reconcile the Arabs to their 

 rule. He thinks they are succeeding. He is now for an Arabian 

 Caliphate under English protection. The Germans, however, are mak- 

 ing a vigorous propaganda in their own interests in North Africa. 

 Anne has left for London, and I am alone here. 



