39° Patriotism of Abbas ? [1Q12 



the Mediterranean being left to the Mediterranean Powers. Then we 

 shall leave Egypt, holding on only to the Soudan, but this will not take 

 place yet for some years. 



" McCullagh has written a quite admirable book, ' Italy's War for a 

 Desert.' I am reviewing it in ' Egypt.' 



"23rd June (Sunday). — Dillon is here for the week-end, and we 

 have been talking over past Irish history.' [All very interesting, but 

 I have given most of it in my ' Land War in Ireland.' ] I drove him 

 this afternoon to the top of Chanclebury with my Arab team. We 

 came back from the Ring by Dial Post in an hour and thirty-five 

 minutes, having driven there by Broomer's Corner in a little over 

 two hours, good going. 



" 24.H1 June. — The Bellocs came to dinner last night. Belloc and 

 Dillon had much talk, but they proved not very sympathetic, the one 

 being essentially serious, the other as essentially unserious. 



" With Dillon I had a talk before he went away, he giving me an| 

 account of the Kilmainham treaty, and Parnell's dealings with Glad- 

 stone in connection with the Phoenix Park assassinations [matters 

 which I need not repeat here, as they have been fully dealt with else- 

 where]. 



" 4th July. — Reuter announces the discovery of a plot to assassinate 

 Kitchener, the Khedive, and the Prime Minister, Mohammed Said. 

 Four Nationalists arrested. 



" $th July. — A young Egyptian, Abdul Halim Alaili (brother to 

 the other Alaili), professed partisan of the Khedive, was here to-day, 

 whose apologist he made himself, defending him from the charge of 

 unpatriotic action in the war of which Egypt had accused him. ' In 

 stead,' he said, ' of joining Kitchener against the Ottoman Govern- 

 ment, Abbas has secretly helped to facilitate the passage of Turkish 

 officers through Egypt on their way to the Tripolitan frontier, as 

 well as the introduction of arms into the Cyrenaica, nobody in reality 

 was so patriotic or hated Kitchener more. Abbas would willingly ab- 

 dicate, but who was there to take his place? In four years his son 

 would be of age, then Abbas would retire. The Khedive was quite 

 ready, he said, to grant a Constitution, but Kitchener would not allow 

 it. Abdul Halim gave us an account of the Khedive's visit to Windsor. 

 According to this the Khedive represented to King George the danger 

 to Egypt involved in the seizure of the ^Egean Islands, and that the 

 English Government ought to intervene in favour of Turkey, but 

 the King said that ever since the revolution at Constantinople, the 

 Turks had refused to follow English advice. They could not inter- 

 vene now without a quarrel with Italy. This is just what Churchill 

 told me, so doubtless it is true. The Khedive, Abdul Hamid says, 

 was received with honour this year in Constantinople, and had had 



