Ministers to lie. He nevertheless aided Lord Wentworth to the extent of securing him a fair hearing, which the others would have prevented.
Palmer's and Gill's were nevertheless but crude dealings, and would by themselves, I think, have done little to further Wolseley's objects but for the far more efficacious intervention in support of them given by the Khedive. Saoud el Tihawi was the only Arab Sheykh who systematically or at all efficiently betrayed Arabi, and it was the Khedive who procured
his defection. Saoud received in payment for his work as spy in Arabi's camp 5,000 Austrian crowns, and betrayed him throughout, from the date of the removal of the Egyptian headquarters from Kafr Dawar to Tel-el-Kebir. Saoud was an Arab of a naturally superior type, and with a good head on his shoulders, but he had long been perverted by his association with Lesseps and the French, having his land and permanent camp within a day's journey only of the Suez Canal, and had been accustomed to hunt the gazelle with them, and play the part of fine gentleman, which is the ruin of Bedouin morality. That he did indeed play the part of spy and traitor in the English interest I have his own half admission, for passing by Salahieh in the spring of 1887, I stopped a night at his tents, and he seeing me to be English, and knowing nothing of my political sympathies, spoke of his doings during the war in terms there was no mistaking. Acting as scout for Arabi, it was easy for his men to pass from camp to camp, and so convey intelligence. There was nothing specially to be ashamed of in this treachery, according to Bedouin morals, for to the Arab tribes Egyptians and Turks and Franks are equally outside the sphere of their allegiance, and in serving them it is merely a question of what suits their interest best. On the east of the Nile the Bedouins have exceedingly little religious feeling to prevent their siding with the infidel, if their advantage lies that way, and no love was ever yet lost between Bedouin and Fellah.
What did Arabi infinitely more harm than this and facilitated the rapidity of Wolseley's advance, was the tampering with his officers