their Turkish masters, themselves the slaves of Europe. The whole legend of fellah nationality would have vanished in a disgraceful smoke, for a nation which has never dared fight for its existence is justly despised. The native press would have been reduced to the condition we find it in in Tunis. There would have been neither civil nor personal liberty, nor any regard paid to native rights. It would be still, in fact, what Egypt was in 1883, a land where no man could speak above his breath or count on his next door neighbour not to betray him. Arabi at least saved his countrymen from this, and, if when it came to the point of actual warfare he was found incapable as a soldier, they still owe him as a patriot much. He prevented them from incurring the supreme disgrace of not having fought at all on the only occasion in all their history when the chance was theirs to stand up for their freedom.
Having said this much, I will return to my story. The true history of the telegrams, as I afterwards learned it, at Cairo was this. They had arrived at a most critical moment when the attitude of the Deputies and of some among the weaker-kneed of the