as soldiers. The regulars were not under the civil, but the military governors, and took no part in the affair until called in at a late hour by Omar Lutfi when he found the riot had assumed proportions he could not otherwise control. It is to be noted that the chief of the Mustafezzin, Seyd Kandil, a timid adherent of Arabi's, refused to take part in the day's proceedings, excusing himself to Omar Lutfi on the ground of illness.
The disturbance was therefore prepared already for execution when Dervish and his fellow Commissioner landed on the 8th at Alexandria. It was probably intended to synchronize with the plot of Arabi's arrest, and to prove to the Sultan's Commissioner, more than to any one else, that Arabi had not the power to keep order in the country that he claimed. I am not, however, at all convinced that Dervish was in ignorance of what was intended, and I think there is a very great probability that he had learned it before his interview with Arabi, and that if he had succeeded in getting Arabi to resign his responsibility the riot would have been countermanded. As it is, there is some evidence that the outbreak took place earlier than was intended. It is almost certain that the immediate occasion of it, the quarrel between the donkey boy and the Maltese, was accidental, but probably the police had received no counter-orders, and so the thing was allowed to go on according to the program. What is certain is that the Khedive and Omar Lutfi, the one at Cairo, the other at Alexandria, monopolized telegraphic communication between the two cities, that Omar Lutfi put off on one and another pretext, from hour to hour, calling in the military, who could not act without his orders as civil governor in a case of riot, and that the occurrence was regarded at the Palace as a subject of rejoicing and by Arabi and the Nationalists as one to be regretted and minimized. Also, and this is a very important matter, the committee named to inquire into the causes of the affair by the Khedive was composed almost