happen was that Ottoman troops would be landed, who were as likely as not to fraternize with his own. He knew himself to be regarded throughout the Mohammedan world as the champion of Islam, for the pilgrims just returning from Mecca had brought the news, and it would be difficult for the Sultan to take real part with England against him. He had, too, a remnant of his trust in Gladstone, and of the traditional belief in Englishmen's sympathy with liberty, which he believed might still prevail if only the truth could be brought home to them by the spectacle of Egyptian patriotism—dreams, of course, and most delusive ones, but shared in by many others, and not altogether inexcusable, considering the events of the past six months.
Nevertheless, on the 16th August, Wolseley, with the first instalments of the British land expedition, disembarked at Alexandria, and, as it was not to be supposed that he would confine himself to the thankless task of bombarding the impregnable lines of Kafr Dawar, it became urgent with the military committee sitting at Cairo to decide on providing new lines of defence on the far more easily assailable side of the Suez Canal. An Eastern army under Ali Fehmi was consequently got together at Cairo, which occupied the Canal in force; and the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, which, in spite of the warning I had sent through Sheykh Mohammed Abdu in April, had never been more than traced, began to be dug in earnest. It became also a question of imminent importance to block the Suez Canal towards its northern extremity, lest British ships should be beforehand with the defence and should land at Ismaïlia. The opinion was unanimous among the military chiefs that this was a strategic necessity, and that at any cost of quarrel with the French Canal authorities it should be done. Arabi, however—and this was his second great mistake—could not make up his mind to the act. His hesitation was due to French influence. M. de