CHAPTER XVI THE CAMPAIGN OF TEL-EL-KEBIR

With the civilian chiefs of the Nationalists another agent was employed, also not without effect. This was none other than the old leader of the fellah movement, Sultan Pasha, who, having thrown his lot in now wholly with the English, was not ashamed to lend himself to the work of spreading disunion among those who still retained their patriotism. To the new generation of the Egyptians it seems difficult to understand how a man of such initial high conduct as a lover of his country should have sunk to so mean a pass. But I think it is not really difficult to explain. Sultan was a proud man of great wealth and importance, and used to being given the first place everywhere—the "king," as he was called, of Upper Egypt, the first and foremost of the great fellah proprietors—and with what seemed to him a natural right to leadership in the fellah party. Arabi he had patronized as a younger man and one of no social standing, who might help him in his ambitions, but who should never have