Chapter XVI The Campaign of Tel-el-Kebir

myself." August 2, > "I am off again to the desert for a short trip in about two days. I have been asked to go to the coast and cut the telegraph wires and burn the poles on the desert line so as to cut off Arabi's communications with Turkey! Captain Gill arrived at Port Said yesterday and will be here this morning. Yesterday I had a most interesting day. I called on the captains of all the men-of-war and met with a most pleasant reception. They all insisted upon my drinking iced champagne with them, and in the evening the Admiral gave a dinner party on board the flagship in my honour. It was a beautiful dinner and I did not get back to my ship until one this morning." August 4, > "On Monday I was ordered to accompany the commanding officer and take Suez. We landed with three guns and 500 men. The Egyptian soldiers ran away, so we had no fighting to do. I was in the first boat which landed. We then made the Governor give us up the town and £50,000 which he had, and we took possession. The day before yesterday Lord Northbrook telegraphed to the Admiral to congratulate me on my safe arrival, and informing me that I was appointed 'Interpreter in Chief to Her Majesty's Forces in Egypt,' and placed on the Admiral's Staff. I am here [Suez] in great state at the hotel at Government expense, and have all my meals with the Admiral. I am going up to Ismaïlia the day after to-morrow on a gunboat, and the Admiral here said, 'Don't let the other Admiral keep you—you are on the books of the "Euryalus," his flagship.' I have got a