change my position as the enemy was taking us in flank. I said my prayer and galloped to where we had a reserve of volunteers, and called to them to follow me to support the front line. But they were only peasants, not soldiers, and the shells were falling among them and they ran away. I then rode forward alone with only my servant Mohammed with me, who, seeing that there was no one with me and that I was going to certain death, caught hold of my horse by the bridle and implored me to go back. Then seeing that the day was lost already, and that all were flying, I turned. Mohammed continued with me and we crossed the Wady at Tel-el-Kebir, and keeping along the line of the Ismaïlia Canal reached Belbeis. There I had formed a second camp, and I found Ali Roubi arrived before me, and we thought to make a stand. But on the arrival of Drury Lowe's cavalry none would stay, and so we abandoned all and took train for Cairo. Ali Roubi made mistakes by extending the lines too far northwards, but he was loyal. The traitors were Abdul Ghaffar, I think, and certainly his second in command of the cavalry, Abd-el-Rahman Bey Hassan, and Ali Yusuf Khunfis. You say Saoud el Tihawi, too. It may be so. Those Arabs were not to be trusted. His grandfather had joined Bonaparte when he invaded us a hundred years ago.
Now I return home after twenty years of sorrowful exile, and my own people I laboured to deliver have come to believe, because the French papers have told them so, that I sold them to the English!
The Grand Mufti's remarks on the above
[N. B.—On March 18th, 1903, I read the foregoing account to Sheykh Mohammed Abdu at his house at Aïn Shems. He approved most of it as correct, but made the following remarks:
- As to the riot against Nubar.—Arabi's account of this is correct, except that the order given to Ali Ferny to fire on the students was not intended to be obeyed and was part of the comedy. Ali Fehmy