Cairo, November 19. —... Our Government don't now seem to be in any great hurry for getting us out of Cairo; at first they were very anxious to get us out of here as quickly as possible. Sir Charles Dilke's ^^ speech just before the end of the session, fully endorsed by Mr. Gladstone, was very decided upon this point.... Baring offered a month ago to authorise me to take up freight at once, so as to get us away quickly, and the War Office telegraphed to know in how short a time I should be readj'^ to quarter the new garrison at Alexandria. We now learn that one single ship has been told off, the Himalaya, for bringing the infantry away, and to do this she is to make three trips: as she does not leave England upon her voyage until the 29th of this month, it will be about the middle of the month of February before Cairo is evacuated. Then as regards the withdrawal from Egypt altogether, the wives and children of the troops to remain at Alexandria are now ordered out. I have told the Secretary for War that I could not provide huts for so many families under;{^ 10,000. This rather startled him, but yesterday I received instructions to go on with the work — this looks like a prolonged occupation. Yesterday my pulse was being felt with the view of ascertaining whether I would like to keep my headquarters at Cairo after the troops had left for Alexandria. I replied that such a measure, so far as the command of the troops was concerned, would be an absurdity, but there was an idea that the effect politically would be good; this is a very different notion from what prevailed a short time age — in Baring's mind, at all events. There is no doubt that the French will do all they can to regain
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
their lost influence, and we must be on the alert if we are to prevent them. There has been bad news from Suakin, where Moncrieff's " brother i' was consul; he has been killed, as you will have heard by this time, by an onslaught from the slave dealers in the Soudan, who, from what is reported here, routed a body of about 500 Egyptian troops, of whom only 14 are said to have escaped. How poor Moncrieff was mixed up in the affray has not yet been sufficiently explained. This is a serious matter, unless Hicks,^* by a very decided success at Obeid, can counteract the effects of this reverse; it is the second loss of this nature which the Egyptian troops have suffered in this neighbourhood between Suakin and Berber within six weeks or two months. The campaign in the Soudan has been for a long time a constant heavy drain upon the finances of this country, and the present state of things ought to be put a stop to. Hicks may possibly succeed in doing this, but if he does not, the Egyptian army should be employed for the purpose, and an English governor appointed for the time at Khartoum, or else an English official at the elbow of the Egyptian governor to control him. I don't imagine our own Government will take serious notice of Moncrieff's death, though under other circumstances any other country would be called to account for their want of protection to a foreign consul. Affairs in China look very bad, and war with France is, I suppose, now inevitable. Two serious complications may arise, either of which may bring us into the fray; first, an indiscriminate attack by the Chinese populace upon all Europeans alike, and secondly, the blockade of the Chinese ports by the French and a possible repetition of outrages upon British subjects d, la Pidrre.^^... I had to give a ball here the other day, which went off fairly well. The different Pashas came. Ministers and all, and got the head interpreter to take them upstairs by twos and threes to see the house — but really to have a turn at the champagne on the sly. A fat old Sheikh of high religious
1883] THE ATTRACTION OF CHAMPAGNE 307
celebrity followed their example, but wishing to avoid the notice of the other Pashas, as well as of the company generally, was taken by the interpreter into my dressingroom, where he indulged in a quiet and copious draught. — Yours affectionately, Fredk. Stephenson.
To his Sister
Cairo, November 18, 1883.