“These visits took us till three o’clock, and we had not even a moment to get breakfast. Then we went to the Zoological Gardens, where there are some astonishing tigers, and dined at home with Walter Pollen, thus ending the year 1883.
“I forgot to mention my conversation to-day with Bose. We discussed the probability of a revolution, and he said the danger was very great. People were losing their confidence in Lord Ripon, after having lost it in the Government at home. They still looked to English public opinion, but a spark might at any time fire the train. He asked what amount of influence men like those whose names were on the Indian Committee exercised, and I told him ‘very little.’ I was not at all sanguine of any great increase of sympathy with them from the British public, and I strongly advised the Indians to look to themselves, and themselves only, for help. We then talked over the details of an agitation. He is to organize meetings in every part of India, and telegraph constantly to me in London for publicity through the press. This is the only way, I maintain, of gaining them any real relief. They must frighten and coerce the English people into giving them their rights. I am writing strongly to Eddy Hamilton, pointing out the danger.”
[7] _N.B._ Precisely this leonine treaty in the form of a perpetual lease was imposed on the Nizam twenty years later by Lord Curzon under circumstances of extreme compulsion.
[8] Compare Lord Cromer’s book, “Modern Egypt,” where this same Mahmud Sami, a poet and a highly educated gentleman, is described as an “illiterate” man--a foolish judgement, typical of the writer’s ignorance of Egyptian character.
“Mohammed Yusuf, a Member of Council, to whom I broached my idea of a university, but he is of the worldly school, and says he would rather have his sons educated at the Presidency College. He dresses, however, becomingly, in dark clothes, and with a gilt crown on his head.
“A Sheykh from Yemen came next, who brought a letter of introduction from Arabi, whom he had visited in Ceylon. He talked about the Mahdi, and told us that all the Arabs in Yemen and in Hejaz would join him if he crossed the Red Sea. They were weary of the Turks. The Mahdi had already a Wazir in Yemen, who was gathering adherents to the great terror of the Ottoman Mushir. The Turks had lately inveigled the Harb chiefs into Mecca, and imprisoned them, which was the cause of the confusion in the country. Midhat was still a prisoner at Taïf. The old man himself evidently believed in the Mahdi, and explained to us how all the signs and prophecies had been fulfilled about him. He was delighted when I said ‘Allah yensoru’; and when he went away I observed that Mohammed Yusuf, in spite of his English education, reverently kissed his hand.