October 22.—I wonder what Saleh Bey of Galabat will say to this cession, after he has been fighting for me. Also what Seyd Mahomet Osman will say after all his trouble.
I can now see why I was kept in the dark.
In one of Saleh Bey’s letters he says he sends me a letter from King John. This I have not got; it apparently was not sent.
A man came in with letter from Slatin, in which he says the Abbas was captured near Dar Djumna. Stewart killed, with nine men, and all the papers captured.[141]
Three soldiers escaped yesterday from the Arabs. Seven more came in to-day; they had no news. Mahdi and all Europeans are four hours distant. Mahdi has put Saleh Pasha (of Shaggyeh) in chains.
Twenty-six goats came kindly into lines to-day.
I am very anxious about the Abbas; it would be terrible, if it is true, that she is captured.
The cut out pages are, or rather were, a tirade against the cession of Kassala,[142] &c., &c., but as they would be no use now I have cut them out.
I believe Government can, now-a-days, get men to do anything by means of money and honours (not honour), and I have a shrewd idea of how this affair will end up here. However, it is not my affair, and I have taken my decision.
Kitchener to Chermside. “He is furious about that admirable treaty of Hewitt’s. Fortunate I did not tell him about it. He has the Mahdi alongside now, and can vent his spleen on him. We have got his steamers all but two, and need not care.”[143]