The Arab horsemen cut the telegraph which goes out of the lines at Bourré to the North Fort. I declined to allow its repair since I had lost a major and had six men wounded when last we went out of the lines, and besides which I had another cable to the north side. No sentries at the North Fort or Bourré, or on the Mudirat; these people are enough to break any one’s heart. Fortunately, from the roof of the Palace one watches all these things, and can bully them into obeying orders, but it is (as Hansall says[155]) a vie abrutissante, to be always snarling and growling. The Ismailia and Husseinyeh went down the river, and saw no Arabs on either bank. If these Arabs (one’s servants) are not eating, they are saying their prayers; if not saying their prayers, they are sleeping; if not sleeping, they are sick. One snatches at them at intervals. Now figure to yourself the position; you cannot do anything with them while in these fortresses eating, saying prayers, sleeping, or sick, and they know it. You would be a brute if you did (which I fear I often am). You want to send an immediate order, and there is your servant bobbing up and down, and you cannot disturb him. It is a beautiful country for trying experiments with your patience.
It is very curious, but if I am in a bad temper, which I fear is often the case, my servants will be always at their prayers, and thus religious practices follow the scale of my temper; they are pagans if all goes well.
I must say I hate our diplomatists. I think with few exceptions they are arrant humbugs, and I expect they know it. I include the Colvin class. The Rothschilds are, I feel assured, giving Her Majesty’s Government a lot of bother about the Finance Question. If you had asked ... at Balaklava the price of a cheese, he would have said £5 5s. If you asked him now you would offend him.
October 24.—Arab church parade. Mahomet Achmet and Faki Mustapha, few in number, at Waled a Goun, the Arabs have divided their camp, putting the regulars near the river, in camp apart from theirs, to act as buffers if any attack is made on them.
The Arabs have got a nuggar at Giraffe. A man of Zubair’s old force has come in from the Arabs. To-morrow expires the six months for which the notes were issued. We have been boxed up 226 days (seven and a half months); siege of Troy.
The man who came in (Zubair’s old soldier) was one of Lupton’s men from the Bahr Gazelle; he left five months ago (Bahr Gazelle). He says Lupton is at Shaka, and is Sheikh Abdullah, so he has changed his religion.[156] I wonder what has become of the garrison of the Equator. Another man has come in.
All that bloodshed in fighting the slave dealers in the Bahr Gazelle has gone, apparently, for nothing![157] There are great doubts if the Mahdi is really near, no one appears to have seen him.
Since the escape of the lot yesterday, the Arabs have taken the rifles of the regulars from them: at the Mahdi’s camp, the Arabs have a ferry under our nose, across the White Nile; but I do not like to send up the steamers, for the captains are so heedless.