Owing to a discovered intrigue and the risk of having too much power in the hands of one man, I have sent Ibrahim Ruckdi to Malia as chief clerk, and Gugliz Bey of Malia is made my chief clerk. Nothing like change of air for these fellows.
As interesting to Stewart, I will mention the intrigue. He knows of the letters which came, accusing Ibrahim Ruckdi of venality. Well, a Medgliss was held, and Mahomet Bey Agad was found guilty of sending the letters. I did not care to push the matter, for, in my belief, Agad was right in his accusation, although he had no right to write anonymously. Of course the Medgliss found him guilty, as every Egyptian Medgliss does every one sent before it; so I temporised and hinted to a third person that it would be well if Ibrahim asked pardon of Agad; this hint, being of course a sort of order, he took; but I noticed he was working against Agad; and yesterday he came with a paper against Hassan Agad the Sandjak, putting it forward as Ferratch Pasha’s idea to turn Hassan Agad out. I thought over it, and it worried me, the viciousness of the man; but I took no action. However, to-day, as I told him to write another order about the troops saluting me by stopping in the road and saying he was responsible for it, he said, as he turned away, in an impertinent manner, “Am I Commandant of troops?” He was brought back, and, nose to grindstone, was sent to Malia, and Gugliz Bey was brought up to chief clerkship.
I own I am suspicious, i.e., I judge by the eye, by little signs, &c., for I do not know the language; but I cannot help thinking I am more often right than wrong with my suspicions. One comes on a group of clerks, heads all together, in the chief clerk’s room; one sees disturbed countenances at once. I cannot help thinking “You are concocting devilry!” and I look out for some “tricks.”
Another soldier escaped here from the Arabs, and says the Mahdi is at Jura Hadra, and intends coming to Omdurman. He does not appear to think the Arabs care for the English advance, though they know they are at Dongola, “a far cry,” they say, to Kartoum. They consider Hicks’s defeat was one over the English troops. One thing is good, viz., that the Arabs came down to Giraffe, for if they stay there, when the British do come they will fall easy victims without any long march inland. It certainly does seem astounding that the Arabs seem so confident when a British force is only 150 miles from them, which is the case, for that distance of 150 miles alone separates the three steamers from Debbeh, which has a water-way to Dongola, and the place the three steamers are at, has a water-way to Kartoum. In reality, with a well-equipped force, Debbeh is not more than eight days’ from Kartoum at the outside, saying that the 150 miles were made in six and a-half days, which for camels is twenty-five miles a day, very easy marching; while, from Metemma to this is 100 miles—a day and a half for steamers (when I say Debbeh, I mean Ambukol, to which place from Debbeh you have the open river). The appearance of one British soldier or officer here settles the question of relief vis-à-vis the townspeople, for then they know that I have not told them lies.
The Arabs fired fourteen rounds at the Bordeen. The shell which entered her was a Krupp; the hole is now repaired.
It was an unfortunate remark of Ibrahim Ruckdi, “Am I Commandant of soldiers?” I had dismissed the thought of changing him, having comforted myself that, one way or another, my tenure of office could not be long up here, when he said that; it was like a match in powder; he was brought back, and made then and there to sign his dismissal. I do not think he realised it, even after he had written it. Even to me it was a surprise, for I really had given up all idea of sending him off.
The sister steamer to the Abbas will be finished, I hope, in four days. She will be called the Hussein, after the head of the dockyard. The other one, also a sister steamer, will be, I hope, finished in six weeks, if we exist that time. Of the two steamers at Berber with Arabs, the Fascher and the Monsuhania—the latter is reported disabled.
I have ordered Bordeen to go on the White Nile on patrol from Kalakli to Shoboloha; the Ismailia is at Halfeyeh, Towfikia at Omdurman.
The Arabs, who went in numbers to Giraffe to-day went back to their Dem at sunset.
We have another large steamer, the Chabeen, up in our dry-dock, which I hope will be soon ready for action.