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CHAPTER XVIII.

INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT, EGYPT.

DURING my last year at Portsmouth-viz., 1881when the Duke made his usual autumn inspection, there was so much going on that I was unable to get a chance of an interview with the quartermastergeneral, Sir G. W., which I much wished for; but as he left with the headquarter staff for town, I requested him to read a little memo which I gave him about Egypt, where matters were approaching a crisis. It was an outline of the paper I had written in 1875, with reference to an advance on Cairo via the Canal and Ismailia. Towards the end of the year the chances of our having to interfere in Egypt became so evident that I thought it would be a move in the right direction if I paid another visit to that country for the purpose of making myself acquainted with the military resources of a possible enemy, so that in the event of hostilities I might have a fair chance of being employed on active service. With this view I went to town and saw the quartermaster-general on the subject of getting six weeks' leave: I had some two months due to me, and I thought I might combine business with pleasure, shooting snipe in the Delta. My leave

was arranged, and I was directed to call at Adair House before leaving. My proposed trip met with the approbation of the chief there, who exclaimed, "Thank goodness you are going! We wanted to send out two officers some time ago, but it was forbidden." I mentioned that as I was going out at my own expense, snipe-shooting, no one could interfere with me, or even know where I had gone, and I should be only too pleased to be of use to my old department. An Indian troopship happened to have a vacant cabin in pandemonium,—the lower deck, so much depised by subalterns: this, a naval friend, a retired admiral who had agreed to go with me, and I occupied, and thought how luxurious it was compared with what we had known in our younger days.

We landed at Port Said the end of January, and as a good deal of special information with regard to the capabilities of that place had to be recorded, we remained there some days. I had several cases of ammunition with me, all very legibly marked as such; we were consequently looked on as very keen sportsmen. Snipe were not plentiful near the town, but we had other business to occupy us; amongst that work, the possibility of the Canal being wilfully blocked in places, and the means of clearing it had to be considered. A naval friend, I found, was similarly employed at the Suez end. I commenced at Port Said, and when making my observations on the Canal bank, I made a curious discovery. An easterly gale came up very rapidly, and at last was so strong, driving the sand from the dry far side into my face, that I had to cease work. Next morning the wind having a good deal gone down, I went on the Canal bank again, when, to

my astonishment, I noticed that Lake Menzaleh on the west side of the Canal had disappeared beyond the horizon in that direction, and that the Arabs were walking on the mud where the day before large boats had been floating. When thinking over this extraordinary effect of wind on shallow water, it suddenly flashed upon me that I was witnessing a similar event to that which had taken place between three and four thousand years ago, at the time of the passage of the so-called Red Sea by the Israelites. Subsequently, when I had time for it, I examined the shores of the Bitter Lakes, and came to the unquestionable conclusion that the Red Sea of Pharaoh's day extended to the head of the Bitter Lakes, and it was there the passage took place, and that the description of it in Exodus is literally correct, word for word. I need hardly say the usually accepted Sunday-school picture of a number of people running through what looks like a deep railway cutting is not what really happened. The crossing was evidently by a broad shallow belt-cleared by the east wind— which would permit of the immense crowd of people and animals getting over in the time stated. I went fully into the subject in a public lecture in London, at which the savants declared I had proved my case, and solved a problem which had puzzled the world for many centuries. The lecture was widely discussed, one post bringing me two newspapers, one from Bengal, the other from New Orleans, both concurring in the correctness of the idea brought forward.

Ismailia was the next place where I thought it advisable to try for snipe. As that town might be required for a base of operations, we were a few

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days there our bags were not great, but nevertheless sufficient to impress the people with whom we were brought in contact. In the following August I happened to be again at our old lodgings in the Hôtel des Bains; I was then in uniform. Our former acquaintance, the Arab waiter, beckoned me to the corner of the building,-"Ah! monsieur était ici en hiver pour la chasse aux bécassines"; and then pointing to the troop - boats landing the soldiers, "Voilà vos bécassines!" The next place visited was Tel-el-Kebir, at that time without intrenchments, with the exception of a line of an old sheltertrench we went simply for the shooting, which was splendid. It was not until I had been to Cairo and got behind the scenes that I discovered what the intention of the Egyptian War Office was with regard to the position at Tel-el-Kebir; then I paid another and much longer visit to the place.

Unfortunately my companion got a chill in the marshes, which brought out a bad attack of malarial fever, from which he had formerly suffered, so we had to go to Cairo for medical advice: the end of it was the admiral had to go home, and I was left to continue my work alone. By great good luck I made the acquaintance of Mr C. B. Alexander, who had come over from the United States for the winter, and who was also staying at Shepheard's. This acquaintance in due time became a firm friendship, which has existed between us to this day. I happened in course of conversation, when talking about Egyptian soldiers, to say I had not yet seen how they lived in barracks. Alexander mentioned this to General Stone, a fellow-countryman, chief of the staff of the Egyptian army, who very kindly arranged for our

visiting the Abdin barracks, and an inspection of the infantry brigade stationed there. I came to the conclusion that as I had no uniform, we ought to make up for our being in plain clothes by the magnificence of our equipage; so I hired the smartest turnout I could get in Cairo, and, with running footmen covered with gold embroidery, we drove up in state to review Arabi's troops, just three months before hostilities began by the massacre of Alexandria. After the review I had the officers assembled and made them a grandiloquent speech in French, in which I am afraid I rather embroidered history, about our having in former days "combattu l'ennemi côte à côte sous l'ombre des Pyramides," &c. At the end of it one of the officers said certainly soldiers were all brothers, but we were Christians, and they were Mohammedans. "Oui, c'est vrai," I answered; "mais avec soldats il n'y a pas beaucoup de différence entre les deux religions. La grande différence est ceci : vous avez deux femmes, moi, n'ai qu'une. J'en ai, je crois, le dessus." This very much amused the officers. I then said, "Peut-être messieurs les officiers se trouveront un jour en Angleterre ; il me ferait grand plaisir de les recevoir chez moi." A rather extensive order, considering the size of my little house at Southsea, but in the East a trifling exaggeration is permissible.

I afterwards went over the barracks, going everywhere. No English quarters could have been cleaner or in better order, but at that time the Egyptian army had an energetic American officer as chief of the staff. The state of filth of these same barracks when the Egyptian officers were left to themselves during the war was something indescribable. As I