IGNORANCE OF THE TEOrLE. 233 lievecl that the main object we had in view was the recovery of vast sums lent to Ismail Pasha, and every tax and every act of oppression were put down to us, who were supposed to have taken since Tel-el-Kebir fabulous sums away from the country. Of our good intentions, of our efforts to abolish the courbash, and of our offer to advance money for their relief, they knew nothing; the fact being that we took no trouble to tell the people what we were doing on their behalf. The misrepresentations were chiefly of French origin, but we did little to counteract them, although a few Arabic proclamations, judiciously worded and posted in all the bazaars from time to time, would have had a most excellent effect.

These were the experiences of a writer who evidently spoke from trained observation, but the description of the perverse opinions of the people he describes is strangely seconded, or as some may think contrasted, by the declaration of another correspondent, that the people along the Nile banks, the patient tillers of the patches of maize or beans, and the herders of goats, had little notion of what was going forward. At some of the villages they had not so much as heard of the Mahdi, still less that there was an expedition for the relief of Gordon. At one village they said that there were more Nile travellers than usual coming up, and that the season was beginning earlier; but they had not seen any soldiers, and they were quite incredulous when told that the steamers were carrying or towing English troops. The state of ignorance ot what was passing daily under their eyes was almost incredible, but it was evidently not assumed, and in the whole village there was to be found only one man who had heard of Gordon, and he declared he had gone away to his own country long ago. The villagers were willing to sell what few supplies they had, but their flocks were few and small, their herds confined to the couple of oxen employed at the water-wheels, and the small seed of the dhurra was not palatable to Englishmen. Thus lambs, eggs, and the milk of sheep were practically the only provisions they had to sell, and the value of the lambs as food for soldiers may be guessed from the fact that one lamb, picked from a number on account of its good looks,