266 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

) foreign domination I have no right to say that either Mr. Wilfrid Blunt or Sir William Gregory were not sincerely convinced, that Arabi was a genuine patriot — a sort of Garibaldi of the Nile.

But upon this assumption I must perforce give them credit for less intelligence than I should have otherwise supposed them to possess. What is even more unintelligible to me, is how my old friend Sir William, a thorough man of the world, with all an Irishman's keen sense of humour, could ever have looked on Arabi in the light of a constitutional reformer. I had the honour of being introduced at this period to "Achmed the Egyptian " by Sir William, and the one thing that struck me in his appearance was his look of stolid stupidity. I attach no great value to cursory impressions of this kind. The only reason why I record my impression is, that it has been confirmed by everybody I have known in Egypt who ever came into relations with Arabi. One and all agreed in saying that he was devoid of any kind of apparent ability, and had little or none of the shrewdness so common amidst the fellaheen. I However this may be, the attempt to identify the I Arabi mutiny with a constitutional agitation in favour \ of freedom and independence was a clever card, played ( with great chance of success. Mr. Gladstone was then at the height of his popularity at home, and the ideas he represented were still in the ascendant.

He had a genuine dislike to any extension of our Imperial liabilities, and a special dislike to any such \