POSITION OF TEWFIK AFTER THE MUTINY. 453 and train an army of native soldiers, chiefly, I think, Nubians ; that with this army an advance should be made upon Khartoum ; that the cost of the expedition should be borne by the Berlin Syndicate ; and that, in return for the money advanced, the German Government should grant the Syndicate a charter over any territory wrested from the Khalifa, analogous to that granted by the Government of England to the British South African Company. He proposed that I should accompany him to Berlin, to see whether the scheme would be taken up seriously.

The project seemed to me at the outset utterly extravagant. But I saw that Sir Samuel was set on the proposal, and that, rightly or wrongly, he believed it to be serious. Indeed, he was, in as far as I could gather, under the impression that Prince Bismarck had been sounded on the matter, and had expressed himself as willing to give it his consideration, if the proposal could be submitted to him in a practical form* I then pointed out to Sir Samuel, that, even supposing there were no other objections to the project, it must, if successful, create great difficulties in the way of the British occupation of Egypt, of which we were both strong partisans; and that he, as an Englishman of high distinction, and as an old officer of the British army, could hardly take a prominent part in an enterprise whose object was to establish a German State at the junction of the White and Blue Niles. With his usual frankness he admitted the force of the objection, and said