Chapter VII: Part 7

‘There were other circumstances which made the election more disappointing. It was known, before the election, that Dr Wright had been spoken to on the subject; it was also known that he would not stand because the stipend of the post, only 300_l._ a year, was not sufficient to induce him to give up the British Museum. It seemed, therefore, that the result of Palmer’s candidature would be a walk over. But the day before the election the Master of Queens’—then Dr Phillips, who was himself a Syriac scholar—went round to all the electors, and informed them that Dr Wright would be put up on the following day. He was put up; he was elected; and very shortly afterwards was made a Fellow of Queens’ probably in consequence of an understanding with Dr Phillips that, in the event of his election to the Professorship, an election to a Queens’ Fellowship should follow. Of course, one has nothing to say against the Fellowship. Probably a Queens’ Fellowship was never more honourably and usefully bestowed; but yet the man who ought to have obtained the Professorship, the man to whom it belonged, was kept out of it. Palmer was the kindest-hearted and most forgiving of men, and the last to think or speak evil; but this was a deliberate and uncalled-for injustice, an insult to his reputation which could never be forgotten. It embittered the whole of his future connexion with the University: it never was forgotten or forgiven[96].’

We notice two errors of fact in the above narrative. The election did not take place in 1871, but in 1870; and secondly, the Professorship was then worth only £70 a year. The stipend was not raised to £300 until the following November. The second of these errors is not of much importance; but the first is very material, as we shall show presently.

We will next give an exact narrative of what actually took place. Professor Williams, who had held the Arabic chair since 1854, died in the Long Vacation of 1870, and on October 1 the Vice-Chancellor announced the vacancy, and fixed the day of election for Friday, October 21. The only candidates who presented themselves in the ordinary way were Palmer and the Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A., of Jesus College, a gentleman who had obtained the Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholarship in 1853. It was thought that his merits were little known, and that he would not prove a formidable opponent; and Palmer, as Mr Besant rightly states, looked upon the Professorship as as good as won. However, on the day before, or the day but one before, the election, the President of Queens’ College left a card on each of the electors, to say that Dr Wright would be voted for. One of these cards was given to Palmer, we do not know by whom. He showed it to a friend, who asked, ‘What does it mean?’ ‘It means that it is all up with me,’ was Palmer’s reply; and events proved that he was right in his forebodings. When the electors met, the Masters of Trinity Hall and Emmanuel were not present, and the Master of Gonville and Caius declined to vote. The remaining fourteen voted in the following way:—for Dr Wright, eight; for Mr Palmer, five; for Mr Leathes, one. Dr Wright, therefore, was declared to be elected.

It will be seen from what is here stated—and the accuracy of our facts is, we know, beyond question—that it was not the Heads of Houses in their collective capacity who rejected Palmer, but less than half of them. Again, we submit that there is no evidence that those who voted against him were actuated by either of the prejudices which Mr Besant imputes to them. A high place in a tripos is no longer regarded at Cambridge as indispensable, unless the candidate be trying for a post the duties of which are in direct relation to the tripos in which he has sought distinction. Four years afterwards, the resident members of the Senate chose as Woodwardian Professor of Geology a gentleman who had taken an ordinary degree, in opposition to one who had been placed thirteenth in the first class of the mathematical tripos, on the ground that they believed him to be a better geologist than his opponent. It will be said they were not the Heads of Colleges; but we would remark that, even in the election we are discussing, the case against them breaks down on this point; for the successful candidate was not even a member of the University, and surely an indifferent degree is better than no degree at all. As to the second prejudice against Palmer, we simply dismiss it with contempt. We never heard of a Cambridge elector who was influenced by hearsay evidence; and, as a matter of fact, Palmer was supported by the Master of his own College, who must have known more about his habits than all the other Heads put together. If we consider the result arrived at by the light of subsequent events, it is natural for those who, like his biographer and ourselves, are strongly prepossessed in Palmer’s favour, to regret that he was unsuccessful; and we are delighted to find Mr Besant asserting, as he does, that University distinctions ought to be given, _ceteris paribus_, to University men. But if we try to put ourselves in the position of the electors, and survey the two candidates as they surveyed them, there is, we feel bound to assert, ample justification for the selection they made, having regard to the particular post to be filled at that time. They had, in fact, to choose between a tried and an untried man. Dr Wright was known to have received a regular education in Oriental languages in Germany and in Holland, and to be thought highly of by the most competent judges in those countries. He had given proof of sound scholarship in various publications, and it was considered by several scholars in the University that the studies to which he had given special attention, viz.—Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic, and the Semitic group of languages generally—would be specially useful there. He had held a Professorship in Trinity College, Dublin, where he had been distinguished as a teacher; he was personally known in Cambridge, not merely to Dr Phillips, but to the University at large, at whose hands he had received the honorary degree of Doctor of Law in 1868. Moreover, he was already an honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, and therefore it was not strange that a Society which had already gone so far should signify to him their intention of proceeding a step further, in the event of his consenting to come and reside at Cambridge as a Professor. He was accordingly elected Fellow January 5, 1871[97].

Palmer, on the other hand, had submitted to the electors testimonials which testified to his wonderful knowledge of Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic as spoken languages; he was known to have given special attention to the languages of India; he had catalogued the Oriental MSS. in the Libraries of the University, of King’s College, and of Trinity College; he had translated Moore’s _Paradise and the Peri_ into Arabic verse; and he had published a short treatise on the Sufistic and Unitarian Theosophy of the Persians. But here the direct evidence of his acquirements ceased; and it is at this point that the date of the election becomes material. None of his more important works had as yet appeared. The official Report of his journeys in the East was not published until January 1871; and the preface to his _Desert of the Exodus_ is

dated June of the same year[98]. The Heads, therefore, could not know that he ‘had relied on his knowledge of the language for safety in a dangerous expedition.’

After a disappointment so severe as the loss of the much-coveted professorship, it might have been expected that Palmer’s connexion with Cambridge would soon have been severed; that he would have sought and obtained a lucrative appointment elsewhere. On the contrary, it was written in the book of fate, as one of his favourite Orientals would have said, that he should not only remain at Cambridge, but remain there in connexion with Oriental studies. Cambridge has two chairs of Arabic: a Professorship founded by Sir Thomas Adams in 1632; and a Readership, founded by King George I. in 1724, at the instance of Lancelot Blackburn, Bishop of Exeter and Lord Almoner. It is endowed with an income of £50 a year, paid out of the Almonry bounty, but reduced by fees to £40. 10_s._ If, however, the income be small the duties are none—or, rather, none are attached to the office as such; and moreover the Reader is technically regarded as a Professor, and has a Professor’s privilege of retaining a College Fellowship for life as a married man. The previous holder of the office, the Rev. Theodore Preston, Fellow of Trinity College, had regarded it as a sinecure, and moreover had generally been non-resident. On his resignation in 1871, the Lord Almoner for the time being, the Hon. and Rev. Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor, gave the office to Palmer. At last, therefore, he seemed to have obtained his reward—congenial occupation in a place which had been the first to find him out and help him, where he had many devoted friends, and where he was now enabled to establish himself as a married man; for on the very day after he received his appointment he married a lady to whom he had been engaged for some years.

Palmer took a very different view of his duties as Reader in Arabic from what his predecessor had done. He delivered his inaugural lecture on Monday, 4 March, 1872, choosing for his subject ‘The National Religion of Persia; an Outline Sketch of Comparative Theology[99],’ and during the Easter and Michaelmas terms he lectured on six days in each week, devoting three days to Persian and three to Arabic. To these subjects there was subsequently added a course in Hindustani. In consequence of this large amount of voluntary work the Council of the Senate recommended (February 24, 1873)[100] ‘that a sum of £250 per annum should be paid to the present Lord Almoner’s Reader out of the University Chest,’ and that he should be authorized to receive a fee of £2. 2_s._ in each term for each course of lectures from every student attending them, provided he declared in writing his readiness to acquiesce in certain regulations, of which the first was: ‘That it shall be his ordinary duty to reside within the precincts of the University for eighteen weeks during term time in every academical year, and to give three courses of lectures—viz. one course in Arabic, one in Persian, and one in Hindustani.’ The Senate accepted this proposal March 6, 1873, and Palmer signed the new regulations five days afterwards. In recording this transaction Mr Besant remarks: ‘It must be acknowledged that the University got full value for their money.’ We reply to this sneer that the University asked no more from Palmer than it asked from every other professor whose salary was augmented. The clause imposing residence had been accepted in the same form by all the other professors; and one course of lectures in each term is surely the very least that a teaching body can require from one of its staff. It must also be remembered that the Lord Almoner’s Readership is an office to which the University does not appoint, which therefore it cannot control, and which, until Palmer held it, had been practically useless. He, however, being disposed to reside, and to discharge his self-imposed duties vigorously, the University came forward with an offer which was meant to be generous, in recognition of his personal merits; for the whole arrangement, it will be observed, had reference to the _present_ Reader only—that is, to himself. The precise amount offered, £250, was evidently selected with the intention of placing the Lord Almoner’s Reader on the same footing as a professor, for the salaries of nearly all the professorial body had been already raised to £300; and, if a comparison between the Reader and the Professor of Arabic be inevitable, it may be remarked that while the University offered £250 to the former, they offered only £230 to the latter. The intention, we repeat, was generous, and we protest with some indignation against Palmer’s bitter words: ‘The very worst use a man can make of himself is to stay up at Cambridge and work for the University.’ The truth is that University life did not suit him, and though he tried hard for ten years to believe that it did, the attempt ended in failure, and it is much to be regretted that it was ever made.

We must pass rapidly over the next ten years. They were years of incessant labour, labour which must have been often most painful and irksome, for it had to be undertaken in the midst of heavy sorrow, ill-health, pecuniary difficulties—everything, in short, which damps a man’s energies and takes the heart out of his work. His married life began brightly enough: he had an assured income of nearly £600 a year, which he could increase at pleasure, and we know did increase, by literary work. In 1871 he entered at the Middle Temple, probably with the intention of practising at the Indian bar at some future time; but after he had given up all thoughts of India he joined the Eastern Circuit, and attended assizes and quarter sessions regularly. He had a fair amount of business, and is said to have made a good advocate, though he could have had little knowledge of law, and, in fact, regarded his legal work as a relaxation from severer studies. These he pursued without intermission. Besides his lectures, which he gave regularly, he produced work after work with amazing rapidity. In 1871, in addition to the _Desert of the Exodus_, he published a _History of Jerusalem_, written in collaboration with his friend Mr Besant; in 1873 he undertook to write an Arabic Grammar, which appeared in the following year; in 1874 he wrote _Outlines of Scripture Geography_, and a _History of the Jewish Nation_, for the Christian Knowledge Society, and began a Persian Dictionary, of which the first part was published in 1876; in 1876—77 he edited the works of the Arabian poet Beda ed din Zoheir for the Syndics of the University Press, the text appearing in 1876 and the translation in 1877; and during the next few years he was at work upon a _Life of Haroun Alraschid_, a new translation of the Koran, and a revision of Henry Martyn’s translation of the New Testament into Persian. Besides this vast amount of solid work it would be easy to show that he produced nearly as great a quantity of that other literature which, when we consider the labour which it entails upon him who writes it, it is surely a misnomer to call ‘light.’ Professor Nicholls, of Oxford, gives an account, in a most interesting appendix to Mr Besant’s book, of the quantity of Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani which Palmer was continually writing. In the last-mentioned language there were a poem on the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh, and a wonderful account of the visit of the Shah to England, which occupied thirty-six columns of the _Akhbar_, a space equivalent to about twenty columns of the _Times_; and, although Palmer admitted that ‘the writing of such things is a laborious and artificial task to me, as I am not as familiar with the Urdú of everyday life as I am with the Persian,’ he still went on writing them. How familiar he was with Arabic and Persian is shown by the curious fact that whenever he was under strong emotion he would plunge abruptly into one or other language, sometimes writing a whole letter in it, sometimes only a sentence or two, or a few verses. Besides these Oriental ‘trifles’ as he would probably have called them, we find continual contributions to English periodical literature, and three volumes of poetry: _English Gipsy Songs in Romany_ (1875); the _Song of the Reed, and other Pieces_ (1876); and _Lyrical Songs_, &c. by John Ludwig Runeberg (1878). In the first of these he collaborated with Mr Leland, whom we mentioned before, and Miss Janet Tuckey; and in the last with Mr Magnusson; but the second is entirely his own. We regret that we cannot find room for a specimen of these graceful verses. Those who have leisure to look into the _Song of the Reed_, or the translation of Zoheir, will find themselves introduced to a new literature by one who, if not a poet, was unquestionably, as Mr Besant says, a versifier of a high order, and in the very front rank of translators.

We have said that most of this work—were it grave or gay, it mattered not—had to be got through in the midst of serious anxieties. Mrs Palmer’s health began to fail before they had been married long, and it soon became evident that her lungs were affected. It was necessary that she should leave Cambridge. In the spring of 1876, Wales was tried, with results which were so reassuring that it was decided to complete her cure (as it was then believed) by a winter in Paris. There, however, she got worse instead of better, and early in the following year her husband began to realize that she would die. In the autumn of 1877, they returned home to try Wales once more, and then, as a last resource, Bournemouth. There, in the summer of 1878, Mrs Palmer died. The expenses of so long an illness, added to journeyings to and fro, and the cost of keeping up two establishments (for he was obliged to continue his Cambridge lectures all the while), crippled his resources, and produced embarrassments from which he never became wholly free. His own health, too, never strong, gave way under his fatigues and worries, and he became only not quite so ill as his wife. Yet he never complained; never said a word about his troubles to any of his friends. Those who were most with him at this dreary time have recorded that he always met them with a smiling face, and went about his work as calmly as if he had been well and happy.

It was fortunate for him that he had a singularly joyous nature, which could never be saddened for long together. He was always surrounded by a pleasant atmosphere of cheerfulness, which not only did good to those about him, but had a salutary effect upon himself, enabling him to maintain his elasticity and vigour, even in the face of sorrow and ill-health. Most things have their comic side, if only men are not blind to it; and he could see the humorous aspect of the most melancholy or the most perilous situation. To the last he was full of life and fun. Though he no longer, as of old, wrote burlesques, he could draw clever caricatures of his friends and acquaintances; tell stories which convulsed his hearers with laughter; and sing comic songs—especially a certain Arab ditty, in which he turned himself into an Arab minstrel with really wonderful power of impersonation. Again, whatever he came across—especially in great cities like London or Paris—was full of interest for him. Without being a philanthropist, or, indeed, having a spark of humanitarian sentiment in his nature, he took a pleasure in investigating his fellow-creatures, talking to men and finding out all about them. He was endowed in the highest degree with the gift of sympathy; and this, while it made him the most loveable of friends, made him also a singularly acute investigator, and gave him a power of influencing others which was truly wonderful. He possessed, too, great manual dexterity, and took a pleasure in finding out how all those things were done which depend for their success upon sleight of hand; and in all such he became a proficient himself. He was a first-rate conjuror, and besides doing the tricks, ordinary and extraordinary, of professed conjurors, he took much satisfaction in reproducing the most startling phenomena of spiritualism, which he regarded as a debased form of conjuring—‘a swindle of the most palpable and clumsy kind.’ It was in such pursuits that he found the recreation which other men find in hard exercise. Of this he took very little. Even in his younger days he did not care for games, and his one attempt at cricket was nearly fatal to the wicket-keeper, whom he managed to hit on the head with his bat; but he was an expert gymnast, and loved boating and fishing in the Fens, to which he used to retire from time to time with one of his friends. It may be doubted whether he cared about the sport and the fresh air so much as the absolute repose; the old-world character of that curious corner of England; the total absence of convention. There he could dress as he pleased; and he took full advantage of his liberty. It is recorded that once, as he was coming home to College, he happened to meet the Master, Dr Bateson, who, casting his eye over the water-boots and flannels, stained with mud and weather, in which the learned Professor had encased himself, remarked, ‘This is Eastern costume, I suppose.’ ‘No, Master; Eastern Counties costume,’ was the reply.

It is pleasant to be able to record that the happiness which had been so long delayed came at last. In about a year after his wife’s death he married again. His choice was fortunate, and for the last three years of his life he was able to enjoy that greatest of all luxuries—a thoroughly happy home. He stood sorely in need of such consolation, for in other directions he had plenty to distress and worry him. His pecuniary difficulties pressed upon him as hardly as ever, and his relations with the University began to be somewhat strained. He had had the mortification of seeing Professor Wright’s salary raised to £500 a year, with no hint of any corresponding proposition being made for him[101]; and when the Commissioners promulgated their scheme his office was not included in it, a suggestion for raising his salary which had been made by the Board of Oriental Studies being wholly disregarded by them. Moreover, the undertaking to deliver three courses of lectures in each year turned out to be infinitely more laborious than he had expected. Candidates for the Indian Civil Service increased in number; and the pupils of any given term were pretty sure to want to go on with their work in the next, when he was teaching a different language, so that he was compelled in practice to give, not one, but two, or even three, courses in each term. Moreover, the elementary nature of much of this instruction—the ‘teaching boys the Persian alphabet,’ as he called it—became every year more and more irksome. We are not surprised that he got disgusted with the University; but at the same time we cannot agree with Mr Besant that the University was wholly to blame. They were in no wise responsible for the conduct of the Commissioners; in fact, all that could be done to make them take a different view was done. Had Palmer resided continuously in the University, and pressed his own claims, things might have been very different. But this he had been unable to do, for reasons which, as we have seen, were beyond his own control, and for which, therefore, he is not to be blamed; but the fact cannot be denied that for some years he had been practically non-resident. There was also another cause which has to be taken into consideration—his own disposition. The life of a University is a peculiar life, which does not suit everybody, and certainly did not suit him. He felt ‘cabined, cribbed, confined,’ in it; and he said afterwards that ‘he never really began to live till he was emancipated from academic trammels.’ Our wonder is, not that he left Cambridge when he did, but that he remained so long connected with it. The final break took place in 1881, when he voluntarily rescinded the engagement which he had made to lecture, and, retaining the Readership and the Fellowship at S. John’s College—neither of which he could afford to resign—took up his abode in London, where he obtained a place on the staff of the _Standard_ newspaper. He readily adapted himself to this new life, and soon became a successful writer. One of the assistant-editors at that time, Mr Robert Wilson, has recorded that

‘Palmer considered his career as a journalist in London, short as it was, one of the pleasantest episodes of his life. Those who were associated with him in that career professionally can say that they reckoned his companionship one of the brightest and happiest of their experiences. He was

The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best-conditioned and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies;

and what he was to me he was to all who worked with him.’

It will be well, before we relate the heroic achievement with which the career of our friend closed, to try to estimate his position as an Oriental scholar, for as such he will be remembered, especially in Cambridge. For this purpose Mr Besant has, most judiciously, supplied ample materials to those competent to use them, by printing an essay by Professor Nicholls, of Oxford, which we have already quoted, and a paper by Mr Stanley Lane Poole. The former points out Palmer’s extraordinary facility in the use of Persian and Arabic, and gives a minute, and in the main highly laudatory, criticism of some of his performances, which ends with these words: ‘In him England loses her _greatest_ Oriental linguist, and _readiest_ Oriental scholar.’ From the latter we will quote a few sentences:

‘Palmer was a scholar of the kind that is born, not made. No amount of mere teaching could develop that wonderful instinct for language which he possessed. He stood in strongly-marked contrast to the other scholars of his time. Most of them were brought up on grammars and dictionaries; he learned Arabic by the ear and mouth. Others were careful about their conjugations and syntax; Palmer dashed to the root of all grammatical rules, and spoke or wrote so and so because it would not be spoken or written any other way. To him strange idioms that a book-student could not understand were perfectly clear; he had used them himself in the Desert again and again[102].’

He then proceeds to examine Palmer’s principal Arabic works, and decides that while the edition of Zoheir is the most finished of them, and the translation represents the original with remarkable skill, the version of the Koran ‘is a very striking performance.’

‘It has the grave fault of immaturity; it was written, or rather dictated, at great speed, and is consequently defaced by some oversights which Palmer was incapable of committing if he had taken more time over the work. But, in spite of all the objections that may be urged against it, his translation has the true Desert ring in it; we may quarrel with certain renderings, puzzle over occasional obscurities, regret certain signs of haste or carelessness; but we shall be forced to admit that the translator has carried us among the Bedawí tents, and breathed into us the strong air of the Desert, till we fancy we can hear the rich voice of the Blessed Prophet himself as he spoke to the pilgrims on Akabah[103].’

Lastly, Mr Poole points out the peculiar excellence of Palmer’s Arabic Grammar, which is arranged on the Arab system, in bold defiance of the usual custom of treating Arabic in the same way that one treats Latin. To these favourable criticisms of works beyond our powers of appreciation we should like to add a word of praise of our own for the historical introduction to the Koran, in which the career of Mahomet is sketched in a few bold, vigorous lines, and the scope and object of the work are analysed and explained. We regret that Palmer was not able to devote more time to history; the above _Introduction_, and the _Life of Haroun Alraschid_, seem to us to show that he would have excelled in that style of composition. He could read the native authorities with facility, and he knew how to put his materials to a good use. But alas! all these peaceful studies were to be closed for ever by an enterprise as masterly in its execution as it was terrible in its conclusion.

The suppression of Arabi’s revolt in Egypt created the greatest enthusiasm in this country. The British Public dearly loves a war, and every event in which our troops were concerned was eagerly read and proudly commented on by enthusiastic sympathizers. But there were probably not many who so much as read the scanty paragraphs which noted, first, the anxiety respecting the fate of some Englishmen who had gone into the Desert on a certain day in August 1882; and, subsequently, the certainty of their murder. Palmer’s wonderful achievement has been told for the first time by Mr Besant with a fulness of detail, a vividness of descriptive power, and, we may add, a bitterness of grief, that only those who read it carefully more than once can appreciate as such a piece of work deserves to be appreciated. We shall try to set before our readers the principal circumstances of those eventful days, treading in his steps, and often using his very words.

Early in the month of June 1882, when it became evident that the Egyptian revolt must be put down by force, two great causes of anxiety arose: (1) the safety of the Suez Canal; (2) the amount of support which Arabi was likely to receive, and the allies on whom he could depend. These two questions were of course closely connected with each other; and it is now known that as regards the second of them, Arabi hoped to obtain the support of the Arabs of the Desert on both sides of the Canal, and by their aid to seize, and, if possible, to destroy, the Canal itself. These Arabs, it is important to recollect, rise or remain quiet at the command of their sheikhs. The sheikhs, therefore, had to be won over. This he hoped to accomplish by the assistance of the governors of the frontier castles of El Arish on the Mediterranean, Kulat Nakhl, Suez, Akabah, and Tor on the west coast of the Sinaitic Peninsula, all of whom, at the beginning of the rebellion, were his frantic partisans. He had therefore an easy means of access to the Bedouin sheikhs. The number of men whom they could put into the field was estimated by Palmer himself at about 50,000; but this was not all. It was feared that if a single tribe joined Arabi, it would be followed by all the others, and that the Bedouin of the Syrian and Sinaitic deserts might presently be joined by their kinsfolk of Arabia and the Great Desert, a countless multitude.

It was on the evening of Saturday, June 24, that Captain Gill, whose unhappy fate it was to perish with Palmer on the expedition which they planned together, was sent to him from the Admiralty, to ask him for information respecting ‘the character, the power, the possible movement, of the Sinai Arabs.’ The interview was short, but long enough for Palmer to sketch the position of affairs, and to convince Gill that a man whom the Government could thoroughly trust must be sent out to arrange matters personally with the sheikhs. When Gill had left, Palmer said to his wife, ‘They must have a man to go to the Desert for them; and they will ask me, because there is nobody else who can go.’ On Monday Captain Gill came again, and the whole question was carefully talked over.

‘It was agreed that no time ought to be lost in detaching the tribes from Arabi, in preventing any injury to the Canal, and in quieting fanaticism, which might assume such proportions as to set the whole East aflame. It now became perfectly evident to Gill that Palmer was the only man who knew the sheikhs, and could be asked to go, and could do the work; it was also perfectly evident to Palmer that he would be urged to undertake this difficult and delicate mission; he had, in fact, already laid himself open by speaking of the ease with which these people may be managed by one who can talk with them. When Gill left him on that Monday morning he was already more than half-persuaded to accept the mission.’

It is evident that after this interview Captain Gill returned to the Admiralty, and gave a glowing account to his superiors of the man whom he had discovered, and the information he had obtained; for in the course of the same afternoon Palmer received an invitation to breakfast with Lord Northbrook on the following morning, Tuesday, June 27, which he accepted. The interest which he had already excited is proved by the fact

‘that all the notes and reports which Gill had made during the interviews on the subject were already set up in type and laid on the table. The whole conversation at breakfast was concerning the tribes, and how they might be prevented from giving trouble. Palmer stated again his belief that the sheikhs might, if some one could be got to go, be persuaded to sit down and do nothing, if not to take an active part against the rebels.’

At this point it is material to notice that the Government did not send for Palmer and ask him to undertake a certain mission to the East; neither did Palmer communicate with the Government and volunteer, in the ordinary sense of that word; but that in the course of three successive interviews it became evident to the Government that the mission must be undertaken by somebody; and to Palmer, that if he did not go himself the chance would be lost. No one equally fit for such a mission was available at that moment; no one knew the sheikhs personally as he did, and could travel among them as an old friend, for it must always be remembered that the country he was about to visit was the same which he had traversed with Drake in 1869-70. He did not exactly wish to go; he was too fondly devoted to his wife and children to find any pleasure in courting dangers of which he was fully sensible; but he seems to have felt that his duty to his country demanded the sacrifice; and perhaps the thought may have crossed his mind that, if he ran the risk and came out of it safe and successful, his fortune would be made; and therefore, when Lord Northbrook inquired, ‘Do you know anyone who would go?’ he replied, ‘I will go myself.’

This decision was not arrived at until Thursday, June 29. On the following evening he left London, and on Tuesday, July 4, he was on board the _Tanjore_, between Brindisi and Alexandria, writing to his wife:

‘I am sure this trip will do me an immense deal of good, for I wanted a change of air and complete rest from writing, and now I have got both. Of course, the position is not without its anxieties, but I have no fear.... It is such a chance!’

Such a chance! It was worth while running the risk, for, though there was danger in it, there was fame and fortune beyond the danger: there would be no more debt and difficulty; no more days and nights of uncongenial toil. No wonder as he sat under the awning, ‘like a tent,’ as he said, and did nothing, that these thoughts came into his mind, and found their way on to his paper—it was a chance indeed!

It seems certain that the plan of the enterprise had been laid down before Palmer left London, though no formal instructions were given to him in writing. It was understood between him and the Government that he was to travel about in the Desert and Peninsula of Sinai, and ascertain the disposition of the tribes; secondly, that he was to attempt the detachment of the said tribes from the Egyptian cause, in order to effect which he was to make terms with the sheikhs; thirdly, that he was to take whatever steps he thought best for an effective guard of the banks of the Canal, and for the repair of the Canal, in case Arabi should attempt its destruction. Lastly, he was instructed, probably at Alexandria, to ascertain what number of camels could be purchased, and at what price.

Arrived at Alexandria, Palmer put himself under the orders of Admiral Lord Alcester, then Sir Beauchamp Seymour, who, after a few words of welcome and encouragement, ordered him to go at once to the Desert and begin work. It was decided that he should proceed by steamer to Jaffa, thence to Gaza, and across the Desert to Tor in the Sinaitic Peninsula, where he could be taken up and join the fleet at Suez. On the morning of July 9 he reached Jaffa, where he bought his camp-equipage and stores, hired a servant, and opened communications with certain Arabs of the Desert, whom he ordered to meet him at Gaza. We know the details of this time from a long letter which he wrote to his wife just before he left Jaffa.

‘It is bad enough here where I find plenty of people to talk to and be civil to me; but how will it be when I am in the Desert with no one but wild Arabs to talk to? Not that I am a bit afraid of them, for they were always good friends to me; but it will be lonely, and you may be sure that when I sit on my camel in the burning sun, or lie down in my little tent at night, my thoughts will always be with you and our dear happy home. I am quite sure of succeeding in my mission, and don’t feel anything to fear except the being away for a few months.... I feel very homesick, but quite confident.’

He got to Gaza on July 13, and on July 15 plunged into the Desert. Here Professor Palmer disappears, and we have instead a Syrian officer, dressed in Mohammedan costume, known as the Sheikh Abdullah, the name which had been given to him by the Arabs on his former journey. The expedition occupied just a fortnight, for Suez was reached on August 1. He was fortunately able to keep a brief journal, which he sent home by post from Suez. This invaluable document, with two or three letters written to friends, and a formal Report addressed from Suez to the Government, but not yet printed, enables us to ascertain what he did, and what sufferings and dangers he endured in the accomplishment of it. It was the middle of the summer, and apparently an unusually hot and stormy summer, for we read of even the natives being overcome by the heat, wind, and dust. His business admitted of no delay; whether well or ill, he must ride forward, in the full glare of the sun, with the thermometer ‘at 110 in the shade in the mountains, and in the plains about twice that’; and yet never show, by the slightest hint, that he was either overcome by the physical exertion, or alarmed at the imminent peril which he ran at every moment. So well was the bodily frame sustained by the brave heart within, that he could write cheerfully, nay humorously, even before he had reached a place of safety. Here is an extract from one of his letters, dated ‘Magharah, in the Desert of the Tih, July 22’:

‘This country is not exactly what you would call, in a truthful spirit, safe just now. I have had to dodge troops and Arabs, and Lord knows what, and am thankful and somewhat surprised at the possession of a whole skin....

‘I wish to remark that about the fifth consecutive hour (noon) of the fifth consecutive day’s camel-ride, with a strong hot wind blowing the sand in your face, camel-riding loses, as an amusement, the freshness of one’s childhood’s experience at the Zoo....

‘I am now two days from Suez, and before the third sun sets shall be either within reach of beer and baths, or be able to dispense altogether with those luxuries for the future. The very equally balanced probabilities lend a certain zest to the journey....

‘My man stole some melons from a patch near some water (if I may use the expression), and I feel better for the crime. Still I am dried up, and burnt, and thirsty, and bored.’

Let us now extract from the Journal a few passages bearing directly on the main object of the journey. All of these, we ought to state are fully corroborated by the subsequently written Report, and by incidental allusions in the telegrams embodied in the Blue Book.

‘_July 15._—My sheikh has just come, and I have had a long and very satisfactory talk with him. I think the authorities will be very pleased with the report I shall have for them.

‘_July 16._—I now know where to find and how to get at every sheikh in the Desert, and I have already got the Teyáhah, the most warlike and strongest of them all, ready to do anything for me. When I come back I shall be able to raise 40,000 men! It was very lucky that I knew such an influential tribe.

‘_July 18._—I have been quite well to-day, but as usual came in very fatigued. I had an exciting time, having met the great sheikh of the Arabs hereabouts[104]. I, however, quite got him to accept my views.... It was really a most picturesque sight to see the sheikh ride into my camp at full gallop with a host of retainers, all riding splendid camels as hard as they could run; when they pulled up, all the camels dropped on their knees, and the men jumped off and came up to me. I had heard of their coming, so was prepared, and not at all startled, as they meant me to be. I merely rose quietly, and asked the sheikh into my tent.

‘_July 19._—I have got hold of some of the very men whom Arabi Pasha has been trying to get over to his side, and when they are wanted I can have every Bedawin at my call from Suez to Gaza.

‘_July 20._—The sheikh, who is the brother of Suleiman, is one who engages all the Arabs not to attack the caravan of pilgrims which goes to Mecca every year from Egypt, so that he is the _very man_ I wanted. He has sworn by the most solemn Arab oath that, if I want him, he will guarantee the safety of the Canal even against Arabi Pasha.... In fact, I have already done the most difficult part of my task, and as soon as I get precise instructions the thing is done, and a thing which Arabi Pasha failed to do, and on which the safety of the road to India depends.... Was I not lucky just to get hold of the right people?... I have seen a great many other sheikhs, and I know that they will follow my man, Sheikh Muslih.

‘_July 21._—I am anxious to get to Suez, because I have done all I wanted by way of preliminaries, and as soon as I get precise instructions, I can settle with the Arabs in a fortnight or three weeks, and get the whole thing over. As it is, the Bedouins keep quite quiet, and will not join Arabi, but will wait for me to give them the word what to do. They look upon Abdullah Effendi—that is what they call me—as a very grand personage indeed!

‘_July 22._—I have got the man who supplies the pilgrims with camels on my side too, and as I have promised my big Sheikh 500_l._ for himself, he will do anything for me.... It may seem a vain thing to say, but I did not know that I could be so cool and calm in the midst of danger as I am, and I must be strong, as I have endured _tremendous fatigue_, and am in first-rate health. I am very glad that the war has actually come to a crisis, because now I shall really have to do my big task, and _I am certain of success_.

‘_July 26._—I have had a great ceremony to-day, eating bread and salt with the Sheikhs, in token of protecting each other to the death[105].’

This Journal, it will be remarked, speaks of the expedition as preliminary to something else. What this was is explained by the Report above alluded to, and by the telegrams which Sir William Hewett and Sir Beauchamp Seymour sent to the Admiralty after Palmer’s arrival at Suez. On August 4 Sir William Hewett telegraphs:

‘Professor Palmer confident that in four days he will have 500 camels, and within ten or fifteen days, 5,000 more.

‘He waits return of messenger sent for 500, so he cannot start for Desert before Monday.’

On August 6 Sir Beauchamp Seymour telegraphed to the Admiralty:

‘Palmer, in letter of August 1 at Suez, writes that, if precisely instructed as to services required of Bedouin, and furnished with funds, he believes he could buy the allegiance of 50,000 at a cost of from 20,000_l._ to 30,000_l._’

On the receipt of this telegram the Admiralty telegraphed to Sir William Hewett:

‘Instruct Palmer to keep Bedouins available for patrol or transport on Canal. A reasonable amount may be spent, but larger engagements are not to be entered into until General arrives and has been consulted.’

The Admiralty must have been satisfied with what Palmer had accomplished in the Desert, or they would not have directed him to proceed with his ‘big task’; and it came out afterwards that in consequence of promises made to him one at least of the tribes refused to join Arabi. Meanwhile he was appointed Interpreter-in-Chief to her Majesty’s Forces in Egypt, and placed on the Admiral’s staff. It is important to note this, as it gave him the command of money, brought him into prominence, and paved the way for the disaster which was so soon to overtake him. Captain Gill joined him at Suez on the morning of the same day, August 6. He brought £20,000 with him, which he considered to be paid to Palmer, as appears from his Journal, and Palmer took the same view. Sir William Hewett, however, after the receipt of Lord Northbrook’s telegram, determined to limit the preliminary expenditure to £3,000, which was paid to Palmer on August 8. Soon after Gill’s arrival at Suez, he and Palmer had a long discussion, in which they agreed to combine their respective duties. Gill had been ordered to cut the telegraph wires from Kartarah to Constantinople, and so destroy Arabi’s communications with Turkey, and Palmer had made arrangements for a meeting of the sheikhs at Nakhl. We have seen that the Journal mentions presents to the sheikhs (as much as £500 had been promised to Misleh), and these would have to be conveyed to them before they were likely to arm their followers. The rest of the £20,000 was intended to be spent in fair payment for services rendered when the General should give the order to engage the Bedouin; and the word ‘buy,’ in Sir Beauchamp Seymour’s telegram of August 6, need not be interpreted to mean ‘bribe.’ The purchase of camels was another object which Palmer had before him in going to the Desert; but this, we take it, was quite subsidiary to the former, though perhaps, as a matter of policy, it was occasionally made prominent, in order to disarm suspicion. That much more important business than buying camels was intended is also proved by a letter from Palmer to Admiral Hewett, in which he said that ‘it would be most desirable that an officer of her Majesty’s Navy should accompany me on my journey to the Desert, as a guarantee that I am acting on the part of her Majesty’s Government[106].’

It must now be mentioned that on Palmer’s first journey, when staying in the camp of Sheikh Misleh, he had been introduced by him to a man of about seventy years of age, of commanding stature, and haughty, peremptory manner, named Meter ibn Sofieh. This man Misleh had represented to be the Sheikh of the Lehewat tribe, occupying all the country east of Suez. This was not true. Meter was not a sheikh of the Lehewats, and the Lehewats as a tribe do not live east of Suez, but on the south border of Palestine. Meter was a Lehewat, but he was simply the head of a family who had left the tribe, and taken up their abode near Suez, where they had collected together two or three other families, who called themselves the Sofieh Tribe, but had no power or influence. Palmer, however, believed Meter’s story about himself, called him his friend, and trusted him implicitly. It was Meter whom he sent into Suez from Misleh’s camp to fetch his letters; Meter who conducted him thence to the place called ‘The Wells of Moses’ between July 27 and July 31; Meter with whom he corresponded respecting his second journey; and there is little doubt that it was Meter who betrayed him.

In the Report which Palmer addressed to the Admiralty on August 1 he stated that when he started on his second journey a company of 300 or 400 Bedouin should go with him, ‘for the sake of effect.’ Most unfortunately, this precaution was not taken. On August 7, Meter, accompanied by his nephew, Salameh ibn Ayed, came to Moses’ Wells, and asked Mr Zahr, one of the native Christians who reside there, to read a letter which he had received from Palmer. The letter, signed ‘Abdullah,’ contained a request that Meter would bring down one hundred camels and twenty armed men. Meter then crossed over to Suez by water, Mr Zahr’s son going with him, saw Palmer, who did not, so far as we know, express surprise that he came without men or camels, and in the evening was presented to Consul West and Admiral Hewett, from whom he received a naval officer’s sword, as a mark of confidence and respect. This sword Meter subsequently gave secretly to Mr Zahr’s son to take care of for him, saying that he was going to the Desert with some English gentlemen, and was afraid that the Bedouin might kill him if they saw him with a sword, as they were not quiet at that time. After the murder, Mr Zahr’s son brought the sword to the English Consul, and told the above story.

The following day was spent in making preparations for the journey. During the afternoon, Palmer received a package containing three bags, each containing £1,000 in English sovereigns. These bags were taken intact into the Desert. The party, consisting of Professor Palmer, Captain Gill, Lieutenant Charrington, of the _Euryalus_ (who had been selected by Palmer out of seven officers who volunteered to go with him), Gill’s dragoman, a native Christian, and the servant whom Palmer had engaged at Jaffa, a Jew, named Bokhor, crossed over to Moses’ Wells in a boat after sunset, and passed the night in a tent supplied by Mr Zahr. Next morning they started soon after sunrise, and, after the usual midday halt, pitched their camp for the night in Wady Kahalin, a shallow watercourse, about half-a-mile wide, and distant eighteen miles from Moses’ Wells. So far their proceedings can be followed with certainty; but after this it becomes a most difficult task to compose an exact narrative of what befell them. We have followed the account drawn up by Colonel Warren, through whose persevering energy some of the murderers were brought to justice, supplementing it, in a few places, by facts stated in the Blue Book, generally on the same authority.