i "I give thefe Books
for. the. founding of a. College, "in this Colony"
• Y^Lis«WM¥msinrY°
• ILUME^KT •
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE
Alfred E. Perkins Fund
SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC
MEMORIES, 1884-1893
i/Ae S&d/u>7/sOri /rf <9//.
ci/J? <' ~/'tsr Ar^<* ry/ « .
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 8r. C9
SOCIAL AND
DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
1884-1893
BY THE RIGHT HON.
SIR JAMES RENNELL RODD, G.C.B.
WITH PORTRAIT
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD & CO.
1922
[All rights reserved]
Printed in Great Britain
by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.
PREFACE
I have arrived at a time of life when it seems desirable
before memory weakens to place on record some of those
things which seem worthy of remembrance in a life which
has been rich in varied, and perhaps unusual, experiences.
I have not only seen history in the making from very
advantageous posts of observation, but I have been brought
into personal relations with many makers of history them¬
selves and have an ample store of letter-books and of notes
written at the moment when events were shaping or when
conversations with "certain persons of importance" had
just taken place, which it may be best eventually to destroy.
On the other hand I have never preserved or taken copies
of official documents, nor did I make any notes from them
for my diaries.
The sources of these reminiscences have been personal
observations and conversations, but they owe to official
life the special and exceptional opportunity which it has
afforded me of contact with the personalities referred to.
All that seems to have a permanent value in my diaries
and letters, all that may be handed on without breach of
confidence, I hope to include in these pages, which will at
least have a value for my children. Many of the apprecia¬
tions and judgments which I formed in early years, when
I endeavoured in my diaries to keep pace with the issues
which came under my experience, have needed revision.
To some events I am still too near to see them in then
proper perspective. I shall therefore avoid as far as possible
passing judgment 011 the actors, and simply set forth the
things I have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears
as evidence from which those concerned with the story of
these times may draw such conclusions as they warrant.
vi
PREFACE
As such a record must inevitably be, to a certain extent,
autobiographical, I feel a temptation to begin like Marcus
Aurelius with a testimony of gratitude to those from whom
I learned important lessons of life. But as such a collective
exordium might render me liable to the charge of self-esteem,
and suggest the presumption of a claim to have profited
by them, it will be safer to refer to such influences in chrono¬
logical sequence. In glancing through what I have written
I notice without dissatisfaction that my appreciations of
individuals and their actions are for the most part benevo¬
lent. One may estimate the motives and achievements of
contemporaries from a generous or from an atrabilious
point of view, according to temperament. The sceptic and
the iconoclast perhaps appeal to a wider public, but I am
not sure that they are really more worthy of credence than
the sycophant. My own personal tendency has been, I
readily acknowledge, to regard honesty of purpose as the
general rule, and not to suspect it until I have had good
reason to do so.
With the great war an epoch has closed. Many things
which seemed permanent by their nature and unassailable
have passed away, and the world will need them no more.
For more than a quarter of a century before the close of
that epoch my business in life was connected with inter¬
national relations. I do not maintain that these were
always handled with consummate knowledge or ability, but
I do consider that an unnecessary amount of facile and
unreflecting criticism has been passed on what is called
the old diplomacy, which would gladly welcome the publica¬
tion of its records. In its day a limited number of men
who had learned experience in foreign countries and had
had every opportunity to study the temperament of other
nations, conducted our affairs abroad, and their service,
like that of many other public officers in this country,
might almost be regarded as an honorary one, inasmuch
as, except in the case of '.heads of missions, their salaries
were derisory. From my observation during some thirty-
PREFACE
vii
seven years of diplomatic life I should say that on the
whole they kept their Governments very well informed,
and that the latter had ample material at hand to guide
them in their decisions and previsions. Though our diploma¬
tists had little behind them save the remote factor of a
powerful fleet, they succeeded in keeping us clear of European
war and entanglements for sixty years, and when Great
Britain failed to make her influence felt it was not often
due to any shortcomings of our representatives abroad. I
have repeatedly seen friction avoided by the tact and skill
of the professional negotiator in interpreting instructions
and waiting upon opportunity. To handle successfully
relations with foreign countries, and in our case especially
with Latin nations, to know what not to do, and especially
when not to do it, requires a special training just as much
as navigation or surgery.
Whether a new diplomacy dictated largely by the press
and negotiations handled by Ministers inevitably in a hurry
in forty-eight hour conferences, the necessity for which in
moments of emergency I entirely recognize, are likely to
lead to better results and a more cordial spirit in inter¬
national relations may be open to doubt. Experience
rather leads me to see advantage in a buffer, intermediate
between the protagonists with whom ultimate decision lies.
In any case in our country the interest in foreign questions
is far more general than it used to be and to some extent
a new diplomacy must take the place of the old.
But I venture to prophesy that the new diplomacy is
likely to prove in the long run more costly, more insidious
and probably more menacing to a good understanding
between the nations. And for this reason. So long as
Governments with a definite end in view acted through a
skilful accredited agent, his intrigues, if he attempted any,
were not difficult for those who knew their business to
detect. But the weapon of aggression of the new diplomacy
will be a subtle propaganda, a seduction of the organs of
publicity often unperceived by its victims, and an elaborate
viii
PREFACE
process of suggestion aimed at misleading the masses which
will employ every available weapon of insinuation, falsehood
and even simulated sympathy with popular obsessions.
There will more than ever be need for the trained observer
with experience of the mentality and temperament of other
countries. Such weapons of offence will have to be coun¬
tered by a new armour of defence, and to make it effective
is likely to prove a costly process. Meanwhile, instead of
preparing for the future we have with the end of the great
war closed down every centre of activity abroad which was
intended to make the spirit and the ideals of the British
people better known in other countries.
In this first volume of reminiscences I have dealt with
events of which I was mainly an observer and in the last
two chapters only reach a phase in which circumstances
enabled me to pass from observation to action. In one
chapter, the seventh, I have departed somewhat from the
general scheme of the book in describing experiences of
travel in Greece more than thirty years ago. The pleasure
of recalling memories which are really of personal interest
offered an irresistible temptation.
Looking back over what I have written, I am surprised
to realize how little after all has seemed of a sufficiently
permanent interest to reproduce out of so much that hap¬
pened in a decade of diplomatic life, so much that appeared
to us at the moment to be of grave importance. But even
this brief retrospect of the old order and of a life which is
rapidly passing away may throw some light on tendencies
which shaped the course of events towards issues of great
moment, so that these when they came to pass did not
altogether astonish those who had studied their antecedents.
These chapters are, in any case, an inevitable introduction
to the subsequent story which I hope to tell of my long
service in Egypt under Lord Cromer, in Stockholm and at
Rome, where I spent three years as counsellor and eleven
as Ambassador, which last included the convulsive period
of the great war.
CONTENTS
Portrait of tee Author. From a sketch by Lady Granby
Frontispiece
CHAPTER I
Early Years ......... 1
My debut in life. Rome in 1865. The Balliol of Jowett.
Rhoda Broughton and Ouida. A first season. Letters and
Art. James McNeil Whistler at home and in the studio ;
Oscar Wilde ; Burne-Jones ; Laura Lyttelton ; Sam Ward ;
Marion Crawford and others. Mr. Gladstone and Lowell at
Holmbury. Gladstone on Disraeli. Browning. The Foreign
Office in 1883.
CHAPTER II
Berlin, 1884r-1885 ........ 44
Lord Ampthill as Ambassador. His Roman reminiscences.
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess at Wildpark. Prince
William. Conversations with Lord Ampthill. His illness
and death. Sir E. Malet succeeds. His former relations with
Bismarck. Social life in Berlin. The division of classes.
Mommsen. The revelation of German Colonial ambitions.
Angra Pequena. Opinion deliberately misled by Colonial
White Book of 1885. Growth of an aggressive policy towards
Great Britain. The first African Conference. The delegates.
Sir Joseph Crowe. The F.O. under Lord Palmerston. Sir
Travers Twiss. H. M. Stanley. Court balls in Berlin. General
impressions.
CHAPTER III
Berlin, 1885-1886 ........ 83
The Ambassador's marriage. Visit to Tennyson. Mr. Glad¬
stone's resignation. Count Herbert Bismarck. Official visit to
Anhalt-Dessau and Brunswick. Matthew Arnold at Berlin.
Malet and Desbarolles. Lord Wolseley. Bismarck and Napo¬
leon III. George v. Bunsen. Death of Laura Lyttelton. King
Ludwig of Bavaria, his death and funeral. Mr. Gladstone,
Dr. Dollinger and Lord Acton at Tegernsee. Autumn visitors
to Berlin. The Emperor's ninetieth birthday. The Crown
Princess and Lesseps. First symptoms of illness of Crown
Prince.
IX
X
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV page
Berlin, 1887-1888 112
The illness of the Crown Prince. The responsibility for the
summons of Sir M. Mackenzie. Baron Holstein. The Souls.
Sir W. Richmond. His visit to Bismarck. Germany and
Russia ; the visit of the Czar. Lord Randolph Churchill at
Berlin. Labouchere. Tracheotomy performed on Crown Prince.
Death of Emperor William and succession of Emperor Frederick.
Sir M. Mackenzie. Chancellor crisis and Bismarck's attack on
Queen Victoria. Campaign against Empress Frederick. Queen
Victoria's visit. Death of the Emperor Frederick. The battle
of the doctors, and official inspirations of press. Conversations
with the Empress Frederick. My appointment to Athens.
Gladstone and Lowell. The grave of Keats. Repudiation by
Bismarck of Emperor Frederick's diary. Geffcken imprisoned.
The Empress confirms its authenticity. My departure from
Berlin. Sir Edward Malet. Episode at close of his tenure of
Embassy.
CHAPTER V
Athens, 1888-1889 ........ 163
Jubilee of King George. The Duke of Edinburgh. Sir
Edmund Monson. Difficulties raised by the Emperor William
over publication of biography of his father. Bismarckian objec¬
tions. The book appears. Visit to Crete. Consul Biliotti
and the Turks. The monasteries of Akrotiri. Elpis Melena.
Her stories of Garibaldi. John Addington Symonds in Venice.
Summer months on Pentelicon. The Bakhmeteffs. The dis¬
appearance of Malcolm Macmillan. Revolution in Crete.
Tricoupis and his sister. His dispute with the French Minister.
Marriage of Prince Constantino. The Prince and Princess of
Wales and the Empress Frederick at Athens. Arrival of
German Emperor and Empress. A reminder of the biography.
I accompany the Prince of Wales to Egypt.
CHAPTER VI
Athens, 1889-1890 ........ 189
Visit to Egypt. Departure of Prince Albert Victor for India.
Travel in Greece with Empress Frederick. Dorpfeldt and
Schliemann. British school. Investigations in medieval Greek
history. Pacification of Crete. The refugees in Greece. Chris-
todoulaki. To Brindisi with despatches. Visit to birthplace of
Horace. Bismarck's resignation. His own account. View
taken by Empress Frederick. The Emperor's exposition to
Malet. The power of the deputy in Greece. Birth of an heir
to Crown Prince. Cruise in Adriatic with Empress Frederick.
Question of return to Embassy at Berlin. The Emperor raises
no objection, but forgets that he has condoned the biography.
CHAPTER VII
Greece, 1890-1891 ........ 213
Travels in the interior of Greece. Maina, Laconia, Messenia,
Arcadia. The monasteries of Meteora, Santorin, Aetolia.
The general elections in Greece. Defeat of Tricoupis. King
Goorge. Departure from Atnens.
CONTENTS
xi
CHAPTER VIII page
Rome and Paris, 1891-1892 ...... 242
Constantinople. Sofia. Buda-Pesth. Return to England.
Mr. Gladstone and the Channel Tunnel. Windsor and Sand-
ringham. Unfortunate conclusion of Empress Frederick's visit
to Paris. The Embassy at Rome. Marion Crawford at
Sorrento. Middleton. John Addington Symonds. Father
Hickey at San Clemente. Republican leanings of Leo XIII.
Lord Dufferin. Shelley's Grave. Dufferin appointed to Paris.
Bourget in Rome. Amenities of Carnival in 1892. Transfer
to Paris. The campaign against Dufferin and the sources of
inspiration. Episodes of the Autumn. The Uganda Expedi¬
tion. Appointment to Zanzibar and departure from Paris.
CHAPTER IX
Zanzibar, 1893 ........ 279
Arrival in Zanzibar. Departure of Uganda Expedition.
History of Sultanate. Sir John Kirk and German Colonial
enterprise. Constitution under British Protectorate. Admin¬
istrative and political duties. The traffic in slaves. British
and Foreign missions. Somali outbreak at Kismayu. Visit
of Cecil Rhodes. Death of Sultan Ali. Struggle between rival
candidates for succession anticipated by nocturnal landing of
naval brigade. Proclamation of Sultan Hamed. Detection
of an attempt to export slaves under French flag. Visit to
Dar-es-Salam. Position of British East Africa Company.
CHAPTER X
Zanzibar and East Africa, 1893 ..... 314
An unknown Lady Explorer. Witu ; withdrawal of British
East Africa Company. Preparations for second Witu Expedi¬
tion. Landing at Lamu. From Mkonumbi to Witu. New
Protectorate Flag hoisted. Exchange of correspondence with
outlaws. We are attacked on the way to Pumwani. Capture
of Pumwani and Jongeni. Death of Raymond Portal. Mea¬
sures for administration of Protectorate and return to Zanzibar.
Epidemic of malaria among Naval brigade. Renewal of dis¬
turbances at Kismayu. Count Lovatelli. Reconnaissance in
Witu. Ultimate capture of Fumo Omari. Gloomy outlook
on mainland. Incapacitated with malaria. Return of Gerald
Portal and Colonel Rhodes. Invalided home. The last days of
Sir Lloyd Mathews. Death of Gerald Portal. My appointment
to Cairo and Mission to Brussels. Mr. Gladstone's resignation.
Lord Rosebery Prime Minister. Lord Kimberley at the F.O.
Engagement and departure for Cairo.
Index .......... 351
SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC
MEMORIES, 1884—1893
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
The early years of the average man can offer little that
is of interest to other people unless they are treated as a
psychological study of the influence of circumstance on
character. Such is not my aim, and I shall therefore pass
rapidly over a period which was nevertheless intensely
interesting to myself.
My first recollections are clouded with the depressing
gloom of winter fogs in the interminable lengths of Wimpole
Street, where I was born in a house which has now been
reconstructed. A little higher up on the other side lived
my grandmother, a daughter of a famous geographer,
Major Rennell, who having begun life as a sailor became
a soldier in the East India Company's service, and was
Surveyor-General of Bengal at the age of twenty-five. She
was to me a rather awe-inspiring old lady who drove in a
yellow coach and was a providence on birthdays. But in
Victorian days there was a great gulf fixed between grand¬
parents and grandchildren, and grandmothers did not dance.
My father's father I only knew from his portrait in an
Admiral's uniform with a red ribbon round his neck.
The first real landmark in my existence was the announce¬
ment that we were going to travel, after the majestic old
lady had died and the family budget had consequently
l b
2 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
somewhat expanded. Up to that period when I was nearly
six years old my recollections of " people of importance,"
which form the subject of the greater part of this book,
were naturally limited. But Garibaldi had been pointed
out to me driving across Cavendish Square with Peard
(Garibaldi's Englishman) who was an acquaintance of my
father. Thackeray had also impressed himself on my
memory, as a benefactor if not as an author, by rushing
into a confectioner's shop when he met me in the street
and returning with purchases for his small cousin. The
illustrious Rennell had when in the service of John Company
married a member of that family, which occupies such an
important place in Indian annals.
And so we travelled for the space of some eighteen months.
Of all that I owe to exceptionally thoughtful parents there
are few things for which I have more reason to thank them
than for that glimpse in early years of a wider world. To
know the cities and ways of many men at an age when
the mind is full of receptive curiosity cannot fail to have
a lasting influence on temperament. I acquired the elements
of other languages and was enabled to witness phases of
life which have long since passed away, retaining those
experiences in a memory which the general monotonous
uniformity of childhood's routine might not otherwise have
quickened.
It was not the Second Empire at its apogee which made
the winter of 1864-65 in Paris memorable to me, so much
as the bazaars on the boulevards, the Guignol in the Champs
Elysees, and the kindly French friends who entertained
children at Christmas with unlimited eclairs and other
hitherto unknown delightful things. The spring drew us
southward through France into Switzerland where travelling
was still chiefly accomplished by posting. I have a vivid
recollection of the emotion inspired by the mountains, real
mountains with snow-covered peaks and dark zones of fir,
haunted with the dread of being lost in the pathless woods.
We were, my sister and myself, in charge of a Hanoverian
EARLY YEARS
3
nursery-governess. She was full of the lore of Nyxes and
Cobbolds, who seemed appropriately to belong to that land
of waterfall and forest. She would look into the sky at
sunset and see in the fantastic forms of evening clouds
premonitions of war and the movements of marshalled
battalions. I have since come across types which strangely
remind me of her in the books of Frensen.
A more positive legendary interest was stimulated by
stories of Tell and the " Three Men," whose painted effigies
still adorned some of the quaint wooden houses round the
Lake of Lucerne where we spent a portion of the summer.
My mother, who had a family literary tradition, also enter¬
tained me with tales from the history of Rome, to prepare
me for a visit to the great city which was our ultimate
goal. There were still in those days men wearing a strange
dress passing along the highways who were, I was told,
pilgrims bound by a vow, on their way to confess their sins
to the Pope at Rome. I used to wonder what crimes they
had committed which could only be purged by the long
and weary march over the great mountains, and ever farther
south. Thus early the name of Rome, which lay before
us like a city of promise, came to inspire a certain awe.
At last the day arrived when we drove from the far end
of the Lake of Lucerne into the heart of the mysterious
mountains. There was a half-way station in the Gothard
Pass, at Andermat, where a night was spent, chill with the
early snow, and then the next day we descended by an
astounding zigzag road into sunshine and Italy. There has
remained with me ever since the impression of that first
revelation of the world beyond the mountain pass. I
remember crossing a great river, the Po, in a ferry boat to
rejoin the train on the further side. Florence and Siena
left no abiding memories, but the drive from Siena through
the night to Rome was a great adventure, because the wheel
of our carriage collapsed and we had to camp by the roadside
until another vehicle could be procured. The brigands who
stopped the coaches of travellers were not then wholly
4 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
extinct. Throughout the winter of 1865-66 we lived in
the Via Condotti. My first recollection of Rome is of a
walk with my father down the Corso, through the Piazza
Ripresa dei Barberi, which has long ago disappeared, to
descend upon the Forum through a maze of narrow streets
which climbed the ridge of the Capitol. A comparatively
small area had as yet been excavated. The three columns
of the temple of Castor with their bases still covered stood
up from a grassy level where cattle pastured. We went
on through the Arch of Titus to the Colosseum, which was
at that time still dedicated as a church. Altar stations
surrounded the arena and in the centre was a great crucifix
which remained there till after 1870. The vast amphitheatre
was still covered with greenery, and creeping plants hung
from the broken arches. Ancient castles and roofless
abbeys, with the tales that haunted them, had already
touched the chord of imagination in my age of wonder,
and here was a whole world of ruins to explore. Of the
scene as it then appeared the impression is still vivid after
fifty years, as it is of the stately coaches of the cardinals,
the uniforms of the Swiss halberdiers and of the weird
funeral processions. There were only oil-lamps in the
streets of what was then a comparatively small city in a
vast circuit of walls, enclosing villas, parks and vineyards.
Even to-day I can shut my eyes and visualize a familiar
scene on the Pincio, where Pius IX would occasionally
descend from his gilded carriage to walk in the gardens,
where all the people knelt to receive his blessing as he
passed, accompanied by a group of purple monsignori, with
a few Swiss guards bringing up the rear. Less definitely
I remember a great pageant in St. Peter's at Easter time,
when the Pope was carried high on men's shoulders through
a surging crowd with waving of feather fans and blare of
silver trumpets.
I have also a joyous memory of the week of Carnival,
when the Corso was thronged with masks and allegorical
cars, when we threw handfuls of little plaster pellets, called
EARLY YEARS
5
confetti, from hospitable balconies upon the people below,
till the road was deep in the dust of the powdered missiles.
Each day's display concluded with a race of barebacked
horses, down the whole length of the Corso from the Piazza
del Popolo to the Ripresa dei Barberi near the Palace of
Venice, where the wild career of the frightened animals
was checked with canvas sheets. The last evening, that
of Shrove Tuesday, was doubly memorable, for as twilight
fell every window and every balcony was ablaze with little
tapers and the fun grew fast and furious in the long illumi¬
nated street. The growth of population and the invasion
of elements of rowdiness has long since killed King Carnival,
and no one will see that picturesque festival again. It
was the city of Story's Roba di Roma, and I am glad to have
known it.
There was cholera in southern Italy, and on our way to
Venice we were subjected to the medieval and quite useless
process of disinfection by fumigation, herded in a room with
numbers of fellow victims to breathe a choking sulphurous
vapour. Venice was still in Austrian occupation, and a
white-coated military band played every evening in the
Piazza of St. Mark. But with the spring of 1866 came the
menace of war—and there was the probability of Italy
being involved. Venice was abandoned by the traveller
and we went on into the Tyrol. At Botzen, now included
as Bolzano in the greater Italy, I remember the marching
of regiments, the trains discharging contingents of wounded,
and the rumour that Garibaldi was coming across the Alps.
These experiences of travel did much to liberate my
childhood from the conventions and prejudices which were
still strong in the latter half of the Victorian era. The
people of 1860 and '70 among whom I was brought up
still wore the phylacteries of their caste, and every one was
pitied or denounced who did not conform to the traditions
of a comfortable squirearchy. Thus early emancipated, I
did not enjoy my private school and resented the confine¬
ment and the strictly limited bounds. Life at a public
6 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
school, the old East India College of Haileybury, which
had recently changed its character, seemed a pleasant
release. And there I passed through that phase which is
probably common to all boys of imagination who have
not been brought up in an atmosphere of restricted tradition,
the phase of beginning to think for oneself, to resent the
injustice of the world and the apparent inequality in the
distribution of opportunity. A spirit of revolt was encou¬
raged by the enthusiasm which the first discovery of Shelley
aroused and by the acquisition of Swinburne's Poems and
Ballads, a book which probably few schoolboys possessed
in the early 'seventies. There were hardly any time-honoured
institutions which I was not ready to denounce in debate,
and no scheme of reform which seemed too revolutionary.
This was no doubt as it should be. Years afterwards, when
I was Minister in Sweden, I heard repeated what King
Oscar said to Barrere, who was afterwards my colleague in
Rome, and who had perhaps been excusing the extreme
opinions of his early years : "A young man, my dear
Minister, who has not been a socialist before he is five and
twenty shows that he has no heart. But if he continues
to be one after five and twenty he shows that he has no
head."
In any case I was not ostracized for my opinions. School
life was rich in warm friendships. But these, unless renewed
at college or in professional life, for the most part recede
into the background with the parting of the ways. The
successes and failures leave no strong mark behind, and
" a rarer sort succeeds to these."
Real life began for me at Oxford, and here I would record
one of many debts of gratitude which I owe to my father,
who had selected Balliol for me somewhat against my own
desire to go to Cambridge. To have been at Balliol under
Jowett at the end of the 'seventies was a privilege which
all my contemporaries there, and I think the world in
general, have amply recognized. With such men as Green,
Nettleship, Bradley, Evelyn Abbott, and Strachan-Davidson
EARLY YEARS
7
that ideal type of the scholar-gentleman who afterwards
succeeded to the mastership, to preside over the formation
and development of intellectual energy, the college stood
at that time at the highest point of prestige. Of those who
have made their mark in public life, Lord Lansdowne, Lord
Loreburn and Mr. Asquith belonged to an older generation.
Lord Milner, though a good many years my senior, was
still in residence and, with the right instinct of youth we
had marked him down as destined for achievement. Lord
Midleton was already practising his oratory at the Union.
Lord Curzon came up a term or two only after I had joined,
as did the late Sir Clinton Dawkins, and with these I formed
abiding friendships. Of my own year three others besides
myself became Ambassadors ; Cecil Spring-Rice, Arthur
Hardinge and Louis Mallet. Lord Grey of Fallodon joined
just before I went down, as did the Archbishop of York.
The most finished scholar and critic of our time, my old
friend J. W. Mackail, was my contemporary, as was the
eminent professor of literature W. P. Ker. Among the
most distinguished in every walk of life, whether as politi¬
cians, judges, advocates, men of letters, journalists, or dis¬
tinguished civil servants like Sir E. Ruggles Brise and Sir
Bernard Mallet, will be found Balliol men of that time.
But it was not only in intellectual accomplishment, in the
class and prize lists, that the College excelled. During my
four years the Balliol Eight was " head of the river " and
we had more than our due share of " blues " in the cricket
field and on the running path, among whom 'pars magna fuit
that athlete unsurpassed, known to us as Billy Grenfell
(Lord Desborough) with Savile Crossley (Lord Somerleyton)
and Raymond Portal, the well-beloved, who died too early,
a pioneer in Uganda, as will be told in a later page. Being
a light weight I was retained to steer the Torpid and after¬
wards the Eight, so that my first terms were spent with
the rowing set.
The characteristic of Balliol in those days was its universa¬
lity. It included men of all sorts and conditions. There
8 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
were the elder sons, then still destined by tradition to play
a part in public affairs, who were welcomed by the Master
to what he was entitled to consider he had made the best
training ground for youth. There were scholars from
Glasgow and from the West of England, from that venerable
Blundell's school which educated the pioneers of empire
in the west country. There were rich men and poor men,
many of the latter owing 110 one knew how much to the
Master's generosity. There were a few exotics from the
far east, and we all appreciated the gentle manners and
the kindly heart of the sometime regent of Persia, Nazir
el Mulk (Aboul Cassem Khan). We had even some good
comrades from France, one of whom had evidently derived
his extensive English vocabulary from a study of Sir Walter
Scott and Harrison Ainsworth. I remember one day when
we had protested at some outrageous statement, he excused
himself by explaining that: "I did only say it to make
delight for you roaring blades." After the first terms I
saw most of Curzon, George Levcson Gower, who went
from college to be assistant private secretary to Mr. Glad¬
stone, Leonard Shoobridge, who had the delicate critical
sense of appreciation which is rare among our countrymen,
W. Radcliffe, whose delightful book on Fishing from the
Earliest Times is likely to become a classic, and Eustis
Johnston, whose early death cast a gloom upon us all. He
was half American by birth and brought a new element of
freedom from convention and gaiety into the routine of
life. The present Duke of Bedford was much with us,
who with Lord Basing and Raymond Portal went from
Oxford to the army. Among journalists there was Strachey
of the Spectator, the late E. T. Cook, and Sidney Low, with
a number of others who have distinguished themselves in
letters. Spender of the Westminster belonged to a slightly
later generation, as did Anthony Hope Hawkins. Malcolm
Macmillan, the son of the famous Scotch publisher, had a
touch of eccentric genius. He mysteriously disappeared in
1899 when I was at Athens, murdered, as we believed at
EARLY YEARS
9
the time, by Dalmatian shepherds on the summit of the
Asiatic Olympus.
One day a mutual friend brought to my rooms Oscar
Wilde, who, having won the Newdigate, was an object of
special regard to me. There was an immediate fascination
in the unconventional freedom of his brilliant conversation
and his sureness of himself. At Oxford, however, I hardly
saw him, as he was many years my senior, and Balliol and
Magdalen are rather far apart. During my first years
Ruskin was Slade Professor of Art. His influence was
then at its highest, and his lectures were filled to over¬
flowing. Of the Oxford personalities outside my own College
I saw most of Raper of Trinity. Pater, a weird exotic
individuality, I met from time to time, and the Humphry
Wards, who had not yet moved to London, made me welcome
at their house. Jowett would occasionally invite me to go
for a walk with him, and scare me to death by his long
silences or his monosyllabic replies, which seemed to petrify
all attempts at intimacy. It was only later when I read
essays to him that I learned to know him better, and fell
under the magic of his personal influence. Even then after
dessert in his dining room he could be very formidable with
his abrupt criticisms. There was in our quartette of essay
readers a young Scotchman who affected a rather florid
style, and concluded one of his efforts with this remarkable
peroration : " The pheelosophers of ancient Greece were in
fact seetuated as it were upon a pendulum, which was for
ever swinging between the opposing poles of being and not
being." The Master sniffed ominously and then observed :
" That's great rubbish about the pendulum, Mr. . Don't
write me any more stuff of that kind ! "
Rhoda Broughton was at that time living in Holywell,
and was much attached to her undergraduate friends. She
had a great heart, but a caustic tongue, which often admon¬
ished me not to be " pert." Our old Oxford acquaintance
was maintained through later years. She was a very gallant
soul, and proud, maintaining herself to the end by her
10 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
clever pen. There is, I think, a touch of autobiography in
her very last book, the closing words of which with their
moritura te saluto were written only just before her death.
We were by no means serious at Balliol. Life was full
of interest and incident, and not all of us gave the due
proportion of time to the formidable library of books which
had to be absorbed for the final test of Greats. Dilettantism
is dangerously attractive in early life. With Harold Boulton
I started and edited there a little magazine of poetry which
eventually produced a rival with perhaps a rather higher
standard than the original. We founded an inter-collegiate
society where papers were read on theory and practice in
art, and some of us drew in a class which the late Sir W.
Richmond, as Slade professor, directed at the Taylorian.
In my last year we also produced in college the Agamemnon,
the first of those classic revivals which have since become
popular. It was so much appreciated that we went on
tour by request after the end of term to Eton, Harrow and
Winchester, and finally to London. W. Bruce (of Balliol)
looked magnificently heroic as the King, and F. R. Benson
(of New) the moving spirit, after his success as Clytemnestra,
decided to devote himself to the stage, which he has done
so much to elevate. The Cassandra of Laurence (of Balliol)
was a great performance. As leader of the chorus, as well
as scene painter, I had to commit to memory nearly all
those wonderful lyric strophes, and even now I have not
forgotten them. The last long vacation called for desperate
expedients, and when the crucial moment came I knew a
good deal well, and a good deal only sketchily. Since then
I have always deeply regretted that I did not begin earlier
to work with method and make my second into a first, in
which category only two names were included in December,
1880. Jowett always maintained that fair intelligence and
six hours' work all through would secure a first. The little
extra effort to become the master and not merely the
apprentice would have been invaluable as a discipline in
its effect on after life. My own group of friends rather
EARLY YEARS
11
gravitated to the seconds than the firsts, though Curzon
retrieved the position by obtaining an All Souls fellowship
in addition to a number of other academic distinctions. I
did my duty to the College, however, by winning the Newdi-
gate prize, the subject for which was the congenial one of
Sir Walter Raleigh.
In the Sheldonian Theatre, where I passed through the
ordeal of reading my poem without the customary inter¬
ruptions, I also saw for the first time one who was after¬
wards to be my chief, and a very kind unfailing friend, Lord
Dufferin, when he received the honorary degree of the
University. It was there also I saw Turgeneff, leonine and
magnificent in his crimson gown. He was an occasional
guest of Jowett, and to those who knew the master the
humour of the following story may appeal. Turgeneff had
been speaking of the many religious sects which were
constantly forming in Russia, and said he wished he had
studied them more from the point of view of human analysis.
He had witnessed the uprise of a new religion in a familiar
village. A cobbler had gone to Germany and there had
become possessed of a Bible, which he had studied and
assimilated. Returning to his native place with the new
knowledge he became the prophet of a self-evolved creed,
based on the literal interpretation of the New Testament.
Jowett was interested, and inquired whether there was any
value in the teaching thus inspired. "No," replied Tur¬
geneff, " it was all schlim-schlam and vish-vash, what you
call Broad Church ! "
The college was full of stories of the Master's sayings
and doings, and the more memorable of them are probably
on record. The one which most appealed to me, as revealing
the humorous common-sense with which he could put down
the pretensions of the presumptuous, has no doubt been
often told. But I do not remember to have seen it in
print. An undergraduate who had been reported to him
for repeated and contumacious refusal to attend Chapel,
was ready with his excuse, which was that after long and
12 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
mature reflection he had been unable to find a God. The
interview was at nine in the morning. The Master took
out his watch and curtly observed: "You will have to find
one by twelve o'clock or to go down."
So those glorious years came to an end, and it was time
to think of preparing to compete for the diplomatic service,
which it was my father's ambition that I should enter.
Looking back from far away at those great days of youth
and discovery, I see how much I have owed to my friends,
who forgave me many things and accepted me in spite of
certain characteristics which must have seemed abnormal
to the average sturdy barbarian of my own age. I have
all my life been conscious of a strong duality of nature and
of a struggle between opposing impulses. The desire to
take a part in all that was manly and physically healthy
contended with a certain tenderness of sentiment which
has always made me reluctant to kill. An ambition to
free myself from trammels and conventions has continually
been at war with an inherent sense of duty and obligation
and a reverence for custom and tradition. While leading
the normal life of other men I have always been intensely
susceptible to the moods of nature. Cloud effects and
drifting shadows over a landscape affected me physically,
and certain aspects of outward things moved me with an
almost uncanny awe. Is there an instinctive pagan temper¬
ament ? Of all the many lands in which I have lived,
perhaps Greece has appealed to me most, because there the
correlation between nature and myself seemed closest, most
appreciable. I have always felt there the sense of some
occult power surviving, some almost conscious radiation
of the soul of the world, the spirit which the Greek of old,
possessed by it, symbolized in the nature gods whose presence
he did not so much conceive as feel.
The entry to the diplomatic service, which had recently
been brought under the rule of competition, required a
nomination, which had been originally promised through
the agency of Lord Lytton. But I had passed several of
EARLY YEARS
13
the Easter vacations with my friend George Leveson Gower
in his father's hospitable house at Holmbury and had there
made the acquaintance of his uncle, Lord Granville, who
was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and who
was ready to welcome me to the Foreign Office. But there
was no immediate prospect of vacancies, and so after leaving
Balliol I spent the winter and spring at Rome. Gerald
Portal, with whom I was afterwards to be associated in
Africa, was an attache there under Sir Augustus Paget, and
I little thought when attending an evening party at the
Embassy that I should one day come to preside over it
myself for a long series of years. I painted from models,
wrote many poems and enjoyed life immensely in the first
burst of liberty from educational restraints.
During this visit I made the acquaintance of Ouida,
whom I also saw later in her villa at Florence. She was
then at the height of her popular fame. Though we never
actually met again in after years she maintained a desultory
correspondence with me, and especially in the grim closing
years of her life, which were destined to be, as she said,
like those of an old horse, full of misery. Poor Ouida !
She had a passion for beauty in all forms, and a wealth of
imagination which allowed her to identify herself with the
ideal creatures she incarnated. It was the more pathetic
to realize how poorly nature had endowed her, even to the
tone of her voice which was harsh and unpleasing. She
dressed herself, nevertheless, in those days with an extra¬
vagance which only drew attention to her disadvantages.
But she had a big heart and a certain intuition of genius.
She was recklessly generous and improvident, and not always
discriminating in the causes which she espoused. The
books which earned her vogue were those least worth
reading. No one ever interpreted more delicately the
romance of the Italy of forty years ago than she has done
in Pascarel, Signa, Ariadne and In Maremma. For the
rest she lived in a world created by her own imagination,
not really observed or known, but as she gorgeously would
14 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
have it to be. She had her day and her night, and a very
dark night it was.
I returned from Italy to revel in a first season. My
Oxford intimates had also gravitated to London, where
George Leveson Gower was already established at 10
Downing Street, working with another constant friend of
the future, Spencer Lyttelton. The discovery of London
was absorbing in those irresponsible days. Many of our
old landmarks have now disappeared. We used occasion¬
ally to attend, somewhat in a spirit of levity, a well-known
institution for public debate in the neighbourhood of Fleet
Street, known as Cogers. It was frequented by the clerks
and John Gilpins of the neighbourhood and presided over
by a venerable grey-bearded citizen, known as the " Vice,"
who presumably substituted some more illustrious chairman.
He used to circulate, printed on little slips of coloured paper,
specimens of the wit and wisdom of Lord Beaconsfield.
Cogers had rather a conservative character. But just
inside old Temple Bar, behind a public house, was the
more democratic Temple Discussion Forum, a popular
parliament which had the probably quite unjustified reputa¬
tion of having, in the beginning of the century, given occasion
to the Great Corsican to denounce the misrepresentations
there circulated by British middle-class opinion. One night
a group of old Balliol friends, including Curzon, Cecil Spring-
Rice, Clinton Dawkins and myself, adjourned after a John¬
sonian banquet at the old Cock Tavern to the Forum, where
each of us had engaged himself to make a violent speech
in a sense diametrically opposite to his natural political
convictions. I cannot now recall the particular subject
proposed that evening for discussion, stimulated by whisky
hot or cold. But the extreme radical, not to say subversive
opinions, eloquently and forcibly advanced by the present
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs so roused the indigna¬
tion of a medical student, that he invited " this pink-cheeked
Oxonian " to come out behind the bar, and have his head
punched. At this moment Clinton Dawkins, who was an
EARLY YEARS
15
accomplished light-weight boxer, diverted the quarrel to
himself by the vigour of the personal opinion he expressed
of the medical student and all his works. But when we
went out to see the fun the challenger had disappeared.
Social life was rapidly expanding into wider circles, but
the old order still maintained some pride of exclusiveness,
and the great houses were not overcrowded. The hardy
climber encountered a certain climatic resistance, and there
were still things which were not done. There was even a
reluctance to admit the propriety of reversing in the ball¬
room, so long as there was still space enough for the swing
and movement of the delightful old Strauss waltzes. Hours
were much later than to-day, and I grew quite familiar with
the aspect of London at dawn on a May or June morning.
But from the first the social world of the 'eighties was to
me less absorbing than the life of art and letters into which
I seemed naturally to drift.
Saturday afternoons were spent with Richmond at
Hammersmith for tennis and supper with music and
riotous conversation and tobacco. Through him I became
acquainted with William Morris and in due course with
Burne-Jones, the most lovable of men. Wilde I met
again, established in an old-world apartment in Salisbury
Street, Strand, which had, I believe, once been occupied
by d'Orsay, amusing a growing circle with paradox and
repartee. Relations were also established with the theatre,
the connecting link being Johnston Forbes Robertson, who
was abandoning portrait painting for the stage, and Mow¬
bray Morris, the " man of letters," who was then theatrical
critic to The Times. Morris, who had strong views as to
the independence of criticism, always insisted on buying
his own stall for a first performance. He soon afterwards
parted company with The Times, of which his father, said
to be the Beau Morris of Thackeray, had been for many
years the manager, owing to a quarrel in which he was
probably right in principle but obviously wrong in practice.
For many years he edited Macmillan's Magazine and was
16 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
one of the literary advisers to that eminent house. Many
young authors owed him a debt for advice and encourage¬
ment at the beginning of their career. He had a fine and
discriminating judgment in literature, with a sense of humour
which carried him through hard times and he was among
the few accomplished letter-writers who survived the last
century. Cheap postage tended to substitute notes for
letters, and the typing machine is finally killing all distinc¬
tion of epistolary style. There are not many left to-day
who write real letters. Of those that remain, John Fortes-
cue, the historian of the British Army, shares my regard
for the memory of the " man of letters."
Wilde brought me into touch with James McNeil Whistler,
who had lately returned from temporary exile. With that
remarkable man, the best of friends and the most inexorable
of enemies, intimacy was immediate, and for the next year
or two I was constantly with him. His famous law-suit
with Ruskin, one of the few legal battles in which the public
had been entertained with rare and not with judicial humour,
had taken place not long previously, and one of its results
had been Jimmy's bankruptcy, which the farthing damages
obtained from Ruskin was inadequate to delay. There
are few now who remember how he turned the tables on
the Attorney General, Sir John Holker, who was employing
all the arts of his forensic irony against the plaintiff.
A number of nocturnes and arrangements had been brought
into court and submitted to a bewildered jury, and Sir
John, convinced that he had them well in hand, addressed
the complainant ore rotundo. " Now, Mr. Whistler," he said,
" do you think that you could make the gentlemen of the
jury understand the merits of these paintings,—do you
think you could make me understand them ? " Jimmy
readjusted his eyeglass, and after steadily contemplating
the learned advocate's self-complacent face for some seconds
amid the breathless silence of the Court replied : " No, I
don't think I could." After a protracted residence in
Venice, where he reconstituted his financial position by
EARLY YEARS
17
executing a wonderful series of etchings, he returned to
Tite Street, not, however, to the White House but to a
studio, to which was attached a series of rooms alternately
revealing yellow walls and blue ceilings or blue walls and
yellow ceilings, the tints of distemper having been mixed
by his own hand to exactly the delicate shade required.
Here were renewed the delightful Sunday morning
" dejeuners," at which so many of his best things were
said. At one of these we discovered we had sat down
thirteen ; the number of arrivals was always rather uncer¬
tain. Among the guests was a young and very attractive
girl, no doubt the youngest of those present. A few days
afterwards she was suddenly taken ill and died. Nor did
this apparent illustration of the old superstition end there.
An elderly general who had also been present, and who
was certainly the oldest of the party, heard the sad news
at his club soon afterwards and dropped down dead. I
had a somewhat similar experience not long afterwards
when I was at Berlin. On the other hand, I have assisted
at innumerable other tables of thirteen without any sinister
result. The universality of the superstition is remarkable,
and in the South of Europe a dinner of thirteen is absolutely
taboo.
To Whistler a gallery was a necessity and unlike most
artists he worked most strenuously in the presence of a
small group of admirers. Waldo Story, the American
sculptor, was often there, and Walter Sickert, as well as
another young American artist, Harper Pennington. At
this time he was experimenting a good deal with petroleum
as a medium, painting with brushes more than two feet
long which he held by the extreme end in his nervous
delicate fingers, surveying his picture and his model across
the whole length of the studio, and then dashing up at a
run to place the telling stroke on the canvas. I made a
rough calculation one day of the mileage he covered during
a day's work. Occasionally I used to assist him in printing
his etchings. We obtained the best hand-made paper out
c
18 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of old folios which frequently had a number of blank pages
at the beginning and the end. These were carefully damped
and brushed with a soft long-haired brush to rough the
surface, and Jimmy came to regard me as something of an
expert in their preparation. The inking of the plate was a
labour of infinite patience demanding experience and
dexterity. He worked it over and over again with the
flat of the hand until precisely the right proportion of ink
remained, and even then after we had put the plate through
the press only a few proofs were selected as adequate, and
the majority perhaps were destroyed. A whole morning
might go in producing only two or three which satisfied his
fastidious standard of perfection.
Whistler would at times enlarge for my benefit on his
conception of art. He admitted that there was an art or
rather a craft of illustration, of pictorial and historical
representation. But this was a craft which did not interest
him. The painter had to render and give eternity to such
combinations of colour in atmosphere as his artistic sensi¬
bility taught him would constitute a harmony. Such
combinations might even be present in actuality when
nature had for once done the right thing. But nature's
presentation was, he contended, often glaring, crude and
inharmonious. Therefore to the young student who
attempted to justify his claim to paint exactly what he
saw Jimmy retorted, " If you do you will be sorry when
you see what you paint." It was not the painter's business
to tell a story or evoke an emotion, except the emotion
produced by a conscient sense of beauty. " Those are
trees, I suppose," said some one, indicating a dark patch
in one of his nocturnes. " Very possibly," said Jimmy, " I
don't know." For him they were only a dark mass which
gave value to the light of a bursting rocket against the sky.
In portraiture he held that the subject should be presented
as seen in a room, at a certain distance from the eye,
enveloped in a certain atmosphere ; not in high relief and
standing out as it were in front of the frame, " with the
EARLY YEARS
19
iris showing the reflection of the window and the hansom
cab beyond it, upside down ! "
There was a worthy and conscientious painter in water
colours who won the enthusiastic approval of Ruskin and
achieved a certain mid-Victorian repute by spending years
of his life on a camp-stool in front of St. Mark's at Venice
and elaborately reproducing with a telescopic sight every
detail, crevice and tessera of mosaic in that astoundingly
harmonious whole. Jimmy stood one day behind him,
affecting to take a deep interest in his miniature brush-
work, while with a piece of white chalk he wrote on the
back of his victim's coat, " I am totally blind." Thus
unconsciously embellished, the good man laboriously worked
on, a joy to the passing tourist, and the devil in Whistler
who could quote Scripture was ready with his appropriate
tag about the one who getteth up early and taketh pains
and is only the more behind.
Few of the old Academic School escaped his mordant
humour. He was once in a country house where Poynter
was also staying, "poor old Poynter," as he called him.
The latter went out one morning to draw in the park, and
there Jimmy found him, surrounded by a group of admiring
ladies who were watching the great man at work. " What
are you doing there, Poynter ? " said he. " Oh," replied
Poynter deprecatingly, " I am only touching up a little
thing I began here many years ago." " That's no excuse,
Poynter ! " was his parting shot as he walked on.
They had known each other as young men in Paris with
du Maurier and others. When the latter was producing
his novel of Trilby, in the first serial numbers Whistler was
unmistakably indicated among the characters, and not
altogether flatteringly, both in the text and the illustrations.
He entered a strident protest, with the result that these
references were eliminated. Where his art was concerned
the genial master took himself very seriously, and it passed
the wit of most men to get the best of it in a quarrel with
him. One day we were preparing th© catalogue for a
20 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
collection of his etchings to be exhibited in the spring.
His spirit of mischief conceived the expedient of printing
under each title one or two selections from judgments
passed on his works by the critics, which in many if not in
most cases had no reference to the particular plate. To
these strictures some comments in marginal notes were
added by the " Butterfly " himself. A passage culled from
one eminent critic attached to a particularly charming dry-
point had been ; " There is merit in them and I do not wish
to understate it." When the proofs arrived, the printer
(but was it the printer ?) had read " understand " in place
of " understate,.'''' " That," said Jimmy, " is too providenti¬
ally good to be altered, and we will let it stand as it is."
The final page of the catalogue contained a few felicitous
selections from the Book of Proverbs: " Therefore is
judgment far from us,"—" We all roar like bulls," etc. He
used to say that his early New England education, based
on the scriptures, stood him in good stead in controversial
battles, and his unfailing memory was always ready with
a quotation appropriate to the situation.
No man ever loved his own work as Whistler did. It
was his particular joy to get back by some excuse or other
and keep in his studio pictures with which he had long
parted. This passion for recovering his former productions,
not from mercenary motives, for Jimmy was never merce¬
nary and scrupulously honourable about obligations, took
on one occasion a curious form. One of his old patrons
had lost a great deal of money in business and found himself
obliged to dispose of his collection. Whistler convinced
him that he would himself be able to obtain better prices
for his own work by placing it where he knew it to be in
demand, than could be secured in an auction room. Thus
he obtained for a few weeks the custody of six of his beloved
pictures, among which was the beautiful " Symphony in
White," and also a seventh of which he had made a present
to this patron. Now as regards this last, a wonderful
atmospheric presentation of sky and sea and sand, he
EARLY YEARS
21
reflected long on the following lines, wliich. he explained to
his friend, who took no exception to the proposition. "As
regards the six pictures ; well, I will obtain for you the
best conditions available. But this other picture you know
was a gift. Now a gift implies a certain relation of esteem
and affection between giver and receiver, and so long as
that relation subsists the gift preserves its character as
evidence of the relation. On the other hand to contemplate
selling such a gift would imply a cessation of the relations
by which the picture came into your possession. If you
invite me to sell that picture for you those relations have
obviously ceased, and in short the picture must revert to
the giver ! " And so it remained in his possession for
many years.1
Prominent among the Whistlerians was Pellegrini, known
to his friends as the Pelican, the famous caricaturist of
Vanity Fair who, as Jimmy used to say, taught all the
others what they were never able to do. An exile from
his native Naples," Ape " was of the rarest blood of Bohemia.
Although he passed the greater part of a lifetime in London
his English remained rudimentary, and did not go much
beyond a working knowledge of the cruder forms of expression
not used in polite society. There was in those days an
Italian confectioner's shop in Great Portland Street where
Neapolitan ices were supplied to clients, and a large bottle
of lemonade, with a lemon in the neck in place of a cork,
adorned the window to indicate the character of the house.
At the back of the shop was a little room where the best
of Italian cooking could be sampled, and there I used
occasionally to lunch with the Pelican and Tosti and Costa
and other eminences of the colony. Pellegrini would sit
upon a barrel in the doorway leading from the back room
to the shop, eating his polpette and pausing from time to
time to address the young lady behind the counter as
" angeol." That little shop in due course expanded and
became Pagani's Restaurant where, when declining health
1 This picture is now in the gallery of Mrs. Gardner, at Boston,
22 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
and the ambition to become a portrait painter in which
he did not succeed, made life difficult for our old friend,
he was hospitably cared for by the kindly proprietor.
In 1881 I published a small volume of poems written
after leaving Oxford under the title of Songs in the South,
and in a measure enjoyed success, for after a kindly welcome
from the reviewers, the whole small edition was disposed
of. Wilde at that time also brought out his first volume
of poems. I had endeavoured, but in vain, to induce him
to eliminate one or two passages which violated my own
sense of taste. They revealed his ability, his command of
language and feeling for colour. But there was an artificia¬
lity in the longer and more recent poems and a conscious¬
ness which had not been so apparent in his earliest efforts.
I remember finding him one morning engaged upon one of
the longer poems in that volume, with a botanical work in
front of him from which he was selecting the names of
flowers most pleasing to the ear to plant in his garden of
verse. There was more power behind him than he really
used.
In those early Bohemian days I saw a great deal of that
brilliant but unhappy man, and as a year or so later we
quarrelled irretrievably and met no more, I feel the greater
obligation to do justice to certain aspects of the man as I
knew him. And here also I would record a debt, inasmuch
as he helped me to independence of thought and opinion.
Normal education and surroundings had exercised a certain
restraint on an imagination which resented such control,
and association with this daring and gifted personality
brought me nearer to emancipation from convention. He
had undoubtedly a keen perception of beauty, almost over¬
shadowed by his tremendous sense of humour, which led
him into extravagances of paradox. His laughter was
genuine, spontaneous and infectious. He had a vivid quick¬
ness of apprehension, and an absorbent memory. But at
the period of our acquaintance he had accomplished little
to entitle him to other recognition than that which his
EARLY YEARS
23
ready wit and deliberate eccentricity commanded. His
literary and dramatic gifts were developed later and have
been fully recognized since his tragic end.
What was less appreciated then as now was his really
genial and kindly nature, which seemed at times in strident
contrast with his egotism, self-assertion and incorrigible
love of notoriety. No one was more ready than he was
at that time to accept the laugh against himself, and no
one could be more generous in acknowledging the qualities
and gifts of his friends. Of that unhappy madness which
many years afterwards made havoc of a gifted life, we saw
no premonition in those London days. On the contrary,
an incident which I well remember revealed that he was
fully alive to the peril of undesirable associations. In
some studio exhibition we had met a man, now long since
dead, who had rather impressed me with his exposition of
artistic ideals, and on my referring with interest to his
observations as we came away, Wilde observed: " Yes, he
is most agreeable, but you should know that he is not a
man in whose company we could afford to be seen." On
another occasion, when there had been a disastrous flood
in Lambeth after an unusually high tide, and a number
of houses of the very poor were wrecked, we went together
to see what we could do to help the unfortunate families
who were camping in the street, and he penetrated into a
miserable tenement and talked to an old bed-ridden Irish
woman, cheering her with his merry humour and assisting
her with little necessaries for which, as he said, she had
more than compensated him by praying that " the Lord
would give him a bed in glory." A wretched bed was all
her world, and a bed in glory was her ideal. He was
generous and reckless, with no thought for the morrow,
and indeed indolent until a desperate obligation to work
came home to him. I would like this side of his nature
to be known, and that some kindly thought should go back
to the tragic life of which we hoped so much, the more
so because we quarrelled, and when there is a quarrel
24 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
probably neither of the parties to it is wholly in the right.
His personality in those days was an outrage to the
ordinary philistine, who nevertheless suddenly found himself
confronted by a flash of humour or a profound observation
which commanded his respect. The attraction of his
dominant personality took a strong hold upon me. I
believed him to have a touch of genius, and indeed it was
there, when he did not do it injustice by courting notoriety.
My friends criticized the ascendency which he began to
exercise, and being young I took a certain defiant pride
in then criticism. To enterprising youth the numbers are
always wrong, and rejection with the remnant satisfies a
certain sense of self-pride. Henri Murger's Vie de Boheme
was our gospel, but we perhaps forgot that the real moral
of that immortal book is to be found in the introduction.
Wilde, who by now had received the compliment of being
burlesqued on the stage, became the accepted protagonist
of a movement which he was himself much too brilliant
to take seriously. A limited number of enthusiasts painted
the porticoes of their houses peacock blue, and many young
ladies from South Kensington went, as Whistler most
unkindly put it, " down Petticoat Lane, there on a Sabbath
to gather from the dull rags of ages wherewith to bedeck
themselves." It is strange, looking back on what was
known as the aesthetic movement, to remember how devoid
of all sense of the appropriate were certain gaunt and sallow
ladies, who used to appear at the private views dressed in
a poor travesty of the robes which so well became the
opulent beauty of a Venetian courtesan on the canvas of
a Paris Bordone.
It was inevitable under the circumstances that Wilde
should be invited to lecture in America. He had not yet
begun to write plays and since for him as for Beaudelaire
" le superflu etait le necessaire," he accepted the invitation.
What he was to tell the lecture-loving public in the States
he hardly knew himself. But it had been assumed that
he had a message to deliver, and one had to be found. It
EARLY YEARS
25
was vaguely presumed to be about Art, and Whistler's
comments were entertaining, for none but the artist, indeed
none living but one artist, had any title to speak on such
a subject. Just before he left he was entertained to dinner
at one of the taverns of Bohemia. " I hope," said our
guest to Whistler, " that I shall not be sea-sick crossing
the Atlantic."—" Well, Oscar, if you are," said Jimmy,
" throw up Burne-Jones ! " He had spontaneously offered
to take my little book of poems with him and have it
published in America, and to a young man ambitious of
recognition it seemed an attractive proposition. This it
was which led to our quarrel, the story of which can have
but little interest for others. A member of the firm which
produced the eccentric volume informed me that they had
had carte blanche to do what they liked with it, and had
merely regarded it as a sort of advertisement or appeal to
notoriety, and had for this purpose used up a lot of old
blocks, ostensibly for decoration. A letter which I wrote
to him, in which I also warned him of the harm which I
felt he was doing to himself by his extravagant performances
in America, gave profound offence. When he returned
dressed in a fantastic suit of red plush, assuming a sort
of Olympian attitude as of one who could do no wrong,
we parted in anger and did not meet again. Whistler also
parted company with him soon afterwards, and a paper
battle ensued in which as usual the painter had the last
word.
Intimacy with Whistler did not prevent my also seeing
a great deal of Burne-Jones, antagonistic as these two were
to each other in every respect. Those who only knew
Burne-Jones from his work and might seek to deduce from
its spirit what manner of man he was, would never conceive
the gaiety, the humour and the wholly lovable nature of
the man. He had passed through a bitter period of struggle,
never forsaking his high ideals, and had had to wait long
before appreciation and recognition came. But he was
always assured of the devotion of a small group of friends
26 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
which such a character as his cannot fail to command. I
spent many happy evenings at the Grange in West Ken¬
sington in that happy family circle. There were days
when in the studio, which was guarded with a certain
reverent mystery until the moment when the master was
satisfied, things had not gone well and he was verging on
depression, and then in the company of a few friends the
old humour would reassert itself and preoccupation would
be forgotten till the morrow. I remember a delightful
spontaneous outburst of the artist's feeling one day in the
garden when he called to his daughter to bring him a hat,
and a new silk hat of ceremony was produced. " Not that
thing," said B.-J., dropping it on the grass and putting his
foot through five and twenty shillings, " bring me a proper
hat! " At supper he would have a sheaf of little papers
and a pencil by him and would illustrate his ideas with
the most delightful caricatures, which were quite peculiar
to himself. His own person was always represented by a
little owl, which in a few strokes assumed the varying
expression of his feelings as affected by the episode under
discussion. His original sense of the humour of things
and the way he saw them may be illustrated by the story
of his Neapolitan model which he told us one evening as
a tragedy in three acts, with an epilogue. She was a very
silent girl, and during a month of work in his studio she
only spoke four times. At the end of the first week she
suddenly spontaneously exclaimed: "I was born on a
burning mountain." That is Act I, supplying the intro¬
duction and the local colour. At the end of the second
week she sighed and said : " I love Giacinto." At the end
of the third week she was heard to mutter fiercely: "I
wish I were the Queen, I would kill Mariannina." Then
came the epilogue and her dramatic vengeance for the
slighting of her charms. She was being paid off and spoke,
for her at length, in three staccato sentences : "You have
been kind to me.—I will tell you something for your good.—
Don't eat the blue ices ! "
EARLY YEARS
27
He did for me a wonderful thing which I have always
remembered with the deepest gratitude. I had been spend¬
ing the summer in France, at Amboise in Touraine. Not
far away at Tours there are in the Museum two of the
predella panels belonging to the great Mantegna picture
in San Zeno at Verona. The third, a crucifixion, is in the
Louvre. When after the fall of Napoleon the looted trea¬
sures of Italy were restored, the Madonna went back to
Verona, but the three wonderful little panels of the predella
had been dispersed and they remained in France. Burne-
Jones wished to have photographs of the two at Tours.
But they had never been photographed and as it seemed
to be very difficult to obtain authority to reproduce them
I went every Saturday to Tours and made a careful pencil
copy of one of them, the Agony in the Garden, for him.
He was much touched at the desire, a very natural one,
to give him pleasure. Not long afterwards, having suspected
that I was wavering whether I should take up the diplomatic
service as a profession, or rather follow art or literature,
he told me that if I cared to come and work in his studio
he would gladly welcome me and would help me in every
way he could. I was deeply impressed with his kindness,
the more so as his studio, like the workshop of the alchemist,
was a place of jealously guarded access into which few
penetrated, except when exhibitions were deliberately
organized there. But I knew well enough that though I
had always had a certain facility for drawing I had no
talent which could justify my accepting such a proposal.
Rossetti, who was in failing health and had become a
recluse, I never knew, nor did I ever meet Swinburne.
Unfortunately I early got myself into trouble with the
author of Poems and Ballads, and more especially, as I
was informed, with his constant companion, Theodore
Watts, who was of course more royalist than the king. The
latter had not then assumed his supplementary cognomen
of Dunton. When he did so he received a postcard from
Whistler with only these two words above the well-known
28 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
emblem of a butterfly with a sting in the tail, " What's
Dunton ? " Swinburne, who in earlier days had addressed
an enthusiastic poem to " Walt Whitman in America,"
afterwards wrote a vitriolic attack upon his literary work
in the Fortnightly Review, in which he described him as
pursuing a Hottentot Venus with a muck-rake, together
with other similar extravagances of hyperbolic denunciation.
This article aroused my youthful indignation, as I was a
sincere if discriminating admirer of " Leaves of Grass "
and " Drumtaps," which contained a genuine outburst of
natural song, a roughhewn art developing under elemental
conditions. Thus moved I published a counterblast in
some verses which were regarded as lese-majeste. I have
found them among my papers. The august shades will
not be vexed if they are reprinted.
TO WALT WHITMAN.
After reading a recent article in the " Fortnightly
Review."
Laugh loud from the merry old throat, rough Walt, in your heaven
of rest,
For the curse of the prophet of Putney proscribes you the isles of
the blest !
Oh, where are the frenzied invective, the sonnets that " stung like
a whip,"
Protests anapaestic, indignant, that flashed from his radical lip ?
He has passed from the van to the rearguard, forsaking the Ayes
for the Noes,
Renouncing the lyric of passion to preach in extravagant prose !
He has turned on you too, Camerado, has passed from the few to
the throng ;
Content you and smile and remember he called on you once for a
song !
But for us, we will cling to our follies ; and save us, oh tyrannous
Truth,
From a middle-age spent in recanting the faith and the fire of our
youth !
EARLY YEARS 29
And as we rejoiced to have found you, accepting the whole for the
part,
The virtues implying the failings, we will keep your old place in
the heart.
We shall say you were shaggy and rough and untamed as the land
of your birth,
But large with the heart of its greatness to compass the glory of
earth.
We will love you and praise and remember when lilacs are bloom¬
ing once more,
And thrill at the camp and the drumtap, and weep with the bird
on the shore.
There is music in murmur of forest and rhythm in slapping of
waves,
And of such was the music and rhythm, old Walt, of thy mutinous
staves.
For the trick of the rhyme and the tinkle are easy enough to acquire,
But the insight, the reading of nature, were thine, and the throb
and the fire !
There is more of the roar of the ocean with thee, of the scent of
the pines,
Than in all his recoiling and foaming up and down anapaestical
lines !
So laugh and content you, old Walt, while the fever remains let
him rave ;
Let him be ; he has damned you with Byron, who hardly will turn
in his grave !
But, oh bard of the magical measures, go back to your kisses and
doves,
The allurements of alliteration, romaunts of your troubadour loves !
Disbelieve, since you must, in the ardour of old you were first to
extol,
Disbelieve in the future, the present, and if need be, look after your
soul !
But forbear to believe that your footprints are stainless wherever
you trod,
Because there was lilt in your lewdness and rhyme in your girding
at God.
30 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
There are more tears on earth when a poet renounces the stars of
his youth,
Than for all the blind groping of dunces who never set eyes upon
Truth !
My first attempt to satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners
and to enter the Diplomatic service proved a severe blow
to my vanity. There was only one vacancy to be filled, and
six candidates were nominated to compete for it. The test
examination covered some ten or twelve subjects, and
though I came out top in two-thirds of these, and second
or third in the others, the Commissioners disqualified me
for handwriting and orthography, to which I must admit I
had paid little attention. There was nothing for it but to
await another occasion, which did not occur until July in
the following year, when, having taken more care to write
legibly and correct my papers, I succeeded in passing in at
the head of the list.
Meanwhile at this period I used to go on one or two
evenings every week to Hackney, to work for the Eton
Mission, where Spring-Rice took a great interest in a boys'
club. His curious and rather bitter irony was illustrated
by a story, which I suspected him of having invented, about
a lady of fashion who was trying in her own way to do much
what we were aiming at, by visiting in the poor quarters
of London. At one door she was refused admission by an
indignant defender of her own privacy, who recommended
her " not to come here and clean your soul on me ! " I
had a reading class for grown-up men, and a small class of
working men to whom I endeavoured to impart the elements
of political economy. There were a few among them in
whom a ten hours working day had not benumbed all con¬
sciousness of their dead weight of ignorance, and who desired
to learn in order to help their fellow workers. But the most
successful of our enterprises were no doubt the theatrical
performances which we organized at Hackney, where the
genuine appreciation of the audience was an ample reward
for the trouble.
EARLY YEARS
31
While it is my intention to write down as truthfully and
suggestively as possible what I remember of interesting
people and public events, I shall refrain for obvious reasons
from touching on matters which are of an intimate personal
character. There are incidents and experiences in life
which must remain inviolate in the sanctuary of memory.
And if in these pages I seem to refer after more than thirty
years with a certain reverent tenderness to a remarkable
personality which influenced my life at this time, it is
because her brief passage across this troubled world was a
source of so much delight to my particular group of friends,
as well as to many of a much older generation, that to pass
over all mention of her beneficent presence would seem an
inexplicable omission on the part of one who was among the
first to be sensible of the spell which she exercised. She
has moreover filled a conspicuous place in other biographies.
It was in the year 1882 that I first met that radiant little
being, with the genius of quick intuitive apprehension and
sympathetic response, who was known as Laura Tennant,
and who for one short happy year became Laura Lyttelton,
to die in April 1886 and make the world darker for a large
number of intensely devoted friends. It can have been
given to few to make so deep an impression on contemporary
life at so early an age. She was only eighteen when we
first met, and a common adoration of Shelley opened the
door to immediate intimacy. At a time of considerable
depression and disillusion she brightened my way with her
magical power of sympathy and lucid appreciation of the
things which really matter. She was profoundly believing
in an unquestioning spirit of childlike faith, which did not
obtrude itself, but in its large charity was only an added
grace. A favourite precept quoted in her first letter to me
was from Marcus Aurelius : " Adorn thyself with sim¬
plicity and modesty, and with indifference to the things
which lie between virtue and vice."
Our friendship quickly ripening served to dissipate false
lights and artificial standards, and brought me back to the
32 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
clear morning air. Therefore to her also I would record
unforgettable gratitude.
Early in the following year she left England to spend some
months in South Africa with a sister who was threatened
with the malady to which so many of that brilliant family
were victims. Our personal intercourse was consequently
for a time interrupted, but her letters were wonderful, and
so they remain when re-read after an interval of more than
half a life-time. Of these a large number are in my posses¬
sion. If years hence the little packet were to fall into the
hands of one who knew none of those concerned the
letters would no doubt arouse curiosity and interest in the
character who, if genius can be revealed in sympathy, had
such a touch of genius. They were, however, not meant for
other eyes, and I shall respect their confidence. But as
testimony to a certain sense of imaginative mysticism,
which I have never seen alluded to in the references to
Laura Tennant in other books, it may be legitimate to quote
the concluding passage from one of these written in the house
of Lady Haversham at Tintagel, where I had hoped to join
the party but was prevented by obligations at the Foreign
Office : " There is a mist on the sea to-day and the land is
grey and refuses to smile. The air is full of the silent music
that only those that stand in solitary places are allowed to
hear, and the church lifts up its strong tower to God and
speaks of the half-hour of silence in Heaven in which we will
hear nothing but the soothed sobs of Christ's comforted
children. Good-bye." There are many such spontaneous
outbursts of feeling in these remarkable letters. One re¬
ceived at the end of the same year in Berlin has its haunting
Christmas message : " And what can I wish you at this
peace-bringing season. Peace—yes Peace, not where there
is no Peace, but the God of Peace in your heart and the
Christchild arms round you always, and the little Sacred
Feet to lead you in the difficult places." And these passages
do not belong to letters of sentiment, but only to the corres¬
pondence between two devoted friends. Mrs. Asquith in
EARLY YEARS
33
her autobiography has written that the two people who
best knew the difference between her sister and herself were
Mr. Balfour and myself. I am more interested in the resem¬
blance, which lay in a common largeness of heart, rapidity
of intuition and freedom from the trammels of convention.
I also foregathered much at this time with old Sam Ward,
the universal " uncle," from America, who had a certain
number of devoted friends in England, and had finally
settled down in rooms above Sotheran's in Piccadilly. He
had been, or had done, so people said, most things in an
adventurous life, and undoubtedly had reigned for a con¬
siderable period at Washington as King of the Lobby.
Several fortunes had passed through his hands to disappear
one after another, but out of the last wreck his lawyer took
pleasure in announcing that he had saved enough to ensure
Uncle Sam having a good dinner for the rest of his life.
And no one enjoyed a good dinner more. Whatever had
been secured upon him, he shared royally with his friends,
whom he loved to entertain. He was one of the last of the
generation that quoted Horace, in which tradition I had
myself also been brought up. An admirable raconteur, he
had an endless repertoire of reminiscences and adventures.
Whenever I felt depressed I used to go and dine with him,
and seventy and three-and-twenty spent a cheerful evening
together. One night he took me to supper with Irving
behind the scenes at the Lyceum, where with the merry
veteran Toole, Yates of the World and W. L. Courtney, who
had lately forsaken Oxford for London, our host entertained
us till 3 a.m. It was at a dinner given by Sam Ward at the
" Blue Posts " in Cork Street, that I first met Marion Craw¬
ford, of whom I was to see much in later years, sitting be¬
tween him and Henry James, who enlarged on his admiration
for Zola. Crawford was Uncle Sam's real nephew, and not
like the rest of us only one by adoption. He had just
written his first novel at Sam Ward's suggestion. It was
produced in forty-two days, and was attracting much
attention. In his second book, Dr. Claudius, he gave an
D
34 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
admirable portrait of his uncle, who appears appropriately
as Uncle Hector.
I remember that when our prolonged banquet broke up I
wandered away with Crawford in search of adventure.
Eventually we found ourselves in the parlour of a tavern in
Covent Garden, allowed to remain open all night for the
drivers of the vegetable carts, of which privilege the night-
birds and late drinkers took advantage. Crawford was
collecting types and we found not a few there. They had
to be propitiated and my new friend fortunately had a head
as strong as his body. It was daylight when we separated.
I sent him a Bacchanalian Ode congratulating him on his
pastmastership in the cult of Bacchus, and received from
him the following somewhat libellous reply. " Your hymn
ad majorem gloriam Bacchi reached me yesterday and is a
masterpiece. Not that you need knuckle down in that
fashion. If long practice has given me a certain command
of the subject, I must acknowledge that your natural gifts
are surprising. In a long life you may hope to order a good
number of shutters for your friends. It is at present with
you a remarkable if somewhat untrained gift. The position
of cupbearer to his majesty our king and uncle, which I
have held more than once for six months at a time, would
raise you to wonderful perfection. Omar Khayyam would
soon stand to you in the relation of a spot of candle-grease
to the gleaming torch of liberty, and the American eagle
would hide his diminished cocktail—I suppose he is a cock
eagle and not a hen—before the grander plumage of his
victor. ... You will not publish this letter in The Times ?
Rather deposit it in the archives of the F.O. Nobody will
ever find it there."
I had the privilege of bringing Uncle Sam and Laura
Tennant together, and the friendship which resulted between
the dear old man who was spending his last years in making
other people happy and the wonderful woman-child was
delightful to witness for the short time it lasted. All her
letters to him were given to me after his death. They are—
EARLY YEARS
35
as indeed every one of her letters was—touched with her own
individuality and charm of expression. In one of them,
chosen at random and mostly about books, the following
passage is characteristic : " Everything to do with Emerson
fascinates me. I was reading Ireland's recollections of the
great Prose Poet and came upon your name. I felt so happy
that I knew you, for you knew him and he loved you. I
wish you would talk to me about him some day. I never
manage to ask you half the questions that lie like sealed
letters in my heart waiting for your sympathetic fingers
to open them. ... I read very few French novels, for on
the whole they bring earth nearer than heaven, and there is
so much in common life that does that. What I should
like to do if I wrote a book would be to write something that
was a Bridge to the City of God, a bridge over which the
poorest and the children could pass without paying a toll.
Good-night, dearest Uncle Sam."
Euthanasia came to our old friend at last as he sat in an
arm-chair looking at the sunset at Pegli on theMediterranean
shore. I had written to tell Laura the circumstances of his
death and she replied : " Your letter was a great comfort.
I cannot feel with our beloved poet (Shelley) that all we loved
of him should be, but for our grief, as if it had not been. I
feel he is as he always was, very near and helpful and true,
with his face that smiled on every one and his hands that
blessed the whole world and his heart that refused no one.
Oh ! why did I not show him more and better how dear
he was to me. What is the good of regretting ! And yet
I often feel that the kings of my life pass uncrowned and the
stars unblessed."
With the exception of Lord Rosebery, Lord Crewe and
one or two more of my own generation there can be few
alive now in this country or even in the United States who
still preserve an affectionate memory of old Uncle Sam.
But the famous war hymn of his sister, Julia Ward Howe,
remains one of the immortal possessions of the American
people. To me it is a pleasure and a duty to place this
36 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
tributary wreath upon one of the many graves which I
keep in mind upon the night of All Souls.
Early in 1883 I first became acquainted with Mr. Glad¬
stone in the ever hospitable house of Mr. F. Leveson Gower
at Holmbury, where he was spending Saturday to Monday
with his wife and daughter (Mrs. Drew). Lowell was the
other guest of importance. The Prime Minister was in
great spirits, and talked on every kind of subject, from the
rapacity of publishers to the Channel Tunnel, which he said
he would never oppose. He was in the minority in those
days. George and I were quite young men, and therefore
only listeners. But Lowell was of an age and calibre to
enter the lists with the great man, and it was good to hear
them together. Mr. G. had much to say to us the first
evening of Carlyle, who would, he thought, be held in
memory chiefly on account of his extraordinary personality.
He compared him to Johnson, in whom the human side was
far more interesting than the literary. Lowell considered
that Carlyle was somewhat belittled by what he called his
Scottish money-craving weakness ; there was evidence of
this in his correspondence with Emerson and at his death
he left forty-five thousand pounds. The influence of Sunday
seemed to have an effect on Mr. Gladstone's trend of mind,
for at lunch he entertained us with ecclesiastical conversation,
discussing Welsh Churchmen, American Episcopalians and
the Salvation Army. He had sympathy with the endeavour
of its organizers to reach the soul of the masses, but he
gravely criticized what he described as the substitution of
eccentricities for the fixed rules of religion. The movement
was then only in its infancy. At dinner the conversation
took a more congenial literary turn. He had just been
reading Crawford's Mr. Isaacs, which, he admitted, was a
remarkable book, but not one which commanded his sym¬
pathy. He held its basis to be a false philosophy, and he
deprecated the attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. I
should have liked to protest against what seemed a narrow
view, for the philosophy of that book, if indeed it was meant
EARLY YEARS
37
to embody any philosophic idea, was that the big men of
every race, however widely differentiated, when their souls
are touched are alike in feeling, conceive the same nobilities
and see the same right and wrong. Mr. G. spoke with great
admiration of Charlotte Bronte. But he had no good
word to say for Wuthering Heights. Here Lowell joined
issue and with insistence. Both, however, agreed in their
verdict on Scott, and both held the Bride of Lammermoor
to be his masterpiece. Mr. Gladstone could only compare
it to a Greek Tragedy. iEschylus, had he lived in modern
times, might have written just such a book. This was the
first of a series of such meetings at Holmbury with Mr.
Gladstone, of whom perhaps I saw more than any of my
young contemporaries except George Leveson Gower, who
as his assistant private secretary was in constant intercourse
with him.
About a year later I had been spending Easter at Holm-
bury, where Lord and Lady Granville were staying, and was
invited to return there for the following week-end when the
Gladstones were to join the party, as well as Sir George
Dasent, who was the best of company. I had in the
meantime joined the Foreign Office in July, 1883, and was
then employed in the Western Department with my
friend Cecil Spring-Rice, so I went down to Holmbury laden
with boxes for the Secretary of State.
Mr. Gladstone was then full of the lost Atlantis, and
maintained that the " Challenger " soundings had established
the fact of a submerged continent. He had been in corres¬
pondence with Ignatius Donelly, who wrote the suggestive
book Ragnarok. He submitted as a parallel in popular
tradition, of which all historic trace had been lost and which
yet proved ultimately well-founded, the Homeric idea that
the flat area of North Germany was all sea, which it un¬
doubtedly had once been, though ages before Homer. The
conversation passed on to geology, and then to language
and etymology, which was Dasent's particular subject. He
suggested as a parallel to the accepted dictum that the
38 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
purest English was spoken at Inverness, where it was origin¬
ally an alien language, the case of Hanover where the effort
to correct a bad local dialect had resulted in the populariza¬
tion of the purest German.
The first evening Mr. G. was in a humorous vein. He
had been playing a rubber with Lord Granville and his
host, in the midst of which I heard him descanting on the
origin and nature of Protestantism. A propos of which
he told how one day a certain Damascus Jew presented him¬
self at the British Consulate and asked for British protection
on the ground that he was a Protestant. How so, they
asked, why do you call yourself a Protestant ? "I eat pork,"
was the answer, " and I don't believe in God."
He was greatly concerned at the late census returns in
France, where one-seventh of the population had, he main¬
tained, entered themselves as without religious belief ; " a
vurry significant fact." But what to me was most interesting
on this occasion was the manner in which his cordial antipathy
to Disraeli betrayed itself more than once in conversation,
perhaps almost unconsciously. He observed one day at
breakfast that he thought the Liberal party had produced
more black sheep than the Conservatives. " I will give them
credit," he said with sonorous emphasis, " sorry as I am
to have to say it, for less personal ambition, for greater
disinterestedness than has been displayed in the party
which I have the honour to lead " ; adding after a very
slight pause, " except in one illustrious instance."
Later in the day Disraeli had actually come under discus¬
sion and Sir George Dasent had been describing the flow
of eloquence that had poured from his lips at a Royal
Academy banquet, where he enlarged upon the inspiration
which it was to him to come year by year and feast his eyes
upon these triumphs of British Art. When they were walk¬
ing round the rooms afterwards, Dasent felt a hand upon
his shoulder, and heard the voice of Dizzy whispering in his
ear : " Did you ever see such a collection of rubbish in your
life ? " " Did he say that ? " exclaimed Mr. G. " Oh
EARLY YEARS
39
dear ! oh dear ! oh dear ! " " Yes," replied Sir George,
" rather funny, wasn't it ? " " Funny ! you call it," the
old man thundered indignantly ; "I call it devilish."
This incident the significance of which impressed me and
led me to recount it to a good many people at the time,
formed the subject many years afterwards of a long correspon¬
dence in the Spectator, in which the various letter writers
who claimed a sort of proprietary right in Gladstoniau
reminiscences took an active part. None of them were
able to trace the story to the fountain head, though there
was a general idea that it had been disseminated by Robert
Browning. I may have told it in his presence, or one of
the others may have so repeated it to him. When the dis¬
cussion was over I informed the Editor of the Spectator of the
circumstances, which I am perhaps the only one now alive
to recall, as Sir George Leveson Gower does not himself
remember the incident.
Further conversation on books led to a general expression
of appreciation of the romance which never ended, like The
Three Musketeers with its sequels, and Lord Granville told
a tale of the elder Dumas being asked by a friend after dining
at a rather no-account party whether he had enjoyed himself.
Dumas replied : "I should have been dreadfully bored if I
had not been there myself." Finally I remember that when
Dasent spoke of the passing of youth and how it was to be
regretted, Mr. Gladstone dissented and, turning to me with
a very kindly smile said: "No. All that you have we have
had, and all the rest beside."
Reading over my diaries of that time I realize the im¬
pression which the strong personality of the Prime Minister
made upon me when I was twenty-three, as it did on men of
a much older generation. But looking back on these and
subsequent opportunities which I had for listening to his
conversation and speeches, I have little doubt that this
influence was not so much the effect of what he said as of the
way in which he said it. His massive leonine head compelled
regard. It was the flashing eye, the deep sonorous voice and
40 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the carefully balanced emphasis which made his utterance
appear so authoritative and carried the hearer away quite
independently of the thought or matter of his discourse.
Browning himself I met for the first time in 1883 at a
dinner with Mr. Graham, where indeed I had also first seen
Laura Tennant, the friend of his two then unmarried
daughters Lady Horner and Lady Jekyll. His house in
Grosvenor Place was full, not only of old Italian pictures,
but of the works of Burne-Jones whose friend and patron
he had always been, as well as of Rossetti. Browning was
so eminently normal in conversation and appearance that
it was difficult to conceive him as having affected an eccen¬
tricity of dress in early youth, as I had heard he did from
my mother, who remembered meeting him and Tennyson
at the very beginning of their career. He was however full
of interesting reminiscences, and that evening there was
much discussion of Rossetti. Browning regarded him as
having in his latter days lost his mental balance, and he had
some strange stories to tell in confirmation of his view. I
was interested to hear the opinion of my host, than whom
no one should have known better, that those weird women
of his later pictures did not represent the real Rossetti.
" They were only his illusions, yes, illusions," he said in
his dreamy way. There was a curious fascination about that
generous devotee of art, with the keen sensitive face and
rather long white hair, and as a tribute to the memory of one
for whom I felt sincere regard I would like to recall a story
of him which was told me by Burne-Jones himself. He had
just completed a very beautiful conception of the Christ in
a blue glory of angels. Graham was very anxious to ac¬
quire it. But that was not possible, as it had already been
disposed of. As a Scotchman Graham had no doubt been
trained in the strictest tradition of puritan convention, and
yet he was able to say ; "I wish I could have had that
picture. I should like to have sent it to the Pope at Rome.''
The work at the Foreign Office was not particularly
thrilling during the period of my employment there, a little
EARLY YEARS 41
under a year. Sir Julian, afterwards Lord Pauncefote, was
the permanent under-secretary ; Sir Thomas, now Lord,
Sanderson was Lord Granville's private secretary. Sir
Philip, afterwards Lord Currie, was assistant under¬
secretary. It was at dinner in his rooms that I first met
Violet Fane (Mrs. Singleton), the future Lady Currie, whose
Adventures of a Savage I had read with delight. Many years
later I was to serve under their rule at the Embassy at Rome,
as also for a time under Lord Bertie, who in my Foreign
Office days directed the Eastern Department, and tempered
his impeccable official precision and extremely able super¬
intendence of public affairs with a crudity and licence of
expression in personal relations which lifted the hair of the
newly joined.
The head of my Department, the Western, retired soon
after I had joined and we were then under the orders of an
amiable gentleman whose somewhat pompous and pedantic
habit of speech appealed to our sense of humour and offered
great opportunities for the exercise of Bertie's caustic
humour. Among many utterances with which he was
credited I particularly remember the following, which be¬
trayed a singular lacuna in the knowledge of a man who was
generally well-informed. Some years earlier the late Lord
Salisbury had in a much-discussed speech compared his
former colleague Lord Derby to Titus Oates. Our worthy
senior, reading the speech at his club, assumed a puzzled
look and, walking across to an acquaintance pointed to the
passage with these remarkable words : "I have heard of
Pontius Pilate, but who is Titus O-A-Tees 1 "
Our duties, those of Cecil Spring-Rice and myself in the
junior room, were confined to ciphering, keeping the current
archives and copying out for signature the despatches pre¬
pared by our betters. It was also our duty to close and seal
the bags carried all over Europe by the Queen's Messengers,
as they were then called. A certain halo of prestige still
clung to the career of the messenger, dating from the time
when communications were difficult, especially in the Balkans,
42 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
and they were allowed a large latitude in the arrangements
and the disbursements for their journeys. Many were the
stories attaching to the memory of one Cecil Johnson, whose
braggadocio manner carried him far, and who would stride
down Dover pier arrayed in a flowing cloak, with his silver
greyhound badge round his neck, and a string of porters
following, clearing his way with " Room for Her Majesty's
despatches! " Another well-known figure in European
capitals was " Beauty " Stephens, who had spent some
thirty years in the Foreign Office copying despatches in a
large round hand and declining—he was not seriously
pressed—to be promoted to what he called " head work."
There was Leeds, whom we christened the " suburban
entertainer," because of his skill as an after-dinner conjurer.
He had also learned the trick of making the spinning needle
stop at his half-crown at minor race-meetings, and was
generally invited quietly by the proprietor or his confederate
to move on and leave honest men to make their living.
There was Lumley, who had succeeded in obtaining a com¬
mission in the German army in 1870 and joined his regiment
in a bowler hat just in time to take part in the charge of
Spicheren. There was Johnny Woodford, who had been
Mario's pupil and could still produce the ghost of a voice in
the tradition of a wonderful school. These and many more
were welcomed by us at our various posts about the world
with the latest news and papers from home. They are all
gone now, and the humours and glories of the road are gone
with them. Among those in the Foreign Office with whom
I formed abiding friendship was Willie Compton, afterwards
Marquess of Northampton. He took me for the first time to
stay with his sister at Panshanger to see the great pictures.
There I met Robert, Lord Lytton, who had known my
mother in early youth. He talked to me most interestingly
all through one evening about oriental religions, and then
about poetry, taking up the curious standpoint that the
outcry against imitation was unreasonable. Shakespeare
had borrowed, just as the post-Elizabethans had borrowed
EARLY YEARS
43
again from him. All poets had absorbed the ideas of their
predecessors, and there was little they could do but say the
same thing differently. In fact he held the view that Mr.
Kipling holds of Homer, " He took what he required, just
the same as me."
The life of London in the 'eighties with all its interesting
personalities had taken a firm hold upon me when the time
came to leave it behind. 40 Grosvenor Square was the
centre of interest, and all that was live and modern in the
social world, including its political and intellectual elements,
seemed to be drawn by some compelling attraction to the
home of Laura and Margot Tennant, and their elder married
sisters. I well remember, as the younger of the two drove
me home on a May afternoon in 1884, a few hours before my
departure from England, the feeling that I was stepping off
into a new world and wondering whether it would in any way
make up for the old one that I was leaving.
CHAPTER II
BERLIN, 1884-1885
In May, 1884 I was directed to join the Embassy at Berlin,
an instruction which at the time I received without great
enthusiasm, though it was undoubtedly an advantage to
begin diplomatic life at an important Embassy rather than
at a small Legation. I arrived there in June. Berlin was
then a much more modest capital than it became by the end
of the century, and lacking in individuality. A disappointing
first impression was redeemed by the moment of the year.
The lime trees were in bloom and their perfume was in the
air along the famous avenue leading from the Brandenburg
gate to the Schloss. The Thiergarten with its shady alleys
was then unadorned with the theatrical statues with which
the last Hohenzollern Emperor so profusely endowed it,
and only the monument erected after 1870, generally known
by a German combination word as the Asparagus of Victory,
revealed the impotence of modern monumental conception
to rise to a great occasion.
The Ambassador, Lord Ampthill, was already established
for the summer at his villa at Potsdam, to which colony of
palaces and barracks I was taken on the afternoon of my
arrival by the Counsellor, or as we then called him the
Secretary of Embassy, afterwards our Ambassador in Russia,
Sir Charles Scott. We visited Sans-Souci and looked with
respect at the historic mill. The apes and parrots still
grimacing on the walls of Voltaire's room were suggestive of
its sometime guest and reminiscent of the strange camaraderie
of two eccentric men of genius. The Watteaus, Lancrets
and Paters were delightful. But I had not yet learned to
44
BERLIN, 1884-1885
45
appreciate the charm of roccoco, and took only a moderate
interest in the exiguous washing apparatus and the venerable
toothbrush of the Great Frederick, whose favourite residence
seemed a very modest establishment for so great a man.
We went to tea with the Ampthills, who were most cordial
and made me feel quite at home in spite of the inevitable
awe with which a modest attache naturally regards the
formidable presence of his Ambassador. But there never
lived a kindlier chief, or a more attractive personality than
Odo Russell, who for me had long been enrolled in the band
of famous men. I have known many ambassadors since,
but none perhaps so admirably equipped to occupy a post
to which he did honour. As a linguist he was remarkable,
and his knowledge extended also to the literature of the
four languages which he spoke with equal facility. A pro¬
found student of Dante he was equally familiar with the whole
bibliography of Goethe. He gave to all impartially the best
of his singularly gifted mind with a natural and unself-
assertive charm of expression which was entirely winning.
He may have had his enemies and critics, but I never met
them, and during the three months of our intercourse I
could not detect the place which might have invited attack.
His popularity in Berlin was unquestioned, as it had been
in Rome during the thirteen years which he spent in that
city, where indeed I think he had left his heart. I remember
one evening in the garden at Potsdam observing to him that
the miniature Dome of the Garrison Church as seen framed
in the trees reminded me of the form of the dome of St.
Peter's, and he said that it had actually been built on those
lines and that he often came and sat in that part of the
garden and played with the illusion that he was once more
looking from the Pincio into the Roman sunset. I told him
of my childhood's recollections of Pius IX descending from
his gilded coach to walk on the Hill of Gardens, and that
elicited an interesting Roman experience from his store of
memories. Not long after his marriage he was on the Pincio
with his wife and the late Lord Acton. It must have been
46 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
soon after the definite rupture of the Vatican with Dollinger
and the Old Catholics. Pius IX, who was walking through
the gardens just as I had seen him among the kneeling
people, and blessing them as he passed with the two first
fingers of the right hand, perceived Lord Odo and his wife
and with a smile of recognition gave them a special benedic¬
tion. Then he caught sight of Acton, and suddenly changing
his hand from the vertical to the horizontal position he made
that rapid shaking movement of the first and second
fingers by which the Italian signifies negation. " No
blessing for you, my friend," was indicated by the gesture
with painful distinctness.
Lord Odo had always enjoyed a privileged position with
Pius IX, who had a great sense of humour. At one moment
when the Pope was very displeased with the British Govern¬
ment he had gone to Castel Gandolfo, the summer villa, for
an interview. He had dropped on his knee in accordance
with the etiquette of the Papal Court, whereupon Pius
placed a hand upon his shoulder, and kept him kneeling
throughout the interview, with a merry twinkle in his eye.
" Ah, my son," he said at the end of the audience, " I wish
you were a Catholic. I should send you for a fortnight's
penance to the Monastery at Genzano. It would do you a
world of good."
Almost simultaneously with myself there arrived as an
attache at the Italian Embassy in Berlin the Marchese
Imperiali, a warm-hearted high-spirited Neapolitan gen¬
tleman with whom I have maintained a lifelong friendship
ever since. By a curious coincidence we, who began our
diplomatic careers abroad almost on the same day, ended
them as Ambassadors in each other's respective countries
throughout the Great War. He learned to understand us as
few Italian representatives have ever done, and we owe him
no small debt for the faithful manner in which he interpreted
the British mentality to his Government. The Ampthills
asked me to bring him to dinner at Potsdam, whither I went
two or three evenings every week, and we had an Italian
BERLIN, 1884-1885
47
evening with more reminiscences from my chief. He told
us of the genesis of the post in Rome which he had occupied
so long. Somewhere about 1820 a secretary at the Legation
at Munich who was in delicate health migrated to Italy.
From Rome he wrote despatches to the Foreign Office, which
were found so interesting that on his death a semi-official
successor, Petre, was appointed, followed by Lord Lyons
and subsequently by Odo Russell. After the entry of the
King of Italy in 1870 this semi-official representation at
the Vatican came to an end.
On his way to Rome in 1858 Lord Odo had stopped in
Piedmont. There he was presented to Cavour, who told him
there would be war the following year, for it was their
intention to put the Italian question to the issue. Lord
Odo replied that if Piedmont attacked Austria she would
antagonize the feeling of Europe. " But," said Cavour,
" suppose we make Austria attack us." He inquired
whether this would be possible. " Yes," was the answer,
" but not yet, we shall not be ready till next year. The
best campaigning season begins in May. Austria will attack
us then." Lord Odo admitted that he thought Cavour was
deluding himself and he wrote home in that sense. But
Austria declared war on the 3rd of May, 1859, in accordance
with Cavour's programme.
Cardinal Antonelli was not, he said, the power many
people believed him to be, he was only the faithful servant
of Pio Nono, who was really his own Minister and a pretty
astute one. As an instance of his ready resource the
ambassador told us how, when the French were exercising
an unwelcome pressure, the Cardinal Secretary of State was
instructed to produce the text of a message from Lord
Palmerston offering the Pope a British ship and an asylum
in Malta in the event of Garibaldi reaching Rome. The
flourish of this document in the face of the French represen¬
tative was accompanied with an observation that France
was not their only protector.
Nor was the venerable Pontiff deficient in presence of
48 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
mind. Once during a great ceremony in St. Peter's at which
Pius was himself officiating a man committed suicide in
the basilica in a fit of religious excitement. He was carried
out and at the first opportunity the unpleasant news was
whispered to the Pope, who was seen to fold his hands, to
say something in a low voice and then to cross himself. In
that brief moment he had re-consecrated the Church.
The Embassy at Berlin was, as it still is, an unattractive
residence, acquired after the failure of the financier Strous-
berg, who had built it on a valuable site in the Wilhelm
Strasse. But our Chancery was at that time in the Pariser
Platz, on the ground floor of the Bliicher Palais, almost under
the shadow of the massive Brandenburg gate. The Austrian
Embassy also had its Chancery on the ground floor, while
the Ambassador, Count Szechenyi, occupied the first floor
as his residence. Prince Bliicher, whom I learned to know
afterwards, only kept two or three rooms for himself and let
the remainder of the vast building, a procedure which was not
popular in Berlin, as it was generally understood that he
had been granted a loan from the Crown Trust at one and a
half or two per cent, in order to build it, on the plea that if
the great Silesian Nobles were to come to Berlin to live, as
the old emperor desired, they must have suitable residences
worthy of their name and position. Prince Bliicher, then
a widower but subsequently twice remarried, was an amiable
man in his eccentric way, but notorious for his closeness in
money matters. When an income tax was eventually
imposed he left his country for good and took up his
residence in one of the smaller Channel Islands.
A few days after my arrival the military Attache, Colonel,
afterwards General, Sir Leopold Swaine, took me to the Neues
Palais at Wildpark, near Potsdam, the summer residence of
the Crown Prince Frederick. The Crown Princess invited
members of our Embassy to play tennis there and remain to
supper once or twice every week. This was my introduction
to a long series of similar pleasant parties, at which all
ceremony was dispensed with. Vivid still remains the im-
BERLIN, 1884-1885
49
pression made upon me by the Crown Prince when for the
first time I saw him approaching the tennis ground with
his four Italian greyhounds, a splendid figure of dignified
manhood, radiating kindliness with a friendly smile. One
had only to see him to understand that his influence had
been exerted, so far as his authority extended with his own
army, on the side of humanity and in the defence of historic
monuments during the war of '70. At supper, an unconven¬
tional meal, which began with curded milk and tea and went
on to hot dishes and wine, I sat next to the Crown Princess
and fell at once under the charm of one of the most cultivated
women I have ever met, whose intelligent eyes had an
irresistible appeal in them. The three unmarried daughters
were present, and the simple natural intercourse of that
happy family circle disarmed any shyness incidental to a
first meeting. Free of address and inviting unrestricted
discussion, the Crown Princess had nevertheless that uncon¬
scious habit of Royalty, the prerogative of always being
right, as I was to learn without delay. She had been
speaking of Marcus Aurelius, one of her enthusiasms, and
expressed regret at having only read his works in translation
and not in the original Latin. Not being as yet a courtier
and only concerned with the truth, I did not hesitate to
suggest that the imperial philosopher wrote in Greek, to
which the Crown Princess rejoined that of course the original
text was Greek, which she could never be expected to under¬
stand, but that she might have hoped to read a contempor-
porary Latin version. My indiscretion was, however, not
resented, and thus began an association which endured over
many years. I little anticipated then the tragedy I was
soon to witness and all the vicissitudes which were to bring
me into such close relations with the royal hostess of Wild-
park. After supper the Crown Prince talked to me for a
long time about art and Italy, the country of his dreams and
happy holidays.
On some of these afternoons Prince William and his
brother Prince Henry would appear. The latter was very
E
50 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
popular with all our staff. The elder brother was less easy
to know, though he displayed a somewhat boisterous
geniality. It might gratify a certain mentality to be smitten
from behind with a tennis racquet by a future emperor, but
on the other hand such gratification was qualified by the
fact that the blow could not be returned. More occasionally
there were water parties on the lakes, where the Embassy
maintained a four and a pair, and Prince William pulled a
creditable stroke with one arm, the muscles of which were
abnormally developed. The atrophied left arm was of little
service, but with characteristic determination he had learned
to make the right do the service of both.
In the presence of his parents Prince William showed a
certain constraint. He had been brought up in a rather
severe atmosphere of domestic criticism and an observer
could not help noticing that tension existed. In the con¬
cluding volume of Bismarck's autobiography there is a letter
from the Crown Prince Frederick to the Chancellor, the
publication of which was due to, but not justified by, the
resentment of the latter towards the sovereign who had
dismissed him. This personal letter, which refers to certain
qualities of vanity and presumption and " an overweening
estimation of himself " in the son, reveals that his relations
with his father had not been altogether harmonious. Nor does
the letter addressed to the Chancellor on November 29th,
1887, by Prince Wilhelm himself in which he prematurely
discusses the attitude he should adopt towards the Princes
of the German Empire in the not impossible eventuality
of his father's death, convey a very pleasant impression.
The ex-Emperor and his mother were in certain respects
temperamentally too much alike ever to get on. She was
an idealist, lacking in worldly wisdom, and therefore often
indiscreet. The ex-Emperor was also an idealist, but his
idealism was vitiated by a self-assurance which did not
allow him to question the rightness of his own conclusions.
Both were impetuous and impatient of opposition.
Looking back to those old times when I knew him and saw
BERLIN, 1884-1885
51
much of those who were in constant relations with him, I
am confirmed in the view that, in accordance with a certain
religious strain in his character, the ex-Emperor went through
the greater part of his life firmly resolved to avoid war
and seeing the best prospect of doing so in assuring the
absolute military security of his country. For many years
the dominant position which his ambition demanded for
Germany was sought for in economic development. But
the vanity which characterized his references to himself as
the Supreme War Lord and the Admiral of the Atlantic
played into the hands of those who wanted war, and who
for years had been instilling into the German people the
suggestion of their ultimate destiny as the arbiters of the
world. Throughout, even though desiring peace, he gave
every encouragement to those whose aim was war. You
cannot continually sail too near the wind without being
responsible for the consequences. With the steady increase
of the Socialist vote the ascendancy over him of the war
party increased in proportion. His own son openly declared
for them, and a rivalry ensued which menaced the popularity
of the sovereign among the very people whose support was
indispensable to him. It would seem almost possible to
indicate the precise moment when this change of mentality
began.
The Crown Prince's household was controlled by the
competent Count Seckendorff, who had as a comparatively
junior officer accompanied Lord Napier's expedition to
Abyssinia in 1867. He was a most accomplished man,
with a great knowledge of art, and a fair artist himself.
His ascendancy in the household was often criticized in
Germany. In any case he was a most loyal and devoted
friend to his royal master and mistress in the days when
friends were few, and through all the stormy vicissitudes
of 1888, when his position was a very difficult one, he showed
a wise and brave discretion.
The even tenor of our relations with Germany was at
this period beginning to be ruffled by the new ambitions
52 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of Hamburg and Bremen for colonial expansion, ambitions
which were warmly advocated in the country and which
finally received the militant support of Bismarck. The
question, which became acute in this year 1884, will be
dealt with a little later on. A settlement of one of the
first issues which arose out of the German occupation of
Angra Pequena had just been concluded, and the German
press was quoting the Cape newspapers as having expressed
satisfaction. Lord Ampthill, who came up almost daily to
Berlin, observed to me that little value could be attached
to such quotations from the South African press. The
Bismarckian method was to have articles written and get
them inserted by such means as were open to him in the
press of all nations. These articles were then quoted in
German official papers as expressing the feeling of the
country in which they had been published. The sixteen
million thalers confiscated from the King of Hanover and
devoted to Secret Service were freely used for such pur¬
poses. He had himself, he said, a rooted antipathy to the
use of secret service funds, and did not believe in the
trustworthiness of any information so obtained. This was
indeed the tradition in the diplomatic service in my time.
The Russians had an ingenious method of turning the
anxious credulity of certain foreign representatives to
account for the benefit of the State. It was Prince Bismarck
himself who had explained to him their method. They
kept a regular staff of officials whose business it was to
allow themselves to be bought by foreign diplomatists.
These officials were supplied with certain information which
might be revealed without compromising any real interest,
and they would meet foreign diplomatists by appointment
in secret places with a great deal of mystery and " place
the goods," to the great advantage of the management as
well as of the state chest.
At the same time the Russians were undoubtedly adepts
themselves in obtaining possession of the most confidential
documents. Herbert Bismarck told me that while he was
BERLIN, 1884-1885
53
counsellor at the German Embassy at St. Petersburg a
very high Russian official, in fact an Under Secretary of
State, came to his Embassy and divulged a step which he
said the Russian Government would shortly take. He made
this disclosure because as a Russian patriot he was convinced
that it was a most unfortunate measure and he was anxious
or his country's sake to see it forestalled and rendered
impracticable. It was in Germany's power to do so and
the information was of great value to her. The Russian
official observed : "I presume you will telegraph what I
have told you to Berlin," and Herbert Bismarck replied
he would certainly do so at once. " In that case," the
Russian said, " I must beg you not to make use of ciphers
a, b, c, or d," mentioning the numbers of four of their
cipher books, " for we have all those, and as the information
I have given you is at present only known to the Emperor,
my chief and myself, if you use any of those it will be
realized that I must have betrayed it." Incidentally thus
Herbert Bismarck obtained two very valuable pieces of
information at the same time.
The friction which had arisen over Colonial issues made
it difficult for the Ambassador to carry out a cure at Marien-
bad, which had become an annual indispensable routine,
and in the latter part of August he became seriously indis¬
posed. On the 25th a telegram from Potsdam informed us
that the illness had taken a very grave turn, and a little
later in the day another telegram announced the tragic news
of his end. I have seldom witnessed such genuine demon¬
strations of feeling and sympathy as were aroused by the
untimely death at fifty-four of this remarkable and wholly
lovable man. The venerable Emperor, to whom Swaine
broke the news, burst into tears, and said there was not
one among his own personal officers whom he trusted or
respected more. The Crown Prince, whom I received and
accompanied to the coffin, exclaimed: "You do not know
what this means for the Crown Princess and myself. We
shall have to begin a new life now." The Ambassador's
54 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
home had been an oasis where they could escape from the
artificialities of Court life and be simple human beings.
Hatzfeldt, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, spoke of his
death as an irreparable loss to Germany and recalled the
efforts he had made to establish a good understanding.
Count Szechenyi, the Austrian Ambassador, who had known
him from boyhood, rushed back from Hungary, whither he
had just gone for his holiday, in order to be present at the
final leave-taking at Charlottenburg, when the body was
sent back to England for burial. In the streets at Berlin
I overheard men speaking of him with sympathy and
regard. In those days international rivalry, so far as we
were concerned, had not penetrated into the popular mind.
World dominion or downfall had not yet become the watch¬
word, and there was no general ill-will to Great Britain,
though the process of its fabrication was soon to begin.
Before I left Berlin the University lectures of Treitschke with
their malignant denunciations of the piratical British Empire
were already drawing crowded audiences and his Catonic
reiteration of Delenda est was instilling a tendentious poison.
Lord Ampthill was succeeded by Sir Edward Malet,
Minister in Brussels after his stormy experiences in Egypt.
He arrived in October, 1884, and at once invited me to
act as his private secretary. He was by far the youngest
of our Ambassadors and had been born in the service, his
father having also been a diplomatist. Bismarck had been
intimate with the family at Frankfort in the days of the
Bund in the 'fifties and had known Edward Malet as a boy.
They had met again under strange circumstances during
the campaign of 1870, when Malet had been left with one
or two Secretaries in charge of the Embassy at Paris and
the archives while Lord Lyons, the Ambassador, followed
the French Government to Bordeaux. He had been
instructed in September, 1870, to carry the letter through
the German lines to Bismarck which eventually led to the
celebrated interview between the Chancellor and M. Jules
Favre at Ferrieres. His adventurous expedition from the
BERLIN, 1884-1885
55
besieged city to the German headquarters is described in a
very interesting pamphlet which was privately printed in
the following year.
Some ten days after Malet's arrival in Berlin the Chancellor
came to see him. He did not on that occasion say much
about political affairs. But he referred to the difficulties
which had arisen over Colonial issues. He complained of
our system which, he maintained, enabled two different
departments like the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office
to take divergent views, so that the language held by one
Minister afforded no guarantee for the action of the other.
But he admitted that the German people had taken the
bit in their teeth and had gone beyond what he had believed
to be opportune. This confirmed the view which Lord
Ampthill had reported of Bismarck's own attitude towards
Colonial expansion.
Visits from the Chancellor were very exceptional and we
young men had few opportunities of meeting the great man,
who lived his own life and did exactly as he pleased. His
health was not good, and his medical adviser, Schweniger,
had compelled him to greatly simplify existence and indulge
less in the strong meats and drinks which Prussians of the
old school were apt to abuse. He seldom went out in the
social world and on the only occasion on which he dined
quite privately at the Embassy during my four years in
Berlin, I was unfortunately absent on leave. My brother-
in-law (General Stuart-Wortley) who was staying with the
Malets at the time, told me that after dinner he sat down
at the piano and entertained them by singing some old
English ballads of the 'fifties. No doubt the excuse of
indifferent health was useful to enable him to escape from
the importunate., He once told Lord Ampthill that he
had devised an infallible method for terminating a tedious
official interview. When his wife thought that a visitor
had been with him long enough she would look in at the
door and remind him that the time had come to take his
medicine. On that occasion he had hardly explained the
56 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
method when the Princess appeared bottle in hand, and
Ampthill laughingly took the hint in spite of the Chancellor's
protestations.
Germany was entering a new phase of industrialism, and
conditions were extremely interesting. The Emperor, whom
I saw for the first time close at hand when the new Ambassa¬
dor was ceremoniously received for the presentation of his
letters on October 24th, was a very old man, with the eyes
sunken in their hollows, and evidently approaching the
term of his long life. The big men who had made Germany
politically in the latter half of the nineteenth century were
still alive. Moltke was as old as the century. General
Manteuffel, the Red Prince and the Crown Prince Frederick
were the other surviving field-marshals of the war of '70.
Ranke, Mommsen and Gregorovius were still active. Bis¬
marck was nearing the threescore years and ten. But his
brain was not less vigorously constructive. The capital of
the country was rapidly passing into the hands of a limited
number of Jews of enormous wealth, as industry encroached
upon the old agricultural interest. The Chancellor and
those who followed him believed the remedy to lie in state-
socialism. He would, he said, fight no more wars. He
desired no further aggrandisement. The Germanic popula¬
tions of Russia and Austria were more useful to him under
actual conditions, as an influence over those two empires,
than they would be if absorbed into the German state. He
appeared to believe in the possibility of building up a vast
practical organization in which the state would become the
great capitalist. But the Bismarckian system depended
for success on a single masterful personality, rather than
on essential principles, and tended to ignore the human
element. The man who can dominate all the intelligence
of a country for his own ends occurs but once in a century,
and his very prepotency had withdrawn responsibility from
all who might have become rivals, so that the ship of state
would inevitably be without a helmsman of experience when
he himself should disappear.
BERLIN, 1884-1885
57
Sir Edward Malet, who had been brought up in the school
of Lord Lyons, was for his juniors an ideal chief. The old
Embassy stables were reconstructed to form offices, and the
chancery was transferred thither from the Pariser Platz.
He established a sort of club room for the bachelor members
of the staff, who dined with him almost every night, and
converted an old house which he leased from the Crown on
one of the Potsdam lakes into comfortable summer quarters.
Social life in Berlin still retained something of its old-world
character. It took some little time to penetrate, but to
us people were very cordial. The older generation used to
assemble in a limited number of houses after dinner, where
hostesses had fixed dates for weekly receptions. Such
hospitality was regularly dispensed by the " three sisters "
who played an important part in Berlin life, Countess
Perponcher, Frau von Prillwitz and Countess Danckelmann.
Grizzled generals whose names recalled the campaign of
'70 would meet there, drink beer and eat caviare, sausages
and other strong-tasting delicacies. Count Perponcher
was the Oberhaus und Hofmarshal of the Court, a tall
commanding figure who dyed his moustache and a few
sparse locks, carried in a volute over his bald head, jet
black, not without a certain dispersion of colour on the
cranium. He was an elderly beau, with the deportment
of a big gendarme and magnificent at the head of the Court
processions with his white wand of office. There was a
numerous group of Radziwils, whose social chief was Prince
Antoine, the old Emperor's favourite A.D.C., the son of a
lady for whom he was reported to have had a romantic
attachment in youth. Princess Antoine, nee Castellane,
considered her salon the most exclusive in Berlin, and it
was her preliminary scrutiny that conceded or denied a
social passport to the latest-joined attache. The only son
had recently married a Polish Branicka and their hospitable
house was the meeting place of the younger generation who
rebelled against the old conventions. Russian legislation
regarding the tenure of real property compelled them eventu-
58 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
ally to adopt Russian nationality. Princess George, a real
bohemian by nature, most generous in good and evil fortune,
the providence of her distressed compatriots, with whom
she shared the remnants of her fortune in the evil days of
the great war, has remained the constant friend of a lifetime.
Prominent also among the Germans of Polish origin was
Count Radolinski, who left the diplomatic service in 1884
to become Court Marshal to the Crown Prince. He belonged
to the old Polish family of Koszutski which received the
title of Count Radolin-Radolinski from Frederick William III
in 1836. His first wife was an Englishwoman, but she was
already dead when I came to Berlin. The Emperor Frederick
on his accession made him a Prince, whereupon he dropped
the second portion of the hyphenated name. After the
Emperor Frederick's death he returned to the Diplomatic
career and was successively Ambassador in Constantinople,
Petersburg and Paris until 1910. There was the Duke and
Duchess of Sagan, with one foot in France and one in
Germany. She, wholly French by race and temperament,
was the greatest of grandes dames in the capital, conscious
of obligations and punctilious to fulfil them, with a sharp
tongue and the kindliest of hearts. But in the country
she dressed like a gamekeeper, slung a rifle over her shoulder
and with half a dozen cigars in her pocket spent the day
stalking roe-deer in the Silesian forests. Their daughter,
the brilliant newly married Princess Carl Egon Furstenberg,
now Countess Jean de Castellane, with the young Radziwils
led the revolt against the old provincialism and the habit
of dining at six. The regimental messes were still at half
past four or five and the theatre began very early. The
old Emperor himself dined at four. These French and
Polish elements, with the sons of the great houses from all
parts of Germany who officered the guard regiments, gave
a certain cosmopolitan colour to social life, the most repre¬
sentative personalities in which, the Hatzfeldts, the Hohen-
lohes, the Lichnowskis and the Henckel-Donnersmarcks
were widely travelled, internationally connected and by no
BERLIN, 1884-1885
59
means essentially Prussianized. The Silesian Count Guido
Henckel von Donnersmarck had in fact in liis younger days
been less well known in Germany than in Paris, where he
compromised his magnificent estate. Its reconstruction
and his eventual great wealth were largely due to the
influence and ability of Madame de Paiva, famous under
the Second Empire, whom he married. His second wife
was a Russian, beautiful and much too unconventional for
the Berlin of the 'eighties, whose friendship I greatly appre¬
ciated. The older generation of Brandenburgers somewhat
mistrusted and disapproved of the greater freedom of life
and manners introduced by the younger element.
Count Hatzfeldt, the former Ambassador in Turkey, and
subsequently Ambassador in London, presided over the
Foreign Office in the Wilhelm Strasse. He was a good
tennis player, and had seldom missed his daily game at
Constantinople where two or three of our staff had been
posted. So in Berlin we used to play with him two or three
times a week in the garden of his official residence. As
we had then no ground of our own we greatly appreciated
the privilege, and I am sure business did not suffer from
our intimacy with the Foreign Secretary, who had a much
wider outlook than the average official. So far as his
influence went—for, in the last resort, the Chancellor was
his own Foreign Minister—it was friendly and, if later in
London he sometimes had to navigate in difficult seas, the
storm was not of his making, and he poured such oil on the
waters as he could.
We saw much of the younger officers of the guards, and
especially of those of the Lifeguards, recruited from all
parts of Germany. Among those with whom we most
foregathered were Prince Henry of Battenberg, Count
Miinster, the Sierstorpff brothers and Baron Reischach.
They made us members of their clubs and showed the most
friendly hospitality to the British who were in those days
regarded as nationally related. Of the elder officers we
saw naturally much less, though, perhaps owing to his
60 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
haying an American wife, I found myself not unfrequently
in the Company of the ambitious but evangelical Waldersee,
who allied himself with the political Court Chaplain Stocker,
and exercised a considerable influence during the first year
of the reign of William II.
The caste system was still very strong. Only once in
my four years at Berlin, and that at a party given by the
Crown Prince and Princess, did I meet any number of the
learned and professional class in contact with the social
aristocracy. The old Brandenburg nobility had no touch
with the great historians and men of letters who were then
still alive. Nor had commerce, industry and finance as
yet found a way into the reception rooms of privilege. A
certain number of excellencies would indeed attend the
gargantuan banquets offered by the great banker Bleichroder,
then our consul-general, but his son could get no further
in the army than to become a reserve officer in the infantry
of the guards, and regimental feeling in that corps was
adamantine against the reception of any elements but those
of the territorial aristocracy. It was only at the palace of
the heir-apparent, where love of art, a real sympathy with
the intellectual movement and a wider liberal outlook on
life prevailed, that it was possible occasionally to meet
authors and artists, or in the house of such a broad-minded
frondeur as George von Bunsen, who was himself somewhat
of an outlaw, in consequence of his earnest opposition to
the Chancellor's internal policy. I nevertheless managed
to find my way into the social life which they maintained
among themselves, thanks largely to the friendly courtesies
of Dr. Lippmann, the keeper of the prints and drawings at
the Museum, a master in his own faculty.
I well remember a most interesting evening which I
spent somewhat later in company with Sir William Rich¬
mond at his hospitable house. There were present at dinner
Theodor Mommsen, the historian, Bamberger, the radical
deputy, Dr. Bode, the critic, Baron Richthofen, the
geologist and Chinese traveller, Director Dohme, Dr.
BERLIN, 1884-1885
61
Franckel and others. Bamberger I knew already, a
delightful talker and a great authority on French literature.
Mommsen, however, I then saw for the first time. The
head was strikingly remarkable, the nose sharp, prominent
and inquisitive, the chin small but strong, the mouth
excessively mobile and excitable. But all these features
were dominated by a great calm dome-like forehead, framed
in long grey hair. There was a certain likeness in the nose
and brows to the portraits of Voltaire, but Mommsen's
mobile mouth was not underhung. He had a soft pleasant
voice, which could grow harsh and strident when he was
roused. Then his dark eyes flashed and his sharp nose
seemed to stab his contradictor. He had reached his
seventieth birthday only a few days before, and had had
seventeen children, of whom fifteen were still alive. His
vitality was extraordinary. He went to bed fairly late and
always rose at four. That evening he was particularly
genial and gracious, correcting with a pretty manner some
of my modes of expression in German, in which we chiefly
conversed. But he had a reputation for extreme quickness
and pugnacity in discussion and could be nothing less than
offensive to those he disliked. The story was current that
on the one occasion on which he met Gregorovius, the author
of The City of Rome in the Middle Ages, of whose work he
had no opinion, he observed to him : " You, Herr Gregoro¬
vius, have lived, I believe, a long time in Rome. Now a
history of Rome in the Middle Ages, that would be a fine
book to undertake." Notwithstanding that they had much
in common in the exaltation of force over right, the name
of Mommsen had always been like a red rag to the Chancellor,
and we endeavoured to elicit from him how far he recipro¬
cated this antagonism. Mommsen expressed his approval
of Bismarck's foreign policy, but denounced his social
system, his ban on the mixing of classes and insistence
on the segregation of the military element as an exclusive
caste. Probably Bismarck knew his own country best,
and felt that as yet its tenure was too precarious in Europe,
62 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
and that the people were not yet ripe for the free intercourse
and unrestricted exchanges of view between class and class
to which we are accustomed. The masses in Berlin still
struck the foreigner as lacking any natural independence.
Unless instructed by the police to walk on one side or the
other of the way they would shuffle all over the pavement,
and did not fall instinctively into two streams as our people
do. The nation was accustomed to and looked for guidance
still. The party that evening for the most part belonged
to the opposition and were in advance of the times. Fran-
ckel mistrusted Bismarck's economic theories or practice.
All the chances of the German Empire were calculated on
success. He trembled to think of what might happen if a
national crisis suspended activities for a year. They were
in fact always sailing too near the wind and neglected to
realize that in human affairs things have their ups and
downs. Both Director Dohme and Bamberger severely
criticized the German educational system, which, the former
said, was lacking in originality. The German copied well,
but whereas we improved on old models he only vulgarized
them when he tried to do more than copy. The race was
a magnificent one for breeding purposes when crossed ;
kept pure it was the most loutish on earth. In Prussia the
intermixture with the Slavs had produced an energetic
people. The Germanic stock in Lombardy, in France and
in England, mixed with the Celtic or other elements, had
bred races full of vitality, but it remained heavy and unin¬
telligent in those regions where ethnologists had identified
an unadulterated inbred German population. Outside the
highest society, which as I have said tended to be cosmopo¬
litan in Berlin, women played a small part and contented
themselves with household duties, which they discussed
over their coffee in the afternoon, leaving it to their husbands
to take part alone in social intercourse. The wives were
self-effacing, and in every detail of life it was the man's
comfort and amusement which received consideration. A
friend of mine once found himself travelling in the same
BERLIN, 1884-1885
63
compartment with a young German professor, who was
very communicative and in boisterously high spirits. He
explained that he was embarking on a journey to which
he had for a long time been looking forward and he added :
" The fact is I have just been married and am on my honey¬
moon."—" On your honeymoon ? " said my friend looking
at him interrogatively ; " But where then is ! " " Ah ! "
replied the professor, " My wife ? She is not with me, fur
zwei hat das Geld nicht ausgereicht(It did not run to
both of us travelling.)
The first African Conference, which would have to deter¬
mine the status of the International Congo State and
many other issues, was to meet in Berlin in the middle of
November, 1884. This will therefore be an appropriate
place to put on record some of the antecedents of that
important gathering which directly affected our relations
with Germany.
The earliest indication of any deliberate German intention
to found a colony overseas which came under my personal
experience had been a note received at the Foreign Office
from the German Embassy in November, 1883, which
passed through my hands for preliminary treatment while
I was serving in that Department. It set forth the desire
of a commercial house at Bremen to establish a trading
station on the Bay of Angra Pequena, which is some 280
miles south of Walfisch Bay, and the inquiry was advanced
with all due forms of courtesy whether the contemplated
step would be in any way unwelcome to Her Majesty's
Government. So far as my recollection goes, the tone of
the note was studiously courteous. Having affixed to it
the brief summary which was known as the docket, I took
it to the head of the Western Department and observed that
it appeared to me to be one of the most important com¬
munications which had come under my cognizance at the
Foreign Office. It did not seem to make any great impres¬
sion on my immediate official superiors, and possibly this
attitude of poco-curantism was in some measure due to
64 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Lord Ampthill's reports, which nothing had occurred to
modify since the colonial question had first been discussed
in 1873, when Prince Bismarck declared himself antagonistic
to such adventures. The reply to this note was that British
sovereignty had only been actually proclaimed at certain
points such as Walfisch Bay, but that our legitimate rights
would be infringed by sovereign claims between the southern
point of Portuguese territory and the frontier of Cape
Colony. The German Government were not satisfied with
this answer and inquired in December, 1883, on what
grounds our claim was based, and what means we possessed
of protecting German enterprise in these regions. The
Colonial Office transmitted this correspondence to the Cape
Government for their views. Before it could arrive, or at
any rate be considered, there was a Ministerial crisis at the
Cape and many months were allowed to elapse without any
notice being taken of the German communication.
Now the Chancellor was at this time contemplating new
and extended financial demands on the Imperial Diet, in
which there were many ardent supporters of the colonial
party in Hamburg and, however distasteful the dictation
of that assembly might be to his autocratic temperament,
those interests had to be conciliated. The constitution of
the Reichstag, against which Bismarck used frequently to
inveigh in his conversations with my chief, had been one
of his admitted political miscalculations. He had made up
his mind that under the empire the German Princes would
still remain particularist, and he had therefore recommended
universal suffrage in elections for the Diet, believing that
the mass of the people, favourable to imperial union, would
act as a counterpoise. Experience, however, showed that
while the Princes rallied loyally to the new order, the
weapon which he had devised to neutralize their anticipated
opposition was constantly directed against himself.
If the delay in replying to the German note regarding
Angra Pequena until the month of June, 1884, appeared
formally to put us in the wrong, experience showed that
BERLIN, 1884-1885
65
the inquiries addressed to H.M. Government were themselves
ex jjost facto, and it is improbable that even if an immediate
answer had been forthcoming the result would have been
in any way different. An expedition under Herr Liideritz,
of Bremen, had in fact landed at Angra Pequena early in
1883. He had on May 1st of that year signed a treaty with
a native chief by which he obtained a sea frontage of ten
miles with an inland area of some two hundred, over which
the sovereign rights were ceded. When in June, 1884, the
Cape Government were aroused to the gravity of the issue
and signified their readiness to take over the territory and
the responsibilities of Government, it was too late, and
Bismarck affirmed that his only object had been to elicit a
clear statement from us whether or no we had any prior
claim to that area. He could not admit the establishment
on our part of a Monroe doctrine for Africa.
If Angra Pequena served as a sort of test case for the
establishment of a first footing in Africa it was an unprofit¬
able venture. Bleichroder, the banker, afterwards admitted
that it had cost him £10,000. Liideritz had found the place
altogether worthless, and did not intend to sink any capital
there. The Chancellor had learned that he contemplated
offering to sell it to us and, after all the trouble which the
settlement had caused him, he was furious. So Bleichroder
had to advance the money to keep the little colony going
and save Bismarck from a ridiculous position. The decision
of the British Government to recognize German sovereignty
over the territory appeared at the moment to have re¬
established cordial relations.1 But a similar course to that
followed at Angra Pequena was only anticipated at St.
Lucia Bay by the timely hoisting of the British flag, and
intrigues carried on not very skilfully through Gerhard
Rohlfs to create a grievance against the Sultan of Zanzibar
did not escape the vigilance of Sir John Kirk, our Consul
1 The rise and development of the Colonial conflict with Germany
at this time may be studied in the second volume of the Life of Lord
Granville, by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurico,
F
66 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
General, who was later to be sacrificed to the maintenance
of the understanding with Germany. Assurances given in
April, 1884, that a journey of Dr. Nachtigal in West Africa
had exclusively scientific and commercial objects in view
did not prevent that energetic officer from making a series
of annexations. The methods by which a footing was
obtained in the Cameroons, after its inhabitants had peti¬
tioned for British protection and the intention to accord
it had been publicly announced ; the preliminaries to the
hoisting of the German flag in New Guinea ; the pretensions
advanced in Samoa ; and the questionable procedure
followed in dispossessing the Sultan of Zanzibar of his
mainland possessions, were further measures which revealed
an aggressive disregard for British susceptibilities and were
characterized by a want of frankness, which the relations
ostensibly existing between the two countries did not
warrant. A worse act of calculated bad faith was yet to
follow. It would seem legitimate to assume that Bismarck
was at the outset genuinely indisposed to encourage Colonial
enterprise, and that when he so informed Lord Ampthill
he was expressing a sincere conviction. But the time came
when he realized that he could no longer oppose the strong
current in influential quarters in favour of the establish¬
ments of outposts in undeveloped lands. He, however,
gave Lord Ampthill no warning of such a change of attitude
and he never made any real effort to arrive at an amicable
understanding with us. Circumstances offered him an
opportunity of placing Great Britain at a disadvantage.
We had only recently occupied Egypt, where the growing
trouble in the Soudan had added to our embarrassments.
The support of Germany, which had given us every encour¬
agement to go there, would at this critical stage have been
invaluable, but the competition for colonial expansion
suggested that advantage might be derived from becoming
rather the ally of France in Egypt. We had also a trouble¬
some situation to face in Central Asia, owing to Russian
hostility, which there was every reason to believe Germany
BERLIN, 1884-1885
67
was secretly promoting. To assume the part of the unappre¬
ciated friend, reluctantly compelled to fend for himself,
appeared a more congenial policy than that of making
frank overtures to a Gladstonian Government which Bis¬
marck cordially disliked, especially after the first test case
had proved successful. Mr. Gladstone was old and out of
health, and he appeared to regard these issues as of secondary
importance. Neither Lord Granville nor Lord Derby stood
out against him with any insistence, and they were reluc¬
tantly compelled to acquiesce in a series of compromises
and concessions, which invariably encouraged fresh demands.
The self-complacent confessions of Moritz Busch reveal
how at this period he was employed to write a number
of attacks on Great Britain in the Grenzboten, of which
Ireland, Afghanistan, India, the Boers and South Africa
formed the subject matter. An administration which had
proved easy to squeeze would no doubt be seriously concerned
to find the German press not less hostile than the French.
Of all the methods of Bismarckian diplomacy employed
at this time none was more discreditable than the deliberate
deception practised not only on the British but also on the
German public by the White Book on Colonial questions
which was issued in the beginning of 1885. It opened with
a despatch, dated the 5th of May, 1884, addressed to Count
Minister, the German Ambassador in London, with instruc¬
tions to communicate its contents to the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs. The despatch, while preferring
certain inquiries, contained an exposition of Germany's
aims and expressed the desire to make them consistent with
British interests and generally to work in harmony with us.
The friction which ensued as exhibited in subsequent docu¬
ments was adroitly made to appear as the result of the
difficulty experienced in eliciting any reply and the ignoring
by the British Government of the friendly overture thus
made. Now this despatch was never communicated to the
British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who learned of its
existence for the first time from the publication of the text
68 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
in the White Book. It was indeed actually sent to Count
Miinster, as he subsequently admitted, but he received
simultaneously telegraphic instructions not to act upon it.
The despatch was nevertheless used as the text on which the
sermon preached by the White Book was based. It was
with consternation that we realized at the Embassy the
device to which the Chancellor had had recourse and received
the wholly unacceptable explanation that its publication
must have been due to a slip of memory. At home Lord
Granville wrote a letter to Lord E. Fitzmaurice, the Under-
Secretary of State, to be read in reply to a question in
Parliament put by Mr. Labouchere, which made it clear
that he had never received and had no knowledge of Prince
Bismarck's despatch of May 5th, 1884. He could not,
however, mention what he already then knew, that Count
Miinster had been deliberately instructed not to communi¬
cate it. The Ambassador's confidence could not be betrayed;
he would at once have been sacrificed, as indeed he was
in any case six months later in July, and transferred to
Paris. Mr. Gladstone was determined to avoid a crisis with
Germany at all costs, and so we pocketed the affront. Nor
was it possible under these circumstances to offer a word in
explanation or defence of our policy at Berlin, where we
felt profoundly humiliated. For many years I was bound
by the rules of official secrecy to maintain absolute silence
regarding this significant episode. But eventually the story
was published in the Life of Lord Granville, by Lord E.
Fitzmaurice, and so became public property long after the
interest of actuality had gone by.
To this episode and the experience thereby gained that
Great Britain could swallow such an unqualifiable proceeding
without expostulation, may be perhaps traced back the
long series of discourteous and ungracious acts which the
German Government permitted themselves towards Great
Britain. Experience had shown that we could be confronted
with a fait accompli which, if no vital interest was involved,
would be accepted without a protest. I do not suggest
BERLIN, 1884-1885
69
that such was Bismarck's own intention. The Chancellor
had never abandoned the hope of a British alliance, and
after several tentative soundings he in 1887 actually ap¬
proached Lord Salisbury privately but directly with such
a proposition. But Bismarck was so convinced of the
impossibility of any understanding between Great Britain
and either France or Russia, that he felt an eventual under¬
standing with us would not be compromised by such un¬
gracious proceedings to suit his more immediate ends.
Lesser men who had taken note of the tolerance or indif¬
ference we had displayed, and of our spirit of accommodation
to German demands, repeated similar manoeuvres. To
make this policy more efficacious they encouraged an anti-
British atmosphere in Germany. The Press responded with
exaggeration and at last the flood grew beyond their con¬
trol. A long period went by before the slow-working
British mind, by nature unsuspicious and unobservant of
continental developments, was aroused by the many provo¬
cations received. The goodwill of the British which existed
in my younger days was uselessly and wantonly alienated
by Germany, which was hypnotized into regarding an
England which had not consciously done her any evil turn
as the real enemy of the Fatherland.
The vigilance which Great Britain had or should have
exercised over the ultimate destiny of these unoccupied
regions was, in the majority of cases to which I have referred,
not directed against Germany, and, in view of the British
attitude at that period towards expansion in Africa, there
appears no reason to assume that the German Government
might not have arrived at a friendly understanding with
us for the realization of such projects without creating
permanent mistrust of Teutonic methods and professions.
The hostility of German policy towards Great Britain only
became apparent to the general public a great many years
afterwards by the transmission of the Emperor's telegram
to President Kriiger. But the conduct of the German
Government in a long series of colonial issues was from this
70 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
time forward constantly and at times even contemptuously
aggressive towards us. It is possible that an atmosphere
of prepotency and the overbearing manner of German
officials which had grown up under the Bismarckian system
had so far established a habit that those in power were
incapable of appreciating how insupportable this attitude
became in international relations. Had not the real history
of many of these incidents been concealed from the public
in Great Britain for reasons of policy, opinion would long
have reached the point where patience boils over, the more
so as each successive settlement appeared to be only the
prelude to a new issue.
Bismarck himself had no doubt a definite object in view
and, realizing that our essential difficulties were at this time
rather with France, aimed at bullying Great Britain into
friendship and support of Germany. He had himself perhaps
perceived that his policy had been a mistaken one at the
time when he withdrew from public life. But it is difficult
to break away from a political tradition once established,
and his less capable successors seem to have accepted it as
a legacy. The adoption as a definite policy of the brow¬
beating of Great Britain and the repudiation of her efforts
to re-establish more cordial relations led to a new orientation
and ended as it could only end in permanent alienation, of
which Germany witnessed the first results at Algeciras and
experienced the sinister consequences in 1914.
This examination of the " present discontents " in 1884-5
has carried me beyond the date of the Assembly of the first
African Conference. In 1876 the International African
Association had been formed under the segis of King Leopold
at Brussels to develop the Congo territories. The claim
raised to the river by Portugal had been considered valid by
Great Britain. Germany, however, declined to recognize
the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of February 26th, 1884, rela¬
tive to the Congo. The great scheme of the King of the
Belgians for the administration and development of the
river basin offered an alternative policy. A considerable
BERLIN, 1884-1885
71
measure of public support had already been accorded to a
project which was heralded as having a philanthropic
character, and Great Britain was at that time ready to
co-operate in such a solution and thus to prevent that river
from becoming entirely French, which experience had shown
to mean the exclusion of British commerce. She was at
the same time anxious to secure a certain measure of inter¬
national control over the vast area embraced by its water¬
shed. The future destiny of the Congo basin was osten¬
sibly the main plea for the German proposal to hold a con¬
ference at Berlin on African questions. But all outstanding
issues both on the Eastern and the Western side and the
principles of partition of undeveloped regions were to be
included in its scope.
The conference, at which our delegates had no clerical
staff to assist them—there were of course no typewriters in
those days—added enormously to the work of the Embassy,
and I have seldom experienced a more strenuous period
than the three months during which it sat. The discussions
and their result are fully recorded in the protocols and the
General Act, which defined the International Basin of the
Congo and the regime to be observed therein. I do not
therefore propose to comment here upon an instrument
which was subsequently amplified by the Conference and
General Act of Brussels. It may, however, be pertinent
to mention that no sooner had the conference opened in
Berlin than Dr. Peters, Count Pfeil and Dr. Jiihlke slipped
across from Zanzibar to the African mainland, disguised as
mechanics, with a large consignment of German flags for
distribution, and began to obtain the signatures or seals of
a number of petty chiefs to blank treaty forms which they
had brought with them.
The first meeting took place on November 15th. We
were represented by the Ambassador, assisted by Sir Percy
Anderson for the Foreign Office, Sir Robert Meade for the
Colonial Office, Sir Joseph Archer Crowe as commercial
expert and Sir Travers Twiss as our leading authority on
72 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
international law. H. M. Stanley, the traveller, attended
on behalf of the King of the Belgians.
On the morning of the 15th Malet had an interview with
the Chancellor, who made certain significant observations
intended to prepare the ground and bid for our support.
He said that any undue pressure exercised on France by
Germany might result in war again, and he was therefore
resolved not to use any. French susceptibilities regarding
Egypt were great. He admitted, however, that he had
only shown his teeth in Egypt because we had, as he alleged,
behaved badly in Colonial questions. He had always felt
certain in old times that if England did not stand with
Germany she would at any rate not help France in the event
of war. But since Gladstone's Midlothian attack on
Austria and Germany, before he won the elections and was
returned to office, he no longer felt so sure. Germany could
beat France again as she had done before if the latter was
alone without allies. But if France secured allies the position
would be serious. Should Great Britain join with France,
only France would suffer. Germany could not touch us.
We should sweep the seas and France would be punished for
all our misdeeds. " However," he added, " we really mean
to be friends." The anxiety of Bismarck to secure the
isolation of France made the maintenance of cordial rela¬
tions with Russia the unalterable basis of his foreign policy,
and in those days the intimacy of the German and Russian
Emperors was emphasized by the exchange of special military
representatives, directly accredited to the person of the
sovereigns.
Sir Joseph Crowe was not only the commercial attache for
Northern Europe, but in my eyes he had the still greater
merit of being, in collaboration with his friend Cavalcaselle,
the eminent historian of Art. He told me that his early
ambition was to be a painter, but as his brother (Eyre Crowe)
had already adopted that profession, his father suggested
that he should rather devote himself to the literature of
painting. He had already so far trained himself as to be
BERLIN, 1884-1885
73
familiar with technical methods, and in preparing himself
for his task he made upwards of 10,000 drawings and
tracings from pictures and sketches of the old masters,
including all those of Raphael still extant. The first serious
work which he undertook was a life of van Eyck. His
studies led him to travel in the Low Countries and he went
on to Germany in 1847. In the diligence which was con¬
veying him from Hanover to Berlin, whose Museum possessed
half the panels of the Adoration of the Lamb, he conversed
with and took a fancy to a young Italian, whose name was
Cavalcaselle. The day after their arrival in Berlin they met
in the gallery and finding that they had both come with the
same object in view they spent many pleasant days together,
and then each went his own way. In 1849 Crowe was cross¬
ing the Place de la Victoire at Paris in the dusk, when a
young man, practically in rags and looking the picture of
misery, saluted him. It was Cavalcaselle. He had fought
with Garibaldi in the defence of Rome and had been sent to
France as a prisoner. His patrimony had been confiscated
and he was penniless. Crowe took charge of him and helped
him to get to England, where he worked as an artist. Even¬
tually his property was restored to him and he went home.
Thus began an acquaintance which led to their famous
historico-critical collaboration.
Their identity of judgment in attributions of authorship
was, Crowe told me, remarkable and even surprising to
themselves, in illustration of which he related to me one of
their apparent divergencies of view which proved after all
to be only a confirmation of the similarity of their deductions
or intuitions. There are many galleries which claim to have
Raphael's Madonna di Loreto, but the pictures so catalogued
are all copies and most of them indifferent. They had for
years been hunting in vain for the original. On his way to
see Cavalcaselle with a view to the preparation of a new
edition Crowe had stopped at Bologna, and in a small
private collection he found what he had so long been in search
of. The picture was, however, so dilapidated and repainted
74 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
that it would have been unidentifiable had he not detected
in a few square inches of the surface the brush-marks
peculiar to Raphael of which he had made a special study.
Full of excitement he rushed to see Cavalcaselle and an¬
nounced the discovery which he had made at Bologna. His
colleague replied that he feared Crowe must be mistaken,
for he too had not long before detected the hand of Raphael
in a similar picture at Verona. Each adhered firmly to his
own opinion and Cavalcaselle engaged him on his homeward
journey to stop at Verona, providing him with a letter to
the owner. Armed with this introduction he duly presented
himself and asked to see the picture. " I regret," said the
collector, "to be unable to show it you, for since Signor
Cavalcaselle saw it, it has been sold and is now in the house
of Signor at Bologna." They had both seen the same
picture in two different places and had formed identical
conclusions. I asked why this discovery had never been
proclaimed. He said that only a minute portion remained
of the original painting ; no one would have credited the
attribution to Raphael of a picture presenting so deplorable
an appearance, and it would only have damaged their
reputation as critics to announce it. They had not, he told
me, in their monumental work aimed at being interesting,
but had endeavoured to establish a solid basis on which
future historians of art might work. These and many other
interesting conversations with the father of my old friend,
Sir Eyre Crowe, relieved the monotony of ciphering and
deciphering interminable telegrams on the subject of the
prohibition of the arms and alcohol traffic in Africa, and
they remain a pleasant memory of those days of high pressure.
Sir Joseph Crowe had such a high standard of the obligations
of a critic of art, the disinterestedness of whose judgments
must remain above suspicion, that, in spite of innumerable
opportunities, he never bought a picture. Much less could
he have conceived the idea of selling one.
Percy Anderson, for many years head of the African
Department in the Foreign Office, had a peculiar humour of
BERLIN, 1884-1885
75
his own and was very popular with the staff of the Embassy.
His stories of bygone days in Downing Street, some of which
I had already heard from Lord Ampthill, made us feel how
much more serious our generation had already become,
genial in camaraderie as it was compared with its present
day successors. In those days all clerical work was done by
attaches and junior secretaries, and the latest joined were
consigned to a department known as the Nursery, to learn
their business under the jovial leadership of the famous
amateur harlequin John Bidwell. The latter was reported
one day in old Bond Street, arrayed in frock-coat and tall
hat, to have taken a flying header through a four-wheel
cab with open windows containing two elderly ladies,
alighting on his hands in the middle of the road to land with
a somersault on to the opposite pavement. It was when
Lord Palmerston was Secretary of State and Albert Smith's
ascent of Mont Blanc was engrossing public attention that
Bidwell one day proposed an alpine expedition in the
Nursery. The archive presses were accordingly piled in the
middle of the largest room. The members of the department
were securely roped together with red tape, and using rulers
for alpenstocks with Bidwell as guide they proceeded to
mount from chair to table, from table to register desk, and
thence to negotiate the loftiest summits of the presses. Their
leader was engaged in giving a graphic description of the
surrounding peaks when he suddenly disappeared down a
crevasse between two of the presses. At that moment the
door was opened, and the Under-Secretary appeared to ask
for a paper. The result was a report to the Secretary of
State. But it was through Lady Palmerston that the
reprimand was conveyed. And yet never did the Foreign
Office command more respect on the Continent than in those
days, and never was a Minister more prepotent.
Travers Twiss was by far the senior of the party in years,
not far short at that time of seventy. He had been a good
deal in Germany and intimate in his youth with the Met-
ternichs of Johannisberg. An incident which he related to
76 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
us reminded me of the Saturnalia of the Rhineland nobles of
Grand Cru in Vivian Grey. He was staying at Johannisberg
during a great family festival when the chiefs of the house
were assembled, and the cellars, where the noblest vintages
of that golden nectar reserved for the family were stored, had
been ransacked for the banquet. " We began," he said,
" with the wine of 1717 and drank through the century."
This must have taken place between 1830 and 1840 as he
was quite a young man at the time. At the end of a long
evening his head remained perfectly clear, but his legs were
no longer under complete control. His legal habit of mind
led him always to demand precise definitions, and the eternal
" what is " of Sir Travers provoked the humour of the juniors.
The whole party dined on most evenings with the Ambas¬
sador. One night the arrival of the cigarettes brought up
the question of when lucifer matches were invented, which
was referred to him as the oldest inhabitant. The inevitable
" Ah, what is a lucifer match ? " opened up a long discussion.
After it had continued sufficiently long Sir Edward proposed
that the party should resume the discussion at dinner the
following night, and added : " Sir Travers, will you join us
again to-morrow ? " When the veteran jurist replied:
" Well, what is to-morrow ? " it was too much for our
gravity. Solvuntur risu tabulae.
Stanley was somewhat of an enigma to us all. He had
come to represent the interests of the King of the Belgians.
His stories of experiences in Central Africa were told in
simple incisive language and had a very dramatic quality.
He spoke with real affection of the natives and of what he
believed might be made of them. I liked his relation of the
single combats, with their Homeric quality of preliminary
speech and denunciation. As he said, " it takes all day
there to kill a man." The warriors would look round the
corners of their enormous shields and harangue one another ;
" A precious villain you are ; if you want my opinion it is
that you are quite unnecessary to the world, and best
removed from it." And so on. Not unfrequently, he said,
BERLIN, 1884-1885
77
he had been invited to arbitrate. It was not difficult to
make peace, but you had to demand a big fee and represent
it as a serious matter to compose such a grave issue. When
the award was given war would be buried with much cere¬
mony. I liked Stanley at Berlin, but years afterwards in
East Africa I found his name was not one to conjure with
among the British. His journeys were regarded as having
been conceived rather in a journalistic spirit of self-adver¬
tisement, and his travelling companions hardly ever remained
his friends. The pioneer life of those days in Africa, per¬
petual discomfort, privation and often physical suffering
made men lose their " sense of proportion," and the absence
of any restraining authority swelled their sense of self-
importance. After reading Stanley on Tippoo Tib, it was
interesting afterwards to hear Tippoo Tib on Stanley.
Whatever Livingstone may have felt when he was eventually
" found," the general impression in East Africa was that
Emin, whose rescue by Stanley the conscience of the Anglo-
Saxon race had been induced to demand, did not parti¬
cularly appreciate being saved and restored to a civilization
of which he had lost the habit.
After a few days' interval at Christmas time, during which
our delegates returned home, the Conference was resumed on
the 5th of January. The German claims had been discussed,
and Mr. Gladstone would not entertain the idea of absorbing
the coast-line between our South African settlements and
the Portuguese frontier. He held that the Germans would
make fair colonists and acceptable neighbours. But, if we
had no intention of resisting, we might at least have made our
concessions graciously. As it was we did neither, and only
caused irritation, with the result that the German White
Book above referred to appeared and we submitted to an
affront which was passed over without a protest. The
German people were themselves misled by its contents and
relations became anything but friendly. Count Herbert
Bismarck was then sent on a special mission to London with
the object no doubt of removing irritation, It was matter
78 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
for speculation how far the anti-British campaign had been
worked up in order to divert criticism from an extremely
unpopular measure introduced at this time which trebled
the existing duty on corn. The African Conference con¬
cluded its, on the whole, satisfactory labours with the
signature of the General Act. The International African
Association became an independent State, the " Congo Free
State " ; trade in the conventional basin being declared
free, while the navigation of the river was placed under
international control. Somewhat similar provisions were
laid down for the Niger under French and British protection,
and it was established that occupations on the coast must
be effective in order to be valid. Bismarck had said he
could not admit that the fact that Vasco di Gama had once
landed at a particular spot in Africa constituted an inde¬
feasible claim to possession.
On the 26th of February I left for Paris and London with
the Ambassador, who was about to be married to Lady
Ermyntrude Russell. The Chancellor, who had not suc¬
ceeded in obtaining all that German chauvinists desired by
the African Conference, was in very low spirits and, at a
farewell interview with Malet, said that the future outlook
for Germany profoundly depressed him. He would retire
when his Emperor passed away, being himself too old to serve
a new master. What he would prefer would be that some
anarchist would shoot him when the Emperor died. He
no doubt foresaw the difficulties which the succession would
eventually entail. He would have done much to win the
goodwill of the Crown Princess. But she was irreconcilable
and in spite of her great ability and almost more than
ability, could not conquer certain prejudices or realize when
to give way.
I was enchanted to escape even for a short time from the
Court Balls, which recurred at regular intervals between the
New Year and Lent, and from all this ceremonial of the
Berlin season. As in the summer the staff of our Embassy
were continually summoned to Wildpark for tennis, so in
BERLIN, 1884-1885
79
the winter when the ponds in the Thiergarten froze we
were invited to skate with the Crown Princess and her
daughters. Etiquette still prescribed that in the presence
of the Court we should wear the conventional silk hat and
frock-coat. This costume was hardly an appropriate one
in which to play hockey, and the hats at least were left on a
seat and replaced with fur caps. I looked forward with
some dread to these afternoons, as the Crown Princess was
not a very strong skater and on the ice my services were
generally enlisted to lend a supporting hand. Fortunately
for me no disaster had occurred before a thaw set in, and
then we left for England.
As a pageant a ball in the White Hall at the palace was
well worth seeing for the first time. But when the novelty
was over attendance, from which there was no escape, became
an unwelcome corvee. It entailed standing up for four hours
in a hot uniform, which on those occasions we wore with
white trousers, instead of full-dress knee-breeches, which
were apparently regarded in Berlin as revealing too much of
the human form, or as reminiscent of livery. All the officers
of the General Staff, a very numerous body, and all those
attached to the Army Corps of Guards, distributed between
Berlin, Potsdam and Spandau, were commanded to be
present. They did not, unless of field rank, enter the ball¬
room until after the conclusion of the royal cercle, but filled
the ante-rooms and the long gallery through which we passed.
The Ambassadors were expected to arrive in the old-fashioned
state-coaches, which rocked like a Channel steamer and
entailed the maintenance or the hiring of very big horses.
The blaze of colour was dazzling, almost the only black coats
in the vast throng being those of the American Embassy.
By half-past eight we had to be in our places in a great ring,
in which the very numerous diplomatic body was arranged
according to the priority of appointment of the respective
heads of missions. A signal was given to the Lifeguards'
band in the gallery ,and then the royal procession filed in,
headed by the magnificent Perponcher, supported by the
80 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
household officials and a number of pages in red. Then
came the Emperor, the Crown Prince and Princess, and all
the Junior Princes and Princesses at the time in the capital.
The Emperor, followed by the Crown Prince and Crown
Princess, passed round the ring, addressed a few words to
each foreign representative and received presentations. The
Empress Augusta was too infirm to take part in this cere¬
mony. When the tour was completed the hundreds of
junior officers, who during the previous weeks had spent
their leisure competing for the privilege of engaging the
proportionately few young ladies available as partners,
crowded into the White Hall. Thereupon the Vortanzer,
a captain appointed with true German method on account
of his proved competence to lead the dancing, gave the
signal to the band for the opening royal quadrille. Revers¬
ing was strictly tabooed. In those days the leader was
Rittmeister von Reischach, resplendent in the scarlet-coated
gala uniform of the Gardes du Corps. He afterwards entered
the household of the Crown Prince and eventually became
Master of the Horse to the ex-emperor William. The great
war has severed old friendships and inspired antagonisms and
prejudices from which we of the older generation can hardly
dissociate ourselves. But I should like here to testify to
my sincere regard for that very gallant Suabian gentleman,
who was not only a constant and loyal friend to our country¬
men, but who on one occasion in a moment of some diffi¬
culty took up the gauntlet on behalf of a British acquaintance
with a chivalry which I have always honoured and admired.
It is one of the many tragedies of war that a whole nation
is judged by its opponents in the terms of its least worthy
members, and collectively associated with actions which
the better elements of that nation sincerely deplore. A
cruel and inexorable strain in the Prussian character to some
extent infected the whole of Germany after the phenomenal
successes of the Bismarckian era, and the plea that the
necessity of the State could justify the repudiation of
honourable engagements and the violation of established
BERLIN, 1884-1885
81
international or humanitarian precedents had distorted the
mentality and judgment of the nation. But Prussia is not
Germany, and I rather choose to believe after an experience
of many years that the old friends of those days, who in¬
cluded Suabians and Silesians, were individually the good
fellows they appeared to be.
By this time I had derived certain definite first impres¬
sions from life in Berlin which it is interesting to recall in
the light of later events. We were witnesses of a period of
transition. The great extension of industrialism was trans¬
ferring a large number of the agricultural population to
manufacturing centres and there was a rapid growth of
socialistic spirit in the towns. But the natural docility of the
masses, respectful to and dependent on constituted authority,
made the movement slow to produce its full effect. Military
and aristocratic tradition held the ground firmly, and all
the machinery of state was dominated by the classes. The
executive was still independent and the government in
essentials autocratic. But already longer heads perceived
symptoms of a coming change and the steady lengthening of
a shadow which a mentality trained in certain conventions
had convinced itself could only be lifted by a successful war.
Looking back now after some five-and-thirty years I realize
that the anticipations made in my diaries forecasting future
troubles in store for the German Empire were not over-stated.
Had the Emperor Frederick, with his broad and liberal
outlook on life, reigned for the number of years on which he
might reasonably have counted, much might have been
different. The omnipotent influence of the Bismarckian
bureaucracy and the military caste would have been weak¬
ened, and time would have worked for the elements which
make for peace. But events as they turned out only con¬
tributed to accentuate contrasts, and those in power did
not fail to perceive the growing precariousness of their tenure.
The elections of 1912 with their Socialist gains were, for
those who realized the internal conditions in Germany,
ominous of what might befall in the next few years, and it
G
82 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
was inevitable that the military authorities who still con¬
trolled the situation should with their mentality have felt that
the time had come to precipitate the war which if successful
would, they believed, have given autocracy an extension of
life.
It would not, however, have been easy in 1885 to accept
the dictum of Gervinus, who died some fourteen years
earlier, that Bismarck was only an episode.
CHAPTER III
BERLIN, 1885-1886
We stayed tlie night at Paris with Lord Lyons, whose
acquaintance I then made for the first time, and went on
the next morning to London.
The Ambassadorial wedding in the Abbey was a very
magnificent function and assembled more than the usual
crowd of spectators. Having assisted my chief to the best
of my ability through the last phase of an unusually long
bachelorhood, I then had a few days of liberty.
Cecil Spring-Rice, who was still at the Foreign Office, took
me down to Haslemere to spend a night with Tennyson.
The dear old man, whose innocent vanity betrayed itself in
his picturesque black cloak and big slouch hat, was kindness
itself. One could see how he loved his beautiful garden.
He was full of questions about Germany and Bismarck, and
vehement in his political denunciations, especially at that
moment of the attitude of Russia, which country seemed
like a red rag to him. We spoke of the work of a young
writer, May Probyn, who to the great regret of her admirers,
abandoned poetry for the convent. I had made a pil¬
grimage to Devizes to see her some time before. Tennyson
agreed that there was a great deal of promise in her writing,
and he had always wished to know her. It was a pity that
the " priests had taken possession of her." He discoursed
upon the values of " words," speaking of them as an artist
might do of colours, of their juxtaposition and their conno¬
tation, conveying the impression that he trusted rather to
a masterly use of language for effect than to feeling or
sentiment. After dinner we withdrew from the dining-room
83
84 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to a smaller room for dessert, as it is still the custom at
College to retire to the Common Room. There he mixed
his whisky and lamented the actual evil case of England as
it presented itself to him. He would not admit that he was
a pessimist. His fears were only for the moment. He
demanded an iron hand for order, and would let freedom
come with time. Then he left us for a while and coming
back read us the Ode on the Duke of Wellington, which at
times he seemed almost to be chanting in his deep sonorous
voice. We talked and smoked till midnight. Hallam
Tennyson and Mrs. Hallam, the best of company, lived with
them at Haslemere, for at that time the eldest son devoted
himself almost entirely to the good cause of serving his
father and his mother, the most beautiful old lady I ever
saw, but frail as a wraith, in whom the body seemed almost
to have worn away and to have left only the gracious presence
of a soul. Laura Tennant had written to me of her : "To
be with her is like being in Church.—If I had a little child,
I should take it to be blessed by her." After breakfast
the next morning I walked with the poet for about an hour
and he spoke much of the little Madonna, as he called Laura
Tennant, and her approaching marriage to Alfred Lyttelton.
He too had fallen under the spell when he had travelled
with her and Mr. Gladstone on the " Pembroke Castle." Of
this experience she had written to me ; " Tennyson and I
were great friends. He always calls me his little witch.
He used to read to me every day.—I cannot imagine being
frightened of Tennyson, although a good many of them were
—he is so childlike and so much too big to be afraid of. I
wish you could have seen the moonlight. It never was so
fair before ; such a golden path across the sea, like a street
for angels to tread on, a path that led to the city of God."
Of Gladstone he also spoke, referring to him as a good friend
and an honest nature, but " Ah ! " he said, " he is no states¬
man, and he will be the ruin of England."
After this interlude, one of the pleasant episodes in life
of many which I owed to my dear friend Cecil Spring-Rice,
BERLIN, 1885-1886
85
a great Englishman to whom and to whose work in the war
due justice has not yet been done, I returned to Berlin, and
not long afterwards the new Ambassadress arrived with the
Chief. Marriage made but little difference in the pleasant
social life which their kindness and consideration maintained
for the staff on much the old lines, and a happier family than
that over which they presided would be hard to find. Charles
Hardinge and Reggie Lister and Fairfax Cartwright were
among the colleagues of those days who subsequently made
their mark in the profession. In May Lord Rosebery paid
a brief visit to the Embassy, which greatly exercised the
journalists. Blowitz, the Paris correspondent of The Times,
with considerable ingenuity, and what in anyone else might
have been characterized as consummate impudence, pro¬
duced a full report of what had passed between him and the
Chancellor when closeted alone. It was a mischievous
article too, for The Times was then, as it long continued
to be, regarded on the Continent as officially inspired,
and the Chancellor's views as there described by
Mr. Blowitz were calculated to arouse a good deal of
protest.
Early in June, 1885, the Government at home were de¬
feated on a financial issue and Mr. Gladstone was believed
to have manoeuvred for this opportunity of resigning. The
Queen sent for Lord Salisbury. They were delighted in
Berlin, where they hoped to get on better with the Tories,
and a change in the attitude of the German Government
became at once perceptible. It was, however, only a short¬
lived interlude, for Gladstone came back in January of the
following year, to remain in office for an equally brief period
of six months, terminated by the rejection of his Home Rule
proposals. Spring-Rice sent me an amusing story a propos
of the change of Government which I suspect him of having
invented. Baron Henry de Worms and Sir Henry Drum-
mond Wolff met on the doorstep of Lord Salisbury's house
in Arlington Street. " Hullo, Wolff," said Worms, " what
are you doing here,—looking for a new suit of sheep's
86 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
clothing ? " " Hullo, Worms," said Wolff, " looking for a
carcass 1 "
Soon after my return Prince Frederick Carl, who gained
the name of the Red Prince during the war of '70, died, and
a day later General Manteuffel. Herbert Bismarck now
rejoined the Foreign Office and not long afterwards he suc¬
ceeded Hatzfeldt when the latter was sent to London and
Munster was transferred to Paris. After the departure of
Hatzfeldt there were no more tennis afternoons in the gardens
of the Foreign Office. On the other hand, Count Herbert,
who was most friendly to me, in spite of my very junior
rank, often invited me to little bachelor dinners, where we
sampled some of the wonderful old wines sent to his father
by his admirers among the proprietors of historic vineyards
on the Rhine, in which the old man was no longer allowed
by Schweniger to indulge. Another frequent guest, who
appreciated the priceless Rauenthaler, was Count Paul
Schouvaloff, the Russian Ambassador, brother of the Count
Peter, who was so well known in London. I once saw the
two brothers at the Friedrichstrasse Station in Berlin, both
in military uniform, embrace each other so heartily that the
peaks of their kepis collided and both the caps fell off and
rolled under the train. Count Paul, of whom we were all
very fond, embarrassed me gravely on one occasion after
dinner at his own Embassy by putting his hand on my
shoulder and saying in English, a language which I had
never heard him use before, to Herbert Bismarck : " You
are nozing and we are nozing. Zis is the only people ! I
have one upstairs, she is with us ten years. Will you not
marry her and make her children ? I can no more ! "
Obviously an attache in those days had need of some dis¬
cretion.
One night Count Herbert took me and some of my col¬
leagues to the Borussia Kneipe, the post-university Club
of old Bonn students, where there was a great drinking of
that wonderful Munich beer, the nectar of Walhalla. The
Secretary of State, whom a mutual friend described as a
BERLIN, 1885-1886
87
Kneipe-genie, because his head was always clear and he
could sit down to grapple with a difficult bit of work after an
evening which would have disqualified most of us, genially
undertook to respond to healths which might be proposed
to any of our party after our more limited beer capacity was
exhausted. A young lancer of my acquaintance challenged
a friend to a contest in rapidity of consumption, and I was
invited to give the word of command in the conventional
rigmarole. The mugs were placed on the table in front of
the rivals, and at the given signal each took his own and
literally poured the contents down his throat, the winner
being the drinker who could first say prosit after emptying
his mug. My friend was beaten, and at once challenged his
rival to a double test. The process was repeated with two
mugs apiece, but he was beaten again. Whereupon he
proposed a quadruple contest, and this time four mugs
were placed in front of each and tossed off with the same
astounding rapidity. The result was, however, unchanged,
and my lancer then said he would accept defeat for the mo¬
ment. I asked him if he had many schoppes before we came,
—we had arrived rather late after a dinner party. " Not
many," he replied, " about seventeen." The astonishing
thing about these young officers was that they would be
duly on parade the next morning at six at Potsdam. They
were a hardy race. During the dancing season in Berlin
they seemed never to have an opportunity of sleeping at
night, and yet they appeared perfectly fit and healthy.
I read a great deal of German at this period, and attended
the Deutsches Theater regularly, where the performances
were maintained at a very high level of excellence by
Kaintz, Friedman, Forster, Engels, Teresina Gessner and
Agnes Sorma, and it was possible to study the classic drama,
including Shakespeare and Calderon. There was an inter¬
esting revival of an early production of Schiller, Cabale und
Liebe, admirably rendered, containing dramatic material
enough for three tragedies, and to my mind nearer human
nature than his later plays which are more purely works of
88 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
art. The Court Theater was also excellent, but more
academic. The Royal Opera gave us a Wagner season with
Frau Rosa Sucher, the finest exponent of the Wagnerian
heroine that I have ever heard. The ballets were a delight
when the principal part was played by Del 'Era, whose art
as a dancer and a mime I have never seen surpassed. We
supped with her occasionally, when she and her sister cooked
the macaroni and talked of her native Naples. It had
never occurred to me before that the dancer could be as
nervous as I have seen her, when about to play a new part.
The Niebelungen Lied, which I then studied from cover to
cover for the first time, struck me as in many ways typical
of the people among whom I was living. It is, of course, only
a Volkslied, but it is lacking in the humanity which occasion¬
ally illuminates other folk poetry. It is all hacking and
hewing, and raiment and gold and blood. Though genuinely
rhythmic, it is poor in poetic feeling, monotonous and material.
Even the recurring epithets which are so suggestive in the
early epic are not there distributed with any art. Hagen is
not the polumetis or the polumechanos, but just the " Grim,"
and no gleam of human interest relieves the black shadow
cast by the evil genius of the drama. The poetic achieve¬
ment of Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century was remarkable and never greater than at the time
of the deepest national depression, but the old national
epic struck me as wanting in any real poetic quality.
Having completed my two years of probationary attache-
ship I went on leave in August, and on arriving at home
found public interest entirely occupied with the Dilke case.
" What are people saying about it ? " Chamberlain asked
Labouchere, who was then editing Truth, in the Lobby.
" They are all saying they wish it was you instead," Labby
replied imperturbably.
Not long after my return to Berlin in October I accom¬
panied my chief to Dessau. He was accredited to some ten
smaller German Courts in addition to Berlin, and had to
pay at least one formal visit to each in order to present his
BERLIN, 1885-1886
89
official letter of appointment. The Court at Dessau was
typical of an old-world life, which has now probably passed
away for ever, patriarchal, kindly and picturesque, and a
description of our experience there will serve as an illus¬
tration of the procedure at a number of similar " residencies."
After a few hours on the road at Wittenberg, spent in
visiting Luther's house and a church full of pictures by his
friend Cranach the elder, we arrived at Dessau early in the
afternoon and were conducted to the schloss, where we at
once put on uniform for the presentation. The court
dignitaries, the Grand Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse,
the Grand Veneur and the military household were assem¬
bled in full dress to conduct us in procession to the audience.
After a brief interval we dined at 4 p.m. in the Rittersaal,
filled with trophies of the family hero, that great cavalry
leader, the " old Dessauer." The Duke of Anhalt-Dessau
was most easy of address and a charming personality. His
manner suggested : " Don't hate me for being the Duke. I
have to be. But I do my best to be a human being in spite
of all the paraphernalia." The key-note of the Duchess and
the family was a kindly simplicity, which extended also to
a Schwarzburg-Sondershausen brother-in-law. After din¬
ner, which was served by an army of retainers, we got out
of uniform and redressed for the Court theatre where there
was a very fair performance of Tannhauser, with a remark¬
ably good orchestra. The theatre is, of course, maintained
by the Duke. Then there was supper in the Gyps-Saal
decorated very effectively with the old copper plates from
which engravings of the family portraits and estates had been
struck. After supper we were shown the treasures and duly
reverenced the " old Dessauer's " saddle and pistol. But
the object of the greatest interest was the Kroten-ring, the
toad-ring with which the fortunes of the house are bound up.
There was once a very good and gracious princess of Anhalt-
Dessau, who was kind and gentle to all things living and
even to the animals which others persecute. She had saved
and tended an ugly toad. Now the toad was really a fairy
90 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
in disguise, and because of her sweetness and goodness the
fairy resumed her proper form and gave her a ring which
would always secure good fortune to her house, on the
one condition that it was never taken away or carried
across the Elbe. The tradition was duly reverenced, but
once a sceptical Duke put it on his finger and rode across the
river. As he reached the further shore a messenger over¬
took him and announced that his castle was in flames. On
another occasion when it was temporarily removed a great
fissure divided the main wall of the schloss. Wherefore it
was thereafter carefully bestowed in a double safe let into
a wall, and only the reigning Duke had the key. It is a ring
of pale gold set with uncut diamonds. We were invited to
take it in hand and wish the wish, which the ring has power
to fulfil. I cannot remember what I wished. Perhaps it
was for the opportunity to smoke, which duly followed the
restoration of the ring to the safe !
After an early breakfast the following morning we drove
off to the summer residence, Schloss Worlitz, with one of the
Versailles gardens which every small reigning prince felt
bound to lay out in the eighteenth century. The lines of
Anhalt-Zerbst and Anhalt-Kothen became extinct and their
territories and domains fell in to the father of the present
Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, with the result that he had seven¬
teen palaces or houses to maintain. He had placed all his
property on a private footing and so had nothing to fear
from revolution. The local Government was carried on by
a Diet and a Ministry, and except for the administration of
his own estates the Duke enjoyed a sinecure. The palaces
were full of interesting portraits, among which I noticed
those of the Duke of Alva, Machiavelli, the great Elector,
the two beautiful Mancinis, Mazarin's nieces, and the old
Dessauer at all ages. There was also a portrait of Shakes-
speare about which I should have liked to know more, and
of course Catherine of Russia, who was an Anhalt of Zerbst.
Of that large-hearted and unquiet empress many tales have
been told. There is one which I would rescue from oblivion.
BERLIN, 1885-1886
91
It was her habit on warm spring evenings in Russia to walk
with her ladies in the private gardens of the Summer Palace.
Her observant eye had noticed on several successive evenings
that the youngest and comeliest of these made a point of
passing last through a certain little gateway and exchanging
signs of confidence with the royal page whose duty it was to
stand on guard there. Accordingly one night when they
had remained late and it was very dark, she ordered all her
ladies to precede her, and herself passed last through the
garden gateway. The page awaiting the accustomed oppor¬
tunity, as he closed the gate and followed, gave the last
veiled figure a genial pinch from behind, whereupon the
Empress, turning round upon him, exclaimed with a little
scream : " Insolent! Declarez-vous ! " The page, with
ready presence of mind, replied, "Si voire Majeste a le coeur
aussi dur que son derriere, je suis perdu." He was forgiven
and promoted.
After lunch we took our leave and left for Berlin with a
pleasant memory of the Duke of Anhalt, the green diluvial
meadows of the Elbe and Mulde, and the patriarchal life of
the reigning family among a loyal and contented people.
This visit was followed by another to Brunswick. But
the procedure of one small court resembled that of another
and one description will suffice. Their ceremonial and eti¬
quette was quite as elaborate, if not more so, than that of
Berlin, and it could not be disregraded with impunity.
Count Mons, who was afterwards Ambassador in Rome
when I was counsellor there, had been Minister resident at
Oldenburg. The Grand Duchess once perceived him from
an upper window arriving at the Palace in a soft hat and a
dust coat, under which he concealed the regulation frock-
coat, which was de rigueur for an audience. She instructed
her chamberlain to tell him that it would be more becoming
to present himself at the palace in a silk hat. The chamber¬
lain did not much appreciate tackling Count Mons, who was
known to have a mordant tongue. However, there was no
escape, and he had to approach the subject of the hat, which
92 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
he did deprecatingly, observing, " Yon know, my dear Count,
how particular they are at these little Courts." "Yes," said
Mons} " I know, but ' Kleiner Hof Kleiner Hut!' " (Little
hats for little Courts !)
Sir Robert Morier, our Ambassador in Russia, stayed a
day or two at the Embassy on his way to St. Petersburg.
There was an ancient feud between him and Bismarck,
dating especially from 1870 when Morier was at Darmstadt,
and due to his intimacy with some of the great man's
rivals. He had also fallen out with Count Herbert at
Munich. The latter said that Morier had behaved abomin¬
ably in publicly taking Arnim's part against his father.
Morier, on the other hand, said that Count Herbert had
behaved abominably in quarrelling with him because he had
invited Arnim, who was an old friend, to dinner when the
latter was passing through Munich. Malet thought the
opportunity should be taken of reconciling them and in¬
vited Count Herbert to meet him at dinner. At the last
moment, however, Morier was sent for by the Crown Princess,
and when he returned after dinner Herbert Bismarck had
already left. So the occasion went by and the old feud was
recalled in a very unpleasant manner not long afterwards.
I never served under Morier, but I saw him from time to
time on his way through Berlin and had several interesting
conversations with him which made me respect his lucid and
vigorous power of expression. He was a big man intellectu¬
ally as well as physically, and a formidable antagonist. In
Russia he strenuously upheld British interests during the
dispute over the Pamirs with a vigour which almost scared
the authorities at home. It was reported that the Queen, on
whom certain family interests had perhaps been brought to
bear, once suggested to Lord Iddesleigh, during the latter's
brief tenure of the Foreign Office in 1886-87, that Morier
might be transferred to another field of activity, and. failing
to elicit a response, had suggested that he would make a
strong Governor of a Colony. " But which of your Majesty's
Colonies," inquired Lord Iddesleigh, "is your Majesty
BERLIN, 1885-1886
93
prepared to lose ? " Morier nevertheless succeeded in estab¬
lishing a remarkable position for himself in St. Petersburg,
where he was eventually appreciated and trusted. The
consistent hostility towards him of the Bismarcks probably
contributed not a little to enhance his popularity as Russo-
German cordiality began to wane.
In November Matthew Arnold came to Berlin to stay some
weeks and prepare a report on education in Germany. The
unmarried secretaries at the Embassy had at that time a
little mess for luncheon at Langlet's, an excellent restaurant
kept by a Frenchman, at the corner of the Wilhelm Strasse
and the Linden, almost next door to the Embassy, and we
at once invited the poet to become an honorary member.
He lunched with us there nearly every day and we became
the greatest friends. We took him to stay at Gorlsdorf, the
hospitable house of Count Redern, well known in England
in the 'seventies. We induced him to accompany us to the
plays and the opera, and the great man renewed his youth
and entered into all our combinations. Matthew Arnold
was fully conscious of his own value and possessed what the
Irishman prayed the Lord to give him, " a good conceit of
himself " in no small measure, but he was a very lovable man,
and I at any rate felt greatly flattered by his friendship.
The world had not treated him too kindly, or rather he would
never give the world a chance of doing so, for he could not
condescend to nonconformist and philistine mentality or
" do without contempt." It has always been a pleasure to
me to know, as I heard afterwards from his two delightful
daughters, that he had greatly enjoyed his stay in Berlin and
talked of it with genuine pleasure. One day a slight mis¬
adventure befell. We were under the impression that he
had gone away for two or three days on a round of inspection.
One of our party had invited two extremely smart and
amusing French demi-mondaines, who were passing through
Berlin, to the mess, parenthetically a quite irregular pro¬
ceeding, though the mess had no strict rules or precedents.
We had just sat down to table when the door of our Cabinet
94 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
particulier opened and Matthew walked smilingly in. Ex¬
planations were useless as well as impossible, and a chair
was placed between the two ladies for " le cher poete," and
as one of them was well known for her brilliant wit, the meal
was hilarious. His French accent was not by any means
equal to his knowledge of French literature, but he struggled
manfully and I am quite sure he enjoyed himself. As we
strolled away together he put a hand on my shoulder and
observed in the grand manner: " Most amusing ! But
really I cannot imagine that Aspasia and Phryne were quite
like that." The episode evidently remained in his memory,
for a month or so after his departure I received a letter
from the Athenaeum, announcing his return to Berlin early
in 1886, and adding : " I hope those Sirens, both the silent
and the noisy one, have long since departed, and that your
luncheons are such as the Bishop and I can approve,"
I took him to the Reichstag. The Chancellor spoke, but
that day his voice was almost inaudible. There was a
battle royal between him and his bitter antagonist Windhorst,
the Catholic and Hanoverian. The latter ended his speech
with the words: " People would say that the Government of
the late King of Prussia had been pleasanter to live under
than the actual Government of Prince Bismarck." These
words brought the Chancellor to his feet. They were, he
said, a deadly insult to himself and to the Emperor,
whose humble and loyal servant he tried to be. He
referred to his own increasing years and failing health, and
deplored that he should come to the Reichstag only to
be affronted. It was not long after this that Bucher in
the Grenzboten, and according to Busch at the Chancellor's
suggestion, compared Windhorst and Gladstone in an article
entitled " Diminishers of the Realm."
Little more than two years later I learned with deep regret
of the sudden death of Matthew Arnold at Liverpool, whither
he had gone to meet his daughter, who was arriving from
America. He went out full of life and spirits into the
bright April day and walked a little, when suddenly the
BERLIN, 1885-1886
95
" cabined ample spirit fluttered and failed for breath," and
he fell forward dead. He was only sixty-six. The last
time I had seen him we had met in the Strand, and walked
some way together. He enlarged in his spacious manner on
the delights of London and the pleasure he took in sauntering
through the streets and watching the life of the great city.
More than thirty years have passed since we foregathered
in Berlin, and my admiration for his poetry has grown and
grown ; so that it is to him and to Browning that I most
often turn as the years increase, to the great optimist of
life for encouragement, and then back to the delicate music
of Arnold, which brings " the eternal note of sadness in."
At the beginning of December there came a rather dis¬
quieting telegram regarding Lady Ermyntrude Malet's
health, followed at once by a very alarming one from the
Queen, which I deciphered. I broke to the Ambassador as
much of it as seemed necessary, and we left for England
that night. Fortunately before the train left better news
had arrived. While in London I passed my examination
in International Law, which was a preliminary condition
to receiving £250 a year instead of £150, which remained
the normal scale of pay for a third secretary until the other
day. I remember on the way back to Berlin via Paris,
witnessing one of the many revelations of my chief's kind¬
ness of heart. A young Englishman was travelling with a
spaniel which he tried to take with him in the train. No
difficulty was made by the railway personnel, but an old
gentleman objected, and the dog was being reluctantly
dragged off to the guard's van, when Malet intervened—•
we had a reserved coupe—and offered the dog hospitality.
He lay quietly at our feet all the way to Paris. Many pages
could easily be filled with stories of his kindness and con¬
sideration, and I for one owe him an everlasting debt of
gratitude. He taught me the business of my profession,
but he did much more than that. He insisted on the human
relation in official life, deprecated the superior answer and
the bureaucratic manner, and made me see that it was my
96 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
duty, if I had the opportunity, to help every one to the best
of my ability. He always took an interest in the little black-
hooded black-faced chimney sweepers' boys, who figure in
Hans Andersen's tales, and who in Berlin always accompanied
the sweepers at their work, and he instituted an annual
dinner for these apprentices. That also no doubt is one of
the little amenities of life which the war will have swept away.
He had always retained a boyish quality himself. A story
he used to tell of an Eton experience was very characteristic
of the two men whom it concerned. On the 4th of June
Lord Brougham, his step-grandfather, drove down his coach,
on which Malet and an elder brother joined him. " Boys
must be tipped," said Lord Brougham, " here's half a crown
for you," and he gave each of them a coin wrapped up in
a bit of paper. When they opened the paper the coin proved
to be a penny, and Brougham roared with laughter at their
discomfiture. However, Alfred Montgomery, who was also
on the coach, said: " Well, boys, I am not so rich as Lord
Brougham, but I can afford a shilling," and he gave them
each another coin, also wrapped up in paper, which turned
out to be a sovereign.
There was a curious side to Malet's character. He took
an almost naive pleasure in simple amusements and he was
very easily touched to a sense of pity for human things. But
he never allowed himself to grow enthusiastic over anything,
nor did he seem to me to have a very strong grip on life. In
fact I remember his saying one day,—it is true that this was
before he was married—that if he could without incon¬
venience to anyone, just by walking through a door, pass
out of the world also, he would as soon do so as not. I do
not think he had in him any trace of superstition or of
mysticism, and yet in one point he admitted that he had
been affected by an influence which does not generally appeal
to the sceptical temperament. He had gone many years
before, rather out of curiosity, to see the famous French
expert in palmistry, Desbarolles, who had no idea of his
identity. Malet had just been in charge at Constantinople,
BERLIN, 1885-1886
97
where many interesting things had happened. Desbarolles
told him so much about himself and his recent experiences
that he was impressed and he asked the palmist whether there
were any tendencies of character indicated in his hand to
which he ought to give attention. Desbarolles told him that
he was diffident of his own judgment, and that so far from
this being justified his judgment was sound and he ought
always to act upon his first impression or impulse, because
it was almost sure to be right. Malet said that he thought
a good deal about this advice, and came to the conclusion
that it was warranted and that he had been inclined to
mistrust himself and revise his decisions. So he put it
into practice ever after and had had no occasion to regret
doing so.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Emperor's accession
to the throne of Prussia fell on the 25th of January, 1886.
Lord Wolseley was sent as special envoy to Berlin to carry
the Queen's congratulations, to the delight of Colonel Swaine,
the military attache, who had been with him in Egypt and
was one of his oldest friends. He stayed at the Embassy.
I was not present at the ceremonial defile, when the Emperor
embraced Bismarck and Moltke. But the chief told me of
an amusing episode which occurred. Bismarck was anxious
to see Wolseley, and the Ambassador was on the point of
presenting him, when the Turkish Ambassador, who was
standing alongside, slipped between them, and the Chancellor,
who was evidently rather absent, took him for Wolseley and
said, " I see you preserve your oriental appearance ! " An
interview was, however, arranged later. Bismarck on that
occasion apparently spoke with great frankness. He said
that Germany could not afford to do otherwise than to keep
well with Russia, but that he would always be ready to
support us against France. One curious point which he
mentioned was that Napoleon III had asked his advice
before the Italian campaign of 1859. He had, however,
never mentioned the matter until after the ex-Emperor's
death. With reference to that campaign Strachey, our
H
98 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Minister at Dresden, told me an interesting story. Cavour
said one day to Sir James Hudson, our representative at
Turin: "We can now be quiet and wait patiently ; the
Emperor is coming." Hudson asked him how he came to be
so confident of this. Cavour for answer handed him a paper
containing a letter from Orsini, then in prison and under
sentence of death for the attempted assassination of Napoleon
III. It seems that the Emperor had sent his minister Pietri
to visit him in prison. Pietri quite got round Orsini, and in¬
duced him to write a letter confirming the good intentions of
the Emperor, who was only awaiting an opportune moment.
If, however, Italian agitators continued to attempt his life
it would make it impossible for him to move. The letter
was genuine. Orsini knew that he could not be reprieved,
but he was induced to write as he did for the sake of the cause.
During Lord Wolseley's visit we had a big military dinner
at the Embassy, to which all the principal generals at that
time in Berlin were invited. Moltke unfortunately was
prevented by an old engagement from accepting. The
arrangement of the table and the relative precedence of all
these military mandarins gave me endless trouble. We
were, I think, thirty-six in all. Herbert Bismarck arrived
a quarter of an hour late and, on being shown his seat next
to the Ambassador, studied the plan and saw the name of
the German general who was to be his neighbour on the left.
"You must change that place," he said. I protested that
this would mean moving every one and that we were already
late. He said he could not help it; he would not sit next
to a man who—and then proceeded with his habitual unre-
ticence to give the reason in the crudest terms. In despera¬
tion I went to the dining-room and, keeping my head,
rapidly made such dispositions as were possible to modify
the table without doing too much violence to the order of
precedence, to which so much importance was attached in
Germany. Of course the general who was to have sat next
to the Foreign Secretary was surprised to find his card
transferred elsewhere, and I had to take it on myself and
BERLIN, 1885-1886
99
regret that I had indicated the wrong place to him. After
dinner Herbert casually observed to me : " After all, it was not
necessary to have changed the places. It was not that man
to whom I objected, but another who has the same name."
Wolseley made an excellent impression in Berlin and was
allowed to accept the grand cross of the Red Eagle by an
exceptional authorization rare in the days of Queen Victoria.
It was during this and the previous year that the Balkan
question first began to bulk large in my official experience,
and thereafter remained a permanent and fertile source of
preoccupation. The union of Eastern Roumelia and Bul¬
garia in September, 1885, was a triumph for the anti-Russian
party. The war between Servia and Bulgaria ended with
the complete discomfiture of the former and Prince Alexander
of Battenberg became an heroic figure. There was much
rumour of a marriage alliance which the Crown Princess was
said ardently to desire, and which Bismarck would not hear
of, having always in view the urgent importance of friendly
relations with Russia. There was the scandalous plot to
kidnap and depose the Prince, who was transforming Bul¬
garia into a powerful state, strong enough to defy his former
Russian protector, followed by his restoration and his
subsequent resignation in August, 1886. Then Greece filled
the horizon, and the Greek blockade. But I do not propose
as a rule to deal with any but personal reminiscences, and as
yet the Balkans were only known to me through official
correspondence. At the end of January I went for a fort¬
night to Italy. On my return I found Lord Edward Cecil,
of whom I was to see much in after years, rubbing up his
German in Berlin before beginning life in the army.
At this time Panoramas were much in vogue. They have
now been killed by the Cinematograph. But there was a
lot of clever work in them. In Berlin there was a Panorama
representing incidents of the war of 1870, in which Bismarck
on horseback was portrayed riding up to the carriage of
Napoleon III. The Chancellor said he had been obliged
to send a letter to the proprietors telling them that they
100 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
had altogether wrongly presented the scene of that dramatic
interview. What had really happened was that as soon as
he saw the Emperor's carriage he dismounted and let his
horse go, advancing to meet him on foot. He would never
have ridden up in the aggressive manner in which he had
been painted. " But," said he, " a sort of rabid patriotism
misrepresented the business, and gave me credit for a piece
of rudeness of which I am incapable."
George von Bunsen, a man wonderfully clear-headed and
wise with much learning, endowed with a remarkable faculty
of expressing his thoughts lucidly, used to reveal to me the
other side of the Bismarckian medal. He always spoke in
terms of great moderation, but one was conscious of a certain
bitterness in a man who was practically ostracized from a
social world which only admitted one school of politics.
Twenty years earlier, he said, he and those who belonged to
his group had great hopes for Germany. He had tried to
form a party of men who had time and means at their
disposal, and who would devote themselves to public
service as men of the same social standing did in England.
He had found many ready to co-operate. But the Bis¬
marckian ascendancy had crushed any such initiative.
Everything which did not proceed from and rest upon the
State and upon paternal government was discouraged, and
there was no room for such a sphere of activity. One of
the sinister effects of the prevailing regime was the deteriora¬
tion of the Civil Service. Twenty years earlier the Prussian
Civil Service had been the best in the world, the most public-
spirited. Its members devoted all their energies to develop¬
ing the resources of a poor country, and forgot themselves
in their work, in which they took pride. But the men who
had left the Universities since the first great Prussian suc¬
cess in 1866 were inspired by quite other ideas. Personal
advancement at any cost was now the only aim of their
emulation. There was a tendency to ride roughshod over
every one, and to treat every questioner as a person who had
no right to presume to an opinion. These were unfortun-
BERLIN, 1885-1886
101
ately the men with whom the Crown Prince would have to
govern.
On the 24th of April a telegram from George Curzon
reached me with these words: "Laura died this morning."
Her boy was born on the 17th and she never really rallied.
To how many of us did it seem on that sad morning that
" Glory and loveliness have passed away " and that the world
was infinitely poorer. Since the days when religious fervour
canonized certain gracious ephemeral presences, the legend
of whose gentle charm abides, it can seldom have happened
that so young a life should in three or four years have cast
such a spell over old and young, over the quickest and the
keenest intelligences, as well as over the humble and obscure
The tragedy of it is vivid to me still after five-and-thirty
years. The gods had loved her too well. Perhaps no one
better than Mr. Gladstone in his beautiful letter to Alfred
Lyttelton summed up what had been, when he wrote that
life was to be measured not by time but by intensity, and
that in her few years she had probably lived as much and
more than other lives which are prolonged to the allotted
term. From those who knew and loved her, as from those
who had only known of her by report, I never heard one word
of criticism, though her life was unconventional and eman¬
cipated beyond the spirit of those days. There was a Tight¬
ness and a grace in every spontaneous act and gesture, and
never "anything a man might blame." It seems she had
anticipated that the crowning experience of motherhood
might be her last, and had written a series of wonderful
messages to her friends. To me as one of the first whom she
had known intimately there came a very touching meessage,
which Alfred sent me in a letter which tore the heart. " I
leave Rennell Rodd my Browning and my Blake. He taught
me to love Browning and I am full of gratitude." There
followed a touching message commending to my affection the
child that was still unborn, which seems to suggest a pre¬
monition that she would not survive the ordeal. I feel it is
of too intimate a character to quote. Little Christopher,
102 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
however, only survived for a brief stage the radiant being
who awaited him where " Love not wisdom watches at the
Gate."
In addition to my normal work and my duties as private
secretary I devoted all my spare time at this period to a
voluminous report on the German administrative system,
and later to another on the insurance of seamen, the first
instalment of a comprehensive scheme of working men's
insurance included in Bismarck's state socialistic programme-
The obligation of juniors interested in their profession to
prepare voluntary reports on matters of public interest in
foreign countries seems to have fallen of late years rather
into abeyance. It is true that for many years past current
work has been so heavy that little time has remained for
special studies. But the practice was no doubt valuable.
Research and inquiry brought the younger secretaries into
contact with officials and representative men, and entailed
a certain exploration of the country in which they were
posted. A report, moreover, supplying information on the
foreign treatment of questions which were engaging public
attention at home, if efficiently prepared, ensured a good
mark to the writer. I was interested to see how much space
in the press was devoted to my reports, which were published
as official papers.
It was a standing custom that the whole staff of the
Embassy should dine on the Queen's birthday with the
Crown Prince and Princess at Wildpark. This year (1886)
the old Emperor was present at the dinner. He appeared
to have taken a new lease of life and was in excellent health
and spirits.
In June of the same year took place the tragic and
dramatic death of Ludwig of Bavaria, the mad king. Malet
was sent to Munich to represent the Queen at the funeral,
and I, as usual, accompanied him. All sorts of stories
were current as regards the King's death, and it remained
shrouded in uncertainty. He had been for some time
placed under restraint and constantly attended by a doctor.
BERLIN, 1885-1886
103
His brother Otto, who had from the first been kept under
supervision, was reported once to have observed that he
himself had lucid intervals, but that Ludwig was always
mad. There was, however, method and something more
in his madness. Like Nero he was an artist by temperament,
and a great patron of art. Wagner owed everything to
his encouragement and support, and his conceptions were
magnificent if inconsistent with modern ideas and resources.
His hero was Louis XIV. I remember the Crown Prince
telling me that he went to see him at the moment when
war with France had become inevitable, and found him
quite reasonable and sound on the political issue which
they had to discuss, but really much more interested in a
monument which he had just erected to the memory of
the Roi Soleil than in actual and vital issues. His extra¬
vagances in expenditure, and apparently also his personal
violence, made it inevitable that he should be placed under
some restraint, and a regent was appointed in his uncle
Leutpold, who eventually, after the death of Otto, became
King.
Under the circumstances it seems strange that he should
have been confined on the borders of a lake. It will be
remembered that he was drowned at no great distance
from the shore, and that the body of Gudden, the doctor
who was in charge of him, was also found in quite shallow
water. The explanation which obtained general acceptance
at the time was that he had attempted to escape by
swimming across the lake, and it was even rumoured that
his cousin the Empress of Austria had a carriage waiting
for him at a spot indicated outside the park But the
probabilities pointed rather to suicide. He had already
tried to obtain a poison. He was a big and very powerful
man, and there seemed to be no doubt that he killed the
doctor, who had probably followed him into the shallow
water and tried to hold him back Drummond, our Minister
in Munich, who saw the bodies the morning after they were
recovered, told me that Gudden had been struck on the
104 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
head with a heavy stone. If the stories told in Munich
could be credited, there had been other victims of his
violence. He had an unbalanced sense of his own greatness
and absoluteness A mania for solitude grew upon him
and he resented any intrusion on his privacy. On the other
hand, he was friendly and affable to those in humbler life.
There were also stories of a more sinister character current.
He was undoubtedly a man of many and remarkable gifts,
and an instance of how nearly great wit and madness are
allied.
The Ambassador walked in the funeral procession, which
I witnessed from the house of Sir Henry Howard, the
former British Minister, who, after his retirement, had
adopted Munich as his home. A very picturesque feature
were the groups of the various religious orders in their
old-world dress. The Crown Prince Frederick, who followed
the bier with the Archduke Rudolph, carried his baton of
field-marshal. The ceremony in the church lost much by
the absence of any music from organ or instrument, and
the intoning of the bishops and canons without accompani¬
ment sounded harsh. A magnificent catafalque had been
erected to receive the coffin, and a shield bore the inscription:
" Ludwig von Bayern Pfalzgraf am Rhein."
We obtained permission to go to Chiemsee and visit
the new and even more sumptuous Versailles which he
had been for many years building on an island in the lake.
The main feature were all reproduced, the Galerie des Glaces,
which, if I am not mistaken, was of even larger proportions
than the original, the Oeil de Boeuf and the bedroom of
state. The magnificent staircase was, however, original.
He had last been there some nine months before, and no
work had been done since. The fountains had only played
once. Before our visit, with the exception of the workmen
and architects actually engaged in construction, only some
half dozen people had been allowed to see the palace, and
even the objects which were being made for it were shown
to no one. A million had already been spent there and it
BERLIN, 1885-1886
105
would have cost another to complete it. Hardly less
fantastically extravagant was the castle of romance which
he had constructed at Neuschwanstein. His commanding
presence and handsome face, his artistic impulses and his
solitary and uncanny life, had long interested the world
in this strange figure of a King whose tragic death remains
shrouded in mystery. He will live in the legends of the
mountain people who were long unwilling to believe that
he was really dead.
I spent a month at home in July and August and accom¬
panied George Leveson Gower during the last days of his
election campaign round Staffordshire, where he was beaten
by some 800 votes after having been elected with a majority
of 1,300 only a year before. Mr. Gladstone's decision in
favour of Home Rule for Ireland had roused great bitterness
in the country. It was an old age conversion. Years
afterwards Lord Cromer told me that when he himself
thought of entering political life as a Liberal he had con¬
sulted Gladstone, who advised him against doing so, on
the ground that there was no further special work for the
Liberal party to do after the electoral Reform Bills. But
Gladstone was bound to find some new outlet for the energy
which years had not impaired, and he entered on the new
struggle with ardour and even violence. One night at
dinner at Sir Charles Tennant's house he almost shouted :
" It has fallen to my lot to teach this nation several lessons.
They are very slow to learn, but so help me God, I will
make them learn this lesson too." I paid a very pleasant
visit to Knebworth, to the Lyttons, who had a large party ;
Count Hatzfeldt was there, Lady Galloway, Lady Airlie,
Rowton, Cranbourne, Reggie Lister and many more.
Lytton talked to me long about literature. Not quite
consistently with his former remarks on plagiarism he said
that he looked always for the indictum ore alieno. It
mattered not so much how a thing was said, but let there
be some thing to say, or say nothing. And this reminds
me of one of the keenest sayings of Wilde which was being
106 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
quoted about that time. Lewis Morris, who had had a
certain success with his Epic of Hades, produced another
book of poems, which to his great annoyance was left
almost unnoticed by the critics and the literary world,
apparently just because he had little or nothing to say.
He was complaining to Wilde of the neglect his latest work
had encountered and said: " There seems to be a conspiracy
of silence. What ought I to do ? " " Join it," said Wilde.
At the beginning of September I accompanied the
Leveson Gowers, father and son, and Shoobridge for a day
or two to Munich, whence we went on to Tegernsee, where
Mr. Gladstone was staying with Countess Arco and Lord
Acton. Dr. Dollinger was also there. Though nearing his
eightieth year Dollinger still bathed every day in the lake,
and ate only one modest meal. He was, however, too deaf
to join in any general conversation. S. and I stayed at
the inn, but went to the villa for our meals. I noticed in
Mr. Gladstone a sympathetic attitude of courtesy when he
spoke to Dollinger in English, a thoughtful way of correcting
his own sentence into simpler language, if it had been a
little obscure. It is one of the failings of our countrymen
abroad when speaking their own language, and those who
spoke any other with facility were then rare, that whether
from want of imagination or thoughtfulness they take no
particular pains to simplify their sentences, but even use
colloquialisms, which a foreigner can hardly be expected to
follow.
Mr. Gladstone talked to us much about John Stuart
Mill. He said of him what I should think was very true,
that his mind was so intently fixed upon the subject with
which he was dealing that he was quite unaffected by the
personality of the individual to whom he might be talking.
He never lost his temper however fiercely he might be
attacked. " I was so fond of him," he said, " that I never
noticed his defects, if he had any." It rather amused us to
hear him refer to a certain Mr. Grenville as having been the
" Grandest old man in London." He surely cannot have
BERLIN, 1885-1886
107
been unconscious that he was himself popularly known as
the G.O.M. Reminiscences of Eton occupied us one evening
at dinner. Eton was very pagan in his day, he said ; the
boys went to chapel but took no prayer books with them,
except on Sundays. One, Milnes Gaskell, who was seen
with a prayer book on a Saturday was taunted with being
a Methodist. When, however, determined to do the right
thing, he went to chapel on Sunday without one, he was
proclaimed an Atheist. The famous Dr. Keate was only
five feet high and had to flog himself into respect. Mr. G.
chuckled over the well-known story of how by some accident
the confirmation list was substituted for the flogging-list,
and Keate accordingly flogged all the candidates, observing
when he learned his error that they would no doubt deserve
it some other day. Lord Acton never took the initiative
in conversation, but he had the charm of a great intellect,
untroubled by the storm of public life, and vast as his
knowledge was he seemed diffident in pronouncing judg¬
ments. When two such men meet they react on one another,
and it was a privilege to hear them talk.
An unusual number of English visitors came to Berlin
that autumn. One of these Sir George Bowen, who admitted
that he had reached the stage of anecdotage; nevertheless
he showed his sense of the a, propos by telling Herbert
Bismarck a story at dinner at the Embassy which pleased
him immensely. Conversing one day with Li Hung Chang,
Bowen had discovered that they were both born in the year
in which Napoleon died. " Nature," said Sir George,
" abhors a vacuum and having removed Napoleon sub¬
stituted Li Hung Chang." The latter acknowledged the
compliment, but observed that it had been his ambition
to be not the Napoleon but the Bismarck of his country.
Some years later I met Sir G. Bowen again in Athens.
He had aged considerably and was as full as ever of stories,
but with an aggravated tendency to tell the same one over
again. One evening at dinner at the Legation he had just
told the table the same story twice—the second time after
108 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
a very brief interval. Whereupon George Curzon, who was
also dining there, with a perfectly serious face, told him
his own story back. Bowen listened without the slightest
trace of surprise and said he could guarantee the accuracy
of the facts. King George of Greece, in whose honour the
dinner was given, could not keep his countenance.
Lord Leighton also came to Berlin for the closing of the
Art Exhibition. He was a great favourite of the Crown
Princess. A little incident which happened one day when
we were both lunching with her reveals what a first-rate
linguist he was. We were talking German, and I had made
use of a word to convey a certain conception, which amused
the Germans because they said that though it was quite a
good word to have coined and very expressive, it did not
really exist in the language. Leighton, with all deference,
submitted that it was not only a possible but a recognized
word, and a reference to the authoritative dictionary proved
him to be right. He was a man of singular charm, whom I
always looked upon as having led an ideally happy life.
Not only was he glorious to look upon, whether in the
Apollo stage of youth, the Zeus-like phase of middle age,
or the shaggier Poseidon presentment of later years, but
he was so variously gifted as to be " not one but all the
arts' epitome." Of course, my friend Whistler with his
bitter tongue could not spare him. A lady one day was
enlarging enthusiastically on his many accomplishments.
He could make a speech in four languages, he was a great
critic, and a remarkable musician. " Paints too, don't he ? "
said Whistler.
Clinton Dawkins also paid me a visit in November. He
had been to Venice and happened to be at the island of
Burano when a monument was being unveiled to Galuppi,
the composer. The Mayor made the panegyric oration, in
the course of which he said that Burano was only a small
island in a very wide world, and that its eminent son,
Baldassare Galuppi, would hardly perhaps have achieved
his universal renown had it not been for the English poet
BERLIN, 1885-1886
109
who had sung his fame and made him known wherever the
English language was spoken. Whereupon he dived into
the crowd and, amid the cheers of the assembly, drew forward
and set in their midst the " illustre Roberto Browning."
It must have been about this time or soon after, when
Lord Salisbury had returned to the Foreign Office, that
diplomatic secretaries who were next on the list for promo¬
tion were made very indignant by the bestowal of the post
of Secretary of Embassy, now called Counsellor, at Vienna
on the military attache, whose term of employment was
running out. A question asked in Parliament on the
subject extracted the superior reply that the military attache
has been appointed because no one else was so well qualified
to fill the post. A few weeks later he ran away with a very
popular and charming dancer, and we felt that the Service
was avenged.
The Chancellor in these days lost no opportunity of
dwelling on the necessity of maintaining Austria as a Power
in Europe in order to preserve the equilibrium. He had in
1866 insisted on that policy in opposition to the King of
Prussia and all the military party. He was no longer so
sure of Russia under Alexander III as he had been in the
days of his predecessor. Russian military preparations
were regarded with grave suspicion, and in spite of his
counter-insurance treaty of 1884 with Russia the Chancellor
sought to draw the Tories into a Mediterranean under¬
standing with Italy and Austria. The Boulanger movement
in France was beginning to cause him apprehension. A new
Army Bill was rejected by the Reichstag, which asserted a
view of the Constitution differing radically from Bismarck's,
and it was accordingly dissolved. Early in 1887 he repeated
to Malet that Germany would not attack France, nor would
France attack Germany so long as the actual French
Ministry remained in office. But Boulanger had involved
himself in grave pledges, and had wanted to send 50,000
men to the frontier during the trumpery Schnabele incident.
Germany would not mind if war was forced upon her by a
110 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
French attack, and Russia would not move. In February,
Prince Hohenlohe, the Governor of Alsace-Lorraine, made
a speech to the Provincial Committee which caused a
sensation. The statement that Germany might be forced
to attack France owing to the menace of a turbulent
minority, could evidently not have been made without
authority. Pressure had no doubt to be exerted to ensure
that the new Reichstag would pass the Army Bill. But the
manner of exerting it made Germany, and not France,
appear to be the provocative party.
On the 22nd March, 1887, the venerable Emperor com¬
pleted his ninetieth year, which began auspiciously, as the
Government at last obtained a majority in the Reichstag.
Nearly all the German Sovereigns assembled in Berlin for
the occasion or sent representatives. The Prince of Wales
arrived on the 20th. I had been specially retained to
conduct a mechanical waxwork show at Count Radolinski's,
with a new and original dialogue prepared for the occasion.
All the younger elements in Berlin Society took part in
it, and as nothing of the kind had ever been done there
before, it was an immense success of hilarity. Most of the
traditional public characters in Berlin life were represented
and duly wound up, but we had to be very careful not to
introduce any items in the programme savouring of Use
majeste as the audience was largely composed of monarchs
and heirs-apparent. Sir Arthur Sullivan, who had come for
a performance of the " Golden Legend," conducted the
music for a scene from the " Mikado," which had just then
taken Berlin by storm. A night or two afterwards I went
to a very merry supper at Herbert Bismarck's. He had
engaged a music-hall singer to entertain us, whose repertoire
was even more than suggestive. Prince William stood just
outside the door, as if disapproving, and withdrew early.
The rest of the party, some twenty-six in all, remained
till after three a.m.
Towards the end of the month Austen Chamberlain paid
a visit to Berlin and foregathered with us. Looking back
BERLIN, 1885-1886
111
on that first meeting thirty-five years ago, and seeing him
after brief intervals repeatedly through the intervening
years until the present day with a splendid record behind
him, I realize that of all my friends of youth no one has
changed so little since we met in my rooms in Berlin in
the year of grace 1887.
In April I renewed the precedent of spending a portion
of my leave in Italy, where I joined my family. In Florence
I found my old Oxford friend, Rhoda Broughton, whom I
also met again in Venice. I had not been there since '66,
when the white-coated Austrian band was still playing in
the piazza of St. Mark.
The situation with France improved under a Rouvier
Government, and Flourens, who had saved the situation
during the Schnabele incident, remained at the Foreign
Office. Peace, therefore, seemed assured. The Grand
Fran£ais, Lesseps, paid a visit to Berlin in the spring. He
had grown very old and rather lost his head when talking
to the Crown Princess. He launched out into the most
violent abuse of Great Britain. " Ceus gueux d'anglais,"
he said, "nous allons bientot les chasserdel'Egypte." The
Crown Princess listened patiently, and when he had finished
his tirade said very quietly : " Tres interessant, Monsieur,
tout ce que vous venez de me dire, mais n'oubliez pas que
je suis une princesse anglaise " !
During the winter the health of the Crown Prince had
given rise to considerable anxiety. He could not shake off
a long-standing hoarseness which was at first ascribed to a
polypus in the throat, and some months in the South had
led to no improvement.
CHAPTER IV
BERLIN, 1887-1888
. The slowly awakening consciousness of rivalry or
incompatibility of temperament between Germany and
Great Britain received a much greater stimulus at a critical
moment than has been generally appreciated in our historical
retrospects from circumstances which arose out of the
illness of the Crown Prince, from the rivalry of the various
medical authorities, and the part played by, or attributed
to, the Crown Princess. Having watched from a post of
vantage the whole sequence of events until the tragic close
of the Emperor Frederick's unhappy three months' reign,
I nevertheless find it extremely difficult to arrive at a
fair and unprejudiced opinion as to the rights and wrongs of
the controversies which raged at the time, and it would be
more congenial to pass them by in silence. But a spirit
of justice and obligation to those that are gone impels me
to record certain incidents and evidences which came within
my experience, and which may be of value in correcting
misapprehensions.
In the first place, it can easily be demonstrated that on
one point, which formed the subject of constant misrepre¬
sentation in Germany, the view which found general accept¬
ance there was unfounded. The summoning of an English
doctor, Sir Morell Mackenzie, to report on the case was not
unnaturally attributed to the influence of the Crown
Princess. This presumption was not correct, however
welcome the choice may have been to her.
The Crown Prince had gone to Ems with his family in
April, 1887, to receive treatment for the throat. But
112
BERLIN, 1887-1888
113
no improvement resulted, and in May they returned to Berlin.
Late in that month the Crown Princess, who had consented
to act as godmother to the child of one of our Secretaries,
was to lunch after the ceremony at the Embassy. At the
last moment, owing to an aggravation in the symptoms of
the Crown Prince, it seemed uncertain whether she could
be present. She did, however, come, and was in a very
unnerved condition. She then told the Ambassador that
the doctors in attendance on the Crown Prince had decided
to extirpate the larynx, that there was to be an immediate
operation which was not without grave danger. Her reply
to a question of Sir Edward's as to the possibility of obtaining
a further opinion, expressing ignorance as to the best
existing authorities, made it clear that at that moment she
had not advocated the summoning of Mackenzie. Almost
immediately after this conversation Prince Bismarck camo
to see the Ambassador and told him that he had just
discovered that the doctors in charge were about to perform
a very serious operation on the heir-apparent without
consulting either the Emperor or his Chancellor,1 an operation
which would even in the most favourable circumstances
deprive him permanently of his voice. He spoke with
great heat of the presumption of the doctors who had
proposed to act without official warrant. He had laid his
objections before the Emperor, who had intervened, and,
before any final decision was taken, the best specialist
advice obtainable was to be called in. There were at the
time three eminent authorities on the throat in Europe,
but the choice lay between the Austrian and the British.
After consideration of their various qualifications the
British specialist, whose text-books on the throat were used
in German medical schools, had been selected. It was Sir
Morell Mackenzie. In view of these communications, of
which the Ambassador informed me immediately after they
1 This is confirmed in Bismarck's memoirs, where he states that
the doctors had not even intended to inform the Crown Prince him¬
self of the contemplated operation.
I
114 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
were made, it seems clear that the Crown Princess was in
no way responsible for the original summons. But when the
serious and fatal character of the disease was finally estab¬
lished, and the treatment of the case by Mackenzie was
violently criticized in Germany, she was universally repre¬
sented as having selected him, nor were those who knew
the facts chivalrous enough to correct the misapprehension.
How far the influence of the Crown Princess may have been
exerted later in retaining Mackenzie in permanent charge of
the case I cannot say. But it would have been less than
human if she had not strongly desired to have the services
of the specialist who, when called in by the highest authority
in the State, had declared the critical operation to be
unnecessary and had encouraged the hope of ultimate
recovery. On the other hand, it was hardly to be anticipated
that the overriding of the opinion of the German doctors
by that of a foreign expert would meet with unquestioning
acquiescence in Germany. Mackenzie removed a small
portion of tissue from the part of the throat affected, which
was submitted to the scientific analysis of the illustrious
physiologist, Virchow, who pronounced the growth not to
be of a malignant character. Mackenzie held that it could
be removed and that the voice need not be permanently
injured. The immediate effect of these announcements was
a general feeling of relief. But Professor Bergmann, who
had been in charge of the Crown Prince until Mackenzie's
arrival, did not alter his opinion. It was afterward^
asserted, when the medical controversy reached its bitterest
stage, that Mackenzie had taken the section for analysis
from the healthy and not from the diseased portion of the
throat, and he was accused of having done so deliberately
in order to secure a favourable verdict. In any case, for
some time after this experiment the accounts of the Crown
Prince's health became more reassuring, and he was able
to go with his family to England and later to Scotland,
and to take a prominent part in the celebration of the
Jubilee of Queen Victoria. There all eyes were centred
BERLIN, 1887-1888
115
upon him not less on account of his splendid presence as
he rode in the procession than because of the universal
sympathy felt for his position at a moment when the vitality
of the old Emperor was visibly declining. In the month of
June the Emperor had been seriously ill.
A few days after the circumstances referred to I dined
with Herbert Bismarck at a little party of eight which he
gave in honour of the American Ambassador, Mr. Pendleton.
No reference was made to the subject, but the occasion
remains memorable to me from the fact that as Mr. Pendleton
knew no other language, conversation throughout the
evening was carried on exclusively in English, and it
impressed me not a little that the six Germans present
should speak the language with such absolute facility.
Among them was Holstein, who eventually became the
Eminence grise of the German Foreign Office and who was
regarded as one of the ablest men in the public service.
In those days very few of the diplomatic body ever came
across him personally, for he never went into the world
and sought for no distinctions. Holstein claimed that he
was just an old bachelor, and wished to be treated as such.
But I believe that he had his distractions out of school.
He had been used by Bismarck in former times to keep his
rival Arnim under observation, and, though he had behaved
quite frankly and had warned Arnim as to his instructions,
he was no doubt sensible of a certain odium which attached
to such an ungrateful mission. On Bismarck's retirement
Holstein did not withdraw from public life ; he adhered to
the new regime, and refused an invitation to Count Herbert
Bismarck's farewell official dinner. Under Baron Marschall
von Bieberstein he became the dominant factor in the
Wilhelmstrasse, where he exercised a sinister influence
against any rapprochement with Great Britain. That
evening he made use of a rather suggestive phrase to me
when I was rallying him about his unsociability. He said
" Das Staatsleben hat mich als Mensch verdorben "—the
service of the State has spoiled me as a human being. These
116 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
words well described not a few of the old-fashioned civil
servants. They were extremely efficient, but inclined,
through the life they made for themselves, vivendi perdere
causas. The State or the profession absorbed men so wholly
that there seemed to be no room left for the amenities of
intercourse. The official of those days had become a member
of a privileged caste, and took his colour from the hierarchy
under which he served, behaving to the public rather as a
master than as a servant. I remember Bismarck saying one
day that the freedom of personal relations in England,
especially those between opposing political parties, was a
condition which he envied. In Germany it was not possible.
The professional and military classes were necessarily
antagonistic, and so long as Germany occupied a critical
position as the " middle-point " of Europe, surrounded by
enemies or doubtful friends, the military element must
continue to predominate. This attitude of mind seems to
account for much which later experience has revealed.
In July, 1887, I paid a fortnight's visit to England, and
found a number of my friends, who were now generally
designated as the Souls, engrossed in the study of Ethics,
with a young girl-gradute from Newnham lecturing to them.
They were discussing the most comprehensive problems of
philosophy with pleasant irresponsibility, though some of
them seemed very much in earnest. That young generation
of beautiful and clever women, the complement to a group
of brilliant men, whose unconstrained relations had broken
down many of the barriers of mid-Victorian convention,
were a remarkable manifestation of the last decades of the
nineteenth century, and in a wide experience of many
countries I have never met any section of society more
interesting or more charming. What remained of the old
conventions has now long disappeared and a new social
order has replaced it. But what has become of the quick
humour and the intellectual brilliancy which characterized
the first revolutionary movement ? I joined a delightful
party at Ashridge, where a certain number of the group
BERLIN, 1887-1888
117
were assembled as guests of the most ideal hosts of that
spacious old-world English life, together with others of the
old order for contrast, and among them my Oxford friend,
Rhoda Broughton. Harry Oust, who was there, seemed to
bear her no ill-will on account of a recent volume, the
much courted but not impeccable hero of which was
regarded by a number of friends as having a not wholly
accidental resemblance to himself.
After returning to Berlin I paid a brief visit to the fine
old house of the Konigsmarks at Plaue on the Havel,
where they showed me drawers full of letters from Maurice
de Saxe written to his mother, Aurora Konigsmark, in
French, not very decipherable, which I understood had
never been published or even examined from an historical
point of view. There was a portrait of Sophia Dorothea's
murdered lover, but I did not see any records of the gallant
captain of adventure who fought for Venice in Morosini's
great campaign against the Turks in Morea. He belonged,
it is true, to a Swedish branch of the family. The Am¬
bassador also took Reggie Lister and myself to Dresden
to see for the first time a complete performance of the
" Ring." Our visit was, however, quite a private one,
for we maintained a separate representative at the Court
of Saxony, and we only devoted ourselves to sightseeing.
I took a particular interest in the series of residential
pavilions constructed for the mistresses of the great lover
whom Carlyle has labelled as " Augustus the physically
strong." A former member of the Legation at Dresden
told me a pleasant story of the surprise and amusement of
the old King of Saxony at the unceremonious address of an
American traveller who had been invited to a ball at Court.
He had been duly presented at the cercle and, after watching
the proceedings for a while, he approached the sovereign
and observed : " You ain't dancing much, King. Let me
introduce my daughter. She don't know many people
here."
In the late autumn my old friend Sir William Richmond
118 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
arrived at the Embassy. He was to paint the portraits of
the Ambassador and Ambassadress, the former in full
dress uniform. We arranged an improvised lay figure to
hold the heavy gold embroidered coat and, the trouble
which it gave the artist reminded me of what Millais once
said about Watts : " A great artist, full of ideas and
imagination, but the trouble with him is that he has not
painted enough buttons in his life." If this formal portrait
was not one of Richmond's successes, he was a great success
himself, and Malet, who had an instinctive sympathy with
the unconventional and the Bohemian, asked Bismarck
to allow Richmond to paint him. The Chancellor not only
consented but invited him to stay at Friederichsruhe, a
privilege which few enjoyed. He was to go there for three
days, but he remained for ten and the family wished to
detain him even longer.
Richmond arrived about mid-day in November at the
ancient and rather cheerless house in the country of the
primeval Saxons, and was beginning to feel marooned in
his big room looking over a lake and the endless forest,
when he became aware of a tall black figure standing in
the doorway and then advancing to meet him, speaking
somewhat shyly in English. " Edward Malet," he said,
" whom I have known ever since he was a boy, when his
father was at Frankfort, has asked me to do this, and there
are few things he should ask me which I would not do for
him." Then he shook hands. The veteran statesman and
the artist at once got on famously. Malet was the link.
The Chancellor seemed really devoted to him and gave as
one of his reasons : " Edward Malet could not tell a lie,
not even a political one." This was, therefore, a quality
which he could admire—in others ! At lunch he said :
" I would like you to show me to the English people as I
really am, as a man of heart, whose self-control is all learned
and not by nature." One of the first lessons in disguising
his feelings he had learned, he said, when he was sent to
school at six by his mother, who was a hard, ambitious
BERLIN, 1887-1888
119
woman. He could still remember his home sickness and
his longing to return to his father. The schoolmaster found
him crying, but he would not tell the real reason, and said
he had a pain in his stomach.
The great dog which always accompanied the Chancellor
lay beside him on the floor during meals, and the great man
would toss anything for which he did not care from his
own plate to the Reichshund. The first evening Richmond
dressed for dinner. Bismarck, who was not dressed, looked
at him and said : "You have done us a great honour to
have dressed yourself for dinner. I have not in my possession
such a thing as a tail-coat. So I will ask you for the rest
of the time to excuse yourself the trouble of dressing."
There was a charming courtesy and a genial humanity in
the old man, where business of State was not concerned.
But, as I have found to be the case with the majority of
Prussian officials, there were two distinct personalities;
and, gracious and kindly as he might reveal himself to be
in private relations, the Chancellor in public affairs was
ruthless, inexorable and unscrupulous.
He would sit up long after dinner talking and smoking
his long-stemmed pipe. He asked innumerable questions
about England, where there was much that he did not
understand. He had his opinions regarding our politicians.
He described Gladstone as having the venom of eloquence.
"He cuts down trees," Bismarck said; "I try to plant
some." This seems to have been a favourite figure of speech
with him, for I remember his using it in conversation with
Malet, when the press had spoken of a possible visit of
Gladstone to Germany, and Malet asked him if he would
not be interested in meeting a statesman whose career had
run on contemporary lines to his own. " No," Bismarck
replied, " I would rather not meet him. I feel he would talk
me round against my will. Our respective attitudes in life
are diametrically opposed. He spends his time in cutting
down trees, and I in planting them." The observation had
its literal as well as its figurative significance.
120 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Besides the portrait head in oils in which he succeeded
in presenting the Chancellor in his more benevolent aspect,
Richmond did some extremely interesting pencil studies
of the veteran in his home life. Aften ten days he had to
return to finish his work in Berlin, where every one was
depressed and anxious at the grave reports from San Remo
of the Crown Prince's condition. In view of coming struggles
there was something suggestive in the words which the
Chancellor had used to Richmond: " When I was young I
was an arrogant egoist—but there was a fire within me,
and it is not quenched yet." The last night at dinner he
said : "I hope I shall live to see my ambition of forty years
realized, Germany with the strongest army in Europe,
quite unassailable; England with the strongest navy,
mistress of the seas ; the two nations together, and then
peace. To that let us drink ! " It is possible that these
glimpses of the Chancellor's private life have been recorded
elsewhere. As I made notes of them directly they were
told me they have the interest of actuality.
The political situation that autumn became very interest¬
ing. The Italian Prime Minister, Crispi, paid a visit to
Berlin. He had succeeded Depretis, who died in the summer
after a long leadership from 1876 to 1886, a typical demo¬
cratic statesman, who possessed nothing but a little four-
roomed house in his native place, Stradella, and lodged on
the fourth floor up 120 steps in Rome. Depretis had
associated his old opponent Crispi in the administration,
and the Sicilian became his inevitable successor. With
his visit the existence of an alliance between Germany,
Austria and Italy became matter of public report. An
ephemeral Spanish-Italian Mediterranean understanding
appeared to supplement it and there were rumours of a
possible further accord. The Chancellor's policy had
succeeded in completely isolating France. Crispi's arrival
and the interest aroused in the alliance were the occasion
of an interesting story which was told me by George von
Bunsen. Victor Emmanuel II paid a visit to Berlin not long
BERLIN, 1887-1888
121
before his death. His first words to the old Emperor as
he drove with him from the station were : " The Emperor
Napoleon was my greatest friend. He did for me and for
my country what I could never repay. When war was
declared between Germany and France (in 1870) I wanted
to help him. I would have helped him, but I was told that
it would cost me my crown. That is all over and he is
gone, and now I can be your true friend." The old Emperor
appreciated his perfect blunt frankness and said that he
loved the man for it.
There followed a visit from the Russian Emperor designed
to reinvigorate the cordiality of relations which had long
been cooling. The Grand Duke Nicholas had recently
made a violent anti-German speech in a French warship.
The Chancellor, in a conversation with my chief in the
latter part of November, informed him of the intention
again to increase the army, which would be brought up to
a war footing of four millions. He now felt, he said, that
war was inevitable for them, both on the eastern and on
the western side, in a few years' time. When it came they
must either conquer or disappear. They could never pay
for the four million men except by success. On the first
day of mobilization they would require eight hundred
millions sterling. They had one hundred and twenty at
Spandau. But the addition to the army was a vital necessity.
At an interview which took place between Bismarck
and the Russian Emperor it came out that the latter had
been furnished with a number of letters and documents
purporting to be communications from Prince Reuss, the
Ambassador at Vienna, to Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria,
with reference to Bismarck's attitude towards the princi¬
pality, which, had they been genuine, would have given His
Majesty ample reason to mistrust the Chancellor. These
documents were now ascertained to have been forgeries
from beginning to end. This source of irritation was,
therefore, eliminated by the visit. An inspired communica¬
tion was made to the Kolnische Zeitung on the subject
122 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
without mention of the names of the supposed corres¬
pondents. It stated that the source of these forgeries was
easily discovered. It was of Orleanist origin. Such a
suggestion would seem to have been meant to indicate
Princess Clementine, the mother of the Prince of Bulgaria.
But it is quite possible that this suggestion was only put
forward to conceal from the guilty parties that investigation
was on the right track, and suspicion rather fell on a Russian
war-party. The same evidently inspired article also stated
that the interview had revealed to the Chancellor that a
small but influential section of the Court in Berlin had been
endeavouring to instil into the Czar the impression that
Bismarck and the German Emperor were not by any means
always in accord, and that he had only secured a very
reluctant consent from his imperial master to a recent
policy less friendly to Russia.
Now, the explanation of this concluding passage of the
article current behind the scenes in Berlin is interesting
in itself, and if correct it also affords one more of the many
instances which show how the Chancellor made use of the
press for his own personal objects. At a Court dinner
which took place during the visit of the Russian Emperor
the table was in horse-shoe form. In the middle sat the
Kaiser with the Czar and Czarina on either hand and the
other princes and princesses to his right and left. Exactly
opposite the German Emperor on the inner circle was the
Lord High Chamberlain, Count Stolberg-Wernigerode.
Prince Bismarck was given a place on the outer circle
beyond the princes, and thus well out of range of the Russian
guests. He was indignant at this placing, and claimed that
he ought to have sat opposite the Kaiser. Count Perponcher,
who was responsible, contended that his disposition of places
was perfectly correct, as the dinner had been announced to
be a family and not an official party. This contention,
however, the Chancellor would not accept, and he was
reported to have informed Count Stolberg by letter that
he ought to have refused to take the place assigned to him.
BERLIN, 1887-1888
123
The Chancellor's claim was, I think, valid, because custom
prescribed that, when a foreign sovereign was the guest of
the Crown, the Minister for Foreign Affairs should take
his place opposite the Sovereign, and Bismarck, as Chan¬
cellor, was actually also Minister for Foreign Affairs. On
this occasion it was from his point of view of special im¬
portance that the precedent should be observed, and that he
should not have been placed in a position of inferiority,
which might lead the Czar to believe that there was some
truth in the assertion that Emperor and Chancellor were
not altogether at one in their policy towards Russia. A
characteristic story, illustrating Herbert Bismarck's brusque
and bull-headed manner, was told in connexion with this
visit. If not true it was ben trovato. When the Russian
Imperial train arrived the royal carriage was arrested at
some little distance from the spot where the Minister for
Foreign Affairs was waiting. He dashed down the platform
as the Emperor was alighting, and with a rough sweep of
his arm pushed aside one or two Russian chamberlains
standing at the carriage door, saying as he did so : " Pardon,
je suis le Comte Bismarck." At which one of them was
heard to remark : " Qa explique mais n'excuse pas."
In the early autumn the Crown Prince and his family
had gone to the Tyrol and northern Italy, but with the
approach of winter they moved to San Remo. Sir Morell
Mackenzie was summoned to Villa Zirio and save for a
brief interval he remained with his patient till his death.
On November the 12th the Official Gazette announced,
though not in a signed bulletin, that the Crown Prince's
illness had a " carcinomatous " character. This announce¬
ment was not made in the form of a bulletin, and was not
signed by any doctor. It was not until the following
February that a medical report to this effect was issued.
The notice in the Gazette becomes significant in connexion
with certain circumstances which will be referred to later,
and it appeared to be not unconnected with certain semi¬
official visits paid at this time to San Remo.
124 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
The year 1888 opened with the sense of ominous events
inevitably approaching. The first day of the year was a
trying one in Berlin, as it is in all those continental cities
where custom prescribes that cards should be left on th<e
whole of one's acquaintance. On behalf of the Ambassador
I also had to see that the cards, which arrived in avalanches,
were duly returned. I was always enviously impressed
with the practical method adopted for this end by the
household of the veteran Field-Marshal Moltke, no doubt
quite unknown to himself. On your arrival at his house to
deposit a card his porter stood in the doorway with an
ample supply of his employer's cards in his hand, from
which he offered you one, observing as he took yours,
" And here is the Field-Marshal's." Moltke, whose years
were numbered with those of the century, attended an
official dinner at the Embassy this season, and he excused
himself for leaving early because he said he was giving a
musical party at home. A tough generation the men of
1800 ! They also knew how to get the most out of life.
I spent a day or two in January with my friend, Henry
Cadogan, who had been transferred from Berlin to the
Legation at Munich, and he took me to the Allotria, the
artists' club or kneipe. Kaulbach and Defregger, the
painters, were there. Lenbach was in the chair, and I
sat between him and Levy, one of the great directors of
orchestra. He and his colleague Fischer together projected
Wagner on to two grand pianos from memory with glorious
interpretation, and perfect if seemingly improvised accord.
All the stars (male) of the opera were there. Songs and
speeches were of the first order, and the company was as
good as the beer, which is high praise. We were made
welcome in Bavaria in the old days.
Towards the end of that month Lord and Lady Randolph
Churchill paid a visit to the Embassy on their way back
from St. Petersburg. The attraction of his acuteness and
brilliancy was enhanced by a humorous geniality which
gave him a particular charm. But he struck me as the most
BERLIN, 1887-1888
125
self-confident man I had ever met, and the suddenness
with which he could change his political attitude did not
seem to modify his belief in the incontrovertibility of his
own judgment. He was never at a loss in emphasizing his
rapid generalizations on any subject, whether within or
without the range of his own experience. I was one day
escorting them round the Museum when the question arose
whether a certain panel was painted in oil or tempera.
Now, this is often a difficult point to determine and requires
special knowledge and study. But he did not hesitate most
dogmatically to assert that it was an oil painting, which,
as a matter of fact, it was not. He can, in any case, hardly
have been much interested in pictures, as he was unable to
identify those in Berlin which came from the Blenheim
collection.
At that time he was completely under the spell of Russia.
A Russian alliance was necessary to us, necessary because
with Russia we had interests which might clash. He
attached little importance to drawing closer to those whose
interests did not run counter to our own. After a brief
conversation with the Czar he had convinced himself that
that autocrat really governed his country. It was con¬
fessedly open to grave doubts how far Alexander III, who
was a conspicuously honest man, was really able to make
his own views prevail. But Lord Randolph admitted no
question on that point. He mistrusted Bismarck profoundly.
I was not disposed to disagree with him. But I found that
his opinion was mainly influenced by an incident which he
had witnessed during his short term of office, when he had
experienced a petulant exhibition of temper from the
Chancellor. Austria, he argued, had always deserted her
allies. One must study history. I could not gather that he
had himself studied internal developments in Germany, as
he had not even heard of the important legislation for the
insurance of workmen which that country was the first to
initiate.
On his journey out to Russia he had called, while passing
126 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
through Berlin, on Herbert Bismarck, who betrayed some
apprehension lest he should be attracted into the Russian
net. Count Herbert said that he had expressed the view
that for Great Britain India was the first concern, and that
we ought to buy off Russian aggression by giving her
ambitions a free hand in Turkey. He attached no im¬
portance to our holding Egypt and regarded the Cape route
to the East as all-sufficient.
Lord Randolph told me a characteristic story of Labou-
chere, to whose loyalty to friends Malet had testified as
among his more amiable characteristics. When Gladstone
returned to office in 1886 the Duchess of Roxburghe, Lady
Randolph's sister, had refused the position of Mistress of
the Robes, the Duke having joined the Liberal Unionists.
The Queen, it seems, in writing privately to the Duchess,
had so far allowed her feelings to outrun her habitual
discretion as to approve the decision. Through some
indiscretion the substance of this letter became known to
others, and eventually it reached the ear of Labby, who
came up to Churchill in the House beaming with satisfaction
and said: " I've got her, I've got her now, the old Lady at
Balmoral, and I'll expose her." He then told his story,
adding that he had already prepared a few pungent para¬
graphs for Truth. Lord Randolph assured him that the
whole story was an invention, and begged him to suppress
it. But Labby insisted that it was his duty to print it:
" It's too good to miss." The next day Lord Randolph
returned to the charge, but this time he took the line that
the publication would have the most unpleasant consequences
for his family, as it would inevitably be assumed that they
were responsible for the betrayal of confidence. Labby
allowed himself to be persuaded and suppressed his notes.
Among the seniors in our service there was still a living
tradition of Labouchere's brief and stormy period of
diplomatic life. Many of the anecdotes which illustrate
his remarkable and somewhat malicious humour are no
doubt on record. But things which were of common report
BERLIN, 1887-1888
127
forty years ago are forgotten now, and one of the stories
which they used to tell me at least is worth saving. When
he was attached to the Legation, as it then still was, at
Washington, he received one day a caller who, looking
very superciliously at so young an official, merely said :
" I want to see your boss." " I am not aware," said Labby,
" to what part of my person you refer, but whatever it is,
it is entirely at your disposal." He was a most courteous
attache, and he resented discourtesy in others. To another
visitor who asked to see the Minister, he expressed his
regret that his chief was not at home, and inquired whether
he could not himself be of service to him. " No," said the
visitor, " I'll wait. I won't have anything to do with
understrappers." Labby offered him a chair and withdrew.
An hour passed, and the caller then asked to see the young
gentleman who had received him again, and inquired
whether he thought the Ambassador was soon likely to be
in. " No," said Labby, " I do not. He is travelling in
Canada."
Early in February the Official Gazette gave publicity " in
the interests of peace " to the text of the Secret Treaty of
October 7th, 1879, between Germany and Austria, by which
either State pledged itself to assist the other with all its
strength in the event of an attack by Russia, and to be
absolutely neutral if any other power was at war with
either. On the evening when it appeared the Postmaster,
Dr. von Stephan, was giving a dinner party at the early hour
traditional in Berlin. None of his guests had as yet seen
the Gazette, which only reached subscribers at 6.30 p.m.
He had the text of the Treaty in his hand and read its
terms to the assembly. His guests did not conceal their
somewhat aggressive satisfaction, when suddenly they
became aware that the Russian Charge d'Affaires, Count
Muraview, was among their number. The situation was
extremely awkward, but Muraview saved it with great
presence of mind, observing that, after all, that instrument
dated from many years before, and that since it was con-
128 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
eluded, things had changed greatly. He can, however,
have preserved few illusions as to the prevailing feeling in
Berlin. Three days after the publication of the Treaty the
new Army Bill and the necessary vote of credit were carried
through the Reichstag. The Chancellor made a great
retrospective historical speech in which all the history
recorded had been of his own making. His political foresight
was, in this case, more than justified by results, and after
the double coup of the publication and the Army Bill the
pulse of Europe seemed to beat more calmly.
On the 9th of February we learned that tracheotomy
had been performed on the Crown Prince. No one any
longer doubted that the disease was cancer, and indeed a
significant bulletin was now issued at San Remo, signed
also by Mackenzie himself, which recognized that the
disease displayed carcinomatous symptoms. Though pains
were taken to exercise discretion in our presence, we could
not be ignorant of the prevailing feeling to which free
expression was given in Berlin society, and it was nothing
less than brutal in its criticisms of the Crown Princess. It
was she who had brought the English doctor, whose diagnosis
had been incorrect, and had had the German doctors set
aside ; it was her influence which had prevailed at the
outset to stop an operation which would have saved the
Prince's life. One hoped at the time that none of these
criticisms reached the ear of the patient. But they were
reflected in certain organs of the press, and I afterwards
learned that he insisted on seeing all the papers and often
commented with bitterness on the attitude of his country¬
men. Bergmann now only gave him till April to live, and
this operation was regarded as the beginning of the end.
The night of the 6th and 7th of March the old Emperor,
rising from his bed, fell and remained in a state of syncope
throughout the greater part of the ensuing day. On the
8th his condition became very grave, and the sacrament was
administered. By some error a report of his death reached
the German Embassy in London prematurely. After mid-
BERLIN, 1887-1888
129
night, as our messenger could no longer obtain access to the
palace, I went there myself and learned that the doctors
did not expect him to last through the night. The Chancellor
had left at six in the afternoon. He died at 8.30 a.m. on
the morning of the 9th. The Ambassador saw Prince
Bismarck and learned from him that the Crown Prince,
now the Emperor Frederick, would return forthwith to the
palace at Charlottenburg. Exigences of state required his
immediate presence. He was, he said, nervous regarding
Mackenzie's arrival. Rightly or wrongly public opinion
believed that his treatment of the case had been his patient's
death warrant. This view had been greatly fostered by
medical professional jealousies. The question was one in
which the opinion of laymen was valueless, but an odious
controversy had been raised which embittered the new
Emperor's latter days, and if the German press at this time
was detestable, the English press was also not blameless.
In Bismarck's tribute to the old Emperor's memory in the
Reichstag he said that two things had illumined the evening
of his life, the sympathy which all the world had testified
for his son's illness and the unanimity of the nation in
responding to the demands of the Government by its
acceptance of the new Army Bill. This had revealed to him
that the union was real, and that his life's work had not
been in vain.
The Emperor William died sitting up, and the body
remained so for some time while sketches were made. The
lying-in-state was very impressive. The Court church was
draped and the only light came from the candelabra round
the bier. Soft music played continuously. The area of the
church was a vast pile of wreaths and the hot air was heavy
with the scent of flowers. The colonels of all the regiments
in Berlin formed a guard of honour, and the banner was
held by a general. The old Emperor lay supported by
cushions as if quietly sleeping on a bed with the head a little
on one side, and on his breast were the iron crosses of 1813,
1814 and 1870.
K
130 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
The new Emperor and Empress arrived at Charlottenburg
shortly before midnight on the 11th. By special request
no one met them, but Sir Edward had been instructed by
the Queen to go to the Palace. Mackenzie there told him
that his patient had borne the journey well. The Prince of
Wales with Prince Albert Victor arrived in Berlin on the
14th. We managed to find room for the numerous staff
in the Embassy, where my domestic duties were very
onerous. The Chancellor called upon the Prince the following
morning. I was made aware of his arrival by the loud
cheering in the street. By the time he left the crowd had
grown so great that the police had difficulty in clearing a
passage. It seemed as if public opinion, apprehensive of
what the new reign might bring, was anxious to make a
demonstration of unabated confidence in Bismarck. He
said that he had received a royal command not to go to the
funeral on account of his health, both from the Empress
Augusta, and from the new Emperor. He had protested
to the latter that it would be very hard for him not to
follow his old master to the grave. The Emperor Frederick,
who had not spoken since his return, only looked at him
and touched his heart, as if to say: " How much harder for
me ! "
The new Emperor's address to his people and his rescript
to the Chancellor, drawn up, as Prince Bismarck informed
us, by the Emperor himself without any olficial corrections
or retouches, gave universal satisfaction. People of the
most divergent political views equally found something to
praise in it.
The funeral procession was not to my mind particularly
impressive, far less so than that which I had recently
witnessed in Munich. It rather resembled the eighteenth-
century pageants illustrated in old prints. The long line
of the Linden had been converted into a mourning avenue
with black pillars supporting urns of fire, linked by festoons
of crape and evergreens. Underfoot the ground was white
with snow. The Guard regiments marched before their
BERLIN, 1887-1888
131
dead Emperor. The Royal family, the court and the
foreign representatives followed. The funeral car was
drawn by eight black horses, and the cords of the baldaquin
were held by generals of the war of 1870. The majority of
those, in fact, who marched in the procession had taken
their part in the making of the German Empire. The
solemnity of the occasion was not enhanced by the behaviour
of the spectators, whose attitude was by no means reverent,
and who were constantly in dispute with the rather over-
zealous Berlin police. The most suggestive note was the
great inscription on the inner face of the Brandenburg
gate, which bore the words, " Yale Senex Imperator."
The Prince of Wales remained until the 18th, which fell
upon a Sunday. At the eleventh hour I was called upon to
organize what was called a small impromptu dinner party
for the evening of his departure. A tentative list of twenty-
four eventually swelled to thirty-two. I hardly know
how we managed it, but M. Xavier, the chef, was equal to
the occasion, and it passed off as if it had been arranged
for weeks.
Now, for the first time I met Sir Morell Mackenzie, a
strong and masterful personality, but not to me a sym¬
pathetic one. Due allowance must be made for the difficulty
of his position. While he retained the entire confidence of
the Emperor and Empress to the last—and he had certainly
preserved his patient's life long enough to secure his
succession—there was hardly anyone in Berlin who took
his side. I could not but resent the manner in which he
repeatedly pressed his claims for a decoration, as though he
seemed to be anxious lest the end should come before he
received it. Chauvinism and racial feeling no doubt played
an undue part in the medical controversy. But he did not
improve his position by his own want of tact in many
details. A friend who had been in attendance throughout
the long residence at San Remo, where the Emperor had
been kept in complete seclusion, remarked to me with
bitterness that a member of Mackenzie's family had been
132 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
admitted to close intimacy with the young princesses, and
that although the German correspondents had respected
the desire for privacy of the royal family, correspondence
regarding their daily life had been transmitted from this
source to an American paper. Some time afterwards one
of the younger officers of the household, with whom I had
been on intimate terms, and who remained the loyal
servant of the Empress long after her husband's death, at
the expense, as it then seemed, of his own career, spoke to
me very frankly about this grim period. He admitted
fully the great value of Mackenzie's services, and himself
felt little doubt that the operation originally proposed, for
preventing which Mackenzie was responsible, would, so
far from saving the Emperor's life, probably have ended
fatally. He gave him every credit for having treated the
case skilfully. But for reasons on which I need not enlarge,
he said that it had been painful to him to see the Emperor
and Empress so completely in his hands. To Germans,
with their traditional ideas of the dignity of their Sovereign,
it was odious to realize that at Charlottenburg Mackenzie
was in constant intercourse with the twenty-eight corres¬
pondents of newspapers for whom he had procured cards
of entry, while the palace was closed to almost every one
else, and he resented seeing these people, not by any means
the best class of journalists, hanging about within a few
yards of the Emperor's room. Mackenzie always gained
his own way by threatening to appeal to the Sovereign, and
appeared incapable of taking a hint or accepting a refusal.
Bather than allow the unfortunate Emperor to be harassed
every one felt obliged to give way. But they could not
forgive him. This temperate criticism was confirmed by
that of many others who were in a position to know. It
must, on the other hand, be remembered that this much-
tried man was fighting a difficult battle alone. Every one's
hand was against him, and he was continuously and
violently attacked in the reactionary press. At least, he
never spared himself, and worked incessantly and devotedly.
BERLIN, 1887-1888
133
There was, indeed, through all this grim period to my
mind a conspicuous absence of chivalry at Berlin. People
professed to love and admire the Emperor Frederick, and
yet they could not resist embittering his last days by
abusing the Empress. They even expended their humour
on a dying man. The story was everywhere current that
a printer's error in his proclamation to the people had
described him as Friedrich der Britte instead of der Dritte.
It was a manifest invention, as in print the numeral and
not the word would have been used. I could not resist
expressing my feelings on the subject at a party where the
alleged misprint seemed to be regarded as an excellent
joke. Here was a man who was not only the Sovereign,
but one who had served his country greatly, maintaining a
high ideal of obligation even during the anarchy of war, a
man of blameless life and character. If ever personal
sentiments should have been held in reserve, and all should
have united in making the last phase of his hard and brave
struggle brighter by sympathy and respect, surely this was
the occasion.
A curious ceremony which we had to attend was the
Trauercour, or mourning reception. It was held, of course,
by the Empress alone. All the ladies were in black with
veils of crape, and the men in full uniform with crape upon
the sword knot and the arm. Some of the old Court ladies
were in tears as they passed before the Empress. I hope
they may have been sincere. Even on that occasion some
people found occasion to criticize the Empress's mourning
as being English. In what respect I cannot tell. It seemed
as orthodox and grim as any Court ceremonial could
prescribe.
The Chancellor had a horror of ladies in black. His
birthday was on the 1st of April, and it was customary to
leave off mourning when calling to offer congratulations.
But many ladies held that a great court mourning must
constitute an exception to any rule. The sight of so many
ladies swathed in crape got on his nerves and he sent word
134 SOCIAL AiSiD DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to his porter at last to admit no more who presented them¬
selves in black, leaving it to that functionary to make such
explanations as he could to the numerous callers.
Four days later he sent for the Ambassador and made a
most serious communication to him. He was about to
send in his resignation. On the following day practically
the whole story as he had told it, with the exception of
certain details to which I shall not refer, appeared in the
Cologne Gazette, first in the form of a message from Vienna
announcing his impending resignation, and later in an
article explaining all the circumstances. There was,
therefore, no further obligation to be reticent. Some years
earlier the question had been discussed of a marriage between
the Emperor Frederick's second daughter and Prince
Alexander of Battenberg, while the latter was still Prince
of Bulgaria, a project which the Chancellor had strenuously
opposed. The Cologne Gazette now announced that the
proposal had been revived, and it was suggested that the
Queen of England was coming to Berlin to support the
Prince's suit. If it were persisted in the Chancellor could
only resign. But it was impossible that the Chancellor
should be sacrificed to a scheme of such a nature. Prince
Alexander still remained the hope of the Bulgarians, and
the enemy of the Russian Emperor. It was impossible that
such an alliance could take place.
The Chancellor, who asserted that the Emperor himself
was opposed to the project but had been unable to make his
will felt, sent in his resignation, and only subsequently to
taking this extreme step did he obtain an interview with
the Empress, when the matter seems to have been arranged
without difficulty. He had given the Ambassador to under¬
stand that he had not been able to see the Empress earlier.
But he had not tried to do so before he put the whole thing
into the press, and quite gratuitously dragged in the name
of the Queen. The statements of the Cologne Gazette were
moreover reproduced in the semi-official North German
Gazette. From Moritz Busch's Bismarck we learn how his
BERLIN, 1887-1888
135
jackal of the press was furnished with the data to attack
" the foreign influences working against me—the reigning
lady and her mother." I learned later that when Busch's
book came to be published certain expressions had to be
toned down. For it appears that he had introduced some
very offensive remarks of his master about the Queen. It
was brought to the Chancellor's knowledge without delay
that there was no ground for the statements which had
appeared in the press about Queen Victoria, and that indeed
Her Majesty was quite against the rumoured marriage
project. Nevertheless the attacks on the Queen continued
for some time and it was necessary to bring strong pressure
to bear at the Wilhelmstrasse in order to get them stopped.
Now what had really happened—as I learned shortly
afterwards—was this. Prince Alexander had written to
their Majesties explaining that he had not attended the
funeral of the Emperor William for reasons which they
could readily appreciate. But now he would be glad if he
might be allowed to come and pay his respects to the Em¬
peror Frederick. How such a message may have been
interpreted, or what anticipations it may have aroused, and
therefore what real grounds there may have been for Bis¬
marck's suspicions—he asserted that they were fully
justified—I do not pretend to know. The probability is
that the question had been revived in some form, and
Bismarck generally heard of all that went on at Charlotten-
burg. The fact, however, remains incontrovertible that as
soon as he heard of the proposed visit, without having seen
or having tried to see the Empress, acting no doubt on some
information conveyed to him by his agents in the palace,
he made public the story which appeared in the press, and
threatened a crisis by resignation. The Times correspondent
in Berlin most reprehensibly telegraphed to his paper that
the Queen was urging this marriage project. It was there¬
fore not to be wondered at that the German press forced the
note which Busch had been instructed to emphasize, and
that we were reminded that British interests could receive
136 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
no consideration so long as the British Sovereign acted in a
manner so unfriendly to Germany.
What was the Chancellor's reason for producing a crisis
which was really of his own making ? He seldom acted with¬
out mature calculation, and rarely from temper. Opinion
in Berlin was disposed to agree that there he had mis¬
calculated. Public comments in Russia expressed the view
that the best way to disarm Prince Alexander and pre¬
clude any renewal of pretensions to the Bulgarian throne,
would be to give him a divisional command in Germany,
and to marry him to a German Princess. The argument of
a Russian protest could hardly therefore be urged. It was
moreover regarded as doubtful whether Prince Alexander
himself desired such a match. No one that I came across
in Berlin at the time approved of Bismarck's tactics. He
had a large section of the press at his command, while those
who were attacked had no means of replying. The course he
adopted seemed worse than ungenerous. It was a cruel
moment to have chosen to make a public scandal of a matter
which could in any case, as the event had proved, have been
readily arranged by discussion in the proper quarter. The
conclusion to which we came at the time, a conclusion which
was shared by many of those best able to judge the signifi¬
cance of this unpleasant incident, was that Bismarck de¬
signedly took the opportunity at the outset of a new reign
to demonstrate that the throne was not absolute, and it was
thought probable that his intention might also be to give a
premonitory lesson to the heir-apparent, who was supposed
to have leanings towards the Junker party, always inimical
to the Chancellor.
Some months afterwards, in August, 1888,1 read in the
Nouvelle Revue a document which Madame Adam asserted
to be a memorandum placed before the Emperor Frederick
by the Chancellor in regard to the Battenberg marriage
scheme, stating his objections and the reasons why he must
resign if it were persisted in. It referred to an alleged letter
of Queen Victoria of the 26th of March, urging the match.
BERLIN, 1887-1888 137
This is sufficient to stamp it as a forgery. The Queen, who
was at Florence at the time, knew nothing of the project, and
when the press attacks began a disavowal was sent to Berlin
spontaneously, before the communication from the Embassy,
which had to go through London, could have reached the
Villa Palmieri.1
I have endeavoured to record this incident without pre¬
judice. However valid the reasons may have been for the
Chancellor's suspicions regarding the revival of a plan which
he had already once defeated, it appears impossible to
justify his handling of the matter, and least of all the inde¬
fensible attacks on the Queen, for which he was in the first
instance responsible. That there would be danger from the
idealist and yet authoritative character of the Empress,
when she should come into direct conflict with Bismarck and
the old Prussian conceptions, had been foreseen by Queen
Victoria, who had expressed her preoccupation to Lord
Ampthill. But Bismarck himself in his reminiscences
admits that the Empress shared with the Emperor the con¬
viction that it was necessary in the interests of the dynasty
that he should be maintained in office.
The battle between the doctors continued, to the infinite
disgust of decent people. An unfavourable development of
symptoms accompanied by some fever was ascribed by
Mackenzie to Bergmann's clumsiness in endeavouring to
insert a new tube, which Bramann, the other doctor in
attendance, was more successful in accomplishing. He
contended that Bergmann's manipulations had caused a
flow of blood, and that to this the symptoms were due.
Party politics had now begun to enter into the controversy.
1 The story of Queen Victoria's alleged support to the marriage
has been repeated in a recent biographical study which has been
very widely read. It is evident that the author was misled by
Busch, who was himself misled by Bismarck when he instructed
him to start the press campaign. In justice to the memory of the
Queen it is desirable that a misapprehension so widely circulated
should be corrected. (See Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey,
p. 284.)
138 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
The Liberal Frankfort organ was ranged in opposition to
the Government press and the Cologne Gazette, which was
reported to be inspired by Bergmann, and which was persis¬
tent in its attacks on Great Britain. Mackenzie, who
daily received insulting and threatening letters, inevitably
threw in his lot with the opposition. Two typical cases may
be quoted of the malignity of the Government press in its
endeavours to depreciate the Empress in the eyes of the
public. The Cologne Gazette circulated a story that one of
the attendants nursing the Emperor had had to be discharged
and that an Englishman had been substituted for him.
When it had to be admitted that this story was entirely
untrue, the paper was disingenuous enough to observe, " it
seems they had changed their mind." In the spring there
had been disastrous floods in Posen, and the Empress went
to visit the scene, and was received by a deputation of
Polish ladies. The papers, including the semi-official ones,
announced that an address had been presented to her in
French, and that in view of the grave incorrectness of such
a proceeding, she should have declined to receive it. Count
Seckendorff, who accompanied the Empress, told me that no
such address had ever been presented. It was quite possible
that some of the Polish ladies might have talked French,
a language with which some of them were more familiar,
but no document of any kind was presented to Her Majesty.
The Prussians seemed to resent the very existence of the
Poles in German Poland. A year later the Empress referred
to this incident and told me that she had at the time com¬
plained to Bismarck about these misrepresentations. His
only remark was : " My press people did this without
consulting me."
Queen Victoria had decided on her homeward journey
from the South of Europe to pay a visit to her daughter and
son-in-law at Berlin, and the Chancellor promised that she
should have an enthusiastic reception. It was only a
fortnight before that he had set Busch to attack " the reign¬
ing lady and her mother," and his present cordiality almost
BERLIN, 1887-1888
139
seemed to indicate that lie felt a certain remorse for the
mistake which he was now aware he had made. The Queen
arrived at the Charlottenburg Station at 8.45 in the
morning looking brilliantly well and fresh after a two nights'
journey in the train. That evening the Ambassador dined
with the Sovereigns, while the rest of the Embassy after
dining with the staff joined the family circle later. I was
now for the first time personally presented to the Queen.
Her dignity and in a certain sense her grace, for so very
small a woman who was nearing her seventieth year, were
remarkable. The Empress Frederick, of whom I had seen
so much during my four years at Berlin in happier times,
told me that she had heard I was to leave—I had been
appointed to Athens and expected to join my new post in
a month or two's time. She said that I must get the appoint¬
ment cancelled and remain.
On the following day the Queen and the Empress drove
into Berlin. It was a Busz-Tag (a public holiday, like our
Bank Holidays). The road was lined with people all the
way from Charlottenburg. I have never seen the Berlin
people, who were generally undemonstrative, so enthusiastic,
and their cheers were a striking answer to the pessimists who
had asserted that the Empress dared not show herself in
public, and that the Queen would do well not to come. The
contrast to the public attitude on the occasion of the Russian
Emperor's visit was very striking. It must be remembered
that the people of Berlin were for the most part Liberal in
their political tendencies, and only read the Liberal papers,
which were whole-heartedly on the side of the Emperor and
Empress, whereas the reactionary organs, which we had for
our sins to study because they represented the government
and the ruling caste, were always those which attacked
the English doctor and the Empress.
The Queen came to the Embassy and received Prince Bis¬
marck. He was delighted with his reception and propitiated
Her Majesty by saying that her recent journey had been of
the greatest value. She had been like a general visiting
140 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the outposts. First she had been to Italy, then to Austria
and lastly she had come to Germany. Her visit would
greatly strengthen the alliance of the Central Powers. In
the evening there was a ceremonious dinner at Charlotten-
burg, which we all attended. The Queen and the Empress
sat in the middle together, and opposite them the Imperial
Chancellor, not this time, as at the dinner to the Czar, far
away from the centre. Bismarck was in the highest spirits,
selecting one of the biggest bonbons, which bore a portrait of
the Empress, and putting it away with much ceremony
over his heart. An air of cordiality prevailed and the recent
storm seemed to have quite blown over. A strange artificial
insincere world it was in which I was living !
Early in May there was a remarkable if necessarily tem¬
porary improvement in the Emperor's condition, and Sir
M. Mackenzie was in much better spirits about his patient,
and spoke of plans for the summer. The Prince of Wales
paid a second visit to Berlin for the marriage of Prince Henry
to Princess Irene of Hesse. On his arrival, late after dinner,
the Crown Prince and Prince Henry came on with him to
supper at the Embassy and the latter then told me that a
month earlier they had hardly hoped that his father would
live to see the wedding. But he had that satisfaction, and
on the 1st of June he was safely transferred to the palace
near Potsdam which had so long been the summer home of
the family and which now received the name of Friedrichs-
kron. Meanwhile the relations between France and Ger¬
many were deteriorating, and the anti-Russian feeling in
Austria was growing acute. An extremely high-handed
attitude was adopted towards France, tending to build up a
sort of Chinese wall against her subjects. The Government
asserted that inasmuch as seventeen years had done nothing
to alleviate the hatred displayed by the French, and as it
was being rendered impossible for Germans to enter France,
intercourse must now be restricted. New passport regula¬
tions consequently made it obligatory for any Frenchman
to obtain a visa at the German Embassy before crossing the
BERLIN, 1887-1888
141
German frontier. This entailed a preliminary inquiry, to
complete which would take about three weeks. It therefore
was tantamount to a virtual closing of the frontier. In
justification of this policy two instances were quoted of
Germans having been turned back from France. The
measure appeared to us rather to be one of retaliation for
the recent political successes of Boulanger.
A fortnight after the move to Friedrichskron the crisis
in the Emperor's condition took place. The disease had
progressed far beyond the larynx, and only artificial nourish¬
ment was now possible. Inflammation of the lungs began.
At nine on the evening of June the 14th we learned that a
military cordon had been drawn round the palace and that
no one was allowed in or out. It was however removed
at the request of the Empress. The Ambassador had been
there in the morning. He found the Empress collected, but
deeply depressed. There were already indications of the
desertion of old friends, even of those who had owed them
everything, and who were already looking to the rising star.
The Emperor remained conscious almost till the last, writing
instructions from time to time in pencil. He died on the
morning of Friday, June the 15th, apparently without a
struggle. Once more a cordon of the Lehr-Battalion sur¬
rounded the Palace. The Ambassador went down again in
the evening, and was informed that the wishes of the Em¬
press were to be respected in every matter. There would
be no autopsy, and the funeral ceremony would take place
in the Friedenskirche at Potsdam, quietly in the presence of
only relations and friends. The autopsy was nevertheless
carried out, although the new Emperor supported his
mother in her wish to suppress it. It appears that the law
required that the cause of death should be established. It
should also be recorded in justice that the Empress at this
time spoke of the kindness of her son. Other people put
ideas into his head which he would not otherwise have con¬
sidered. The question was, it seems, mooted of having the
papers of the attendant physician examined. The Minister
142 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of Justice told the Emperor that he had the power to do so,
not the right. The military cordon was removed from the
Palace on the afternoon of the 16th. One of the most
devoted of the late Emperor's household expressed to me his
indignation with the Chancellor for having been very cold
to the Empress. The dying Emperor had not long before
put his wife's hand into Bismarck's, with a look full of signifi¬
cance, an appeal to him to be good to her when he was gone.
His antagonism to the Empress was irreconcilable. They
were a hard unyielding race, the Bismarcks. Had the
Emperor's life been prolonged there would no doubt have
been more and more friction, and possibly a definite break
in a few months' time. After all it did not take long for the
new Emperor to part company with him. The same old
friend said that it had sickened him with human nature to
witness the ingratitude of those who had received countless
favours.
It was a great tragedy, this long-drawn-out agony and the
premature close of a gracious and beneficent life upon the
threshold of realization. I had had very many opportunities
of seeing the Emperor as Crown Prince in the intimacy of
his home life, and had a sincere admiration for the man
whom Busch, as the mouthpiece of Prince Bismarck, has
written down a mediocrity. Kindly, sincerely appreciative
of any little service rendered, he seemed not only the ideal
prince, but one who in any station in life would have com¬
manded affection and regard. In early years he had some¬
what emphasized his antagonism to Bismarck, which was
represented as implying dissent from his father's policy.
But he had quickly learned the lesson of reserve, and became
rather an exception to the traditions of the Hohenzollern
family, in which the eldest son has been so frequently the
leader of the opposition to the reigning sovereign ; and this
in spite of his having had to wait unusually long for his
inheritance, and of his being commonly regarded as subject
to an influence which the old Prussians resented as tainted
with the liberalism of English political conceptions. His
BERLIN, 1887-1888
143
remarkable self-restraint was at any rate not due to want of
character. He had had the nerve to stand out in vain for
moderation and conciliation in 1870, and in the controversy
which arose over the establishment of the German Empire
his firm and determined attitude offered a strong contrast
to the doubts and hesitations of others. This much was
made clear by the publication soon after his death of a diary
which Bismarck vainly endeavoured to brand as apocryphal.
Could he have survived in health and vigour of mind for
some twenty years more of active life, many things might
have taken a different turn in Germany. The struggle would
no doubt have been a hard one. The intransigent Prussian
of the ascendant class profoundly mistrusted the influence
of the English wife, who had never known how to conceal
her opinions, whose hand would have been suspected in
every action. But the mass of the people would have been
with him in his endeavour to give effect to many schemes of
reform which he had long contemplated, and with time the
voice of the mass would have become articulate. The course
of events which culminated at last in the tragedy of 1914
might then have taken a different direction.
The Prince and Princess of Wales with Prince Albert
Victor arrived on the 17th, and room was found for an
unusual number of guests in the Embassy. I gave up my
rooms and retired to an improvised camp in the Secretary
of Embassy's office. The memory of that pathetic funeral
on the 18th of June remains vivid and haunting. The big
semicircle of the garden and the Park road which led from
Friedrichskron to Sans Souci were lined with troops, but there
was no crowd. It was a private ceremony, and the general
public were excluded. On the left of the semicircle were
the infantry, on the right the Gardes du Corps with black
cuirasses. There was a preliminary ceremony in the Jasper
Gallery ; then the procession formed and the chanting was
replaced by the military bands, stationed in different places
and extending up the avenue, each taking up the other in
succession with a weird melancholy air, and at moments all
144 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
playing in unison. All the while muffled drums continued
to beat. A detachment of Lifeguards led the procession,
the clergy followed, certain deputations, the royal pages, the
Ministers of State and then the hearse covered with wreaths.
The late Emperor's charger followed the coffin. Then came
the royal family, the diplomatic representatives and the
court. It was a small procession, but deeply impressive
which I watched, gradually losing itself in the green of the
avenue to the sound of the muffled drums. The three
months' reign had inevitably left no record of achievement
—but perhaps its very failure and its spirit of sacrifice had
inaugurated new ideals, and therefore there was ground to
hope it had not been in vain.
The new Emperor's proclamations gave rise to some
comment from the fact that the one addressed to the army
and navy came out first, and that addressed to the people
followed. This was considered significant, especially as the
Emperor Frederick had given precedence to his proclamation
to the people—but it would not have been reasonable to lay
too much stress on this contrast. The first act of a new
reign is to take the oath of allegiance from the troops, and
it would be natural that the Emperor should desire his
proclamation to be read to them on that occasion. The
message to the people was finely conceived with its filial
tribute of admiration for his father, to which more than half
the text was devoted.
It might have been hoped that with the Emperor's death
the battle of the doctors and their partisans would have
ceased, but it broke out once more in a particularly aggres¬
sive form with insinuations and suggestions which roused a
fresh controversy in the press. Now as a preface to what
follows I will first quote a passage from Bismarck's Reflections
and Reminiscences, which were only published ten years later.
He there says : "As the story that in 1887, after his return
from Ems, the Crown Prince signed a document in which,
in the event of his surviving his father, he renounced his
succession to the throne in favour of Prince William, has
BERLIN, 1887-1888
145
found its way into an English work on the Emperor William
II, I will state that there is not a shadow of truth in the story.
It is also a fable that, as in 1887 was maintained in many
circles and believed in others, an heir to the throne who
suffers from an incurable physical complaint is by the
family laws of the Hohenzollern excluded from the suc¬
cession. The family laws contain no provision on the matter,
any more than does the text of the Prussian constitution." 1
This statement is clear and categorical. The new Emperor,
however, informed our military attache in conversation that
Bismarck was furious with Mackenzie after he had admitted
the disease to be cancer, and would not let the matter rest.
The Chancellor himself, moreover, in conversation with a
personage to whom he would hardly have spoken without
weighing his words, used language to the following effect:
" By our constitution the late Emperor could not reign. We
were in reality governed by a woman, and in Prussia the
Salic law does not exist." To this remark however I would
not attach undue importance, knowing how in reporting
conversations the sense and values of particular words may
be misapprehended or over-emphasized. Bismarck might
well have been expected to say something approximating to
these words, implying that the late Emperor had been too
weak and ill to actually attend to affairs of State, and that
the Empress had had to do everything for him, which was
tantamount to her reigning. But in addition to such second¬
hand reports there is a document which cannot be passed
over.
On the evening of June 26th the officious North German
Gazette published an article of a vitriolic character regard¬
ing Mackenzie, commenting on a report in the National
Zeitung to the effect that he had admitted to a correspondent
in Holland that he knew the disease to be cancer, but that
he could not state this because a certain group would have
prevented the Prince from reigning. Now this article, we
1 Bismarck's Reflections and Reminiscences, Vol. ii, pp. 330-1.
(Smith Elder, 1888.)
L
146 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
were privately informed, was sent from the Foreign Office,
over which Count Herbert Bismarck presided, for immediate
insertion and, though the editorial staff were reluctant to
print it, they had to do so. Its terms are difficult to recon¬
cile with the passage quoted above from Bismarck's memoirs.
It ran as follows ;
The National-Zeitung has in its evening edition of the 23rd
instant published an article on Dr. Mackenzie, in which the com¬
munications recently made by that doctor to a Dutch journalist,
profoundly interesting to a wide circle of readers, are discussed.
It happens that five days earlier a Polish newspaper, the Kuryer
Warshawski, had information closely analogous to that which Dr.
Mackenzie gave to his interviewer at The Hague. From this we
may conclude that the Polish-Radical staff, with which the ostensible
miracle doctor (Heilkunstler) Mackenzie, who now appears as a
political agent, surrounded himself for his own advertising glorifi¬
cation in the press, have now returned to their native country.
This Polish newspaper writes : " We are of opinion that Dr.
Mackenzie as the most eminent authority on the larynx in Europe
recognized the illness of the Emperor Frederick to be cancer just
as early as Dr. Schrotter and the other doctors. He was, however,
not only the doctor, but also the man of confidence of the Emperor
and the Empress, and it was important not to declare the illness of
the Crown Prince prematurely and so deprive him of the possibility
of mounting the throne. The Emperor Frederick desired in his
own interest and in that of his wife as well as for high moral and
practical considerations to reign, if only for a brief period. It was
thanks to Morell Mackenzie that this was accomplished."
With regard to the foregoing paragraph, we desire to observe
that the last sentence but one contains a positive misrepresentation.
The Emperor Frederick, who had the highest possible conception
of the obligations and the position of an Emperor, had alloived no
doubt to prevail, that he would not assume the Government, if it tuere
placed beyond doubt that he was incurably affected by cancer.1 This
was in conformity with his lofty and unselfish mentality, while of
those who might eventually be called upon to take the responsibility
all were firmly resolved to spare the suffering Emperor the humilia¬
tion of raising the question, so long as he did not himself assume
the initiative. As this was well-known, it became an object to
those who, for motives which we are unable to control, sought to
bring the Emperor Frederick to the throne, even in spite of actual
incapacity to reign? to deceive him as to his real condition.
" Now that Dr. Mackenzie has left the German frontier behind
him, it would appear to be his concern to save what he can of his
2 These passages are italicized in the original.
BERLIN, 1887-1888
147
medical reputation. He consequently abandons all the scruples
which bound him in Germany, in order not to fall under the reproach
of having been unworthy of confidence as a physician. As they
say in England, he had the choice of being either a fool or a
knave.
According to his own admission Mackenzie regarded it as his
principal duty to play a political part, leaving entirely on one side
the medical, for which perhaps he was conscious of his own incom¬
petence.
In the interests of the history of our times it is well that this
should be clearly established ; we now know that an English doctor
of no particular account, (ein unbedeutender englischer Arzt) with
radical political tendencies, took it upon himself to play the part
of a privy counsellor and to seek to intervene in deciding the destiny
of the German Nation.
The Frankfurter Zeitung replied on the two following days
to this article from what it described as the organ of
the Imperial Chancellor, expressing surprise that the grave
should hardly have been allowed to close over the late
Emperor, before the Cartell-press reopened its campaign
against the English doctor. And so the bitter controversy
began afresh. Sir Morell Mackenzie wrote to the correspon¬
dent of the Daily Telegraph in Berlin, and told him that he
had never used the words he was reported to have used by
the Dutch correspondent. He was travelling incognito and
trying to avoid all questioners. An individual, however, got
into his room at an hotel at The Hague and said he only wished
to put two questions to him. He asked him: " When did you
admit the disease to be cancer ? " To this he replied: "We
were all agreed about that in February." He then asked was
it true that if he had admitted it to be cancer the Emperor
would never have ascended the throne ? And to this
Mackenzie stated his reply to have been: "I cannot tell."
He also wrote to Dr. Krause that he had declined to answer
that question. The fact that he signed the bulletin of
February, 1888, at San Remo, which announced the disease
to be carcinomatous, before the final illness and death of
William I, seems to dispose of the contention that the
Emperor Frederick would not have reigned but for the sup¬
pression of the real nature of his malady.
148 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
From the above evidence which I have once more endea¬
voured to state without prejudice, what conclusions can be
drawn ? It is difficult to believe that the article in the
North German Gazette published by superior order can have
been prepared without the Chancellor's imprimatur, even
if his son at the Foreign Office was more directly responsible
for it. How can the statement in that article regarding the
Emperor's avowed intention not to accept the succession,
if it were beyond doubt that he was suffering from cancer,
be reconciled with the statement in Bismarck's memoirs
quoted above ? It is true that in the memoirs he only denies
that the Emperor signed a document to such effect, but to
depend on such a plea to explain the inconsistency would
be rank casuistry, and the passage concludes by affirming
that there " is not a shadow of truth in the story." The
mysterious paragraph inserted in the official Gazette, without
the signature of any of the attendant doctors, in November,
1887, stating the disease to be cancer, suggests some definite
motive for making such an announcement at that particular
time, and the presumption seems justifiable that those who
mistrusted the succession of a liberal Emperor hoped to
induce the Crown Prince Frederick to take the initiative
referred to in the article.
Three weeks after the funeral I went to Friedrichskron to
carry a letter which had to be delivered personally. The
Empress asked to see me and I spent some time with her.
Alternating between tears and smiles she spoke in terms of
worship of her memories of the Emperor, and with bitter
indignation of the campaign which was now being carried
on against herself. He had waited so long and so patiently
to be able to accomplish all he had in mind to do,—not
suddenly or violently—but he had every right to expect to
outlive the Chancellor and intended gradually to soften
the character of his harsher ordinances. Every one mis¬
understood, believed him to have been influenced, and she
was made the object of their attack. It seemed to be a
tradition in Prussia to attack the wives of sovereigns. The
BERLIN, 1887-1888
149
Empress Augusta had suffered, and Queen Louise when she
was working her hardest in the country's interest was re¬
warded with the outcry: " Why does a woman mix herself up
in politics ? " I suggested that Queen Louise had become
a national heroine to-day. " Yes," the Empress replied,
" but what use is that to her ! " She spoke of Mackenzie
with feelings of profound gratitude, admitting that his ways
differed from the ways of people here ; but he had shown
unlimited devotion, working day and night ; for all the
work fell upon him ; the other physicians were only consul¬
tative. And what was his reward ? I endeavoured to
urge the Empress not to read these press attacks, but she
said she must defend her husband's memory. It was then
that she told me he had insisted on having all the newspapers
during his illness, and occasionally he had written on slij)s of
paper to her: " I am ashamed of my countrymen when I
read these things."
She was broken-hearted at having to leave Friedrichskron,
where they had planted every tree and flower, where her
children had been born, where her husband had been born
and had died. But it was inevitable. It was the finest of
all the palaces, and must now be otherwise employed. She
spoke of the rumour that a report on the illness was to be
drawn up by the doctors who were not in immediate atten¬
dance, to the exclusion of those who were. She had begged
to be spared a public discussion of so painful and intimate
a subject. Finally, the Empress then told me she was
anxious to do something for the benefit of the Hospital for
Diseases of the Throat, and asked me to write a biography
of the Emperor Frederick, for which she would herself
prepare an introduction. The proceeds of the sale would be
given to the funds of the Hospital. The Prince of Wales
before leaving Berlin had also mentioned this matter to me
and expressed the wish that I should undertake it. I could
not of course do so without the authorization of the Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs. But Lord Salisbury readily
assented to the proposal. As this publication led to certain
150 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
very disagreeable incidents which will be referred to in due
course, I mention the genesis of the volume now.
In spite of the petition of the Empress the report of the
German doctors was issued without delay. It was written
with great passion and animus and implied grave accusa¬
tions against Mackenzie. It was asserted that the operation
contemplated in the first instance was one of a comparatively
slight nature, involving no danger. Only a small swelling
of about half a centimetre in diameter would have been
removed. Yet when the matter was first reported to the
Ambassador both by the Crown Princess and by the Chan¬
cellor himself, who intervened to stop the operation, both of
them spoke of its extremely critical character. The report
further stated that Mackenzie recognized the malady as
having the appearance of cancer in November. A few
days later I was again at Friedrichskron on a similar mission.
The Empress was out driving and while waiting I had some
conversation with Seckendorff, who had never left the
family through the long period of the illness, and was now
taking a brief holiday. He told me that in November, 1887,
Dr. Schrotter had plainly told the Emperor that he was
suffering from cancer and confirmed Mackenzie's having
then also agreed that the disease was malignant. The
contention, therefore, that the Crown Prince was deceived
by Mackenzie had no validity. He further traversed a
statement in the report by Dr. Bramann that he was never
allowed to see the patient until he was called in to perform
tracheotomy, Bramann had been invited to a consultation
which took place some ten days before the actual operation.
As there were three doctors examining the throat every few
hours it had been considered advisable not to harass the
patient unnecessarily by adding to their number. When
the Empress returned she characterized the report as wicked;
it had got upon her nerves and she could not sleep. People
were beginning to ask why Mackenzie did not reply to the
charges which it contained. I submitted that I had equally
heard people say that his attitude of silence was by far the
BERLIN, 1887-1888
151
more dignified. This view appeared to impress her and she
asked me what the Ambassador thought about it. I said
that I had not actually discussed the question of a reply
with him, but I felt sure that he would agree that it would be
undignified and would serve no useful purpose to stimulate
further controversy in the press. The Empress then read me
a letter from Mackenzie in which he undertook to be silent
if her Majesty desired it. At the same time there were in
the German document contentions injurious to his profes¬
sional reputation if left unnoticed. He could dispose of
these by an exact scientific exposition which would make
the whole matter clear. He could show that it contained
assertions which were false, and prove that Bergmann's
handling had actually shortened the Emperor's life by
perhaps a month. But he would forego making any defence
if the Empress so desired. There was no one at hand who
carried sufficient weight to give advice on this critical point,
and the Empress was persuaded by one or two individuals
of little judgment that refutation ought to be authorized.
A letter had, in fact, actually been sent in this sense to
Mackenzie, when the Ambassador, who took exactly the same
view that I had urged, begged her to modify the decision,
and a telegram was accordingly sent revoking the letter.
Mackenzie must, however, have returned to the charge, for
he eventually produced a book dealing with his experience
of the case, which served no good purpose, and which was
severely judged as a breach of medical etiquette by the
faculty in England. A British medical friend of very clear
and impartial judgment, who studied the documents at the
time, told me that he considered, apart from the question
of whether the premisses postulated were correct, the report
of the German doctors to be a model of what such a medical
statement should be, clear and complete, whereas the
hysterical exposition of Mackenzie condemned itself.
A year or two later at Athens I saw Morell Mackenzie
again. He was then travelling in a touring P. & 0. in the
Mediterranean and had all the ship's company at his feet.
152 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
On this occasion he told me a curious story. On the Emperor
William's death he received a telegram from the Chancellor
to the effect that if the Emperor Frederick did not return
to Berlin he could not answer for the consequences. When
on the homeward journey the Ministers joined the royal
train the Chancellor talked to him for some time pleasantly
enough, and said to him significantly: "You will under¬
stand that there was not in reality any necessity for bringing
him back to Berlin." Mackenzie had never been able to
reconcile these two opposing statements. I suggested that
the second might simply have been a mode of conveying to
him that he was to keep his own counsel about the first.
He said that this might offer an explanation which he had
not thought of before.
In all that has been recorded here I have advanced no
opinion of my own, nor do I mean to do so. But it may be
well in conclusion to sum up the points which seem clearly
to emerge.
In the first place it was not the Crown Princess who was
responsible for the original summons to Mackenzie. It was
Bismarck's intervention which prevented the contemplated
operation. Nevertheless the general public in Germany in
1887 and 1888 assumed that the selection of Mackenzie was
due to the Crown Princess, and Bismarck, who knew the
truth, did nothing to put public opinion right. It seems
probable that once Mackenzie had been chosen and had
given grounds to hope that the malady was not malignant
the Crown Prince and Princess rested their faith exclusively
on the medical authority who had justified this hope.
Mackenzie unfortunately succeeded in antagonizing every
one in Germany. There can be little doubt that if a similar
situation had arisen in England and a German doctor had
been given the latitude and the special privileges which he
assumed it would have been resented there not less than
Mackenzie's position was in Germany. Eventually in
November, 1887, he recognized that the disease was malig¬
nant in character, but no medical bulletin announced this
BERLIN, 1887-1888
153
until February, 1888. After the death of the Emperor
Frederick, Mackenzie was violently attacked in a medical
report prepared by the German doctors, in which the oper¬
ation which they had originally intended to perform seems
to have been minimized. As to its real nature, however,
Bismarck's evidence leaves no doubt. Had Mackenzie
remained silent he might have retained the sympathy of his
fellow-countrymen at least. But after the publication of
his book he was practically ostracized by the medical pro¬
fession.
My four years at the Embassy now drew to an end, and
I was not altogether sorry to leave. Under actual condi¬
tions the atmosphere of Berlin was far from sympathetic
to me and, interesting as the moment of transition might
be, I was better pleased to watch it from without. Unwit¬
tingly I found myself rapidly becoming a courtier, whereas
nature had meant me for a Bohemian. Escape was therefore
welcome, especially as I was going to the land of my dreams,
and found myself already repeating with Rudel in eager
anticipation,
" Dear pilgrim, art thou for the east indeed ? "
Before proceeding to Athens I had two months' leave due
to me, and these I spent at home, occupying myself with the
biography which I had been asked to prepare, and which
was completed and ready for the publisher before I returned
to Berlin to take leave. While I was in London the private
secretary at the Foreign Office offered to recommend me for
the post of private secretary to the Governor-General of
India, but as acceptance would apparently have entailed
leaving the diplomatic service, I begged him not to do so.
On this occasion I once more found myself in the company
of Gladstone and Lowell at Holmbury. Bowen, the judge,
was also there. I remember that the latter put a question
to Lowell after dinner which it puzzled him to answer. How
was it that the individual states of the American union had
no power to override or annul a contract withont reference
154 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to the central Government, and yet were able to grant
divorces and so annul the contract of marriage on their own
account, according to local legislation ? Lowell could only-
say that so far as he was aware the point had never been
raised. Some days afterwards I heard him deliver one of
the most eloquent and finished speeches to which it had
ever been my fortune to listen at a dinner given by the
Incorporated Society of Authors to American men of letters.
He spoke of the infinite charm that London had for him, of
its immense vitality, of the low incessant voice of the great
city, which reminded him of the palace built by David for
Bathsheba, situated within the hearing of a hundred streams.
As he caught it sitting in his room he felt as if he were listen¬
ing to the roaring loom of time. There was also a visit to
Lord Rosebery at Mentmore with Cecil Spring-Rice, who
had acted as his assistant private secretary at the Foreign
Office. After a brief visit to my relations in Cornwall I
took leave at Endsleigh of Lady Ermyntrude Malet, who
had been infinitely kind and good to us all at Berlin, entering
into the social life and interests of the staff with a charming
tolerance.
During this visit to England I became involved in the
only intrigue of which I have been consciously guilty in my
life. It will be generally conceded that the case was one in
which the end justified the means. While at the Foreign
Office one day visiting my old department, C. B. Robertson,
who was then in charge of it, showed me a correspondence
about the old Protestant cemetery at Rome, in which are
the graves of Keats and Severn. The Roman municipality
proposed to suppress the cemetery altogether, opening up a
new road across the area by the gate of St. Paul. They
undertook to remove all the remains of those interred there
and re-bury them elsewhere, offering also ample compen¬
sation. The other nations interested in the cemetery raised
no objection and the Embassy had reported in favour of
the project. There was no one who felt it a duty to protest,
and the Foreign Office had concurred. This had happened
BERLIN, 1887-1888
155
during Robertson's absence and he was very indignant.
But official consent had already been signified at Rome and
he thought nothing more could be done. I reflected and
thought otherwise. Sir Edward Malet was going that night
to Balmoral, and I suggested that he should speak to the
Queen about it and enlist her sympathy. The next day,
moreover, a letter and a note from well-known writers on
the subject appeared in the press. The Queen took the
matter up warmly and caused a letter to be addressed at
once to Lord Salisbury, expressing her distress at learning
of the proposal to disturb the grave of Keats and her hope
that something would be done to prevent this. The result
was a note to Rome in quite an opposite sense to that
despatched some two months earlier, and Sir Edward on his
return to Berlin was instructed to invite the co-operation
of the German Government, on the grounds that the area
in which to bury strangers and heretics had originally been
conceded to the Prussian Minister, who represented the
non-Catholic powers in Papal days. The new Emperor was
about to visit Rome and on such an occasion nothing would
be refused to him, while it would be much appreciated in
England if he could contribute to save from desecration a
spot which had been for years a place of pilgrimage for
Englishmen. Herbert Bismarck accordingly spoke to the
syndic, Marchese Guiccioli, who was most friendly, and it
was arranged that although the project of the road across a
section of the area could not be renounced, the actual ground
where Keats and Severn lay should be railed off, surrounded
with a little garden, and preserved. So much was gained,
even if it had not proved possible to save the whole of that
haunted ground under the Pyramid of Caius Cestius and the
ancient wall, so beautiful in its abandonment and quietude,
as " almost to make one in love with death." As a matter
of fact the original scheme was not carried out at the time.
It came up again for consideration more than once in later
years when I was Ambassador in Rome, and, though circum¬
stances made me almost despair of any finality in this
156 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
question of the old cemetery, in which I had thus found
myself involved at the outset of my career, it was eventually
settled, I hope for good, towards the close of my diplomatic
life in Rome. At another time I was also concerned with
saving the resting place of Shelley's ashes from interference.
But that experience will be recorded in its proper place.
Just before my return to Berlin Professor Geffcken
published in the Deutsche Rundschau a diary kept by the
Emperor Frederick during the war of 1870-71, an extremely
interesting document which maintained that both the
Emperor William and Bismarck had felt some hesitation
about the declaration of the Empire, and that it was the
Crown Prince himself and the Grand Duke of Baden who
had been most influential in overcoming those hesitations.
In any case the Crown Prince wrote with the conviction that
this was so. A curious note towards the end referred to a
proposal of the Emperor Napoleon, made presumably at
the moment of his surrender, that the terms to be imposed
on France should be mitigated in return for co-operation
in a Franco-German combination against Great Britain.
The diary made it clear why the Emperor Frederick had
not been popular with the " old Prussians." He was too
little Prussian and too much German. The Junkers wanted
a Prussian hegemony not an elevation of the whole Germanic
stock by universal suffrage to an equal share in affairs of
State. This diary Bismarck at once declared to be of
doubtful authenticity, and when its apocryphal character
proved to be no longer sustainable, he changed his tactics
and Geffcken was arrested with a view to his trial for the
betrayal of State secrets. Bail was refused him, though he
was between sixty and seventy years of age, and he was only
liberated after three months' detention, there being no case
against him. In Busch's Bismarck the plot is fully revealed.
He quotes Bismarck as saying " we must first treat it as a
forgery, a point of view from which a good deal may be said.
Then, when it is proved to be genuine by the production of
the original, it can be dealt with further in another way."
BERLIN, 1887-1888
157
Both the conspirators admit, however, the genuineness of the
diary, which is spoken of as superficial and sentimental. I
was fortunate enough to obtain a copy of the Rundschau
before it was suppressed. When I first saw the Empress
after my return on the 27th September she was much per¬
plexed about this document of the existence of which she
had not been aware, though she remembered the Crown
Prince telling her about the Emperor Napoleon's proposal.
Two days before he had started for the war he had given all
his papers into her keeping, and there was a diary kept up
to the last moment, the 23rd July, 1870. He recommenced
his diary with the date of his return, March 17th, 1871. This
proved that he had not taken the then existing diary with
him. What had been published must therefore have been
a separate record, which had never been shown to her,
though matters contained in it had often been referred to in
conversation.
I had left the transcript of my biography with the Empress
to look over, and five days later I went back to Friedrichskron
to recover it, and to take my final leave. She had now ascer¬
tained that she had actually had the war-diary in her hands,
and had surrendered it to the Hausminister by mistake.
There had been such masses of papers to go through, and
among them was a bundle marked 70-71. It included some
letters to A.D.C.'s, and having only glanced superficially
into the bundle she had assumed that it contained only
military notes and so had given it up. When she discovered
her error she had asked to have it returned. But the
Hausminister declined to restore it. She therefore wrote
to say that having confided the documents to him and know¬
ing him to be a man of honour, she was satisfied that they
would be safely preserved in the family archives. She was
extremely vexed at the report issued regarding the document
for which the Chancellor was responsible. It was there
stated that the Emperor William did not trust the Crown
Prince, fearing that he might be guilty of an indiscretion to
the " French-feeling Court of England." Such a statement
158 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
was manifestly absurd. There might have been partisans
of France in the British Government, but yon had only to
read the Queen's diary to understand how untrue was such
a charge against the Court. The insinuation thus made was
an insult both to the Emperor Frederick and to herself. If
the publication of the diary was a betrayal of State secrets,
how much more was it a betrayal to inform the world that
the Emperor William did not trust his son ?
How Geffcken obtained the diary has, I think, never been
fully explained. He was in intimate relations with the
Crown Prince, who had a high opinion of him. It is probable
that when he was working on the history of this period, the
diary was lent him to study, and that he took a copy of it.
A curious sidelight is thrown on the temperament of
Bismarck by a conversation, which he had with our
Ambassadress not long after the episode of the diary. It
reveals even more strongly than his attempt to discredit its
authenticity or than the imprisonment of Geffcken how
intensely he resented the implication which it contained that
any other but himself could have contributed to the structure
of the German Empire or have assisted in overcoming the
reluctance of the old King of Prussia to assume a new title.
Bismarck had come to our Embassy to call, on the Queen's
birthday. The Ambassador was out, but while leaving his
card, on which he had written " God save the Queen," he
learned that the Ambassadress was at home and he asked to
see her. She came down not a little preoccupied at such an
unusual occurrence as a visit from the Chancellor, who seldom
paid such attention to ladies.
He began by repeating his congratulations on the anni¬
versary and appeared to be in the genial humour which so
well became him when he chose to display it. Then, quite
suddenly, his manner changed, and his face assumed that
angry and almost malignant look that boded storm, and he
said that he had had something besides congratulatory
messages to convey to the Ambassador. As the latter was
not at home he would say it to her, and she would repeat his
BERLIN, 1887-1888
159
words, " I want him to know," he said, speaking in English,
" and I want your countrymen to know that it was I and
only I who alone made this German empire. It was my sole
work. And how do you think I accomplished this ? How
did I succeed in triumphing over every obstacle and in
crushing every man who stood in my way ? " He paused
for an answer, repeating his question. Then, as he received
no reply, he continued: " I will tell you. All this I achieved
through—through—what is the word ? It is a word the
Irish often use ; yes, through cunning. I set one man
against another, and again and again I broke them. Well,
there was a moment, after the Peace at Versailles, when I
saw the work of my life crumbling before me after all my
efforts. The King of Prussia refused to assume the position
of German Emperor, and I was in despair. But once more
my cunning stood me in good stead. I set one man against
another. I told him that if he would not agree to my pro¬
posals there was another sovereign who would, and that I
should address myself to the King of Bavaria. That settled
the issue."
I do not pretend to quote precisely the words used, but
the substance of them as here given is correct. We have
ample experience of how much Bismarck accomplished by
setting one nation against another. Here from his own
lips was a frank confession that he had dealt with individuals
as we know he did with nations. It is permissible to enter¬
tain some scepticism as to how far the venerable sovereign's
decision could have been affected solely by the menace of a
rival in the Bavarian king, who even in those days was well-
known to be eccentric, if not abnormal, and whose candi¬
dature would hardly have been tolerated by Prussia or
indeed by other German States. Were the facts not pre¬
cisely as here related it might seem almost incredible that
he should have chosen such an occasion to make such a
disclosure. His jealous nature was evidently intensely
excited by any suggestion of divided credit, and in his desire
to repudiate any possibility that the Crown Prince could,
160 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
as he had claimed in his diary, have had any influence in
modifying his father's decision, Bismarck was hardly capable
of speaking without prejudice.
The Empress was leaving Friedrichskron on the following
day. She had remained, she said, for nearly four months
after her widowhood to show that she had no intention of
running away from the attacks which had been so unfairly
made upon her, and now she would never return there. She
showed me the rooms in which the Emperor had lived, and
took pleasure in pointing out to me all the familiar objects
which had been dear to him, and once more she spoke of all
they had hoped to accomplish. Of the German people and
their essential characteristics she spoke with real affection
and respect. And so I took my leave for a time. We were
to meet again in Athens. It was significant that the name
given to the Palace by the Emperor Frederick was sup¬
pressed, and the old name Neues Palais officially reimposed
immediately after her departure.
I have dealt at considerable length with the events of this
year, because indirectly they contributed not a little to the
gradual deterioration of relations, which never again resumed
a wholly confident and cordial character. From 1888
onwards an agitation unnatural and unjustified against
Great Britain manifested itself in the German Empire and a
series of ungracious and even unfriendly acts impeded the
efforts of those who endeavoured to restore a better under¬
standing.
I left Berlin on the 9th of October. My greatest regret
was the parting with my chief, the kindest of men and the
best of friends, who was like a father and a brother to his
staff. I can never be sufficiently grateful to him for all that
he did for me during the four years I served under him, and
the many lessons he taught me in my profession. He was
so modest and unostentatious that I often wonder whether
justice was ever done to his really eminent services in steering
our barque through the stormy waters at Berlin, as he con¬
tinued to do for some seven years longer. Malet followed
BERLIN, 1887-1888
161
himself the school of Lord Lyons, in which it was a maxim
that when a diplomatist was not talked about it was an
indication that he was doing his work well. So well did he
do his work that he was little discussed or known by the
outside world. He made no speeches and accorded no inter¬
views. But the judgments which he formed and the advice
which he gave to his government were very sound, and there
were moments during his tenure of the Embassy when a
temperament less calm, a perception less experienced of
the opportune and a manner less discreet and imperturbable,
might have aggravated an already delicate situation.
It seems therefore the more unfortunate that in the last
hours before his retirement in 1895 he should have encount¬
ered an extremely disagreeable experience in making one
last effort to do his duty to his country. The episode
acquires significance in the light of after events and may
therefore now be recorded as he told it to me.
He had arrived at the last days of his residence in Berlin.
It had always been his frankly avowed intention to resign
on reaching the age of sixty. He had had his farewell
audience of the Emperor, which had been cordial, and he
had presented his letter of recall. One last visit only
remained for him to pay, to the Imperial Chancellor, Prince
Hohenlohe. In the course of their final interview Malet
said that he was giving up his post with a clear conscience.
There were no outstanding questions and the horizon was
fair. He therefore felt he could close his career at a favour¬
able moment. There was indeed only one thing on his mind
from which he foresaw any possible difficulties between the
two countries in the near future, and now that he was no
longer Ambassador and could speak unofficially as a private
person he wanted to tell him as a friend about this one
misgiving. He did not, he said, think that people in Ger¬
many fully realized how strong an opinion prevailed in
Great Britain about the future of South Africa, and he felt
he ought to tell him that this was a very genuine feeling
which it would be imprudent to ignore. Malet did not at
M
162 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the moment have any reason to suspect that the Chancellor
had received this observation in any other spirit than that
in which it had been made. In what particular form his
words, conceived with the friendliest intentions, may have
been passed on to the Emperor it is not possible to say.
But they appear at any rate to have been received by the
latter in a very different spirit. The Emperor spoke to the
British Charge d'Affaires in a tone of undisguised irritation
of what he characterized as the language of menace which
had been addressed to Germany by Sir Edward Malet, and
public attention was drawn to the incident by the omission
for the first time of the courtesy established by long pre¬
cedent of sending an A.D.C. from the Palace to represent
the Emperor at the station on the departure of an Ambass¬
ador. Such an omission was the more conspicuous in the
case of a representative who had been for some twelve years
in Berlin and had always enjoyed the best relations with the
sovereign.
To those who remembered this incident the telegram to
President Kriiger some years later should not have come as
a surprise.
CHAPTER V
ATHENS, 1888-1889
After a day or two at Vienna I embarked upon an Austrian
Lloyd at Trieste for Patras. The perfect October weather
in the Adriatic changed at Corfu, where I had my first
glimpse of the Near East when a large number of Albanians
and Montenegrins belted with daggers and pistols came on
board as deck passengers. No friendly moon revealed the
rugged mountains of Ithaca, which we passed at midnight,
but the dawn cleared to unveil the Aetolian mountains, the
shore of Missolonghi and the great rampart of Voidhia above
Patras. The railway thence to Athens had only been opened
some few months and was evidently regarded by the local
population as a new toy. The village boys played hide-and-
seek through the train in every station at which we stopped,
and no one interfered with me as I sat on the step of the
platform at the end of my carriage, drinking in the glorious
views of the Corinthian gulf and identifying the peaks of
Helicon and Parnassus on the further shore with a delight
the memory of which still thrills me after thirty years.
What a contrast was this sans gene to the prohibitions and
precisions of Germany, and how infinitely welcome! The
high bastion of Acrocorinth, two or three Doric columns
and a scattered village marked the site of the wealthy
Sybaritic city. But the very name on the station board
was an emotion ; non cuivis homini! Thence we ran east
past Megara along the coast, and reached Athens early in
the afternoon. I was royally happy to be there. Among
the many experiences of a crowded and interesting life I
remember few like that of my first visit to the Acropolis
163
164 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
towards the sunset hour ; the revelation of the Parthenon,
the outlook over Piraeus to the sea, to Aegina's sapphire
outline and Morea's hills ; the wonderful shadows of the
clouds on Parnes, and the evening glow upon Hymettus.
The delicate clearness of the air was exhilarating and half
unconsciously I found myself repeating the exultant lines
in the Medea
EgsyOstdai to naXaiov oXfiioi
xal Oewv jraldeg fxaxagcov—
—asi did Xa/jLTiQordxov
palvovreg dpgoxg aidsQog.
My new chief, Sir Edmund Monson, afterwards Ambass¬
ador in Paris, had been absent when I arrived, but returned
a few days later. A scholar and a fellow of All Souls, he
had an interesting record of diplomatic experiences, inter¬
rupted by a brief interlude of unfulfilled parliamentary
ambition, which had not prevented his eventual return to
the career. lie had a very young family hardly consistent
with the long grey beard which he affected at that time,
and which together with his benevolent smile had won for
him at our court the appellation of the Padre Etemo. To
him also I would record my gratitude for many lessons in
my profession and for the constant indulgence and con¬
sideration which enabled me to see and study thoroughly
the country in which I was posted. Monson had a very
facile pen, and drafted despatches in the old diplomatic
manner which were models of style, almost without a cor¬
rection, a great contrast to my dear old friend Haggard
the First Secretary of Legation, who although he had the
family gift of expression and humour, used to present me
with the most undecipherable mosaic of revisions and
elisions to copy out for transmission to the Foreign Office.
The typewriter and the assistant clerk were, of course,
unknown in those days, and the juniors in the service had
to perform all the mechanical duties.
Athens was preparing to celebrate the twenty-fifth
ATHENS, 1888-1889
165
anniversary of the accession of King George, and the hotels
were crowded and extortionate. Objection was also raised
to the presence of a black poodle of remarkable enterprise
and intelligence which I had brought with me from Berlin.
But I was fortunate in securing almost at once a little
apartment not far from the eastern end of the Acropolis
with windows looking to the temple of Olympian Zeus.
Here I was joined very soon afterwards by Haggard (Sir
William Doveton Haggard) and later still by the then
attache and now actual Minister at The Hague, Sir Charles
Marling. We lived together comfortably and joyously in
a house rented from a very competent chef who had married
an English ladies' maid. We had established ourselves
there only a few days before the Greek sovereign's jubilee,
for which occasion the British Mediterranean Fleet came to
the Piraeus, under the command of the Duke of Edinburgh,
on whose flagship, the Alexandra, the present King was
serving as a lieutenant. The Duke was a guest at the
Palace, but there was no room there for his flag-lieutenant,
now Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, who found refuge in our
new apartment. The night of their arrival he went early
to bed, but Haggard and I were still sitting up towards
midnight and consuming some Austrian beer, discovered
in a neighbouring cafe, when we heard excited voices under
the window, and knocks at the door. Looking out we saw
a naval officer with two Greek policemen. To our con¬
sternation we found it to be the Commander-in-Chief, who
had strolled out from the Palace at a late horn alone to
look for his flag-lieutenant and give him instructions for
the morning. He had lost his way, and how the Greek
policemen, who could not understand him, had managed to
conduct him to the house or to realize where we lived I
have never been able to understand. He was, however,
not in the least disconcerted, and waking up his flag-lieu¬
tenant sat down for a chat over our lager beer, after which
we escorted him back to the Palace in safety.
The functions at Court which this anniversary entailed
166 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
offered a curious contrast to the rigid formality of those at
Berlin. The first King of Greece and especially the energetic
Queen Amelie had endeavoured to introduce a certain state
and maintain an etiquette unsuited to the national temper¬
ament. This was no doubt among the reasons why it fell
to the lot of my future chief, Lord Cromer, when he was an
A.D.C. at Corfu, to have to interview at daybreak a dejected
Bavarian prince in a white kilt, who had perforce exchanged
a throne for a coil of rope on board the gun-brig Hercules.
A court ball at Athens was a novel and somewhat pictur¬
esque function. Not a few of the guests in those days wore
the national costume, the white linen fustanella, really of
Albanian origin, which is also worn by the light infantry,
the corps of Efzones. The big master of the ceremonies,
the magnificent Hadjipetros with his fierce white moustache,
almost rivalled in importance the black moustached Per-
poncher of the White Hall at Berlin. In this extremely
democratic, although thoroughly monarchical country, all
sorts and conditions of men were invited to such ceremonies.
A story was current that the German minister's coachman
had informed him betimes that he would be unable to drive
him to the Palace, because as doyen of the Athenian coach¬
men he had been invited himself. There was not much
dancing, owing to the crowd. Supper, which was on a very
liberal scale, was taken very seriously, and a certain number
of the guests were evidently of opinion that it was not an
occasion for altruism, for I saw bottles of champagne
removed from the table and placed between their feet on the
ground, to be reserved for the psychological moment, their
hands being otherwise fully engaged.
Not even in Athens did I escape from the shadow of the
tragedy in Berlin, and a most unpleasant episode disturbed
my peace of mind during the first weeks after my arrival.
The biography of the Emperor Frederick, with an intro¬
duction in the form of a long letter from the Empress, had
been ready for publication before I left England. Trans¬
lations into German and French were being prepared and
ATHENS, 1888-1889
167
it was to be issued in November (1888). It was perhaps
inevitable, when its appearance was publicly announced,
that there should have been some anticipation of interesting
revelations. As a matter of fact it had been compiled for
the object in view from existing records, and contained
little that was new. The utmost care had been exercised
both by myself and by the Empress in supervising the
manuscript to eliminate any reference which might lead to
controversy, and I had confidently believed, after all the
unseemly wrangles which had taken place, that it would
have a good effect in Germany when it was seen that an
Englishman, writing at the request of the Empress Frederick,
could take quite a dispassionate view and say no hard word
of anyone. But the unwarranted assumptions of the press
were distinctly disquieting, and I therefore wrote to Count
Bismarck to explain the origin of the book, and tell him
that there was no justification for them.
To this letter I received no answer, but not many days
before the date on which the biography was to appear a
long telegram from Sir Edward Malet begged me to delay
publication, and informed me that the new Emperor was
very angry with me and maintained that it was an unheard
of thing for a former member of our Embassy to have
written about his father without having obtained the consent
of the reigning sovereign. He had, therefore, evidently never
heard of the matter. This was, of course, under existing
circumstances quite conceivable. On the other hand, it
would have been manifestly impossible for me to assume
that he had not been told, and to have requested His
Majesty's permission to carry out his mother's wishes in
accordance with the encouragement and authority which I
had received from home. While I for my part could to
some extent understand the Emperor's attitude and possible
preoccupation, I could hardly perhaps expect him to appre¬
ciate my dilemma. Being sincerely anxious that there
should be no public knowledge or discussion of this unex¬
pected development, I could not do otherwise than telegraph
168 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to suspend publication and have copies of the book sent to
Berlin. Malet was kindness itself, and took up the case on
my behalf with his habitual tact and frankness. After
haying heard the Ambassador's explanations it appears that
the Emperor only asked to see the book before it should be
issued. A number of days, however, passed without any
news from Berlin, and it was only when letters eventually
arrived that I learned the reason. Finally I was informed
that the issue need no longer be delayed, and so it appeared
in London only one day after the date announced.
When letters reached me—it was a long post to Athens—
they made it clear that the Bismarcks had been even more
urgent in their opposition than the Emperor. Herbert
Bismarck complained to the Ambassador that it contained
(on p. 100) what was tantamount to an extract from the
diary published by Geffcken which the Chancellor had
pronounced apocryphal. Exception was also taken to the
introductory note by the Empress, and to a quotation from
" Julius Caesar " in eulogy of the late Emperor's nobility
of character. It was further maintained that the Radical
press would take advantage of the publication to make
unfavourable comparisons between the late and the present
Emperor, and that praise of the dead sovereign would
inevitably suggest that the book was intended to serve
party purposes. None of these observations seemed to
call for serious comment except the first and to that a clear
answer could be given. The book as printed had been
completed some time before Geffcken published the diary
and the incident which was alleged to have been derived
from that source had come to my knowledge through our
military attache, who had learned the circumstances from
the old Emperor William himself. Incidentally this con¬
stituted another proof of the authenticity of the diary.
The reigning Emperor, after seeing the book, in view of
the direct association with its publication of the Empress
Mother to which he objected, declined to give it his personal
sanction, but withdrew any further objection to its appear-
ATHENS, 1888-1889
169
ance. It was evident, however, that I had fallen from
grace, and I received unmistakable evidence of that in the
following year. The little volume had a very large sale,
and was translated into Italian and Greek, as well as French
and German. The result was a handsome contribution to
the funds of the hospital for Diseases of the Throat, and I
have no doubt the publisher also did well over it. The
incident was an unpleasant one at the outset of a career. I
had not sought for the task imposed upon me, but had
carried it out to the best of my ability, and to judge from the
reviews, with success in avoiding indiscretions. But we
are perhaps more often punished for our virtues than our
vices. The gratifying side of the incident was the cordial
support which I received at home and the unfailing kindness
of my old chief, who handled the matter in Berlin with the
greatest discretion. Not long after my arrival in Athens
I was promoted to be a Second Secretary. This rise of
degree was purely mechanical, according to the vacancies
which occurred in the regular order of seniority. It was
consequently somewhat irritating to read paragraphs in
the press announcing the step to be due to royal patronage
consequent on the publication of the biography.
The Surprise, commanded by the popular Maurice Burke,
who was later Captain of the ill-fated Victoria when she
sank off the Syrian coast in collision with the Camper down,
brought the Duchess of Edinburgh to Athens. The Grand
Duchess Serge of Russia was also staying at the Palace, and
we were all under the charm of her extraordinary beauty
as we were unanimous in disliking her supercilious husband,
especially after a little episode which occurred on board the
Surprise. The Commander was entertaining the Court at
tea, and our Legation was also invited. The occasion was
purely informal, but there was a band playing and after tea
the guests began to dance. One of our secretaries who
was talking to a lady of the Court was half-leaning against,
half-sitting on a coil of rope. The deck was full of encum¬
brances which obstructed the view, and he did not notice
170 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
that the Queen of Greece had also begun, to dance. The
Grand Duke Serge at once sent an aide-de-camp to ask the
secretary in question whether it was the custom in England
to remain seated when the Queen had risen. The form of
the message and the fact that it was conveyed on board a
British ship made it doubly offensive.
In December, 1888, I was sent to Crete to carry new
ciphers to our Consul at Canea and was instructed to keep
my eyes open and report my observations. The little
steamer from Piraeus touched at Sithnos and Melos. The
Aegean was very boisterous, and wind and sea were so
strong that we could not make the Canea roadstead and had
to put in to Suda Bay. Thence I proceeded overland to the
political capital of the island, with its pleasant suburb,
Halepa, where the British Consul resided. That veteran
of the east, Alfred Biliotti, was good enough to put me up.
His father had been a consul of the Grand Duke of Tuscany
in Asia Minor and had rendered valuable services to British
subjects. After Tuscany was merged in the new Italy he
was assimilated into the British consular service, and his
son continued the tradition as a British subject. He had
lived all his life in the east, and his conversation on the
affairs and politics of the Levant was a liberal education.
Biliotti suffered from somewhat pronounced deafness, but
he never seemed to miss anything that was worth hearing.
His last post had been at Trebizond. He told me that the
Turks of Anatolia had at one time great hopes of the
Egyptian Arabi, whom they regarded as a possible leader
against a Giaour Armenian Sultan, and they resented his
suppression by British forces. But generally they held to
us, believing us to be antagonistic to the arch-enemy Russia.
During the last Russo-Turkish war they were convinced
(inspired no doubt by some echo of the Tyrtaean chorus
popularized in the music-halls by the " great Macdermot,"
which enriched our vocabulary with the word jingo) that
Great Britain was going to intervene. Hundreds and
thousands came to the consulates seeking to enrol them-
ATHENS, 1888-1889
171
selves as volunteers in our service. Then heads of districts
and finally Caucasian princes followed with offers of men,
offers which represented 400,000 ready fighters who were to
be had for the asking. They wanted no pay, only a pound
a month for the maintenance of their families. Such was
the position of influence we once held in the Turkish empire,
where Germany was before long to supplant us. Ghazi
Moukhtar had, he maintained, been held back by orders
from the Porte. Had he gone on he would have driven the
Russians out of Turkey in Asia, and the whole Caucasus
would have risen could the leaders have counted on the
moral support of Great Britain. My diaries of this time are
full of notes on the Cretan situation, which was the chief
topic of interest in Hellenic politics and kept us constantly
en vedette. But the involved story has lost much of its interest
for twentieth century readers now that the annexation of
Crete to Greece has long been an accomplished fact. The
great Cretan who played so large a part in the liberation of
the island from the Turkish yoke, and whose name dominates
the history of Balkan developments in the last decade, had
hardly been heard of then.
I made the acquaintance of the Vali, Sartinsky Pacha, an
agreeable man who was bored to death in the labyrinth of
Cretan intrigue, particularly at that moment when there
was an acute crisis in local politics. He found it difficult to
maintain his own position in view of the constant com¬
plaints regarding his administration addressed to Con¬
stantinople by whichever party was out of favour. An
attempt had just been made to undermine his authority
by a petition of the Conservative Mussulmans to the Sultan
to order a disarmament of the Cretans, a measure unen-
forcible among a population whose arms are their special
pride and to whom they were, moreover, indispensable for
self defence seeing that the law offered no protection. It
would have led to an immediate outbreak of revolution.
The Christian Greek population was twice as numerous as
the Mussulman, and far more intelligent and enterprising.
172 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
A modest charcoal burner from Halepa gave his nephew
1,500 francs and sent him to Germany to learn languages.
He remained there eight years, adding to his modest re¬
sources by giving Greek lessons, learned German and English
and ended as a professor in the University of Athens. Some
countries have to enforce education. The Greeks demand
and obtain it. With such a spirit in the majority, contrasting
with the unprogressive indifference of the Turk, how could
the islanders not aspire to be united to the mother country,
and who could fail to sympathize with their aspiration ?
Like most of my countrymen I had a prejudicial liking for
the Turk, who has the manly and sympathetic virtues. But
then it had not been my lot in life to have to live under the
indeterminate conditions of government for the sake of the
governor. In Egypt old Ghazi Moukhtar, the Sultan's High
Commissioner, a splendid fighting man with a somewhat
restricted outlook, used to enlarge to me on the advantages
of an immutable religion defined by the immutable text of
the Koran. I did not dispute it, but reflected that it might
account in a measure for the unprogressive immutability
of the Turk himself. A nomad by origin, the Turk has
retained certain characteristics of the wandering years when
he would ride or march all day, and after his tent was
pitched would sit down on the ground or carpet tired and
content to merely rest. He had never acquired the habit
of study or investigation, and so still when his day's business
or official function is concluded he just sits playing with his
string of amber beads, sits on and on, saying little and
perhaps thinking even less. There are, of course, to-day
numbers of progressive and highly cultivated Turks, and
many intelligent and highly gifted Turkish ladies, through
whose influence it is possible that a future movement of
regeneration will be promoted, so that the immutable may
after all be modified in time. I have only in view the
average man of status as I knew him nearly forty years ago,
when I found a stereoscope with pornographic photographs
from Vienna to be the only available distraction in the
ATHENS, 1888-1889
173
dwelling rooms of an important Konak. Such an amiable
type with whom I made acquaintance was the patriarchal
chief officer of Customs at Canea. The local director of the
Eastern Telegraph Company enjoyed the privilege of im¬
porting free of duty into the island all that was required for
the maintenance of cables and apparatus. Interpreting the
rights thus conferred upon him in a liberal spirit, he informed
the chief of Customs, when his annual consignment of whisky
arrived, that the bottles contained spirit for the machine.
" Ah yes, to be sure," said that benevolent official as he
signed a free pass for entry; "spirits for your machines.
But I also have a machine for which spirits are indis¬
pensable, and I shall reserve three bottles for my own
machine."
The snow was gathering on Cretan Ida and the White
mountains, and recent rains had made all the tracks into the
interior impassable, at least so the Vali informed me, and I
was, therefore, obliged to abandon a project of penetration
and content myself with an expedition to the solitary
monasteries in the rocky headland of Acrotiri, which closes
in one side of Suda Bay. For this purpose the Vali offered
me an escort of two Zaptiehs which I accepted, as conditions
in the island were disturbed. If the last body brought in
for identification had happened to wear a fez, it would be
the turn of a hat wearer to pay the death penalty, and that
might chance to be myself as well as any other, which the
Vali would have found embarrassing.
The Monasteries of Akrotiri, Hagia Triadha and Hagios
Joannes, dated from Venetian times and being practically
fortresses were used by the inhabitants as places of refuge
in times of revolution. A third, Katholiko, much more
remote at the end of a wild gorge descending to the sea, had
been abandoned, and the presence of this half-ruin seemed
to emphasize the sense of solitude. A wonderful stalactite
cave not far away was said to have sheltered the eponymous
St. John of the monastery, who to judge from a fresco in the
church was not identifiable with any of the Johns in the
174 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
hagiologies to me familiar. After a long day of exploration
I returned to Hagia Triadha to sup and sleep. The pre-
Christmas fast was being observed and the diet was strictly
limited, but there was abundance of resinous wine. I have
met fellow-countrymen in Greece who professed to like
resinous wine, and have always suspected them of having
been carried away by enthusiastic Philhellenism. The
Greeks themselves have a way of saying Bete comme un
Philhellene. But, as any wine is better than none, it is
well to know that if this mixed product of the fir tree and the
vine is retained for a certain time in the mouth and rolled
round with the tongue, as the juice of the grape should
always be, the strong taste of the resin disappears and that
of the wine reasserts itself. The monks, who depended for
their revenues on the care of their olive woods, were very
jolly fellows. My Greek was as yet too strictly classical for
much conversation. But I think they had but little to tell,
in spite of the benevolent and sapient aspect which their
long beards and flowing robes suggested.
After my return to Halepa I made an interesting acquain¬
tance in Elpis Melena, as she was known in literature, whose
real name was Marie Esperance Von Schwarz. She had
come as an ardent sympathizer to nurse during the Cretan
rebellion of 1866-67, and had remained in the island ever
since. She claimed to be of English birth, but her maiden
name was Brandt. Born in 1818 she had married at sixteen
and was left a widow at seventeen. She had lived long in
Rome, where, in spite of our widely differing ages, we found
that we had still some mutual friends. The moving influence
in her life had been her devotion to Liszt and to Garibaldi.
Revolutionary by instinct, a poetess, an archaeologist and
a writer of much cultivation, she was now devoting her
latter years to the protection of animals, to the collection
of her Cretan memories, which were published a year or two
later,1 and to benevolences to her innumerable godchildren.
1 Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen eines mehr als 20 jahrigen Aufen-
haltes auf Iireta. Elpis Melena. 1892.
ATHENS, 1888-1889
175
The relation of godparent and godchild in Greece is very
close and intimate, constituting a bond as strong or stronger
than that of blood. Not a little of the undoubted ascen¬
dancy exercised over his people by the present King of Greece,
in spite of many mistakes, is due to the fact that during his
Balkan wars he undertook to be Kumbaros to all the children
of the soldiers in his army born during the campaign.
Elpis Melena lived on till 1899. Visitors to Crete were rare
in those days, and there are probably few people in England
who have even heard of, and fewer still who knew, that
solitary link with the past. She had a great deal to tell of
Crete and the Cretans. But it was her long and intimate
association with Garibaldi which interested me most of all.
Much of its story is contained in her books,1 in which there
are a number of the liberator's letters to iSperanza carissima
e amatissimci. But she also recalled adventures which do not
there appear.
I cannot, of course, vouch for the accuracy of the stories
which she told me at Canea, nor have I any means of knowing
how intimate their relations really were. But Garibaldi's
own letters to her lend probability to her assurance that he
had at one time desired to marry her. After Aspromonte
where in 1862 he was wounded and taken prisoner, when he
had fallen into a critical condition for want of proper care and
nourishment, she had nursed him and cooked for him.
She also told me that she had for a time adopted his illegi¬
timate daughter Annita, the child of Battistina. Annita
was growing up into a beautiful woman, when she died some¬
what mysteriously, at sixteen. But she had a wayward,
ungovernable nature, was turbulent, even violent and
lacking in gratitude. She would have given her father
much trouble had she lived. Elpis Melena's regard for the
memory of the liberator was tempered by some criticism.
It was perhaps a feminine sense of resentment at his apparent
unconcern in a case in which his service came near to costing
1 An English edition of her Recollections of the public and private
life of Garibaldi was published in 1887.
176 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
her life, that inspired her reflections upon his indifference
as to the fate of his own adherents and agents.
She had been entrusted by him with the carriage to
Messina of some very compromising letters at the time of
the arrest of Monti and Tanetti. These letters contained
notices for publication announcing that, if the prisoners
were executed, two priests would be killed in every Italian
city. She was herself arrested at Leghorn on board the
ship on which she was to travel. A woman was instructed
to search her in her cabin, while five sbirri stood on guard
outside the not quite closed door. The letters were found
upon her. She could not speak, as the slightest whisper
would have been overheard, and she could only show the
woman a big bank note and put her finger on her mouth.
Impatient voices outside urged the searcher to hurry, but
she responded to the mutely eloquent appeal. The letters
had just been inserted between the mattress and the side
of the berth when the door was pushed open. " Niente ! "
exclaimed the searcher, and Elpis Melena was then removed
from the ship and released. Later she sent to recover the
letters. But the captain had already destroyed them with¬
out examining the contents. He did not wish to be detained
or have any scandal on board his ship. And yet when she
next saw Garibaldi, after her narrow escape from this
desperate situation, his only observation was : " We thought
that you were dead. Well you deserve the red shirt." It
may be that in his eyes there was no higher praise than this,
but it could hardly satisfy the eternal feminine in one who
had risked her life in his service.
She also told me how on another occasion she had con¬
cealed in the house where she lived at San Giuliano a young
adherent of Garibaldi, a mere boy of eighteen who had been
condemned to death. She had made arrangements with a
Captain Lewis, the skipper of an English barque, which was
lying off the coast, to get him safely out of the country.
All was ready, but before he could be got on board the police
came to search her house. She was looking out of the first
ATHENS, 1888-1889
177
floor window, when they saw her, and summoned her to
open or they would break down the door. She had just
time to tell the young man to race to the upper floor. She
would take the officers into her rooms on the lower one, and
when he heard the door bang he was to rush down and out
by a back way, where they had not posted anyone. The
search of her apartment took just long enough to enable
him, to get clear, and by the time they went upstairs he was
well on his way to the sea and safety. She complained that
Garibaldi showed but little interest in the fate of the boy.
His attitude was that every one should be glad to die for the
cause.
I was fortunate enough to be able in return for Biliotti's
great hospitality to render him a little service. The story
is interesting as illustrating how our consular officers were
treated by the subordinate guardians of the public purse in
those days. He had not long before been instructed to make
a tour round the island, and report on the conditions which
appeared to menace an early outbreak. Now there were
hardly any roads in the island, and no inns. The only way
to carry out his instructions was to hire horses and pack-
mules and carry a tent with him in which to sleep. On his
return he represented that the exceptional circumstances
had made it quite impossible to keep his expenditure within
the regulation allowance of one pound a day sanctioned for
consuls travelling in the public service, and he asked to be
authorized to charge his actual out-of-pocket expenses.
In reply he received a communication to the effect that it
was fully recognized that under existing conditions the
regulation allowance of one pound had been inadequate,
and he was consequently authorized to charge for the day of
his departure as well as the day of his return ! His salary
was a very modest one and the loss entailed was a serious
matter for him, but he had not liked to protest against a
ruling which came to him with all the circumstance of official
forms. When I again reached Athens I put the matter
before Sir Edmund Monson, who wrote indignantly to the
N
178 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
highest authority, with the result that Biliotti received a
cheque which liberally covered all his expenses.
I picked up enough information in Crete to prepare a
report for the Minister and spent a perfect Christmas eve
and morning crossing the Aegean. Athens I continued to
like more and more. Haggard and I used to take long rides
over the country in the afternoons. He was the best of
company and a splendid travelling companion with high
spirits and a very daring humour. I shall never forget an
occasion on which we accompanied to the Acropolis a most
amiable but not classically interested lady, whose husband's
business had brought him to Athens. As we approached
the masterpiece of Iktinus she inquired: "Is that the
Parthian? " "Yes," said Haggard, "that is indeed the
Parthian, and those fallen columns to the right and left are
the well-known Parthian Shafts."
Echoes from Berlin continued to reach me. During his
brief reign of three months the Emperor Frederick had
parted with only one Minister, the favourite of the Junkers,
Puttkamer, who had resigned upon receiving a message
insisting on the necessity for ensuring greater freedom in
elections, before the royal signature could be put to a measure
extending the legislature period of the Prussian Landtag
to five years. Within six months of his death Puttkamer
received the order of the Black Eagle, the highest, rarest,
most coveted of all German decorations. Then came a
monstrous inspired attack on Sir Robert Morier in the
Cologne Gazette. His indignant letter to Count Bismarck
protesting against the charge that Marshal Bazaine had
through him obtained knowledge of the whereabouts of
Prince Frederick Charles' army, and his demand that an
official dementi should be published, received a reply to the
effect that the tone of Morier's letter was not of a nature
to induce Count Herbert to depart from his official attitude
to the press. The attitude of the Bismarcks to the press
was surely a little too notorious for such an unblushing
rejoinder. The motive of the attack must have been to
ATHENS, 1888-1889
179
compromise Morier's position in Russia. If so, it showed
grave miscalculation, for it strengthened it immensely.
The old hand on the wheel of public affairs seemed to have
grown less sure. A similar official attack in Germany on
the Austrian Minister, Count Taafe, whose majority was
crumbling, had reseated him more firmly than ever in office,
and it may be doubted whether in France the rather second-
class personality of Boulanger would ever have loomed so
large if Germany had not made a bugbear of him.
The anemones were already starring the grass and the
young corn was rising high when I was invited by my friend
Herbert Gibbs and the Greek banker Ionides to join their
party on a steamer which they had hired to visit several
points of special interest in Greece. That entirely delightful
expedition, which was not without a certain spice of adven¬
ture, remains a vivid memory, for it brought the realization
of a cherished desire to visit sites which had been so long
familiar in dreams. Among these were Chalcis and the bay
of Aulis where Gibbs, Haggard and I came near to sharing
the fate of Aristotle in the churning race below the narrow
tidal strait of the Euripus, owing to the breaking of an oar
in an overcrowded boat over which the seas broke, but which
happily still contrived to float when waterlogged. We
explored Thermopylae ; the Valley of Tempe ; Delos, a
red island of poppies in the intense blue sea, and lastly
Nauplia, whence I returned to Athens. It was still con¬
sidered desirable in those days to send an escort of cavalry
with our party across the Thessalian plain to the passage
between Ossa and Olympus. Even so early in the year the
heat was intense in the treeless corn lands, and when at last
the mountains opened to receive us in the beautiful gorge
with its shady groves of plane under the grey cliffs which
wall in the passage of the Peneus to the sea, I understood the
enthusiasm which the vale of Tempe aroused in the traveller
of ancient days.
A hasty visit to Italy, where I joined my family for a few
weeks in the spring, brought me into contact at Venice with
180 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
John Addington Symonds, who was then writing his new
Italian sketches. All one long night till dawn appeared I
sat up with him and Horatio Brown, wrestling in genial
argument, wetted by potations of a white wine from the
Veronese. I remember at the end I reproached him with
the iconoclastic spirit in which he had undermined many of
my ideals, and found the antidote in his answer, which
besought me not to take it to heart, for if I had elected to
be the devil's advocate, he would certainly have been found
defending the position which I had been trying to hold. It
was only a genial exercise of dialectics. Symonds was
already a doomed man, and only descended in the spring
for a few months from his sanatorium at Davos. We met
again in Rome, and to Rome he came at last to die, though
not then anticipating the end. He lies a few yards away
from the graves of Shelley and Trelawney under the Aurelian
wall among the cypresses of Testaccio.
The later summer in Athens was desperately hot. The
rocky heights which surrounded the city and the parched
earth absorbed the fierce sun all day long and radiated at
night the heat they had accumulated. When it grew
intolerable Marling and I joined the Russian First Secretary
Bakmeteff and his American wife, most sociable and
hospitable of colleagues, and camped in the monastery
of Mendheli, half-way up the slopes of Pentelicon. The
monks, who were not many in number, gave us a certain
number of rooms. We took our beds there, some stores and
live stock, and the Bakmeteffs brought their cook. Bak¬
meteff had been at Oxford, at Merton, with my old friend
Mowbray Morris the " man of letters," and many were the
tales which his contemporaries told of the eccentricities and
adventures of " the Russ." His knowledge of both French
and English literature was, like Sam Weller's knowledge of
London, " extensive and peculiar," and he had a delightful
little antiquarian library of books. One of his possessions
which I really envied was an Elizabethan vocabulary for
travellers in Italy, The Italian Schoolemaister, 'printed at
ATHENS, 1888-1889
181
London by Thomas Purfoot in the year of grace 1597, by
Claudius Holliband, genii, of Bourbonnois. The phrases for
interpretation gave a curiously vivid picture of the habit of
life of the time. My old colleague, who was Russian
Ambassador at Washington when the Great War began,
rather, I think, enjoyed and courted the sort of Machiavellian
reputation attributed to Russian representatives in those
days. He was an acute observer who concealed a warm
heart behind a caustic humour and a genial cynicism which
made him excellent company. Marling and I took it in
turns to spend two days and a night in Athens to carry on
the duties which required personal attendance, and then
enjoyed two nights and a day on the mountain. At day¬
break a donkey took us over the hills to the nearest station
on the Athens line. Not far from the monastery there was
a little spring which discharged a constant small stream into
a rough basin hollowed in the marble, and the header into
the ice-cold water on returning from the city washed the
weariness of the sultry road away. It was also not a very
long climb from our monastic retreat to the summit of Pen-
telicon. And there on nights of full moon we would sleep
on the heather, very near the stars, and wake to see the sun
come up out of the Aegean, revealing island after island to
the east, till at last he overtopped the highlands of Euboea
and struck the crescent plain of Marathon.
That summer my old Balliol friend, Malcolm Macmillan,
spent a few hours with us at Athens, promising to return,
and then went on to Constantinople. With Hardinge (Sir
Arthur Hardinge, afterwards Ambassador at Madrid) he
crossed to Broussa and made the ascent of the Asiatic
Olympus. The mountain has two summits not very far
apart. Hardinge went straight on to the higher point, while
Macmillan, who wished to see the view from the lower one
also, undertook to follow him after a brief interval. Hardinge
had seen Macmillan below and waved to him to come on.
After waiting a considerable time, as Macmillan did not
appear, he returned to the point where they had left their
182 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
horses, and found no trace of him there. From that time
he was never heard of in the world again. Hardinge, who
no doubt took a very grave risk in doing so, remained all
night on the mountain, sending their servant back to
Broussa for assistance. A hue and cry was raised, rewards
were offered, and several hundred men searched the moun¬
tain in every direction. Yet no trace or clue was ever found.
He had hardly been out of earshot of the others and was
actually seen descending from the crest which he had scaled.
Not long afterwards a story reached me from Zante that a
Greek who had been for a short time received in a Catholic
monastery there, professed to have been on the mountain
as a guide with another party and to have heard some Dal¬
matian shepherds, whose language he understood, discussing
whether they should do to the other travellers as they had
done to the Englishman. But the man in question proved
to be an untrustworthy subject and was soon turned out
of the monastery, so that little weight was attached to his
statement. There was in Malcolm Macmillan, together with
a curious individuality of mind, a strain at times of some¬
thing more than eccentricity, and for a while I was tempted
to believe we might hear of him again one day. " In Vishnu-
land what Avatar ? " But the enigma of his mysterious
disappearance has never been cleared up.
The trouble which had been brewing in Crete at the end
of 1888 came to a head in the spring and early summer of
the following year. The dominant factions at the moment,
demanding specific reforms and the recall of the Governor,
had constituted a sort of general assembly, independent of
the elected chamber, at Boutzunaria, the historic centre at
which all Cretan insurrections had been organized. The
Sultan sent a special commissioner to inquire into alleged
grievances, but on his recommending concession he was
forthwith recalled. It was to the interest of at least one
Great Power that a settlement should not ensue in the island.
Open insurrection would require the despatch of forty to
fifty thousand troops, which would manifestly weaken
ATHENS, 1888-1889
183
Turkish military power. The Cretan Christians made a
fatal mistake at this moment in putting forward the plea
for annexation to Greece. Until then they had had a large
number of the Mussulman population with them in demanding
reforms. But now the Mussulman elements began to draw
away from the Christian group with which they had been
politically associated, and to flock into the towns. The
opposing forces gathered in large numbers at Boutzunaria.
The garrison of Crete, consisting nominally of 10,000 men,
was really only 4,000 strong and the Vali demanded reinforce¬
ments. The Porte postponed action and only armed the
Mussulman population under the pretext of forming a
gendarmerie, and so gradually gave the party which held
the towns the upper hand. Refugees began to arrive in
hundreds and thousands in sailing boats at Greek ports, and
the country was hard put to it to provide for this extra
population whose property had been confiscated on their
departure. Such was in a few words the process which led
to this as to many antecedent movements in Crete. Early
in August the Greek Government, distracted with the prob¬
lem of feeding, housing and clothing thousands of refugees,
announced their intention of sending the whole of their fleet
to Crete in order to force the Sultan to take action. But
before doing so they appealed to the Great Powers to inter¬
vene and compel the Turks to do their duty. When at
length considerable Turkish forces were despatched to Crete
the pacification of the island was rapid and the Greek
attitude then became one of protest against the severity of
repression and of a demand for general amnesty. The
situation thus developed offered a splendid opportunity to
the politician to exhaust the vocabulary of patriotic fervour
and the opposition renewed their efforts to undermine the
position of the greatest statesman that Greece had hitherto
produced.
Charilaos Tricoupis, son of the historian and statesman,
Spiridion Tricoupis, who had been many years Hellenic
envoy in London, had passed a great portion of his youth in
184 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
England and made his studies there, being also attached to
the Legation when barely of age. He was so impregnated
with British ideals and standpoints that he became known
to his countrymen as the Englishman. He was appointed
Minister for Foreign Affairs at the age of thirty-four and
Prime Minister some ten years later. A man of wide culture,
frank, direct and rigidly incorruptible, but very ambitious
for his country, he had now succeeded with certain intervals
in dominating for an unprecedented period the political life
of a people whose ancestral tradition it was to tire of hearing
Aristides called The Just. Tricoupis would have played a
conspicuous part in any country. In the smaller Greece of
those days he was almost too big for his stage. His reputa¬
tion stood as high in the councils of Europe as that of
Yenizelos in the councils of the allies during the Great War.
He had already greatly improved the financial stability of
his country by his dexterous handling of public resources,
although he had not been able, as he had confidently hoped,
to restore Greek currency to its par value. He improved
harbours, extended roads and built railways. He assured
a rigorous and impartial collection of revenue, and made the
Greek fleet an important and progressive factor.
His private life was simple and almost austere in the
modest house which his devoted sister, Miss Sophie Tricoupis,
managed for him, performing the functions of an extremely
competent and accomplished private secretary, who inter¬
viewed both the important and the importunate, and spared
his overtaxed energies in every possible way. Miss Sophie
was indeed almost as great a power as her brother, who
although he commanded respect, could never achieve popu¬
larity. To me Tricoupis, whom his countrymen regarded as
unplastic and reserved, seemed endowed with infinite charm,
and I was honoured in being admitted to his cordial friend¬
ship. With Miss Sophie, who survived her illustrious
brother many years, I maintained a desultory correspondence
until her death. The great difficulty for a man of his char¬
acter lay in the narrow majority on which a Minister had
ATHENS, 1888-1889
185
to count in a numerically small assembly, and the price
which deputies exacted for their support in advancing the
claims of their constituents. It was difficult to maintain
the high standard of political integrity and equity at which
he aimed when the defection of a dozen representatives
might wreck the prospect of important issues, and there was
no second chamber to redress the balance. He was now
involved in a dispute vicariously of interest to us also, with
the French Legation, which was characteristic of Tricoupis,
and typical of international methods in the Balkans.
In pursuance of his policy of railway extension Tricoupis
had invited tenders for the construction of a railway from
Athens to Larissa in Thessaly. The supervision and execu¬
tion of public works in Greece was at the time entrusted to
a delegation of French engineers from the department of
Ponts et Chaussees, who regarded all contracts in which they
were concerned as a French monopoly and had made sure
of securing this one for French enterprise. But the lowest
tender submitted for the work was that of a British firm,
whose terms, some twenty per cent, more advantageous than
the lowest French offer, were accepted. The French
Minister did not conceal his indignation. It is possible that,
as he was one of those who though bearing a title of im¬
perial nobility remained in the service of the republic, he
felt obliged to be ultra-zealous. The old Marquis de Mon-
tholon had staunchly stood by Louis Napoleon in his early
days and had shared his exile in England. His marriage
there, en secondes noces, at the age of seventy to a beautiful
Irish girl had been the subject of considerable comment.
Her son, the Comte de Montholon, who was thus Irish on
his mother's side, was Minister at Athens. He endeavoured
to secure the revocation of the railway concession on tech¬
nical grounds. When this failed the French engineering
mission sent in their collective resignation, on the plea that
the country which they served had been slighted. Tricoupis
pointed out that the country in which they were serving
was Greece, and his irritation was considerable when they
186 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
asked for the annulment of their ill-advised letter, which
they admitted had been dictated by Montholon. He
allowed the letter to be considered as non-avenue, but he
spoke to Montholon with his usual directness, asserting the
right of Greece to conduct her own business and inquiring
whether he supposed that the British Legation had ventured
to intervene in a similar manner.
In September I paid a visit to Euboea, where I was most
kindly entertained by Mr. Noel at Achmetagha, his estate
in that beautiful island, acquired by his ancestor who had
been attracted by the association of his kinsman, Lord Byron,
with Greece. Euboea had an interesting history in the
middle ages, after the fourth crusade and its conquest by
Jacques d'Avesnes, when it was divided into three feudal
baronies, or Triarchies, assigned by Boniface of Montferrat,
the King of Salonica, to three of his followers belonging to
the family of Dalle Carceri of Verona. Later it fell under
Venetian influence and Chalcis made an heroic but vain resis¬
tance to Mohammed the Great. The castle on the little
island which further contracts the narrow strait of Negri-
pont, with a marble lion of St. Mark that had survived the
Turkish occupation, had not then been dismantled, and the
splendid walls of Chalcis recalled the memorable siege. I
was able during this visit to add considerably to the col¬
lection of Greek folk-lore and legend which I had begun to
assemble, and which was eventually published in a volume
" Customs and Lore of Modern Greece," now long out of
print, though it achieved the dignity of a second edition.
This book afterwards led to a correspondence with Mr.
Gladstone as to whether Charos, the messenger of death in
modern Greek legend, could like other existing survivals of
ancient myth have been pre-Homeric, in spite of the fact
that Charon, his ancient counterpart, is not mentioned in
Homer. Mr. Gladstone wrote : " That he is not mentioned
in Homer would not in my view militate against his being
older than Homer. I think it is highly probable that there
were many myths or traditions in the country which he may
ATHENS, 1888-1889
187
have known but has not noticed. My own idea is that
there were traditions of the old nature-worship which he
did his best to put into the shade. Homer has Hermes, the
Psychopompos, to perform mutatis mutandis what became
the office of Charon. So that I should suppose it doubtful,
mainly on account of this office of Hermes, whether Charon
was pre-Homcric."
In the following month took place at Athens the marriage
of Prince Constantine, the present King of Greece, to
Princess Sophie, the third daughter of the Emperor Frederick.
There was a great assembly of Royal relations for the occa¬
sion. A sincere disappointment to the Greeks was the
absence of a popular favourite, Princess Alexandra of Greece,
who had recently been married to the Russian Grand Duke
Paul. Her absence gave rise to rumours of tension with
Russia over the Cretan question. Intemperate comments
had indeed not been lacking in a constitutionally intemperate
press. But the presence of the Czarevitch seemed hardly
consistent with any intention to emphasize displeasure
with Greece. In spite of the depression which recent
events in Crete had produced, the wedding festivities passed
off brilliantly. The Prince and Princess of Wales arrived
with all their family in the Osborne, escorted by the Mediter¬
ranean Squadron. The German Emperor, accompanied by
the Empress, entered Piraeus in the royal yacht with a British
Admiral's flag alongside the German. The salutes of the
British, German, Italian and Russian warships made the
scene in the Bay of Salamis like an old-world naval battle
at close quarters. The Empress Frederick had already
arrived with her daughters, attended by my old friends
Seckendorff and Reischach, and the King and Queen of
Denmark had also joined the family party. It was noticed
at the Athens station that the German Emperor spoke
cordially to the Austro-Hungarian, British and Italian
Ministers, but only bowed to the French and the Russian.
The marriage ceremony, which took place on October the 27th
with all the elaborate ritual of the Orthodox Church, was
188 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
imposing but very long. Bride and bridegroom stood in front
of the screen for upwards of an hour without swerving, while
the wedding crowns were held over their heads by the
Czarevitch, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales,
Prince Henry of Prussia and the two brothers of the bride¬
groom in turns. In the evening we dined at the Palace.
Herbert Bismarck, who had accompanied the Emperor, was to
my surprise extremely cordial when we met. On the other
hand the Emperor, moving after dinner among the foreign
representatives, passed by me with a frown upon his face.
I did not on that occasion emulate the example of Beau
Brummel. I learned, however, from the Prince of Wales
that he was still gravely offended about the book.
The Prince was to start on the following day for Egypt.
Prince Albert Victor was about to visit India. The Osborne
would take him to Port Said, where he would embark on
board the Oceania, and after seeing him off the Prince of
Wales was to return to Alexandria and pay a visit to Cairo.
To my delight he invited me to accompany him. There
had been considerable difficulties regarding the position
of the very numerous Greek colony in Egypt, and it was
suggested that I, being well posted in these questions,
should take the opportunity of discussing them directly
with the Egyptian Ministers and Sir Evelyn Baring.
CHAPTER VI
ATHENS, 1889-1890
There was little time to prepare, as we sailed at noon on
the 28th. The Empress Frederick and the Princess of
Wales remained on board the Osborne till we drew abreast
of Salamis, when they were transferred to the Dreadnought.
Prince George of Wales was now a lieutenant in the Osborne,
which was commanded by Captain Hedworth Lambton
(Admiral Sir H. Meux). Lord Suffield and General Arthur
Ellis were in attendance and Captain Holf ord was accompany¬
ing Prince Albert Victor to India. Already at dinner we
had the fiddles on the table, and though the sea quieted
down between Melos and Crete and the next morning opened
fair, the wind increased in force all through the afternoon.
It blew very hard all night and grew worse the following day.
Heavy seas were shipped which did considerable damage,
washing out the cook's galley, smashing the bulwarks and
carrying away the port light.
It was imperative not to miss the Oceania at Port Said
and every effort was made to force an additional half-knot
out of the old Osborne. The Prince of Wales was an excellent
sailor, but he nevertheless wisely remained in his cabin as
any movement was difficult, and the one or two survivors
among us took our meals in the wardroom. Instead of
getting in with daylight as anticipated we did not make
Port Said until 10 p.m. on the 30th, and there were very
few tons of coal left in the bunkers. But the Oceania had
after all not yet arrived. In view of the heavy weather the
run back to Alexandria was abandoned and it was decided
that we should proceed on the following morning through
189
190 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the Canal to Ismailia. This involved a rapid modification
of the reception programme in Egypt, which was arranged
without any apparent hitch. In the early morning the
Oceania came in, having lain off the entrance to the Canal
all night.
Sir Evelyn Baring joined us at Port Said, and thus I met
for the first time the great proconsul with whom I was later
to be associated for so many years. The Prince had
described him as a very able man, but with no manners. I
could not feel this judgment to be altogether justified, and
was immediately attracted to him. It is true that he did
not suffer bores or fools gladly, and he never wasted valuable
time on the unessential. There will be much to say about
this great man in the proper place, if I am able to complete
this record of my official life. But as I have recently read,
in a book conceived in a brilliantly iconoclastic vein which
has justly attracted much attention, an appreciation which
suggests that he only regarded Egypt as a promising field
for the advancement of Sir Evelyn Baring, I wish to say at
once that having lived in the closest relations with him for
eight years of my life I consider such a judgment as alto¬
gether distorted. His every energy was disinterestedly and
whole-heartedly concentrated on the work in hand for that
work's sake only, and he had never any other end in view.
So strong a personality could not fail to impress itself on
everything it touched. But to insinuate that his action
was prompted by egotistical motives reveals an entire
misconception of his high and public-spirited character.
After an early coaling we entered the canal and reached
Ismailia towards sunset. The Oceania passed at 8 p.m. and
took Prince Albert Victor on board. Starting early by
train the following morning we found that in spite of the
change of route the stations had been decorated. After a
brief halt at Tel el Kebir and a visit to the military cemetery,
we arrived at Cairo in time for lunch at the Agency. Cairo
had not yet become a semi-European city in 1889. The
wonderful crowd which lined the streets costumed in many
ATHENS, 1889-1890
191
colours was a revelation of the real East. After lunch the
formal visit to the Khedive Tewfik Pasha took place at the
Abdeen Palace. I had heard much of him from Malet, of
whom I found he retained a friendly and grateful recol¬
lection. Tewfik was a thoroughly amiable and good man
with all the domestic virtues. By some perversity of fate
it appears to be always the domestic and kindly rulers that
are confronted with revolutionary movements. The Prince
of Wales and his staff were lodged at Ghizeh across the Nile
in the house of Prince Hussein, who was twenty-five years
later to be the first Sultan of Egypt. In the evening we
dined at the Abdeen Palace, and sitting next to Tigrane
Pasha, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I had an opportunity
of discussing with him the various questions for which I
had been instructed to seek a solution. There was a review
on the following day in which some 1,700 British and 4,000
Egyptian troops took part. The Prince rode out and saluted
the Khedive with a royal salute which gave the assembled
crowds great pleasure. There was nothing but amity and
goodwill in Egypt in those days. A strictly limited number
of carefully selected British officials were acting as advisers
or assistants in the various departments, and were careful
to maintain only this advisory character. Their influence
was rapidly making itself felt, and they were almost wor¬
shipped by the fellaheen whose rights and obligations had
now been clearly defined. Our occupation was felt to be
merely temporary, and confirmation had been given to our
repeated declarations to that effect by the recent Drummond-
Wolff Convention, fixing a definite date for the withdrawal
of British troops. It is true that at the last moment
the Sultan had been induced by French pressure at Con¬
stantinople to withhold his signature on account of the clause
stipulating for our return if anarchy should again supervene.
But the terms of the Convention left no doubt as to our
intentions.
Sunday was devoted after a luncheon party at the resi¬
dence of the Sirdar, General Sir Francis Grenfell (now Field-
192 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Marshal Lord Grenfell) to the Museum, which was still at
Boulak, though the precious collections were in process of
removal to Ghizeh, whence they have since been brought
to the new building specially constructed to receive them
adjoining Kasr-el-Nil. We dined with the Prime Minister
Riaz Pasha, and at his table I was again able to discuss
Greco-Egyptian issues with Sir Elwin Palmer, who had lately
succeeded Sir Edgar Vincent as financial adviser. The next
day we drove to the Pyramids along the road constructed
little more than twenty years earlier for the opening of the
Suez Canal, on which occasion the Emperor Napoleon III
and the Crown Prince Frederick had found themselves
together. Two years afterwards they were to meet again—
at Sedan. The avenues then planted had already assumed
stately proportions. The Sheikhs of the neighbouring
villages had assembled and Bedawin gave an exhibition of
their prowess on horseback. The high water of the Nile
was still flooding the basins, and on our return we saw from
the Pyramid road a sight which will never be seen again in
that region now that perennial irrigation has been intro¬
duced. Some acres of the flooded area gleamed white like
fresh snow in the sun, and as we drew nearer, I realized from
its moving surface and the occasional lifting of wings that
the effect was due to a vast assemblage of pelicans. In the
evening after dining once more with the Khedive we attended
the festival of tents in honour of the Prophet's birthday, the
Mouled-el-Nebbi. Hundreds of tents with many-coloured
hangings, divans and rare carpets, illuminated by strings of
lanterns and sparkling clusters of chandeliers, covered a
large open space adjoining the city. There were groups of
devout men at prayer and Dervishes swaying their bodies to
the monotonous cry of Allah, whose fervour seemed to make
the display of fireworks in the central space before the tents
of the mighty a little incongruous. It was a brilliant finale
to the Egyptian visit. We embarked at Alexandria at noon
the next day, and meeting a somewhat kindlier sea reached
Piraeus on the 7th. I had been able in certain respects to
ATHENS, 1889-1890
193
fulfil the objects of my mission and to obtain assurances of
good-will from the Egyptian authorities regarding some
matters to which the Greeks attached importance.
The German Emperor and his suite had in the meanwhile
left for Constantinople. It was after this visit that the
German influence in Turkey, which ended in complete
ascendancy, first began to make itself felt. No effort was
omitted to attract the personal sympathies of Abdul Hamid,
who was then still master of the situation, nor did the
subsequent Armenian massacres for a moment interrupt the
constant exchange of compliments. The Germans were
studious not to irritate him by demanding reforms and
urging the grievances of subject populations. A travelling
Member of Parliament of my acquaintance had an oppor¬
tunity about that time of glancing over a private diary kept
by the Sultan's physician who enjoyed his particular con¬
fidence. There was an entry in it to the effect that Abdul
Hamid had said to him that of all the representatives
accredited to his court he disliked the British most.
They never took the slightest interest in his dynasty,
but were always bothering him about the state of the
people.
The Empress Frederick remained some weeks longer and
I accompanied her to Eleusis, Argos, Mycenae, Tyryns and
Epidaurus. Dorpfeldt, the director of the German archaeo¬
logical school at Athens, who had assisted Schliemann in
his excavations, was with us and was most enlightening.
Neither the Emperor nor his staff, who were reported to
have been indiscreet in some of their observations at Athens,
had appealed to the democratic Greek, and the visit to
Constantinople, following on the visit to Athens, was not
appreciated. But the mother of the new Crown Princess,
whose story had excited general sympathy, was received
with great enthusiasm in every Greek village and she seemed
to enjoy the new experience of popularity. We went on to
Olympia, still with Dorpfeldt as guide, and at Pyrgos we
parted, the Empress embarking for Italy, while Dorpfeldt
o
194 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
and I drove across Elis through the night to catch a train
for Patras at Lechana.
A curious adventure befell us on the road. Our carriage
halted about midnight in a village called Gastouni to breathe
the horses. We got out to stretch our legs, and hearing
sounds of revelry by night went to investigate what these
belated pipings signified. One of us closed the carriage
door and a sleepy driver no doubt assumed that we had got
in again. The strains led us to a one-storied peasant's house
and looking in we perceived a carousal in progress. We were
bidden to enter and made to sit down at a well-laden table
and eat and drink. It was a wedding feast to be prolonged
through the night. Gipsy musicians were producing from
bagpipes and reed instruments a volume of sound which in
the confined space was almost unbearable. At the end of
the screed the wedding guests folded fifty and hundred
drachmae notes like spills, and inserted them under the red
fez worn by the leader till his forehead was fringed with
paper currency. This lavish outlay puzzled me. But I
afterwards learned that it was more apparent than real as
an account was kept of the notes and only a percentage went
to the musicians, the balance being restored. When after
an hour or so we returned to where we had left our carriage,
it had disappeared. The driver, hearing the door close, had
gone on and he only discovered on arriving at Lechana that
we were not inside. After disturbing the slumbers of as
many of the villagers as had not been kept awake by the
pipes, we at length found one who owned a horse and a light
cart, and who consented to rise from his mattress and convey
us chilled and rugless on our way to the point where we met
our own carriage returning to look for us.
Dorpfeldt was working out his theory that the palace of
Odysseus was not in the island now known as Ithaca, but in
Santa Maura, where a causeway covered at certain seasons
by low water links what is really a peninsula to the main¬
land. The question of Telemachus to Athena, disguised as
the lord of the Taphians, whether she had arrived in a ship
ATHENS, 1889-1890
195
since he did not suppose she had come by land, would there¬
fore if applied to Santa Maura be intelligible and need not
be regarded as an instance of ponderous Homeric humour.
The veteran Schliemann, who had inducted him into archae¬
ology, was still living in Athens. His enthusiasm for
antiquity had not altogether killed in him the old business
instincts which had enabled him to accumulate the fortune
he so well employed. While the foundations for some new
houses were being prepared on a site which he owned in the
centre of the city, several rather interesting tombs came to
light. Meeting him in the street I congratulated him on the
discovery, and on his good luck which made it impossible
for him to put the spade into the ground without securing a
treasure. " Yes, yes," he said, " I gave so much for the
ground, the building will cost me so much. The rents should
provide a good return for my investment." Probably the
tombs, being post-Homeric, did not interest him. According
to a story told me by Leighton we missed by an insular
lack of tolerance and appreciation securing for the British
Museum the wonderful collection of his finds which was
exhibited in London. Schliemann had been invited to
become an honorary member of the Athenaeum and he,
greatly appreciating the compliment and acting in the spirit
of his eastern experience, forwarded a cheque to the secre¬
tary who had made the welcome announcement to him.
It would have been easy to return it with a word of friendly
explanation that the position of secretaries was not what he
had supposed. But it seems that the Committee took
another view and the invitation to the club was withdrawn.
This gravely offended the old man, who, according to
Leighton, had contemplated presenting this collection to the
nation, and it went to Berlin instead.
The Hellenic Government showed a very liberal spirit in
conceding sites to the foreign archaeological schools for
research work, which contributed in constant progression
to our historical and biological knowledge. There was a
marked contrast to the principle of fara da se which has
196 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
been adopted in Italy, with the result that the marvellous
treasures offered by such a field as Herculaneum, the cost
of which is evidently beyond the means of any internal
department, remain and probably will remain unexplored.
A scheme with that object in view had been elaborated by
my friend Sir Charles Walston assisted by Leonard Shoo-
bridge, but it encountered chauvinistic opposition in the
press as a last obstacle after all others had been surmounted
and had to be abandoned. The former spent several
months at the British school in Athens during my stay there,
and stirred our archaeological sensibilities with his contagious
enthusiasm. It was there also that I first met a great
friend of after years, Mrs. Arthur Strong, then Miss Eugenie
Sellers, who was at that time blind to all that was not Greek.
If her subsequent activities at the British school at Rome
have induced a certain transfer of allegiance and have even
stimulated exploration of the artistic values of the baroque,
I can only testify to my admiration of her work in every
phase.
While in Greece I was myself tempted to follow a new line
of investigation. Wandering over the country I became
interested in the very numerous feudal castles which crowned
strategic heights, even in regions which the Venetians had
never held. The construction of these strongholds was
generally assigned to the " Franks " and evidences of western
or Latin nomenclature survived in many places. I was
tempted to inquire more deeply into the history of these
Franks, to discover what manner of men they were who
established the Francocratia and came to dominate valleys
hitherto exclusively associated in my mind with classical
tradition and Hellenic myth. The result was that I began
to collect materials for a study of Greece in the Middle Ages,
during that obscure period when cadets of the great houses
of Champagne and Burgundy and Flanders established
feudal baronies in the Morea and central Greece, when there
were Princes of Achaia and Dukes of Athens, the last dynasty
of which bore the Tuscan name of Acciajuoli. The pursuit
ATHENS, 1889-1890
197
of these investigations, which eventually entailed researches
in the archives at Naples, Venice, Brussels and elsewhere,
as well as the examination of many obscure records, had to
be spread over a number of years owing to pressure of work
in other parts of the world. So that it was not until some
fifteen years after leaving Athens that I was able to publish
the result.1 By a curious coincidence my friend William
Miller, whom I did not then know, published almost simult¬
aneously his Latins in the Levant. These were the first two
studies on the subject in English, except for the brief outline
of Frankish history in Finlay's Greece.
The new year, 1890, brought to Athens the epidemic of
influenza which had such fatal effects in every country on
its first appearance. The custom prevails in Greece of
dressing the dead in evening clothes, or at any rate in the
best that the family can afford, as if for a festival, and of
carrying them out thus attired exposed to public view in a
flat shell, the cover of which is only put on at the grave.
This exposition of the dead is as old as the laws of Solon.
The chant of the accompanying choristers acts like an
irresistible spell to draw the hearer to the window. Our
house lay upon the road by which funeral processions passed
to the cemetery and during this epidemic the frequency with
which a new pair of boots coming round the corner indicated
the arrival of the bier ended by getting on my nerves.
The Cretan situation was now quiescent. Shakir Pasha,
who had been entrusted with the pacification, had been very
successful in restoring internal order, and the only remaining
trouble arose from the Sultan's Firman of amnesty, the
terms of which were severe as regards the revolutionary
leaders and the prominent exiles in Greece. Had the Firman
been so drawn as to be immediately acceptable Shakir's
triumph would have been complete, and he would have
been indicated for the position of Grand Vizir, which would
not have suited intriguers at the palace. As it was the
1 The Princes of Achaia and the Chronicles of Morea. Arnold,
1907.
198 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Firman provided a pretext for a threatened renewal of
disturbance. The Cretan refugees filled the Greek news¬
papers with the usual " Balkanie " reports of persecutions,
outrages, burnings and violations of women, and Shakir's
attempts to explain away the harsher conditions carried no
conviction. On the other hand our reports went to show
that local conditions were fairly normal, that the fields were
being cultivated in tranquillity, and that the behaviour of
the troops had been good. Gradually, notwithstanding the
attempts of agitators to excite opinion, things settled down,
and as the year went on refugees began to return in consider¬
able numbers. But in spite of a liberal interpretation of the
amnesty the ringleaders were still excepted.
I was in relations with a certain number of the exiled
chiefs, one of whom, Korkidis, a veteran of sixty-eight,
impressed me very favourably. He had taken part in
half-a-dozen revolutions and had done all he could to prevent
the recent ferment from coming to a crisis. Our house was
constantly haunted by a magnificent rebel, whose record
both in his domestic and public capacity was hardly con¬
sistent with his name of Christodoulaki, the little servant of
Christ. He wore the picturesque island costume, the full
blue Turkish trousers to a little below the knee, held up by
yellow sheepskin boots, the braided blue jacket, the red fez
and the crimson waistband, which was an arsenal of lethal
implements. One of his brothers was a prisoner in Rhodes,
another a fugitive in the mountains of Sphakia and he was
himself condemned to death. He had been a major of
Gendarmerie, but all his men had left him and disappeared.
He asked for regulars and receiving none retired to his
village, whereupon he was branded as a deserter and therefore
fled to Greece. His thousand sheep had been confiscated
and consumed. This big powerful man, who was said to
have killed seven Turks with his own hand in an engagement,
used to weep like a child when he talked to me of the island
from which he was exiled. He reminded me of the Homeric
warriors whose tears were not regarded as unheroic. His
ATHENS, 1889-1890
199
position in Greece was complicated by the arrival of another
Sphakiot whose family had a blood feud against the family
of Christodoulaki. In Sphakia as in Maina, which I was
shortly to visit, the vendetta was still maintained. It was,
however, understood that the local feud should be suspended
during residence in Greece. I grew much attached to
Christodoulaki and did what I could to help him. Eventu¬
ally he also was included in the amnesty. I hope he followed
a life of patriotic virtue when he returned.
It fell to my lot at this time, owing to some interruption
in our routine of communications, to be sent several times to
Brindisi with despatches. On the first occasion, it was in
December, 1889, we encountered such bad weather in the
Adriatic that our ship took refuge at Avlona or Valona.
Having made acquaintance on board with an A.D.C. of Don
Carlos, who had been there on a shooting expedition and
knew the Pasha, I went ashore with him. The Governor
was a great-nephew of the famous Ali Pasha of Jannina, and
terribly bored with his isolation in the ancient city of
Apollonia, where his only distraction seemed to be to play
backgammon with the official doctor. He was very glad
to see some unexpected visitors, and entertained us to dinner.
The inhabitants of Avlona looked miserable and fever-
stricken. I little anticipated then the importance which this
roadstead and town, with the adjoining rock of Sasseno
would assume in recent years. The delay of twelve hours
involved my missing the Indian Mail at Brindisi. An
English paper which had just arrived there announced the
death of Robert Browning.
On my second journey to Brindisi some two months later
I had four days to spare there before the arrival of the Indian
Mail train with the return bag for Athens. I had thus the
opportunity to gratify an old ambition by making a pilgrim¬
age of sentiment to the birthplace of Horace, Venosa, the
ancient Venusium. Communications across Apulia were
still primitive in those days. At Rochetta, a station on the
coastal railway, I found a diligence of antiquated construe-
200 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
tion which took me to Melfi, the old Norman capital, where
Robert le Guiscard and his wife lie under their stone canopies
in a church constructed of the fabric of old Roman buildings.
Thence another carriage took me to Venosa, where in the
evening dusk I found the only inn to consist of one large
room used for all purposes, over vaulted arches which served
as stables, and approached by an outside staircase.
A subsidiary railway line passing Venosa was in process
of construction, and the supper table was occupied by some
dozen foremen and mechanics, who made me welcome. We
played a game with the fingers to decide who should pay for
the wine. Each of those sitting round the table threw out
a certain number of fingers of the right hand. When the
total number of the extended fingers had been ascertained
the players, beginning from the end of the table, were
counted round and round till the number indicated by that
total was reached. The individual upon whom that number
fell was responsible for the next flagon. Was it some such
process remaining traditional in this region to which Horace
alluded when he asked, " Quem Venus arbitrem dicet bib-
endi ? " They were all good fellows and we passed a merry
evening. A few soldi paid for a litre of the strong Apulian
wine. When they dispersed to sleep I knew not where,
the host produced from a cupboard an iron bed and a
mattress on which I slept contentedly. In the fair February
morning light with the aid of a map I discovered all the
familiar points of Horatian topography. Mt. Vultur
dominated the landscape, and westwards I could identify
the " lofty nest of Acherontia," the Bantian woods and the
fertile fields of low-lying Ferentum. With the satisfaction
of the pilgrim who has fulfilled a vow I returned to the coast
at Cerignola. How many thousands of our eastward-bound
or home-returning countrymen have passed down that
Adriatic shore unconscious of the interest of those rarely
explored South Italian cities which gleam ivory white against
the blue sea ; Trani with its great Cathedral, which saw
the marriage of Manfred to Helen of Epirus, and some twelve
ATHENS, 1889-1890
201
years later that of her niece Isabella Villehardouin, the
heiress of Achaia, to Philip of Anjou ; and Bari with the
great church of St. Nicholas, the goal of numbers of pilgrims
from Russia. My mails did not reach Brindisi in time for
the Patras boat, and I had thus, while waiting for a ship,
an opportunity also to visit Taranto, an indispensable link
in our communications with the Near East during the Great
War, but in those days only beginning to develop the potent¬
iality of its magnificent harbour which has become the chief
naval station of Italy.
The news reached Athens not long after my return, that
Bismarck had resigned. Count Herbert Bismarck had
simultaneously withdrawn from public life. In the last
elections to the Reichstag the socialist gains had been for¬
midable, and had indicated a general change of spirit in
Germany. But the disappearance of that historic figure
came no doubt as something of a surprise to the world in
general. It had been obvious for some time past in Berlin
that a young and self-confident Emperor, who had shown
impatience of parental control, would not readily submit to
the tutelage which the Chancellor's supreme prestige and
authoritative temperament had enabled him to establish in
all but purely personal questions during the latter years of
the old Emperor's long reign. Bismarck had already out¬
lived the prescribed term of human activity and had passed
his seventy-fifth birthday. But he had for so long been the
dominant personality on the European stage that the
element of increasing years had been overlooked, and his
position had seemed unassailable.
Although the circumstances which led to his resignation
did not, like other matters noted in my diaries, fall under
my direct observation, I received information on the subject
from first-hand sources which it may be of interest to place
on record. There was evidence early in the new reign that
a less cordial spirit than had been anticipated prevailed
between the sovereign and his Chancellor. From corre¬
spondents in Berlin I had learned that the Emperor had been
202 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
indignant that, in proclaiming the diary of the Crown Prince
Frederick to be of doubtful authenticity, Bismarck should
have ventured to state that the Emperor William did not
trust his son with important information. The implied
slur upon his father's memory, made public without reference
to the reigning sovereign, was justly resented.
Bismarck's own very clear account of the change in the
new Emperor's attitude towards him, and of the gradual
transfer of confidence to other counsellors, has now been
published in the new chapters of his autobiography, some
thirty years after it was written. Apart from the evident
unpreparedness of the younger man to follow the veteran
statesman's advice in various foreign and domestic ques¬
tions, there were two specific issues on which their views
proved irreconcilable. In the first place there was the new
Labour legislation which the Emperor desired to introduce
in the beginning of 1890 and his proposal to summon an
International Labour Conference. By these measures he
hoped to disarm the growing socialist agitation, while by
simultaneously attenuating the rigour of existing anti-
socialist legislation he counted on securing the sympathies
of an industrial population continually growing in numbers
and importance. Bismarck, on the other hand, considered
his proposals as not only Utopian but also as dangerous
in that they were likely to encourage unrealisable expecta¬
tions. He held, moreover, that a withdrawal from the
battle with social-democracy would be a step down-hill,
tending to diminish the authority of the sovereign and to
stimulate the encroaching tendency of parliament. In the
second place, there was the question, the urgency of which
had been revealed to the Chancellor during those discussions,
whether or not other Prussian Ministers should report
directly to the Sovereign without preliminary consultation
and agreement with the Prime Minister, a procedure which
he could not accept. An order of 1852 prescribing such
preliminary understanding, regarded by Bismarck as indis¬
pensable to the Prime Minister's authority, was referred to
ATHENS, 1889-1890
203
by the Emperor as an old yellow paper the existence of which
had long been forgotten. Other matters of a less general
character affecting the relations between the Prince and
the Sovereign are set forth in the autobiography. But these
were the two essential points which led to the final rupture
and to the Emperor's insistence on his resignation both of
the Prussian Prime-Ministership and of the Imperial Chan¬
cellorship, which Bismarck had originally understood was
to be postponed until June, after certain new military
requisitions had been submitted to the Reichstag.
On the morning of the 17th March the chief of the Mili¬
tary Cabinet, General von Hahnke, informed him that the
Emperor insisted on the revocation of the order of 1852 and,
in view of his unwillingness to agree, expected him to hand
in his resignation forthwith—in fact that very afternoon.
Bismarck explained that his health would not permit him
to carry the resignation to the palace himself, and that he
would send it in writing. A Cabinet meeting was at once
called, and he submitted a statement of the reasons which
had determined him to ask for his release from service. He
states in his biography that all records of that Cabinet
meeting were destroyed. Later in the day the head of the
Civil Cabinet was sent from the palace to inquire why the
resignation demanded in the morning had not been received.
Hardly had it been despatched when General von Caprivi,
who was designated as his successor, took possession of a
portion of the official residence which he had occupied for
so many years. The conclusion of his supreme service to
his country was thus in the nature of a precipitate eviction.
Such is a brief summary of the Chancellor crisis as
recounted by Bismarck himself at the time. The record,
even though drawn up by one of the interested parties to
the conflict, was not likely to contain essential errors of
fact regarding matters which could easily then have been
verified. But his exposition might nevertheless be coloured
by a certain bias and have remained silent in regard to other
factors which the writer could not appreciate. It is there-
204 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
fore interesting to compare the statements in the auto¬
biography with the account of the episode which was given
me by the Empress Frederick, during a journey on which I
accompanied her in the Adriatic later in the same year. She
would not have been influenced by any predisposition in
favour of her life-long critic and antagonist.
She told me, however, that in the particular matter which
led to his fall Bismarck was in her opinion right, for she held
it to be ill-advised on the part of the Emperor to excite
hopes in the social-democrats which could not be fulfilled.
Bismarck had himself been for some time absent from the
capital when, towards the end of January, 1890, he heard
from his son Herbert that the Emperor contemplated taking
an initiative in Labour policy without further reference to
himself. He rushed back to Berlin and found that the
Emperor had himself drafted a rescript announcing his
intentions. He characterized its terms as impossible and
undignified, and asked leave to be allowed to rewrite it.
He worked at it all night and submitted the revised text
the following day, begging the Emperor at the same time
not to act hastily, but to give the document all his attention
and then to discuss it with him again—in any case not to
publish it without further consideration, as it was not what
the Chancellor could have wished it to be, but only the best
he could prepare in so short a time. The Emperor had
appeared to assent, but nevertheless despatched it at once
to the Gazette and had it published. When on the following
day Bismarck returned to the palace, the Emperor's manner
towards him was very abrupt, and to his inquiry, " Am I in
your way ? " he received the curt answer, " Yes ! " The
Chancellor then announced that he would resign, but he
went away under the impression that his resignation was
to be deferred until a more opportune moment. As it did
not follow as quickly as the Emperor had really intended, a
message was sent to accelerate it, which greatly offended the
old man.
The Empress added that most of the men who had been
ATHENS, 1889-1890
205
consulted on the Labour question were absolutely ignorant
of the subject. Hinzpeter, for instance, the Emperor's
former tutor, was a dogmatic schoolmaster and doctrinaire,
perfectly honest, but without any practical experience, and
convinced that nothing could be successful which was not
initiated by the State. Von Hey den, the artist, had been
selected because, when quite a young man, he had been for
a year a mining official; a most worthy man but quite useless
as an adviser in such difficult matters. He probably was
never in close touch with miners, and any experience of
them which he might have had dated back to twenty years
earlier. It is interesting to note that these observations of
the Empress are almost identical with those of Bismarck
in the autobiography. She regarded the Emperor's action
as really well-intentioned, but as betraying immaturity of
judgment. There were already, she said, institutions in
existence, similar to those which he now recommended,
which she and his father had founded. But the Emperor
had never taken any interest in them and he did not under¬
stand the thorny side of the Labour question.
There was perhaps an amari aliquid in these appreciations,
as the parent is traditionally slow to admit maturity of
judgment in the son. The Empress also, I think, failed to
realize that the step was not so much due to youthful
impulse as to deliberate calculation. It was essential to
his own liberty of action, which the Emperor was determined
to vindicate, to rid himself of a mentor whom he regarded
as stereotyped in certain grooves of thought and policy, and
he jumped at an opportunity which he believed would
redound to his credit as a popular sovereign, obliged to part
with a Minister who opposed his efforts to improve the
conditions of the labouring classes. This might assist him
to stem the currents which would be liberated by the aboli¬
tion of anti-socialist legislation.
In any case the words used in the rescript addressed to the
Prince in reply to his request to be exonerated from service :
" With deep emotion I have perceived that you are deter-
206 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
mined to retire from the office which you have filled for so
many years," and again, " The motives of your resolve—
convince me that further attempts to persuade you to take
back your offer would have no prospect of success," are
hardly consistent with the fact that he was virtually dis¬
missed.
Finally, somewhat in contrast with Bismarck's account of
this much-discussed event, confirmed in many details by
the Empress Frederick, there is the Emperor's own ex¬
position of the crisis to Malet, which the latter reported to
me in a long letter in reply to my inquiries. Already in
February the Chancellor had told him that the Emperor
was going too fast for him, that he disapproved of the Labour
Conference and that he intended to resign his office as
Prussian Prime Minister. A little later he told Malet that
he had found it would not be practical to retain the position
of Imperial Chancellor, and only withdraw from the Prime
Ministership; he would therefore retire altogether from
public life, but he proposed first to meet the new Reichstag
and endeavour to secure its assent to fresh military credits.
The old man spoke bitterly and said that the young Emperor
regarded him as an elderly nuisance. Malet had heard
little more until the 17th of March when the Chancellor's
resignation was pressed for. Four days later the Emperor
went over the whole ground with him at length. He had,
he said, been compelled to take up the social question
because, if he had not done so, the socialists and the ultra-
montanes would have joined hands and forced such legisla¬
tion on the country in the Reichstag. The Emperor thought
it more politic to take the initiative himself. The Chan¬
cellor was strongly opposed to the contemplated action and
as he never gave way about anything he had to be broken.
The discussions which had taken place had been far from
pleasant. Bismarck had tried to frighten him with the
methods which had proved successful with his grandfather ;
but the Emperor's only serious preoccupation was for the
physical effects which excitement might produce on the old
ATHENS, 1889-1890
207
man. The doctors had assured him that the Prince was in a
condition in which a nervous crisis might ensue at any
moment, and he had requested the resignation in order to
save his life. The Bismarck family were now irritated,
against him, but he hoped in a few months' time, when
health had been restored by rest, that they would recognize
that he had saved the veteran statesman to his country
for some years to come. Bismarck did indeed survive the
crisis for another ten years. He insists in his biography
that his physical condition at that time was quite satisfactory
and he seems also to have assured Malet that health had
nothing to do with the issue. The Emperor confirmed that
the Chancellor had at first announced his intention of only
resigning the Prussian Prime-Ministership, and subsequently
said that he would retire altogether. But a fortnight later
he had sent a message to say that he did not propose to
retire at all and began to undertake additional work, while
the doctors were urging that if he did not desist from efforts
of all kinds the consequences might be disastrous.
Malet's view was that the Emperor had honestly desired
to work with Bismarck, but that he had not foreseen that his
deliberate intention to make his own will prevail rendered
such co-operation impossible. He must either have given way
himself or he must break his Minister, and he preferred the
latter alternative. And so the curtain fell on the Bismarck
era. The indispensable man, as he had so long appeared
to be, vanished from the scene. And yet the world went on
with little apparent disturbance. Thirty years were yet to
pass before the world would realize the pregnancy of Ger-
vinus' pronouncement that Bismarck was only an episode.
The remission of the currant duty in Great Britain in the
Spring of 1890 made us very popular in Greece. The public
was moreover greatly impressed with the absolute secrecy
which had been maintained during the negotiations and for
a month or two afterwards, until a simultaneous announce¬
ment could be made in the Budget speech in England and
by Tricoupis in Parliament at Athens, when it came as a
208 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
complete surprise. Greek stocks rose with a jump, and it
was considered remarkable that the very few who knew
should have taken no advantage of their knowledge. To
have obtained this concession from the British Government
was of course a strong card for Tricoupis, who had to face
a general election in the Autumn, with a majority in the
Chamber now reduced to about ten. In so small a house
the value of even a single vote was high, and the demands
of deputies who had to be conciliated increased with a
dwindling majority. This is the special weakness of the
democratic system in many continental countries where
public opinion rather encourages than restrains the power of
the deputy, who becomes an agent for demanding privileges
and concessions and thus tends to place his obligations to
his constituents above his obligations to his country. The
position of a Minister of high principle like Tricoupis, who
honestly believed his own continuance in office to be indis¬
pensable to his country, must therefore be very difficult. A
young naval officer in command of a destroyer explained to
me that even the naval service suffered from the pressure
exerted by deputies. One of his men had asked him for
leave. As his ship was undermanned and there were
literally not hands enough to do the work, he was obliged to
refuse. Thereupon the sailor applied to his deputy, who at
once obtained superior orders over-riding the commander's
decision.
A number of similar stories were told me. The gossip of
the salons was busy in the summer with an incident which
may have been overstated by partisans of the opposition,
but which was certainly taken seriously by the German
Legation. The doctor who had for many years filled the
position of accoucheur to the Court had recently died. A
rather elderly deputy, a supporter of the government, who
had been a doctor but was said not to have practised his
profession for many years, went to Vienna and followed a
course of obstetrics under a celebrated authority in that
capital. Returning with a testimonial of competency, he
ATHENS, 1889-1890
209
applied for the position of accoucheur to the Court. Had he
not obtained it he would of course have gone over to the
opposition. Tricoupis, as a bachelor, did not perhaps appre¬
ciate the importance of the matter. In any case a politician
without any great record of practical experience was
appointed to this post of delicate responsibility. Fortunately
there were no evil results and an extremely competent
German nurse was mistress of the situation when the con¬
finement of the Crown Princess took place in July, 1890.
But feeling ran high when a doctor was sent from Germany
after the event to report upon the health of the Princess,
and the German Minister must have had some difficult
moments.
The Queen of Greece only arrived in Athens from Russia
two days after the event, and the Empress Frederick still
later in H.M.S. Surprise, on the 31st July. The christening
on the 18th August, was only attended by heads of Missions,
but I was exceptionally invited as a friend of the family.
For the Greek baby, the ceremony is a formidable one,
but fortunately at that age they are unconsciously stoical.
At the end of the month the Empress was to return to
Venice by the Dalmatian coast, and she invited me to
accompany her in the Surprise. We started from Corinth,
and lay the first night off Lepanto. After a short stay at
Corfu, we went on to Antivari and wonderful Ragusa.
That once flourishing commercial republic, from whose rich
trading fleets the name of " argosy " is said to have been
derived by metathesis, accepted political extinction with
dignified resignation. I was told that the descendants
of its ancient patrician stock in many cases had refused to
marry and preferred racial extinction to a life without a
morrow. We entered the narrow gate of that remarkable
fiord known as the Bocche di Cattaro, and looked up at
the Black Mountain with its zigzag road climbing to
Cettinje. But the Prince was at that time out of favour
with the Empress, and so I missed an opportunity of seeing
the patriarchal court of Montenegro whose secular defiance
p
210 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of the crescent has not availed to save it from absorption
in a composite Jugo-Slavia. Spalato, contained within
the area of Diocletian's palace, even surpassed my antici¬
pations. The son of the Dalmatian slave who co-ordinated
the elaborate bureaucracy of the Roman Empire and
abandoned the pinnacle of human greatness to return
to mother earth and watch the growth of plants and flowers
had indeed vast conceptions. Dalmatia, isolated between
the sundering walls of the Dinaric Alps and the sea, seemed
almoso as completely cut off from the hinterland as that
long chain of islands, past which we steamed on the following
day to Zara, the sentinel of Venice for six hundred years
on the Eastern Adriatic shore.
During the many mornings at sea and excursions ashore
on which I escorted the Empress, there were interesting
conversations regarding affairs in Germany, which were,
however, of too intimate and private a character to be
recorded. She still spoke with some bitterness of the
misrepresentations of which she had been a victim, and of
the want of chivalry which had left her almost without
a voice to defend her. I cited an old friend of mine, Prince
Henry of Carolath, as an exception, and she gratefully
recognized that in the class to which he belonged he had
been one of the very few who had dared courageously to
fight her battles. She told me much of her early relations
with Bismarck and of how his suspicious nature had made
her the object of a system of espionage which had been
almost intolerable. Time, however, had brought its revenges.
When the Chancellor was dismissed and came to take his
leave of her, he had thanked her for all the considera¬
tion and fairness she had always shown him. Thus they
had parted with cordiality, but she could not resist saying
that after all open opponents need not be the worst friends.
The Surprise took me back to Brindisi. This expedition
to my regret gave some annoyance to my old chief at Berlin,
who was anxious that I should return to that post and who
had hoped to smooth over the difficulty with the Emperor.
ATHENS, 1889-1890
211
A certain duality between mother and son had become a
matter of public notoriety, and he felt that it would be more
difficult for me to come back after having accompanied
the Empress in her travels and being thus under suspicion
of partisanship. I could only answer that I had in no
way sought to intervene in questions which did not concern
me. Circumstances had combined to bring me into very
close relations at the time of her great trial with the
Princess whom I had known in happier days. I had no
desire to return to Berlin on sufferance. If it were accounted
unrighteous to be loyal so much the worse. So many
of her oldest friends had abandoned her to follow the rising
star, and I did not intend to follow their example.
It may be appropriate here to anticipate and to relate the
subsequent vicissitudes in my relations with the Emperor,
which I will merely record without malice or comment.
About a month after the exchange of letters to which I have
referred, Malet wrote to me to say that he had discussed
my position with His Majesty, who had been pleased to
be gracious and made no objection to my resuming my
duties at Berlin. I was therefore forgiven, and indeed when
some months afterwards I paid a private visit to Berlin,
the Emperor, who saw me in the Linden as he drove past,
gave me a most friendly greeting. I therefore concluded
that the incident was finally closed. Nevertheless, though
Berlin was undoubtedly one of the most interesting posts
of observation in my service, where many omens during
my four years' residence had impressed me with significance
for the future, I decided not to make any effort to return.
The position would not have been an easy one, and relations
which I had no intention of repudiating might once more
have led to misunderstandings. A transfer to Italy had
been mentioned as a possibility, and much as I should have
appreciated a further period of service with Malet, there
were few posts more desirable than Rome.
Many years afterwards, when Sir Frank Lascelles was
Ambassador at Berlin, having written a book on a subject
212 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
in which I believed the Emperor was interested, I asked
Lascelles to invite his acceptance of a copy. It may be
that the moment selected was not an opportune one at
which to put forward the request, and indeed Lascelles
admitted that the horizon that day was somewhat thun¬
derous. In any case the Emperor, who had apparently
forgotten that he had forgiven me, observed with particular
asperity, " What does he want to send me a book for ?
He wrote a book once directed against my person ! " The
latter comment was quite untrue and the imperial memory
was clearly at fault, because he had himself told Malet
at the time that he had no objection to the book on its
merits.
Many more years passed before I had an opportunity of
meeting the Emperor again. It came, however, when he
paid a visit to Stockholm while I was Minister in that
capital. He there received all the heads of Missions in
turn, and was most cordial to me, making no reference
to these incidents of the past. During a visit to England
also, he paid a visit to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Stuart-Wortley,
who was staying with my wife in Stratford Place, while
I was abroad. He remained about an hour taking tea
and spoke to my wife in the most friendly way about myself.
So ended my personal relations with the man of destiny.
The interest of the story is in its illustration, in a very
minor matter, of an inconsequence which has been con¬
spicuous in greater matters.
CHAPTER VII
GREECE, 1890-1891
Throughout the year 1890, I remained in Greece and
did not go to " Europe," as people still had the habit of
saying in Athens. I was consequently able to spend my
leisure in exploring the country and studying social and
economic conditions. In May, I started with my friend
Leonard Shoobridge, on a very interesting expedition to
the Morea, in the course of which we visited regions then,
and possibly still even now, little known to the traveller.
Armed with letters from Tricoupis, and especially from
the Bey of Maina, Mavromichalis, who represented that
province in Parliament, we left Piraeus in a coasting steamer
heavily laden with cargo for Calamata, and at daybreak
the following morning reached Gythion, the port of Sparta,
lying under a spur of Taygetus, at the head of the Laconian
Gulf. A notable of Gythion to whom I had a letter of
introduction, Kyrios Tzorzaki, was absent in the country.
But his brother gave us every assistance, and our dragoman
lost no time in hiring horses and pack mules ; three of the
former for us and for himself to ride, and two of the latter
for the cook, his cooking utensils, and our beds and baggage.
After about an hour's ride we stopped to lunch at a de¬
lightful spot where Tzorzaki was building a house with
material taken from an old fortress tower. He had begun
with the garden. A fence of cypress trees, forming a
complete square, walled in masses of double geranium in
full flower. Beyond were currant plantations, some Tuscan
vines and the olive woods, mounting the slopes.
Our plan was first to explore the peninsula of Maina, the
213
214 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
prolongation of the beautiful range of Taygetus which
parts Laconia from Messenia, and ends in Cape Matapan,
a land almost unknown to western visitors. There was an
attraction in the sinister name which it bore, Kakoboulia,
the land of evil counsel. The Eparchy had practically
no civil administration nor was it traversed by any roads.
There were in fact people living there who had never seen
a cart. Special privileges and immunity from direct
taxation had been accorded to the Mainotes for their
services in the war of independence. The concession
perhaps made a virtue of a necessity, as it would certainly
have puzzled the authorities to collect a revenue.
We crossed the northern end of the peninsula by steep
stair-like bridle-paths, through a gap in the Taygetus
range, leaving to the right the Frankish fortress of Passava,
which derived its name from Passe-Avant, the battle cry
of Jean de Neuilly, hereditary marshal of the feudal
principality of Achaia. After several hours we entered the
ascending gorge of a torrent, beside which the oleanders
were already budding, to emerge into a very stony land
which seemed to produce little but wild thyme. Between
two great rocks which looked as if an earthquake had
sundered them we had a brief glimpse of the sea on the
farther side, and then white mists rolled up with evening
and little more was visible till we reached the village of
Areopolis, whither the cook had preceded us to prepare a
bivouac in the house of a friend of Mavromichalis.
Only in the morning could we realize the position of this
group of fortress-like houses clustered round a church under
a great square mountain bluff. Westward and southward
extended a rock shelf or tableland which broke eventually
in precipitous cliffs to the sea. A deep ravine separated
us from the mountains to the north, and on the farther side
was Itylo, a Venetian fortress familiar to me from an
illustration in Coronelli's "Theatre of the War in Morea
under Morosini."
Over all this tableland which we were to traverse marching
GREECE, 1890-1891
215
southward there is no water save what is collected in
cisterns from the rainfall. It was the stoniest land I ever
saw, and the poorest. Terraces had been buttressed with
infinite pains to hold a little soil, and on these and in pockets
of the rock a thin grain is grown which has almost to be
gathered ear by ear. There is said, however, to be some
better land in the hollows of the barren-looking grey
mountains, which form the spine of the peninsula. The
lupin bean is described as the grape of Maina. But a few
vines are grown near the higher villages. The prickly
pear and the fig seemed the only fruits. A few carob and
vallonea oak trees maintain themselves, and a small olive
seems to thrive in the stony ground. For fuel the women
go long distances into the mountains, starting at dawn
and returning in the evening with great bundles of dry
scrub and wild thyme. The latter seems to defy the
general atrophy of nature and thrusting up everywhere
between the stones makes the whole air aromatic. The
very bees that collect honey from it live in hives of stone.
The few sheep or pigs we saw were dwarfed and lean.
The sparse villages consist of castellated houses or rather
towers. On the ground floor is an olive press, and only
the upper story is inhabited. The dwelling rooms are
not reached by a staircase, but by a ladder which is drawn
up at night for security. The men are spare, lithe and
active, dark haired and rather dark complexioned. The
nose is prominent, the forehead high and vertical, and there
is a tendency to hollowness of the cheeks. There is little
costume in Maina. What is seen approaches rather that
of the islanders. Women wear a red stripe round the
skirt when not in mourning. If a near relative has died
they remove it for two years. There are many Doricisms
in the local language as in that of Crete. The unchanging
character of mountaineers would suggest that this people
may really be descended from the old Perioeci of Laconia,
though the more northern sections of Taygetus were
colonized by Slavs in the eighth century. In spite of
216 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the poverty of a region with such physical disadvantages
the Mainotes are intensely patriotic, and though numbers
of them are compelled to seek employment elsewhere, they
return in due course to their native mountains, where such
land as is relatively productive fetches high prices.
Family and village feuds are chronic. But these are
purely domestic affairs. Two men with guns on their
shoulders and pistols in their belts, who were known to our
mule-driver, issued from a village. In response to my
question why they went armed he told me that one of them
had thrown over a girl of Areopolis to whom he had been
engaged, and a family quarrel had ensued. One man
had already been killed 011 each side. Therefore members
of the respective houses went abroad in pairs, armed for
protection and if necessary for attack. Those who killed
got away into the mountains, where they could defy pursuit,
and as a rule justice forgot them after a few years.
From the seaward edge of the plateau we looked down
upon a series of little creeks and bays dominated by for¬
tress towers which might well have harboured Conrad and
Medora. In one of the villages through which we passed
some sixty or seventy women were squatting on the ground
outside a house singing " myrologics," or dirges for the dead.
An old woman had died two days before and custom
prescribed this chanting for three days after death, to be
repeated on the ninth and again on the fortieth day. They
paused to look at us and resumed their monotonous song.
After halting at a modest hermitage occupied by a
solitary monk from the great monastery of Megaspylion
in the north of the Morea, who promised us hospitality
on our return journey, we pressed on to the little port of
Gerolimeni to which we descended through a gorge and
torrent bed of irredeemable rock, after a seven hours' ride.
A dozen houses clustered round a delightful pirate creek,
where a couple of brigs and a few caiques lay at anchor
under a bold headland. A grand sunset reddened all the
western face of the rocks away to Matapan. After the
GREECE, 1890-1891
217
long and weary clatter over the shifting stones a wonderful
sense of peace possessed this remote little haven where
quiet waters lapped a shingle beach. Gerolimeni does
quite an extensive business in the export of quail and of
the oil of Maina. But the passage of the quail was over
long ago. We found shelter for the night in the upper
floor of its solitary warehouse.
The cook returned with our beds and baggage to the
hermitage, while we started very early next morning for
Porto Kaio, the quail haven. Before long slate replaced
the marble and limestone of the mountains, whose sides
were terraced nearly to the summit of the ridge. We
looked up at the once formidable castle of Maina, which
Guillaume Villehardouin is credited with having built,
though there was certainly a fortress there before the
Frankish occupation. But time would not allow us to
explore the Taenarian cave and the fabled gate of Pluto's
realm, and after a swim in the intensely clear sea we lunched
and started on our way back to the little monastery.
I had already picked up one or two interesting folk¬
songs in Maina, and hoped to secure some more with the
assistance of the Abbot, as he was styled, though he had
only one lay brother to rule over. But by an unfortunate
coincidence the local rhapsodist was in prison. We dined
on the flat roof of the hermitage. The Abbot had lived
there for ten years : a solitary life for an intelligent man.
He was anxious to have information of what was going
on in the outer world. In Greek political issues he took
no interest. He denounced all politicians as charlatans
and politics as only the chase after office. Occasionally
newspapers were sent him from Areopolis, but the men
who wrote them he sweepingly described as the fathers
of lies. The Mainotes never read newspapers. As they
paid no taxes they did not trouble their heads about
Governments and their doings. When an election took
place many of them consulted him as to how they should
vote. They were a wild race and ignorant, but they were
218 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
very hardworking. We seemed indeed very remote from
the world and the ambitions of men among this primeval
people who only wished to be left alone to derive a very
meagre living from a very thankless soil in their own way.
Night came upon us as we sat talking on the terrace by the
chapel roof; the tableland sloping westward became
one with the darkling sea and the stars seemed to hang
down like lamps from the intense ultramarine of the sky.
Then we slept gloriously in one of the unoccupied cells till
daybreak, when we were to start and endeavour to reach
Gythion in a single march.
Taking a path which followed the edge of the mountains,
we eventually ascended through a wild gorge towards
a sort of pass which traverses the rocky spine of Maina.
Four hours of laborious climbing brought into view the
eastern side of the peninsula, where pearl-grey cliffs des¬
cended abruptly to the sea. From the crest, a path of
breakneck steepness led downwards to greener hills and
more fertile valleys, to where nightingales were singing
and running water trickled through groves of cypress and
mulberry. In the afternoon we rejoined the road by which
we had started, and saw the castle of Passava crowning
its sentinel hill. For the sake of Margaret de Neuilly,
who after many vicissitudes brought it by marriage to her
third husband, Jean de St. Omer, the site had to be ex¬
plored. I could find no trace of the old road by which the
gate must have been approached. But a peasant who
was working in the fields showed me a path which led to
a breach in the walls. He told me that on his property
there were a number of columns lying prone some four
or five feet below the present surface of the soil. Passava
itself occupies an ancient citadel, probably the Homeric
Las, and traces of the old polygonal walls appear in the
medieval curtain, flanked by round towers at the four
angles. The single tunnelled entrance is only wide enough
to admit one rider at a time. Within are remains of
numerous buildings and vast cisterns, but arbutus and
GREECE, 1890-1891
219
lentisk have invaded all the courts since Morosini finally
destroyed its defensive power in 1685. The site was
admirably chosen, commanding the entrance into Maina,
and the roads into Laconia, and watching the whole gulf
between Capes Malea and Matapan.
Our friend Tzorzaki, warned by telegraph of our return,
had ridden out half way to Passava to meet us. He
conducted us back to the red geranium garden in the square
of cypress trees. In the centre on an improvised table
was a cold lamb roasted whole on a wooden spit, a la
Palikar, with, of course, a tiny clove of garlic and other
excellent herbs sewn up inside ; a great pile of lettuces,
flagons of wine pressed from his Tuscan grapes, and other
minor delicacies. After the scanty fare of Maina, and a
very long day over difficult ground, such a banquet in
a spot of surpassing beauty, as evening closed in upon the
highlands of Taygetus and the darkling gulf, was an
experience never to be forgotten. I have sampled in¬
numerable banquets, from those of the most fastidious
old-world courts to the red-pepper pilaffs of King Menelek,
but none has left an impression to compare with this
simple feast in Armida's garden. The lanterns were lit
and we sat late through the warm evening, so that it was
not till near midnight that we reached the hospitable roof
of our host in Gythion.
The drive on the following day to Sparta was hot and
dusty. But it was a great moment when we descended
into " hollow Lacedaemon," lying like an inverted shield
between the mountains to the east and west, and the lower
hill formations to the north and south. It was a rich land
intersected with many little streams descending from the
foothills of Taygetus, where the snow still whitened the
higher summits, to join the broad Eurotas. It was the
eve of the Greek May-day, and everywhere one heard the
sound of pipes and drums while children carried garlands
and branches of blossoms. The kilts of the men had been
washed and were of the whitest. The women in the silk
220 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
spinneries were singing to the running water as they spun.
The very prisoners in the gaol sat at the barred windows
smiling as they talked to their friends without. The
whole country-side seemed to have caught the madness
of May.
The ancient city lay in a land of great fertility. The
charm and natural beauty of its surroundings seemed indeed
strangely inconsistent with the stern character of the
Spartan ideal and the stoic social order of Lycurgus. It is
suggestive that it should not have been here where nature
is bountiful, but in Attica, where the soil is thin and poor
and the mountains bare of vegetation, that the Greek cult
of beauty took its rise and the intelligence of men was
stirred to investigate the nature of the human soul.
At Sparta a new cavalcade had to be collected, and it was
only late in the evening that we set out by paths scented
with blossom and lit with glow-worms to ride to Mistra,1
the new Lacedaemon founded by William Villehardouin
in 1250, where Goethe, not inappropriately, set the scene
for the mystical union of Faust and Helena, the meeting
of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Although it was nearly
eleven before we arrived there, we were hospitably welcomed
by an old priest, who with his family occupied what had
once been the episcopal residence. The following day
was spent in exploring the citadel and the many interesting
Byzantine churches of the ancient capital of the Despotate
of Morea, as the Greek province came to be called after
the restoration of the Palaeologi.
But Mistra, guarding the entrance of the road into
Messenia, with its wonderful outlook over the plain of the
Eurotas, is too well-known to the traveller in Greece to
need description here. In the evening we rode on to the
1 This name has been variously derived from " magistra," from
" Messire," and from " Myzithra " a goat's milk cheese made in
the Morea. As there is evidence that the site bore this name
before the advent of the Franks, the last offers the most acceptable
etymology.
GREECE, 1890-1891
221
village of Trypi, in a verdant setting of chestnut and mul¬
berry trees, to pass the night before crossing the hardly
less well-known Langhada pass. The lower hills before
we entered the defiles of that rugged gorge were velvety
green with a low growth of dwarf oak, lentisk, arbutus
and judas. The solitude of the highlands was literally
awe-inspiring. For hours we marched without seeing a
vestige of humanity. In the higher altitude the wild
flowers were still in their full spring luxuriance ; a few
cyclamen still hid in crannies of the rocks ; there were
crimson anemones, poppies, scarlet and terra cotta, yellow
broom and the white and purple cystus. In spite of an
early start it was six in the afternoon before we had crossed
the last ridge and looked down upon the plain of Messenia,
and the waters of the western gulf sweeping in a splendid
curve from the heights of Maina to Corone in vaporous
distance under the setting sun. There was still a long and
weary descent to Calamata, the family appanage of the
Villehardouins, where we spent the night, hospitio modico.
The harbour still maintained an old tradition of trade with
Benghazi in Cyrenaica, and wore a busy air of prosperity.
There is a local tradition that the Bonaparte family emigrated
thence to Corsica, and that their Italianized name was
a translation of the Greek equivalent Kalomeros.
As we were exploring the little town a voice was heard
calling out to us in broken English, from behind a barred
window. It was a young German who said he was in prison
for debt, and asked for assistance. I obtained from him
the name and address of his family in Germany, and duly
communicated with them. After my return to Athens
I received a telegram from his father saying : " My son
Fritz has already bolted twice, and I will not pay a cent."
Here fresh mules were chartered in charge of a Mainote
as agoyate. The undulating Messenian plain is very rich,
and the villages suggested agricultural well-being with
their two-storied balconied houses and flourishing gardens.
It would be superfluous here to speak of the great walls
222 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of Messene, upwards of five miles in circumference, or the
tower-like rock citadel of Ithome, which so many travellers
have described. In the monastery of Vourkano, where
we spent the night, our Mainote muleteer, who had been
wrestling in fierce argument with Nikola, the dragoman,
openly mutinied and declined to go any further. He
came to renew his grievances to me, but as his contract was
with the dragoman I declined any discussion and told him
rather sharply to go away. The monk who was in charge
of us expressed great satisfaction and he then confided to
me that this man, whom he had been unpleasantly sur¬
prised to see, was an ex-sergeant of gendarmerie, and that
he had in this very monastery some years ago killed another
sergeant. He had been two and a half years in prison,
and then had somehow obtained his liberty and became
a mule-driver. It is pleasanter when it can be avoided
not to travel with an assassin. But as no other animals
were obtainable at Messene we had to compromise. After
rising at four and climbing the hill of Ithome to see the sun
rise we started at seven for the Arcadian border. Near the
villages great hedges of prickly pears lined the road and
gigantic spiders had spun webs from side to side covering
a span eight feet or more in breadth. It would have been
interesting to study the architectural process and to realize
how the first rope is stretched across on which the whole
structure depends. Then we began to climb the Arcadian
highlands. From the ridge of the first crest we took a
last look at the green Messenian plain, the distant gulf
and Maina in the hazy distance of noon. The beauty
of that Arcadian world which we entered as the sun declined
surpassed in form and colour all my anticipations. I shall
not attempt to render it in words, having already done my
best to express it in a collection of poems on Greece which
I published at the end of my stay in Athens.1 But there
is one point which I would emphasize. It seems to be
generally accepted that the Arcadia of idyllic romance had
1 The Violet Crown, Arnold,
GREECE, 1890-1891
223
nothing in common with the Arcadia of reality. A dis¬
tinguished writer, who undoubtedly visited a section of
the province, has in fact written regarding popular notions
of Arcadian felicity, " there are none more historically false,
more unfounded in the real nature and aspect of the country,
and more opposed to the sentiments of the ancients." 1
The late Professor Mahaffy, in his charming Hellenic
studies, has more that once recorded observations which
my perhaps longer experience of Greece cannot endorse.
But it is especially the second of the three repudiations
quoted above which I would contest, merely observing
with regard to the third that of all the ancient gods, after
the Arcadian Zeus, Pan was the most universally wor¬
shipped in this land, and that the Nomian mountains
in the Lykaon range were, according to Pausanias, so called
because they were the " pastures of Pan." The nature
and aspect of the province varies considerably, for it is
the largest of all the divisions, and when the coast-lands
are eliminated, all the rest of the Morea is practically
Arcadia. It is a land of rugged mountain and wild gorge.
But it is just in the Alpine valleys of such a land that
pastoral people are wont to live and, setting aside the
question how far this idyllic life of Arcadia ever was or
ever claimed to be historically true, these river-watered
hollows sundered by forest-clad ridges are surely the most
appropriate background for the fiction or the fact. Those
who have penetrated the fairy valley which lies under the
great cliff of Turtovana will justify Virgil in making Pheneos
the home of the pastoral King Evander, and for me the
name Arcadia ever recalls familiar pictures of shady valleys
with picturesque camps of nomad shepherds and bleating
flocks, with running streams and Alpine flowers and the
music of innumerable nightingales.
Our first night's quarters, where the cook was already at
work, in the village of Dragoi were in a very modest cottage.
There was no vent for the smoke except between the loosely
1 J. P. Mahaffy, Rambles and Studies in Greece,
224 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
superimposed tiles of the roof, nor was there any furniture
save a box for storing the household grain, which served
as our dinner table, while we sat upon the floor. From
Dragoi we explored the walls of Phigaleia, and the beautiful
temple at Bassae, with thirty-six of its forty-two columns
still standing, which the Phigaleians built to " Apollo the
Healer," when he had stayed the pestilence. The ruins
are too remote and solitary to have become a quarry for
building material, and the fallen columns and the cornices
which an earthquake threw down lie where they fell with the
frieze which was removed to the British Museum in 1812.
The morning was cloudy. Partridges were calling all
round the temple, presaging rain, and soon it began to fall
in torrents. We took refuge in a cave, where we collected
enough material to make a fire and dry our clothes. Then
the great storm-clouds went rolling northwards and the
rain-washed slopes and pastoral valleys grew even fairer
than before as we rode over a shoulder of huge Lykaon to
Andritzena, a most enchanting little township in the hills,
where every angle of the wide-eaved street was a picture.
Here we found comfortable quarters, for Andritzena,
lying on the high road from Olympia to Tripolitza and
Nauplia, was accustomed to receive travellers. Here also
we were able to obtain excellent ponies for the next stage
of the journey through the heart of Arcadia to Pheneos
and the gulf of Corinth.
The descent was very steep from Andritzena into the
valley through which one tributary of the Alphoeus runs
westward, down to where the waterflow of countless aeons
lias tunnelled its winding way through the rocks. And now
Arcadia veritably responded to its legendary reputation.
In all the valleys separated by the successive ridges which
we crossed, groups of nomad shepherds, busy with the
milking or the shearing, presented idyllic pictures in their
improvised camps under the vallonea oaks. We had to
content ourselves with only a distant glimpse of Carytena,
the castle of Geollroi de Bruyeres, the favourite comrade
GREECE, 1890-1891
225
of William Villehardouin, guarding the eastern entrance
to the Alphoeus valley. I visited it some fifteen years
afterwards for the sake of that paladin of Frankish chivalry,
with the beautiful name and the romantic story, who
broke his feudal obligation to his Prince in the hour of
need for the light in a woman's eyes, and was sent back
to the Morea by the great-hearted Manfred " King of
Allemain," with a reinforcement of horse and foot, but
also with a halter round his neck, to make his peace and be
forgiven.
About six that evening we rode through the little village
of Markou on the last ridge before that to which clings the
lofty Dhimitzana where we were to pass the night. We
were about 3,000 feet above the sea, in the very centre of
Morea, and what we there saw as we looked back was
thus recorded in my note-book. The sun was already
low and clear beneath a dark bank of cloud. Facing
us and towering high above the lower lines of mountain
which we had traversed was the splendid range of Lykaon,
rainbow-hued in the light and cobalt in the shadows,
descending eastward in many spurs towards the central
Arcadian plain and sloping gently westward through the
ridges of Palaeocastro to the sea. The rounder foothills
assumed forms so softly moulded by distance and the
evening magic that they rather seemed a crumpled tissue
of fallen silk than a system of rocks and gorges, with their
sunward faces tinted like amethyst and jade. To the west,
across the wide dip which divided us from Lykaon, we
could see the lower ranges of Elis faintly indicated in a
succession of pearl-coloured waves, paling into indistinct¬
ness, through which like a burnished silver thread Alphoeus
wound his way into the sea of molten gold beyond. The
phantom island in the horizon was Zante. Southwards and
eastwards the summits of the heights which enclose the
central Arcadian plain were lost in dove-grey cloud. In
the middle distance below rose the square bluff of rock
crowned by the castle of Carytena. In the foreground
Q
226 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
were the red-roofed houses and the walnut groves of Markou.
Almost the whole Morea from sea to sea lay outspread
before us, transfigured in the fleeting moment, not quite as
it had ever been seen before by human eye, nor quite as
it would ever be seen again, but not to be surpassed in
loveliness.
Beyond Dhimitzana the next morning we entered the
forest region of Arcadia, dense in places with great mountain
firs, intersected by valleys where the streams turned rustic
mills. It was new country to our retainers, and in the
little Deme of Vitina, a group of five villages, I for the
first time made use of a letter from Tricoupis commending
us to the good offices of authority and asked the Demarch
or Mayor to direct us on our way to the lake of Pheneos
which lay under the masses of Chelmos and Cyllene, now
closing in the north. The Demarch, a big handsome
Arcadian, wearing the white kilt and blue embroidered
waistcoat, was full of hospitable intentions, and would
have detained us in his well-appointed house. But we were
anxious for more time at Pheneos and he therefore proposed
to accompany us to Daru, where he owned another property,
from which we could reach the lake in three hours on the
following day. We traversed the highest cultivated and
inhabited land in the Morea. So high was it that the
vines were hardly yet in leaf in middle May. Then we
descended once more into a pastoral land, and visited the
springs known as the sources of the Ladon, whose waters,
joining the river of the Carytena valley, become the
Alphoeus. The property of our host included a great
fenced garden, with almond, cherry, peach, apple and
pomegranate trees, which had once been the estate of the
famous Arnaout Oglou. The house had apparently been
uninhabited for years, but served very well for our camp.
The friendly Demarch joined us at dinner, and took thought
for all our needs in the morning, including a guide to
Pheneos. The kindly hospitality of the Greeks, both
those of the mountains and those of the islands, unfailingly
GREECE, 1890-1891
227
offered with a perfect natural courtesy, is a gracious
tradition of the old times.
Our guide was from Daru, which like many of the
Arcadian villages is peopled by Albanians. These colonists
have become Hellenized, and would probably have already
lost their original language were it not that at that time
there were hardly any schools for girls, so that the first
language taught in the family by the mothers remained
Albanian. He conducted us by giddy paths across a
grand and very wild country of rock and gorge into a forest
zone of magnificent fir. High up as we were the May
sun grew burning hot at noon, and we asked him whether
he knew of any spring of running water. He gave little
hope in view of the lateness of the season. But kneeling
down put his ear to the ground and listened. Then rising
up he ran forward some distance and repeated the process.
Then he returned with a smile and pointing up a little
lateral valley said that he thought we might still find a
spring there. We asked him how he arrived at this con¬
clusion, and he replied that he could hear a nightingale
singing, and that was always an indication of the proximity
of water. I could not hear the note of the bird myself
even when listening near the ground, but his nature instinct
proved correct, and we followed him till the song rang
clear and there close by was a little spring issuing from the
rock. As we emerged from the forest we saw the lake
lying beneath us, walled in by mountains which on two
sides descend in sheer cliffs to the water's edge.
This lake presents a curious phenomenon. Twice during
the last century the basin has been drained and twice the
lake rose again. When Pausanias visited the spot the
plain was dry and the waters of the inflowing streams
were carried off to join the Ladon through two chasms
in the rock, called Zerethra in the old Arcadian tongue.
Tradition described these passages as well as a canal, con¬
veying the water to them, as the handiwork of Heracles.
Strabo refers to an obstruction due to earthquake which
228 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
had arrested the subterranean flow of water into the Ladon,
and quotes Eratosthenes as having stated that the flooding
of the sacred area at Olympia by the Alphoeus was caused
by the sudden release of the lake at Pheneos, which was
drained dry. When Colonel Leake visited the spot in
1806, there was no lake, only some marshy areas, and he
was able to observe the passage of the river through the
channels, which are now known as Katabothra. The lake
reappeared in 1821. In 1832, the passage became clear
once more and the inundation of Olympia was repeated.
At the time of our visit about half the plain of the valley
was under water and the position of the Katabothra was
clearly indicated by the eddies formed where the water
sank. There are several instances of such natural tunnels
draining the waters of mountainous hollows in Greece.
Skirting the low ridges on which the village of Pheneos
stood, at that time some three miles from the edge of the
lake, we descended into a narrow valley, planted with
cypresses and quince trees in avenue which opened into a
small green amphitheatre of wooded hills, dominated by
the rocky wall of Turtovana. The surrounding slopes
were covered with fir and chestnut. There were grassy
meadows and patches of shoulder-high fern. A number of
little streams coursed through clumps of maple, plane,
oak and willow. On a wooded projection of hill, deep
bowered in trees stood the monastery of St. George, a square
block with wooden galleries supported on beams of timber
running all round it. These galleries and the red-tiled
roofs and the arched bell-tower were all that was visible
above the wealth of greenery. A chorus of nightingales
was singing the evening in, and from the mountain-side
faintly came the cuckoo's last call. I have never seen a more
ideal spot for seclusion than this, the legendary home of
Evander, where he entertained his Trojan guest.
The monastery is among the most picturesque in Greece.
A rude stone cloister runs round a little court which is almost
filled by the church. Over the stone arches is a wooden
GREECE, 1890-1891
229
gallery whose supporting timbers, dark and mellowed with
age, run up to the red eaves. The monks were all old men,
but there were a large number of younger aspirants to the
monastic life. Our room opened on to one of the outer
galleries. Here the abbot, a very intelligent man, dined
with us and contributed a number of luxuries, such as
fresh vegetables from his own garden, ewes' milk, cheese,
tobacco from the monastery plantations, and a wonderful
wine fifteen years old, with a bouquet which I still remember,
grown at Nemea, where the monastery had other property.
He expatiated on the blessedness of the monastic life,
free from responsibilities and worldly cares, but regretted
that its votaries were recruited from the illiterate, and that
they contributed nothing to learning or education. This
was the last night of our expedition, for the next day's
march would take us to the shore of the Gulf of Corinth.
It had ended appropriately in the happy valley resonant
with the insistent chorus of the nightingales. Et ego in
Arcadia vixi.
About a month later I made a midsummer expedition
with my friend the late J. D. Bourchier to Thessaly to
explore the curious monasteries of Meteora. Bourchier,
who was the correspondent for The Times in the Balkans,
with his headquarters at Athens, had not yet concentrated
all his sympathies on Bulgaria, whose zealous advocate
and interpreter to his countrymen he afterwards became.
Beginning life as an Eton master, a position for which his
great deafness rendered him little suited, after a long
career as a judicious and capable journalist, he ended by
becoming a national institution at Sofia, where he acquired
the entire confidence of the alien people who took him to
their heart. He received a public funeral in the famous
monastery of Rilo, a symbolic spot to the Bulgarians,
who paid him the posthumous honour, almost unique
in the case of one who was not the head of a state, of en¬
graving his portrait on the next issue of their postage
stamps.
230 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
The memory of tlie interesting journey which we made
together, prompts me to testify to the intimate relations
which I enjoyed with those eminent representatives of the
press which our great journals maintained abroad in the
old days. In many cases they were valued personal friends.
Such was the venerable Stillman, who tamed squirrels,
and looked like Father Time. The extraordinary beauty
of Mrs. Stillman was an inspiration to our pre-Raphaelite
artists, and an inheritance of ancient Greece. Though
an American by birth Stillman, after many adventures
as a champion of lost causes, became the correspondent of
The Times in Rome, and was so employed when I was
first stationed there. Such again has been and is Sir
Valentine Chirol, at Berlin, and many more in later days,
not least of whom were McClure, who acted for The Times
in Italy, with great knowledge and tact throughout the
war, and the eminent medieval historian, William Miller,
who represented the Morning Post. Men of their calibre,
whose opinions carried weight, helped to make our press
respected abroad. They did not expect official representa¬
tives to disclose the vicissitudes of negotiations in progress
or retaliate for a certain inevitable reserve with insinuations
of aloofness and incompetence. Personally I have, so far
as it has been in my discretion, always talked to the re¬
presentatives of the press of all countries with great frankness,
trusting them fully not to make use of what I had stated to
be only for their private ear. Hardly ever was my con¬
fidence abused by the journalists of the old school, and in
my long experience among Italians, I found them also
to be as loyal as my own countrymen. Indeed I can only
remember one case in which a correspondent of a foreign
paper misused an interview granted on the solicitation
of a British compatriot whose good faith had been imposed
upon. The delinquent is, or should be, still in prison purging
his sentence for communication with enemy agents during
the war. I am the more happy to record this testimony,
because I think the press and publicists at home have
GREECE, 1890-1891
231
not always of recent years treated our diplomatists with
justice, and have encouraged the politicians, with a
somewhat facile and unnecessary criticism, to make
whipping-boys of men who are precluded from defending
themselves.
On my first journey to Thessaly an escort had been sent
to take care of our party. But Bourchier and I, not being
possessed of great substance, travelled unaccompanied
except by one personal retainer ; Cantabit vacuus ! From
the port of Volo, by Pharsalos and Trikala we reached our
destination of Calabaka, a frontier garrison full of kilted
light infantry, which lies under a great perpendicular
ridge of conglomerate rock, belonging to the system of the
great range of Pindus. This wall rises to a height of some
600 feet, and through a cleft in it the village of Castraki
on a higher root of the mountain is approached. To the
north-west of Castraki are the fantastic detached, dolomitic
bastions on which are perched the monasteries we had
come to visit. Here the Peneius, flowing eastward, issues
from the highlands, joined by the torrent of the Miritza,
and it washes the feet of the pinnacles of Meteora, which
the religious had occupied in the days when sanctity and
security alike combined to bring isolation into esteem.
Originally there seem to have been twenty-four monasteries
or hermitages. Only some seven then remained and not
all of those were inhabited. Life in such inaccessible
retreats finds few recruits to-day, and the scanty survivors
of an old tradition are rapidly dying off.
One only of these monastic refuges, Hagios Stefanos, built
on a big island of the ridge which rises behind Calabaka,
can be reached by road across a rickety bridge spanning
the cleft which divides it from the greater mass. Here
we were to spend the night. Arriving rather late in the
afternoon we found its iron gate closed and had to wait
some time for admittance. At length two monks conducted
us through a vaulted tunnel into the buildings, where a
wing is reserved for guests. Tradition ascribes its founda-
232 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
tion to the Emperor John Cantacuzenos, who ended his
days in the cloister towards the close of the fourteenth
century. At the time of our visit it only contained three
monks with some thirty attendants and lay brothers.
As the long fast of the Holy Apostles, which lasts for thirty
days, was in progress, we had been careful to bring our
own supplies with us. We had also brought our camp
beds, a precaution indispensable on such occasions. The
room placed at our disposal was clean enough in appearance,
but the sleeping accommodation revealed evidence of
harbouring the usual unwelcome denizens. Two moderately
large dishes were found for us to use as basins. There was
a young moon that night which lit the silver band of Peneius.
The forms of the mountains grew yet more fantastic in the
shadows. Hundreds of feet sheer below us we could see
the lights of Calabaka, and faintly we could hear the barking
of the dogs, mingled with the nearer hooting of the owls
which haunted these bastions of rock.
Early the next morning we set out to visit some of the
still occupied monasteries. The first upon our road was
dedicated to the Trinity, and stood on the outermost of a
series of rock towers detached from the mountain. So
sheer were its precipitous sides that it passes understanding
to conceive how the first man succeeded in reaching the
summit, on which the conventual buildings with their
red-tiled roofs now cluster picturesquely. Travellers used
of old to be hauled up by a windlass worked from a pro¬
jecting tower, in a stout net, in which they sat huddled up,
spinning round in mid-air. At the time of our visit there
was not enough man-power in any of the convents to make
such an aerial ascent possible, and we had to have resort
to the jointed wooden ladders hanging on the face of the
rock. The approach here was first by a fixed ladder leading
up to a gallery running along the surface of the rock, with
a flimsy wooden balustrade ; then up again by a flexible
wooden ladder jointed every three rungs. This led up
through a vertical tunnel or fissure in the rock to an iron-
GREECE, 1890-1891
233
studded trap-door. Thence another similar jointed ladder
led to a second trap, from which there was a steep path
to the summit. Only two or three very old men inhabited
the extensive buildings. They seemed very poor and anxious
for a small donation. There were two churches; the
smaller one had its apse hollowed in the rock, which was
decorated with curious frescoes ; in the large one is a
screen with some really fine carving.
The loftiest of these aerial cloisters are Barlaam and
Meteora, which gives the name to the group. The pile
on which the former stood seemed partially undermined,
and we were shown a place where lightning was said to
have passed through the rock in the previous year, removing
some blocks of pudding stone. Meteora is reputed to be
the oldest foundation of all, dating from about the middle
of the fourteenth century. Here there were some fifty or
sixty feet of ladder to be climbed, the lower section being
fixed, while the flexible upper portion is let down from the
summit to meet it. It swings about most uncomfortably
at that considerable altitude on the surface of the rock.
There was an establishment sufficient to accommodate
one hundred monks at Meteora. But only two with one
attendant were then left. One of these was eighty-five
years old, but he still went up and down the ladders. There
were three smaller chapels, one partially excavated in the
rock, in addition to the big church, a really fine building
with alternate layers of red brick and grey stone. The
interior was painted throughout in fresco with the " ghastly
glories of saints." A spacious refectory with massive old
tables had evidently not been used for years, and there
were fine cool vaulted wine-cellars. Masses of building
with wooden galleries falling into decay occupied the
extensive precincts, where there was ample room for gardens
had there been any soil on the rock surface. The monks
told us they had had no visitors that year. Such tra¬
vellers as come to the spot did not care to try the
ladders.
234 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Hardly less remarkable than these " mid-air monasteries "
are the hermits' cells, like nests of rock pigeons or sand
martins in caverns or fissures which honeycomb the
neighbouring precipice of cliff. That these have once
been inhabited is clear. Some are partially boarded, and
from the entrances hang the remains of ropes attached to
iron stanchions driven into the stone. Here again the
problem of how they were first reached appears insoluble.
To what strange modes of life have men not betaken
themselves in the pursuit of sanctity ?
There is also one massive tower of precipitous rock from
the summit of which rises a second smaller square mass,
which reaches a higher altitude than any of the inhabited
piles. There, we were told by our guide, was a chapel, with
a great marble chest to hold the priest's vestments and an
inscription to the Emperor Andronicus and his wife,
presumably the priest-ridden Andronicus II.
Some weeks later I joined some friends who had chartered
a small Greek caique, St. John the Theologian, for a sail
among the islands. We slept on mattresses on deck in
the hot July, and cooked our own meals on a portable
stove. Personally, I was only able to remain a week,
during which time we succeeded in making Santorin, one
of the most remarkable places in the whole archipelago.
The island is volcanic, there are two gaps in the ring of
the crater into which you sail. In the centre sulphur
bubbles up, and small vessels find the sulphurous water
invaluable for cleaning their hulls. All round the crater-
circle the cliffs rise sheer with rocks of purple and orange,
and the depth is everywhere so great that it is practically
impossible to anchor. We warped up to some bollards at
the foot of the cliffs, whence a stair ascends to the picturesque
white town which lines the edge of the ridge. On the
outer side the slopes are gradual and terraced for vines.
An excellent wine is here made, which, carried to the
Laconian port of Monembasia or Malvasia, was exported
thence in the Middle Ages to Western Europe, and was
GREECE, 1890-1891
235
accordingly known as Malvoisie or Malmesey. I caught a
steamer from Santorin to Athens.
It is a remarkable feature of the Greek islands, and I
have visited a great many, that their habitations are always
conspicuously clean and neat, contrasting with the squalor
which prevails in so many of the mainland villages. The
limewash seems to be constantly renewed and the copper
vessels shine with a brightness worthy of Dutch interiors.
Just before I finally left Athens I made an expedition
with the American Minister, Colonel Snowden, and Walston,
in a small tug steamer which we chartered at Patras, across
the gulf and up the Aetolian coast in pursuit of woodcock
which gather in great numbers in Greece during the winter.
After finding a tolerably sheltered cove in which to anchor
our small craft with its one solitary cabin, we were able,
by crossing a rocky ridge, to drop into the great plain of
the Aspro Potamo (Achelous). There were no villages in
sight, and no apparent cultivation. Only a few nomad
shepherds living in reed huts made it their winter grazing-
ground. It was an absolutely wild and untamed land.
There were numbers of plover, duck and wild geese, very
difficult to approach. Archaeology had not been in the
programme. But one day after a long tramp across the
plain we approached an eminence, which was encircled on
three sides by the river, and found it crowned by an ancient
Hellenic city with magnificent polygonal walls, in which
there were two gates with perfect keystone arches, such as
are rarely seen in Greece. There were also towers of a
later epoch with fine squared Hellenic masonry. The
theatre was still tolerably complete, but no column of the
temples stood upright. It was the city of Aeneadse, which
had been restored by Philip of Macedon.
At the end of October, 1890, the general elections took
place in Greece. There were processions and much talk
at the cafes and the street corners. The humour of the
crowd was in conspicuous contrast to the violence of the
press, and the disposition of the people was generally
236 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
good tempered. The followers of Tricoupis adopted the
olive for their badge ; those of Delyannis, the veteran
leader of the opposition, a cord, signifying the bond which
was to unite in one block all the anti-Tricoupist elements.
Triconpis, who had been over-confident and had maintained
little contact with the provinces, where the imposition of
a new tobacco duty was greatly resented, was defeated by
a majority of two-thirds. In spite of his inestimable services
to his country, democracy concluded that it was time to
give the other side an innings. And so the proved incapacity
of Delyannis was preferred to a renewal of the mandate
so long exercised by a minister of high principle and first-rate
ability. In Attica, which might be regarded as representing
the enlightenment of the country, Tricoupis carried ten out
of thirteen seats. But the very electors who had benefited
most by his wise administration went against him almost
to a man, at Patras, where the remission of the currant
duty had filled their pockets, in the Peloponnesus, which
had acquired roads and railways, and in Thessaly, where
the farmers had been enabled to buy up their holdings
by advances at low rates from Tricoupis' land-banks. His
defeat presents a considerable analogy to that of Venizelos
at the end of the Great War.
In November the Czarevich arrived in Athens and
remained for some days prior to embarking for a tour in
India, whither Arthur Hardinge was to accompany him.
He seemed an amiable young man, but very subdued and
rather colourless. The Russian Legation gave a ball in
his honour. The French Minister also proposed to do so.
But the Czarevich, pleading that if he went to any other
Legation but the Russian all the rest would feel bound to
entertain him, excused himself. Montholon, however, had
a Franco-Russian demonstration in view, and suppressing
the fact that the Czarevich had already declined, invited
the King of Greece, emphasizing his anxiety to have the
honour of welcoming the Grand Duchess Paul, who was
paying a visit to her father. The King, knowing nothing
GREECE, 1890-1891
237
of what had passed, accepted, whereupon Montholon issued
cards announcing that the King and Queen and the Czarevich
would deign to do him the honour of attending his ball.
The Czarevich was very angry, and said that having already
refused he would not go. The Russian Minister, who was
besought to intervene, made no secret of his opinion regarding
the manner in which his Prince had been treated, but in
view of the King's acceptance and for the sake of all
concerned persuaded the Czarevich to relent. When the
Grand Duchess returned to Russia shortly afterwards, the
same representative, as doyen of the diplomatic corps,
told some of us not to go to the station to see her off, but
was the first to arrive there himself. Such tragic-comic
episodes of the old diplomacy were fortunately rare. An
over-zealous agent, endeavouring to push the interests of
his country at any cost, was almost always found out
and did those interests more harm than good.
At the end of the year I received notice of my transfer
to Rome, where I was to serve under Lord Dufferin. I
had now been rather more than two years in Athens, and
was sorry to leave. Not only had my work interested me
greatly, but the haunting beauty of that enchanted land,
where nature seems to have a quick and conscious soul,
had taken a hold upon my affections which has possessed
me ever since.
On the eve of my departure at the end of January, 1891,
I had a long interview with King George, who took a gloomy
view of the situation ensuing on the fall of Tricoupis. He
said that during the twenty-eight years of his reign the
virulence of political party spirit had grown in intensity,
and now each side on coming into power made a point of
undoing all that the other side had accomplished. Tricoupis
had introduced a test qualification for office. His successors
had at once abolished it. Every one in Greece wanted
office, and as there were not enough places to satisfy them
all, the disappointed candidates would at once create a
formidable opposition group. His own position, the King
238 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
said, grew more and more difficult. He was expected to
drive a coach without holding the reins. Politicians of
all colours seemed to aim at depriving the Sovereign of
the powers which the constitution accorded him, and without
an element of stability such as the crown should present
the country could not go on. The army ought, he held,
to be independent of the politicians. But Tricoupis had
assumed the position of Minister of War and this had led
to trouble with the army. Delyannis had protested against
the occupation of this Ministry by Tricoupis, but as soon
as he came into office had followed his example and taken
it over himself. They both, of course, pretended the
measure was temporary. The army should be controlled
by a non-political commander-in-chief who would stand
by the Crown. The Sovereign would not then be compelled
to assent to the destructive legislation which a new Minister
always initiated.
Nevertheless, only a year after this conversation the
King did assert his prerogative and dismissed Delyannis,
in spite of his having a majority in the Chamber, gaining
thereby general approval in the country. Subsequent
experience, moreover, has shown that the Sovereign in
Greece can readily find means at his disposal to control the
political situation. Whether this is desirable or not is
another question. It is arguable that Greece might be a
happier country if governed autocratically. But as a
constitution and a Parliament exist, it would seem more
logical that the King should be altogether outside politics.
Tricoupis, the King added, was a man of great ideas, who
might be pardoned all his mistakes. But he had the defects
of his qualities. He was now formulating a new programme,
which included a permanent civil service, the independence
of the judiciary, etc. All these propositions were sound.
But why had he not introduced them while in office, as he
had been urged to do ? He had wanted first of all to create
a party, which was a mania with politicians. As a matter
of fact, he had created a void round himself. His party
GREECE, 1890-1891
239
was worthless, and while he was looking after the big
things his colleagues had let the little things which mattered
go to the devil.
On the other hand, the King said that while he could
not but take a pessimistic view of the conditions prevailing
at the moment, he must admit that great material progress
had been made since his arrival in Greece. Even the
sinister effects of party spirit only reacted on political groups
and on Parliament, whereas in the reign of his predecessor
it had been responsible for popular revolutionary outbreaks
regularly twice a year. It was the misfortune of the Greek
people that they were too clever and quick-brained. They
had started at the opposite pole from most nations, whose
evolution proceeded from submission to gradual emancipa¬
tion. The Greeks, from the first moment of their independ¬
ence, had known neither tradition nor restraint nor reverence,
and they had got to learn national discipline.
The Greek people owed a great debt to King George,
who had handled many difficult situations with tact and
adroitness. His family influence in the councils of Europe
had often stood them in good stead. He had great personal
charm and was deservedly popular in Athens, and not
least so when he asserted himself. Had he travelled more
often and more extensively in his dominions and made
himself better known to his subjects in remoter provinces
he would have been idolized, and might have exercised a
still greater influence in public affairs. The Greek is demo¬
cratic and monarchical at the same time, and feels a personal
interest in his Sovereign. King George lived to see his
little country grow into the greater Greece, and it was a
dark day for all its well-wishers when the hand of an assassin
at Salonika terminated his valuable life.
After the disappearance of Tricoupis and the removal of
the strong hand we were at once confronted at the Legation
with claims and protests which had rarely been lodged
under the preceding Government. The abolition of his
qualification test for office had opened administrative posts
240 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to inexperience and incompetence. A procedure disastrous
for foreign enterprise was the appointment by favour of
administrators in bankruptcy. In a case in which a friend
of mine was a creditor, an adjudicator was named who had
himself been a bankrupt three years before and had never
paid any dividend. Such an adjudicator would, by agree¬
ment with the debtor, write himself down as the chief
creditor. The composition would be thus so diminished
by fictitious debts that the smaller creditors obtained
practically nothing. Those who have only lived in countries
enjoying a long tradition of order and method have little
idea of the difficulties which commercial enterprise in new
countries often has to encounter, or of the many devices
resorted to in order to render abortive a protection which
the judicial system appears to guarantee. I was sorry to
leave my chief with a number of such troublesome problems
on hand. But the devices of the politician who has con¬
stituents to appease leave much to be desired in other
countries also.
In taking leave of their fascinating country I wish to
say that the Greeks have, in my opinion, suffered very
unfairly from the hasty judgments passed by those who
only know the Greek-speaking long-shore adventurer of
Levantine ports. There is often little Greek about the
latter beyond the language which he speaks, and it would
be difficult to trace the origin of much of the mixed blood
which the vicissitudes of the story of the East has thrown
up on those shores. The Greek countryman of the mountain
villages and the Greek islander is an attractive personality,
with the sympathetic virtues of endurance, abstinence
and hospitality. A British naval officer who has com¬
manded the Greek Navy told me that he considered there
was no finer material for a sailor's life than the Greek
islander. The rank and file were admirable, good tempered,
hard working and scrupulously clean. The Greek has the
defects of his qualities, and the very quickness of his brain
does not conduce to stability. But when we reflect on
GREECE, 1890-1891
241
what were the conditions prevailing in Greece in the
eighteenth century, and that she has only one century of
national life behind her as an independent country, we
cannot fail to admit that there is a great balance on the
credit side.
R
CHAPTER VIII
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
On leaving Athens I spent a short time at the Embassy
at Constantinople, which was white with snow when I
arrived there at the end of January, 1891. Under our very
able Ambassador, Sir William White, our position in Turkey,
which various episodes before long contributed cumulatively
to undermine, was still a very strong one. Living in the
Secretary's quarters at Pera, I had the advantage of several
interesting conversations with him. He had a marvellous
fund of interesting information and certainly knew his
own mind, expressing his opinion in unequivocal terms,
with a sonorous and emphatic " My dear Sir," which implied
that he was telling you and not arguing with you. He told
me of the concluding phase in the story of Prince Alexander
of Battenberg, whose supposed matrimonial ambitions
have been referred to as occasioning so much uneasiness at
Berlin. After finally relinquishing the Bulgarian throne,
he had in due course requested permission to enter the
Austrian army. An evasive reply was returned until his
application had been referred to Berlin. The view there
held was that his reception in the Austrian army would
be regarded as inopportune so long as he remained unmarried.
He was also directly reminded by the Grand Duke of
Hesse that he was a stumbling-block to the family while
still a possible suitor for a certain alliance. He took the
hint and married, whereupon he was at once admitted
into the Austrian army.
After my recent sojourn in Greece I was greatly interested
to see in the Museum at Stamboul the splendid sarcophagi
242
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
243
from Sidon, then a comparatively recent archaeological
discovery. It impressed me as a curious psychological
point that works of such delicacy and exquisite workman¬
ship should not only have been consigned to an underground
tomb, but even there placed in niches where any who might
have descended into the sepulchral chamber could only
have seen one of the four sculptured sides. Was there
among the Asiatic Greeks, as in Egypt, a sense of obligation
to the dead for whom, and not for the living, their sur¬
roundings were made beautiful in the place of interment ?
In Greece the appeal of monuments is to the survivors.
Robbers seeking plunder had savagely mutilated these
great works of art, in Roman times it would seem, to judge
from the type of the terra-cotta lamps found lying beside
them. Hamdi Bey, the director of antiquities, explained
to me the difficulty with which he had been confronted in
withdrawing the sarcophagi from their niches owing to
the number of broken pieces, the removal of which, without
fretting the edges, was a serious problem. He adopted
the expedient of driving cobbler's wooden pegs into the
cracks, which when wetted swelled and widened the
apertures until he was able to separate the pieces without
abrasion. The process was similar to that employed by
the Egyptians to split off their obelisks from the granite
rock with box-wood blocks inserted into a series of oblong
holes drilled for the purpose.
At Sofia I spent a day or two with my old colleague of
Berlin, Charles Hardinge (Lord Hardinge of Penshurst),
who was in charge of the Legation. Graves, the Consul
at Philippolis, travelled part of the way with me. We
were in a quite empty corridor carriage. A rat, apparently
seeking a refuge from the light, entered our compartment
and ran up the inside of his trouser-leg. It was stopped at
the knee and escaped, and a rat-hunt through the whole of
the corridor did not result in a kill.
It was bitterly cold at Sofia. The winter of 1891 was
an exceptionally severe one and wolves prowled about in
244 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the outskirts of the city. Little more than ten years had
passed since Bulgaria had become an autonomous princi¬
pality. Its development had progressed on sound lines,
and the new state was not trying to run before it could
walk. Good roads and national education had been the
first care, and the nation co-operated readily for public
ends. These were the days of Stambouloff's energetic
and autocratic regime, and of his great struggle for emanci¬
pation from Russian tutelage. He had been educated
for the priesthood at Odessa, but had had to leave the
college after shooting at the principal. Russia had liberally
subventioned the church in Bulgaria which became generally
Russophil. But Stambouloff forcibly closed the Synod
and sent the bishops packing. Then, by his successful
ecclesiastical policy in Macedonia, he gradually regained the
sympathy of the clergy. He confessed that his great
mistake had been allowing Prince Alexander to leave the
country, and his not having detained him, if need be by
force, until the popular excitement aroused by the kid¬
napping had died down and till the Prince had recovered
his nerve. The army at large was devoted to him, and
though a number of the officers had been bought, the
plot for his removal had only succeeded by an unlucky
chance. Russia, in seeking to maintain a hold on the
principality, made nothing but mistakes. The Russian
Government had just demanded the expulsion from Bulgaria
of certain Russian subjects on the plea that they were
Nihilists, and this request provided Stambouloff with the
opportunity which he had long been seeking of expelling
a number of obnoxious persons whom he had till then
been afraid to touch. Prince Ferdinand, regarded by
St. Petersburg as an usurper, had not yet been recognized
by the Powers, which was probably convenient, as Russia
had no pretext for trying to upset him. That most astute
of Princes well understood how to bide his time, and for
the moment gave Stambouloff carte blanche. But the duel
between the two was not long delayed. A few years later,
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 245
after the fall of Stambouloff, my friend Harry Oust, while
editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, made a journalistic progress
through the Balkans. He was cordially received by the
Prince, who expounded his views and policy. Towards
the close of the interview—Oust is my witness—as they
were standing in the window, Ferdinand exclaimed, " Enfin,
quel triste pays ! Et moi j'en suis le Prince." Harry
Cust observed that in the afternoon he contemplated
paying a visit to Stambouloff, who was then in violent
opposition. " No, no," said the Prince, " I must beg you
not to do that after having been to see me." Harry ex¬
plained that it was his business as a journalist to see every
one, whatever views they held. "No doubt," Ferdinand
rejoined, " but this is not a man whom you can properly
see. I am not very particular myself, but one must draw
the line somewhere." Nevertheless, in the afternoon he
did visit the ex-prime-minister, and in the course of con¬
versation remarked that apparently he was not on the
best of terms with the Prince. " Why, no," said Stambouloff,
" I am not. How could I be ! I am not very particular
myself, but one must draw the line somewhere ! " I can,
of course, take no responsibility for this story, beyond
admitting that I have slightly attenuated the terms in
which these reciprocal appreciations were repeated to me.
From Sofia I went on to Pesth. Buda had character,
but Pesth, with its wide streets and palatial houses, was
all of yesterday, and in spite of the kind hospitality of our
diplomatic representative, Sir Arthur Nicolson (Lord
Carnock), and a long and interesting conversation with
Arminius Vambery (Hermann Weinberger), I was dis¬
appointed with my visit. At that time the Magyarization
of the Hungarian dependencies was being vigorously
enforced. The Magnate was still all-powerful, and for
practical purposes was outside the law. The State was
everything, and the State meant only the Magyar. The
Hungarian language was being imposed on unwilling tongues,
and the Slav populations were silently nursing their dis-
246 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
content. While at Pesth I had made the acquaintance of
the deputy Pulsky, and we travelled together a considerable
distance on the way to Berlin. He expounded to me the
Hungarian point of view.
The nationality movement was, he maintained, for the
moment necessary and indeed inevitable. There was in his
own country a close analogy to the England described by
Fielding and Smollett. The Great Britain of to-day was
a century and more in advance of Hungary in development,
and had passed beyond the national phase, which only
survived in Ireland. France had also left the acute national
struggle behind, and in Germany racial rivalries were
settling down under the hegemony of Prussia. In Hungary,
the national issue was at its height. It was a stage through
which all countries were bound to pass, and its existence
was in itself an indication of progress. Men of political
sagacity accepted it as such. But inasmuch as all the
various nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian empire were
asserting themselves, the Hungarians had determined to
be the predominant element, and to fix the type of national
character which was to prevail when the phase of turmoil
quieted down. The smaller Slav communities would have
to accept the impress of the Magyar, who was too individual
and whose temperament was too strongly marked to be
influenced by others. Hence, as the Magyars now controlled
the State, it was their policy to bring everything under
State control. He did not himself believe that the Magyar
movement would have the effect of rendering the Slav
element in Hungary subject to Russian influence.
Pesth had, he said, changed enormously in the last
fifteen years, and was in a state of transition. People had
not yet been able to accustom themselves to the hours and
mode of life prevailing elsewhere. Dinner in the hotels
was still at four o'clock. The old semi-barbaric hospitality
no longer existed, and at present there was little or no
social life. Tisza, who had been premier over a long series
of years, had never entertained anyone in his house. The
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 247
ladies of the aristocracy were very ultramontane and little
addicted to distraction. The only social intercourse was
in the clubs. Gradually no doubt the conditions prevailing
in other European capitals would establish themselves
there also.
There was, in 1891, some justification for the previsions
and aims of the Hungarians. But, unfortunately for that
virile and sympathetic people, their fate was indissolubly
linked by tradition and geographical position to a system
which had outlived its day and which could only maintain
a precarious existence by making common cause with
dominance and aggression.
At Berlin I received a cordial welcome from old friends.
The Malets were absent in England. The Empress Frederick,
whom I saw on the day of my arrival, was about to start
for Paris. An invitation had been sent to French artists
to exhibit at Berlin in the coming spring, and a special
compliment had been conveyed to Meissonier. It was
apparently hoped that the way might be paved for an
eventual visit of the Emperor to France. Two years had
brought about great changes in the capital, and socially a
transitional stage was appreciable. The old stars which
had shone under the former court had set. The new people
did not yet seem sure of their position. The ex-Chancellor,
in his retirement, inspired a constant flow of criticism which
exasperated the Emperor. The Bismarckians still remained
a powerful factor and, while the majority had gone over
to the rising sun, an influential group gathered round my
friend, Count Guido Henckel v. Donnersmarck, who declined
to renounce an old allegiance, and was in consequence
severely boycotted by the Court. Some five years later a
reconciliation took place, and Donnersmarck became a
Prince.
Two and a half years had passed since I had left England.
A few days after my arrival I spent the week at Aston
Clinton, and on the Sunday we walked over to Tring to
Lord Rothschild's, where Mr. Gladstone was staying. I
248 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
found him much aged since I had last seen him, but
intellectually as active as ever, and we had a long talk about
Greece. He was familiar with even so little known a book
as Hahn's Albanian Studies. A few weeks later I met him
again at a dinner party. He talked to me for the whole
of the time available after we had rejoined the ladies about
Schliemann's discoveries, about Greece and the other
Balkan States, and he was good enough to be very compli¬
mentary about a poem which I had written for the Ter¬
centenary of the Armada. " We seldom," he remarked,
" read modern poetry on impulse ; we generally do so
only because we are asked to. But this I have read again
and again."
With the cigarettes the Channel Tunnel had come up
for discussion, and out of the eight men present, whether
for sentimental or other reasons, only one besides Mr.
Gladstone himself had not been opposed to the project.
When asked whether he was not impressed by this consensus
of opinion—the guests included George Russell, Knowles,
of the Nineteenth Century, and Munro Ferguson—he replied
with a story. There was a certain man in America who
was notorious for the peculiar vehemence of his language,
he used almost " to burst himself in swearing." One day
he had been dragging his cart and horse up a steep hill
with a load of salt. A practical joker had surreptitiously
tilted up the back-board of the cart, and the escaping
salt had made a white track up the hill. On arriving at
the top he looked back and realized that the cart was
empty. His face contracted for a great effort, but suddenly
his lips relaxed and he said with a sigh: " No ! I'm not equal
to it." " Well that," said Mr. Gladstone, chuckling, " is
approximately my attitude towards you, gentlemen."
At Windsor, whither I was commanded to dine and
sleep, the Empress Frederick was staying. The visit to
Paris had ended disastrously. An inopportune expedition
to Versailles had given the Derouledes their opportunity
to beat the chauvinistic drum and invoke a popular protest.
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 249
Both the Empress herself and our Ambassador, Lord
Lytton, whom I saw a few days later, attributed the
unfortunate result to Miinster's passion for driving. The
Empress had never intended to go to Versailles, but Miinster
made a great point of taking her there in his coach, and
had over-persuaded her. There was, however, good ground
for his assuming that the authorities had no objection to
the visit. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, when consulted
by the German Ambassador, had said that all the Museums
were at Her Majesty's disposal, and that if she wished to
go to Versailles it would be best to do so on a Monday,
the day on which the general public were not admitted,
when special arrangements could be made. Miinster had
regarded this as equivalent to an invitation. It must,
however, be admitted that on an occasion which courted
criticism from the irreconcileables a visit to Versailles was
far from tactful, and as a consequence the much-discussed
journey to Paris only served to embitter relations.
A few days later I was invited by the Prince of Wales
to meet the Empress again at Sandringham. Lord Leighton,
who came down on Sunday, was responsible for the following
anecdote of Dizzy. During the brief period when Wadding-
ton held the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs, there was
an abortive attempt on his life. When Beaconsfield learned
that the incident had had no sinister result, his only comment
was: "That is well. He would have made assassination
ridiculous." A pretext for a new attack on the Empress
had been found at this time in the admission of the Crown
Princess of Greece to the Orthodox Church. She was
charged with having neglected to give her children a religious
education. Her own view had been that no religion was of
great value which individuals did not think out for them¬
selves and then deliberately adopt. She had, therefore,
encouraged an open mind in such issues. The adoption
by her daughter of the Orthodox religion had come as
somewhat of a surprise to herself.
England seemed more than ever delightful after a long
250 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
absence. The thronging life of London in the season was
as interesting as ever, and the stately country houses
still dispensed the large hospitality of the old order, and
assembled the social, political and intellectual world in
memorable gatherings. But for the shadow of a personal
loss which clouded my life at this time I should have enjoyed
myself. As it was, I was ready to leave for my new post.
Before starting I was entertained at a dinner remarkable
for brilliant sallies of unconventional oratory by my friends
Curzon, George Wyndham, Harry Cust, Godfrey Webb,
G. Leveson-Gower and several more. This was, I think,
the last of a series of such banquets to which the present
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs convened us. The
flow of wit was brilliant and unrestrained. George Wyndham
was at his best, and a very good best it was on such occasions.
Cust was quick as lightning in quip and repartee. Webb
had a genial gift for ribald epigram. Those who have only
known Lord Curzon in an official capacity would hardly
credit him with the Rabelaisian humour and the inventive
spirit of mischief which he displayed, consule Planco. And
once when the immortal Henley was too ill to come himself
he sent us for our delectation a poem in the manner of
Wordsworth which, though it will never be published, I
am inclined to place among his masterpieces.
The Roman season was over when I reached the Embassy.
But Parliament was still sitting, and I shortly afterwards
witnessed on a Sunday afternoon what was then reported
to be the first display of personal violence in the Chamber
at Montecitorio. I have seen several since, and in this
respect even the Mother of Parliaments has not been exempt.
The Rudini Government, which had succeeded that of
Crispi early in 1891, were sure of their majority on an
interpellation regarding foreign policy, but the opposition
had on the previous day obstructed all progress by sheer
force of lungs. On the Sunday they were led by Felice
Cavalotti, poet, dramatist and advocate of friendship with
France, into actual battle, and a hot skirmish took place
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 251
in the arena of the house. The protagonists were taken
out into the corridors by their friends to cool down. After
a considerable pause the President returned. Veterans
of the War of Independence made an appeal to the spirit of
patriotism and antagonists embraced with emotion. The
fiery Cavalotti, who fell in a duel with the editor of a
Conservative newspaper in 1898, was in spite of, rather than
because of, his anti-monarchical attitude a popular figure
as leader of the extreme left in Italian public life.
The city had changed in aspect tragically, from the
picturesque and sentimental point of view, from the Rome
of my boyhood, when the Via Nazionale had not yet been
conceived, when Santa Maria Maggiore was isolated in a
sort of suburb of its own on the Esquiline, and when only
villas and gardens were to be found east of the Piazza
Barberini. But even in 1891 there were solitary places
beside the Aurelian walls, and beyond the gates it did not
take long to reach that open grass country bounded by the
opal hills, with its haunting spiritual beauty which no
other region of the world presents. But to the everlasting
lament of the older lovers of Rome it may justly be answered
that the historic city has always been in continuous stages
of transformation since republican and imperial days.
Each century in series has seen old landmarks disappear
and new buildings arise. And always enough is left over
from each successive phase to carry on tradition and make
the streets of Rome an epitome of the story of the world.
The Ambassador and his family left the Embassy with
the commencement of summer for the Bay of Naples or
on leave at home, and I saw little of my new chief till
the autumn. I remained in Rome, where I have lived
through many summers since, with the exception of a few
days spent at Sorrento with the Marion Crawfords. I
found him much changed since his marriage with a daughter
of the well-known military inventor, General Berdan. He
was less cynical and self-assertive. Success had made him
a kindlier critic, and he was extremely modest about his
252 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
own accomplishment. Crawford had, in fact, taken up
literature rather by accident, and he had a way of saying
what was in a sense true, that he was not really a literary
man. But he was a man of remarkable capacity and an
admirable linguist. During his rolling-stone period he
had absorbed a great deal of knowledge. He was deeply
read in philosophy, and at the same time was something
of a mystic with a curious leaning to astrology. But he
was a man of moods, and in later years there was a recidivist
tendency to the old intolerance. Even then at moments
his incontrollable spirit broke out. One night we had
returned very late with Mrs. Crawford and some other
ladies from a picnic in an undecked fellucca, which he sailed
with great skill. The moon was bright over the gulf, but
beyond the shelter of the cliffs it was blowing hard and
clouds were gathering. We had just landed the ladies
towards midnight when a sudden impulse prompted
Crawford to propose sailing to Capri. His experienced
boatmen who knew their own seas protested ; they had
families dependent on them and the passage could not be
attempted in an open boat. This roused his demon of
opposition, and he denounced their lack of courage. Seeing
that argument was useless, I said I would go with him,
and we put out again about midnight. Beyond the shelter
of the bay every bit of canvas had to come down at once.
We took to the oars and the boat was kept with its head
to the seas. I foresaw catastrophe and reflected on the
obituary notices. Crawford managed the boat well enough,
but he had been up at dawn, and I was not sorry to see
sleep overpowering him, whereupon he relinquished the
rudder to one of his boatmen and resigned himself. We
steered for a little creek half-way to the end of the peninsula
and found shelter under the lee of the rocks till morning
broke and wind and sea abated, when we were able to run
across to Capri, to bathe, breakfast and telegraph to Sorrento.
Lord Dufferin was spending his leisure sailing a little
cutter, which he used for the most part to navigate alone
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 253
fearlessly after his kind. He was seen one day in the middle
of the Bay of Naples in a roughish sea hanging on to the
end of his bowsprit, which dipped to the water and half
immersed him with the pitching of the boat. Something
had gone wrong with his jib tackle, and he had lashed his
helm and climbed out to clear it himself. He almost
resented the offer of assistance from the passing craft.
This most universal of men was a master of watermanship.
He said he had often found it useful, when Ambassador at
Constantinople and threatened with awkward questions
by the Porte, temporarily to sever communications by
disappearing into the Marmora in his little yacht.
Some interesting visitors came to Rome that summer
and autumn. J. H. Middleton, who was afterwards director
of the Victoria and Albert Museum, spent some time there
completing his admirable book on the Remains of Ancient
Rome. I had known him in former days as a rather formid¬
able and intolerant type of positivist. But now he had
greatly softened, perhaps with marriage, and had all the
gentleness and tolerance of wisdom. There were few
experiences which were not included in his record. He had
studied at the Arab University in Morocco, and had spent
several weeks in a Turkish prison at Aleppo. It fell out
thus. At that time he was contemplating a journey overland
to Bagdad, and had received the necessary passports from
Constantinople. But the local Pasha insisted that his
own visa was also necessary, and demanded a hundred
pounds as a fee for affixing it. Middleton declined to pay,
and to ensure that he should not start without the visa
he was consigned to the castle as a prisoner. A reasonable
sojourn there would, Middleton concluded, enable him to
recover his Arabic, so he held out for three weeks. The
prison allowance amounted to only about a penny a day.
The prisoners pooled their money and bought bread and
black olives on which they lived, supplementing their
resources by begging with a basket let down from one of
the castle towers, into which the charitable threw small
254 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
coins. With these they were able to buy a little tobacco.
After three weeks or so, when he had had enough of the
life, he compounded with the Governor for fifty pounds and
proceeded on his way. He had never raised the question of
his detention officially, and regarded it as a not unprofitable
adventure. I remember one evening, in a little restaurant
we put the question to him whether in his large eastern
experience he had ever seen a man crucified. Middleton
answered quite seriously, after some reflection: " No.
But I have seen a man impaled."
John Addington Symonds also came in the autumn.
He was then at work on a life of Michelangelo, and claimed
to be able to establish that the famous sonnets were not
really addresses to Vittoria Colonna, but were composed
rather in a neo-classic spirit in accordance with the fashion
of the day. Sitting in my rooms at the Embassy he talked
with his usual brilliancy late into the night of the curious
post-Elizabethan development of the Italianate Englishman,
and of the group of dramatists who wrote for the travelled
few, fascinated by the romance and licence of seventeenth
century conditions in Italy. Vittoria Accoramboni and
some of Marston's plays were conceived almost immediately
after the occurrence of the events with which they dealt.
The imported laxity of morals and deterioration of social
standards in the English aristocracy was illustrated by the
combination of infamies which led to the poisoning of Sir
Thomas Overbury in 1613, and it was one of the justifications
for the Puritan movement. Symonds also enlightened me
as to the practice, prevailing in Rome and perhaps other
great cities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of
charging a member of the household, when the great families
retired to their villas in the summer, to draw up for them
budgets of news and to report scandals in the capital.
These relazioni, which anticipated the social journals of
our time and had nothing to fear from libel actions, were
important historical documents in so far as they gave a
picture of contemporary public morals. Webster had
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
255
obtained possession of several. Such a record had probably
been the document which supplied Browning with the
material for the " Ring and the Book." An Italian lawyer
of my acquaintance, whom a humble client presented with
some old books in lieu of a fee, had found among them a
manuscript of this nature from which I derived much enter¬
tainment, as it contained a complete chronique scandaleuse
of the relations between Innocent X and his sister-in-law,
Olympia Maldachini Pamfilj, who was known as the Papessa.
A little later the " Bart," as we used to call my old friend
Sir Charles Tennant, with Lady Tennant and Miss Margot,
spent a day or two in Rome. Together with Harry Cust,
who had been staying with me, I accompanied them to
Naples, where they were to embark for Egypt. Tricoupis
also passed twice through Rome in an optimistic mood and
confident of his country's future. But unfortunately for
Greece that great statesman's days were numbered and he
died prematurely in 1896. Nor was the capital by any
means abandoned in the summer. Waldo Story, the sculptor,
remained late, having work on hand to finish, and initiated
me into all the best taverns where dinner was served in the
open air. Giacomo Boni, who was making his monumental
discoveries in the Forum, did not relax his vigilance over
every spadeful of earth that was lifted, and with him then
began a friendship which has never waned. Axel Munthe,
the mysterious Swede, with his genius for literary expression
in a foreign tongue, moved backwards and forwards be¬
tween his tower in Capri and the apartment in which John
Keats had breathed his last in Rome. He inspired warm
friendships and bitter enmities. I unhesitatingly joined
the category of his friends, among whom I hope always to
be numbered.
For us who were accredited to the Quirinal it was not easy
in those days to penetrate into the Black world. The
dividing line was still strongly emphasized. But I soon
became intimate with the able and witty Father Hickey,
then rector of the Irish Dominican college at San Clemente,
256 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
who ended his days as Provincial of the Dominicans in
Ireland. He was very hospitable, but unfortunately for
so brilliant a talker the rules of his order prescribed silence
at meals, unless a bishop were present who could grant
exemption. Not unfrequently I received a little note in
pencil: "Come and dine to-morrow, I've got a bishop."
The college had summer quarters and vineyards at Tivoli
and Father Hickey was very proud of his wine. Once when
I had gone there to spend the afternoon, as we were sitting
under the pergola after dinner, a spirit of mischief entered
into me and I began to chaff the rector about his system of
education, which I maintained was utterly wrong. He had
to train the future preachers, who are drawn chiefly from the
Dominicans. I argued that his pupils should learn all about
modern discovery and science, so as to know what they had
to contend against. Instead of that they spent some seven
years absorbing the lives and theology of the Fathers of the
Church. " Me dear young friend," said Father Hickey,
" you know nothing of what you are talking about. There
are certain matters which have been laid down by the
Church as immutable and it would be a mere waste of time
for these boys to be investigating the bases of what has
been settled once for all. It would be just as if one of them
were to come to me and say : ' Father, I have reason to think
that everybody is wrong about the earth's motion, and that
it's the sun that goes round the earth and not the earth that
goes round the sun.' I should say to him : ' Leave that alone,
me dear boy, it has been determined long ago by those who
are much more competent than you are.'"—" Hullo, Father,"
said I, " and how about Galileo ? "—" Ah, well, you had
me there ! " was his reply, and he changed the subject.
One day I took Lady Claud Hamilton, who was then at
the height of her beauty and charm, to see San Clemente,
and the Rector did the honours of the lower church and
the temple of Mithras, which had not yet then been invaded
by the subterranean water which made it inaccessible for
so many years. He was delighted with his visitor, and
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 257
interrupted our good-byes with " You cannot go until you
have tasted me wine. I have a wonderful Aleatico this
year." (It was the first juice drawn from the grapes before
the press had operated.) But the problem was where to
enjoy this nectar of the Sabines, for an inexorable rule for¬
bade a lady to cross the monastic threshold. " I know,"
said Father Hickey, " we'll have it in the Sacristy." And
so we did.
During my long residence in Rome and especially at a
later period I have been on terms of intimacy with not a
few eminent ecclesiastics. But by none of these was a
word ever addressed to me which concerned the conscience or
suggested any desire to proselytize. More than one of my
younger colleagues and friends fell under influences to
which they were probably predisposed. But in my own
case no advantage was taken of ample opportunity. I
have, therefore, always assumed that those whose vocation
it must be to gather as many sheep as possible into the fold
have some intuitive gift of diagnosis which enables them
to distinguish the susceptible from the temperamentally
recalcitrant.
The tension between clericals and anti-clericals, combined
with the somewhat acute phase in Franco-Italian relations
resulting from the anti-French orientation of Crispi's policy
came to a head in 1891 owing to an unfortunate incident
at the Pantheon, which was the signal for riots and demon¬
strations. At the tomb of Victor Emmanuel II in that
church a register is kept in which visitors inscribe their
names. A French pilgrimage was in progress, and a young
French student very foolishly wrote " Vive le Pape " in
the book. The group to which he belonged were with
difficulty saved by the police from being lynched, and the
city was at once in an uproar. The pilgrims were severely
hustled ; rabid orators mounted on the altars in the Pan¬
theon and made violent appeals to the masses ; and bands
promenaded the streets playing Garibaldi's war hymn.
Fortunately no international episode arose. But both
s
258 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
parties made use of the episode for their own ends, the
extreme Radicals calling for the expulsion of the Pope from
Rome, while the clericals asserted that the attitude of the
mob had revealed what might be expected if the Pontiff
were to leave the precincts of the Apostolic palace.
Episodes of this nature do not of course affect the general
attitude of the Vatican. But as a coincidence it was curious
that about this time, a new orientation in the policy of Leo
XIII became more pronounced. The church seemed
inclined to range itself more and more on the side of the
people against privilege and traditional authority. It is
possible that the influence of the British and American
bishops had not been without its effect. It seemed as
though the Church had realized that the arbitrage of human
affairs was passing more and more into the hands of the
people and that therefore their goodwill was more important
to her than that of the old dominant factors. An evident
bid was made for popular support in France. Later on in
the following year when I was in Paris a distinguished
ecclesiastic, the Abbe Gamier, at a Catholic congress at
Roubaix, openly avowed the republican leanings of the Pope.
" We accept the republic," he said, " in conformity with the
instructions of Leo XIII. We have boarded the train, but
we mean to direct it. We have entered the house, but we
mean to cleanse it." On the other hand a leader of the
royalist party, the Comte d'Haussonville, in discussing
about the same time these republican velleities, pronounced
in favour of absolute docility in matters of faith, but held
the dominion of citizenship and honour to be excluded from
the sphere of ecclesiastical interference.
In the late autumn the Dufferins returned to Rome, and
my new chief at once took me into his confidence. He was
engaged in editing his mother's poems and invited my
co-operation in various minor points for revision. That
most delightful of men was an ideal representative who as a
diplomatist more than atoned by his personal charm, his
tact, his judgment and resource for his linguistic deficiencies.
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 259
He had amused himself with a study of Persian. But his
French was elementary. When he was appointed to Paris
he set diligently to work and committed to memory every
irregular gender. But an impeccable accuracy in genders
does not imply facility in expression. Dufferin's finished
and courtly manners never left any doubt of the rigid deter¬
mination which lay behind it and no one could administer
a necessary rebuff with more unerring effect. Not long
after his arrival in Rome he had paid a visit by appoint¬
ment to Crispi, who was then in power. Crispi, who was
a rough diamond, did not rise from the table at which he
was writing, as all the laws of etiquette demanded, when
the Ambassador was ushered into his room. He merely
asked him in a preoccupied manner to sit down. Lord
Dufferin remained standing in an attitude of expectancy.
Crispi repeated the invitation to sit down, but the Ambas¬
sador did not move. Then the veteran realized that he was
at fault, rose from his table and advanced with extended
hand, whereupon Dufferin at once took the indicated chair.
There was for a brief moment in our archives the draft
of a most crushing letter addressed to a lady who was visiting
Rome and who without any introduction had forced herself
into the presence of the Ambassadress and had rather
aggressively demanded why she and her daughter had not
been invited to a party to be given at the Embassy, not¬
withstanding that she had left a card. The letter began
with an expression of regret that she had made it necessary
for her name to be removed from the Ambassadress' visiting
list. It went on to explain the obligations of Ambassadors
in the matter of hospitality, which were in the first place
towards the people of the country where they were accredited,
but which might at discretion be extended to friends and
acquaintances among their own countrymen, who had
been presented or recommended to them. This was the
limit of their obligation. Nevertheless, the rebuke having
been administered and an apology received, the writer was
invited on another occasion, and the draft of the letter,
260 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
which might have served as a valuable model, was destroyed.
His adroitness of resource even in trivial matters was
illustrated by a little incident which he related to me him¬
self. The daughter of a Scotch Earl who had married an
American gentleman residing in Rome was anxious to be
presented at the Quirinal and had to address her request to
the American Ambassador. As an earl's daughter she had
always been known in Rome by her courtesy title. But the
Ambassador explained that he could only send in her name
to the Court as Mrs. . This greatly upset her father.
The American Ambassador discussed the grave situation
with Dufferin, explaining that while personally he would
be delighted to use the courtesy title, his doing so would not
escape notice, as by marriage the lady had become an
American citizen and he would have no excuse to offer.
Dufferin then asked him in what language he generally
addressed the Chamberlain, and he replied that he always
wrote in English.—" Why not," suggested Dufferin, " on
this occasion write in Italian ? You can, of course, describe
her as Do?ma, for in any case she is a lady, and there is no
reason why you should not insert her christian name. The
responsibility for interpreting the name will be left to the
Court officials. You will be quite safe, and if they use the
form of address by which she is generally known here every¬
one will be satisfied."
Death was busy in the concluding quarter of that year.
W. H. Smith, the typical exponent of well-balanced common
sense in British political life, passed away in October, with
Parnell, Balmaceda and Boulanger, who had all embarked
on great adventures. Lord Lytton died in November,
He had just written to Lord Dufferin to say that much as he
loved him he had no intention of making a vacancy for him.
Quite at the end of the year Sir William White succumbed
to heart weakness after influenza at Berlin, two days after
Jiis arrival to spend Christmas there.
Lord Dufferin was offered the vacant post at Paris. I
deciphered the private telegram for him. After con-
HOME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 261
suiting his family he accepted, but he confessed to me that he
was most reluctant to leave Rome. He quoted the story of
some famous character who had been asked what life he
would have wished to live had he been free to choose. His
estimate of the ideal life was from twenty to twenty-five
to be a reigning beauty ; from twenty-five to thirty-five a
successful French General; from thirty-five to fifty a wealthy
English nobleman ; and the rest of life a Roman cardinal.
As he could not be the last, Dufferin said he would like to
have remained the next best thing, an Ambassador in Rome.
We then composed a letter to King Humbert, in which
these regrets were expressed with acknowledgments for
many gracious acts of kindness. Then after dinner he
invited me to accompany him to Paris, if he could obtain
the agreement of the Foreign Office to my doing so. I had
been looking forward to spending two or three years in
Rome, but could not of course do otherwise than accept
such a proposal, which was the more gratifying because I
had only been working for quite a short time under the
Ambassador's direct supervision. He was in any case to
remain in Italy two or three months longer. I was in due
course instructed to proceed to Paris in the following May
or June.
About this time I found myself involved in a further
incident connected with the cemetery at Testaccio. On
this occasion it was not the grave of Keats but that of
Shelley which was endangered. Lady Shelley, the widow
of the poet's only surviving son, had proposed to replace
the plain marble slab which covers his ashes in the tower of
the Aurelian wall by an elaborate monumental work, executed
by Onslow Ford. Objection was taken to any change by
Mrs. Call, the niece and representative of Trelawny, who
had acquired the ground and had provided for the burial of
his own ashes by those of his friend. Lady Shelley had
appealed to the Ambassador, who, after discussing the
matter with me and fully accepting my view, left it to my
discretion to deal with. I accordingly wrote to my old
262 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
friend Lady Shelley and urged upon her that, apart from any
question of the proprietary claim to the site, there seemed
to be no question that the course proposed was inopportune.
The flat marble slab bedded in the acanthus foliage in the
ruined tower, and bearing the words " Cor cordium " with
the familiar lines from the Tempest, had been for nearly a
century an object of pilgrimage to lovers of the poet and had
become an historic monument. The substitution for it of a
piece of modern sculpture, however beautiful in itself, would
shock a legitimate sentiment. Lady Shelley at once
accepted this contention. She explained that she had had
a misgiving that after her death some inappropriate memorial
might be erected there, and she had only desired to antici¬
pate any such desecration of the spot. The result was
that the two ladies met and agreed that nothing should be
changed. A deed embodying this agreement between the
representatives of the two families was drawn up and
deposited at the Embassy. Onslow Ford's monument was
offered to and accepted by University College, Oxford, where
its presence constitutes a tardy act of expiation for the
expulsion of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
In 1891 Rome still preserved a good deal of its old social
attraction. The political world was, as it has remained,
wholly distinct from the social and only the more enter¬
prising diplomatists found means to associate with the
deputy and his ally the journalist. The great ladies of
society had their respective evenings at home, which their
friends attended without invitation, and the Embassies
entertained liberally. The invasion of American wives and
fortunes with the substitution of a cosmopolitan life for the
traditions of ancient houses had not yet taken full effect.
A majority of the great palaces were still occupied by the
families of their founders, whose ecclesiastical elevation,
with the accumulations derived from opulent benefices, had
enabled them to rival the historic predominance of Colonnas,
Orsinis and Caetanis. But new building was being carried
out on an exaggerated scale. The famous villa gardens had
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 263
been sold to financial companies, and modern streets had
invaded areas once shaded by venerable ilex trees and
fragrant with the Roman violet. Speculation was rife and
vast sums had been invested in residential quarters which
outstripped the demand for accommodation. The menace of
the crisis which involved so many local families in ruin was
already in the air. My sojourn in Italy, however, at this time
was so brief that I shall postpone any references to social
and political life until the period of my second official
appointment there in 1901.
Rome had already by then ceased to be a centre of artistic
life and production, and Paris had taken its place. But a
few veterans of the old time remained, like William Whet-
more Story, who with his eminently social wife, still enter¬
tained all his interesting visitors in their apartment in the
Palazzo Barberini, where Browning and Leighton had often
been their guests. There was no more genial host than
the old American sculptor with his recollections of pontifical
Rome, his fine literary sense and his amiable love of paradox.
I well remember how one night when I was dining with
him he ventured to attack the postulates of Darwin, and
especially the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. It
was a charming theory, but nothing could be less true to
what really happened in nature. And this was how he put
his case. The full moon was large and golden on the
African wild when the lioness came down to the water pool
to drink. Two splendid lions, the rival kings of the jungle,
saw her standing by the palm trees on the sandy brink and
greatly they desired her. There was a thunderous roar as
they sprang into the open ground with parted jaws and
dripping fangs, and there in the moonlight they fought for
her. They were equal in strength and endurance and with
tooth and claw they ripped each other's flesh till both fell
exhausted and bleeding to death. Meanwhile the occasion
of their battle in savage pride watched the victims of her
fascination faint and fail. And then it was that a third
lean and mangy lion who had no heart to fight slunk out
264 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of the bush with fawning tail and lecherous eye to carry
off the prize. The theorist took no account of guile, and
it was guile and not strength and beauty and courage that
really prevailed.
The passing away of so many actors on the world's stage
during the last three months of 1891 continued after the
new year. In the first week in January the Khedive of
Egypt, Tewfik Pasha, who had witnessed the initial stage in
his country's restoration after the grim events of 1882,
died in the flower of his age. The succession of his son,
Abbas Hilmy, at the age of eighteen marked the commence¬
ment for us of an era of trouble in Egypt. On hearing
the news Dufferin observed that it was most fortunate that
he had not himself yet gone to Paris and that there should
be no Ambassador in Constantinople. Those who might
hope to draw advantage from the death of a good friend of
ours might beat the air, but they would find no one to attack.
A week later Great Britain was plunged into very real
mourning by the death after a brief illness of Prince Albert
Victor. There are moments when accident or circumstance
may have somewhat relaxed the instinctive sense of loyalty
of the British people, and if such a moment had seemed
recently appreciable this tragic death caused a strong
reaction and a genuine wave of popular emotion went out
in sympathy to the reigning house. On the comparatively
rare occasions on which I had been together with the young
Prince I had noticed one characteristic which greatly ap¬
pealed to me. When he was with his family he never missed
going up every night to his mother's room. No matter
what he was doing, shortly after the Princess of Wales had
retired, he would say quite naturally and without restraint,
" I must go and see my mother," and after about half an
hour he would return to the company.
Shortly after Dufferin's appointment to Paris a curious
incident caused us no little perplexity and speculation.
Sir Robert Morier had been selected to fill his place in Rome
and Lord Vivian was to succeed Morier in St. Petersburg.
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 265
Their respective nominations were actually gazetted and
their biographies had appeared in the press. But on the
19th of January we received an announcement that in view
of the improvement in Morier's health he had consented to
remain in Russia, and the appointment of Vivian to Rome
was to be submitted for approval. The reason assigned for
this sudden revision of definite decisions did not seem
altogether convincing, and the general impression derived
from it was that German influence had in some manner been
exercised to obtain the annulment of the appointment at a
Triple Alliance Court of an Ambassador whom official
Germany chose to regard as an enemy.
Among the interesting visitors to Italy that winter was
Paul Bourget. I made his acquaintance through my old
friend, Count Guiseppe Primoli, who I rejoice to think is
with us still, one of the last of the old school of great Roman
gentlemen. He always attracted to his hospitable house
any eminent French men of letters that came to Rome.
Bourget had only recently been married and was accom¬
panied by his pretty and charming young wife. He im¬
pressed me as very cosmopolitan in his tastes with a tolerance
and appreciation somewhat exceptional among his country¬
men in that it extended beyond the French border. I was
interested to learn from him something of his method of
work which occupied him on and off the whole day. After
say half an hour's concentration on writing he would take
a book and read, fixing his attention for the moment on
quite different thoughts. Then he turned back to his
manuscript, and so continued to alternate between writing
and reading. For complete distraction he preferred a
game of cards. He was then full of the menage and the
charm of family life, and I looked forward with natural
curiosity to his next book written under a new and gracious
influence.
During Carnival the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador
Baron Bruck, who was an admirable stage-manager, organ¬
ized at his Embassy a series of theatrical performances in
266 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
which I took a leading part, acting both in English and
French. We produced a new piece each Saturday through¬
out the month of frivolity. The great event, however, of
the season was the performance of the " Happy Pair," in
which Lady Dufferin returned for the last time to her old
love the stage, on which in former days she had won great
success. She was a consummate actress, and this was the
more remarkable as she gave the impression of being shy
by nature and of having only conquered that disposition
by an effort. Perhaps the most trying ordeal which I have
ever experienced was rehearsing the little comedy, which
we both knew well, in the empty theatre, empty save for
the presence of Dufferin, seated in an arm-chair in the centre
to pronounce judgment whether or not I was worthy of
supporting Her Excellency. Fortunately his verdict was
favourable and the performance was a veritable triumph
for the departing Ambassadress.
The last night of Carnival was the scene of a memorable
festa in Waldo Story's studio. Some fifty of us, mostly in
masquerading dress, sat down to a picnic supper. Old Story
and his wife were also present. Before we had finished,
Lord and Lady Dufferin, who had been to an official dinner,
joined the party, and were enthusiastically greeted. They
were to leave a week later. A few words of welcome, which
I believe I pronounced, drew from the Ambassador one of
his delightful impromptu speeches. Then followed the
tableau which we had organized beforehand of Carnival
meeting Lent. Marion Crawford disguised as Mephisto-
pheles, surrounded by all the characteristic masks, delivered
the lines he had prepared, but retreated before the advance
of Mrs. Waldo Story, as a beautiful nun, with an appro¬
priate retinue, impersonating Lent. The scene is described
in one of Crawford's Roman stories, Pietro Ghisleri. Then
we began to dance, and the Ambassadress, who waltzed as
keenly as her daughters, said, I fear with some prescience
of truth, that she felt this would be her last little bit of fun.
A week later they left for Paris, amid the regrets of all
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 267
Rome social and official, assembled at the station, and I
realized that I should have been profoundly depressed if
I had not been going to follow them in a few weeks' time.
Remembering those merry days, I feel the more the tragedy
of the Blackwood boys, as they were then. The eldest, Ava,
died in South Africa on the threshold of manhood. The
second, Terence, once my colleague in Paris, who eventually
succeeded, also died prematurely. Basil, the third, who I
think most resembled his father, went out to the Great War
at forty-six as a second lieutenant and never returned.
Only the youngest now survives to bear an honoured name.
My family paid a visit to Rome in March. My father had
just completed his eightieth year, but was still vigorous and
very happy to be back in the city which he had known for
more than fifty years. A week after his arrival he was
attacked by influenza, which turned to pneumonia, and
he died of syncope of the heart without a struggle. He was
buried in the cemetery at Testaccio next to his old friend
Gibson, the sculptor. To him also I have to record a pro¬
found debt of gratitude for all his foresight, consideration
and kindly tolerance of the vagaries of youth. After a brief
interval I escorted my mother home and then returned to
pack and take my leave. On my way I spent a week in
Berlin with the Malets. There every one seemed anxious and
ill at ease. The Emperor had been making a series of
speeches which no one attempted to defend, and even those
who gave him credit for honest purpose and zeal deplored
his lack of judgment and moderation in expression.
A story had just gone the round of Europe of his having
inscribed in the Municipal Album at Munich the words
" Regis voluntas suprema lex." The explanation given me
in Berlin of an apparently rather provocative piece of self-
assertion was the following. There were two registers at
Munich, in which eminent visitors were invited to inscribe
their names. The Emperor had already done so in the
album presented to him. It was then discovered that a
mistake had been made and that so august an autograph
268 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
should have been recorded in the Golden Book. The Regent,
however, expressed the opinion that his imperial guest must
not be further importuned, and informing him that he had
done so, begged that his decision should be respected.
Nevertheless, in spite of the Regent's wishes, the book re¬
served for more important autographs was submitted and
then it was that the Emperor, intending to signify that the
Regent's will must be his law, wrote in it instead of his name
the much-discussed sentence. The explanation appears
plausible, but it does not enhance the Emperor's reputation
for discretion. At the same time I also learned in Berlin of
a graceful and kindly act which should be weighed against
charges which have been preferred of unfilial feeling. The
old estate of Cronberg in the Taunus, adjoining the property
on which the Empress Frederick was building her future
residence, belonged to the State and she had therefore
been unable to realize her ambition to acquire it. The
Emperor, however, by offering adequate compensation else¬
where, succeeded in obtaining personal possession of the
castle and grounds, which he then presented to his mother
at Christmas.
The general election at home brought Mr. Gladstone back
to power for the last time, but with a feeble majority
depending on an internally discordant Irish party. His
return to office was the signal for aggressive action by
Russia in the Pamirs, and other disturbing symptoms in
external relations. Lord Rosebery now became Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs. He initiated a new experi¬
mental departure in the Embassies which was not main¬
tained after he had left the Foreign Office. Holding, and
very justly, that a general appreciation of the spirit and
tendencies prevailing at any moment in another country
demands a wider outlook and fuller information than that
normally supplied in official correspondence, he directed
that one of the junior members in every Embassy should
be deputed to write him a fortnightly letter which would
keep him well posted in all that was going on socially and
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 269
intellectually in the country where the secretary in question
was stationed. Apart from politics quidquid agunt homines
would form the matter of this correspondence which would
of course be shown before despatch to the Ambassador.
Lord Dufferin selected me for this duty, and it was no doubt
due to the opportunity thus offered me that a big step in
my profession took me by surprise at the end of the year.
I greatly enjoyed the summer in Paris. There was plenty
of work to do and at that season of the year there were no
social obligations ; so that except for an occasional week-end
with my friends the Wagrams at Gros-Bois I saw no one,
till the autumn brought back the fashionable world, and
the great Madame Moore to amuse them. We were cer¬
tainly not popular in France in those days, and the persistent
abuse of Great Britain in the press, the daily charges of
duplicity and bad faith, were depressing in their wearisome
iteration. Nor was the campaign of depreciation confined
to unofficial publications. It was my business to study
parliamentary documents and I found to my surprise in
the motives for a projet de loi, containing proposals to combat
the depopulation of France, which though submitted by a
private member was officially published, a statement to
the effect that in Ireland, which Anglo-Saxon tyranny and
systematic cruelty had converted into a veritable hell,
people died or emigrated in masses, but married seldom, and
still more seldom produced a family, so as not to perpetuate
the existence of a race doomed to misery and despair.1
This attitude was no doubt in great measure due to the
tension of our relations with France's new love, Russia,
whose agents took every opportunity to stimulate it. Lord
Dufferin's appointment to Paris was made the occasion
for an article in the Petit Journal which, while paying a
high compliment to his ability, called upon the French
people to be on their guard, as he had been sent to Paris to
break the Franco-Russian entente. He had been furnished
by the British Government with unlimited money in order
1 No. 2182 of 1802 (stance du 20 Juin, 1802), p. 12,
270 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
to buy the French press and leading statesmen! The
contents of this article were reproduced in even blunter
terms in other papers and went the round of the press.
Four or five independent people, whose opinion was worthy
of credence in such matters, informed the Ambassador at
different times that this campaign was being inspired by
Baron de Mohrenheim and the Russian Embassy. Some
time afterwards the Libre Parole, the anti-semitic organ
conducted by Drumont and the Marquis de Mores, had in¬
vited contributions to a fund for the sufferers from famine
in Russia. But as subscribers had accompanied their offer¬
ings with comments in more than questionable taste, such
as " Pour le Rosseur dies Juifs, 5 fres," Mohrenheim suggested
that the money so collected would best be sent directly to
the Committee in Russia, thus avoiding the embarrassment
of having to accept the comments as well as the cash. The
rumour of a refusal to receive the sum subscribed led to
the publication in the Libre Parole of a letter from the
Marquis de Mores recording a conversation which he claimed
to have had some time previously with the Russian Ambas¬
sador, in the course of which the latter was reported to have
said that he did not know with whom to deal in France ;
the press and the leading politicians had been bought by
England ; M. Clemenceau openly denounced a Russian
alliance, etc. The language thus attributed to him coincided
in a striking manner with the substance of the article in
the Libre Parole. This letter was widely reproduced in
the papers, none of which, oddly enough, protested against
these insinuations that the press could be bought. Clemen¬
ceau then wrote in somewhat acrimonious terms to Moh¬
renheim and, after waiting a considerable time for an
acknowledgment which did not come, published his letter.
This compelled the Ambassador to reply, but he confined
himself to welcoming Clemenceau's statement that he was
not a partisan of la politique anglaise. He was also inter¬
viewed and to an inquiry why he had not repudiated the
other assertions of Mores, merely replied that he could not
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
271
concern himself with what the press said of him. The source
which had inspired the attack on Dufferin was thus pretty
plainly indicated. It seemed superfluous to emphasize it
further in any report. But Mr. Gladstone's comment when
he heard the story was curious as revealing the simplicity
of his judgments on foreign issues. He observed: "I am
glad to see that Dufferin acquits Mohrenheim of any com¬
plicity in the matter."
The enthusiasm of the boulevards for everything Russian
at that time was remarkable, and Russian newspapers were
on sale at the kiosques. Nevertheless a Franco-Russian
fete in the Tuileries garden for the benefit of the Russian
poor was a disastrous failure, which proved very costly to
the pockets of its initiators.
The violence of the Libre Parole called into existence an
opposition paper the Alliance Nationale. The first number
issued suggested that its promoters sought to obtain adver¬
tisement by provoking a duel. For the whole of the first
page was occupied by a most virulent attack on Drumont
and Mores, and the latter was reminded that the plea of
France for the French did not come well from one whose
real name was Antonio Marca de Vallombrosa.
Mores was an expert swordsman and always ready to
support his often reckless assertions with his rapier. In
the course of that summer he had to appear before the
tribunal together with his seconds in consequence of a duel
resulting in the death of Captain Mayer. In the course of
the trial certain facts were elicited, which are not without
interest as revealing a state of mind which prepared the
way for the Dreyfus case some years later. The duel was
the outcome of a previous affair between Captain Cremieu
Foa and M. Lamasse, whose signature appeared at the
foot of a number of articles in the Libre Parole entitled
" Les Juifs dans VArmeeand indeed was the last of a
series of encounters which they provoked. Captain
Cremieu Foa, an officer of Hebrew origin, had sent a challenge
to M. Drumont and at the ensuing meeting both combatants
272 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
were slightly wounded. M. Lamasse then provoked the
Captain, who accepted the challenge. But his seconds in
the former duel were of opinion that there were no grounds
for fighting and considered that the matter should be referred
to a court of honour. The anti-semites, however, took steps
to force an issue, and Captain Cremieu announced his
intention of demanding satisfaction not only from M.
Lamasse but also from the latter's seconds, the Marquis de
Mores and M. Guerin. Cremieu's seconds were Captain
Mayer and Lieutenant Trochu. At the meeting held to
arrange the preliminaries it transpired that the articles
which had occasioned the dispute had not been written by
M. Lamasse, but by an officer of the active army. A M.
Ernest Cremieu Foa, a relative of one of the combatants,
had endeavoured to intervene at the meeting and the record
of the proceedings was shown to him. At the same time
he was clearly informed that it had been agreed between
the seconds to keep the document secret. In spite of this
warning he took a copy and gave it to the press. On the
field the next morning Mores charged Captain Mayer with
having broken his word. Captain Mayer replied that he
was not responsible, but was nevertheless prepared to accept
responsibility, and magnanimously refrained from divulging
the name of the real culprit. In the encounter which
ensued Mayer, a promising officer who appears to have been
much liked at the military school where he was an instructor,
was killed. The dramatic incident at the trial was the de¬
nunciation of M. Ernest Cremieu by the Marquis de Mores,
who after the verdict of acquittal was the object of a
popular ovation.
Emboldened by success Mores next endeavoured to pro¬
voke an encounter with M. Etienne, a former under-secretary
for the Colonies, whom he charged with malversation and
venality. These attacks, which became almost hysterical
in their violence, were, however, ignored and the Chamber
signified its approval of M. Etienne's attitude by electing
him vice-president.
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892 273
The national fete in September of this year was celebrated
on an unusual scale as being the centenary of the declara¬
tion of the republic. An elaborate historical procession
was organized which cost the municipality £24,000. But
its effect was disappointing . The only interesting detail was
the reproduction of the uniform of the troops who fought
at Valmy. The crowd in the streets struck me as generally
apathetic, certainly not enthusiastic.
The illustrious author of the Vie de Jesus and Lord
Tennyson died in the same week at the beginning of October.
A discussion arose as to whether Renan should receive the
honour of interment in the Pantheon. The reply given
to the advocates of such a national tribute was that a
decision of the Chamber was necessary, and the Chamber
was not sitting. But as the burial of Victor Hugo in the
Pantheon was determined by a presidential decree, the
inference seemed legitimate that the Government hesitated
to take a step which would have outraged clerical sus¬
ceptibilities.
The passing of Tennyson evoked the most sympathetic
expressions from the world of letters in France, and it was
remarkable how clearly his position in English literature
was understood. There was at that time a growing interest
in English writers, who had long been neglected. The
appreciative studies of M. de Pressense and M. de Wycewa,
who had recently translated Wuthering Heights, were a
pleasant contrast to the acerbity of political diatribes and
revealed that there were calmer waters in which vessels of
different flags might sail in consort. Two famous French
critics, however, at this time fell out among themselves.
The question had been raised of erecting a statue to Beaude-
laire. M. Brunetiere objected and stigmatized his work as
a degradation of art. Thereupon M. Delpit in the Figaro
could find no words strong enough to express his contempt
for Brunetiere, whom he hoped he might never have the
misfortune to meet again. Seconds were appointed. But
they could not agree as to which was the aggrieved party.
T
274 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
The Minister of Public Instruction, M. Locroy, to whom
the dispute was referred, decided that the issue was purely
a literary one which presented no real grounds for an appeal
to arms.
A singular bet contributed to the gaiety of Paris at the
end of September when the city was not too full. A wealthy
financier wagered the price of the entertainment that he
would collect a hundred ladies to breakfast with his friend
on the following day. He spent the evening going round
the various haunts at which ces dames do mostly congregate
and invited no less than one hundred and fifty. Unfor¬
tunately for him a considerable number assumed that the
invitation was a hoax, and only eighty responded. He
therefore had to pay the bill, but did not complain, as the
breakfast was very hilarious. Fired with ambition by this
example two other " sportmen " made a similar bet, but
the number of guests was augmented to two hundred and
fifty. This time they all came. But the account at the
restaurant was a very heavy one, owing to the long list of
breakages.
During a brief visit to England in December I once more
met the venerable Premier at Alfred Lyttelton's. It was
a party of young people whose company the old man
seemed to enjoy. But it struck me as significant that his
own conversation dealt chiefly with reminiscences of the
'forties and the 'fifties. Mr. Gladstone discussed with me
possible candidates for the vacant Laureateship. I was
under the impression that he would give serious consideration
to the appointment of William Watson, in favour of whom
as a real poet I recorded my modest testimony. But no
nomination was made while a Liberal Government remained
in office, and the coveted distinction was eventually bestowed
as a reward for the services of a leader-writer in the Stan¬
dard, of whom Whistler might have said, in the spirit of
his malicious reference to Leighton, " Writes poetry too,
don't he ? " That fantastic master of the burin and the
pen had now transferred himself to Paris, and had shaken
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
275
the dust of an unappreciative England off his dainty shoes.
We still foregathered from time to time dining in the
restaurants beyond the Seine where he had found a domicile.
A touch of bitterness had taken the place of the old spark¬
ling fun and the spirit of mischief. Jimmy was growing
old.
The Government had just decided to despatch a British
mission to Uganda. An exploratory expedition of the
British East Africa Chartered Company had entered that
country in April, 1890. But experience had shown that
it was beyond their strength to attempt the administration
of areas so far from the coast, and the Company had
announced its intention of withdrawing from the whole
region. In view of the menace which such abandonment
must involve to the lives of many missionaries who had
penetrated into Uganda, a sum sufficient to enable the
company to maintain a force there until the end of 1892
was provided by friends of the Church Missionary Society.
A civil war in the country during that year and the difficulties
encountered by the Company's officers in endeavouring to
re-establish peace were not calculated to induce the Directors
to reconsider their decision. Confronted with this emer¬
gency the Government undertook to defray the expense
incurred by the company for three months longer until
the end of March 1893. Meanwhile they decided to send
a Commissioner to examine the conditions in Equatorial
Africa and to recommend the best course to adopt in " deal¬
ing with the country " ; in other words to report for retention
or evacuation. My friend Gerald Portal, who had acquired
some experience of African travel on a mission in 1887 to
King John of Abyssinia, and who had now been for some
two years Agent and Consul-General at Zanzibar, was
entrusted with this difficult duty. There was no time to
lose, as the march of over 800 miles from the coast, with
a large caravan of heavily laden porters, might be reckoned
to take nearly three months. The expedition must, there¬
fore, start not later than the 1st of January, 1893.
276 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
On the 9th of December I received a most kind letter
from Lord Rosebery, offering me the charge of the Agency
at Zanzibar, which carried with it the High Commissionership
of the whole coastal area administered by the East Africa
Company from the equator to the boundary of German
East Africa, during Portal's absence, the prospective
duration of which it was hardly possible to calculate. This
letter reached me on a Friday morning. On the following
Monday, the 12th, a Messageries steamer was due to leave
Marseilles by which some of the officers taking part in the
expedition were to travel. As it would be necessary for
me to go to London and receive instructions it was presumed
that I should hardly be able to catch that steamer. I
replied by telegraph that I would be in London the following
morning and would undertake to leave Marseilles on the
12th. The Friday was devoted to breaking up my small
establishment and packing. I crossed by the night boat ;
went to the Foreign Office in the morning to receive some
general instructions together with many reams of printed
correspondence to digest, and made a few necessary pur¬
chases of tropical equipment. In the afternoon I said
good-bye to one or two intimate friends, was received by
Lord Rosebery, who was full of kindly encouragement and,
after dining at home to take leave of my mother and sister,
returned once more to Paris by the night boat. On Sunday
evening I was on the way to Marseilles with my Italian
servant.
The two officers whom I was to meet were Roddy Owen
and my old Balliol friend, Raymond Portal. The former,
who would be more correctly described as Brigade-Major
Owen, D.S.O., I had met in London, but till then knew
only slightly. He had established a title to fame as the
most consummate gentleman rider of my younger days.
After winning the Grand National, however, he had decided
that it was time to take his military duties seriously, and
had rendered valuable service in a recent expedition against
the Jebus in West Africa.
ROME AND PARIS, 1891-1892
277
For Raymond Portal life had not been altogether smooth
since he had been the object of my hero-worship at Balliol.
He had always determined to enter the army, but by the
time he had taken his degree at Oxford, on which his father
insisted, he had already passed an age limit which rendered
him ineligible for anything but a West India Regiment.
He had served in Sierra Leone, Demarara and the West
Indies, and had contracted fevers which it was difficult to
shake off. Eventually he had been able to exchange into
the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and at the moment
when he was ordered to East Africa he was adjutant to the
Mounted Infantry.
They had left London on the Sunday morning and reached
Marseilles by a later train about an hour after I had arrived.
We were at once confronted with a difficulty about the
ammunition for the expedition, which could not be carried
by the steamer without a special authorization. We had
to find the Consul-General, and there was little time to
spare. With his assistance, however, the difficulty was
overcome, and in the afternoon we got under way in the
s.s. Ava, bound for Port Said, Obock, Aden and Zanzibar.
At Aden Colonel " Frankie " Rhodes, of Sudan fame and
actually Military Secretary to the Governor of Bombay, was
to join us.
It was a great pleasure to me to be once more with Ray¬
mond Portal, whom I had not seen for fifteen years, since
the days of the Iffley running ground and the Balliol boat,
when we were head of the river. Time had hardly changed
him. He had still the old commanding charm, enhanced
by his slight touch of shyness or reserve and the smile
that went to the heart. I had never felt in higher spirits.
Hitherto my professional activities had been limited to
observation and to assisting my seniors, with occasional
independent work on the preparation of reports. But now
at the age of thirty-four I was to be my own master at a
post where I should have to deal with difficult international
issues as well as administrative problems. Our position
278 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
in the new protectorate was as yet none too firmly estab¬
lished, and the unsettled mainland where, except in the
area of Mombasa, the tenure of the East Africa Company
was precarious, offered the prospect of expeditions and
adventure in the land of dreams.
CHAPTER IX
ZANZIBAR, 1893
With the record of many years to study in printed papers
relating to East Africa, and a daily five-mile duty tramp up
and down the decks of the Ava with Raymond and Roddy,
the three weeks' sea journey passed rapidly and pleasantly
enough. On a Messageries steamer there were happily
none of those determined sportsmen who insist on your
running races, carrying an egg in a spoon, or depositing
potatoes in a bucket. At Aden the majority of our first-
class passengers who were to tranship for Bombay left the
vessel, and together with them a local banker who maintained
that there was no place in the world like Aden or any that
he would rather choose for his residence. On the other
hand we were joined there by the immortal Frankie Rhodes,
officially Colonel Rhodes, D.S.O., Royal Dragoons, Military
Secretary to the Governor of Bombay. If we had been
hitherto a passably happy ship we became from that moment
a merry one. Even our skipper, a little dour of countenance,
caught his infectious gaiety and smiled all over at Frankie's
genial effort at French conversation, which consisted in
repeating: " Mon capitaine, j'ai beaucoup de consideration
pour vous ! " Physically Frankie Rhodes was a complete
contrast to his more famous brother Cecil, for whom he had
a profound admiration. I don't know whether he had
ever looked very young, as I am perfectly certain he could
never have grown old. There was an extraordinary charm
in that wizened quizzical face, with the uplifted chin, and
the constant twinkle in his light blue eyes. He was com¬
pounded of merry humour, undaunted courage and infinite
kindness of heart.
279
280 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
There remained on board, besides our four selves, two
other passengers, one a young Englishman of that curious
type who spend their lives travelling round and round the
world with no special aim in view, bound at that moment
for Madagascar, and the other a lady medical missionary
of uncertain age, who as the solitary representative of the
eternal feminine, so indispensable to the gallant colonel,
received the full blast of his humorous attention. I do not
know whether Miss Jones, as I may call her, may still be
in the world of the living, but should she happily be so, I
am sure she will cordially remember his genial chaff. One
morning, with that sans gene which distinguishes many of
our countrywomen in foreign parts, she had appeared at
early breakfast in a very sketchy costume, swathed in
what was then known as a grey waterproof, a grim early
Victorian garment. She informed us that she had had a
dreadfully disturbed night, and Frankie looked severely
round the table. " What do you think happened, Colonel ! "
said Miss Jones ; "a flying fish came through my scuttle
and settled on my bed ! "—" Ah, happy little fish ! " said
Frankie, with a quiver in his voice.
We were off Cape Guardafui on Christmas Eve, and at
7 a.m. on the morning of December 30th we anchored in
the roadstead of Zanzibar, and saw for the first time that
mysterious white city framed in groves of palm and mango,
which was regarded as the metropolis of East Africa. The
anchor was hardly down before Gerry Portal was on board.
He had hoped to leave the following day for Mombasa as
every twenty-four hours was of importance if he was to
arrive before the East Africa Company's officers withdrew,
and he had therefore arranged to take his leave of the Sultan
and to present me at nine o'clock that very morning. But
the staff had had so brief a time in which to make any
preparations before leaving England that one day more to
complete equipment locally was recognized as indispensable,
and the departure was postponed till New Year's Day. We
hastily got into uniform at the Agency and marched through
ZANZIBAR, 1893
281
the narrow unfamiliar eastern streets, which were lined
with soldiers, preceded by the native Agency Guards with
red coats over their white galabeas, to the palace, a large
barrack-like edifice with a wide open area in front between
it and the sea. An excellent band of Goanese musicians
played " God Save the Queen " as we approached. Rows
of dignified Arabs thronged the lower rooms and lined the
staircase, at the head of which stood Sultan Seyyid Ali. He
led us up to the far end of the Ceremonial Hall of State,
where the members of his family and the dignitaries of the
Sultanate had their official places, in strict order of a pre¬
cedence to which they clung with tenacious insistence.
We occupied a row of gilt and velvet chairs to his right.
The customary spiced coffee and sweet sherbert were then
offered and a drop of oil of roses was sprinkled on the head.
The Sultan who had all the grace and dignity of manner
which distinguishes the address of the high-caste Arab,
said a few amicable phrases and wished Portal a prosperous
journey, after which we took our leave in the same cere¬
monial manner. I had not yet got my tropical uniform,
and the full-dress of padded blue cloth with gold oak leaves
was trying in the hot steamy air. It was midsummer
south of the equator, though the difference between seasons
is not great. The first impression of my new post was
profoundly interesting and rich in local colour, and not less
so was that of our walk in the afternoon along the only
tolerable road then existing towards the country farms and
the dark masses of mango trees which contrasted with
the lighter and more vivid green of the feathery cocoa
palms.
It was invaluable for me to be able to spend a day or two
with Portal and to elicit from him as much information as
possible regarding the actual situation both in the island
and on the mainland, which I at once realized would present
innumerable problems wholly fresh to my experience,
demanding rapidity of decision for which no guidance
could be anticipated from home. Indeed I soon discovered
282 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
that to invite instructions on local issues only elicited the
reply that I being on the spot and able to appreciate the
circumstances must act according to my best judgment,
which was just what I wanted.
I learned from Portal that the life of the reigning Sultan
was regarded as precarious and that there was every prospect
that a crisis might occur before many months were over.
He would not see an European doctor, but phthisis was
suspected and there were symptoms of dropsy. We there¬
fore discussed the problem of succession. The general
rule in Mohammedan countries is that the eldest member
of the reigning family should succeed. But here the
accepted practice had not been strictly followed. An elder
brother of the reigning Sultan, the next in age to the famous
Sultan Barghash, had been twice passed over. The sanction
lay in the submission of the people and the acceptance of a
ruler by the powerful Arab families. This was practically
tantamount to the principle of the longest sword, which
appeared to be a Muscat tradition. The candidate with the
longest sword would evidently be the one supported by the
protecting Power. Three claimants would probably contest
the succession if the present ruler died. There was Khaled,
the son of Barghash, a rather truculent youth of eighteen :
there was Hamed Bin Thwain, the son of a brother of
Barghash now dead, a man of about forty, of reputed high
character and a student of Arab literature : and finally there
was Mahmoud, an elder cousin of the reigning Sultan. The
last was an amiable gentleman of a certain age and a popular
candidate with the turbulent Arab faction, who felt he would
readily become their creature. Khaled's claim was less
strong than that of Hamed, who was double his age, but as
the son of Barghash he would have his supporters. He was,
however, for other reasons undesirable. Seyyid Hamed
should, therefore, it seemed, become the candidate for the
support of the longest sword, but Gerry recommended me
to study the position carefully and to come to a definite
decision on this point without loss of time. I may say at
ZANZIBAR, 1893
283
once that before many weeks were over my conclusions were
entirely favourable to Hamed Bin Thwain.
The British colony in Zanzibar entertained Portal and his
officers at a farewell dinner at the Club on the last night of
1892 and at 4 a.m. on the morning of New Year's Day we
assembled on the deck of H.M.S. Philomel, a fast cruiser
of beautiful lines, commanded by Captain Charles Campbell,
who had kindly offered to carry the whole party to Mombasa,
some 120 miles north, the starting point for caravans to
Uganda.
We entered Port Reitz on the southern side of Mombasa
Island on the afternoon of New Year's Day with enough
daylight to spare to appreciate the magnificent harbour
through which we steamed for about a mile along shores
rich in tropic wealth of cocoa palms alternating with the
dark foliaged mango, over which we could see the crenelations
of an old Portuguese castle or fort. Here we were met by
Berkeley (now Sir Ernest Berkeley) of the consular service,
who had for a year been acting as administrator of the East
Africa Company, and who was to accompany; the Mission
to Uganda. The porters, 400 in number, with their 65 lb.
loads, who had started in dhows some time previously, had
already been despatched a day's march inland in charge of
Lieut. Lennard Arthur, of the Rifle Brigade, and Mr. Foaker,
an experienced caravan leader who had already once made
the journey to Uganda. The medical officer, Dr. Moffat,
who had tramped 200 miles from the Scottish industrial
mission at Kibwezi to join the party, had also gone on ;
General Mathews, the First Minister of the Zanzibar Govern¬
ment, had proceeded to the first camp to lend his invaluable
assistance and experience in organizing the big caravan.
That night we remained on board, enjoying the generous
hospitality of Captain Campbell. With the break of dawn
the baggage went ashore together with a grey pony, which
was to put to the test the truth of the generally accepted
opinion that no quadruped could survive the passage
through a country haunted by the tsetse fly.
284 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Some seven miles of 24-inch tram line had been laid by
the company to a point where work had been suspended in
view of a more ambitious project, which, however, could only
be contemplated with a Government guarantee. There
were a few serviceable trollies and on these with boxes for
seats the Uganda expedition started. Captain Campbell
and I accompanied them to the rallying point, and there
they left us disappearing over the undulated bush country.
It was impossible to part under such conditions with very
dear friends without some misgiving whether we could all
ever hope to meet again, and the grim thought would
hauntingly recur which one of all those gallant souls it might
be, if any were to fall a victim to the chances of the great
unknown.1 Not long afterwards Lieutenant C. Villiers,
Royal Horse Guards, who happened to arrive in East Africa
with the object of starting on a private shooting and explor¬
ing expedition, obtained permission from the home authori¬
ties to join the Uganda Mission, if he could overtake them,
which he succeeded in doing.
After a visit to the Company's headquarters at Mombasa,
and an inspection of the interesting Portuguese fort, I
returned in the Philomel to Zanzibar and plunged at once
into the masses of work which awaited me.
A very brief historical retrospect seems necessary in order
to make clear the situation existing there as well as in East
Africa, which after remaining for centuries a terra incognita
was now beginning to be opened to European penetration,
largely as a result of circumstances to which I have referred
in the second chapter of this book.
The islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, portions of a coral
reef which runs parallel with the African coast some twenty
miles distant at the nearest point, were conquered by and
became an apanage of the Arab Sultans of Muscat. But in
1856, after a dispute between the heirs of Sultan Said, the
two thrones were separated. Majid, the son of Said, was
1 The story of the expedition will be found in The Mission to
Uganda, by Sir Gerald Portal (Arnold), 1894.
ZANZIBAR, 1893
285
succeeded in Zanzibar by his son Barghash, an enlightened
ruler who visited England, acquired steamships to develop
communications and greatly extended his dominions on the
mainland. After a treaty negotiated with him by Sir
Bartle Frere and eventually signed by Kirk in 1873, the
slave market in Zanzibar, which had remained the chief
distributing centre of that infamous traffic, was finally
closed. The cordial relations which he constantly main¬
tained with Great Britain were due to the influence of that
remarkable Scotchman, Sir John Kirk, who had in his early
days accompanied Livingstone to the Zambesi as medical
officer and naturalist. His official connexion with Zanzibar
dated from 1867. Great Britain and France were at that
time both pledged by treaty to maintain the independence
of Zanzibar, but owing to the confidence which Barghash
reposed in him, Kirk had in practice as Consul or Consul-
General directed the Sultan's policy many years before the
question of a Protectorate arose. As early as 1877 Seyyid
Barghash had been disposed to grant a lease of his mainland
territories to Sir William Mackinnon. But the proposal
met with no encouragement from the Conservative Govern¬
ment then in office at home, and vast areas which British
enterprise first explored were thus left to be scrambled for.
To the promoters of the colonial movement in Germany
Zanzibar, as the metropolis and emporium of East Africa,
appeared to be the all-important key position. A German
warship in 1884 conveyed thither a German Consul-General,
the well-known Gerhard Rholfs, with a brief to undermine
British influence and instructions to press upon the Sultan
certain claims of a domestic character which a self-respecting
Arab ruler could not possibly entertain. His high-handed
and somewhat clumsy efforts met with no success. But,
as I have already mentioned elsewhere, while the Congo
Conference was initiating its sittings at Berlin and attention
was rather diverted from the local situation, Dr. Karl
Peters with Count Pfeil and Dr. Juhlke, disguised as
mechanics but provided with a plentiful supply of German
286 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
flags, crossed over to the mainland with the object of con¬
cluding treaties with local chiefs, especially in the Kilimanjaro
region. Here, however, they had been anticipated by
Mr. H. H. Johnston (afterwards Sir Harry Johnston), who
had organized a scientific mission, and who, acting in accord¬
ance with Kirk's inspiration, secured pre-emption in treaty
making.
The outcome of the African negotiations in Europe
resulted in the limitation of the Sultan's dominions to a
ten-mile strip along the coast, while expediency, as viewed
bjr Mr. Gladstone's administration, of which Lord Granville
was for such issues the official mouthpiece, brought about a
virtual partition of the Sultan's dominions, and a reciprocal
recognition of spheres of influence. Kirk, who so long as
he enjoyed a certain latitude of action had fought the battle
of Great Britain single-handed, was now compelled much
against the grain to exercise pressure on the Sultan to submit
to German annexations. He carried out his uncongenial
task with all loyalty, but there was no more work for this
great public servant to perform in Zanzibar. His last
inestimable service was to prepare the ground for the
eventual concession by Barghash in 1887 to Sir William
Mackinnon of the territories which were taken over and for
a time administered by the Imperial British East Africa
Company. He left Zanzibar in 1886. The life of the
Chartered Company was but a brief one. But it filled an
important transition stage in our Colonial history, and
carried out imperial duties the importance of which public
opinion at home was not then sufficiently ripe and enlight¬
ened to appreciate. British East Africa, now known as
the Kenya Colony, and Uganda, were thus saved to the
Empire in which they are incorporated. Sir John Kirk
lived on into the present year and thus survived to witness
time's revenge, by which German East Africa also fell under
British administration. His name together with that of
Sir William Mackinnon will always be held in honour there.
And with their names will be associated in the greater
ZANZIBAR, 1893
287
East Africa those of Sir Harry Johnston and Sir Lloyd
William Mathews, of whom I have much to tell.
After the arrangement concluded in 1890 with Germany,
which provided for the surrender of Heligoland, British
protection over Zanzibar was recognized. The sovereignty
of the Sultan still extended over all the coastal region
between the Umba and Tana Rivers which was leased to
the British East Africa Company. Witu, a German pro¬
tectorate till 1890, was also then taken over by them with
Kismayu at the mouth of the Juba. The Benadir ports
north of Kismayu were still administered directly if some¬
what nominally by the Sultan, but these were shortly to
be ceded under a similar lease to Italy. Sultan Barghash
had died in 1888, and his brother, Seyyid Khalifa, who
took his place, only reigned for two years. The third
brother to reign in succession, Seyyid Ah, saw his safety to
lie in demanding British protection, which was granted in
1890. He had not, however, perhaps fully realized all
that it entailed, and consequently found himself continually
at issue with his Arab subjects, who soon discovered that
the introduction of western methods was not compatible
with that abuse of power which it was their personal interest
to maintain.
When Gerald Portal became Agent and Consul-General
at Zanzibar in March, 1891, the Protectorate was still
rather a name than a fact. The Sultan was not readily
disposed to accept restrictions on his exclusive disposal of
the revenue and had no adequate conception of the reciprocal
obligations imposed upon him. While traffic in slaves had
been abolished, attempts were frequently made surrepti¬
tiously to evade the law, and domestic slavery still subsisted.
The Arabs viewed with sullen mistrust the regulations
for its control, which they foresaw meant the eventual
extinction of an institution which was bound up with their
conception of family life and appeared to them a necessary
condition of existence. Our field of social and economic
action was, moreover, severely restricted by the existence
288 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
of ancient treaties with Muscat, which conferred upon
foreign subjects resident in Zanzibar the privileges, im¬
munities and independence of local jurisdiction which are
enjoyed under capitulations in Oriental countries. A good
deal had been already accomplished under his energetic
administration. The Sultan had been induced to accept
a definite civil list, and all other revenues passed into
the control of a government office, presided over by a
British Chief Minister. The customs department had been
thoroughly reorganized and, though the menace of com¬
petition from German East Africa had led to the rather
hazardous experiment of declaring Zanzibar a free port
and to the abolition of the 5 per cent, ad valorem duty on
imports established by treaty, some compensation had
been found in landing and storage charges, which were
willingly paid in return for the greater security to goods
offered by the Government wharf and warehouses. A
local post office had been organized under the management
of a British naval officer, and all the foreign post offices
except the French had been closed. The army and police
had been placed under the command of a British officer,
Captain Hatch, who had the local rank of a brigadier-
general. Steps had been taken to provide for the lighting
at nights of the labyrinthine city, though these could not
be enforced on foreign subjects. Elements of order and
regular government had thus been introduced. But much
still remained to do. The conditions and sanctions of the
Protectorate were still nebulous, and reform depended
largely on the goodwill and co-operation of the Sultan,
who grew more and more disposed to make difficulties,
as he encountered the constant protests of his Arab subjects
and felt his own independence compromised or diminished.
The Chief Minister, or Grand Vizir, as he was called by
the native population, was General Mathews (afterwards
Sir Lloyd Mathews). In the course of some five-and-twenty
years' service in Zanzibar he only returned home twice,
so that he was comparatively unknown in his native country.
ZANZIBAR, 1893
289
I therefore feel it to be a duty to his honoured memory to
rescue his name, in so far as I may be able, from the list
of " England's forgotten worthies." Mathews began life
in the Navy and took part in the Ashanti War in 1873.
While serving in H.M.S. London, the station ship maintained
at Zanzibar for the repression of the slave trade, his services
were lent to Barghash, who desired to have his troops
drilled and instructed in the European manner. In 1881
he left the Navy and took permanent service with the
rank of General under the Sultan, for whom he conducted
many expeditions on the African continent. When the
Protectorate was declared he was given British official
status as Consul-General for the mainland, where his name
was a power. But he never took up his duties in that
capacity, and was lent as First Minister to the Sultanate.
Mathews was a man of singular greatness of heart. His
patience and kindness were inexhaustible. No Englishman
that I have known had the power of entering more completely
into the mind of the native or winning his confidence and
affection so entirely. So great was his reputation for
equity and wisdom that natives would undertake journeys
of many months from the interior to submit a dispute to
the arbitration of Bwana Mathews. Sitting outside his
house he would hear the lengthy exposition of the two
disputants who squatted on the ground beside him, would
interrogate them and reason with them, and finally pro¬
nounce a decision which they would accept without question.
There was no traveller in East Africa in those days who had
not had cause to remember with gratitude his readily
proffered assistance and advice, nor was there any poor
man in Zanzibar who ever appealed to his generosity in
vain. He was, to quote the words used of him by Lord
Rosebery in a letter to myself, a " real apostle of Empire."
To me he seemed the most lovable man I had ever met.
The duties of my new position were multifarious. Among
these the one which I most disliked was that of acting as
Sessions Judge and hearing appeals in our consular court,
u
290 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
which was presided over by Judge W. B. Cracknall, a great
character in the small British community, supported by
Mr. Haviland de Sausmarez as assistant judge. The large
Indian colony, with its numerous wealthy khojah and
banyan merchants, was inclined to be litigious, and the
Court was always busy. Among a number of the litigants
perjury seemed to be not at all in disrepute. But what
I found most trying was the persistence of the Parsee
lawyers in protesting that every question addressed to a
witness by their opponents was a C£ leading " one, a con¬
tention on which it is by no means easy to adjudicate
without the habit of courts. Cracknall, however, had great
experience in these matters, and though I did my best to
re-examine every case on its merits, I always ended by
upholding his judgments.
I endeavoured, and not without a certain measure of
success, by conciliating the foreign residents and colonies,
to induce them to agree to a small voluntary contribution
to municipal services, such as lighting and especially
sanitation, which needed serious attention. On every side
progress was impeded by the rights of foreign proprietorship
or foreign protection accorded to native proprietors. Even
the first essential, road-making and repairing, was hampered
by taboos and superstitions which prevented encroachment
on cemeteries. But a good deal was accomplished by
persistence. I have heard exception taken to the use for
road-making of the chain-gang, which involves the linking
together of native convicts by steel collars round their
necks connected by strong light chains, so that the arms
are left free for work. In primitive communities elaborate
supervision of prisoners is not possible, and the entrusting
of firearms to the police is not always desirable. To those
who knew the horrible conditions of the local prison it was
clear that to be able to come out and work in the chain
gang was a real privilege. I early formed the ambition of
constructing a proper prison on one of the small islands
and suppressing the insanitary old fort over which we had
ZANZIBAR, 1893
291
no direct control, where convicts dragged out a miserable
existence chained to the wall in dark dungeons. The plans
had been approved and the foundations had been laid
before I left.
Then there was the important duty of applying the
international rules laid down by the Berlin and Brussels
Acts, for Zanzibar was included in the conventional Basin of
the Congo. Vigilance against the slave-trade was exercised
by the International Slave Trade Bureau, consisting of
the representatives of the signatory powers who met
periodically at the British Agency. The monotony of
proceedings was often relieved for me by lively encounters
between the antagonistic French and German Consuls.
The latter, a capable and well-equipped official, knew his
business thoroughly and, having all the conventions by
heart, understood the length of our tether to a millimetre.
But, externally perfectly courteous, he had a rather irritating
official manner which never failed to exasperate my French
colleague, who used to observe to me at the conclusion of
our meetings, " Ce qui m'agace surtout, c'est que ce monsieur
a toujours raison." I could not help having a certain
sympathy with my friend with whom I was constantly at
issue officially, for in those days France was applying the
policy of pin-pricks. In private life we were on the best of
terms, and always ready to dine together after a brisk
encounter which had brought him round in a frock-coat
and silk hat (in the tropics) in order to make " mes reserves
les phis formelles " against some excess of zeal on the part
of the police, who had failed to realize that Omar bin
Hassan was under French protection. M. Labosse was a
charming type of the old-fashioned French Consul in the
East, with a grey moustache and imperial, reminiscent
of the Second Empire. An excellent agent for his country,
he had little respect for the Governments which succeeded
one another so rapidly at home. He was ready to be ruled
by any who would govern honestly. He would willingly,
he said, serve under a board of ladies so long as they were
292 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
attractive and amiable. But he had no patience with
pretentions elderly deputies with gold spectacles and grey
side-whiskers. He must have been dead many years now,
for even then he was about to retire. In spite of our constant
official quarrels I look back to my memories of him with a
very cordial regard.
There was also the supervision of the illicit slave traffic
in the islands themselves. Dhows returning north to
Muscat and the Persian Gulf with the monsoon would
endeavour to secure consignments of slaves, especially of
children, stolen or illegally sold, and these would be smuggled
on board in some one of the many creeks round the coast.
I had an elaborate internal secret service for securing
information about such irregularities, and the warships
on the station maintained a constant and vigilant patrol
of boats. Our greatest difficulty in grappling with this
evil was due to the number of dhow owners who sailed
under the French flag, as the French had always excluded
the right of search and the powers of naval officers were
restricted to verifying a ship's papers, which were naturally
always found correct. An Arab would purchase, perhaps
vicariously without ever having been there, a small plot
of land in Madagascar, and so obtain protection and the
right to fly the flag. This was a continuous source of
friction which threatened at one moment to assume a
serious character, when we endeavoured to maintain the
right of policing vessels in territorial waters. Several
dhows sailing under the local or Muscat flag, with their
hold full of kidnapped slaves, were captured during my
stay in Zanzibar.
The announcement of these captures led to an instructive
correspondence, which was published as a Parliamentary
Paper. The secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society sent a
letter to the press in which he took the figure of 200 slaves
rescued and liberated in one month as his major premise,
and the dictum of " some of the highest authorities " that
lor every slave thus rescued " at least twenty are smuggled
ZANZIBAR, 1893
293
through " as his minor premise, and so arrived at the
figure of 4,000 a month. He then multiplied this by the
months of the year, and assumed that an aggregate of
from 40,000 to 50,000 were carried away annually from
Zanzibar and the neighbouring ports. To answer such a
contention was easy for anyone familiar with the facts of
the case. As the only native traffic with the mainland was
by dug-out canoes on perfectly calm days, it was obvious
that very few fresh slaves could be surreptitiously landed
in the islands. Their total population was perhaps some¬
what over 150,000, but 200,000 would have been a very
liberal estimate. The exportation of slaves could only
take place in the sailing vessels which came down from the
Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. These dhows only
made one journey to Zanzibar and back in the year. They
arrived with the north-east monsoon, carrying cargoes of
dates, ghee, etc., and returned as soon as the south-west
monsoon, which prevails for the other half of the year,
began to blow. During March and April, the months of
arrival, fifty-one dhows in all had come in from the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf. This number included many
Indian boats which were not open to suspicion, and many
more only large enough to carry a few passengers beside
their crew. Even of those owners who might readily have
carried slaves if there were no fear of detection, only a
small proportion were disposed to incur the very grave
risks and penalties involved. The possibilities of such
traffic were, therefore, happily reduced to very narrow
limits, and I held to the opinion from all the information
at my disposal that very few consignments escaped our
vigilance. The secretary undoubtedly had framed his
indictment with all honesty of purpose, but in arriving at
conclusions which suggested that a quarter of the total
population was annually carried off into slavery, his zeal
had overshot the mark.
The rescued slaves were at once given manumission
papers. They were medically examined and their immediate
294 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
needs were supplied. The difficulty still remained of how
to dispose of them, and here the British and Foreign Missions
rendered invaluable assistance. The British Universities'
Mission was the first to be approached. Their resources
did not enable them to take more than a certain proportion,
and they were anxious to secure the children to train in
their well-equipped schools. After they had absorbed as
many as they were able to accommodate, I used to invite
the Fathers of the Alsatian Mission to take as many as they
could. Their answer invariably was that they would take
charge of all or of as many as were not otherwise disposed
of. Their attitude in these questions always seemed to
me the sound and practical one for missionary enterprise
in Africa, even if it was a little in contrast with the more
sentimental point of view of our Anglican establishments.
The latter explained that their aims were purely educational,
while I always regretted that they did not give more
attention to training in citizenship and in instruction how
to earn a livelihood by the exercise of some simple craft.
Their highest ambition seemed to be the training of the
most promising boys for the diaconate, so that they also
might some day be qualified themselves to take up missionary
work. Very few, however, reached this standard. The
Black Fathers, on the other hand, told me that they
attempted little in the way of religious instruction. The
method they pursued was to turn these forlorn creatures
into useful citizens and make them capable of looking
after themselves. The religious side, so far as they were
capable of appreciating it or assimilating it, could be left
till later when they had learned how to live. This was
certainly a more useful work than teaching boys to sing
translations of Hymns Ancient and Modern in Swaheli.
In reverting to these experiences and recollections, I do
not wish in any way to depreciate the efforts and the
sacrifice of those devoted gentlemen and ladies who gave
up everything in voluntary service for the cause which
they had at heart, and only too often lost their health and
ZANZIBAR, 1893
295
their lives also in days when we had not yet learned how
to cope with the deadly enemy malaria, which sooner or
later exacted the grim penalty from all the pioneers in
Africa. No people could be inspired by nobler sentiments.
The doubt which did present itself to me as an observer
was whether the results obtained under their system were
commensurate with the effort and the self-sacrifice which
they entailed.
Besides these special functions there was the supervision
of the various branches of the local administration ; the
suppression of smuggling, especially that of hasheesh ;
the constant vigilance necessary to prevent the sale of
liquor or arms to the natives, and the introduction of the
latter without licence into the island. Gun-running on
the mainland was so profitable that the greatest ingenuity
was displayed in evading control, and some of our own
people were not above suspicion. Petitions had to be
received and considered, complaints listened to, and constant
interviews accorded. In addition to the duty of keeping
the home Government informed on every matter, there
was a constant correspondence with the administrators of
the British East Africa Company, which was evidently
nearing the end of its tether, and by its unwillingness to
incur any new expenditure and maintain adequate forces in
the great area which it had undertaken to open up, was
compromising the security of those regions.
For all these services, and to meet exceptional emergencies,
the available personnel seemed strangely inadequate. The
staff at the Agency consisted of a Consul, Lieut. Smith
(an ex-naval officer), and two Vice-Consuls, Mr. (now Sir)
Basil Cave and Mr. Cornish. There was a well-organized
office with Parsee clerks and excellent interpreters. Then
there were Mathews and Hatch, with Strickland at the
Customs, and one or two other Englishmen who worked
under the Government. From the revenue of the islands,
the main source of which was the clove-duty, collected in
kind, it was difficult to squeeze a little surplus when the
296 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Sultan's civil list and the salaries had been paid, to apply
to general purposes. This little group of Englishmen,
acting under the much-abused Foreign Office, and using
native and in a few cases Indian instruments, held on
tenaciously to a precarious position in East Africa with
no material force behind them except for the two or three
light cruisers or gunboats on the station. It was anxious
work maintaining the somewhat nebulous Protectorate
with little save prestige and infinite assurance. But the
Navy always saved us, as the rest of my story of East Africa
will show. Those who now contemplate the promising
colonies which have grown up in these regions in subsequent
years little realize the conditions with which we had to
contend before they were definitely incorporated in the
Imperial system, and I do not think that justice has
altogether been done to the part played by the Foreign
Office in upholding the flag against heavy odds until the
time was ripe for the Colonial Office to step in with all
the resources of the Treasury behind it.
My difficulties with the Sultan began almost immediately
over a necessary reduction of the civil list. The unfortunate
ruler was himself continually cheated, especially in regard
to the pay lists of the soldiers maintained by the Arab
governors and dignitaries. Claims would be put in for
fifty where only five were effective, the remainder being
merely for show on pay days. The ships which he insisted
on retaining were run at a heavy loss with good profits
to agents in Bombay. It was impossible not to feel con¬
siderable sympathy for him, as pressure was continually
exercised upon him by the dominant Arab class to oppose
the innovations and reforms which the Protectorate regime
had rendered inevitable. They foresaw the ultimate end of
domestic slavery also with the process of time, and believed
that without the labour which it ensured the gathering of
the clove crop would be impossible. Its relatively rapid
extinction could have been secured by registration of all
the existing domestic slaves in the islands, but opinion at
ZANZIBAR, 1893
297
home was not favourable to what would have been tanta¬
mount to an official recognition of a status which was only
tolerated under protest. Things had become very difficult
for Mathews, who generally acted as intermediary, and it
was necessary for me to arm myself with a very strong
instruction from home, the terms of which I suggested, in
the form of a message from the Prime Minister. The Sultan
had been seriously ill, and an indication of the gravity of
his condition was conveyed to me in the requests for
interviews which I now began to receive from the various
claimants to the succession. The arrival at that moment
of a German naval squadron was not particularly welcome,
but the coincidence was, I think, accidental. As soon as
the Sultan was reported to have resumed his normal life,
I asked for an audience, and was informed that he was
still too unwell to receive me. A few days later a similar
answer was returned to a similar request. Meanwhile, I
had reason to know that he was holding councils. I therefore
sent a message, conveyed with all the due formalities of
Oriental address, to explain that, greatly as I regretted
his indisposition, it was urgently necessary that I should
see him, and I should therefore go to the Palace on the
following morning and remain there until I had done so.
It was not without misgivings that I started next day
ceremoniously with all the Agency guards, but I felt
convinced that I could count on his reluctance to offer
a rebuff to the representative of the Protecting Power.
The grasping of the nettle was successful, as not only did
the Sultan receive me, but he listened in good part to the
unwelcome message which I had to deliver and promised
that there should be no further reason for complaint. It
was, however, obvious to me that if at that moment not
more than usually incapacitated, Seyyid Ali was a very
sick man.
Having formed this diagnosis I was confronted with a
serious dilemma. Information reached me early in February
from the East Africa Company's headquarters at Mombasa
298 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
that the Ogaden Somalis in the hinterland of Kismayu were
assuming a very threatening attitude. Kismayu was full
of Somalis. It lay some 400 miles north, almost on the
Equator, and was in charge of a very young Scotchman,
Mr. Todd, who had only one British assistant. Except for
a few of the Company's native troops for police duty it
was undefended. The Somali chiefs were coming in to
submit their grievances, and it would be desirable to send
a vessel to the spot in order to exercise a moral effect at
this meeting. Captain Campbell, whom I consulted, at
once despatched the gunboat Widgeon. But a subsequent
telegram from Mombasa described the situation at Kismayu
as very serious, and I had to make up my mind whether it
was safe to weaken the position at Zanzibar by removing a
second warship of the three available and to go myself,
taking the chance that during a few days' absence the
Sultan's malady would not make rapid progress. There was
a land telegraph line from Mombasa to Lamu, about a
hundred miles further north, but after that the only com¬
munication with Kismayu wras by boat. I decided in
favour of the most pressing and obvious duty. Captain
Campbell took me in his fast cruiser, calling at Mombasa
to pick up the Company's Administrator, Mr. Piggott.
On our arrival we found that the crisis had already taken
place. The Widgeon had fortunately arrived before the
Somali chiefs assembled for the council. The Commander,
who had only a small ship's company, landed a party of
Marines. But the Company's Agent, who had instructions
to abstain from all provocation, desired that they should
not appear when the Somali headmen, some fifty or sixty
in number, came in, wishing to avoid any appearance of
menace. The Marines were, therefore, consigned to a room
adjoining the verandah where the Council was to take place.
Count Giovanni Lovatelli, a Lieutenant in the Italian
Navy, who had been making a voyage of exploration and
inspection in what is now Italian Somaliland, had just come
to Kismayu, and was staying with Mr. Todd. He went
ZANZIBAR, 1893
299
with the latter to the meeting, followed by Mr. Farrant,
the assistant. What then took place must have been, I
think, premeditated, for hardly had Mr. Todd begun to
address the assembly before the nearest Somali jumped
up and struck him across the head with his sword, cutting
him down. Lovatelli stepped across his body and, drawing
a revolver, shot the first three or four who followed up the
assailant, and Mr. Farrant, who had a Winchester rifle
at hand, also opened fire. Hearing the shots the Marines
rushed in at the charge and the Sornalis dropped from the
balcony and fled. But some eleven were killed, a con¬
siderable number of whom were accounted for by Lovatelli,
who acted with the greatest coolness and gallantry. The
Somalis, probably reinforced by others waiting in the
neighbourhood as well as from the native settlement at
Kismayu, reassembled and had to be dispersed by shrapnel
from the Widgeon. They then retired into the open country
and their village was abandoned. Todd, though severely
wounded, was not in actual danger. I could not help
feeling rather indignant with the East Africa Company
for the situation which they had allowed to develop at
Kismayu. They had left a young man of about four-and-
twenty, with little experience, to deal with a notoriously
truculent branch of the Somali people, with whom a
fictitious peace had only been maintained by money
payments. Every Somali who is bribed creates another
applicant for a similar subvention. Todd had been alone
there for fourteen months with no force to speak of, and
could only deal with conditions for which he was not
responsible to the best of his ability. He had received no
reply to any of his communications for two months until
the day before the attack took place. After he was wounded
he had even to pay twenty-five rupees for the telegram sent
to his family to reassure them. It was now necessary to
take immediate measures to place the station in a state
of defence. The Company undertook to maintain 200
Askari, native troops, and we were able to hand over to
300 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
them some Kiriboto Arab irregulars, who were in Zanzibar
and not wanted there. I then issued a proclamation, without
too minute an inquiry into legalities, ordering every able-
bodied man in Kismayu to co-operate for a certain number
of hours a day in building a stockade under the super¬
intendence of the naval officers. The general response was
satisfactory. But a number of the Indian traders established
there came in a deputation and showed me their soft little
hands, which were, they pleaded, and with justification,
incapable of manual labour. I admitted the plea, but
insisted on their paying a money contribution to defray
the extra labour entailed by their disability on those who
could work at the defences. The Widgeon was to remain
until the native troops arrived. Lovatelli returned with me.
At Mombasa, where we stopped to drop the Administrator,
I received a telegram informing me that Cecil Rhodes
was arriving in Zanzibar, and I sent instructions for his
entertainment pending my return. His second period at
Oxford had coincided with my residence there.
It was characteristic of Rhodes, who stayed with me the
best part of a week awaiting a steamer to Durban, that he
should at once have made a rapid investigation of the
conditions and possibilities of the Protectorate in his own
penetrating way. Some four-fifths of the clove production
of the world is grown in these islands. The obvious thing
for us to do, he said, was to establish a state monopoly in
cloves. Unfortunately, as I explained to him, this could
not be contemplated under a capitulatory regime which
gave us no power over foreign subjects, even if the Berlin
and Brussels Acts had not definitely excluded the intro¬
duction of monopolies. As he was curious to see the Sultan,
I arranged for an audience. For obvious reasons we always
treated His Highness with a great deal of ceremony. To
my dismay, when the moment came to start for the Palace,
Rhodes turned up in an old brown coat and a not unstained
pair of flannel trousers. I suggested some more formal
integument, but he had nothing smarter in his limited
ZANZIBAR, 1893
301
travelling wardrobe. However, the name of Rhodes was a
power in Africa, and was even known among the Arabs of
Zanzibar, so that he could afford to be exceptional. He
expressed a wish to send a letter and papers to Uganda to
his brother, and when I explained that the Company's
runners had ceased to go, and that to send a party with
the necessary rations for the journey would cost from
£150 to £200, he at once authorized me to do so at his
expense, if the State would not defray the cost of a mail.
I have among my autographs a letter of Cecil Rhodes,
giving me authority to draw upon him for such sum as I
might consider necessary. We exhausted many subjects
in those few days, and I wished that my arrears of work
had left me more time. But his ship came punctually,
and a pleasant visit ended. It was the last time I saw him.
Lovatelli, who was the nephew of an old Roman friend,
the Duke of Sermoneta, remained with me for some weeks,
and it was a great pleasure to have that very gallant sailor
and genial companion as my guest. He was to render
us a further notable service later.
My last visit with Rhodes to the Sultan had convinced
me, so far as a layman could judge from the outer appearance
of a sick man, that he had not long to live, and this judgment
was confirmed by that of those who were in the closest
relations with him. I, therefore, now made arrangements
with Captain Campbell, who was always most helpful in
falling in with all suggestions, that a signalman should
be constantly stationed day and night at the Agency who,
by means of flags in the day-time and lamps after dark,
could convey an immediate message to the warships.
" Number One " of the Philomel, Lieutenant Grenfell, made
all the necessary preparations for landing at a moment's
notice should it be necessary, and Hatch worked out a
plan of campaign for the concentration of the local forces
and police at all the danger points in the city. It was
essential to be ready for any emergency. But it is tedious
work waiting for the hour that no man knoweth, especially
302 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
when it involves detaining in expectancy those who have
many other duties to perform in the routine of service.
So long as one kept in health, and until the south-west
monsoon brought the great rains which confined every one
to the house for all but a few hours a day, life was not
without its charm in the tropical island, but some one
member or another of our small community was constantly
down with malaria. The sinister activities of the anopheles
mosquito had not yet been discovered, and except for the
provision of nets round our beds, without which sleep
would not have been possible, no one paid much attention
to the swarms of insects which infested the steamy air. The
best moments of all were the moonlit nights when the fore¬
shore scents at low tide were not too strong, or the very early
morning on the verandah, with a breakfast of fresh-gathered
pineapple and iced green cocoanut, when the smell of the
copra carried out to the lighters by black boys and girls,
who waded waist-deep into the sea, had not yet grown too
all-pervading. The Sultan had his own ice factory, from
which he kept me constantly supplied, except when, as it
occasionally would, the engine broke down. My early
breakfast was always enlivened by the presence of two or
three little monkeys, which had grown so tame that I
left them free to climb over the palms in the garden, whence
they returned to the verandah for their daily plate of rice.
At times, too, there were wonderful evening effects, when
green rays radiating from the low sun on the western
horizon intersected the red of the sky like jade sticks in a
crimson fan. In the afternoons when there was not too
great a pressure of work, I rode on a pony which I had
taken over from Portal, through the native villages and
farms with their opulent mango groves and banana planta¬
tions, or visited one of the country palaces, built by successive
Sultans in the days of extravagance. These were generally
neglected and falling into ruin, for no Sultan cared to
occupy the house of a predecessor. Periodical excitement
was afforded by the passage of a new warship or the arrival
ZANZIBAR, 1893
303
of a mail. Of the latter we had nominally three in the
month. The British India, the Messageries and the German
East African steamers called. But, as some timed their
departure by the day of the week and some by the day of
the month, there was a point in the year when they arrived
almost together and a month's correspondence would be
received in a week.
On the evening of Sunday, March the 5th, Captain
Charles Campbell, the Senior Naval Officer, Commander
Lindley, of H.M.S. Blanche, General Hatch, Count Lovatelli,
and two or three others were dining with me at the Agency.
We had nearly finished dinner and had reached the inevitable
ice, when I was told that the Sultan's private secretary
was without and must see me at once. Leaving the table,
I found one Abdul Aziz, notorious even in Zanzibar as an
intriguer, with streaming eyes, trembling like an aspen.
He told me that Seyyid Ali had just died suddenly, that
the report of his death had instantaneously run through
the city and that the rival pretenders were collecting their
respective followers to dispute possession of the Palace.
He was, he said, in fear of his life and begged me to protect
him. The crucial moment had therefore come. Hatch,
whose task it was to protect the foreign consulates, to close
the approaches to the Palace and prevent looting, dis¬
appeared in an instant, while a messenger was sent to
Mathews. Captain Campbell gave the necessary instructions
to the signalman on the roof to flash an urgent message to
the Philomel and the Blanche, from which all available
men with machine-guns were to be landed at once in the
Custom House. They were not to show themselves until
I arrived on the spot and gave the signal, when Captain
Campbell would take charge should any operations prove
necessary. A guard of Marines was to land at once at the
Agency and march with us to the Palace. Vice-Consul
Cave was placed in charge of the Agency, where a few Marines
were left to give backbone to the native guards, and all
the ladies were to be brought there forthwith. Fortunately,
304 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
it was a still night and there was a moon. It must have
been just about 9 p.m. when the news reached me, and the
bluejackets had for the most part already turned in for
the night. Our Marines were ashore in about ten minutes.
In the interval I had just had time to issue the necessary
instructions, discard my mess-jacket and buckle on my
revolver. Meanwhile, Lovatelli had started off alone to
reconnoitre and report. We then set out for the Palace,
Captain Campbell and I leading the procession, followed by
the Marines. Mathews, I felt sure, was already on the
spot. On the way, an emissary from Hamed bin Thwain
met me to ask what his master should do. I told him to
remain quietly in his house till he was sent for, and that
if he did so all would be well with him.
As we came in sight of the Palace it was evident that we
were none too soon. The Sultan's Persian Guard, drawn
up on the left side of the square, had their guns pointing
towards us, and the gunners standing by their pieces ready
to fire. Adherents of the rival pretenders, with all the
arms they could muster, had already collected in considerable
numbers, and Mathews was moving among them exhorting
them to remain calm. But Seyyid Khaled had been
admitted by the dead Sultan's sister through a back entrance
into the Palace, and was actually in possession. The air
was full of cries. The one preoccupation on my mind for
the first moment was as to how Hatch's men would behave.
Fortunately, he had them well in hand and dispersed on
various duties.
The Custom House entrance was nearly opposite the
Palace. The concerted signal was given, and just as we
drew up the great gates swung open and nearly 200 blue¬
jackets, who had been in their hammocks a quarter of an
hour before, marched out in field equipment with their
machine-guns, under Lieutenant A. B. G. Grenfell. They
quietly took possession of the Palace square, firmly pressing
the crowds back towards the roads of egress, beyond which
were Hatch's Askari. A gun in the crowd went off,
ZANZIBAR, 1893
305
accidentally it would seem, but from the moment the Navy
appeared on the scene it was clear to every one that the
Protecting Power had taken charge. The captain of the
Persian Guard came up saluting, and said that he would
take his orders from General Mathews. So far so good.
But the massive Palace doors were closed, and in answer
to a summons to open them a voice from within replied
that Seyyid Khaled had given orders that no one was to
be admitted. At my request, Captain Campbell then
brought a gun into position in front of the entrance and I
took out my watch. Mathews, on my behalf, informed
those within that five minutes' grace would be allowed,
at the expiration of which if the doors were not opened
they would be blown down. The time had almost expired
when one side was opened a few inches, and a voice from
behind it said that the British Agent could enter, but that
he must come alone. Our answer was to push the door
open wide, and I rushed in with Mathews, Campbell, and a
dozen Marines. For a moment it looked as if the staircase
would be held against us, but the sight of the Marines
brought wisdom. Khaled then appeared, and after rebuking
him for endangering the peace of the island I told him he
was to consider himself under arrest, and he was marched
off with a guard of Marines to his own house. Meanwhile,
Hatch had done his outpost work admirably. His patrols
had the whole city under supervision and had taken effective
measures, by superintending the closing of the shops and
taverns, to prevent any of the looting and violence which
was traditional on the death of a Sultan.
The local situation being now well in hand, Seyyid
Hamed bin Thwain was sent for. He had acted as advised
and had remained quietly in his own quarters, suspecting
perhaps, but as yet unconscious of what was in store for
him. With him, and Mathews and the interpreter, I with¬
drew to one of the inner rooms. Everything in the
Palace seemed to have disappeared, and only a small
petroleum hand-lamp could be found for us to work by.
x
306 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
I then explained to him that as representative of the
Protecting Power I was prepared to ensure him the succession
to the Sultanate, provided he would agree to my conditions.
These had all been carefully thought out and prepared in
advance. They were of a nature to define more precisely
the situation created by the Protectorate, and laid down
clearly what was to be left to the administration with
special provisions regulating domestic slavery Hamed
bin Thwain was an intelligent man and a student of Arab
history and literature. He found little difficulty in agreeing
to the conditions proposed to him, only inviting further
explanation on certain points. He swore on the Koran to
maintain the engagements which he had taken, and these
were formally recorded in a document drafted in the
uncertain light of the petroleum lamp. I then saluted him
as Sultan. The naval companies had now formed a smaller
square in front of the Palace doors, and the populace was
allowed to circulate freely in the remaining area, which was
thronged with spectators. It was past midnight when we
descended to the verandah in front of the entrance, and
there the new Sultan was solemnly proclaimed amid the
acclamations of the crowd. Within an hour, according to
local custom, the body of the late Sultan was buried without
ceremony under a date palm. All being now quiet, a
sufficient force was left to patrol and I returned to the
Agency to draft a telegram to the Foreign Office recording
the events of this memorable evening. The ladies of the
staff were still there, but no demonstrations had taken place
in our quarter, and after a little supper and mutual con¬
gratulations the party separated. I got to bed for a few
hours at about 3 a.m., tolerably satisfied with the night's
work. It had been a very anxious moment, as but for our
timely intervention and the clockwork precision with which
all the arrangements had been carried out, the adherents
of the three rival pretenders would undoubtedly have
sought a settlement by arms, the city would have been
a scene of lawlessness, heavy losses would have been
ZANZIBAR, 1893
307
incurred by the paralysation of business and pillage, and
numerous foreign claims for compensation would have been
advanced. This, indeed, did happen some years later
when, on the death of Sultan Hamed, Khaled once more
obtained possession of the Palace and had to be shelled
out of it.
The following morning at ten the new Sultan held his
first official reception, at which the staff of the Agency,
the members of the Government, and the officers of the
two cruisers were present. During the ceremony his flag
was hoisted and saluted by guns of the cruisers. The next
day I presented all the Consuls of the Foreign Powers. It
was the desire of the Sultan to be reconciled with his young
cousin, and as Khaled's partisans had all disappeared or
made their submission, he was restored to his position after
due warning that his future conduct would be carefully
watched. Seyyid Mahmoud was an amiable and pacific
person who would give no trouble. A deputation from the
Indian merchants in Zanzibar presented me with an address
expressing their gratitude for the effective measures which
had been taken for the preservation of peace and order,
and I was gratified to receive a letter in the same sense
from the Chamber of Commerce, to which the signatures of
the leading French firms were affixed. But the greatest
satisfaction of all was the telegram which I received from
Lord Rosebery, " entirely approving " all that had been
done on that occasion.
Nothing could have been more satisfactory than the
attitude of the new Sultan in those early days. He made
a public declaration to his Arab subjects to the effect that
he was completely at one with the Protecting Power. He
entertained us at dinner not long after his accession, and
on that occasion for the first time in his life ate with a knife
and fork, declaring that he thought the process much
cleaner than the Arab habit. I was much impressed with
an observation which he made while speaking of the different
customs of different countries. He said: " The wise men
308 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
who made the law, Christ and Mohammed, lived a very
long time ago, and made the law according to their lights.
But they did not know many things that we know now,
and the world has moved on farther since their law was
made." I found him quite readily disposed to grant the
Italian Government a lease of the Benadir ports, north of
Kismayu and the Juba, which was, in the first instance, to
cover a tentative period of three years. With this arrange¬
ment the whole of the East African coast over which the
Sultans of Zanzibar had exercised sovereignty passed under
European control.
An episode now occurred which gave public demonstration
of the abusive use of the French flag by Arab dhow-owners.
There was reason to suspect that a number of kidnapped
children had been placed on board a dhow of considerable
dimensions which was preparing to sail north as soon
as the south-west monsoon broke. But our naval officers
had no powers, even in territorial waters, to do more than
verify the ship's papers and the title to fly the French
flag. Captain Campbell despatched a boat with one of
his officers to do so. The papers were quite in order, and
the party were about to withdraw when one of the blue¬
jackets caught his foot in the ring of a bolt and, tripping,
pulled up the hatch with it as he fell. Whereupon a number
of little black arms were thrust up into the light. Here
was a case of the delit flagrant which a " lucky accident "
had revealed. Word was at once sent to the French
consulate and meanwhile the boat stood by. The dhow was
sequestrated, the crew were arrested by the French consul,
and the children were taken off and provided for. As his
jurisdiction did not empower him to deal with slave traders,
they were transferred by the first opportunity to Reunion,
to be tried by a higher Court. To my surprise and in¬
dignation these men were eventually acquitted. The
reason for this miscarriage of justice was a simple one,
which explains if it does not excuse. There was no doubt
as to the facts, and the guilt of the accused was patent.
ZANZIBAR, 1893
309
But the French criminal code only prescribed one penalty,
namely death, for slave trading. As our courts, and
those of other countries imposed relatively mild sentences
of two or three years' imprisonment for similar offences,
no French jury could be induced to give a verdict which
must entail the death sentence. The result was, however,
most disappointing, and calculated to encourage the
subterfuge resorted to by these scourges of humanity to
obtain the French flag.
I exchanged visits with Freiherr von Scheele, the Governor
of German East Africa. The headquarters of his adminis¬
tration at the attractive port of Dar-es-Salam were imposing
and constructed with careful consideration of every detail.
It was too early in the history of the colony for conspicuous
evidence of general progress, and the officials complained
of the reluctance of the home government to make adequate
provision for their projects and developments. But already
the cemetery with its large number of European graves
was a tragic reminder of the toll of death among the pioneers
in East Africa. I had several issues of neighbourship to
discuss with the Governor. Some of the subordinate
employees in Dar-es-Salam were in the habit of coming
over to Zanzibar for a few days' holiday, and, away from
discipline in a centre where they were ex-territorial, they
availed themselves of the opportunity to " paint the town
red." Our,native police had been victims of an unfortunate
series of acts of violence.
At Dar-es-Salam, of all places in the world, I was sur¬
prised by a literary revelation, which would alone have
repaid me for the visit. While discussing the peculiar
genius of Heine with the assistant governor at dinner, he
told me that his family possessed the manuscript of an
unpublished lyric by the poet of the sardonic smile. He
had a copy of it which I transcribed and also committed
to memory. It was the poem which begins :—" Sie
Floh vor mir wie ein Reh so schonand it was entirely
new to me. But if he was correct in describing it as at
310 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
that time unpublished, it has since been included in later
editions.
I noticed that a very different relation existed in the
colony between the German authorities and the natives
from that which prevailed in Zanzibar. There was much
saluting and standing to attention and the Africans
bowed down to the ground when they met a German officer.
When I went for a walk in Zanzibar, the Arabs gave the
salaam with dignified courtesy, and the black folks would
come up with smiling faces to shake hands. There was
a sense of patriarchal and friendly conditions which I felt
was the right one to maintain. On the other hand, I
understand that the Germans in penetrating into the
interior were less disposed than we have been to interfere
with local habits and traditions and refrained from trying
to impose western ethics on a primitive people. It must be
acknowledged that experience in East Africa during the
Great War showed that they had been successful in keeeping
the native populations loyal to their administration. Herr
von Scheele soon afterwards returned my visit and stayed
with me a day or two at Zanzibar.
It was about this time that I had my first bad attack of
malarial fever and found myself reduced to a condition of
physical weakness new to my experience. A particularly
disagreeable after-effect was the manifestation of a large
number of eruptive centres over my back, through which
the poison seemed to be making its way to the surface.
Fortunately for me the Cape Squadron, to which the
vessels detached for duty on the East Coast belonged,
came in on its annual cruise soon after the fever subsided,
and Admiral Bedford, to whom I can never sufficiently
testify my gratitude, took me away in his flag-ship, the
Raleigh. This and its sister vessel the Boadicea were the
last masted battleships in the Royal Navy, and could still
make a brave show under canvas. The naval surgeon
operated daily on my volcanic back, and the clean sea air,
together no doubt with elimination for a time of any further
ZANZIBAR, 1893
311
mosquito inoculation, the disastrous effects of which we
did not then suspect, quickly restored me to health. I
discussed the slave-traffic question and the control of
territorial waters very fully with the Admiral, who sub¬
mitted his views to the Admiralty. Some time would
elapse before an answer could be received, and mean¬
while he proposed to go southward, and up country to pay
a visit to Nyasaland, after which he would return to
Zanzibar. It was during this cruise, while we were lying
off Mombasa, that a telegram brought us the terrible
news of the sinking of Admiral Tryon's flagship the
Victoria, off the Syrian coast. It fell like a thunder¬
bolt, for every rating had friends and contemporaries on
board.
With the breaking of the south-west monsoon the great
rains began, and the corrugated iron roofs which abounded
over the godowns along the sea front reverberated with
the drumming of the tropic downpour. There was only,
as a rule, a brief respite in the afternoon for some three or
four hours out of the twenty-four. The narrow streets
became watercourses, and though the thermometer did
not fall many degrees the air felt almost chill. Cigars and
cigarettes were served on hot plates. Steel turned black,
and leather, unless constantly watched and dried, grew
mouldy.
I was now confronted with a number of problems which
the growing disillusion and exhaustion of the British East
Africa Company rendered urgent. It was evident that
their abandonment of Uganda would be followed by further
withdrawals and their hold over the country which they
administered was growing progressively weaker. Letters
received from Portal on the march did not report very
favourably on their limited penetration, and I was far from
satisfied with the reports received from Kismayu. There
was no hope of support from home to make good their
insufficiency. We could carry on so long as no demands
were made on the Treasury. A little later I did make an
312 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
urgent appeal to be allowed to recruit some Punjabi
Mohammedans for police duties in the Protectorate. I
was very jealous of Johnston when a detachment of
magnificent Sikhs landed at Zanzibar on their way to join
him in Nyasaland. But the Secretary of State for India
was not to be moved. Had there been a small but efficient
force available to place at a moment's notice wherever
its services were required, we might have been spared later,
after I had left Zanzibar, a costly expedition entailing
the despatch of several regiments from India to put down
a rebellion on the mainland. But in those days we had
to make bricks without straw. Such as they were they
have served for a foundation.
The British East Africa Company had certainly seen
little return for all the capital they had sunk in a great
adventure, and already hints had reached me that the
total abandonment of the enterprise was being discussed,
and that the question of compensation for the work
accomplished would be raised. I read with alarm a
memorandum contending that Zanzibar should be able,
if it resumed entire responsibility for the coast, to furnish
out of prospective profits, which the company itself had
not been able to realize, 320,000 rupees a year for interest
on a loan to be raised to pay off the shareholders. Another
suggestion that the £200,000 paid to Sultan Barghash for
the coastal area of the German colony should be affected
to compensation was bitterly resented by us on the spot
who knew how advantageously this capital might have been
utilized for local development. The concession to the
Company had been given by the Sultan of his own free-will
for no consideration, and if it was to be surrendered the most
which could be reasonably asked of the Protectorate
Government was the purchase of such assets as had an
economic value. It was quite legitimate to argue that
the aims of its founders had been philanthropic as well as
commercial, and it was indeed evident that from an imperial
point of view a great service had been rendered by the
ZANZIBAR, 1893
313
Company in opening up regions which would have fallen
into other hands had they been left derelict. But the
sentimental claim would lie against Great Britain, and
it was not easy to make out any case for indemnification
by the Zanzibar Government.
CHAPTER X
ZANZIBAR AND EAST AFRICA, 1893
Admiral Bedford returned in due course from Nyasaland
full of the prospects of that colony, which was responding
to the enterprise of its energetic governor. While he was
travelling with the governor there marched in one evening
to their camp a small white individual, attired like a
figure in a child's Noah's Ark, accompanied by four porters
carrying packs. On inspection they realized that the new
arrival was a lady, who proved to be of Austrian nationality.
She had started months before from the Cape, and con¬
templated marching on northwards to Cairo, an enterprise
which in 1893 no one had as yet attempted. Every effort
was made to dissuade her from proceeding with the very
inadequate resources at her command. There were still
great tracts of unexplored country lying to the north.
She was warned that she would have to traverse regions
where cannibalism was believed to prevail, and others
probably impassable owing to physical conditions. She
would undoubtedly be stripped of her few possessions
and risk dying of hunger. Even if by some miracle she
should reach the Egyptian Soudan, she would find herself
in the Mahdi's country, from which no European had then
returned.1 But nothing daunted the gallant little lady.
She was, she said, neither young nor beautiful nor rich.
Why should anyone interfere with her 1 So the next
morning she left to continue her solitary march towards
the unknown. Had she ever reached her destination a
1 It was about this time that Father Ohrwalder escaped from
Omdurman.
314
EAST AFRICA, 1893
315
book would no doubt have been written and the world
would have known her adventures. I was myself in Cairo
about a twelvemonth later, and remained there for eight
years. I should certainly have heard of the arrival of an
Austrian lady from the south. She must, I fear, have been
the first victim among the pioneers of the Cape to Cairo
route. I never learned her name. Within thirty years of
that date Messrs. Cook & Son have announced the organiza¬
tion of a personally conducted tour for fourteen persons
from the Cape to Cairo.
The Admiralty had shown a disposition to uphold the
right of examining dhows in the harbours and territorial
waters of Zanzibar. A French warship under the command
of Admiral Richard appeared in the roadstead to make it
clear that France did not accept this view, and after
Admiral Bedford's return the two vessels eyed each other
" like the basilisk," until our Government decided that
it was not opportune to press the point, whereupon the
hatchet was thrown overboard with due exchanges of
hospitality.
The most urgent of the problems which now confronted
me and entailed my once more having to appeal for naval
assistance, arose from the decision of the British East
Africa Company to withdraw from the territory of Witu,
a region between the Tana river and the sea, behind the port
and island of Lamu, about a hundred miles north of Mom¬
basa. At the time when a charter was granted to the
Company, Witu formed part of a German Protectorate,
which extended northwards to the Kismayu district.
The company had continually urged upon H.M. Govern¬
ment the inconveniences of this arrangement, and eventually
by the agreement concluded in 1890, it passed to Great
Britain. Attempts at penetration had given the Germans
nothing but trouble, and their successors had the same
experience. Some German settlers had been murdered
just before the transfer took place, and the whole region
was so disturbed and insecure that a naval expedition
316 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
under Admiral Fremantle, accompanied by some troops
from Zanzibar, landed and advanced up to the town of
Witu, which was bombarded and subsequently occupied.
The unruly elements abandoned the more accessible areas
and retired into the impenetrable forest without making
any resistance. In March, 1891, the Company took over
the country in virtue of their charter, and bound them¬
selves to establish an efficient administration. The
question of sovereignty over territory for which local
Sultans claimed independence was left for future con¬
sideration.
The settlements in the neighbourhood of Witu and the
road leading to the Tana river and Kipini on the coast
were policed by a force of sepoys which the Indian Govern¬
ment had allowed the Company to engage for a limited
time. But these, originally 250 in number, had through
sickness and discharges now dwindled down to less than
a hundred. In any case their contracts expired on the
1st June, and none were willing to re-engage. The out¬
laws had built themselves stockaded villages in the un¬
explored forest, where raiding and selling slaves to the
Somalis became their occupation. Many of these were
themselves runaway slaves from Lamu who had in turn
become slave owners and dealers. Under the leadership
of a brother of a former so-called Sultan of Witu they
defied all authority. This Fumo Omari had in 1891
received a sum of 4,000 rupees from the Company to
rebuild Witu, where a large house had been constructed
for him to occupy under administrative supervision.
But he never carried out his engagements.
The only points which could be urged in favour of the
outlaws were first, that they had been given to understand
that a small force of Askaris would be stationed at Witu,
and that they claimed to regard the introduction of 250
Indian soldiers as a menace and breach of faith, and secondly,
that as the Company continued to receive in trade the
produce which they extracted from the rubber vines in
EAST AFRICA, 1893
317
the forest, these commercial relations seemed to imply
acquiescence in their autonomous status.
Owing to the persistent raids of the outlaws much of the
mainland country had fallen out of cultivation, the owners
retiring for security to the islands. They disposed of
about a thousand rifles and had repulsed some plucky
attempts of the Company's officers to approach their
strongholds. Insolent letters from Fumo Omari, demanding
the release of raiders who had been apprehended, were
addressed to the Administration in such terms as the
following :—" Between this and Witu there is no sea.
Let me know if you and I are to be at peace no longer.
My arm is long and not short. I know no man with whom
I would go to law. As soon as you read my letter release
my people."
In May of 1893 the directors informed the Foreign
Office that they did not intend to replace the Indian police
and requested the Government to take their own measures
for the security of Witu. They asserted their right to
terminate the agreement of 1891, in which they had under¬
taken to administer the country, and now proposed to
withdraw from it altogether. At the same time they
announced their intention to retain Lamu, which gives
access to Witu. Nor did they contemplate leaving Kis-
mayu. The intervening country neither the Company
nor the Germans before them had even attempted to
penetrate or administer. Though the claim to denounce
the agreement was contested by the Foreign Office, and in
any case the right of free entry and transit through Lamu
was claimed under the Brussels Act, the Company was
no longer in a position to maintain its obligations, and the
date of withdrawal was fixed for the 31st July, up to which
the Indian police agreed to remain. The evacuation of
this region would have entailed the total ruin of the
population which, confiding in the Company's protection,
had remained in the controlled area.
I consequently received instructions to take over the
318 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
country, making all necessary provisions for its pacification
and the restoration of order. It would have been useless
at that time to ask Parliament for any credit to administer
a region of which most of its members had never heard,
and yet it was impossible to abandon the inhabitants who
had stood by us to the vengeance of the forest outlaws.
Witu was, therefore, to be placed under the authority
of the Sultan of Zanzibar to whom the administration was
nominally delegated. The Protectorate was, however,
not to be incorporated in his dominions. As Zanzibar
was itself a British Protectorate this meant, translated
into cruder terms, that Witu would henceforth be governed
by us, but that Zanzibar would pay for it. We were
driven to hard expedients in those days to maintain our
precarious tenure in East Africa.
Meanwhile, the first step was to establish our authority
there. In so doing I was directed if possible to avoid the
use of force. But we were practically certain to be attacked
and therefore I had to apply for a landing party from the
ships to accompany me.
Admiral Bedford himself expected shortly to return
southwards. But he gave me every assistance and issued
all necessary instructions to the future Senior Naval Officer,
Commander Lindley. The Philomel, had already left
Zanzibar, taking my former coadjutor, Captain Charles
Campbell, who had been for some time out of health and
badly needed a change of climate. The Blanche and the
Swallow were left on the station with the little Sparrow.
Meanwhile the Raleigh remained off Zanzibar as long as
possible to watch events during my absence.
I greatly regretted that the gallant admiral was not to
go with us. He had, I think, in his mind that too much
fuss had been made over a former expedition to Witu.
The next time I had news of the Raleigh, Bedford was on the
west coast conducting a punitive expedition after the
Benin massacres. Her landing party was badly ambushed
in a country apparently not unlike that into which we
EAST AFRICA, 1893
319
were about to penetrate, and two of my friends in the
wardroom were killed there. The circumstances of the
savage murders in Benin attracted more attention at home
than was usually accorded to happenings in remote Africa,
and I well remember a curious example of the effect they
produced on the popular mind. The maid of a lady who
gave us the story was, while manipulating the hair-brush,
deploring the tragic news published in the evening papers,
and expressed her surprise that such horrors could be
perpetrated by Christian people. " But what makes you
think," her mistress asked, " that these savages were
Christians ? " " Surely, my lady, they must have been,"
was the reply, " because they crucified people."
The preparations for our expedition were made with great
secrecy as I desired our arrival to be a surprise to the
outlaws. There was, as I have mentioned, a land telegraph
line along the coast from Mombasa to Witu. Some little
time before we were ready, Mathews came in one morning
looking particularly wise and cheerful to report that
telegraphic communication with Lamu had broken down,
and it was supposed that an elephant had knocked away
some of the poles. I had never heard of elephants in
that district, but could only welcome a " fortunate acci¬
dent," which curiously enough coincided with a temporary
interruption of the direct cable home, compelling recourse
to the Cape exchange which on grounds of expense was
only to be used very exceptionally. At the last moment
the departure of a number of native troops and three
warships for Lamu was bound to become public property,
and several of the British in Zanzibar asked to be allowed
to accompany us as correspondents. But I decided against
any unnecessary additions to the party, as all provisions
and ammunition had to be carried on the heads of porters.
Their absence perhaps accounts for the fact that the second
Witu expedition is little known in the history of East Africa.
I travelled to Lamu with a connexion of the Sultan,
Seyyid Serham-bin-Nassur, who came as his representative,
320 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
in H.M.S. Blanche, which, thanks to the efficiency of her
Number One, Lieutenant (now Admiral) Le Marchant
Hutchison, was one of the smartest vessels in which I
have ever cruised. The 8wallow and Sparrow accompanied
us. The Zanzibar Government ship Barawa brought
Mathews and Hatch with one hundred and twenty five
Askaris and fifty Soudanese recruited at Mombasa from
those that had come down from Uganda. These last
were as cheerful as they were black, and first-class fighting
men. Stores had been embarked not only for the expedition
but also for any garrisons which it might be necessary to
establish.
The entrance to Lamu, with its narrow channel and a
shallow bar which could only be negotiated at high tide,
demands very careful navigation. The gulf is quite land¬
locked and its shores luxuriant with tropical vegetation.
It was a trading station for a number of Indian merchants.
I at once despatched letters from the Sultan of Zanzibar
and from myself to the principal chiefs of the region, in¬
viting them to co-operate in pacification and to come
either to the coast or to Witu town to discuss matters.
The next three days were spent in the collection of porters
and the packing of loads, and here Mathews displayed a
real genius for African organization. This gave me time
to look into matters at Lamu, where I discovered that the
rules of the Brussels Act prohibiting the introduction of
spirits were being violated by an ingenious method. German
alcohol was, in fact, being sold freely in the bazaar to natives
under the disguise of Eau-de-Cologne, and was used for
internal application only. The well-known matchwood
cases of six bottles had all the orthodox indications of
authenticity. The paper wrapper with its advertisement
of the famous scent in three languages was duly wrapped
round each of the six. The liquid had even a light perfume,
and there was little to excite suspicion except the price,
which was only twopence a bottle retail. Inquiries made,
however, left no doubt as to the illicit nature of this traffic.
EAST AFRICA, 1893
321
I therefore ordered all the " Eau-de-Cologne " in the
bazaar to be brought into camp and there had it publicly
destroyed. I suppose it was a high-handed proceeding,
but the purveyors of the poison had no doubts as to the use
which was made of it, and though one of them afterwards
advanced a claim for compensation, which was ignored,
the majority were probably glad to get off with no severer
punishment.
At Lamu, I witnessed a curious dance, if it may be so
called, unlike any which I have seen before or since.
Sixteen girls, lightly attired in one or two coloured handker¬
chiefs of the design for the moment in fashion, stood
immovable in four rows of four, with one hand slightly
raised and the other on the hip. When the tom-tom
players began to beat the drums with a repeating rhythmic
measure, the girls, still perfectly rigid in all the rest of their
bodies, drew themselves slowly forward by a muscular
action of their flexible toes. After thus progressing for a
few feet or yards they stopped, turned round on their
heels and repeated the process in the other direction, keeping
station and formation with perfect precision. The tom¬
toms beat ever more vigorously as the slow lines advanced,
and the sensibilities of the spectators were evidently
roused to fever pitch by this strange performance, which
was apparently sensual and not ritual in character.
On the 23rd and 24th July, we embarked in two sections
in all the ships' boats available, to penetrate through
creeks and tortuous channels to Mkonumbi, the nearest
point to Witu which could be reached by water. The
channels, bordered by uncanny mangrove trees, which
thrust out their spreading roots into the water like black
arms with bent fingers clutching at the slimy bottom,
were, I believe, unsurveyed and uncharted. We reached
our destination without mishap, and were landed on the
shoulders of stalwart bluejackets, wading knee-deep
in the mud. Mkonumbi boasted of a certain number of
huts and sheds constructed by the Company in addition to
Y
322 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the native village. Some six miles inland lay Mkumbi
where there were also a few huts and wells which supplied
a rather muddy water. Here we established our depot.
Messengers from Fumo Omari brought letters saying
that he was unwell, and suggesting that I should come to
see him. As there was reason to believe that this was
only a pretext, I despatched a native orderly of General
Mathews to inform him that I was going to Witu, and should
expect him there on the fourth day. The chief of another
outlaw town, Jongeni, also asked to be invited. An
important sheikh of the Wagunia tribe, whose influence
was considerable on the coast, marched in with beating
drums and a picturesque suite to offer his services.
Tents had been pitched for the naval landing party.
As I was visiting the sentry posts at night with Mathews
we were startled by a sudden and violent outburst of some
of the choicest language I have heard from the Marines'
tent. The men had turned in some hours before and red
ants, attracted by scraps of food which they had thrown
into the grass after supper, had paid them a visit. In a
moment these ferocious little pests were all over them
nipping the flesh with their formidable pincers, resembling
the claws of a miniature stag beetle, which produce a
violent irritation. Having failed to tuck my pyjamas
into my stockings, I was also attacked to some extent.
We had to light our lanterns, strip and pick them off one
by one.
With Mathews, Commander Lindley, and an escort
of twenty-five Marines and bluejackets, I started for
Witu, some twenty-two miles distant. As long marches
were undesirable in the steamy tropical climate, we
bivouacked one night on the road. Nearly all the country
traversed, which was particularly adapted for growing
rice, had once been under cultivation, but was then
abandoned owing to the raids of the forest outlaws. The
coarse yellow grass was everywhere shoulder high, but
occasional clumps of mango trees marked the sites of the
EAST AFRICA, 1893
323
deserted farms. In the immediate neighbourhood of
Witu cultivation reappeared. Nowhere else where I have
been in Africa were mosquitoes so numerous or so persistent.
Even when all the flesh was covered, we found that they
drove a penetrating proboscis through our khaki breeches
where the material was tightly strained over the interstices
in the Company's cane-bottomed chairs. The naval escort
could only sleep in the lee of a smoky fire. We were to
pay the penalty before long for our ignorance of the
mosquito's virus-carrying potentiality.
There I received a letter from Fumo Omari announcing
that he would come if some donkeys could be sent for him
to ride. As he was physically deformed, four were procured
and despatched. He also asked for a flag to hoist in token
of submission. But Mathews' orderly returned with the
information that, after a consultation with the chief of
Jongeni, he had decided not to leave his stronghold, and
pleaded fear as his excuse. I then wrote him a further
letter telling him that after I had promised him hospitality
and security in the name of my Government and of the
Sultan of Zanzibar, I could not accept his plea. He had
given many undertakings in the past which had never
been observed. As, however, I was ready to offer him every
chance of reconciliation I should come myself to hoist the
flag in Pumwani. I would meet him outside the town,
but with a strong guard, and if we were attacked when we
came in peace, he and his people would be driven from the
land. Meanwhile information from native sources showed
that the outlaws were busy building stockades to cover all
the approaches to their settlements. As it therefore
appeared probable that they would attack us, and the
timber defences were reported to be very strong, H.M.S.
Sparrow was sent back to Zanzibar to bring a field gun
which the flagship had promised to furnish should it be
required.
On the 31st July the Company's flag was hauled down at
Witu, and the flag of the Protectorate, the red Zanzibar
324 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
flag with a small union jack in the centre, was hoisted in its
place, the native troops and naval escort presenting arms.
A proclamation declaring the new status was read in English
and Swaheli. I had taken over two valuable officers from
the Company, Mr. A. S. Rogers, of the Punjab police, who had
been in charge at Lamu and in command of the Sepoys.
He was now appointed administrator ; while Mr. Bird Thomp¬
son, who had been very successful in managing natives,
became assistant administrator. Rogers, who had once
been as far as Jongeni, was to accompany us to Pumwani.
As the direct road from Witu lay through dense bush or
forest and was reported to be blocked, I decided to return
to Mkumbi and advance from there. It was very fortunate
for us that we did so. We were already on the way back
when Fumo Omari's reply to my last letter arrived. It
was a curious mixture of defiance and submissiveness, and
with it came a message that he would only allow five persons
to enter the town. I briefly replied recommending him to
receive us hospitably and pointing out that, having accepted
the flag, he could not keep his gate closed to the officers of
the Government.
By the evening of the 5th of August the field gun had been
brought up to our camp at Mkumbi. The landing parties
from the Blanche, Swallow and Sparrow, numbering in all
160 men, were divided into four companies of bluejackets
and one of Marines. A party from the Sparrow was in
charge of the gun, to drag which through the long grass
was exhausting work for seventy porters in two shifts of
thirty-five. The evening before we started for our two days'
march to Pumwani an ox was killed for the messes and, to
ensure fair distribution Mathews, the Grand Vizir, himself
undertook the functions of butcher. He reserved the hump
for the officers. That remarkable man had already reduced
his army of porters, numbering over three hundred, to perfect
order and discipline.
On the morning of the 6th, Hatch led the way with forty
Soudanese and forty Zanzibaris. The remainder of the
EAST AFRICA, 1893
325
indigenous troops had been left on garrison duty at Witu
and Mkumbi. Rogers was at the head of the column as
guide. I was in the centre with Commander Lindley, the
Marines and the bulk of the bluejackets. Then came the
porters with stores and ammunition, the gun and the doctor's
party. Commander Sampson of the Swalloiv was in charge
of the rearguard. We could only march in single file along
a narrow track through the tall grass, and our line must have
extended over half a mile. From time to time the word
Siafu was passed back from the leaders, which meant that an
army of red ants was crossing the trail. Woe betide the
man who should put his foot down on that moving ribbon
of brown. At four o'clock we bivouacked for the night in
open ground surrounded by dense forest near some pools of
water. Our native guides reported that we were then two
or three hours from Pumwani. Some rain fell in the evening,
and the handy-man, who was thoroughly enjoying himself,
built us little huts of green branches, which kept us fairly
dry.
At 4.30 a.m. we were up again and resumed the march at
about 6. It was a Sunday morning. A little further on,
to the right, a path diverged towards Jongeni, and up to
this point Rogers had known the ground. Here some half
dozen shots were fired in our direction, which took no effect
and may have been signals. I had given instructions to
ignore stray shots on the road. Only if the advance were
seriously threatened the officer at the head of the column
had discretion to reply. On approaching Pumwani we were
to halt in order to ascertain whether the outlaws intended
to treat. But if we were deliberately attacked the naval
and military officers were to take charge without further
consultation.
It grew oppressively hot and when we traversed swampy
ground it was almost beyond the power of human resistance
to refrain from scooping up the muddy water in one's
hands to drink. The water bottles had to be kept full for
later emergencies. There were occasional shots from the
326 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
bush as we pressed on through a wide passage of grass
walled in on either side by forest. One could plainly hear
the bullets snarling overhead, but we saw no trace of a
human being. Only a few big grey baboons, scared by the
firing, swung themselves from branch to branch of the
trees to our left. After some two and a half hours' march
we crossed an extensive swamp and came to a wide open
area of cultivated ground surrounded by a ring of forest,
through which, we were informed, at some point unseen a
tunnelled road led to Pumwani. As the head of the column
reached the millet fields a heavy fire was encountered from
an invisible enemy. It was therefore clear that the outlaws
meant fighting, so swiftly advancing in the direction of the
fire we left the porters in a more or less sheltered spot and
found, beyond a banana plantation which had obscured our
view of the forest edge, a clear open space across which we
could see a cutting in the jungle wall, which bound together
by creeping plants was itself practically impenetrable.
From all along this green wall a determined fire opened,
but not a man could be seen. As we subsequently dis¬
covered, the edge of the forest was lined with stockaded
rifle pits carefully concealed. The loopholes in the stockade
were so constructed as to command the approaches over
rather higher ground from Witu, and had we arrived by
that road we should have suffered much more severely
than we did. As we came up at right angles to the Witu
track and close up to the stockades we got off fairly easily,
most of the bullets passing over our heads. Volleys from
our whole line, directed to the pathway and the forest wall
on either side, had no effect in checking the fire. There were,
moreover, other rifle pits on our flank and we now found
ourselves in rather a hot corner. As soon as possible, there¬
fore, the gun was brought into position near the entrance to
the lane up which, some fifty or sixty yards distant, we could
plainly see the gate of Pumwani, built of tree trunks, with
heavy cross beams, blocking a small triangular postern.
Unfortunately the shells from our nine-pounder had no
EAST AFRICA, 1893
327
apparent effect on the solid timbers of the gate. Rocket
tubes were then mounted, and their formidable fiery pro¬
jectiles were discharged into the village and the stockades in
so far as they could be localized. Lieutenants Fitzmaurice
(now Admiral Fitzmaurice) and Gervis were both wounded
in front of the lane, where Commander Lindley was directing
operations, and a good many other casualties were brought
to the doctor's station, near which I was watching events,
feeling rather useless now that the naval and military officers
had taken charge, and somewhat preoccupied as to whether
our force was adequately equipped for what seemed likely
to prove a formidable undertaking. I have no hesitation
in admitting that my first experience of being under fire was
every bit as disagreeable as I could have anticipated.
Bullets pinged into the soft banana stems round us or
plunked into the earth, and I heard Fitzmaurice, who was
sitting by me with a useless arm, observe " that one was
pretty near you." For an hour or so while I had no definite
duties to perform I reflected, as I smoked my pipe, that I
had a pretty heavy responsibility on my shoulders.
It became evident that the only course to take in order
to silence the fire of a concealed enemy was to enter the
forest town by forcing the gate. Commander Lindley
therefore directed Lieutenants Molteno and Doubble to
charge up the lane with their companies while behind them
the gun was dragged in nearer to the gate. A shot was
fired from fairly close quarters and under cover of the smoke
Mr. Kelsey, the boatswain of the Blanche5 ran forward
and inserted a big charge of gun-cotton between the timbers,
lit his fuse and withdrew again, happily in safety. A few
breathless moments passed and then with the explosion
the heavy beams parted and fell, making a break through
which the bluejackets rushed. Firing ceased at once
from the forest wall and only continued from some stockades
on our flanks, which were eventually carried by Hatch with
his black troops and the naval skirmishers and Marines
under Lieutenant Hutchison. As we streamed into the
328 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
town all the outlaws escaped, carrying their killed and
wounded with them by narrow paths cut through the jungle,
which we were only later able to explore. There was not
a soul in Pumwani. The attack had begun about 8.30,
and the last firing ceased at 10.30. Our casualties were
two killed, a stoker from the Blanche and a Zanzibar soldier,
with fifteen wounded, nine of whom belonged to the naval
brigade.
As soon as we had established ourselves in the abandoned
town and made the wounded comfortable on native beds,
the naval units faithful to tradition were paraded for
church and Captain Lindley, producing a prayer-book from
his pocket, read the morning service. It so happened that
the first psalm for the day was the one beginning: "Let
God arise and let his enemies be scattered." Then we held
a council at which it was decided that Pumwani must be
destroyed. A proclamation would be affixed in a con¬
spicuous spot announcing that all who came in to Witu to
surrender would receive a pardon and that provision would
be made for them there. The town, which consisted of the
wattle and daub huts with thatched roofs familiar along the
African coast, was well constructed in its nest of forest
clearing, and the ungrateful task of burning down so much
human effort was deferred. We were all fairly tired and
glad of a peaceful Sunday afternoon and a long siesta.
As soon as it was dark I went with Lindley to a quiet
spot where graves had been dug for the two men who had
fallen. He read the burial service and their bodies, wrapped
round with grass mats which we found in the huts, were let
down into the earth and covered up, with no mound to
mark the spot and tempt eventual desecration. The cooks
were at work and the fires burning gaily. We had found
chickens, melons and green corn in abundance, so that
there was wherewithal to provide for every mess. That
night the African town, into which no white man had ever
penetrated before, harboured an entirely new population.
Among our stores we discovered a few bottles of whisky and
EAST AFRICA, 1893
329
a lemon. With these, a few lumps of sugar and a small
bunch of red peppers which grew abundantly at Pumwani,
we brewed a tropical punch to celebrate the occasion. The
men assembled for a sing-song, and I made them a little
speech, thanking them for their gallant behaviour and
promising to do anything in my power for them should
occasion arise thereafter. I have from time to time renewed
touch with not a few.
The next day some of the jungle lanes were explored for a
certain distance and a second village was found, also aban¬
doned. And here a remarkable episode occurred. The
entrance was through a similar timbered gate which it was
considered advisable to destroy with gun-cotton. The
boatswain had inserted his charge and lit his fuse, when
there appeared over the top of the pile the jolly laughing
face of a bluejacket who had found his way in by some
other path and had clambered up from the inside. In the
second or two remaining he could never have got clear, and
those who were watching at a respectful distance held their
breath in a horror of anticipation. But the " little cherub
that sits up aloft " was good to Jack. The fuse missed fire.
He lived to tell the tale, but I believe the boatswain was
reprimanded for having used a defective fuse.
The stockades were destroyed and their material pre¬
pared for firing. Thatch from the houses was spread along
both sides of the forest road and sprinkled with the kerosene
found in the village so as to burn out a wide approach and
make the site unavailable for further defence. The porters
from Lamu took a particular pleasure in cutting down the
millet and destroying the crops of their arch enemies. To
me it was a hateful business. Most of our wounded were
doing well. Only the case of one of the Soudanese seemed
quite hopeless. A big bullet which passed through him
tore such a wide hole on issuing from his back that a con¬
siderable proportion of his internal economy was bulging
through. The surgeons, who were ably assisted by Dr.
Rae from Lamu, did their best for him, washing and replacing
330 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
the exposed sections. Incredible as it seemed, the worthy
Feragi was back in the ranks in about a month. I saw
later in Abyssinia an even more extraordinary case of
recuperative power in the native whose constitution has
not been enervated by civilization. The following morning
we marched out, carrying the more seriously wounded on
native beds. Then the town was fired and the lane which
had given so much trouble became an avenue of flame. We
marched down in one day to the base at Mkumbi unmo¬
lested, which proved that the outlaws, who it was presumed
had taken refuge in Jongeni, had no inclination to face us
in the open. Though the inhabitants of that place had
been among the worst offenders and the Sheikh had been
playing a double game, I felt bound if possible to avoid
further hostilities and with some difficulty procured a man
from the coast who, having relations in the town, was willing
to bear a letter there, in which I announced to the Sheikh
my intention of visiting him and warned him to keep the
peace and avoid the fate of Pumwani.
Two clear days were suffered to elapse, during which the
messenger did not return. So we reluctantly took the old
road once more, and bivouacked in the same spot. Soon
after nightfall some shots were fired into our camp which,
as they were not followed up, I assumed to be an answer to
my letter. The next morning at six we started for Jongeni,
and this time we were continually subjected to intermittent
firing from the bush. Rogers led us very skilfully, making
a detour through a marsh, so as to interpose some high
ground between us and the entrance to the town until we
were only two or three hundred yards from the gate. Our
former experience served us in good stead and, forming
under cover before crossing the open ground, Hatch and the
Nubians carried a strong stockade flanking the lane up
which the naval contingent charged. The ever ready boats¬
wain of the Blanche then planted his charge of cotton and
adjusted his fuse. We entered Jongeni within an hour of the
time when firing in earnest began. Mathews was struck by
EAST AFRICA, 1893
331
a glancing shot which was diverted by his shoulder-strap,
and he fortunately escaped with nothing worse than a big
bruise. Our casualties were confined to two of the naval
brigade and two Nubians wounded. The procedure fol¬
lowed at Pumwani was repeated here, and on the 14th we
returned to our base.
The next morning I marched down to the coast at Mkon-
umbi in record time to despatch my report. A Marine of
the escort fell out on the march from heat apoplexy. He
was wearing the regulation helmet, whereas the bluejackets
who had nothing but their straw hats, into which they
stuffed a few leaves, seemed impervious to the sun. In
the course of that day the messenger whom we had des¬
patched to Jongeni on the 11th, came in, half starved and
in a highly nervous condition. Fumo Omari, who was
in hiding in thelorest, had ordered him to be executed, but
his relatives in Jongeni had enabled him to escape and he
had been wandering about ever since. He told us that the
losses at Pumwani had been severe. One of the rockets
had exploded a powder store with disastrous effect.
It would have been useless, if it had not been impossible,
to pursue the outlaws into the forest. The naval contingent
was therefore re-embarked, and I returned to Lamu to spend
the next few days in drawing up provisional regulations
for the administration of the Protectorate. The Soudanese
were established at Mkumbi and 115 Zanzibaris distributed
pending further reinforcement, over a line of posts isolating
the outlaws.
The story of Witu, which is not yet concluded, has occu¬
pied a considerable space in this record, but I believe it
has never been told before except in official despatches.
We had been anxious to reward the services of an elderly
porter who during the first action had carried water to
the gun under a severe fire. He was discovered to be a
domestic slave, and his master at Lamu was persuaded to
agree to his liberation, very reluctantly indeed because,
as he explained, the man was his oldest friend and he did
332 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
not wish to break the tie that bound them. A sum of
money and a manumission paper were accordingly given
to the old fellow. The latter, however, he brought back a
few hours later, begging that it might be cancelled, for
nothing, he said, would make him leave his master. " Who,
if I did," he asked " would look after me when I was ill or
provide for me when I was too old to work ? "
The last days at Lamu were clouded by a sinister rumour
which had reached the coast from Uganda that Raymond
Portal had died of fever. It proved, alas, to be true, and
letters from Gerry, brought down by Bishop Tucker, con¬
firmed the tragic end of that pattern and flower of a gallant
English gentleman, who was indeed, as his brother wrote,
" the best of them all."
After a month's absence I returned to Zanzibar. On the
way south, as the search-light of the Blanche was illuminating
the horizon, we detected towards midnight a spot of white
which indicated a dhow sailing north. There was a fairly
big sea, of which the Blanche, a very steady ship in rough
weather, took little notice. But the Captain ordered a boat
to be lowered, into which a sub-lieuteneant and five men
dropped as she rose on the wave. Half the ship's company
turned out of their hammocks to watch the adventure.
The cockle-shell of a boat, which was instantly lost in the
night, had a mile or more to row before reaching the dhow,
on which the search-light continued to play. I can imagine
no more disagreeable job than that of boarding a pitching
dhow at midnight in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and
climbing its slippery side with no knowledge of what sort
of desperadoes might not be found in possession. But
these fine fellows took it all in the night's work as a matter
of course. It must have been nearly a couple of hours
before they were back in the ship rather disappointed at
having found all in order.
I was much gratified to receive in due course a very cordial
despatch from Lord Rosebery approving of all that had been
done in Witu, both the conduct of the operations and the
EAST AFRICA, 1893
333
measures taken for pacification and administration. But
what gave me the greatest pleasure of all was his perception
and appreciation of the long and invaluable services of
Mathews, whose name he promised to put forward for the
first distinction for which it would be in his power to make a
recommendation. Mathews, indeed, received the K.C.M.G.
the following New Year.
I cannot omit here to pay grateful testimony to the debt
which I owed to my chief at the Foreign Office for his
constant support and encouragement. Though I was com¬
paratively a junior, he wrote me a number of inspiring
letters with his own hand, and he has always remained to
me the ideal master to serve.
On the other hand, a foolish little example of red-tape
arising out of this expedition annoyed me. I have already
referred to the manner in which our consul in Crete had been
treated by some minor official in the matter of his accounts
after a journey which he was instructed to undertake. I
now had a similar experience. When the account for my
expenses in Witu was returned, no difficulty was made about
refunding the sum due for transport and entertainment on
board a war-ship, which was determined by existing rules.
But for the period passed on shore when I messed with the
other officers the Zanzibar Government had paid the mess-bill.
My share was £20, and as I was a British official, I suggested
that this amount should be refunded to the Protectorate
administration. It was not a large demand to make for
the annexation of a new territory. We had lived hard and
had not even taken tents to sleep in on the march. A
claim on my own account would no doubt have been met.
But the reply which I received was that there was no pre¬
cedent for such a refund to the Zanzibar Government. I
ought no doubt to have referred to a higher court. But I
felt rather indignant and did not press the matter further.
The Treasury, therefore, did not even have to pay £20 for
Witu.
All had gone well during my absence. At the end of
334 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
July Berkeley, who had been continually ill, came down
from Uganda and was invalided home. Soon after my
return Colonel Colvile arrived in Zanzibar with his staff.
He was to proceed to Uganda and take Portal's place when
the latter came home to report, at any rate until a definite
decision was taken as to the country's future. The equip¬
ment of his caravan was no easy matter, owing to the large
demands recently made on depleted man power.
The aftermath of our expedition was now to be reaped.
One after another the men of the Blanche and Swallow sick¬
ened with malaria. The Commanders of both vessels and
the senior lieutenant, Hutchison, went down. Telegrams
from Lamu reported the critical illness, and soon afterwards
the death, of Dr. Rae, the Company's medical officer, who
had marched with us and rendered invaluable service at
Pumwani. A little later I fell a victim myself and though
I got over this second bout fairly quickly—there was no
time to be ill—the recurrent fever never quite left me again
and after this attack each new one progressively increased
in intensity as the power of resistance weakened.
The two ships remaining on the station—for the Sparrow
had left—were practically out of action from reduction of
their crews, when a fresh crisis arose at Kismayu, where
the defensive force improvised by the Company had never
been adequate. A fort had been established some distance
inland at a place known as Turk's Hill and garrisoned with
Kiriboto Arabs. These irregulars had not been judiciously
handled and they mutinied. The Ogaden Somalis seized
the opportunity to revolt and the officer in charge was assas¬
sinated. The Company's stern-wheel steamer on the river
Juba was immobilized by a defect in her engines some way
up stream with two English engineers on board, and was
menaced by the Somalis from either bank. Immediate
action was imperative. I consulted Lindley, who was not
making a rapid recovery, and he directed Lieutenant Vaughan
Lewes, the next senior officer of the Blanche, to communicate
with me. It was decided to transfer a number of the healthy
EAST AFRICA, 1893
335
ratings from the Swallow to the Blanche and make up one
strong ship's company. I could only give Vaughan Lewes,
who sailed at once for Kismayu, general instructions to
act according to his best judgment. But I was able to offer
him an invaluable guide familiar with the country in Lova-
telli, who had just returned from a tour in the interior and
who at once volunteered his services. It was a great chance
for Vaughan Lewes, who having been in charge of navigation
had been left at the base when we landed in Witu, and he
acquitted himself splendidly. He marched inland with
every available man from his ship, guided by Lovatelli,
relieved the beleaguered engineers of the Kenya, who had
held out against several attacks, and made good the defects
in the machinery. The Ogaden villages were then at¬
tacked and severely punished. This expedition, which re¬
turned without the loss of a man, ensured a period of tran¬
quillity to Kismayu. Lovatelli soon afterwards returned
to Italy. He was awarded the C.M.G. for his gallantry.
Some years later he once again took part in a British
campaign in Somaliland. A good friend, and a first-rate
man with whom to go tiger-shooting, he was ready for any
adventure and recklessly brave, though deficient in the
discipline of self-restraint when his opinion differed from
that of his hierarchical superiors, a quality which occasionally
got him into trouble at home. He was, in fact, reported
once to have kicked a consul on grounds which could not,
officially at any rate, be regarded as adequate. But he
was one of those to whom deservedly much is pardoned.
There was a touch of Cochrane in Giovanni Lovatelli. He
achieved post rank, and had not a grim disease carried him
off prematurely I am convinced some desperate act of
gallantry would have made him famous in the Great War.
After recovering from my second bout of malaria I spent
a day or two in one of the half-abandoned palaces in the
country which the Sultan placed at my disposal, with Vice-
Consul Cave and his plucky wife, in the hope of recuperating.
But the fever returned and I had to come back to the Agency.
336 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
Our medical officer, Dr. Charlesworth, had himself been very
ill, and was suffering from water in the joints, one of the
not uncommon after-effects of fever in East Africa. He
was consequently obliged to return to Europe and was
succeeded by Doctor 0'Sullivan, who treated me homoeo-
pathically, rightly no doubt, as quinine had long ceased
to have any effect. Mrs. de Sausmarez, the wife of the
assistant judge, had died on the way to Aden, having been
embarked for home in the hope of saving her life. In
Zanzibar itself we had had other losses and every one was
continually up and down with the prevailing malady.
Letters received from Gerry Portal led me to believe that
he would reach the coast on his return journey by the end
of October. He wrote very fully on the rare occasions
when an opportunity offered. But the record of his obser¬
vations and experiences is so fully given in the Mission to
Uganda that I shall not further dwell upon the results of
that expedition. After his return he would have to go to
England to submit his report. So that I saw no prospect
of relief and sometimes used to wonder how long I should
hold out.
A reconnaissance in the Witu country directed by Mathews
was carried out by landing parties from the Blanche, Swallow
and Racoon, which last had now joined the station, with
some of the Zanzibar troops under Hatch and Captain Wake,
who had recently entered the Sultan's service. It was
ascertained that the system of military posts had been
successful in completely isolating the outlaws, who had had
no news of the landing. A certain number of them were
consequently surprised attempting to rebuild Pumwani.
They fled on the approach of the force and themselves set
fire to certain smaller villages in the forest, the existence of
which had not been surmised until the smoke was seen
rising from their conflagration.
It was characteristic of the adventurous spirit of that
race which in the beginning of history disputed the commerce
of the Mediterranean with the Phoenicians, that within a
EAST AFRICA, 1893
337
week or two of our expedition into No-man's-land, two
Greeks had arrived with packs on their backs in the new
Soudanese settlement, and had started a modest trade in
tobacco, matches, pocket knives and other portable com¬
modities.
Not until after I had left the East Coast was Rogers
eventually able to locate the forest settlement in which
Fumo Omari and the remnants of his followers had estab¬
lished themselves when driven out of Pumwani and Jongeni.
The new village had exactly the same character as the
strongholds we had destroyed. With Captain Wake and
an exclusively native force he made a night march to the
spot and reached the timber gate in the darkness unperceived.
As was anticipated, with the first glimmer of morning the
cross-beams of the postern were removed to enable the
inhabitants to go to the wells just beyond the forest edge.
The surprise party seized the moment to emerge from their
ambush and rushed the gate. There was a sharp resistance
in the forest lane, but Fumo Omari and all his principal
adherents were surrounded and captured. Unfortunately
Captain Wake was so severely wounded in this plucky raid
that his leg had eventually to be amputated.
The outlook was not a bright one on the coast in the later
months of 1893. The Company was sending home officers
and not replacing them. Garrisons were so attenuated that
I was appealed to by the Bishop of Equatorial Africa to
take measures for the protection of the ladies at a mission
station in the very heart of the Company's territory. Of
the Zanzibar troops 150 had gone to Uganda and 150 were
in Witu, and we had no more to spare. A second detach¬
ment of Sikhs had gone through to Johnston in Nyasaland,
but my appeals to be allowed to recruit police in India had
been in vain. It was obvious to me that the Chartered
Company would before long plead inability to carry on.
Great Britain would then be compelled to take over what
seemed likely to prove a troublesome inheritance.
There was in certain quarters at home a tendency to
z
338 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
criticize the arrangement by which Witu had been placed
for administrative purposes under the Sultan of Zanzibar,
since domestic slavery was still recognized in his dominions,
whereas the Company had, with a grand gesture but with
little regard for the consequences, declared the total abolition
of slavery there. It is an easy matter to issue ordinances.
To enforce their observance is another story and nothing
had been done in this respect when the Company abandoned
a region where they had been unable to maintain security.
It is also easy for the secretaries of benevolent associations
at home to press for the adoption of counsels of perfection.
But the hard fact of which they were no doubt blandly
unconscious was that at this time we were holding on to
East Africa by a very slender thread and preserving it from
a worse fate by the faith and the exertions of a mere
handful of men.
The burden of responsibility weighed heavily upon me
and it was not lightened by constant attacks of malaria,
which always recurred to incapacitate me once more just
as I had cleared off the arrears of work accumulated during
the preceding one. The last and worst of all followed
immediately after a great fire in the native suburb of
Zanzibar, which destroyed 400 houses. I had gone out while
still weak to encourage the local fire brigade. A remark¬
able feature of this conflagration was the exodus of a large
number of snakes which had been concealed in the thatch
of the burning huts. From one of these a most gallant
rescue of a native woman paralysed by fear was made by
Mr. Pordage, of the Public Works Department. He only
succeeded on a second attempt and immediately afterwards
the roof fell in. When my temperature was very high Dr.
O'Sullivan used to put me into a wet sheet and then tuck
me up in six or seven blankets which induced perspiration.
In about half an hour the temperature would come down
from nearly 106 to 102 or less. The process was successful
but exhausting, and I felt myself growing continually
weaker. One night when I got out of bed I fell on the floor
EAST AFRICA, 1893
339
and was too weak to get into bed again so that I remained
there through the rest of the night. There were then no
nurses in Zanzibar except the few attached to the Univer¬
sities' Mission hospital and it was only during an exception¬
ally bad bout when it seems my condition was considered
really serious that I was able to have the advantage of their
services for a day or two. My Italian servant, who had
kept his health, was most attentive, but at moments when
all one's nerves were tense he used, like the zealous friend
in Browning's poem, nearly to drive me mad with " the
creaking of his clumsy boots." Fortunately for me the ice-
machine did not break down while I was at my worst, for
the aching of the head in African fever is almost unendurable
and the ice-bag offers the only alleviation. When the
temperature has subsided the ensuing stage is almost as
disagreeable. Incessant violent perspirations drench pyja¬
mas and bed and seem to carry away the last remnants
of vitality. These bring on prickly heat, and that is the
last infirmity of the much-tried body. But I never felt
the least like giving in and when towards the end of October
I heard that Portal and Rhodes had arrived by the Tana
at Lamu the news gave me a fresh lease of life.
A day or two later—it was the 22nd of October—Gerry
walked into my bedroom with a smiling face. The Swallow
had brought him to Zanzibar. There was any amount to
tell on both sides, but I was still so weak on that day that
the doctor would only sanction a short conversation. All
had gone well with them on the downward journey except
that Frankie Rhodes and Hutchison, Portal's servant, had
had chronic fever for some time past, and that about a week
before they reached Lamu, Gerry had lost all his trophies,
his rifle and his bed, owing to the capsizing of a canoe in
the Tana river. He had also had some fever, but not of a
serious character, and looked extraordinarily well. It was
good to see him again.
Without informing me Portal telegraphed to the Foreign
Office that my condition was such as to necessitate an imme-
z*
340 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
diate return to Europe and that he proposed that I should
leave with him by the next boat in twelve days' time,
leaving the judge in temporary charge. I no doubt owed
him my life, as I should never have asked to be relieved
myself and it seems that in my very weak condition I
could not have resisted any more attacks of malaria. A
few days later I managed to get up and pull myself together
sufficiently to wind up certain current affairs.
By the 1st of November I was fairly convalescent, and
was able to assist Portal in receiving a deputation from the
Khojah and Banyan community who came to congratulate
him on his safe return and to take their leave of me. A
deputation from the Parsees followed and all day long there
were visits from my friends, including Tippoo Tib, Stanley's
old enemy, who now lived in Zanzibar and posed as a
philanthropist. Though accepted by the community as a
pure Arab, he was strongly negroid in type, being the son
of a negro mother. We avoided talking of Stanley. Among
my other visitors was Seyyid Khaled, whom I had arrested
on the night of the Sultan's accession. He came in without
taking off his shoes at the door of the reception room, an
act of discourtesy in an Arab which would be equivalent
to entering a drawing-room in Europe with one's hat on.
I only looked at his feet. But when he had left I sent
him a message to say that unless he made ample apology
he would never be admitted into the Queen's house again.
He excused himself on the ground of nervousness, but in
view of his previous and subsequent record there can be
little doubt his action was deliberate. That evening I was
entertained at a farewell dinner at the English club, which
was presided over by the judge. They were all good friends,
the fellow countrymen with whom I had been in daily
association at this distant outpost, but I was almost over¬
come by the kind things that were said, and not least by
Gerry Portal himself. A memorable incident was the reading
of a telegram by Frankie Rhodes, who responded to the toast
of " The Army," which he had just received from his brother
EAST AFRICA, 1893
341
announcing the capture of Bulawayo and the flight of
Lobengula.
It remained to take leave of the Sultan, for whom longer
experience had only increased my regard. I was informed
that he wished to present me with a sword of honour with
a jewelled handle similar to a valuable weapon which he had
given to Mathews. This, however, I had to beg him not to do.
On the other hand if it were merely a simple sword of no
intrinsic value I should highly esteem it as a remembrance
of himself. Accordingly at the farewell interview he offered
me an Arab sword with a fine old blade which I have
always valued for the sake of the giver, who, like his prede¬
cessors, was short lived. I also became the possessor of a
small bottle of attar of roses, which I am afraid I did not
value so highly and gave away as soon as I reached Europe,
but not before all the contents of my portmanteau were
impregnated with the penetrating scent. Mathews, who
was the most generous of men, insisted on my carrying away
what is now one of the most precious of my treasures, a silver-
mounted pipe which had belonged to the Shereef of
Mecca.
Three days later we left for Europe in the Messageries
S.S. Sindh. The members of the Zanzibar Government
rowed us to the ship, General Mathews himself pulling
stroke. Every one in Zanzibar was on board, but nothing
moved me more than taking leave of Mathews. Though
we continued to correspond I never saw my old friend again,
as he did not return to Europe before his death, in 1901,
from a particularly pernicious form of malaria, which affected
the nerve centres. He was then only fifty-one.
The end of this great Englishman, who had given twenty-
six years of his life to Zanzibar and the mainland, only twice
returning home in that long period, was characteristic of
his straight and beneficent life. The son of the reigning
Sultan watched by his bed through the last night, and he
died surrounded by devoted friends, including his nephew,
Sir Basil Cave, so that all that passed was recorded. In a
342 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
long period of delirium he seems to have re-lived the main
events of his stirring life. He was heard at one moment
to give orders to the crew of his cutter as he used to do in
the days of cruising after slave-raiders, in which he had
greatly distinguished himself. He fought all his many
battles on the mainland once again. He recalled his old
friends by name. He dealt in dreams with claims and
appeals for justice of Arab and slave, and then, reviving a
memory of some one of his many kindly offices he murmured:
" Call the children ! Give them all they want. Let every¬
thing be bright and joyous." Later he was overheard to
say, this time no doubt in a fleeting moment of consciousness :
"We have improved the place very much : public drunken¬
ness is hardly ever seen." On the morning of the day he
died there was a brief interval during which his mind was
perfectly clear and with a calm voice he bade those present
good-bye in these simple words: " God grant that we may
all meet some day in the next world and renew our friendship
and part no more—I am sorry to leave you, for I have loved
you all here. I may have been a bit rough sometimes, but
I have loved you all.—The Spirit of God ! "
The rest is silence. Soon after his temperature rose to
107-8, but the strong heart still resisted. Three hours later
he was dead.
The hard life of African adventure has bred many heroic
figures, but of some it has also upset the mental balance and
strained the quality of mercy. Few men can boast so clean
a record as was his. Sailor and soldier and vizir, he was
of the fibre of those simple God-fearing mariners of the great
days who laid the foundations of empire, a John Davis or
a Captain Cook. If few of his own countrymen had had
the opportunity of appraising him, no one was ever more
sincerely mourned by those of alien race and dusky skin. I
had always resolved that if ever I should have the oppor¬
tunity of placing on record my experience of many lands and
men I would there pay my tribute of affection and regard
to one of the best and the bravest and most lovable of
EAST AFRICA, 1893
343
friends and a great servant of his country. For him too the
lamp of memory burns on the night of All Souls.
And so the good ship Sindh bore us away from the land
of gloom and gleam. Rhodes had a rather sharp relapse
and I also spent a good deal of time in my berth with inter¬
mittent fever. After Aden, however, we both began to feel
better, and I was able to write up my concluding despatches.
Portal was busy with his book and his official report. Here
also I read the last pencil notes of Raymond's diary, the
record of a desperate fortnight when porters carried him
down from the Toru country, whither he had been sent to
recruit men, back to Kampala to die. There is a tragic
pathos in one of the last entries : " Thank goodness my
Shakespeare returned. No more setting myself impossible
algebra sums." It is a grim story that of the pioneers of
empire when, as seldom happens, the details of their hard
fight with circumstance become known. Of the men with
whom I was associated in Zanzibar and East Africa, but few
survived for many years, as I have yet to tell.
Rhodes went on to Marseilles, while Portal and I disem¬
barked at Suez and ran up to Cairo to stay a day or two
with Sir Evelyn and Lady Baring, who made us very
welcome at the Agency. We caught another boat to Brindisi,
where I parted with Gerry for a short time, as he went
straight home, while I counted on spending a week or two
in Italy to recuperate before facing the rigour of the northern
winter. I spent a peaceful day or two in the Crawfords'
villa at Sorrento, but caught a chill driving into Naples,
and after a day or two of fever in bed at Rome managed
to get home. There the old enemy once more gripped me
severely with the added plague of water in the knee which
this malady not unfrequently develops. I had, however,
the consolation of receiving from my chief a most cordial
and flattering despatch, far beyond my deserts, appreci¬
ating my services in Zanzibar, and Sir Edward Grey, who was
then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, made a special
reference to them in his summary of the year's events in the
344 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
House of Commons. The first visit which I received in bed
was from Gerry Portal, who announced to me that I had been
awarded the C.M.G.
As soon as I was able to get about again my first visit
was to him. To my surprise and distress I learned that he
also had fallen ill, was, in fact, too ill to see anyone. Having
been ordered out of London immediately I left the following
day for Cornwall, not apprehending at the time that his
illness was more than a relapse of African fever. Not many
days later the crushing news reached me of his death. It
had been typhoid and not malaria. With him passed away
not only a dear friend but a man of action of infinite promise,
who barely half way through life had reached a point at
which many might consider themselves fortunate to end.
The elder brother, Raymond, had no luck in life. Gerald
Portal's career was brilliantly successful. But there was
never a shade of jealousy between them, and impartial death
did not discriminate. Par nobile fratrum ! Who wills may
read their record on the monument in Winchester Cathedral
designed by Waldo Story, an old Eton friend, which those
who cared for them erected to their memory.
Not long afterwards Lord Rosebery wrote me a most kind
letter telling me that it had been his wish to appoint me
permanently to take Portal's place, but that the verdict of
the medical authorities who had been consulted was so
decidedly against my returning that he would not ask me to
do so, but hoped to find me some other active work before
long. As soon as I was convalescent, therefore, I returned to
my post at Paris, where I was most cordially welcomed by
my old chief, who despatched me on a mission to consider
the redistribution of the consular districts in France on
more practical lines. Beginning at Bordeaux and going on
through La Rochelle and the then new port at La Pallice, I
reached Nantes, where I received a telegram recalling me
immediately to London.
There I learned that I was to go in May to Cairo to be
second in command to Lord Cromer, as he had now become.
EAST AFRICA, 1893
345
From a letter which I received from him soon afterwards
it appeared that he had had the same idea as the Secretary
of State and had asked for my appointment as soon as
Arthur Hardinge had been instructed to go to Zanzibar.
In the meanwhile I was to be sent on an interesting and
highly confidential mission. Two days after my arrival I
dined with Lord Rosebery on a somewhat memorable
occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were there, Lord
Morley, Mr. Asquith, the party whips and one or two more.
Mr. Gladstone's sight was failing, and he was on the point
of resigning. This little dinner celebrated the falling of
the mantle on Lord Rosebery. Needless to say Sir William
Harcourt was not there. Harry Oust had predicted the
resignation a month earlier in the Pall Mall Gazette, and
was roundly abused in the press for his presumption. A few
days later they were all apologizing. Except for the failure
of sight, which eventually entailed an operation for cataract,
Mr. G. was in excellent spirits, He was very indignant at
that time with the bishops for their attitude in the House
of Lords. He said that in former times he had never con¬
sidered the political side in making ecclesiastical appoint¬
ments, but of late he had had reason to do so and he added
" quite rightly too." The following day I went to dine and
sleep at Windsor, where the Empress Frederick was staying.
There is no longer any need to preserve secrecy regarding
the mission which I was now called upon to undertake.
Indeed, though my modest share in them did not become
public, the results were announced in the following May
(1894). I was to go to Brussels and there endeavour to see
the King of the Belgians, with the object of obtaining from
the Congo Free State the lease of a corridor or strip of
territory connecting Lake Tanganyika with Uganda. This
would ensure an eventual exclusively British highway con¬
necting the Cape with the Nile and the road to Cairo. In
return we were ready to come to terms over certain boundary
questions and assure the Free State access to Lake Albert
Edward.
it5 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
To make my movements less obvious I first paid a visit
to the Malets at Berlin, where I spent several pleasant days.
It was on this occasion that the Emperor, driving down the
Linden, nodded to me in so friendly a manner that I con¬
cluded that the incident of the book had been entirely for¬
gotten. It was suggested to me by my friend, Princess
Henckel v. Donnersmarck, that I should consult a doctor
who had a great reputation for treating malarial subjects.
It could do no harm and would only cost twenty marks. I
took her advice. This doctor, whose name I have forgotten,
gave me a prescription which involved the swallowing of
some drops contained in little phials for three months in
succession, during which period all acids such as lemon,
vinegar, etc., were to be avoided. I have never had any
return of malaria since. Whether this happy result was due
to the treatment or to the natural process of a vigorous
constitution rejecting poison in the blood I cannot say.
Another experience of this visit was of a less agreeable
character. I paid a visit at the Foreign Office to Baron
Richthofen, an acquaintance of my Berlin times, who
was Under-Secretary of State in charge of African questions.
We had been discussing certain matters of mutual interest,
when Richthofen, patting a pile of papers which lay before
him, said with a smile which grated on me that they con¬
cerned a little arrangement which they had just entered into
with France, which he apprehended would not be very
welcome to my Government. It certainly was not. The
conclusion of that particular agreement was one item in a
long list of unfriendly acts towards us of which Germany
was at this time deliberately guilty. We were in those days
of marked hostility from France anxious to exclude her from
the Upper Niger. The same objection was not entertained
towards Germany, our differences with whom were, it was
still assumed, transitory and remediable. By a recent
territorial negotiation we had accordingly given Germany
that access to the Niger to which she professed to attach
importance. Almost immediately after the conclusion of
EAST AFRICA, 1893
347
those negotiations Germany handed over this territory to
France in exchange for concessions elsewhere. Nor was any
attempt made to disguise the fact that this almost provo¬
cative procedure was intended to remind us that it would be
opportune to show more deference to German interests.
Bismarck had used Egypt for this purpose, as it was indeed
to be used again, but in this instance his successors had
gone a long way further, and only in February Baron
Marschall had contradicted the report that Germany had
ceded a port on the Benue to France.
At Brussels I endeavoured, without in any way comprom¬
ising our Legation, to obtain an interview with the King
through the Minister, Baron Lambermont, whom I had
known at the Berlin Conference. That astute and far-
sighted monarch was at that time not very popular in
England, where his administration of the Congo State was
the subject of somewhat acrimonious criticism, which in the
light of later experience there is good reason to believe was
due in great measure to inspiration from Berlin. Should
the King of the Belgians, or Belgium itself as his heir, ever
seek to be disburdened of the responsibilities undertaken on
the Congo, a possibility which did not then seem altogether
excluded, the reversion of those territories was secured to
France, which had only withdrawn certain priority claims
in favour of the Free State. But there is little doubt that
Germany contemplated an ultimate extension of her colonial
system over the Congo Basin. Her first interest therefore
was to get rid of the Belgian interest with its international
guarantee. From France it would be easier to wrest a
mighty empire in Africa after the next inevitable war, when
she counted on being able to dictate the terms of peace.
It never occurred to the sentimental people at home who
grew hysterical over the alleged infamies of the rubber
collection that they were in reality working pour le roi de
Prusse.
I was, therefore, not very sure of a warm reception. But
I was anxious to meet a sovereign of great conceptions who
348 SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
had done so much for Belgium and his capital. Unfor¬
tunately His Majesty was unable to see anyone, having
just met with an accident. He had, in fact, I was informed,
been precipitated from a bicycle into a rose plantation, and
this had entailed some temporary disfigurement. I was,
however, referred to the Secretary-General of the Free State
Administration. Matters did not progress badly and I
was able in a few days to return to London with a tentative
basis of agreement which led to negotiations in London
between M. van Eetvelde, the Secretary-General, and the
Foreign Office.
When the agreement was eventually signed and published,
although it involved no cession of territory, violent opposi¬
tion was raised to its terms in France, with whom Germany,
whose East African colony would have become coterminous
with the corridor, joined hands. A menacing attitude
was adopted towards King Leopold with the result that
the clauses dealing with the lease were cancelled. Once
more time's revenges have enabled the corridor to be estab¬
lished a little further east.
Lord Kimberley had now become Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs under the Premiership of Lord Rosebery,
and as I remained for some two months longer at home
working at the East African problem at the Foreign Office,
I was enabled to see something of my new chief. While
professing to be most anxious to obtain information he was
equally zealous in imparting it. One night after dinner at
the house of his son and private secretary, Armine Wode-
house, he took me aside to a sofa and invited me to sit down
and tell him all about East Africa. I was ready enough to do
so, but found little opportunity, as he tallied almost without
drawing breath for the whole of the hour available, at the
end of which he said : " Now I must go, but I am indebted
to you for a most interesting conversation."
Gerald Portal had completed about half of a book de¬
scribing his experiences in Uganda. I was invited to
prepare these chapters for the press and to complete the story
EAST AFRICA, 1893
349
of that memorable adventure from his diaries and letters.
This occupied my spare time pretty fully, too fully in fact,
seeing that towards the end of my stay the great event of
my life took place with the realization of the best thing
that falls to the lot of man. Lord Cromer had to be relieved
in Egypt at the beginning of June, and it seemed hardly
advisable to take a bride to Cairo for the summer months.
So my marriage was reluctantly postponed until the Autumn.
My future wife took the remarkable resolution of practically
returning again to school in the neighbourhood of Paris,
after many years of emancipation, in order to study French
and other subjects connected with coming professional
duties. And there I left her in the kind and constant care
of Lord Dufferin and started in the middle of May for
Egypt, where I was to spend the next eight years.
I had passed my thirty-fifth birthday on the journey
home from East Africa, and had every reason to be well
satisfied with the variety of my ten years of public service.
If it was not quite permissible for me to say, as Sir Walter
Raleigh said on the scaffold, " I have been a soldier and a
sailor and a courtier, all of which are courses of wickedness
and vice," I had at least had experience of a brief phase
in the life of each, and now I was about to take up the
post which of all others I should have chosen had the
choice been in my own hands.
But what befell in Egypt, and afterwards at Stockholm,
and at Rome during the Great War, must be reserved for
another volume.
INDEX
Abdul Aziz, 303
Acton, Lord, 45, 106
Adam, Madame, 136
Africa, first Conference on, 63
Agamemnon at Oxford, 10
Albanians in Greece, 227
Albert Victor, Prince, 143, 188-90,
264
Alexander III, Russian Emperor,
109, 121, 125
Ali, Sultan Seyyid, 281, 287, 300-1,
303
Ampthill, 1st Lord (Odo Russell),
44-7, 52, 53, 55, 64, 66
Anderson, Sir Percy, 71, 74
Andritzena, 224
Angra Pequena, 52, 63, 65
Anhalt-Dessau, 88
Arcadia, 222-9
Arco, Countess, 106
Arnim, Count, 92, 115
Arnold, Matthew, 93-5
Arthur, Lieut. L., 283
Asquith, H. H., 7, 345
Mrs., 32, 43, 255
Augusta, Empress, 130, 149
Bakmeteff, M. Boris, 180-1
Balfour, A. J. (Earl of), 33
Balliol College, 7-12
Bamberger, 60
Barghash, Sultan Seyyid, 282, 285,
312
Baring, Sir Evelyn, 190, 343
Battenberg, Prince Alexandor, 99,
134-6, 242
Prince Henry, 59
Bazaine, Marshal, 178
Bedford, Admiral, 310, 314-15, 318
Bedford, Duke of, 8
Benadir Ports, 287, 308
Benson, Sir F., 10
Bergmann, Prof., 114, 128, 137, 151
Berkeley, Sir E., 283, 334
Bertie, Lord, 41
Bidwell, John, 75
Biliotti, Sir A., 170, 177
Biography of Emperor Frederick,
149, 166-9
Bismarck, 54, 55, 56, 61, 64 ;
Colonial policy, 64-72, 78,
97,99,109,113,116,118-23,
128, 129, 130, 132 ; attack
on Queen Victoria, 134, 138-
9, 142, 152, 156, 158-60 ;
his dismissal, 201-7, 210,
247
Count Herbert, 52, 86, 92, 110,
115, 123, 126, 146, 155,
167-8, 178, 188, 201
Bleichroder, von, 60, 65
Blowitz, 85
Bliicher, Prince von, 48
Bonaparte family, 221
Boni, G., 255
Boulanger, General, 109, 141, 179,
260
Boulton, Sir H., 10
Bourchier, J. D., 229, 231
Bourget, Paul, 265
Bowen, Sir G., 107
Justice, 153
Bramann, Dr., 137, 150
Brougham, Lord, 96
Broughton, Rhoda, 9, 111, 117
Brown, Horatio, 180
Browning, Robert, 39, 40, 109, 199
Bruce, Hon. W., 10
Bruck, Baron, 265
Brunetiere, M. de, 273
Brussels Act, 71, 291, 320
Bruyeres, Geoffroi de, 224
Bucher, 94
Bunsen, George von, 60, 100
352
INDEX
Burne-Jones, Sir E., 15, 25-7, 40
Busch, Moritz, 67, 134-7, 156
Cadogan, Henry, 124
Cairo in 1889, 190
Call, Mrs., 261
Campbell, Captain Charles, 283,
298, 301, 303-5, 308, 318
Carnival in Rome, 4
Cartwright, Sir F., 85
Carytena, 224—5
Cave, Sir B., 295, 303, 335, 340
Cecil, Lord E., 99
Chamberlain, Austen, 110
Charlesworth, Dr., 336
Charon and Charos, 186
Chiemsee, 104
Chirol, Sir V., 230
Christodoulaki, 198
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 124-6
Cogers, 14
Colonial issues with Germany, 52
Colvile, Colonel, 334
Conference at Berlin on Africa, 63,
70-78
Congo question, 70, 71
Constantino, Crown Prince of
Greece, 187
Constantinople, 242
Cook, E. T., 8
Court Balls at Berlin, 78
at Athens, 166
Cracknall, W. B., 290
Crawford, Marion, 33, 36, 251—2,
266, 343
Cremieu Foa, Captain, 271
E., 272
Crete, 170-8,182-3, 197
Crispi, 120, 257
Cromer, Lord, 105, 344. (See Sir E.
Baring)
Crowe, Sir E., 74
Sir Joseph, 71, 72-4
Currie, Lord, 41
Lady (Violet Fane), 41
Curzon, Marquess, 7, 11, 14, 108,
250
Cust, Harry, 117, 245, 250, 255,
345
Customs and Lore of Modern
Greece, 186
Czarevitch (Emperor Nicholas), 187,
236
Dar-es-Salam, 309
Dasent, Sir George, 37
Dawkins, Sir C., 7, 14, 108
Delyannis, 236, 238
Desbarolles, 96
Desborough, Lord, 7
Dessau, 88
Dhimitzana, 225
Dollinger, Dr., 106
Dttrpfeldt, 193-4
Drumont, M., 270, 272
Dufferin, Lord, 11, 151-12, 258.
259-61, 264, 266, 269, 348
Lady, 266
East Africa, British, 286
East Africa Company, British, 283,
286-7, 295, 299, 311-2, 315,
337
Edinburgh, Duke of, 165
Edward VII (see Prince of Wales)
Egypt in 1898, 190-2
Elpis Melena, 174-7
Etienne, M., 272
Eetvelde, van, 348
Eubcea, 186
Ferdinand, Prince of Bulgaria, 121,
244-5
Fitzmaurice, Lord E., 65, 68
Lieut., 327
Forbes-Robertson, Sir J., 15
Foreign Office in 1883, 40
Fortescue, Hon. J., 16
Franks in Greece, 196
Frederick, Crown Prince and Em¬
peror, 48-51, 53, 103, 111,
112-14,128, 130, 133 ; death
of, 141-2 ; funeral, 143;
his Diary in 1870,143, 156-8,
169, 202 ; 146-8, 192
Empress (Crown Princess Vic¬
toria) 48-51, 78, 79, 111,
112-14, 128, 133, 141-2, 148-
51, 157, 187, 193, 209-11,
247-9, 268, 345
Fremantle, Admiral, 316-17
Fumo Omari, 316, 323, 324, 331,
337
Garibaldi, 2, 175-7
Gamier, Abbe, 258
Geffcken, Prof., 156-8, 168
INDEX
353
George V (Prince George), 165, 188,
189
George, King of Greece, 108, 165,
237-9
Gervinus, 82, 207
Gibbs, Hon. H., 179
Gladstone, W. E., 36-40, 77, 84,
105,106,119,153,186, 247-8,
268, 271, 274, 345
Graham, W., 40
Granville, 2nd Earl, 13, 38, 39
Gregorovius, 60
Grenfell, Sir Francis, 191
Lieut., A. B. G., 301-4
Grey of Fallodon, Lord, 7, 343
Gythion, 213
Hadjipetros, Colonel, 166
Haggard, Sir W. D., 164r-5
Haileybury, 6
Hamed bin Thwain, Sultan Seyyid,
282, 304-8, 341
Hardinge of Penshurst, Lord, 85,
243
Sir Arthur, 7, 181, 236
Hatch, General, 295, 301, 303,
320, 324, 336
Hatzfeldt, Count, 54, 59, 86
Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 8
Henckel von Donnersmarck, Count,
59, 247
Countess, 346
Henley, W. E., 250
Henry, Prince, of Prussia, 49, 141,
188
Hickey, Father, 255-7
Hohenlohe, Prince, 110, 161
Holford, Captain, 189
Holstein, Baron v., 115
Hudson, Sir J., 98
Hutchison, Lieut. C. M., 320, 327,
334
Imperiali, Marchese, 46
Johnson, Cecil, 42
Johnston, Eustis, 8
Johnston, Sir Harry, 286-7, 312,
337
Jongeni, 322, 330
Keate, Dr., 107
Keats, Grave of, 154
Kelsey, Boatswain, 327
Keppel, Sir Colin, 165
Ker, W. P., 7
Khaled, Seyyid, 282, 304-5, 340
Khalifa, Seyyid, 287
Kimberley, Lord, 348
Kirk, Sir John, 65, 285-6
Kismayu, 287, 298-300, 317
Knowles, James, 248
Konigsmark family, 117
Korkidis, 198
Kroten Ring, 89
Kriiger telegram, 69, 162
Labosse, M., 291
Labouchere, 68, 88, 126
Lamasse, M., 271-2
Lambton, Captain Hon. H., 189
Lamu, 315, 317, 319-21, 339
Lansdowne, Lord, 7
Lascelles, Sir F., 211
Leighton, Lord, 108, 195, 249
Lenbach, 124
Leo XIII, 258
Leopold, King of Belgium, 70, 76,
345, 347
Lesseps, 111
Leveson Gower, Hon. F., 36
Sir G., 8, 14, 39, 105, 150
Lindley, Commander, 303, 318, 322,
325, 327-8, 334
Lippmann, Dr., 60
Lister, Sir R., 85
Loreburn, Lord, 7
Louise, Queen of Prussia, 149
Lovatelli, Count, 298-9, 301, 304,
335
Low, Sir Sidney, 8
Lowell, J. R., 36, 153
Liideritz, 65
Ludwig, King of Bavaria, 102
Lyons, Lord, 47, 83
Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred, 84, 101, 274
Laura, 31-33, 34, 84, 101
Hon. Spencer, 14
Lytton, Robert Lord, 12, 42, 105,
260
Mackail, J. W., 7
Mackenzie, Sir Morell, 112, 113,123,
128, 131, 137, 145-7, 150-3
Mackinnon, Sir W., 285-6
McClure, W., 230
354
INDEX
Macmillan, Malcolm, 8, 181
Mahaffy, Prof. J. P., 223
Mahmoud, Seyyid, 282, 307
Maina, 211—18
Malet, Sir Edward, 54, 57, 72, 78,
95-7, 118, 155, 160-2, 167-9,
206-7, 210-11, 267, 346
Lady Ermyntrudo, 78, 85, 154,
158
Mallet, Sir Bernard, 7
Sir Louis, 7
Marling, Sir C., 165, 180
Marschall v. Bieberstein, Baron, 115
Mathews, Sir L. W., 283, 287, 288-9,
304-5, 319, 320, 322, 324,
336, 341-3
Mavromiclialis Bey, 213
Mayor, Captain, 271
Melfi, 200
Messenia, 221
Meteora monasteries, 229
Middleton, J. H., 253
Midleton, Lord, 7
Miller, William, 197, 230
Missions in East Africa, 294
Mistra, 220
Mkonumbi, 321, 331
Mkumbi, 322, 324, 330
Moffat, Dr., 283
Mohrenheim, Baron de, 270
Moltke, Field-Marshal v., 124
Mombasa, 283-4, 298, 312
Mommsen, Theodor, 60
Monembasia, 234
Mons, Count, 91
Monson, Sir E., 164, 177
Montenegro, 209
Montgomery, Alfred, 96
Montholon, Count, 185, 236
Mores, Marquis de, 270-2
Morier, SirR., 92, 178, 264
Morris, Lewis, 106
Mowbray, 15, 180
William, 15
Mouktar Pacha, 171, 172
Mimster, Count (Prince), 67, 249
Munthe, Axel, 255
Muraview, Count, 127
Muscat Sultans, 284
Nachtigal, Dr., 66
Napoleon III, 97-9, 156, 192
Nazir el Mulk, 8
Newdigate poem, 11
Nicolson, Sir A., 245
Noel of Achmetagha, 186
Northampton, Marquess of, 42
Nyasaland, 311, 314
Orsini, 98
O'Sullivan, Dr., 336, 338
Otho, King of Greece, 166
Ouida, 33
Owen, Roddy, 276
Pagani's, 21
Palmerston, Lord, 75
Paris in 1864, 2 ; in 1892, 269
Passava, 214, 218
Pater, Walter, 9
Pauncefote, Lord, j41
Pellegrini, 21
Perponcher, Count, 57, 79, 122
Pesth in 1891, 245
Peters, Dr., 71, 285
Pius IX, 4, 45
Pheneos, 223, 226, 228
Phigaleia, 223
Portal, Sir Gerald, 13, 275, 280-3,
336, 339, 340, 343, 344, 348
Raymond, 7, 8, 276-7, 287, 332,
343, 344
Primoli, Count Giuseppe, 256
Princes of Achaia, 197
Pulsky, 246
Pumwani, 323, 324-31, 336
Puttkamer, von, 178
Radcliffe, W., 8
Radolin, Prince, 58, 110
Radziwil, Prince A., 57
Princess George, 58
Rae, Dr., 329, 334
Ragusa, 209
Raper of Trinity, 9
Reischach, von, 59, 80, 187
Renan, Ernest, 273
Rennell, Major, 1, 2
Richmond, Sir William, 117-20
Richthofen, Baron, 60, 346
Rhodes, Cecil, 300-1
Frank, 277, 279-80, 339, 340
343
Robertson, W. B., 154
Rogers, A. S., 324-5, 330
INDEX
355
Rohlfs, G., 65, 285
Rome in 1865, 4 ; in 1891, 250—66
Rosebery, Lord, 85, 154, 268, 276,
289, 307, 332-3, 344-5
Rossetti, D. G., 40
Ruggles-Brise, Sir E., 7
Ruskin, 9, 16
Russell, George, 248
Sagan, Duchess of, 58
Salisbury, Marquess of, 85, 149
Sampson, Commander, 325
Sanderson, Lord, 41
Santorin, 234
Sausmarez, de, 290, 336
Scheele, von, 309
Schliemann, 193, 195
Schnabele incident, 109
Schouvaloff, Count Paul, 86
Schrotter, Dr., 146, 150
Scott, Sir Charles, 44
Seckendorff, Count, 51, 138, 150,
187
Serge, Grand Duke and Duchess,
169
Shakir Pasha, 197
Shelley, Lady, 261
Shelley's grave, 156, 261
Shoobridge, L., 8, 106, 196, 213
Slave-trade in Zanzibar, 292, 308
Sofia in 1891, 243
Somalis (Ogaden), 298, 334
Somerleyton, Lord, 7
Sophie, Crown Princess of Greece,
187, 209, 249
Souls, the, 116
Sparta, 219
Spender, J. A., 8
Spring-Rice, Sir Cecil, 7, 14, 30, 83,
85, 154
Stambouloff, 244-5
Stanley, H. M., 72, 76
Stephan, von, 127
Stephens, " Beauty," 42
Stillman, J., 230
Stolberg-Wernigerode, Count, 122
Story, Waldo, 255, 266, 344
W. Whetmore, 263
Strachey, Minister at Dresden,
98
Strong, Mrs. Arthur, 196
Sullivan, Sir A., 110
Swaine, Sir Leopold, 48, 145
Swinburne, C. A., 27
Symonds, J. Addington, 254
Tana, River, 315, 339
Taranto, 201
Temple Forum, 14
Tennant, Sir C., 105, 255
Laura (see Lyttelton)
Tennyson, Lord, 83, 273
Tewfik Pasha, 191, 264
Thackeray, W. M., 2
Tigrane Pasha, 191
Tippoo Tib, 77, 340
Tricoupis, C., 183-6, 207-9, 213,
236-9, 255
Sophie, 184
Turgeneff, 11
Twiss, Sir T., 72, 75
Tzorzakis, 213
Uganda Expedition, 275, 283, 311
Valona, 199
Vaughan-Lewes, Lieut., 334-5
Venice in 1866, 5
Venosa, 200
Victor Emmanuel II, 120
Victoria, Queen, 114; Bismarck'a
attack on, 134-7 ; in Berlin,
138-40, 155
Crown Princess (see Empress
Frederick)
Villehardouin, 220, 225
Villiers, Lieut. C., 284
Violet Crown, 222
Wake, Captain, 336-7
Waldersee, Count, 60
Wales, Prince of (Edward VII), 110,
130, 131, 140, 143, 149, 187,
188, 189-91
Walston, Sir C., 196
Wards, Humphry, 9
Ward, Sam, 33-5
Watson, William, 274
Watts-Dunton, T., 27
Webb, Godfrey, 250
Whistler, J. McNeil, 16-21, 25, 27,
274
White, Sir William, 242, 260
Wilde, Oscar, 9, 15, 22-5, 107
William I, German Emperor, 56, 97,
110 ; death of, 128
356
INDEX
William II, German Emperor, 49,
110, 144, 162, 167-8, 187,
188, 193, 201-7, 211-2, 267-8
Windhorst, 94
Witu, 315-33, 336-7
Wolff, Sir H. Druxnmond, 85
Wolseley, Lord, 97
Woodford, J., 42
Worms, Baron H. de, 85
Wyndham, George, 250
Zanzibar, 66, 280, etc.
Telegrams :
" Scholarly, Wesdo, London." 41 and 43 Maddox Street,
Telephone : 1883 Mayfair. London, W.l.
Messrs. Edward Arnold & Co.'s
AUTUMN
ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1923
*♦♦♦>
THE ASSAULT ON MOUNT EVEREST, 1922.
By Brig.-General the Hon. C. G. BRUCE
and other members oe the expedition.
Medium 8vo. With 32 full-page illustrations, a photogravure
frontispiece and maps. 25s. net.
This magnificent volume contains the narrative of the stupendous
climbs in which the height of 27,000 feet was reached, thus eclipsing all
previous records. The achievements of Mallory, Norton, Somervell
and Morshead in the first climbing party, and of Finch and Geoffrey
Bruce in the second, were only possible for men of splendid physique
and enormous powers of endurance, and demanded very perfect
organization on the part of the leader of the expedition. The use
of oxygen apparatus was seriously tested for the first time and
produced results of great scientific importance. A third great
climb later in the season was unfortunately interrupted by the
terrible avalanche which overwhelmed the party soon after the
start, resulting in the sad death of several of the Tibetan porters.
All the arrangements for the successful conduct of the expedition,
the supply of mules and porters, the negotiations with the Tibetan
authorities en route, the great Base Camp and the smaller Camps
higher up the mountain involved an enormous amount of work
and the utmost tact in surmounting difficulties and obstacles;
these are described by General Bruce and provide most enter¬
taining reading. The photographs are, if possible, even more
wonderful than those in the previous work, and the map of the
2 Edward Arnold 6c Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
country has been thoroughly revised in the light of the latest
experience. It is betraying no secret to say that the result of the
1922 expedition has been to stimulate the desire for a third attempt
to complete the trilogy—first the Reconnaissance, next the Assault,
and finally let us hope the Conquest of the great mountain.
MOUNT EVEREST: THE RECONNAISSANCE, 1921. By Col. HOWARD-
BURY, D.S.O., and others. With Maps and Illustrations. 25s. net.
Copies of this important work are still obtainable. Also a limited Large
Paper Edition, with additional plates. Quarto. £5 5s. Od. net.
SOCIAL AND DIPLOMATIC MEMORIES
1894-1901.
By the Right Hon. Sir J. RENNELL RODD, G.C.B.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. With Portrait. 21s.net.
" The first volume * of Sir Rennell Rodd's Memories makes us eager
for the second " was the general verdict on the instalment of the
work published in 1922. Sir Rennell Rodd was appointed as second
in command to Lord Cromer in Egypt in 1894, and remained there
for eight years—the period covered by his new volume. Two of
the most interesting chapters in the book contain a narrative of
the Mission to Abyssinia in 1897, and the account of the " King
of Bangs " with his picturesque court and army and the wonderful
reception of the British envoys is extraordinarily vivid and roman¬
tic. All the great Englishmen who were making history in Egypt
at the time, including Lord Cromer, Lord Kitchener, Sir Reginald
Wingate, Sir Francis Grenfell and others, figure largely in Sir
Rennell Rodd's pages. In 1898 came the advance into the Sudan,
culminating in the Battle of Omdurman, of which a very spirited
first-hand description is given by Lieut. Reymond de Montmorency.
The difficulties with France caused by Capt. Marchand's occupation
of Fashoda are described in considerable detail, and afford an
admirable example of the value of skilled Diplomacy in handling
delicate international situations. The death of the Mahdi in 1899
finally put an end to our troubles in the Soudan, but the succeeding
years were by no means pleasant ones for the British in Egypt
so long as the outcome of the South African War appeared uncer¬
tain. Sir Rennell Rodd left Cairo in 1901, not to return until
1919 when he visited Egypt again as a member of the Milner
Mission.
* "Social and Diplomatic Memories, 1884-1893." Second Impression.
21s. net.
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements. 3
THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT HON. GENERAL
SIR REDVERS BULLER, G.C.B., G.C.M.G.,
V.C.
By Col. C. H. MELVILLE, C.M.G.
In two Volumes. Demy 8vo. With Portrait and Maps.
32s. net.
Sir Rcdvers Buller will always be remembered as the General
in command during the early stages of the South African War,
when the battles of Colenso, Spion Kop and Pieters Hill were fought
during the operations for the relief of Lady smith. But his military
career covered a period of many years and he took a prominent
part in nearly all the campaigns of the British Army from 1860
to 1900. He entered the 60th Rifles in 1858 and first saw service
in China. He accompanied Lord Wolseley on the interesting
Red River Expedition and in the Ashanti War. He was engaged
in the Kaffir War of 1878 and the subsequent Zulu War. He was
Chief of the Staff in the Boer War of 1881. He was present at the
battles of Tel-el-Kebir and Kassassin in Egypt, and Chief of the
Staff in the Gordon Relief Expedition, 1884-85. Then came a
period of Home Service at the War Office and Aldershot, and an inter¬
lude when he filled the post of Under-Secretary in Ireland. After
the South African War he commanded the First Army Corps at
Aldershot, and finally retired from the Army in 1906, two years
before he died.
Thus it will be seen that a Memoir of Sir Redvers Buller is in itself
an epitome of British military history—always excepting India
where he never saw service—from the time of the Mutiny to the
quiet years preceding the Great War. On the personal side Buller
appears as a man of indomitable courage and perseverance, always
ready to take the hardest tasks on his own shoulders, and ever
thoughtful of the comfort and welfare of his men. His was a
lovable character too ; never was he so happy as in his own Devon¬
shire home with his wife and family, among the people who adored
him. He was a man of the type that has made England great
and of whom his country may be justly proud.
STRAY RECOLLECTIONS.
By Major-General Sir C. E. CALLWELL, K.C.B.,
Author o? " Experiences of a Dug-Out," etc.
Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. 32s. net.
These volumes contain a military autobiography of great interest.
The Author entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1876,
*
4 Edward Arnold c& Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
and his career is a typical example of the life of an officer in the
British Army from that date to the time of the Great War. The
book will recall to many a veteran the scenes among which the
best and happiest days of his life were passed, the irresponsible
adventures of the Subaltern, the stern realities, not without com¬
pensating advantages, of service in India and South Africa, the
less exciting but highly important work in the Intelligence Depart¬
ment and the War Office. General Callwell possesses an original
and observant mentality, and has a delightful facility in narrative.
He is always on the alert for what is entertaining and worth notic¬
ing, and makes the best use of his frequent opportunities for describ¬
ing a dramatic incident or telling a good story. Without in any
way posiug as a military critic, he manages to convey his views
upon many crucial Army matters, and is nearly always convincing.
He cannot conceal his repugnance to the introduction of Politics
into the arena of war, but recognizes that modern conditions render
it impossible to avoid their overlapping.
PALESTINE AND MOROCCO.
By Sir W. MARTIN CONWAY, M.P.
Author of "The Alps from End to End," "The Bolivian Andes," etc.
Demy 8vo. Illustrated. Probable price, 16s. net.
Morocco and Palestine possess this in common, that in both,
at the present time, the ancient oriental civilization is being im¬
pinged upon by the inroad of modern Western ideals and develop¬
ments. In Morocco the French are the innovators, in Palestine
the Jews. The author visited the two countries in succession
with a view of studying the conditions thus created. His pre¬
possessions are in favour of the old Orient, and his endeavour has
been to depict it and to show the effect of the modern world upon
it. Incidentally in the case of Morocco he describes the journey
through that country from stage to stage as he made it. Palestine
is too well known to need such description, but the actual nature
of the country is a main factor in the political problem and receives
as much attention as space permits.
WILD ANIMALS IN CENTRAL INDIA.
By A. A. DUNBAR BRANDER, F.Z.S.,
Conservator of Forests.
Demy 8vo. With 16 pages of illustrations. 18s. net.
This interesting book is dedicated by permission to H.R.H.
The Duke of Connaught, for whom the Author organized a shooting
expedition in India a few years ago. Mr. Dunbar Brander is one
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements. 5
of the greatest living authorities in all that pertains to jungle and
shikar lore in central India, and is also a highly-qualified naturalist.
He has had more than twenty years' experience in the Forest Ser¬
vice, and has made the most of his unequalled opportunities. As
Mr. Kipling has well said, the Forest Officer grows wise in more
than wood-lore : he meets tiger, bear, leopard, and all the deer,
not once or twice after days of beating, but again and again in the
execution of his duty.
The book is compiled almost entirely from personal notes and
observations, and aims at describing the habits and characters of
animals in such a way as to supply useful information to the field
naturalist and to the sportsman who takes an intelligent interest
in his quarry. All the principal game animals of India are fully
dealt with, including tiger, leopard, buffalo, bison, sloth bear, wild
dog, wild pig, sambar, barasingha, Chital deer, antelopes and
various other denizens of the jungle. The illustrations are from
photographs taken by the author on the spot.
JAPAN AND HER COLONIES.
By POULTNEY BIGELOW.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. With eight full-page illustrations.
15s. net.
The author of this book has been known for many years on both
sides of the Atlantic as an enterprising traveller ; he has studied,
at first hand and on the spot, the characteristics, political, social
and economic, of many lands in Europe and Asia, and more recently
was one of the first to enlighten his fellow-countrymen in the
United States as to the origin of the Great War (which he had
foreseen and foretold) and to bring home to them that it was a
contest in which their own interests were vitally concerned, and
by which their own ideals were imperilled. He was in Japan as
long ago as 1876, and again in 1898. Two years ago he paid a
third visit, accompanied by his wife, and here records the results
of his investigations. They were devoted principally to the work
of Japan in her newly acquired possessions, Formosa, Korea and
Shantung, of which he draws a very favourable and attractive
picture. Incidentally he deals with the whole problem of the
Pacific, and has much advice to give to his countrymen, couched
in remarkably trenchant and outspoken terms, on their attitude
towards world politics. Though his aims are serious, he writes
in a light and readable style, and gives us plenty of amusing inci¬
dents and anecdotes, and several lively sketches of the outstanding
personalities among Japanese administrators.
6
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
ANIMAL LIFE IN DESERTS.
A STUDY OF THE FAUNA IN RELATION
TO THE ENVIRONMENT.
By Dr. P. A. BUXTON.
Formerly Fellow oe Trinity College, Cambridge ; Medical Ento¬
mologist, Government of Palestine.
With numerous illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
This volume is the result of several years' study of the conditions
of desert life in Algeria, North-West Persia, Southern Palestine and
Mesopotamia, and the author has endeavoured to summarize his own
observations and to elucidate their meaning by comparison with
what has been observed in other deserts.
The desert is an environment unspoilt by the hand of man, so
that one can more clearly observe the interaction of plant and animal
life upon each other, but, on the other hand, we are ignorant of
certain details of the climatology of deserts and of the life-history
of the great majority of the smaller animals. The extent to which
nearly all forms of animal and plant life are modified to enable them
to exist in these more or less hostile conditions is naturally greater
than it is in more favoured parts of the globe and renders their
accurate observation more difficult. It is partly in order to sum¬
marize our present knowledge and to draw attention to the graver
deficiencies in it that the book has been written. It is hoped that
this study of the desert creatures and their environment which
leads one to a very fascinating meeting-place of several sciences, will
prove interesting to many who delight in natural history, but who
have never had an opportunity to make themselves acquainted with
the more formal aspects of zoology.
A HANDBOOK OF THE CONIFERS
AND GINKGOACE^E.
By W. DALLIMORE,
Assistant at the Royal Gardens, Kew,
and A. B. JACKSON, A.L.S.
With 32 full-page plates and over 100 illustrations in the text.
One Volume about 600 pages. Medium 8vo. 42s. net.
This book contains descriptions in easily understood terms of
all the cone-bearing trees with information upon their economic
uses and cultivation.
The need for such a book has long been felt, for although groups
of conifers have been described elsewhere, the family has not been
Edunrd Arnold & Co. 's Autumn Announcements.
7
exhaustively dealt with in a single volume for many years. More¬
over the number of new species introduced during the present
century makes necessary a review of the whole group.
Although the book is primarily a general work upon Conifers,
special attention has been given to those that are hardy in the
British Isles or are of outstanding economic importance. A feature
of the work is the series of keys to genera and species which are
designed to assist beginners in the work of identification.
The families Taxacece, Pinacece and Ginkgoacece, are separately
treated, the genera and species being alphabetically arranged.
Following a short generic description each species is dealt with,
giving the scientific name with authority and the most important
common name. Then come scientific and common synonyms,
followed by a botanical description, the geographical distribution,
date of introduction, economic uses and cultivation, with one or
more references to the plant in other works. About 115 natural
size line-drawings by Miss G. Lister add considerable value to the
descriptions, whilst 32 full-page photographs illustrate woodland
scenery and specimen trees. The descriptions have been drawn
up from living plants or herbarium specimens in the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew.
FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY AND
THEIR WORK.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF THE SEA.
By Sir WILLIAM HERDMAN, F.R.S.
With about 60 Illustrations. One Volume. Demy 8vo.
21s. net.
Sir William Herdman is one of the most famous of living oceano-
graphers ; he has lived through the period that has seen the
development of the Natural History of the Sea into the Science
of Oceanography, and has known intimately most of the men
who did the pioneer work.
His book may be roughly divided into two sections. The first
few chapters are biographical sketches of the pioneers of oceano¬
graphy, in which are recorded the author's personal impressions
of these men and their work : Edward Forbes, the Manx Naturalist,
the pioneer of shallow-water dredging ; Wyville Thomson and
John Murray and the work of the Challenger expedition ; Louis
and Alexander Agassiz, the founders of American Oceanography ;
and finally the late Prince of Monaco, whose practical interest in
deep-sea exploration has done so much to advance knowledge.
The second section deals with subjects rather than men, and
here the author has chosen those matters in which he himself is
particularly interested. He starts with an account of the various
8 Edward Arnold <£ Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
oceans, the influence on marine life of their salinity, depth and
temperature. This is followed by a fascinating study of the various
deep-sea deposits and a chapter on Coral Islands with a survey
of the various theories that have been advanced to explain their
formation. He then discusses the various causes of luminescence
in the sea. Finally there are chapters on plankton or floating
life of the sea, on oyster and mussel cultivation and on the sea-
fisheries.
Oceanography has many practical applications in connection
with our sea-fisheries and the cultivation of our barren shores,
and is a subject which should appeal specially to a maritime people
like the British, who owe everything to the sea. The volume is
beautifully illustrated and is full of interest for the general reader
as well as for the student.
BRITISH HYMENOPTERA.
By A. S. BUCKHURST, L. N. STANILAND, and G. B.
WATSON. With an introduction by Professor H. Maxwell
Lefroy.
One Volume, Grown Quarto. With many illustrations. 9s. net.
An introduction to the study of the habits and life-histories of
British Saw-Flies, Wood-Wasps, Gail-Flies, Ichneumon-Flies, Ruby-
Wasps, Digger-Wasps, Mud-Wasps, Wasps, Bees, and Ants. Suffi¬
cient information is given for their identification and technical
terms are carefully explained. The authors aim at interesting all
those interested in the study of insects, and who require a volume
more accurate than the wholly-popular romantic works and yet
less technical than a systematic treatise.
DRAWINGS BY GUERCINO.
Edited by ARCHIBALD G. B. RUSSELL, BA., F.S.A.,
Lancaster Herald.
Author of "The Engravings of William Blake," etc.
One Volume. Quarto. Finely printed. 25s. net.
The Edition is limited to 500 numbered copies for sale.
The book will be illustrated by twenty-four reproductions of
Guercino's drawings which have been carefully selected with a view
to representing the various aspects of the Artist's genius by the
finest possible examples. The Royal collection at Windsor, the
British Museum and several important private collections have
been drawn upon for this purpose.
The Editor, Mr. Archibald G. B. Russell, Lancaster Herald, well
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
9
known as an authority upon the drawings of the Old Masters, will
contribute a study of the Artist's life and work, together with notes
upon the illustrations.
Guercino's drawings which enjoyed an immense reputation in
the eighteenth century, a large number of them being engraved
in facsimile by Bartolozzi and other eminent engravers of the period,
have since that date passed through a time of comparative neglect
among collectors, due in part to the temporary eclipse in the public
esteem suffered by the whole Bolognese School and in part to the
absence of fine examples upon the market. The recent dispersal
of a notable group of drawings from the collection of the late Lord
Northwick and of the matchless series (probably with that at Wind¬
sor the finest that has ever been brought together) lately in the
possession of the Earl of Gainsborough, from whose cabinet they
can be traced back to a nephew of the Artist, has however done
much to contribute to the present revival of interest in his work.
The finest of these drawings which have lately been the subject of
a very interesting exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, are
to be included among the illustrations of the forthcoming volume.
The book accordingly will have a special value, not only for
collectors of Old Master Drawings, but for all lovers of Fine Art.
It should also make a particular appeal to artists in view of Guer¬
cino's brilliant use of the various mediums employed in his sketches.
Their influence has already been far-reaching, and it is certain that
the beauty of his pen and wash drawings left a deep impress upon
the work of Tiepolo, who is known to have formed a collection of
them and to have held them in the highest regard.
PAINTING IN THE FAR EAST.
By LAURENCE BINYON,
Deputy Keeper, in charge of Oriental Prints and Drawings, British
Museum.
Third Edition. With Frontispiece in colour and forty-one full-
page plates. Medium 8vo. 30s. net.
The last edition of this book was published in the year before
the War broke out discolouring all our minds and interdicting
for so long the pursuits of peaceful study. In spite of the world's
material convulsions, however, interest in Oriental art everywhere
gained ground ; and during these years notable works in one aspect
or another of the subject have been published, and valuable addi¬
tions have been made to European and American collections,
though these perhaps have been less important in the domain of
painting than of sculpture.
In preparing this new edition, therefore, a good deal of revision
10 Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
has been necessary, and a certain amount of fresh matter has been
incorporated. It is especially in the chapters on early Chinese
painting and in that on " Ukiyo-ye and the Colour-Print " that
new material and new information have had to be taken into
account.
The number of illustrations has been slightly increased. Two
or three plates which appeared in the second edition have been
replaced by other subjects ; and there has been added as frontis¬
piece a coloured reproduction from a beautiful small Sung painting
in the famous collection of Mr. George Eumorfopoulos, to whom
the author is greatly indebted for permission to use it.
THE ANALYSIS OF THE HUNTING FIELD.
By R. S. SURTEES.
With reproductions of the original Plates by H. Alken.
A new Edition. Crown 4to. 21s. net.
" The Analysis of the Hunting Field " is a series of lively sketches
of the various personages found there. Originally written for
Bell's Life to commemorate the exceptionally good season of 1845-
46, it is not usually grouped with the novels of Surtees,
although, apart from the fact that there is no connected tale run¬
ning through the chapters, it presents all the characteristic features
of the novels and will delight the general reader no less than the
hunting man. A recent subscription edition of Surtees' works
does not include either " Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities " or " The
Analysis of the Hunting Field," and it is anticipated that possessors
of this set will be glad to make their collections more complete
by adding this new edition of the latter work. Robert Smith
Surtees is one of the puzzles of literature. Considered by some
as being the greatest fiction humorist of his day, he is at the same
time comparatively little known to the general reader. But it
is safe to say that whoever makes the acquaintance of this capti¬
vating storyteller of English country life, with his hilarious and
joyous tales of fox-hunting, horse-dealing, racing, dimiers, dances
and flirtations, will not rest content until he has read everything
Surtees produced with so much bounce and gusto. And no better
volume need be selected to start with than " The Analysis of the
Hunting Field." It contains coloured plates after Henry Alken
—most popular of sporting artists—and while it would be invidious
Edivard Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
11
to compare the merits of his work with that of Leech, who suc¬
ceeded him as illustrator of Surtees' books, it is noteworthy that
first editions containing Aiken plates fetch much higher prices
in the sale room than those illustrated by the later artist.
SEAMANSHIP FOR YACHTSMEN.
By F. B. COOKE.
Author of " The Corinthian Yachtsman's Hand-book," " Single-handed
Cruising," etc.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. Illustrated. 12s. 6d. net.
The success which has attended the publication of Mr. Cooke's
previous books ensures a cordial welcome for this, his latest work
on Yachting. He writes mainly for the owners of small yachts,
and gives eminently practical advice, from knowledge gained in
the hard school of experience, as to all the different occasions where
seamanship comes into play. Chapters are devoted to Getting
under Way, Seamanship under Way, Heavy Weather, Bringing up,
Moorings, Stowing away, Running Aground, Accidents, Strange
Harbours, Rule of the Road, Racing Tactics, and other kindred
topics. The whole book teems with useful information, and illus¬
trations are freely used whenever they are required to elucidate
the text.
RELIGIO MILITIS.
By AUSTIN HOPKINSON, M.P.
One Volume. Probable price, 7s. 6d. net.
This book is an attempt by one, who has taken an active part
in the politics, wars and industry of the country, to explain what
the generation to which he belongs really believes. He endeavours
to show that the pessimism of the twentieth century is no more
to be justified than the thoughtless optimism of the nineteenth,
and that the effect of the war has been to imbue a large number
of our young men with an intense, but unspoken, religious faith,
which may well give rise to a great improvement of political and
of industrial conditions in the near future. Like Mithraism, the
soldiers' religion of the early part of the Christian era, this faith
is dualistic. It accepts the reality of a never-ending struggle
between moral beings and a non-moral cosmic process, and tends
12
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
to associate Evil with the crowd, while it holds Good to be the
attribute of the individual. Thus it becomes the basis of the
Aristocratic Principle—that the well-being of the many can be
secured only by self-sacrifice of the few. The extreme subjectivism
of this outlook is, the author believes, strongly supported by
the work of the physical relativitists, and he endeavours to show
that it in no way runs counter to the teaching of the synoptic
Gospels. But his determination ruthlessly to tear away all those
accretions with which institutional religion has somewhat obscured
primitive Christianity, may possibly raise a protest from orthodox
churchmen.
The book is no mere splitting of metaphysical hairs, but a sincere
attempt to justify the extreme idealism which the author has
advocated and which he has put into actual practice in dealing
with industrial and political problems. Indeed, he expressly
disclaims any skill or training in metaphysics, and describes in
the simplest and clearest language possible what, for better or
for worse, is the faith of his generation.
GERMAN STRATEGY IN THE GREAT
WAR.
By Brevet Lieut.-Colonel PHILIP NEAME, V.C., D.S.O.,
Royal Engineers.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. With numerous Maps. 10s. 6d. net.
The author has based this book on lectures he gave recently
to officers at the Staff College, Camberley. Although intended
primarily for military students, it is a work of absorbing interest
for the general reader. In fourteen short chapters, Colonel Neame
discusses the strategical operations of each phase of the war, out¬
lining the plans of the General Staff, describing the actual move¬
ments that took place and indicating the causes of success or
failure. His estimate of the characters of the different commanders
and their influence on the course of events is most illuminating,
and the book is full of suggestive inquiries as to how far the issues
would have been affected had different dispositions been made.
There is a valuable series of seventeen carefully prepared maps,
specially drawn to illustrate the critical phases of the campaigns,
and it is confidently anticipated that the work will form an invalu¬
able hand-book for all students of strategy in the Great War for
many years to come.
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
13
OVER THE BALKANS AND SOUTH RUSSIA.
BEING THE HISTORY OF NO. 47 SQUAD¬
RON, ROYAL AIR FORCE.
By H. A. JONES, M.C.
With an Introduction by Air Vice-Marshal Sir W. G. H.
SALMOND, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. With Maps and Illustrations.
10s. 6d. net.
Squadron No. 47 has a record of a high standard of efficiency.
The Squadron tackled whole-heartedly any job that came its way.
And those jobs were diverse. It was formed at Beverley in May,
1916, and left for Macedonia in September of that year. For the
next three years, in the Balkans and South Russia, it had little
rest. Its work, under the extraordinary conditions which marked
the progress of the Macedonian Campaign, is here told in detail,
with many intimate little pen pictures of people who played their
part and passed on.
The story of the Battle of Doiran, as it is here written, will, it
is hoped, do something towards ensuring justice for a singularly
fine feat of British arms.
After the convention with Bulgaria was signed, No. 47 was
ordered against the Turks in the direction of Constantinople. But
Turkey also went out of the war. Then came Denikin's campaign
against the Bolsheviks. Once more 47 was on the move. The
story of that ill-fated campaign is told briefly but clearly. Briga¬
dier-General A. C. Maund, C.B.E., D.S.O., who commanded the
Air Force in South Russia, writes of this part of the history, " It
is one of the most accurate descriptions I have ever read."
By the courtesy of the Air Ministry, the book is based on official
records, and consequently forms a contribution to the authenticated
literature on the war.
THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEA IN FRANCE,
1789-1871.
By GODFREY ELTON,
Fellow op Queen's College, Oxford.
One Volume. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
This book develops a theory of the essential character of the
French Revolution and of the revolutionary outbreaks of 1830,
14 Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
1848 and 1871, which we believe has not been hitherto presented
as a distinct thesis and made the subject of separate treatment.
Mr. Elton points out that all historians of the Revolution have
handled it as though the Revolution and the general history of
France were interchangeable terms, and have thus in his opinion
obscured its real character. He maintains on the other hand that
it is possible to disengage the true essence of the Revolution from
the general history of the time, and by so doing to make clear who
were the actual authors of the Revolution, their motives and aims,
and the permanent results which they in fact achieved. He applies
his method with unshrinking thoroughness, e.g., passing by the
conflict with the Church as irrelevant in tracing out the story of
the Revolution, though of vast importance as a part of general
history. His conclusions have a logic and a lucidity which give
the book an absorbing interest. One of its most striking features
is the distinction on which Mr. Elton insists between the revolu¬
tionary ideas of 1789, and the new economic or socialist revolution
attempted in 1848 and again in 1871. This portion of the story
brings us into touch with the most vital and urgent problems of
modern politics.
TRENTAREMI AND OTHER MOODS.
By the Riqht Hon. Sir J. RENNELL RODD, G.C.B.
Author of " The Violet Crown," " Ballads of the Fleet," etc.
One Volume. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.
A new volume of Poems by Sir Rennell Rodd will be welcome
to the many readers who admire his previous work in this sphere.
Trentaremi is the name of a little rock-sheltered bay in the Gulf of
Naples where the Author has a house, and its romantic surround¬
ings have doubtless lent inspiration to his Muse.
IMPROMPTUS.
By MARGARET, RANEE OF SARAWAK.
One Volume. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.
It is to the late W. H. Hudson that we owe the publication of
these graceful and charming sketches from the pen of Margaret,
Ranee of Sarawak. Only a few days before he died, he asked if
she had done anything towards putting them into book form,
and repeated the apt lines, which are quoted in the Foreword :—
What are thoughts ?
But birds that fly.
What are words ?
But traps to catch them by.
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements. 15
In the pages of this small book are collected thoughts on a wide
variety of subjects, the connecting thread being an intense sympathy
with nature in all its forms. The author sees life as a highway
on which one encounters one's fellow-wayfarers, and cries them
greeting : and by wayfarers are meant not only men and women,
but the creatures who also claim our kinship. Who that reads
this book will forget Isopel and her horse ; the dog Jack, the parrot
who pleaded so persistently to be taken from the confines of a
London shop to the freer life instinct told him this friend would
give him ; or the lonely swan (perhaps the most charming of all
the sketches). In all life this kinship throbs. When the Ranee
weaves a romance around the carven figure of a woman long since
dead ; when she watches the sap rising in the trees at spring¬
time, the same faith is hers—that life and love never pass away
for ever.
AN ATTRACTIVE NEW NOVEL.
THE GATES ARE OPEN.
By J. CRANSTON NEVILL.
Author op "Ring Up the Curtain," etc.
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
In this, his third novel, Mr. Nevill has given us a piece of work
of great psychological interest. He writes with ease : he develops
his subject skilfully : his characters are not mere abstractions,
but real human beings who claim our sympathy. It is a book that
will make a wide appeal, and especially to music-lovers, for Mr.
Nevill writes of music with that sympathetic insight that belongs
only to the true musician.
Noel Lane possesses more than his share of the good things of
life—youth, good looks, and a musical ability which just falls short
of genius. His agent, Carl Blumenthal, and his friend, Lady
Hermione Radleigh, are conscious of this lack, but to the former
Noel's talent represents no more than a business asset of consider¬
able value, to be exploited by publicity methods, justifiable or not
justifiable. Lady Hermione sees it as a gift which needs only the
flame of some great emotional experience to transmute it into genius.
Light-heartedly, Noel pursues the way of success, accepting all
the happiness that comes to him so easily—his marriage, his child.
But the heights are not yet reached. Only through travail can the
real self be born. Not until tragedy has touched him—as Lady
Hermione foresaw—can he find fulfilment. What exactly that
tragedy is, it would be unfair to divulge ; suffice it to say that
Mr. Nevill works up to his climax in a masterly manner, and that
his story holds our attention to the end.
16
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
A FIRST NOVEL BY A NEW WRITER.
SOFT GOODS.
By OSWALD H. DAVIS.
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Mr. Davis, in this, his first novel, has achieved a remarkable
piece of work, original in outlook, sincere and exact in presentation.
He shows us life from a new view-pointr—from behind the counter
—and shows it with almost uncanny vividness.
Brian Leagold is the son of a provincial draper. Endowed with
an appreciation of the beauty in life and with some literary ability,
his ambition is to make a name for himself in the world of letters.
But the prosaic needs of existence force him to earn money by more
assured methods, and, as a means to an end, he enters his own
shop. Here humiliation awaits him. Dismayed to find himself
inferior to his own shop-assistants, he struggles for mastery over
the multifarious intricacies of the trade—the nice distinction
between one material and another, the hieroglyphic markings on
a hosiery packet. And gradually he finds his self-imposed task
is absorbing all his energies. An excursion into the literary world
only disillusions him : journalism, he finds, is but another form
of trade, " like cutting and selling bacon, only without the profits."
He discovers the fascination of watching from behind his counter
the ebb and flow of real life, and frankly he admits that trade
has claimed him.
Mr. Davis' story rivets the attention. The reader himself seems
to move in Brian's world ; to watch with him the life of the pro¬
vincial city ; to see through his eyes the " commonness " of the
women-kind with whom he is forced to mix : to feel with him their
allurement, while candidly admitting their vulgarity.
Mr. Davis set out to present the persistent everyday realities of
life warring against the creations of the imagination, and brilliantly
has he achieved his task. Unusual, vivid, well-written, interesting
—such is his story.
EDWIN BALMER'S LATEST NOVEL.
KEEBAN.
By EDWIN BALMER.
Author of " The Breath of Scandal," etc.
One Volume. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
All who enjoyed that fine novel " The Breath of Scandal " will
turn expectantly to Mr. Balmer's new book " Keeban." And they
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements. 17
will not be disappointed. It is a thrilling tale of mystery, written
with all the author's customary vigour.
Who is Keeban ? That is what Steve Fanneal wanted to know :
what Jerry Fanneal, as the person most concerned, set forth to
find out. Was it a case of dual personahty or merely one of mistaken
identity ? And it all happened because a small child in a Chicago
park strayed from its mother ; strayed from the " underworld " of
that city to a " marble mansion " on Astor Street.
It would be unfair to unfold here the solution of the mystery.
Suffice it to say that there is not a dull moment in Mr. Balmer's
book. It has all the excitement and surprises of a cinema film, and
may be best described as being " full of punches." To all who like
a good story, well told, we recommend " Keeban " and can assure
the reader that the book, once begun, will not be dropped until it
is finished.
ANOTHER INTERESTING FIRST NOVEL.
GABRIEL QUELFORD.
By ARTHUR HOUGHAM.
One Volume. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Mr. Hougham is a new writer whose work the discerning critic
will watch with interest, for he gives promise of great things. This,
his first book, has a simplicity, a freshness and a reality that lift
it well above the average novel. His diction is clear and decisive :
time after time he hits on an exact Tightness of expression, or on
some fresh poetic simile that lingers in the memory : his characters
are beings of flesh and blood—Gabriel, Gabriel's mother, Raven the
agent, Cecily—to meet them in the pages of Mr. Hougham's book
is to meet them in real life.
Gabriel Quelford, when we first encounter him, is a farm lad,
illiterate and uncouth. Stirred by longings for something he
cannot even put a name to, he rebels at life's tyranny which has
bound him to " the same thing, the same thing and the same thing
again " : had he known the word " monotony " he would have
used it. One day he sees a stranger striding over the hill: a
" gentleman," who seems to possess all that he himself lacks—
freedom, knowledge, outward seemliness. Ambition wakes in
Gabriel: his formless desires take shape : one day he will be as
that stranger. How bit by bit he attains his ideal, only to find
disillusionment: how at the last comes love, love for a woman of
the class he has alternately envied and despised, and with love,
content, Mr. Hougham shows with masterly skill.
18
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
A CHARMING CORNISH PASTORAL.
JACYNTH.
By F. T. WAWN.
Author of "This Masterdillo," "The Joyful Years," etc.
One Volume. Grown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
Readers of " The Masterdillo " will delight in welcoming another
book from the pen of Mr. F. T. Wawn. His writing has a flavour
all its own, and in " Jacynth " he proves himself to have lost none
of that whimsicality and freshness that distinguished his earlier
novels.
Jacynth Humphreys is a notable creation : a character of rare
charm and vitality : a heroine for whom the clean, open country
makes a fit setting. The daughter of a Harley Street doctor, we
find her, in the late years of the war, working as a land-girl in a little
Cornish village. As a sharer of their toils, she is brought into close
touch with the countryfolk, all of whom seem to have stepped
straight from their village into the pages of Mr. Wawn's book.
She attracts the notice of one Jasper Jones, a 1915 pensioner,
with an unromantic name, a lame foot, a taste for the classics, and
a love for all creatures great and small. The growth of love between
these two, so far apart socially, so close in sympathies, is described
with rare delicacy—the shy approach, the gradual yielding, the
fulfilment.
Mr. Wawn's characters always have just that touch of " differ¬
ence " which constitutes that intangible thing, charm. He writes
of them with reality, but reality tempered with a fragrant senti¬
ment : for this reason " Jacynth " comes as a welcome relief from
those numberless novels that insist only on life's ugly side.
A FIRST NOVEL OF GREAT PROMISE.
THE SILKEN SCARF.
By L. C. HOBART. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
" Writers of readable fiction have enlisted a promising recruit
in Miss L. C. Hobart. There are indications in the book of a real
talent for description, and clear evidences of a skilful use of dia¬
logue."—Liverpool Post.
" Miss L. C. Hobart has a good many qualities that should make
for popular success. Above all, she can tell a story : an old-
fashioned gift, but one that is very necessary. Her story moves.
She stresses the emotional note, as she stresses the descriptive
note here and there, but she does contrive to convey the emotion
and the scene to her readers."—Birmingham Post.
Edioard Arnold & Co.'8 Autumn Announcements. 19
THE BREATH OF SCANDAL.
By EDWIN BALMER. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
" This novel ia a fine piece of work, very carefully written and
most interesting to read. The scene of the scandal is a suburb
of Chicago, and the protagonist is a prominent business man cursed
with a wife who cares for nothing but a steady climb up the social
ladder. And so there is another lady in the background. Un¬
fortunate, but not difficult to understand. But there is also a
daughter. When her eyes are opened—well, that is Mr. Balmer's
story, and very well he tells it."—The Bystander.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED VOLUMES.
THE LIFE OF JAMESON.
By IAN COLVIN. Second Imp. Two Vols. 32s. net.
" A work that springs clear from the ruck of conventional
memoirs. This book is an adventure. Its galloping movement,
the brilliancy of its word painting, the audacity of its similes, its
fire and sarcasm, the supreme daring of its ' imaginary conversa¬
tions ' between the protagonists of the drama, combine to make
it unique among modern biographies."—The Times.
ALFRED YARROW: HIS LIFE AND WORK.
By ELEANOR C. BARNES (LADY YARROW).
many coloured and other illustrations. 10s. 6d. net.
"We get a picture of a man who carved out his way by steady
application, fair dealing, and innate engineering skill, to the estab¬
lishment of a great undertaking that has become famous all over
the world."—The Times.
" The book is a great and inspiring story. It is a triumph of
good writing and excellent compilation."—Glasgow Herald.
" One of those books that act upon one like a mental tonic.
There is something wonderfully bracing about this vigorous,
great-hearted personality."—Truth.
THE STRANGER AND OTHER POEMS.
By BRYCE McMASTER. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
" Mr. McMaster gives us charming lyrics expressing a delightful
personality."—Morning Post.
" His sense of the felicitous word, his real delight in natural
beauty, and his discernment of poetic imagery in ordinary things
give a distinction to each of these poems that is reminiscent of
Aubrey de Vere at his best."—Freeman's Journal.
20
Edward Arnold & Co.'s Autumn Announcements.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED.
BEASTS, MEN AND GODS.
By FERDINAND OSSENDOWSKI. Demy 8vo. Fourth
Impression. 12s. 6d. net.
" It would be difficult to imagine anything more thrilling than
this mysterious and astounding book."—Spectator.
"It is the most wonderful book of warlike adventure which has
appeared for many a long year."—Morning Post.
" The most extraordinary book of travel and adventure that
this generation is likely to produce."—Outlook.
LETTERS ON PRACTICAL BANKING.
By JOHN BRUNTON, Author of " Bankers and Borrowers."
7s. 6d. net.
" It is, in fact, a modern successor to Rae's ' Country Banker,'
and, in our opinion, not an unworthy successor to this banking
classic. Mr. Brunton treats his subject from the point of view of
the shrewd man of business rather than of the law student, and
it is for this reason that the book succeeds where nearly all text¬
books fail. He is particularly interesting in his treatment of
balance sheets. Altogether the book is one to be heartily com¬
mended."—Journal of the Institute of Bankers.
THE MORAL SELF: AN INTRODUCTION
TO ETHICS <M0DERN EDUCATOR'S
LIBRARY.)
By A. K. WHITE and A. MACBEATH, Lecturers in Moral
Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Crown 8vo.
6s. net.
SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY.
By MARGARET DRUMMOND, Lecturer on Psychology at
the Edinburgh Provincial Training College. Author of
"The Dawn of Mind," etc. 4s. 6d. net.
" Miss Drummond writes with the double knowledge of the
scientist and the child lover, and her book will be found useful
and interesting by many mothers."—The Times.
London: Edward Arnold & Co., 41 & 43 Maddox Street, W.l.