Note 98 — JOURNAL.

“I have ascertained within the last few weeks that the principal agent in the surrender of the city was not Ferratch Pasha, as originally stated, but a certain civilian exile from Egypt who had acted at one time under Arabi as Secretary of the Ministry of Marine. I know the history of this man well, and can vouch for its accuracy, as I often heard it at Cairo when I was there. Four years or so ago Awaan was an honest and zealous employé in the Cadastral Survey under Sir Auckland Colvin—a service which of all others under the Control was the most inefficient, and is now acknowledged to have been so. Awaan, provoked at the waste and mismanagement, one day had the temerity to draw up a memorandum of what he knew and to send it to his chief. The answer was his dismissal. He then appealed to the native press—for there was some liberty in those days—and his grievance made him a hero; and when Arabi came to power he gave him this place as secretary, which he held at Alexandria down to the bombardment. I never heard of his taking any prominent part in the politics of that eventful time, but on Sir Auckland Colvin’s landing he was among the first persons arrested. Lord Charles Beresford tried him by one of his courts-martial and found him guilty of exciting to rebellion, or some such charge. He was handed over to the Circassian tender mercies, and, after seventy-four days in irons in the terrible Borgho prison, he was exiled to Kartoum. He was clearly a political prisoner if ever there was one; and when Lord Dufferin promised us the amnesty at the compromise of Arabi’s trial, I wrote to him recommending Awaan’s case to his special attention, and I have his answer, with a memorandum, curiously enough, by the very Sir Charles Wilson who was afterwards to reap such bitter disappointment at his hands. But Lord Dufferin declined to interfere, and Awaan was left at Kartoum to his revenge. On January 26 it was he who, with the English again at his gates, negotiated its surrender to its Arab deliverer.”—Mr. Wilfred Blunt in a letter to the ‘Times’ of May 4, 1884.—Ed.