sary in
this rough sketch to discuss the rights and wrongs or the general
international origin of the British occupation of Egypt; the degree of
praise or blame to be given to the Khedive, who was the nominal ruler,
or to Arabi, the Nationalist leader, who for a time seized the chief
power in his place. Kitchener's services in the operations by which
Arabi was defeated were confined to some reconnaissance work
immediately preceding the bombardment of Alexandria; and the problem
with which his own personality became identified was not that of the
Government of Egypt, but of the more barbaric power beyond, by which
Egypt, and any powers ruling it, came to be increasingly imperilled.
And what advanced him rapidly to posts of real responsibility in the
new politics of the country was the knowledge he already had of wilder
men and more mysterious forces than could be found in Egyptian courts
or even Egyptian camps. It was the combination, of which we have
already spoken, of detailed experience and almost eccentric sympathy.
In practice it was his knowledge of Arabic, and still more his
knowledge of Arabs.

There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The
great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the
very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the
emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity,
something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of
God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure
of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own
opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled
up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded
it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort
of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse
can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no
priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless
prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is
only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these
the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and
whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious
successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These
great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a
militarism almost as famous and for