It was heartrending to me, after what I had gone through, to return to my own flesh and blood to be spurned and shunned as the incarnation of everything despicable in a man. I, who had defied my captors and had looked for death, wished for it more now that I was amongst my own people; but fortunately the persecution I was subjected to, added to my change of |291| life, caused me to break down completely, and when I recovered from my delirium it was to find myself in the hands of a few friends. Do not think that I had worried myself over what was mere idle gossip; all the charges were made in sincerity, and this owing to the influential quarters whence they were emanating. A few days after receiving the generous offer of my publishers, I was told that I was a prisoner of war, and as such was debarred from entering into any engagements; moreover, my experiences were said to be the property of the War Office. Later on, I was told that, in consideration of the subscriptions raised by a newspaper group in England for the purpose of effecting my escape some years ago, I was to write my experiences for the benefit of the subscribers. Then, after keeping me waiting weeks for a reply, they offered me £100—a sum not sufficient to pay the guides already in Cairo—and asked me to repay them the moneys they had lent me while in prison. When in reply to this offer I pointed out the ruined condition I am in, and offered to repay the subscribers the monies spent from the money I am to receive for my book, I was first threatened with an injunction upon the book, and then with the publication of “interesting” disclosures (?) concerning me. When H.R.H. Duke Johann Albrecht, the Regent of Mecklenburg, graciously writes to me himself, instructing me to call at the German Consul-General’s, in Cairo, for some money sent there to “give me a new start in life,” I am met, when I do present myself, with accusations of ingratitude and broken |292| engagements towards people whose names I had never heard of. However, these people wrote disclaimers to the _Times_, saying that they knew nothing of the claims made against me in their names; yet, in spite of the disclaimers, the money was impounded for about five months in all, and then some claims paid from it, but on whose account I am still ignorant.