In appearance Arabi is a tall, strongly-built man; his face is grave, almost stern, but his smile is very pleasant. His photographs reproduce the sternness, but not the smile, and are, I believe, partly responsible for the ready belief which the absurd tales of his ferocity and bloodthirstiness have gained. He always wears the blue Egyptian uniform, the red tarboosh pushed back on his head, and the sword, whose imaginary feats rival those of Excalibur, by his side. ‘I make no more jokes,’ said M. de Blignières, the sharp-tongued Controller, after Arabi had been made Minister of War; ‘Arabi comes to the Council with his big sword on, and I think it better to be silent.’ ‘Arabi drew his sword, threatened the Notables, and told Sultan Pasha he would make his children fatherless and his wife a widow,’ was the story sent to England when the Chamber demanded the right of voting the Budget. It was hardly necessary for the old and childless Sultan Pasha to deny this story altogether when brought to his ears. ‘Arabi flourished his sword and broke several windows,’ cries the hysterical correspondent of an English newspaper later on. As a matter of fact, I believe him to be exceedingly gentle and humane. An English official, one of the fairest of his class, said to me: ‘He has too much of the gentleness of the fellah, and too little of the brute in him to succeed. If he would take lessons in brutality at 100 francs a week, he would have a much better chance of getting on.’ He was for months the almost absolute ruler of Egypt, and even from his enemies comes no story of cruelty or oppression, except that of the torture of the Circassian officers; and having searched the Blue-book laid before Parliament for proof of this, I can only find a despatch from our Minister saying a European gentleman has told him that two natives had told him that they had heard cries proceeding from the prison where the Circassians were confined, from which is inferred that they were being tortured.