Early in the month of June 1882, when it became evident that the Egyptian revolt must be put down by force, two great causes of anxiety arose: (1) the safety of the Suez Canal; (2) the amount of support which Arabi was likely to receive, and the allies on whom he could depend. These two questions were of course closely connected with each other; and it is now known that as regards the second of them, Arabi hoped to obtain the support of the Arabs of the Desert on both sides of the Canal, and by their aid to seize, and, if possible, to destroy, the Canal itself. These Arabs, it is important to recollect, rise or remain quiet at the command of their sheikhs. The sheikhs, therefore, had to be won over. This he hoped to accomplish by the assistance of the governors of the frontier castles of El Arish on the Mediterranean, Kulat Nakhl, Suez, Akabah, and Tor on the west coast of the Sinaitic Peninsula, all of whom, at the beginning of the rebellion, were his frantic partisans. He had therefore an easy means of access to the Bedouin sheikhs. The number of men whom they could put into the field was estimated by Palmer himself at about 50,000; but this was not all. It was feared that if a single tribe joined Arabi, it would be followed by all the others, and that the Bedouin of the Syrian and Sinaitic deserts might presently be joined by their kinsfolk of Arabia and the Great Desert, a countless multitude. It was on the evening of Saturday, June 24, that Captain Gill, whose unhappy fate it was to perish with Palmer on the expedition which they planned together, was sent to him from the Admiralty, to ask him for information respecting ‘the character, the power, the possible movement, of the Sinai Arabs.’ The interview was short, but long enough for Palmer to sketch the position of affairs, and to convince Gill that a man whom the Government could thoroughly trust must be sent out to arrange matters personally with the sheikhs. When Gill had left, Palmer said to his wife, ‘They must have a man to go to the Desert for them; and they will ask me, because there is nobody else who can go.’ On Monday Captain Gill came again, and the whole question was carefully talked over. ‘It was agreed that no time ought to be lost in detaching the tribes from Arabi, in preventing any injury to the Canal, and in quieting fanaticism, which might assume such proportions as to set the whole East aflame. It now became perfectly evident to Gill that Palmer was the only man who knew the sheikhs, and could be asked to go, and could do the work; it was also perfectly evident to Palmer that he would be urged to undertake this difficult and delicate mission; he had, in fact, already laid himself open by speaking of the ease with which these people may be managed by one who can talk with them. When Gill left him on that Monday morning he was already more than half-persuaded to accept the mission.’