s later. On the commencement of the rebellion
the British Government sent out Burton's old friend Professor Palmer to
the Sinaitic peninsula with a view to winning the tribes in that part of
the British side, and so preventing the destruction of the Suez Canal.
The expedition was atrociously planned, and the fatal mistake was also
made of providing it with L3,000 in gold. Palmer landed at Jaffa at the
end of June, and then set out via Gaza across the "Short Desert," for
Suez, where he was joined by Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington. In
fancy one hears him as he enters on his perilous journey asking himself
that question, which was so absurdly frequent in his lips, "I wonder
what will happen?"

It is customary for travellers, before entering the Arabian wastes,
to hire a Ghafir, that is, a guide and protector. Palmer, instead of
securing a powerful chief, as the case required, selected a man of small
account named Matr Nassar, and this petty shaykh and his nephew were the
expedition's only defence.

The doomed party left Suez on August 8th. On the 10th at midnight they
were attacked by the Bedawin. "Palmer expostulated with his assassins;
but all his sympathetic facility, his appeals to Arab honour and
superstition, his threats, his denunciations, and the gift of eloquence
which had so often prevailed with the wild men, were unheeded." As
vainly, Matr Nassar [371] covered his proteges with his aba [372] thus
making them part of his own family. On the evening of August 11th the
captives were led to the high bank of the Wady Sudr, where it received
another and smaller fiumara yet unnamed, and bidden to prepare for
death. Boldly facing his enemies, Palmer cursed them [373] in Biblical
language, and in the name of the Lord. But while the words were in his
mouth, a bullet struck him and he fell. His companions also fell in cold
blood, and the bodies of all three were thrown down the height [374]--a
piteous denouement--and one that has features in common with the tragic
death scene of another heroic character of this drama--General Gordon.

The English Government still believed and hoped that Palmer has escaped;
and on October 17th it sent a telegram to Burton bidding him go and
assist in the search for his old friend.

Like the war horse in the Bible, the veteran traveller shouted "Aha!"
and he shot across the Mediterranean like a projectile from a cannon.
But he had no sooner reached Suez than he heard--his usual lu