otherwise I had powers to hold up the express, for it was more
important to get his stuff than the man himself. At Port Said he had a
chance of seeing me, thanks to the agent's clumsiness, and I had to
shave my beard off and buy a sun-helmet in consequence, for I was
travelling in the same ship along the Canal to see that he did not
communicate with troops on either side of the bank, and on the slightest
suspicion he would have put his stuff over the side. All went smoothly
and he was arrested in Suez roads by plain-clothes men with a sackful of
seditious literature for printing broadcast in India. Of course they
arrested the "ferret" too, as is usual in these cases. I went ashore
with them in the police-launch as a casual traveller and was amused to
hear the agent rating the old man for not having prophesied this mishap
when telling his fortune the night before.

The propagandist was merely interned in a place of security--it was not
our policy to make martyrs of such men, especially when they were _bona
fide_ Ottoman subjects.

I was rather out of touch with the pan-Islamic movement during the
summer of 1915, as my lungs had become seriously affected on the Canal,
and the trouble became so acute that I had to spend two or three months
in the hills of Cyprus. Before I had been there a week the G.O.C. troops
in Egypt cabled for me to return and proceed to Aden as political
officer with troops.

I was too ill then to move and had to cable to that effect. My chagrin
at missing a "show" was much alleviated when I heard what the show was.
As it had a marked effect on the pan-Islamic campaign by enhancing
Turkish prestige, it is not out of place to give some account of it
here.

While I was still on the Canal in February (1915) a "memo" was sent for
my information from Headquarters at Cairo to say that the Turks had
invaded the Aden protectorate at Dhala, where I once served on a
boundary commission.

I noted the fact and presumed that Aden was quite able to cope with the
situation, as the Turks had a most difficult terrain to traverse before
they could get clear of the hills and reach the littoral, while the
hinterland tribes are noted for their combatant instincts and efficiency
in guerilla warfare, besides being anti-Turk. I had, however, in spite
of many years' experience, failed to reckon with Aden apathy. True to
the policy of _laissez faire_ which was inaugurated when our Boundary
Commission withdrew some twelv