“_20th Feb._--Wrote letters all the morning and then went to call on Prince Agha Khan, where I met a Persian Mulvi of repute, and had a long talk about the Mahdi. This reverend gentleman would not hear of his being the real Mahdi, who, of course, ought to be a Shiah, but they seemed to think him better than English rule in Egypt. I could not get the Prince to give a decided opinion one way or the other. His father was head of a sect in Persia, and was driven out with some thousands of his followers, and they settled at Bombay, where he was considered to the day of his death a saintly personage. His son inherits something of his position, and is visited by many devotees from Persia, but he is inclined to worldly interests, and thinks a great deal about horse racing. He showed me his stud, and I am glad to say has agreed to send his best horse Kuchkolla to Newmarket for the Arab race.
“Mohammed Ali Rogay and Ali Bey came to dine with us. We discussed the condition of Turkey, the Sultan, and the prospect in Egypt. Ali Bey is of opinion that the fortune of Islam is bound up with the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, but he would see a new system introduced into the administration, for the Mohammedan population was dying out. ‘There are no young men in the villages,’ he said, ‘none but old ones left.’ I could not, however, get anything more definite out of him than a suggestion that the personal power of the Sultan should be curtailed, and the Government intrusted to a Council, that the official language should be Arabic instead of Turkish, and that the revenue collected in the provinces should be spent in the provinces.
“_22nd Feb._--Gordon’s proclamation in favour of the slave trade has been fully confirmed, and Gladstone’s later denial seems only to have been a dodge in view of the Vote of Censure, which has been thrown out by a majority of eighty-one. On the whole I am glad of it, as, though the poetical justice would have been admirable, we should lose our game altogether just now with the Tories, as they would certainly annex Egypt and invade the Soudan.
“I went to call on Malabari, and afterwards to the stables, where I had a long conversation with Abd-el-Rahman, partly about the condition of the inhabitants of Bombay, but principally about horses. We talked of Rogay, who, Abd-el-Rahman says, makes two mistakes. He is a disciple of Seyd Ahmed (he told me so himself the other day), and he mixes himself up with politics. This, Abd-el-Rahman deplores. But they are friends, and he says he is a good-hearted man. Abd-el-Rahman is a vice-chairman or something of the Anjuman i Islam, and will attend the meeting which is now put off till Friday. His heart, however, is in horses, as becomes an Arab and a horse dealer, and we soon got back to them. Abd-el-Rahman tells me the Nejd horses take longer to get into condition when they come over poor than the Anazeh horses. He says three quarters of the racing Arabs are bay, which is certainly the case at present, as The Doctor is the only first-class gray horse now running. Among the ponies this is not so much so.