Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt | Page 2

original of 'Donovan Pasha' was I shall never say, but he was
real. There is, however, in the House of Commons today a young and
active politician once in the Egyptian service, and who bears a most
striking resemblance to the purely imaginary portrait which Mr. Talbot
Kelly, the artist, drew of the Dicky Donovan of the book. This young
politician, with his experience in the diplomatic service, is in manner,
disposition, capacity, and in his neat, fine, and alert physical frame, the
very image of Dicky Donovan, as in my mind I perceived him; and
when I first saw him I was almost thunderstruck, because he was to me
Dicky Donovan come to life. There was nothing Dicky Donovan did or
said or saw or heard which had not its counterpart in actual things in
Egypt. The germ of most of the stories was got from things told me, or
things that I saw, heard of, or experienced in Egypt itself. The first
story of the book--'While the Lamp Holds out to Burn'--was suggested
to me by an incident which I saw at a certain village on the Nile, which
I will not name. Suffice it to say that the story in the main was true.
Also the chief incident of the story, called 'The Price of the
Grindstone--and the Drum', is true. The Mahommed Seti of that story
was the servant of a friend of mine, and he did in life what I made him
do in the tale. 'On the Reef of Norman's Woe', which more than one
journal singled out as showing what extraordinary work was being
done in Egypt by a handful of British officials, had its origin in
something told me by my friend Sir John Rogers, who at one time was
at the head of the Sanitary Department of the Government of Egypt.
I could take the stories one by one, and show the seeds from which this
little plantation of fiction sprang, but I will not go further than to refer
to a story called 'Fielding Had an Orderly', the idea of which was
contained in the experience of a British official whose courage was as
cool as his wit, and both were extremely dangerous weapons, used at
times against those who were opposed to him. When I read a book like

'Said the Fisherman', however, with its wonderfully intimate
knowledge of Oriental life and the thousand nuances which only the
born Orientalist can give, I look with tempered pride upon Donovan
Pasha. Still I think that it caught and held some phases of Egyptian life
which the author of 'Said the Fisherman' might perhaps miss, since the
observation of every artist has its own idiosyncrasy, and what strikes
one observer will not strike another.

A FOREWORD
It is now twelve years since I began giving to the public tales of life in
lands well known to me. The first of them were drawn from Australia
and the Islands of the Southern Pacific, where I had lived and roamed
in the middle and late Eighties. They appeared in various English
magazines, and were written in London far from the scenes which
suggested them. None of them were written on the spot, as it were. I
did not think then, and I do not think now, that this was perilous to their
truthfulness. After many years of travel and home-staying observation I
have found that all worth remembrance, the salient things and scenes,
emerge clearly out of myriad impressions, and become permanent in
mind and memory. Things so emerging are typical at least, and
probably true.
Those tales of the Far South were given out with some prodigality.
They did not appear in book form, however; for, at the time I was
sending out these Antipodean sketches, I was also writing--far from the
scenes where they were laid--a series of Canadian tales, many of which
appeared in the 'Independent' of New York, in the 'National Observer',
edited by Mr. Henley, and in the 'Illustrated London News'. By accident,
and on the suggestion of my friend Mr. Henley, the Canadian tales
'Pierre and his People' were published first; with the result that the
stories of the Southern Hemisphere were withheld from publication,
though they have been privately printed and duly copyrighted. Some
day I may send them forth, but meanwhile I am content to keep them in
my own care.

Moved always by deep interest in the varied manifestations of life in
different portions of the Empire, five or six years ago I was attracted to
the Island of Jersey, in the Channel Sea, by the likeness of the origin of
her people with that of the French-Canadians. I went to live at St.
Heliers for a time, and there wrote a novel called 'The