THE TRAGEDY OF THE KOROSKO

CHAPTER I.


The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in
the papers of the fate of the passengers of the _Korosko_. In these
days of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus,
it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such
importance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that there
were very valid reasons, both of a personal and of a political nature,
for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number of
people at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in a
provincial paper, but was generally discredited. They have now been
thrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from the
sworn statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, of the Army and Navy
Club, and from the letters of Miss Adams, of Boston, Mass.

These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer, of the
Egyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret Government inquiry at
Cairo. Mr. James Stephens has refused to put his version of the matter
into writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him, and no
correction or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that he
has not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement of fact, and that
any objection which he may have to their publication depends rather upon
private and personal scruples.