While General Logerot halts, or is halted, the preparations for
the defence of Kairouan continue. The expedition will be harassed all along its march of a hundred miles, and the Arabs say that 40,000 men will be killed in defence of the Holy City. All Orientals boast, generally from ignorance, but the French Government is clearly annoyed at the attitude of Turkey. The Sultan has landed thirty-nine field guns, eleven Krupp's fortress guns, and six mortars at Tripoli, with their ammunition, and they will beyond doubt be used to defend the Holy City. The French Government is exceedingly annoyed, and has directed the Haves Agency to publish these facts, accompanied by strong menaces to the Sultan, under cover of an address—" Tripoli"—which is most impro- bable. It has, moreover, instructed M. Tissot to bring the Sultan to reason, and the language of that exceedingly plain- spoken Ambassador is reported to have been most threatening. As we have elsewhere tried to explain, the Sultan, who is said to be under some delusive hope of support from Germany, can- not give way without risking, or, indeed, losing, his position as Khalif and ex-officio defender of all orthodox Moslem. His natural course is to promise everything, but go on strengthen- ing Kairouan, and the French may be forced to sink the Turkish Fleet. They are not in a mood to be moderate even in Paris, and in Tanis they seem to have been quite carried away by an attack on a railway station, 0 ued Zargha, at a little distance. The Arabs burnt the station-master and his assistants alive, and the French officers are ready for any violence which may look like reprisals.
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