and began his education at Rouen, but after a while was moved to Paris. A few years after this his parents went over to Alexandria in connection with some matter of business, and shortly afterwards his father died there. His mother then married a merchant of Alexandria, Osman Digna by name. This man took a great fancy to his step-son, young George Vinet, and brought him up as a Mohammedan, sending him to complete his education to the military school at Cairo, where he had for his companion Arabi. Here he studied tactics and the operations of war under French officers. It was at this period that his father-in-law migrated to Suakin, where he set up as a general merchant and slave-dealer, and very shortly was doing a very lucrative business. At his father-in-law's death George Vinet continued to carry on the business under the same name. A few years passed, and when the war broke out in Egypt, in 1882, Osman Digna espoused the cause of his old friend and companion, Arabi, and became one of England's bitterest foes as the Mahdi's lieutenant. In appearance Osman Digna is a fine-looking man, tall and well-proportioned, though rather fat. He wears a long black beard, and has lost his left arm. He never gets on a horse, and in the few
