In the days of Empire, the British way of life was carried on with a blithe disregard for local peculiarities and this went hand in hand with a sometimes benevolent, sometimes despotic, belief in the innate inferiority of those under its thumb. In 1900, the Imperial British Army occupied Egypt and, in order to provide sport for the officers, a pack of hounds was shipped out from England to hunt the Egyptian fox. Unfortunately, the desert provides poor cover and, one day, the pack, followed in hot pursuit by the officers, found itself in the garden of the rich and eccentric poet Wilfrid Scarwen Blunt. Attempting to protect the absent Mr Blunt's property, his servants tried to prevent the hunt and were promptly arrested. Mr Blunt objected to the officers' behaviour, both to the government and the press and the matter became quite a scandal.