University, married, and settled down to teaching. His salary was small, and his affairs were further complicated by the long illness of his wife, who died in 1878. In 1881, two years after his second marriage, he left Cambridge, and joined the staff of the Standard to write on non-political subjects. He was called to the English bar in 1874. Murder Early in 1882 Palmer was asked by the government to go to the East and assist the Egyptian expedition by his influence over the Arabs of the El-Tih desert. He was instructed, apparently, to prevent the Arab sheikhs from joining the Egyptian rebels and to secure their non-interference with the Suez Canal. He went to Gaza without an escort; made his way safely through the desert to Suez, an exploit of singular boldness; and was highly successful in his negotiations with the Bedouin. He was appointed interpreter-in-chief to the force in Egypt, and from Suez he was again sent into the desert with Captain William Gill and Flag-Lieutenant Harold Charrington to procure camels and gain the allegiance of the sheikhs by considerable presents of money. On this journey he and his companions were led into an ambush and murdered (August 1882). Their remains, recovered after the war by the efforts of Sir Charles (then Colonel) Warren, now lie in St Paul's Cathedral. Works Books According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Palmer's highest qualities appeared in his travels, especially in the heroic adventures of his last journeys. His brilliant scholarship is displayed rather in the works he wrote in Persian and other Eastern languages than in his English books, which were generally written under pressure. His scholarship was wholly Eastern in character, and lacked the critical qualities of the modern school of Oriental learning in Europe. All his works show a great linguistic range and very versatile talent; but he left no permanent literary monument worthy of his powers." His chief writings are Oriental Mysticism (1867) The Desert of the Exodus (part 1) (1871) and (part 2) Poems of Beha-ed-Din (Arabic and English, 1876–1877) Arabic Grammar (1874) Jerusalem, the city of Herod and Saladin (1871), by Walter Besant and Palmer (the latter wrote the part taken from Arabic sources) Persian Dictionary (1876) and English and Persian Dictionary (posthumous, 1883) A translation of the Qur'an (1880) for the Sacred Books of the East series. He was also an editor of