Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/546

 442 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. the Egyptian ports flying the British flag. The next in importance are Austria and France, both ranking before Egypt herself, whose flag covers little more than nine per cent, of local traffic. Public Instructtox. Of late years education has received a considerable impulse, although most of the Mussulman schools are still mere kuttdbs attached to the mosques, and in which instruction is limited to reading and writing and the recitation of passages from the Koran. Besides the primary establishments there are several high schools, in which, as in the University of El-Azhar, courses of mathematics and jurispru- dence are added to the general curriculum. Since the time of Mohammed Ali elementary schools on the European model were founded in some of the large towns, but most of these establishments have been closed and replaced by institutions opened or supported by the various European colonics and religious communities. The Egyptian Govermnent has also endeavoured to keep pace with the European States by founding higher and special schools for secondary instruction. Moreover, there are at Cairo a medical college, a polytechnic establishment, and other schools specially devoted to the teaching of law, the mechanical arts, languages, mensuration, and similar branches of practical knowledge. Nevertheless, most young men anxious to prosecute their studies in the higher departments of science, generally prefer to finish their course in the European colleges. Of modern European languages French is the most widely diffused in Egypt ; but, under the new administration, the budget of public instruction has undergone retrenchment, especially at the cost of the French teachers and professors. This step would seem to have been adopted for the purpose of sooner or later excluding the French language altogether from the civil and military educational establish- ments of the country. Government. The government of Egypt still practically remains what it has ever been — almost a pure despotism. According to the accepted political tradition, the only right enjoyed by the mass of the people is that of paying the imposts and obeying the law ; but, by a singular complication, caused by the action of a thousand foreign intrigues and rivalries, the Egyptians themselves scarcely know whom to regard as their true masters. Hence they have nothing to do except resign themselves to a situation from which there is no escape, repeating the wliile the old Arab sa}nng, " The people are like the grain of sesame, which is ground so long as it yields oil." * Ofiicially, the ruler of Egypt is a prince of the family of Mohammed Ali, bearing the title of Khedive, which implies a rank somewhat intermediate between
 * Ueiniicb £itep)ian, " Dm heutige ,£gyptcn."