Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/18

xvi with the reservation already made, the fellahìn, whether ruled in chief from Baghdad, Cairo or Constantinople, have been subject to an Oriental form of government, rough in the hand but genial in the head, whichy allowing great liberty to the individual, has furnished rich material for song and story. A vast majority of the stories here collected have the keen Oriental flavour of this period.

In the fourth decade of the last century the Pasha of Egypt, Muhammed Ali, rebelled against his sovereign lord the Sultan; when an Egyptian force under Ibrahìm Pasha invaded Syria and occupied it for some time. Owing to French influence European ideas had already made some way among the governing class in Egypt, and the radicalism of Ibrahim made his rule offensive to the conservative notables of Syria. Still he was the kind of tyrant to appeal most strongly to Orientals, heavy-handed but humorous, knowing how to impart to his decisions that quaint proverbial savour which dwells in the mind of the people, and makes good stories; and his fame among the fellahin is that of a second Solomon (see “Detective Stories,” sect. ii. chap. v.). With him begins the age of progress in the Holy Land. Since the withdrawal of the Egyptian troops in 1840, things have moved fast in a European direction; till there is now such an inflow of civilisation and education as to threaten the very source of folk-lore,