Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/20

6 But into whatever circle I went, I found that the one absorbing topic was the political state of Egypt. Since I was here six years ago, on my way round the world, great changes had taken place. Ismail the Magnificent was gone, and Tewfik, his son, reigned in his stead. To give the details of these changes would be a long story. A very brief review is sufficient to render intelligible the course of events, which at last has culminated in war.

If we go back to the origin of the troubles in Egypt, we shall find that what the country is suffering to-day is a bitter inheritance from the past. The misgovernment of Ismail Pacha prepared the way for the difficulties and embarrassments of his son, as the excesses of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. prepared the way for the French Revolution.

But let us not be unjust even to Ismail Pacha. He was a man of great ability, and he rendered services to Egypt which should never be forgotten. But for him we should not have the Suez Canal; at least his share in it was as important as that of M. de Lesseps himself: for while the latter furnished the engineering skill, the former furnished the labor; and if the capital came chiefly from Paris, yet no small part came from Cairo. One-quarter of all that the Khedive received through his foreign loans, it is estimated, went into the construction of the Suez Canal, and thus was paid towards a work which was really of far more benefit to England than to Egypt. The Khedive had a noble ambition for his country, which he wished to take rank among the great powers bordering on the Mediterranean. He had vast schemes of national grandeur. To restore the ancient commerce of Alexandria, he spent great sums in enlarging its harbor; he built here and at Port Said long breakwaters against the sea, and piers and docks and wharves; he had steamers crossing the Mediterranean and on the Red Sea; to revive agriculture, he