Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/21

Rh dug canals for irrigation to carry the "sweet water" of the Nile to every part of the Delta; he encouraged the raising of cotton and of sugar; while his railroads crossing the country, with trains of cars taking the place of caravans of camels, gave to ancient Egypt, with its temples and its Pyramids, the aspect of modern civilization. Ismail is no longer ruler of Egypt, but these works remain, the enduring monuments of his services to his country.

Could he but have stopped here, he would have had a place in history as one of the greatest rulers of his time. But when could an Oriental prince or potentate be content with labors for the public good? He must needs also surround himself with magnificence and splendor. And so Ismail began building palaces with the same recklessness of cost with which Louis XIV. began building Versailles, only that he had not the wealth of France behind him.

It has been my fortune, or misfortune, to witness the financial collapse of both Turkey and Egypt. I was in Constantinople in the Autumn of 1875, just after Turkey had announced to Europe that she could no longer pay the interest on her bonds. The wild extravagance of the Sultan, wasting untold sums in building palaces, and keeping up his enormous domestic establishment, could have but one issue. To be sure, he paid as long as he could — that is, as long as he could make new debts to pay old ones, or even borrow enough to pay the interest. But a time came when the bankers of London and Paris and Amsterdam were no longer willing to throw their millions into the Bosphorus, and then "there was quickly an end."

The disaster to Turkey was naturally followed by that of Egypt. The credit of both rested on the same hollow foundation. Hardly had we crossed the Mediterranean before we saw the same ruin impending in Cairo that had already come in Constantinople. A long career of