Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/18

14 of a puritan moslem party to contrast with the ultra-European ways of his father, then on the throne. The idea was not his own; it may be doubted whether he was capable of conceiving it—his "abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone." It was suggested to him by a foreign adventurer, who had courted and failed to captivate the fancy of Ismail, and who has long since disappeared from the Egyptian scene. But if Tewfik did not originate the idea, he dropped kindly into the scheme, which suited his predilections; and for a brief space the "party" existed. The Khedive Ismail, however, soon found it out; took prompt measures to disperse it, sent the busy foreigner out of the land, and took Prince Tewfik into the Cabinet, as Minister of the Interior, to keep him at once out of the mischief that Satan finds for idle hands, and under the vigilance of his paternal eye.

This is an old story, but even so long ago as the date of it the doctors of Islam had little faith in Tewfik, with all his sanctimonious ways, and his ready quotations from the Koran. Many, indeed, of his own party—especially after the Khedive found it out—condemned him for intriguing against his father. And, apropos of this distrust of the Mahommedan teachers, we remember the impression he produced upon a very great light of Mecca, who after his accession came to Cairo to ask a favour of him. Tewfik welcomed the venerable Sheikh with many old "odd ends stolen forth of holy writ," and much parade of Koranic lore, and his visitor obtained from him all