Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/56

52 Having to deliver a despatch to Mehemet Ali from Lord Aberdeen, he repaired to the palace later in the day, and was ushered into the hall of audience. In a letter to his wife he describes the scene in these words: — 'At the end of the presence chamber there sat an old man rather short and lame. He scrambled off his ottoman, walking half-way down the room to receive me. Pipes and coffee for His Highness and his brother Viceroy were then produced, all his courtiers being kept standing; and then Artin Bey, whom you may recollect in England, interpreted my limping French into Turkish. The eyes of this old man are very fine and inquisitive; he never took them off me; encouraged me to talk, but said little in reply. I then left Lord Aberdeen's despatch with the Minister, and took my leave.' Such was the portrait of this eminent man.

The next morning the conversation was resumed. The Pasha remarked that up to the age of forty-seven he was unable to read or write, but had subsequently taught himself Arabic. He always consoled himself for every misfortune by the reflection that it was so predestined, or that the loss was a real gain. Thus he praised Lord Palmerston for combining against him to deprive him of Syria and Arabia, saying that these campaigns had required 50,000 men; that the expense was thrown on Egypt; and that when Syria was forced from him by England and the Allied Powers, there was no disgrace in his son Ibrahim's abandoning it, whereby he was able to administer the finances of