SOUTHERN BRANCH, 
 
 UNIVERSITY C-S^ CALIFORNIA, 
 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 ILDS ANCvLtS, CALIF.
 
 PRESENT-DAY EGYPT 
 
 ^itjM
 
 PROCESSIOX 0\ THK SACRED CARPET, CAIRO.
 
 PRESENT-DAY EGYPT 
 
 By 
 
 Frederic Courtland P enfield 
 
 United States Diplomatic Agent and Consul-General 
 to Egypt, 1893-97 
 
 Illustrated by 
 
 PAUL PHILIPPOTEAUX AND R. TALBOT KELLY 
 
 And from Photographs 
 
 " I shall now speak at greater length of Egypt, as 
 it contains more wonders than any other land, and 
 is preeminent above all the countries in the world 
 for works that one can hardly describe." Herodotus 
 
 SUdX 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1899 
 
 8 ^"37
 
 Copyright, 1899 
 By The Century Co. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS.
 
 
 5 O 
 
 TO KATHARINE: 
 
 WIFE, COMRADE, AND CRITIC
 
 IlOS AriCeUES, CAIi. 
 
 Preface 
 
 I STOOD once before a window in Venice 
 wherein an artisan was at work. Arranged 
 before him were smalts and innumerable bits of 
 glass of every hue, some brilliant, many dull, and 
 none suggestive of value or purpose. Apparently 
 following no definite design, the workman seemed 
 to draw mechanically upon the materials at his 
 command, choosing alike from the dull and bright 
 pieces, until it could be seen that the object on 
 which he had been employed, now completed, was a 
 mosaic of attractive pattern — not a masterpiece in 
 any sense, but perfect enough to find a purchaser 
 from among the group of onlookers. 
 
 In fashioning this mosaic volume of information 
 concerning the reawakened Nile country, I may 
 have drawn too generously upon the supply of 
 lusterless material, and dulled naturally brilliant 
 atoms by misplacing them in the pattern. The 
 finished article, I am conscious, is far from a mas- 
 terpiece, and is journalistic rather than literary; 
 but it may still be attractive enough to satisfy the 
 inquiring reader interested to learn about the 
 atoms making up the Egypt of to-day. 
 
 "Present-Day Egypt" is prepared neither for 
 vii
 
 Preface 
 
 the Egyptologist, antiquarian, nor historian : these 
 are favored ah'eady with a bibliography straining 
 the shelves of every library. Aiming at being a dis- 
 cursive budget of information and comment, — 
 social, political, economic, and administrative, — 
 the volume presents a series of faithful pictures 
 of the Egypt that is interesting to the winter 
 visitor, health-seeker, and general reader, desirous 
 of learning something, and not too much, of con- 
 temporary conditions in the oldest country in the 
 world. " Present-Day Egypt " is written in no par- 
 tial or partizan spirit, and advances no theory of 
 the purpose of the Pyramids, nor attempts to ex- 
 plain the riddle of the Sphinx. 
 
 Feedeeic C. Penfield. 
 New York City, September 18, 1899. 
 
 Author's Note. — The poem, " The Rose of Fayum," on pp. 348 and 
 349, is incorporated in this volume through the courtesy of Pi-ofessor Clin- 
 ton Scollard, and of Messrs. Copeland & Day, publishers, Boston. 
 
 Vlll
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGi. 
 
 I IN FASCINATING CAIRO 1 
 
 II IN FASCINATING CAIRO {Contimied) 40 
 
 III ALEXANDRIA, SEAT OF EGYPTIAN COMMERCE . . 78 
 
 IV PARADOXICAL BUT EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATION. 104 
 
 ^V THE EXPANSION OF PRODUCTIVE EGYPT BY IRRI- 
 GATION 145 
 
 VI THE STORY OF THE SUEZ CANAL 184 
 
 VII ISMAIL PASHA AS KHEDIVE AND EXILE . . .218 
 
 VIII TEWFIK PASHA AND THE ARABI REBELLION . . 245 
 
 IX THE PRESENT KHEDIVE AND KHEDIVAL FAMILY. 272 
 
 X GREAT BRITAIN'S POSITION IN EGYPT . . . .298 
 
 XI WINTERING IN EGYPT FOR HEALTH'S SAKE . . 336 
 
 INDEX 36S 
 
 IX
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROCESSION OF THE SACRED CARPET, CAIRO . Frontispiece 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF CAIRO 3 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 PUBLIC LETTER-WRITER (LETTER FROM BIANCA TO 
 
 GIOVANNI) 9 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 MARRIAGE PROCESSION AND SABER DANCE, CAIRO . 17 
 
 From drawing by Paul PMUppoteaux. 
 
 A BURIAL, CAIRO 25 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 A HOWLING DERVISH 31 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 TYPES OF MALE AND FEMALE BEDOUINS . . . .37 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 BRASS-WORKERS AT THE SOUTH GATE OF THE KHAN 
 
 HALIL, CAIRO 43 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 
 WOOD-WORKERS 49 
 
 From photogi-aph by Zangaki. 
 
 WOMEN OF THE NILE 57 
 
 From drawing by Paul Philippoteaux. 
 THE ROSETTA STONE 67 
 
 COURT OF EL-AZHAR, CAIRO 73 
 
 From photograph by Boniils. 
 
 WATER ENTRANCE OF RAS-EL-TEEN PALACE, ALEX- 
 ANDRIA 81 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 PLACE MEHEMET ALI, ALEXANDRIA 87 
 
 From photograph by Zaugaki. 
 
 xi
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NATIVE WOMAN AND CHILD 93 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 CLEOPATRA (FROM THE TEMPLE OF DENDERAH) . . 99 
 THE SPHINX 107 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 AFTER PASSING DRAWBRIDGE, CAIRO 113 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 JIAP OF THE NILE AND NORTHEASTERN AFRICA . . 121 
 
 From drawing by F. E. Pierce. 
 THE PYRAMIDS, SEEN PROM NATIVE VILLAGE . . .129 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 AN OFFICIAL GROUP IN GROUNDS OF THE UNITED 
 STATES diplomatic' AGENCY AND CONSULATE- 
 GENERAL, CAIRO 135 
 
 VISCOUNT CROMER, BRITISH DIPLOMATIC AGENT AND 
 
 CONSUL-GENERAL 141 
 
 From photograph by J. Heyman & Co. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FIRST CATARACT, LOOKING 
 
 SOUTH FROM ASSUAN 149 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 LOG-SWIMMING DOWN THE ASSUAN CATARACT. . . 155 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 
 PHIL^ AS IT IS 161 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 
 PROBABLE APPEARANCE OP THE CATARACT ON THE 
 COMPLETION OF THE DAM 167 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 
 TOURIST-BOAT LEAVING SHELAL FOR THE CATARACT . 173 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 
 NATIVES HAULING A BOAT UP THE "GREAT GATE" . 179 
 
 From drawing by R. Talbot Kelly. 
 
 BRITISH TROOP-SHIP PASSING THROUGH SUEZ CANAL . 189 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 A DAHABIYEH ON THE NILE 197 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 EGYPTIAN PROTOTYPE OF FERRIS WHEEL, HUNDREDS 
 
 OF YEARS OLD 205 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 A SIMPLE FORM OF IRRIGATION 213 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 OBELISK AT HELIOPOLIS 221 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 KOM-OMBOS (RECENTLY EXCAVATED) 227 
 
 xii
 
 List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EXTERIOR OF TEMPLE AT DENDERAH 233 
 
 From photogi'aph by G. Lekegiau & Co. 
 
 THE FUNERAL CORTEGE OF EX-KHEDIVE ISMAIL, IN 
 CAIRO 239 
 
 From photograph by V. Giuutini, Cairo. 
 
 PREDECESSORS OF KHEDR^E ABBAS II 249 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 TULIP COLUMNS AT KARNAK 255 
 
 Prom photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 AVENUE OF SPHINXES AND PYLON, KARNAK . . .261 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 EGYPTIAN BRIDE GOING IN STATE TO NEW HOME . 267 
 
 From photograph by Zaugaki. 
 
 HIS HIGHNESS ABBAS HILMI PASHA II, KHEDIVE OP 
 EGYPT 275 
 
 From photograph by J. Heyman & Co. 
 
 ABDIN PALACE, CAIRO. CITADEL IN , DISTANCE . . 281 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 THE SULTAN'S HIGH COMMISSIONER IN EGYPT, GHAZI 
 
 MOUKHTAR PASHA 287 
 
 From photograph by Abdullah Bros. 
 
 BISCHARINS IN UPPER EGYPT .293 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 LORD KITCHENER, SIRDAR OF THE EGYPTIAN ARMY 
 AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SUDAN . . .301 
 
 A NILE FARM 309 
 
 From photograpli by Edward L. Wilson. 
 
 THE NILE BARRAGE, NEAR CAIRO 317 
 
 AT THE BASE OF CHEOPS 323 
 
 GHIZEREH BANK OF THE NILE, CAIRO 331 
 
 From photograph by Zangaki. 
 
 TEMPLE OF ABU-SIMBEL, NUBIA 339 
 
 From photograph by A. Beato. 
 SCENE IN THE FAYUM 345 
 
 From photograph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 
 LUXOR 353 
 
 ASSUAN 361 
 
 From photogi-aph by G. Lekegian & Co. 
 MAP OF EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 367 
 
 Xlll
 
 Present-Day Egypt
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN FASCINATING CAIRO 
 
 FROM its founding in 969 by the Fatimite 
 califs, as an offshoot of the tented settlement 
 of Fostat, to the present rule of Abbas Pasha, sev- 
 enth khedive, or viceroy, of the dynasty of Mehemet 
 Ali, Cairo— capital of Egypt, metropolis of the 
 African continent, and chief seat of Mohammedan 
 teaching— has a romantic history. Scene of famous 
 exploits of great personages, from Saladin to 
 Napoleon, of sanguinary conflicts between Chris- 
 tianity and Islamism, and the memorable massacre 
 of the Mamelukes ; cradle of religions and cults ; 
 home of the "Arabian Nights" tales; the place 
 where lasting principles of philosophy and science 
 were conceived, and where Bible scenes were laid, 
 Cairo has become the meeting-ground of winter 
 idlers from every clime. 
 
 The visit to Egypt has become almost as essen- 
 tial to Americans — and fully half of the eight thou- 
 sand winter visitors are from the United States—
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 as the pilgrimage of good Mohammedans to Mecca. 
 The Mohammedans' religion takes them but once to 
 the sacred city of the prophet, but pleasure draws 
 those favored by fortune to the Nile capital time 
 after time. Cairo is more than interesting: it is 
 fascinating. The antiquarian, the student, and the 
 savant have always been at home there; and the 
 invalid— real or imaginary — seeking a climate, finds 
 in and about the khedival city the superlative of 
 air and temperature. 
 
 Artists never weary of reproducing Cairo's pic- 
 turesque scenes and vivid colorings. The ether 
 of the skies, the splendor of the setting sun, the 
 Turneresque afterglow, and the delicate browns of 
 the desert, can be best suggested in water-colors, 
 for, like Venice, Egypt demands a master hand in 
 oils. 
 
 The traveler of impressionable nature yields to 
 the fascination of Cairo's quaint Eastern life, as 
 perfect as if met far beyond the Orient's threshold, 
 and doubly satisfying, because found within a half- 
 hour of the creature comforts of hotels conspicu- 
 ously modern. To walk the streets of an Oriental 
 capital wherein history has been made, between 
 meals, as it were, and delve by day in museums 
 and mosques perpetuating a mysterious past, and 
 dine de rigueur in the evening, with the best music 
 of Europe at hand, explains a charm that Cairo has 
 for mortals liking to witness Eastern life provided 
 they are not compelled to become a part of it. If 
 Egypt disappoints, the indecisive idler can in four 
 or five days be back in Paris or on the Riviera. 
 
 2
 
 
 I '?*'^1 
 
 m 
 
 S .')
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 Every turning in the old quarters of the Moham- 
 medan city has its story. The remnant of a fortified 
 gateway, a dilapidated mosque, a Cufic text, each 
 has its history, perhaps carrying one back to the 
 days when Saladin went forth from El-Kahira to 
 meet Eichard and his crusaders on the plain of 
 Acre; or the mind's eye sees the good Harun-al- 
 Rashid, freshly arrived from Bagdad, stealthily 
 pursuing his midnight rambles. A hundred asso- 
 ciations such as these are wrapped about the 
 crumbling ruins of medieval Cairo, to this day 
 rich with exquisite achievements of Saracenic art._ 
 Huge monuments of the earliest history of the world 
 fringe the horizon as one looks from the ramparts 
 of the citadel, teaching us how the years of Cairo 
 are but as days in the sight of the Sphinx and the 
 Pyramids. To the left is desolate Memphis, earli- 
 est city of the world ; face about, and you behold 
 the edge of the land of Goshen ; two or three miles 
 down the Nile, near the Embabeh end of the- rail- 
 way-bridge, Napoleon and his army, just a century 
 ago, won the battle of the Pyramids over the 
 Mameluke horde; and in a modern structure in 
 the near foreground, the Egyptian Museum, rest the 
 bodies of Seti and the great Rameses, while within 
 a few paces of the spot from which you are view- 
 ing this matchless panorama sleeps the Roumeliau 
 warrior who by daring and bloodshed founded the 
 dynasty now ruling Egypt. All this, and more, 
 may be seen in an hour, if the blare of bugles, 
 reverberated by the Mokattam Hills, does not in- 
 form you that the British soldier has decided it is 
 
 5
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 time to close the gates of Saladin's stronghold, and 
 you are awakened to the fact that your table cVhote 
 dinner begins in thirty minutes, and you must array 
 yourself in conventional evening garb before you 
 can partake thereof. 
 
 The suburbs have a double charm to students of 
 the Bible. A visit to the Shubra road, the Corso of 
 Cairo until fashion decreed the Ghizereh drive, at 
 sunset, will illustrate the scriptural allusions to the 
 sheep and the goats ; and a pleasing picture may 
 there be seen of the shepherd bearing in his arms 
 a lamb or kid too feeble to keep pace with the 
 herd. The scene might have been taken from an 
 engraving in an old Bible. One will not proceed 
 far without seeing devout Moslems engaged in 
 eventide prayer on the housetops. The wine-skin 
 of old was the same as that used now by the water- 
 carrier, seen a hundred times a day in Cairo, ena- 
 bling one to comprehend the simile of new wine in 
 old bottles. Aged men about the mosques and 
 bazaars are appareled to-day as they were in Abra- 
 ham's time, carrying the same staves ; and the scribe, 
 with inkhorn and pens of reed in girdle, joins the 
 throng in the Khan Halil to-day, and frowns upon 
 the outcast Jew, as did the Pharisee upon the 
 publican. A few minutes' walk from the hotels 
 brings one face to face with the living Bible ; a few 
 minutes' drive in another direction may bring one 
 face to face with the grotesque characters of a 
 hotel costume ball, with 2)ct'^ts chevaux for a diver- 
 sion between dances. Cairo is paradoxical as well 
 as fascinating. 
 
 6
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 Walk eastward from your hotel, and in five min- 
 utes you are in the medley of East and West. At 
 the post-office observe the mingling of nationalities;, 
 A German nurse-maid, leading the little son of a 
 prosperous Frankish merchant, is inquiring for let- 
 ters at the ]poste restante window, and a patriarchal 
 sheik in silken caftan and turban is negotiating a 
 money-order to send to some up-Nile village. With 
 a swagger indicating a sense of importance, Tommy 
 Atkins enters, pouch over shoulder, to get the 
 dainty billets-doux for the smart regiment quartered 
 at Abbassieh, and home letters for officers and men. 
 Another window is surrounded by students from 
 El-Azhar. One is expecting his monthly remittance 
 from the family in Tunis, and his ten or twenty 
 comrades take a keen interest in the operation of 
 attaching the Arabic hieroglyphics to the several 
 receipts demanded in case of a money-order or 
 registered letter. 
 
 Over the way, ranged along the iron palings of 
 the buildings of the Mixed Court, are the public 
 letter- wi'iters, gravely imperturbable, sitting at um- 
 brella-shaded tables, prepared to write anything 
 for illiterate applicants, in any language, for a pias- 
 ter or two. One is preparing the soul-impassioned 
 letter of Bianca to her Giovanni, back in Naples 
 or Brindisi, assuring him that she has not ceased 
 to love him, although separated by the turbulent 
 Mediterranean for more than a month. At another 
 table one of the professional scribes is inditing for 
 Youssef Mohammed a bid for clearing a canal at As- 
 siut, for which the government has invited tenders. 
 
 7
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 The contrasts presented by the people thronging 
 the streets are amusing and bewildering. The 
 European element— Greek, Italian, and French— is 
 everywhere blended with the Oriental. Egyptian 
 women swing along in blue gowns and black veils 
 hanging loose, allowing the neck and line of cheek 
 to be easily seen, while concealing the only part of 
 the face scrupulously hidden by an Oriental woman 
 — the mouth. Bedouins stalk about with lordly 
 mien, wearing around their turbans the striped 
 kufieh of their desert tribe. Coptic effendis, uncom- 
 fortable in the clerical-cut coat signifying govern- 
 mental employment, scamper along on donkey- 
 back conscious of their own importance, but as 
 obsequious as slaves on encountering a person of 
 higher official station. : A clatter of hoofs of a 
 cavalry guard draws every one to window or bal- 
 cony to see his Highness the Khedive dash past, 
 in open carriage, with aide-de-camp by his side, 
 hurrying in from Koubbeh to conduct the day's 
 affairs of state at Abdin Palace. Running foot- 
 men, with bare brown legs and embroidered jack- 
 ets with flowing sleeves, carrying wands of author- 
 ity, soon follow, commanding the populace to make 
 way for the carriage of their master, perhaps a 
 pasha making a call of ceremony, or the diplo- 
 matic representative of one of the great powers. 
 
 In the midst of this moving throng a camel-train 
 comes noiselessly into the foreground, laden with 
 rough building-stones slung in network sacks, con- 
 tending with English dog-carts and bicycles for 
 right of way. The camels never relax their super- 
 
 8
 
 ''I 
 
 vu 
 
 >-'r'^"--^ 
 
 PUBLIC LETTEK-WKITER (LETTER FROM BIAXC'A TO GIOVANNI).
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 cilious expression, even when nibbling at beflowered 
 Parisian bonnets on the heads of ladies seated in 
 victorias in front of them. This, or a comic-opera- 
 like medley fully as novel, may be seen any day 
 from the veranda of Shepheard's or the new Savoy. 
 Equally heterogeneous is the jumble of human- 
 ity on tourist-hotel terraces. Princes of ruling 
 European houses rub shoulders in friendly manner 
 with sovereign visitors from the States. The Eng- 
 lishman, who never tires of informing the stranger 
 of the benefits conferred on Egypt by the wholly 
 disinterested British " occupation," is everywhere. 
 Grand duchesses and society queens share tables 
 with dressmakers from Paris and elsewhere, each 
 sipping afternoon tea, not knowing, perhaps not 
 caring, who or what her vis-a-vis may be. An 
 Omdurman hero, modest and good-looking in civil- 
 ian dress, is the cynosure for a few minutes of every 
 feminine eye, and the recipient of courtly con- 
 sideration from " Baehler," " Luigi," or " George," 
 —the managerial triumvirate of Cairo's hotels,— as 
 the case may be. The Egyptologist, with long 
 hair, excavating at Thebes or Sakkarah, with half 
 the alphabet appended to his name, or the irriga- 
 tion expert, rescuing from the desert a province 
 of tillable soil, is eclipsed by the Mahdi's escaped 
 prisoner. However, the inclination of this tea- 
 drinking, gossiping— perhaps flirting— crowd is to 
 forget cares and responsibilities, breathe the hea- 
 venly air, and watch indifferently the kaleidoscopic 
 panorama of Egypt passing endlessly in the street. 
 In a land of perpetual sunshine it is wonderful how 
 
 ri
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the willingness to do nothing grows on human 
 beings who in other places must be employed to 
 be happy. 
 
 An amusing feature of street life is the manner . 
 :in which the huckstering of fowls is conducted. 
 ! The fellah woman, paying duty at one of the octroi 
 bureaus, comes into Cairo with a donkey loaded 
 with baskets of hens, ducks, and geese, their heads 
 standing out in every direction as if enjoying their 
 outing. To sell a dozen fowls keeps the woman 
 dickering all day. Her lord and master, maybe, is 
 driving a flock of young turkeys through the 
 crowded streets of the European quarter, singing 
 the praises of his peeping, docile birds in a man- 
 ner conveying a meaning only to the servant class. 
 With a palm-branch he guides the flock wherever 
 he wishes, keeping the birds clear of the traffic. 
 The man loves to dicker, also, and has no appreci- 
 able regard for time. To effect the sale of a turkey 
 requires a vast amount of palaver and much esti- 
 mating of weight, in which numerous disinterested 
 natives are invited to take part. Milk is sold in a 
 manner too direct to admit of adulteration, for the 
 cow is milked in front of the customer's door ; but 
 skei^tical Egyptians hint that the cows are syste- 
 matically plied with lukewarm water before setting 
 out. A ridiculous custom is to have a small boy ac- 
 company the cows, carrying under his arm a stuffed 
 calf, to make them submit willingly to the milking 
 process. Badly moth-eaten, with stuffing of straw 
 l)rotruding from a dozen places, this calf is always 
 in evidence. It is a custom, and in Egypt cus- 
 
 12
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 torn is unalterable ; and, presumably, cows are not 
 looked upon as possessing sufficient intellect to 
 know a live from a dead calf, or to recognize ""*\ 
 their own. 
 
 Cairo presents the best exemplification of the 
 confusion of tongues descending from the building / 
 of the tower of Babel that I know. Every lan- 
 guage 'land patois of Europe, every shade of ver- 
 nacular of Asia and Africa, may there be heard. 
 It is humiliating to us of the Western world, who 
 may have struggled the best part of a lifetime with ;»-/ / 
 a single foreign language, to find the Cairene able // 
 to speak fluently a dozen. The dragoman or the / 
 donkey-boy can exploit his vocation in a wonder-/^,,^ 
 f ul variety of tongues, although possibly unable to / 
 read his name in any. Ask your way in the street, / 
 and you must not be surprised if the information 
 be given in a sentence made up of words from 
 English, French, and Italian, perhaps with a 
 Greek word thrown in. Polyglot as Cairo is, the 
 medley of coinages is none the less confusing. Send 
 your dragoman to the bazaars in quest of some 
 article, and he may return with the astonishing in- 
 formation that it costs " one napoleon, half a sov- 
 ereign, and eighteen piasters tarifi:." It calls for 
 pencil, paper, and patience to compute the price of 
 the article you are endeavoring to buy through 
 your polynumismatic servant. And the piaster, 
 the basis of computation, has a confusing value. 
 The piaster " current " of small transactions is but 
 half as much as the piaster "tariff" of high life ; and 
 this latter is only five cents in American money. 
 
 13
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Cairenes are ever out of doors. Their religious 
 calendar teems with ceremonious anniversaries, 
 added to which are the numerous fantasias and 
 fete-days required by their devotion to the khedive ; 
 and if things of their own are quiet, there being no 
 wedding to be celebrated, or friend setting out on 
 the pilgrimage to Mecca, or returning from the 
 visit to the prophet's tomb, the native classes go to 
 see the Greeks honor the name-day of their king, 
 or the French colony commemorate the fall of the 
 Bastille, With calendars ranging from the Hejira 
 to the Gregorian, it is indeed an off day when no- 
 thing is being celebrated. Cairo has three fixed 
 Sabbaths. Friday is that of the Mohammedan, 
 Saturday of the Jew, and the succeeding day the 
 Sunday of the Christian church.^! Being lunar, the 
 Mohammedan year is eleven days shorter than our 
 own. This makes it difficult for strangers to know 
 just when a celebration is to occur, for the interest- 
 ing function that one's friend witnessed in midwin- 
 ter fifteen years ago, and told you that you must 
 not fail to see, now falls in midsummer. 
 
 Every Moslem knows by his almanac when the 
 fasting month of Ramadan should begin ; but the 
 crescent moon must first be seen by the imperial 
 astronomer in Constantinople, and the fact be tele- 
 graphed to Cairo, before the citadel guns can an- 
 nounce to the Egyptian nation that the celebration 
 of [the ninth month of their year may officially 
 begin. The streets then become thronged, the 
 story-tellers at the cafes draw large audiences, and 
 thousands of the faithful spend the night in the 
 
 14
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 mosques. Ramadan is observed by the masses 
 with fasting by day, for nothing passes their lips ; 
 even the cigarette is eschewed. But the instant the 
 sun disappears below the horizon, feasting begins, 
 and, with smoking and merrymaking, lasts well 
 through the night. The mortality is very great 
 when Ramadan comes in summer. 
 
 The occasion of a wedding is a favorite revel. 
 Noisy processions, feasting of friends, and feeding 
 of poor, last nearly a week. The wealthy pasha or 
 bey gives a public character to his nuptials by 
 having a military band and perhaps an escort of 
 soldiers head the cortege bearing the bride to her 
 new home. A bride elect of the middle class is 
 dragged indefinitely about the streets, hidden 
 within a closed carriage by Persian shawls drawn 
 over the windows, and preceded usually by a clat- 
 tering band producing the most penetrating of 
 music from discordant instruments. A string of 
 camels brings the furniture and gaudily painted 
 boxes to her future husband's house, and for sev- 
 eral nights the home of the happy pair is bright 
 with lamps, and gay with thousands of red-and- 
 green flags stretched across the street. A spectac- 
 ular procession is that in which the happy woman 
 is carried in a palanquin, borne by two camels, and 
 surrounded by wild-looking fiends of the desert 
 on other camels, who extract an unconscionable 
 amount of noise from kettledrums. This is a sur- 
 vival of the Cairo of old, and if the procession be 
 headed by half-naked mountebanks and swordsmen 
 who frequently engage in mimic combat, and a 
 
 15
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 group of dancing-girls, it attracts great crowds. 
 To the bride, however, crouched for hours within 
 the palanquin, swaying and rocking with the stride 
 of the camels, the ordeal must be as joyless as a 
 crossing of the English Channel in choppy weather 
 to one yielding easily to mal de 7)ier. The poor 
 man feels justified in borrowing at ten, perhaps 
 twenty, per cent, a month, the funds essential to a 
 proper celebration of his marriage, even if it takes 
 years to liberate himself from the toils of the Greek 
 lending him the money. 
 
 In the month of Shawal occurs the impressive 
 ceremony of despatching the holy carpet to Mecca, 
 when streets are filled with soldiery, officials of state 
 in gold-embroidered uniforms, and thousands upon 
 thousands of the followers of the prophet. Every 
 true believer, if possible, passes the day in the 
 streets, and women and children appear in gay at- 
 tire. The ceremonial is held in the great square 
 under the citadel. Khedive and dignitaries are 
 present in state to start formally the caravan bear- 
 ing the sacred carpet, under military escort, on its 
 journey to Arabia. The Egyptian troops in the 
 capital, with bands playing, accompany the caval- 
 cade to the outskirts of the city. A pyramidal 
 wooden structure, covered with embroidered stuffs 
 emblazoned in gold with quotations from the Koran, 
 perched on the back of a camel of splendid propor- 
 tions, contains the carpet. People press violently 
 forward to touch the swinging draj^ery of the camel 
 with their hands, which having done, they kiss 
 with unmistakable fervor; and as the procession 
 
 i6
 
 MAKKIAUE I'ROCESSIOX AND SABER DAXCE, CAIRO.
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 passes through the narrow streets, many women let 
 down from latticed windows shawls or face- veils, to 
 touch with them the sacred object. The pilgrimage 
 takes place annually, and the carpet is placed on 
 or near the sacred sanctuary in the temple at 
 Mecca where rests the body of Mohammed. The 
 caravan returns to Cairo with the carpet of the 
 previous year. With the pomp attending its des- 
 patch, and its journey to and from Mecca, the car- 
 pet costs the Egyptian government fully fifty 
 thousand dollars. An item of expense is the newly 
 minted coins thrown to the multitude by the khe- 
 dive when bidding the chief of the caravan to 
 guard jealously his priceless charge. 
 
 The man who has been to Mecca is supremely 
 happy, knowing that paradise will be his reward 
 for a life devoted to the teachings of the Koran. 
 Neighbors who have not made the pilgrimage look 
 upon him as an exalted person, admitting that his 
 religion is of a quality superior to their own. He 
 may wear interwoven in his turban a strip of green 
 cloth, the prophet's own color, proclaiming to all 
 whom it may concern that its owner has prayed 
 within the holy of holies, and is evermore to be 
 given the title of hadji. These dignities and priv- 
 ileges are as nothing, in his opinion, compared with 
 the right to announce pictorially from his house- 
 front the salient features of the trip to the sacred 
 city. This he does in his own way, with his own 
 hands, and with perspective wholly wanting. If 
 he went from Cairo to Suez by railway— which he 
 did on a third-class ticket, probably— he describes 
 
 19
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the fact by portraying in indigo blue an impossible 
 locomotive, drawing a train of impossible pink 
 cars. A steamboat of marvelous design, witli pad- 
 dle-wheels revolving in a mass of fish, tells in pur- 
 ple how the trip from Suez to Djeddah was made. 
 A train of green camels informs the uninitiated how 
 the pious man journeyed from the Eed Sea coast 
 across the desert to Mecca. Huge lions, with round 
 and almost human faces, in bright orange, tell of 
 dangers in the desert march. But all ends happily, 
 for the pictured story invariably concludes with 
 the caravan halted before the prophet's tomb, with 
 the good man prostrating himself in prayer thereat. 
 Hadji Youssef Achmet knows no joy greater than 
 sitting in his doorway beneath this mural proof of 
 holiness, receiving the salaams of passers-by. Eter- 
 nal peace is his. He knows this, and every Mussul- 
 man seeing him knows it as well. 
 
 The strangest of Cairo customs, perhaps, is the 
 hiring of professional mourners, who, at a funeral, 
 do the shrieking, howling, and garment-rending for 
 the bereaved family. These black-shawled and bare- 
 footed objects are frequently to be seen, like birds 
 of ill omen, squatting outside a house wherein a per- 
 son is dying, awaiting the signal to begin their 
 lamentations, which presumably vary in degree ac- 
 cording to the stipulated payment. They follow 
 the corpse to the cemetery, bewailing at the top of 
 their voices and rending their scanty clothing. The 
 place of interment reached, the wailing stops sud- 
 denly ; the women enjoy a chat by themselves, pos- 
 sibly discuss the prospects of further business, and, 
 
 20
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 if satisfied with the money given them by the rel- 
 atives of the deceased, trot off homeward. Other 
 forms of bereavement give them employment also. 
 A score of these hags follow to the railway-station 
 the squad of policemen taking a convict to prison. 
 The women howl and curse, throw handfuls of dust 
 over their heads, scream voluble and wide-embra- 
 cing Arabic oaths at the authorities, and make the 
 street almost unbearable with shrieks and lamen- 
 tations. The train started for Tourah, the shrieking 
 subsides, and they are ready for further profes- 
 sional engagements. The conscripting of young 
 men for the army being profoundly dreaded, hired 
 wallers accompany their weeping relatives when 
 the unhappy lads are marched to the barracks. 
 
 The Cairene, never cultivating physical exertion, 
 emerges from boyhood to sedate manhood before he 
 is twenty, with tranquillity his chief characteristic. 
 The middle-class man enjoys looking at dances, but 
 never dances himself ; he is fond of music, but never 
 sings or plays. Everything athletic is foreign to his 
 nature. He takes to sedentary amusements, and 
 in shop or home will ponder long over a game of 
 draughts or chess. If belonging to the class that 
 goes to the cafe for diversion, he will watch for 
 hours the antics of street hoodlums, or join in a 
 game of interminable backgammon— which all 
 Egj^ptians love— to decide who is to pay a few 
 milliemes for the coffee or the smoke from the hub- 
 ble-bubble. "Whien he can sit for hours in front of 
 the cafe, smoking the hubble-bubble, he realizes 
 that he is doing the superlative of all that is grand, 
 
 21
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 and feels justified in giving it the character of a 
 public spectacle. This is the conservative Egyp- 
 tian, who sees nothing good in the movement Euro- 
 peanizing his beloved Cairo. 
 
 Men of the wealthy classes are becoming daily 
 less and less Oriental in appearance and habits. 
 They wear clothes of Parisian make, pose before 
 the photographer's camera, speak fluent French, 
 dance with foreign ladies, flirt a little, and profess 
 to think " five-o'clock tea " an institution reflecting 
 the highest civilization. Each has his stall at the 
 opera, and applauds at the right time. Between 
 acts he calls on friends of the Jiaiit ton in their 
 boxes, and perhaps recruits a coaching or river 
 party for the following day. If the visitors are 
 from abroad, the courteous native most likely will 
 explain that as a lad he witnessed the premier pro- 
 duction of "Aida" in that very theater, Verdi's 
 opera being an item in the program arranged by 
 Ismail for the edification of the Empress Eugenie 
 ♦and other distinguished guests attending the open- 
 ing of the Suez Canal. If the visitors are from 
 Alexandria only, the Cairo gentleman probably 
 rings the changes on the contrasting temperature 
 of the two cities, wondering how Alexandrians 
 can stand the excessive humidity of the coast. 
 The visitors retaliate by claiming that the super- 
 dryness of the capital affects their health, whereas 
 in Alexandria they are always well. Thus the 
 weather, in its humid aspect, is sadly overworked 
 as a topic of small talk in the country ha^dng the 
 best and driest climate in the world. If this ac- 
 
 22
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 complislied Egyptian would remove his inevitable 
 tarboosh, in shape and shade of red the latest thing 
 from Stamboul, he might to all intents and pur- 
 poses pass for a European. But he never Tnll, 
 for he is as devoted to the religion of Islam as the 
 man praying five times a day in mosque or street. 
 His Europeanizing is but superficial, and in his 
 heart, perhaps, he abhors all infidels. 
 I ./ The ladies of the rich man's household likewise 
 /know French, and affect gowns and ornaments from 
 J Paris and Vienna. Custom compels them to view 
 ^ the opera from screened boxes, and they are never 
 included in coaching or river parties. They wear 
 the gauziest of veils— exceedingly thin if their faces 
 are beautiful— when driven from palace to palace in 
 European-built carriages. If opportunity offers, 
 they are not averse to peering from behind their 
 carriage curtains at passing Europeans, revealing 
 glimpses of their faces, and possibly the fact that 
 they are smoking dainty cigarettes. Europeans are 
 inclined to believe that Egyptian ladies admire Eu- 
 ropean customs and perhaps wish to emerge from 
 the veiled seclusion of the East. This is not the 
 fact, for their adherence to the tenets of Mohamme- 
 danism is still rigid, and they look pityingly upon 
 foreign women, so little valued by their lords as to 
 be permitted to roam over the world with faces 
 exposed to any man's admiration. 
 
 There is something profoundly impressive in the 
 devotion of the Mohammedan to his relisrion. It 
 governs his actions, pervades his thoughts, con- 
 versation, business dealings, and conduct of every- 
 
 23
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 day life. He reads his Koran faithfully, for it lays 
 down his standard of ethics, and is the foundation 
 of his code of laws. See him at prayer, in the 
 mosque, field, or busy street, addressing his suppli- 
 cations to Allah, through his prophet, face turned 
 to Mecca; his faith is complete and his sincerity 
 unquestionable. He cares not how the onlooker 
 may regard him. The fellah on the canal-bank 
 utters the same fervent, heartfelt prayer as the 
 pasha prostrate upon his silken rug within the 
 Mehemet Ali mosque. The cardinal requirement 
 of the Koran, that food and riches must be shared 
 with the unfortunate, is literally obeyed. The 
 Mohammedan has no cant or hypocrisy in his na- 
 ture. He is tolerant of all religions, but looks with 
 horror upon the unbeliever. It is the good Moham- 
 medan of whom I write— and there are many such ; 
 not the fanatic, liable by excitement to become a 
 frenzied demon. 
 
 The provision of the Koran permitting four 
 wives has become more honored in the breach by 
 Cairenes than in the observance. Few Egyptians 
 in public life have now more than one wife. Khe- 
 dive Tewfik gave his influence to the monogamic 
 idea; and the present khedive, although not tak- 
 ing a wife from the elevated class from which his 
 mother came, is following his father's example. 
 The middle class is gradually following the matri- 
 monial precept of its superiors. Possibly its men 
 found polygamy not particularly conducive to do- 
 mestic tranquillity, in the absence of sufficient 
 means to maintain several establishments. The 
 
 24
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 common people, however, adhere to a plurality of 
 wives, resenting what they look upon as a move- 
 ment to abridge the Koranic custom and privilege. 
 
 The formality of divorce is much simpler than 
 that of marriage. Among those not burdened with 
 estates and personal belongings it is as easy and 
 direct as the dismissal of a servant. The words 
 "Woman, I divorce thee," uttered three times in the 
 presence of witnesses, if attended by the return of 
 the trifling sum that formed her dower, are as 
 binding as the final decree of any court in the 
 world. The restitution of dower sometimes leads 
 to complications, but it is necessary to render the 
 husband's words effectual. 
 
 Woman's position in the Egyptian capital is 
 materially benefiting by the movement looking to- 
 ward the education of native girls. Twenty years 
 ago native ladies regarded education as the learn- 
 ing of sufficient French or Italian to read novels or 
 follow the plot of the opera. The past few years 
 have developed a desire among upper-class women 
 to have their daughters educated with as much 
 care as boys are, and an important adjunct to the 
 household, consequently, is the European gover- 
 ness, most often English. A sister of the khedive, 
 the Princess Khadija, is an active agent in improv- 
 ing the educational status of poor girls. 
 
 Most women visitors to Cairo are curious to see 
 the interior of a harem. But this, as Europeans 
 understand it, no longer exists in Egypt. Every 
 native house, however, has its harem division, set 
 apart for women, as the salamlikis for men— nothing 
 
 27
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 more. In this department reside the wife or wives 
 and children of the master, with the addition, per- 
 haps, of his mother. In this case her rule is prob- 
 ably absolute. It is she who chooses instructresses 
 for the children, orders the affairs of the household, 
 and even prescribes the fabrics, fashions, and adorn- 
 ments of the women, who are simply the wives of 
 his Excellency the Pasha. It is mother-in-law rule, 
 literally. The windows of the harem usually over- 
 look a courtyard or rear street, and are screened 
 with mushrabeah lattices, penetrable only by the 
 gaze of a person within. To minister to the wants 
 of the women's division, a small army of servants — 
 shiny black " slaves " from Nubia and Berber, and 
 possibly a fair Circassian or two, imported from 
 Constantinople — is essential. " Slavery " of this 
 sort is scarcely bondage. It is the law of Egypt 
 that manumission can be had for the asking, with 
 little circumlocution or delay. These servitors are 
 kindly treated, value their home, and shrink from 
 any movement toward legal freedom. Except to 
 the master and sons of the house, the harem is 
 closed to all men, but women friends come and go 
 freely. The tall, high-cheek-boned black men 
 guarding the entrance to the harem, in these pro- 
 gressive days in Egypt possessing no suggestion 
 of the houri scene of the stage, are trained from 
 childhood to keep unauthorized persons from in- 
 truding, and have a highly developed aversion to 
 sight-seers. 
 
 The howling dervish of Cairo is more or less a 
 fraud. Go any Friday afternoon in the season— 
 
 28
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 his religious fervor finds expression only during 
 the tourist season— to the little mosque on the 
 Nile bank midway between Kasr el-Ain and Old 
 Cairo, and witness the weekly ziWr of these fiends. 
 Sitting in a circle on the stone floor of a high- 
 vaulted room are the dervishes, twenty or thirty 
 in number. Their bearded leader, spectacled, and 
 grave under his green turban, squats on a mat 
 in the center. Standing outside the circle is a 
 smooth and oily-faced old man, with a simple reed 
 flute, flanked by others with large tom-toms. Clus- 
 tered along two sides of the room are tourists, cos- 
 tumed in a way that would delight an arranger of 
 up-to-date melodrama of the spectacular variety. 
 Ladies, having misgivings as to what the entertain- 
 ment is to be, seem to wish to sit behind the men, 
 until the hotel dragomans having the visit in charge 
 assure them that it is to be " very nice — very nice, 
 yes ! Mrs. Vanderbilt of Chicago she come last 
 week, yes ! " 
 
 A hush of silence falls over dervishes and tourists, 
 and the leader mumbles a prayer. The circle of 
 performers break into response ; first in quiet, mea- 
 sured tones, then faster, faster, faster. Their bodies 
 sway in perfect unison as, now growing vociferous, 
 they aflirm the creed of Islam. Faster, faster go 
 the bodies, and the wild chant of " Allah la Ilaha," 
 in perfect cadence, is becoming a volume like that 
 of Niagara. The leader raises a warning hand, and 
 the hush that follows instantly is broken only by 
 the cooing of doves resting on the ledges of the 
 windows in the dome. Then, low and mysterious, 
 
 29
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 comes again the mumble of the leader. The der- 
 vishes spring to their feet. Off go robes and tur- 
 bans, their stringy locks falling nearly to their 
 hips. One of the howlers, placing his hand to the 
 side of his mouth, strikes up a falsetto note that 
 rises above the barbaric roar of the tom-toms and 
 flute, plaintive, penetrating. Faster and faster 
 swing heads and bodies ; the air is filled with swish- 
 ing hair ; heads come perilously near striking the 
 floor, or leaving their shoulders in the backward 
 swing. Every dervish is frantic, beside himself 
 with the ebullition of fervor, as he repeats in hisses 
 the sacred exclamation, " Heu, heu. heu, heu, heu, 
 heu, heu." On, on they go, until their mental in- 
 toxication is complete, and with staring eyes and 
 frothing mouths two or three sink exhausted to the 
 floor. Admirers break into the circle and lovingly 
 carry into the air the dervishes who have "gone 
 melhusP The performance of the howling der- 
 vishes is over, and the coins given gladly by the 
 spectators to get away from the mosque amount to 
 enough to keep the howlers until the succeeding 
 Friday. It is something to see — once. The mo- 
 tives of the whirling dervishes, like those of their 
 howling brethren, are open to suspicion. 
 
 Another widely described institution, satisfying 
 most spectators with a single view, is the dancing 
 of the Ghawazi girls, to be witnessed at a dozen 
 Cairo theaters and cafes. The Chicago Midway, 
 and certain places of amusement in Paris, by 
 means of elaborations, have given this exhibition 
 undeserved prominence. A performance wherein 
 
 3°
 
 I I LI. k.> It.*., V'' 
 
 I '■-"■< 
 
 A HOWLING DERVISH.
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 the feet are seldom lifted from the floor can be 
 termed "dancing" only by courtesy; but as an 
 illustration of what the muscles of the body may 
 be trained to do, the danse du ventre is in a way re- 
 markable. The Ghawazi, bred from childhood to 
 their calling, are deemed essential at every form 
 of Egyptian merrymaking, prince and fellah alike 
 employing them. These women form a class, with 
 headquarters at Keneh in UiDper Egypt, and by 
 thirty have generally managed to wriggle them- 
 selves into a competency. They are not necessa- 
 rily immoral, but are not respected, the habitual 
 exposure of the face, if nothing more, placing them 
 beyond the pale. 
 
 Ophthalmia is the curse of the native in Cairo. 
 / Of six people of the poorer class perhaps only two 
 will have fair sight ; and of the rest, one will be 
 blind, one can see from but one eye, and two will 
 have otherwise defective vision. Few Egyptians 
 have perfect eyesight, and the superstitious dread 
 of falling under the baneful influence of the " evil 
 eye" is responsible for this condition. Poor chil- 
 dren go for years practically unwashed, the pa- 
 rents' theory being that if their children are made 
 attractive they are almost certain to be stricken by 
 the evil eye. Their unclean faces attract hordes 
 of insects, never brushed away by their idolizing 
 mothers, for that would be unlucky. During the 
 summer months especially, children's eyes are 
 almost hidden by pestiferous flies, and a race of 
 people with imperfect vision is the result. Even 
 educated Egyptians have the superstition to some 
 
 33
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 extent, and men and women of liigh degree wear 
 rings of silver wire to protect them from the evil 
 eye. Cairo would be a rich field for the exercise 
 of a little practical philanthropy based on the 
 employment of soap, water, and scrubbing-brush ; 
 but it would come into conflict with the religion, 
 which makes of the blind man a person to be 
 revered, and affords him an almost priestly occu- 
 pation. 
 
 Strange to relate, Cairo is being adorned with 
 statues, like cities in the Christian world. In his 
 determination to make his capital a triumph of 
 artistic beauty, Ismail courageously ordered a 
 French sculptor, thirty years or more ago, to model 
 a few figures of Egyptian military worthies. The 
 faithful in Alexandria had permitted a colossal 
 effigy in bronze of Mehemet Ali to be raised in the 
 public square, although a tenet of the Koran was 
 violated thereby. Another statue, perpetuating the 
 military exploits of the second viceroy of Egypt, 
 Ibrahim Pasha, had been erected in the Place of 
 the Opera in Cairo, without provoking an outbreak 
 among strict followers of the Koran. The bronze 
 lions guarding the Nile bridge were likewise ac- 
 cepted without protest. Ismail believed it would 
 awaken the martial spirit of his subjects if every 
 public square in Cairo could have its bronze pre- 
 sentment of a departed hero or notable ; and if it 
 amused him to turn the old city of the califs into 
 a statuary gallery, who was to say nay ? I suspect 
 that Ismail must have seen the artistic side of the 
 sculptured sentiment of the Campo Santo in Genoa. 
 
 34
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 He was resolved, at all events, to erect images of 
 distinguislied Egyptians all over Cairo, and French- 
 men were employed to make them. Two were de- 
 livered before the national exchequer was seized 
 with financial cramp and further supplies coun- 
 termanded. For lack of money, perhaps, or the 
 discovery that it was forbidden by the religion of 
 Islam to fashion the image of man, the statues were 
 given a resting-place in a shed. Two or three years 
 ago they were excavated from the dust of a quarter 
 of a century, and, under the guidance of British 
 engineers, were placed upright on granite pedestals 
 in the new quarter of the city ; and natives, squat- 
 ting on their haunches in the squares thus embel- 
 lished, find in them a subject for never-ending 
 chatter. They have forgotten that Ismail had the 
 figures made, and place the responsibility of the 
 bronzes at the door of the Inglesy. 
 
 Had Ismail not lost his throne, and the money- 
 lenders of Europe been content to let him have as 
 much cash as he wanted, Cairo would to-day be 
 more beautiful. It was his dream to make an East- 
 ern Paris of his desert capital. The French me- 
 tropolis, he arguedf-eould be reproduced, if the 
 financial agents of Paris and London did not object. 
 A considerable part of the money borrowed was 
 spent by Ismail at Gizeh, nearly opposite the spot 
 where tradition claims that Moses was found in 
 the bulrushes. Gardens like the Tuileries extended 
 from the Nile nearly to the edge of the Libyan 
 Desert ; dozens of lath-and-plaster structures, with 
 walls painted in a style suggesting solidity, went 
 
 35
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 up as by magic, in the fulfilment of his building 
 passion ; and many are the stories told of the mag- 
 nificence of everything he did. 
 
 Electric tram-cars now rush boisterously through 
 the streets of Cairo, filled with people who never 
 understood the " go fever " until the advent of the 
 street-railway, two or three years ago; and the 
 Egyptians' best friend, the donkey, has been cast 
 out from the capital by the trolley-car. The 
 Egyptians take so kindly to tram-car riding that 
 one wonders if their ancestors, who developed as- 
 tronomy and mathematics as sciences and begot 
 culture, knew the secret of the electric current. The 
 patrons of the tram-cars are soldiers, Levantines, 
 small merchants and clerks, turbaned sheiks. Bed- 
 ouins, and simple fellaheen in town on business 
 —and perhaps this business is chiefly to have a 
 ride on the cars. In every direction— to Bulak, 
 the citadel, Abbassieh, through the Ismaileh quar- 
 ter, even to the site of ancient Fostat— the cars 
 run, their occupants looking pityingly upon way- 
 farers employing nature's locomotion or the humble 
 donkey or stalking camel. The people have learned 
 the intricacies of " transfers " and "round trips," and 
 their satisfaction over the street traction enterprise, 
 doing more than all other agencies to obliterate the 
 Cairo of old, seems sublime. 
 
 There is something painfully incongruous in the 
 idea of being carried by trolley to the Sphinx and 
 Pyramids. But the line enables the visitor who has 
 first driven in state to Gizeh to go again and again 
 at a cost of a few piasters. The authorities con- 
 
 36
 
 I
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 trolling public affairs were not so short-sighted 
 when giving the concession for the Pyramids rail- 
 way as newspaper readers may have believed. The 
 line in no way mars the superb beauty of the em- 
 bowered causeway leading from the Nile to Mena 
 House, for it is a goodly distance to the southward 
 of the carriageway. If the foreigners directing 
 the tramway company failed to make money from 
 the start, it was due for a year or more to their 
 being called upon almost daily to pay for a life 
 extinguished or a body maimed by their modern 
 cars of Juggernaut. 
 
 39
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN FASCINATING CAIKO (Continued) 
 
 A PROOF of the claim that Cairo is being Euro- 
 peanized at an uncalled-for pace is suggested 
 by innumerable shop-signs of cigarette-makers, 
 announcing that they are " Purveyors to His High- 
 ness the Khedive," when that potentate is known to 
 use tobacco in no form ; another is the ostentatious 
 advertisement of a barbering establishment that its 
 keeper is " Hair-dresser to the Right Honorable 
 Diplomatic Agent of Oreat Britain, by Appoint- 
 ment," when it is seen that the gentleman referred 
 to has little need for tonsorial attentions. If these 
 petty dishonesties fail to convince one that the 
 Egyptian capital is adopting European ways and 
 customs, the "Want to go shoo tin' t'-day?" or the 
 " Want anyt'ing I "—the latter covering a multitude 
 of sins,— that will be whispered in the stranger's ear 
 by native vagabonds a dozen times in the course 
 of a stroll in the Sharia Kamel or the Esbekieh 
 Gardens, surely will; and the side-sjmng "Con- 
 gress " boots, made of questionable leather, and the 
 ulsters and other English clothes of impossible check 
 or plaid, disfiguring the windows and fronts of shops 
 in the Mouski, will painfully accentuate the fact. 
 
 40
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 Tliajbazaars, however, show no sign of European 
 intrusion, and are to-da}^ as Oriental as when Lane 
 wrote his " Modern Egyptians." The bazaars of 
 Damascus, possibly, are more correctly Eastern, 
 but not so those of Constantinople and Smyrna. 
 John Bull invades the bazaars of Cairo only as a 
 sight-seer and purchaser, wearing sun-helmet and 
 pugree, however chilling the wintry weather. He 
 usually thinks the prices dear, and parts with his 
 coins only after hours of dickering, and does not 
 forget his bakshish. The bazaars are the only 
 places in Egypt where the tourist receives bak- 
 shish. Elsewhere he gives it, or could give it, 
 every minute of the day. Americans, on the other 
 hand, regard the prices as cheap, and buy, buy, 
 buy. It amuses them to sip the shopkeeper's ex- 
 cellent coffee and smoke his perfumed cigarettes. 
 This hospitality partaken of, they buy more em- 
 broidered jackets, gauze scarfs, and inlaid weap- 
 ons. Both British and American pay more than 
 the things are worth, of course; but the Trans- 
 atlantic purchaser has a balance of time to his 
 credit. 
 
 It is novel to buy silk fabrics by weight rather 
 than by measurement. The slipper bazaar, with the 
 sun shut out by projecting lattices and awnings, is 
 a subdued blend of red and yellow. Black leather 
 is seldom seen there. The crude art of the brass- 
 workers' lane, where serious-faced youths embellish 
 finger-basins and coifee-trays with designs con- 
 ceived by their forefathers when perspective was 
 not valued, is popular. The carpet and rug bazaar 
 
 41
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 is a busy mart, where values are high aud the 
 sellers understand human nature. Turn to the 
 right, turn to the left, go where you will, the shops 
 appeal to some taste or fancy you possess. The 
 jewelry bazaar, with its anklets and nose-rings of 
 leaden-looking silver or brassy gold, has no tempta- 
 tion for the American, however. 
 
 The dingy passage where scents are dealt in is a 
 nest of cheats who can sell a phial of common per- 
 fumed oil for genuine attar or essence without com- 
 punction. The tent bazaar, in which truly artistic 
 applique awnings and hangings are wrought with- 
 out visible pattern by men and boys, is always 
 inviting. Two or three of these needlemen, per- 
 haps, were sent to Chicago during the World's Fair ; 
 but a hundred will tell you they have been in Chi- 
 cago, each producing dog-eared business cards or a 
 stray coin of Uncle Sam's minting in substantia- 
 tion of the statement. They are agreed that the 
 exposition was a grand "fantasia," but most of 
 them witnessed it vicariously. "Anteekas" are 
 offered for sale in nearly every shop of every de- 
 partment of the vast labyrinth. The scarab, es- 
 pecially, is pushed into your face on every hand, 
 and whether you give a piaster or a dozen coins of 
 gold, you will have the same uncertainty as to the 
 genuineness of the sacred beetle. The Red Sea 
 turquoise, gummed to a bit of reed, is likewise 
 omnipresent ; it is beautiful to look at, but may 
 change color in a week. 
 
 The throng of people in the bazaars is a study in 
 humanity, as entertaining, perhaps, as the contents 
 
 42
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 of the shops. Eotund women, enveloped in the 
 unbecoming black-silk liahheli, displaying feet and 
 ankles clad in magenta stockings and white slip- 
 pers, seem to go out of their way to jostle Europeans, 
 until driven off by one's dragoman. Donkeys, even 
 camels, laden with merchandise, force their way 
 through passages scarcely wide enough for two 
 persons walking abreast. These, and persistent 
 beggars and offensively dirty children, are the 
 drawbacks to one's enjoyment here. But the 
 bazaars are interesting, withal. 
 
 On the way back through the Mouski a half -hour 
 may profitably be passed in viewing the fabrication 
 at Hatoun's or Parvis's of the mushrabeah work, to 
 be utilized in artistic screens and tables. Primitive 
 indeed is the method of turning the myriad bits of 
 wood for the mushrabeah, on tiny lathes revolved 
 by hand, while the chisel is held by the bare feet of 
 the operator, generally a lad, who guides the tool 
 with the other hand. 
 
 The Mouski used to be all that an Oriental street 
 of shops should be, but the past dozen years have 
 seen a great change in its character. There no 
 longer is matting overhead, affording protection 
 from the parching sun in summer. In its place 
 swinging signs indicate the presence of modern es- 
 tablishments, including a " British Bar," where all 
 and sundiy are cordially invited to try the Ameri- 
 can drinks compounded by La Belle Violette, " just 
 arrived from Chicago." There are jewelers' shops 
 that would attract notice in the Avenue de I'Opera 
 in Paris, the windows of which are filled with dia- 
 
 45
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 monds and other precious stones of a size suggest- 
 ing that the kilo had supplanted the karat as a 
 standard of weight. Places where ready-made 
 clothing is sold, with unmistakable Hebraic names 
 over the doors, have a remarkab^.e similarity to 
 Bowery stores. 
 
 Sandwiched between great magazines where 
 "Prix Fixe" cards are conspicuously displayed 
 may yet be found the doJckan of old. This is but 
 a recess in the wall, with mastahah, or seat, of its 
 proprietor on a level with the floor of the diminu- 
 tive shop. On this the Arab trader, in flowing robe 
 and turban, spends the day, bargaining at times in 
 a leisurely way, now and then dozing, with his ro- 
 sary of sandalwood beads ever between his fingers. 
 "When he goes out he hangs a network curtain be- 
 fore the shelves where his silken stuffs, Cpices, or 
 embroideries are stored. Egyptians- TT'^spect the 
 netted veil, and, returned from his erra^Kl, or prayer 
 in the mosque, the merchant resumes his seat on 
 the mastabah, knowing that his stock has not been 
 rifled during his absence. The water-seller's cry 
 of "Oh, may Grod compensate thee,'!.,.n.ciy attract 
 this merchant, descended from the times of Abra- 
 ham and Joseph. If so, he exchanges a millieme 
 for a draught from the earthen jar, ret s to his 
 meditations, and dreams of vanis^ii ig i? i of 
 Haussmannized avenues, and grea* rrpojj -^ > ith 
 plate-glass windows filled with .rraiculouaiijjapier- 
 mache figures, in a few years destined to metamor- 
 phose the city of the califs. The Mouski, unhke 
 the bazaars, is being Europeanized at a rate sad- 
 
 46
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 dening to one who loves the Cairo of Ismail and 
 Tewfik. "^ —— 
 
 Habitues have their favorite mosques, as they 
 have their favorite singers at the opera or horses 
 on the Ghizerrh race-course. With a city covering 
 twelve or more square miles and having a sky-line 
 effect of a forest of domes and minarets, there is 
 sufficient variety of places of worship to suit any 
 taste. Diminutive Kait Bey, in the midst of the 
 Tombs of the Mamelukes, is deservedly sketched 
 and photographed scores of times every day. The 
 unfinished mosque of Eafai, under the citadel, con- 
 tains the body of spendthrift Ismail, who ordered 
 its construction, but is otherwise unimportant. 
 The gem of the Mohammedan artistic world, ad- 
 mitted by good judges, is the venerable and bat- 
 hauD 1 mosque of Sultan Hassan, close to the 
 Rafai au ture, always spoken of by the faithful 
 as "the superb." For architectural beauty this 
 Saracenic pile surpasses the Byzantine St. Sophia 
 at Constantinople. Its vast circular dome, spring- 
 ing from a square tower, with corner pendentives 
 of marv*olons design, is a liberal education in archi- 
 tecture, although fashioned more than five hun- 
 dred years ago. The Sultan Hassan mosque is one 
 of the eral artistic structures known to travelers 
 c*; /' ''^n tue tale is told that the designer was put 
 ,]t '' 1 oril d his hands cut off by his apprecia- 
 ' tive master to prevent a repetition of his artistic 
 triumph. 
 
 The pencil-like minarets of the Mehemet Ali 
 mosque, visible long before one reaches Cairo, are 
 
 3 
 
 47
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 as beautiful as the Hassan dome is wonderful. This 
 mosque, with its alabaster walls and rich carpets, . 
 is attractive in its way, bat comparatively new, and 
 consequently clean. Connoisseurs shake their 
 heads, however, when debating any pretension to 
 its being " good art." The mosque of Amr, in Old 
 Cairo^ is the oldest in Egypt, its foundation having 
 been laid in the year 643 of our calendar; and 
 Ahmed Ibn Tulun is the oldest in Cairo proper, 
 having been built in 879. This latter is said to be 
 a copy of the Kaaba at Mecca. Only in Coptic 
 churches does the visitor discover pictorial repre- 
 sentations of sacred scenes and personages. The 
 Mohammedan on occasion takes the spoils of war 
 to his house of worship, but never the presentment 
 of human form. 
 
 Strange to state, Cairo has no obelisk, nor has 
 Alexandria. New York possesses the last of these 
 relics, probably; London and Paris have each a 
 fine one, while Rome and Constantinople have 
 many. One cannot behold these reminders of the 
 greatness of ancient Egypt, in the cities mentioned, 
 without a feeling of pity for Cairo, where rest the 
 Rameses, but whose nearest obelisk is on the plain 
 of Heliopolis, six miles away. Most tourists drive 
 out to see it, planning their excursion to include a 
 visit to the ostrich-farm close by, and also to catch 
 a glimpse of the Virgin's tree en route. 
 
 Early in my residence in the Nile metropolis I 
 evolved a project for removing to Cairo the superb 
 obelisk standing near the river's bank at Luxor, and 
 if possible having the expense defrayed by a few 
 
 48
 
 "SVOOD-WOKKEUt;.
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 wealthy compatriots finding health and recreation 
 under Egyptian skies. First I sought the opinion 
 of a New-Yorker, proprietor of a great newspaper, 
 on the subject. Accustomed to seeing the pros and 
 cons of a question at a glance, with natural shrewd- 
 ness tempered by much diplomatic experience, he 
 foresaw in a minute more obstacles to the project 
 than I had discovered in a month's consideration 
 of the scheme. The engineering problems of bring- 
 ing a monolith seventy-five feet long and weighing 
 two hundred and twelve tons several hundred miles 
 down the Nile, and reerecting it in Abdin Square, 
 had chiefly interested me. My New York friend 
 predicted an avalanche of reproach from the whole 
 civilized world, that would surely be started directly 
 the matter was made public. " It will not do at 
 all," he said, in summing up. A Chicago friend, 
 on the other hand, pronounced the scheme a good 
 one. "Put me down for five hundred dollars to- 
 ward the expense; and I can get a dozen more 
 Chicagoans to give the same," he added. 
 
 In time I was forced to admit that the archsGolo- 
 gists of France, Italy, England, and perhaps the 
 United States, having provided their own countries 
 with obelisks, would assail the suggestion to give 
 dear old Cairo just one of the massive shafts that 
 were indigenous to Egypt ; and I saw enough in the 
 opinion of the astute New-Yorker to cool my ardor 
 and cause me to abandon the plan that sentiment 
 had suggested. But I cannot help thinking that the 
 capital of Egypt is entitled to an obelisk. How 
 graceful the act if some great city, in which the 
 
 51
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 transplanted granite of Assuan is yielding to the 
 ravages of climate, would return to the country of 
 the Pharaohs one of the priceless monuments of 
 which it has been deprived ! 
 
 No picture of Cairo that does not include the 
 soldier can be considered complete, for the military 
 aspect of the city is in almost aggressive evidence. 
 When there is no campaign calling the troops to 
 the Sudan, from six to nine thousand men are 
 quartered in the capital. Nile palaces, khedival 
 apartments in the citadel, and straggling pink bar- 
 racks at Abbassieh, shelter English regiments; 
 while tucked in everywhere, even extending miles 
 out of Cairo to the canvas city on the desert road 
 to Suez, are Egyptian soldiers of all degrees of 
 color and of every class. And what a variety of 
 costumes! There are Arab lancers in uniforms 
 of light blue, almost esthetic in shade ; members of 
 the camel corps and Sudanese infantry regiments 
 of the blackest of black men, wearing kaki costumes 
 of the color of the desert ; and men of other arms of 
 the military establishment, in the smartest of white 
 clothes. 
 
 By company or regiment, soldiers are so fre-. 
 quently marched through the streets that the visi- 
 tor might believe Cairo to be a vast military camp. 
 Martial music is the adjunct of every function and 
 every anniversary, religious and festive. Drum 
 and fife corps, full military bands, some of them 
 mounted, parade daily, playing frequently the 
 beautiful khedival hymn. It is a part of the 
 scheme of administration to keep the soldier in evi- 
 
 52
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 dence, impressing the simple native with the im- 
 portance of the army, in which he must serve, 
 however reluctant. The obverse of this display is 
 the recompense of the soldier— five cents a day for 
 five years. Egyptian soldiers are well disciplined 
 and make a fine appearance on parade. Their 
 comrades recruited from the region south of As- 
 suan, forming the so-called Sudanese regiments, 
 are fearless fighters, but lack the smartness of ap- 
 pearance essential to reviews and dress-parades. 
 The superior officers of the khedival army are 
 Enghshmen, " loaned " by the British War Office, 
 and paid by the Egyptian government twice as 
 much as their services under the British flag would 
 bring. A captain in his regiment in England is a 
 colonel in Egypt, and a lieutenant is a captain or 
 major. 
 
 It hardly required the victory of the Anglo- 
 Egyptian expedition, in 1898, to prove General 
 Kitchener, sirdar (commander-in-chief) of the 
 Egyptian army, to be a remarkable man and a 
 great soldier. Those familiar with the official life 
 of recent years in Egypt knew this. Their atten- 
 tion was drawn to him by the expedition against 
 the Mahdi, when the hope of Gordon's release from 
 beleaguered Khartum was enlisting the sympathies 
 of the world. Disastrous as the expedition was. 
 Kitchener emerged from the campaign with an 
 established reputation as a soldier of infinite re- 
 source, vigor, and brilliant strategy, which, com- 
 bined with his knowledge of the customs and dia- 
 lects of the Sudan, stamped him as England's best 
 
 53
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 desert fighter. In command of the mounted troops 
 at the battle of Toski, in 1889, young Kitchener 
 headed off the great dervish general, Njumi, who 
 had annihilated Hicks's army, and who despised 
 Egyptian soldiers, compelling him to stand, fight, 
 and be crushed. Rapidly ascending the grades 
 thereafter, Kitchener in a few years found himself 
 the sirdar of the khedival army. 
 
 To Kitchener belongs the credit of organizing 
 and training the new army, recruited from the fel- 
 laheen of the country. To build up an effective 
 force from the same peasants who had fled before 
 the Mahdist warriors, who stopped in their flight 
 to kneel on the ground and stretch forth their necks 
 to the sword, was a task calculated to dishearten an 
 ordinary man ; but to Kitchener and his assistants 
 this obstacle only quickened their determination to 
 attain success. To accomplish the end crowning 
 their efforts required almost a reconstruction of the 
 Egyptian nature. Had Kitchener and his aides not 
 triumphed in this, the Egyptian army could never 
 have driven back its old-time foes from Firket, 
 from Dongola, from Berber, and finally from 
 Omdurman itself. Yet the heroes of Omdurman 
 were the brothers of the cravens who made the 
 name Tel-el-Kebir a synonym for all that is cow- 
 ardly. And only sixteen years had intervened be- 
 tween the two battles ! After the routing of the 
 Khalifa's army no fair-minded person can criticize 
 the fighting capacity of the son of the Nile, when 
 well led. It used to be the fashion to sneer at him 
 as a warrior, and not without reason. Even now 
 
 54
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 he is not a perfect soldier; but Spartan virtues 
 must not be looked for from a nation of Helots. 
 
 General Lord Kitchener, sirdar of the Egyptian 
 army and governor-general of the Sudan, is yet 
 several years on the right side of fifty, is every inch 
 a soldier, and only a soldier, and has the prover- 
 bial dash and courage of the Irishman. He went 
 to Egypt resolved to win his spurs in a field where 
 others had failed, and never for an instant allowed 
 his courage to falter or his energies to be diverted 
 to other channels. He has, indeed, added his name 
 to the list of great military leaders of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The British army of occupation, which is inde- 
 pendent of the Egyptian army, is in Egypt on 
 financial terms liberal to the Egyptians, for the 
 khedival government pays only the difference be- 
 tween the cost of home and foreign service, being 
 less tlian half a million dollars yearly for the forty- 
 five hundred men composing this contingent. Usu- 
 ally about three thousand Britishers are kept in 
 Cairo ; but, on occasions when there has been fric- 
 tion between the khedive and the British adminis- 
 trators, these have been countermarched so inge- 
 niously as to give the impression that ten times as 
 many redcoats were there. The English officers 
 lend much to a winter's gaiety. Courageous fellows, 
 trained to conquer, no season is complete that does 
 not add to their conquests those of the ball-room, 
 " Scarlet fever " is in the atmosphere of Cairo 
 breathed by the girl visitor, but is seldom serious 
 or lasting. 
 
 55
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 The diurnal procession of young women to the 
 Nile bank just before the going down of the sun, 
 to obtain the water required for the evening and 
 early morning in their homes, presents a beautiful 
 picture of womanly grace. These Eebeccas hold 
 themselves erect and walk with superlative grace 
 and majesty. If a promenading Fifth Avenue girl 
 could exhibit half the naturalness she would be 
 the envy of every spectator. Egyptian girls begin 
 early to perform their share of the work of the 
 home, and at seven or eight years commence to 
 carry half -filled water-jars, and at twelve think 
 nothing of balancing a full half-hundredweight on 
 their heads, walking leisurely homeward, chatting 
 with neighbors bent on the same mission, and dis- 
 cussing the gossip of the neighborhood with un- 
 concealed relish. For thousands of years their 
 ancestors did the same ; but they carried the water- 
 jars represented in biblical pictures. The present 
 generation, discarding these, prefers the square 
 two-gallon tins in which Standard Oil has come to 
 Egypt. They are lighter than the pottery jars, and 
 if the modern Rebecca becomes excited in discus- 
 sion, the petroleum tin never breaks in its fall. 
 
 Every petroleum tin coming to Egypt finds a use 
 in the daily life of the people. The "slates" of 
 school-boys are but sides of oil tins, on which they 
 write their sums and quotations from the Koran 
 with reed pens. The petroleum tins from America 
 supply tinsmiths of the bazaars with material from 
 which they fashion-lantern-frames, household uten- 
 sils, ornaments, and even bird-cages and traveling- 
 
 56
 
 J f 
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 boxes for the peasantry. ' Not a scrap is wasted. 
 To discover that dates purchased at up-Nile land- 
 ings are packed in boxes on the bottoms of which 
 are impressed such legends as " Best American," 
 " Standard," and " 95 Degrees Pure," may be star- 
 tling to fastidious tourists. 
 
 ( The great school of the Mohammedan world is 
 one of Cairo's important sights ; but few travelers 
 are aware of its interest, and not one in a hundred 
 visits it. The Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the Nile 
 are too absorbing for tourists to remember that in 
 the same wondrous city exists the largest and old- 
 est university in the world— El-Azhar, meaning 
 " the splendid." Constantinople may be regarded 
 as the official head of the great religion of Islam, 
 but Cairo for nine hundred years has been the edu- 
 cational center, and if one wishes to attain the 
 summit of Mussulman learning he must attend the 
 classes of this collegiate establishment. Unless one 
 be familiar with Arabic and knows where to look 
 among musty books and manuscripts in the Egyp- 
 tian Library, it is very difficult to get reliable in- 
 formation regarding this wonderful mosque-college. 
 The claim of possessing the oldest university has 
 often been made for Oxford, Paris, or Bologna, but 
 the founding of their ancient seats of learning is 
 legendary as to dates, while the records of El-Azhar 
 are clear from the year 975. Whether it is really 
 a " university " in our meaning can be more ap- 
 propriately questioned. It is widely different from 
 Harvard and Yale, but wise men of the East have 
 ever termed it a university. 
 
 59
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Years ago it was difficult and disagreeable to view 
 the interior of this great school that draws scholars 
 from the remotest lands where the Koran is read. 
 Now the formalities are simple and easily complied 
 with, and the presence of strangers is scarcely 
 noticed. From the hotel quarter it is but a fifteen- 
 minute drive to El-Azhar. One passes through 
 that marvelous street of shops, the Mouski, and 
 turning off, forces his way through the narrow 
 lane known as the " Street of the Booksellers," 
 where Arab workmen are binding curious-looking 
 volumes, seated cross-legged on the floor of tiny 
 box-like shops, and with a surging conglomeration 
 of humanity, camels, and braying donkeys passing 
 not two feet away. This brings one to the " Bar- 
 bers' Gate," about which are always to be seen stu- 
 dents having their heads so closely shaved as to 
 leave no suggestion of hair. 
 
 The structure, too often restored to leave any in- 
 dication of the original building, surrounds a large 
 open court with arcades on every side. The lofty 
 minarets are fine examples of Eastern art. The 
 pavement is of marble, much worn in places, and 
 everywhere polished by constant use. There are 
 seven entrances, each with a name as singular as 
 that where the barbers congregate. El-Azhar is so 
 surrounded by houses that very little can be seen 
 of it externally, and the building is almost destitute 
 of architectural embellishment. 
 
 The enormous square court is bordered with por- 
 ticos, each divided into various compartments for 
 the separate use of students of different nations. 
 
 60
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 One, for example, is for those who come from 
 Algeria, another for those from Morocco, one for 
 Indians, one for Nubians, one for Turks, and so on.) 
 There is a compartment even for students from the 
 holy city of Mecca, where the prophet Mohammed 
 is buried, and there are divisions for scholars rep- 
 resenting different sections of Egypt. 
 
 There is a department for blind pupils, as well, 
 for whom special instructors and funds are pro- 
 vided."^ It is a strange fact that these unfortunates 
 are peculiarly turbulent and fanatical. If they be- 
 lieve their rights invaded, or their food not good, 
 they give way to fury and attack any one within 
 reach. If aware that an "unbelieving Christian" 
 is looking at them, their resentment becomes 
 offensively apparent. 
 
 Followers of the prophet hold different views in 
 regard to their theology, as do different denomina- 
 tions of Christians. There are four great ortho- 
 dox sects of Mohammedans, — Shafeites, Malekites, 
 Hanefites, and Hambalites, — and all are represented 
 in El-Azhar. An American would think it a queer 
 place of learning, for nowhere is there a desk or a 
 chair, and masters and pupils appear to go about 
 everything backward. Before they cross the 
 threshold in entering the place they remove their 
 shoes, but always keep their heads covered; and 
 all books read from right to left, the first leaf 
 being, according to our way of thinking, the last. 
 
 There are more than ten thousand scholars and 
 two hundred and twenty-five masters, and the pe- 
 riod of instruction may be indefinitely extended, 
 
 6i
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 even for a lifetime ; but from three to six years is 
 the usual course. One may see old and grizzled 
 men there, as well as children of four years. ' The 
 institution is so richly endowed and owns such 
 valuable property— for few true Mohammedans of 
 fortune die without leaving something to El-Azhar 
 of Cairo — that no scholar is compelled to pay any- 
 thing, although many, from choice, contribute to 
 the expenses. 
 
 The masters get no pay, but receive liberal al- 
 lowances of food. Those of certain degree once 
 a week draw several hundred loaves of bread, — a 
 traditional custom, — and these loaves presumably 
 find their way into outside shops and are sold. A 
 master usually teaches in odd hours at private 
 houses, reads the Koran at weddings and funerals, 
 copies books, or holds a petty office of a religious 
 character to which a small salary is attached. 
 Wealthy students voluntarily help the masters to 
 live. The head master, known as the Sheik El- 
 Azhar, is chosen from the faculty for his superior 
 knowledge and holiness, and in the eyes of the faith- 
 ful occupies a position not many degrees less than 
 that of the khedive. 
 
 Some of the sheiks are men of marvelous learn- 
 ing, but independence of thought is never found 
 among them. Progressiveness is discouraged as 
 a dangerous tendency. Masters and pupils learn 
 only what may be found in books centuries old,/ 
 and religion pervades every branch of study. Stu- 
 dents who come from abroad toil for years to learn 
 the Arabic grammar, after which they take up re- 
 
 62
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 ligious science, with the Koran as text-book. Then 
 follows jurisprudence, religious and secular. Lit- 
 erature, syntax, philosophy, prosody, logic, and 
 intricacies of the Koranic teaching as directed to 
 an ujHi^ht life, round out the course. 
 
 In lieu of a professor occupying a "chair" of 
 any high-sounding " ology," he may be said to hold 
 such and such a pillar, for when lecturing he sits on 
 a sheepskin rug at the base of a stone column, with 
 his students squatted in a half-circle before him. 
 Nearly three hundred marble pillars support the 
 roof of the porticos and such portions of El-Azhar 
 as are not open to the sky, and each is a " class- 
 room" for some particular subject. Puj^ils listen 
 with rapt attention, taking part in the discussion 
 of a theme so intently as to be oblivious of the 
 presence of Christian spectators. A lecture fin- 
 ished, they respectfully kiss the hand of their in- 
 structor and hasten to another class to become 
 absorbed in further study. 
 
 Equality seems to be characteristic of the univer- 
 sity. Outward evidences of superiority and posi- 
 tion are unimportant, for the son of the pasha or 
 bey, in robes of silk, sits side by side with peasant 
 youths clothed scantily in coarse cotton. Occa- 
 sionally a green turban is seen, indicating that its 
 wearer has made a pilgrimage to the holy city, or 
 that his family is believed to be descended from the 
 prophet. Rich and poor alike perform at stated 
 intervals the purifying ablutions at the fountains 
 within the inclosure, and all prostrate themselves 
 in prayer many times a day. This they do when- 
 
 63
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ever the spirit moves them, although at fixed hours 
 all pray in unison, with heads invariably turned 
 toward the " Kibla," the niche in the largest assem- 
 bly-room, indicating the direction of Mecca. 
 
 A thousand or two youths actually live within 
 the walls of El-Azhar. They partake of their 
 simple meals when the spirit moves them. Their 
 food is exceedingly plain and inexpensive. A 
 bowl of lentil soup, a flat loaf or cake of bread, 
 and a handful of garlic or perhaps dates, are enough 
 to attract a group of school- fellows, over which 
 they discuss affairs and joke as youths do elsewhere. 
 To needy students nine hundred loaves of bread 
 are distributed each day. 
 
 The great quadrangle presents a picture to be 
 rivaled nowhere in the world. StUgly and in 
 groups, students sit on their skin rugs, earnestly 
 toiling over lessons. No matter how scorching the 
 sun's rays, if the impulse seizes them they stretch at 
 full length on the pavement, enveloped in their 
 long outer garments, and tranquilly sleep. Pupils 
 and professors step over and around them, always 
 respecting their slumber. Cats without number, 
 that seem to belong to the place, hobnob with the 
 boys upon terms of perfect harmony; but dogs, 
 being " unclean " by Koranic teaching, are never 
 permitted by the doorkeepers to enter the sacred 
 precinct. Sellers of bread and water pass freely 
 among the studying thousands, always careful not 
 to disturb sleepers, and here and there students 
 may be seen mending their garments, perhaps 
 washing and drying them in the sun. 
 
 64
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 Juvenile pupils are taught little but the Koran. 
 Day after day their masters beat it into them, not 
 infrequently aided by a palm-branch, the Oriental 
 equivalent of the birch. The youngsters sway back 
 and forth and sidewise in concert when reciting. 
 The sheik, perhaps, knows less about the printed 
 page than the boys, but to him the Koran is so 
 familiar that he is able to detect the slightest error 
 of his class. On his part "reading" is a feat of 
 memory, and should a professor of higher grade 
 refer him to the book, he would most likely claim 
 to be suffering from weak eyes, and request a stu- 
 dent-teacher to read for him. The urchins are as 
 industrious as beavers. When far enough advanced 
 to write, favorite quotations from the Koran, such 
 as, " There is no Grod but Grod, and Mohammed is 
 his prophet," and "I testify that Mohammed is 
 God's apostle," are given them for exercises. 
 
 An Azhar student is always under the super- 
 vision of the school authority. In roaming about 
 the streets of Cairo, should he misbehave, the police 
 could only detain him until an official be sum- 
 moned from El-Azhar to take him into custody. 
 This system of proctorship is in fact the same as 
 at the English universities of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge. Because an Azhar scholar has immunity 
 from military service, it is suspected that many 
 young men are enrolled as students for no other 
 purpose than to escape the life of a soldier— to 
 most Mohammedans an undesirable calling. 
 
 In the school year there is no definite recess ; but 
 during the month of Ramadan and on the occasion 
 
 65
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 of the several religious feasts there are holidays, 
 amounting in the aggregate to the long summer 
 vacation so dear to the western- world boy. El- 
 Azhar students are up with the sun for the first 
 prayer of the day. By midday their work in the 
 university is finished. Apparently Azhar youths 
 have few amusements or recreations. Base-ball, 
 foot-ball, cane-rushes, and boat-racing have yet 
 to be brought to their consideration. They have, 
 of course, their diversions, but what they may be 
 is a mystery to the onlooker. A singular tradition 
 associated with this renowned seat of learning is 
 that, although practically without roof, no bird, 
 not even the inquisitive sparrow, ever ventures 
 within.,>^ 
 
 The Egyptian Museum, still in its youth as a 
 national institution, contains a unique collection 
 of antiquities, ranking with the world's important 
 treasures. It was Mariette's marvelous energy and 
 persistence that awakened Egyptians to the pro- 
 priety of preserving the souvenirs of their great 
 ancestors. His efforts first bore fruit in the mu- 
 seum at Bulak, and the promulgation of a decree 
 establishing governmental control of antiquities. 
 Up to that time Egypt had been prolific ground 
 for European museums, and for half a century 
 scarcely a vessel sailed from Alexandria that carried 
 nothing for the British Museum or the Louvre. 
 The Rosetta Stone, even, revealing the secret of 
 the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians, that had 
 been forgotten for fourteen centuries, was allowed 
 to be removed from the country where it unques- 
 
 66
 
 ,fr!, o 1) r-la .*U iTw jri] !■ ' (1 iL ~^ 
 
 fcA --^ ^ " ' (-^ r^^ -^iij ,»>s I 
 -^ 1,^ . _^ ''" "C t^f^i •-*- x" I >» 
 
 
 .f^ "?D n, h ^ 
 
 
 ™ «^' •^>- r. 
 
 • f '°l'i 789 "V " ■ 3> ' \ ^ ~^ -^ ^ " 
 
 A
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 tionably belonged, to become an exhibit of the 
 British Museum. 
 
 The fame of the Bulak collection became worid- 
 wide with the transfer from Der el-Bahari of the 
 mummies of Rameses the Great and many of his 
 royal predecessors and successors. The storing of 
 these priceless objects in the trumpery Bulak build- 
 ings, small and inflammable, awakened the govern- 
 ment to the need for better quarters. Then the 
 collection was moved across the Nile to the palace 
 of Gizeh. There, in a few years, it grew with such 
 rapidity, through the frequent finds of valuable 
 sarcophagi, statues, papyri, and stelae, that a popu- 
 lar demand for a fire-proof structure arose, and in 
 1897 the khedive laid with much ceremony the 
 corner-stone of a great building near Kasr el-Nil, in 
 Cairo, where the bodies of the kings, the antiquities, 
 the wonderful jewelry unearthed a few years since 
 at Dashur,— equal in design and finish to anything 
 a Tiffany of to-day can fashion,— and all the mar- 
 velous articles, will be deposited, there to remain, 
 it is hoped, forever. The building will be a fitting 
 monument to the labors of Mariette, Maspero, Gre- 
 baut, the two Brugsches, and De Morgan. 
 / There is no more interesting ceremony in Cairo 
 than the annual cutting of the Khalig, in the early 
 days of August. 'When the Nile begins to rise, its 
 height is daily chanted through the streets, until it 
 reaches^sixteen cubits on the ancient Nilometer at 
 the southern end of the island of Roda. This mark 
 reached, the Khalig el-Masri, the old canal that 
 flows through the heart of Cairo, is opened. Up 
 
 69
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 to this time it is dry, and, full or empty, it is little 
 more than a sanitary abomination in these days; 
 but in former times, when the Nile was high enough 
 to flow down its bed, it was taken by the people as 
 proof that the yearly flood was coming, and that 
 the kindly fruits of the earth would quickly follow. 
 
 The head of the Khalig, on the road to Old Cairo, 
 is closed by an earthwork embankment weeks be- 
 fore the function. As the festival draws near, 
 elaborate preparations are made for its celebration ; 
 tents with innumerable lamps are erected on one 
 side of the canal, while the opposite bank is lined 
 with frames for fireworks. All the notables of the 
 capital, civic, religious, and military, in gorgeous 
 uniforms and canonicals, attend the festivity. The 
 khedive, or a minister representing him, is there, 
 as are the Sheik ul Islam (the highest dignitary 
 of the Mohammedan faith), the Sheik el Bekri, and 
 the acknowledged descendant of the prophet, the 
 Sheik es Sadat. El-Azhar is represented by its 
 learned priests and scribes, the Egyptian govern- 
 ment by cabinet officers and secretaries, and for- 
 eign powers by their diplomatic and consular offi- 
 cials. The sirdar and his staff, judges from the 
 international and native courts, and a sprinkling 
 of functionaries from governmental departments 
 and bureaus, complete the picturesque and hetero- 
 geneous gathering. 
 
 Egyptian regiments are turned out, salutes are 
 fired, and by eight o'clock in the evening, when 
 the ceremony officially commences, there may be 
 twenty or thirty thousand spectators massed on 
 
 70
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 land and river. An inclosure is reserved for harem 
 carriages, packed with closely veiled women, who 
 can see but little of the entertainment. Out on the 
 Nile, opposite the canal's mouth, is moored the hulk 
 of a vessel, ablaze with lamps and fireworks, which 
 is claimed to be emblematic of the time when the 
 republic of Venice sent an envoy to witness the 
 ceremony. The excitement increases with every 
 discharge of fireworks or arrival of a grandee, and 
 the populace shouts and dances itself into a frenzy 
 of delight. Meanwhile scores of copper- skinned 
 Egyptians are shoulder-deep in the Nile, cutting 
 away the embankment with their mattocks, while 
 bands play and the sky is zigzagged with rockets. 
 The officials go home by midnight, but the common 
 people keep up their merriment until morning. By 
 seven o'clock most of the high functionaries have 
 returned. Then the Sheik ul Islam solemnly thanks 
 the Almighty, Allah the All-powerful, the All- 
 merciful. He implores his blessing on the flood, 
 and at a signal the bank is cut, the waters rush in, 
 and hundreds of men and boys plunge into the 
 torrent to scramble for the bright piasters thrown 
 by the khedive's representative and the religious 
 luminaries. It is claimed that the dailj^ records of 
 the Nilometer for a thousand years are preserved 
 in the archives of Cairo. 
 
 The Shubra Palaceahd grounds, now deserted and 
 decaying, but once the home of viceregal splendor 
 and voluptuousness, are worth all the trouble re- 
 quired to secure permission to visit them. Shubra 
 was the favorite residence of Mehemet Ali, from 
 
 71
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 whom it descended to Halim Pasha, his son, but for 
 many years has been the subject of acrimonious 
 litigation among members of the khedival family, 
 the magnificent place remaining unoccupied since 
 Prince Hassan's demise. The umbrageous Shubra 
 avenue, two miles in length, connecting Cairo and 
 the palace, was beloved by generations of gay 
 people, until the oval Ghizereh drive became 
 the Eotten Row of the Egyptian capital. From 
 that moment the decline of the Shubra drive was 
 rapid, until in these days it attracts very few Cai- 
 renes. The palace has that look of absenteeism so 
 suggestive of lawsuits, and the fine villas lining the 
 roadway from Cairo are in great part tenantless as 
 well. 
 
 Standing close to the Nile, with the Pyramids in 
 plain view, the palace seems worthy of occupancy. 
 Its situation is not rivaled by any other princely 
 home in the country, surely; but it is probably 
 permanently dismantled. The gardens are still 
 magnificent, rich with tropical plants and trees, 
 and very extensive. The gem of the place is the 
 wonderful kiosk, hidden from sight by groves of 
 orange-, sycamore-, and lebbek-trees. It is a curi- 
 ous structure, covering an acre or more, and was 
 once resplendent with decorations of the Italian 
 Renaissance school. These are now peeling off, the 
 silken hangings of the corner rooms almost fall into 
 shreds from their own weight, the tortoise-shell- 
 inlaid billiard-cues are succumbing to the warping 
 hand of time, and the fresco-portraits of Mehemet 
 Ali and Ibrahim are almost unrecognizable. 
 
 72
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 This kiosk was a favorite plaything of Mehemet 
 Ali, and its walls have screened from the know- 
 ledge of the world many orgies of the Eastern sort, 
 in which fair women played important parts. A 
 special pastime of the great despot, affording him 
 the keenest enjoyment, was to collect together the 
 ladies of the harem, perhaps a hundred at once, 
 divide them into boating parties, and have them 
 paddled into the middle of the lakelet within the 
 kiosk. Then, at his signal, the eunuchs would 
 overturn the boats, precipitating the lovely freight, 
 screaming and scrambling, into the water, while 
 their lord and master was convulsed with delight 
 and laughter. It amused the viceroy more than 
 any pas of his odalisks. 
 
 The name "Egyptian cigarette," applied to the 
 article established as an adjunct to fashionable and 
 club life, is, strictly speaking, a misnomer, for no 
 tobacco is grown in the country; in fact, culti- 
 vation of the plant has been since 1890 forbidden 
 by khedival decree. " Cigarettes made in Egypt " 
 would be the truthful description. Practically all 
 the tobacco comes from Turkey, where it is shipped 
 chiefly from Kavala, Latakia, and Yenidje. The 
 paper comes from Austria and Italy, and the major 
 part of the labor employed is Greek, except for 
 common cigarettes, which are made by native work- 
 men. The manufacture is very largely in the 
 hands of Greeks, and so deeply founded is the belief 
 that Europe and America will buy only Egyptian 
 cigarettes made by a Greek firm that several Cairo 
 manufactories are carried on under trade-names 
 
 75
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 invented or borrowed in pursuance of this strange 
 notion. 
 
 The tobacco used is not adulterated in any way, 
 it is claimed, but is skilfully blended to acquire the 
 desired strength and flavor. The best leaves are 
 used for export orders, the common grades being 
 consumed in Egypt, where nearly every man, wo- 
 man, and child is a constant smoker of cigarettes. 
 Custom-house returns show that of the tobacco en- 
 tering the country only about one third is exported 
 in manufactured form, thus indicating the enor- 
 mous home consumption, and giving a suggestion 
 of the quantity leaving Egypt in the baggage of 
 travelers. Machinery is not employed in any way, 
 except for cutting the tobacco, and it is said that 
 the workmen wield sufficient power to render the 
 adoption of machinery for making cigarettes a step 
 too dangerous to be contemplated. The trade is 
 centered in Cairo, where there are nearly a hundred 
 export establishments. 
 
 The Egyptian cigarette has such an enviable 
 position among the luxuries of the world that it is 
 difficult to believe that this flourishing trade is of 
 very recent growth; but it is, in fact, one of the 
 many indirect advantages accruing to the country 
 from the impetus imparted by the invasion of for- 
 eign enterprise. 
 
 The Cairo-made cigarette is valued above all 
 others manufactured in Egypt. The same tobacco 
 may be used and as skilful workmen employed in 
 other places, but nowhere else is the same delicacy 
 of flavor achieved. It is claimed by experts that 
 
 76
 
 In Fascinating Cairo 
 
 the cause of the superiority of the Cairo cigarette 
 over that of Alexandria or Port Said is the super- 
 dry climate of the capital, which is better adapted 
 to the fabrication of cigarettes than is the humid 
 atmosphere of the sea-coast. The constant flow of 
 tourists has been the chief means of spreading the 
 taste for the Egyptian cigarette, acquired in the 
 land of the Nile, and its delicate aroma is familiar, 
 in consequence, not only in America and England, 
 but in far corners of the earth. All tobacco enter- 
 ing Egypt pays a duty equal to one dollar per kilo- 
 gram, and a drawback equal to fifty cents a kilo- 
 gram is allowed on cigarettes sent out of the 
 country. 
 
 77
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ALEXANDRIA, SEAT OF EGYPTIAN COMMERCE 
 
 A LEXANDRIA is a city with a past, truly ; but 
 Jl\. renowned as it was in the world's early his- 
 tory for intellectual development and political posi- 
 tion, I regard its present-day aspect, as the one 
 great mart of the southern coast of the Mediter- 
 ranean and entrepot of a nation's commerce, to be 
 more important still. Cairo looks old, but com- 
 paratively is not ; Alexandria has the appearance 
 of newness, but was twelve hundred years old 
 before the first stone of Cairo was laid. This is 
 paradoxical by suggestion. 
 
 The approach to Alexandria from the sea is not 
 prepossessing, and the steamer is within ten miles 
 or so of the harbor before any portion of the low- 
 lying coast can be discerned. The object first seen 
 on the horizon, looking like a distant sail, proves to 
 be the Phare, the direct descendant of the earliest 
 lighthouse in the world. Pompey's Pillar next 
 comes into view on the left, followed by the dome 
 of Ras-el-Teen Palace, Napoleon's windmills at Mex, 
 and the rising ground beyond Ramleh. By this time 
 the coast-line is uplifted, and Alexandria is in sight. . 
 
 In half an hour the Arab pilot is on board, the 
 
 78
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 vessel rounds the great breakwater, and the trav- 
 eler is actually in Egypt— the new Egypt. The 
 motley scene meeting the eye on getting ashore 
 vividly indicates the transition that is in progress 
 from the half- barbarism of the East to the civiliza- 
 tion of the West, and in its contrasts — its wealth 
 and its squalor, its busy new life rising like a tide 
 over its old conservatism — the newcomer has a fair 
 symbol of the actual Egypt. Modern methods of 
 procedure enable you to pass the custom-house with 
 little loss of time, system having taken the place 
 of bakshish as an accelerating agent. The drive 
 to the hotel, the Khedival or Abbat's, takes one 
 first through narrow native streets and alleys, then 
 into the vast public square of Mehemet Ali, with 
 Italianate structures of imposing size on every side, 
 then through streets of modern shops, and your first 
 drive in the city of Alexander and Cleopatra is at 
 an end. The sapphire sky, balmy atmosphere, and 
 palm-trees overtopping the houses, tell you that 
 you are in Egypt ; but the buildings, the shops and 
 their wares, suggest a city in Italy or southern 
 France— perhaps Naples, possibly Marseilles. 
 
 The people in the streets and their chatter affirm 
 that you are over the threshold of the Orient, how- 
 ever. There are Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Copts, 
 Nubians, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Albanians, 
 Levantines, Italians, Maltese, French, many Eng- 
 lish, some Austrians— in fact, a variety of human- 
 ity, from which a perfect congress of nations might 
 be drafted. The appearance of the people removes 
 any doubt of the whereabouts of the traveler, for it 
 
 79
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 is only in Alexandria that this endless variety may 
 be found. Cairo, like Washington, is official and 
 administrative in all its attributes — everything, 
 perhaps, but commercial ; Alexandria, on the other 
 hand, is as exclusively commercial as Liverpool. 
 
 In the selection of the site to which the great 
 Macedonian was to give his name, Alexander 
 proved himself to possess the unerring instinct of 
 engineering genius. A less able man might have 
 chosen the natural harbor of one of the Nile's 
 mouths. But Alexander evidently was aware of 
 the current sweeping the whole northern shore of 
 Africa from west to east, and his foresight told him 
 that a harbor to serve as a port for his projected 
 Eastern dominions must be west of the several 
 mouths of the great river, to be safe from the 
 accumulation of the alluvial soil ever sweeping into 
 the Mediterranean. It was this soil-laden wash 
 that choked the old Pelusiac harbor beyond Port 
 Said, and that to-day, in spite of bars and break- 
 waters, makes the task of keeping the entrance to 
 the Suez Canal open for ships of deep draft a diffi- 
 cult one. Hence the wisdom of Alexander the 
 Great, and the foundation of Alexandria in the 
 year 332 b. c. 
 
 The diminutive island of Pharos must have been 
 employed as a shelter for shipping in Alexander's 
 reign, and the first of his lieutenants to wear the 
 crown of Egypt, Ptolemy Soter, constructed thereon 
 the Pharos tower, famed in history as the father of 
 lighthouses. It is recorded that this tower was 
 nearly six hundred feet high, and that on its top 
 
 80
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 beacon-fires were burned by night as a guide and 
 warning to mariners. This pile of masonry, of 
 greater proportions than the Washington Monu- 
 ment, reared when the world was young, naturally 
 was included in the list of wonderful structures; 
 it was termed the seventh wonder of the earth. 
 Ptolemy Soter likewise connected Pharos with the 
 city by the Heptastadium causeway, bringing the 
 island within easier reach, and dividing the inter- 
 vening space into two harbors. The action of sea- 
 currents for centuries has supplemented building 
 operations from time to time, and the causeway has 
 so long been a feature of the city that few dwellers in 
 modern Alexandria are aware of its artificial origin. 
 Ptolemy Soter was also responsible for making 
 Alexandria a seat of learning, and for the creation 
 of the world-famous library and museum. He 
 brought there many of the wise men of Europe, 
 and through his efforts Alexandria for years 
 occupied the leading place in literature, philosophy, 
 and science. His son and successor, Ptolemy Phil- 
 adelphus, continued the wise policy, and Ptolemy 
 Euergetes made his reign famous for the encour- 
 agement given to learning. This king brought to 
 Alexandria, among other great personages, Aris- 
 tophanes of Byzantium, who became keeper of the 
 library. When the Romans laid siege to the city 
 in Csesar's time, both library and museum were 
 ruthlessly burned. As a foundation for a second 
 library, Antony presented Cleopatra with the Per- 
 gamenian manuscripts, two hundred thousand in 
 number. The collection grew rapidly. Copies of 
 
 83
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 works of importance were made at public expense, 
 and it is stated that every book that came into the 
 city was seized and kept, a copy only being handed 
 to the owner. Scholars from many lands made 
 Alexandria their abiding-place, to enjoy the bene- 
 fits of the priceless books and parchments. Strabo 
 and Euclid studied there. When the fanatical calif 
 Omar overran Egypt, in the seventh century, he 
 proclaimed that, as the Koran contained everything 
 that man should know, other books had no right to 
 exist. Consequently he decreed that the second 
 great library to bring renown to Alexandria should 
 forthwith be destroyed. It is recorded that seven 
 hundred thousand manuscripts and volumes in all 
 languages were apportioned to the city's four thou- 
 sand public bathing establishments, with which the 
 fires of these were fed for six months. This was, 
 indeed, the most crushing blow ever inflicted on 
 literature. 
 
 Ruled now by Persian, now by Roman, now by 
 Grreek, and enervated by vice and luxury, and with 
 the loss of population and prestige that preceded 
 the stagnation and decay spreading over the cen- 
 turies from Cleopatra to Mehemet Ali, Alexandria's 
 varying welfare could not be detailed within the 
 limits of a sketchy chapter. The death-blow to its 
 fortunes was the discovery, in 1497, of the passage 
 round the Cape of Good Hope, which changed the 
 direction of the commerce of the East. 
 
 The Alexandria that visitors see dates only from 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the 
 advent of Mehemet Ali. Taking the leaderless 
 
 84
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 soldiers of the shattered Turkish supremacy in 
 Egypt, who had retired with sulky scorn from 
 Alexandria to a quarter of their own, on what once 
 was the island of Pharos, Mehemet Ali united them 
 with his Albanian troops, and found he had then 
 the unbreakable backbone of an army of fighters, 
 few in number, it is true, but sufficiently powerful 
 with his cunning to overthrow the Mamelukes rul- 
 ing at Cairo. The fearless Rumelian then organized 
 the Egyptian people,— Arabs and Nilots, — and by 
 sheer genius welded into something approaching a 
 nationality these discordant elements. The renais- 
 sance of Egypt and the revival of Alexandria's 
 fortunes date, consequently, from the coming of 
 Mehemet Ali. He loved the city and made it his 
 capital. 
 
 His master mind recognizing the need of con- 
 necting the seaport with the Nile, this autocrat 
 traced a line fifty miles long on a map, and two 
 hundred and fifty thousand fellaheen, working 
 without pay or food from their dictator, in a year 
 scooped out of the sand with their hands the trench 
 known as the Mahmudiyeh Canal. Thirty thou- 
 sand of the peasants died before the canal was 
 completed, but it brought fresh water and a nation's 
 commerce to Alexandria. 
 
 As viceroy, Mehemet Ali sought to make Alex- 
 andria great in trade. To this end, before provid- 
 ing palaces, he improved the harbor and erected 
 warehouses, docks, a dry-dock, and an arsenal. To 
 accomplish these things, and to develop irrigation 
 in the Delta, he had the assistance of Linant Pasha 
 
 85
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 and other brilliant engineers, recruited in France. 
 Although some of Mehemet Ali's successors have 
 been woefully inert, all, with the exception of the 
 first Abbas, have done something toward upbuild- 
 ing Alexandria. The population has developed 
 until, in the present year, it is computed to be 
 three hundred and twenty-five thousand. Ismail 
 had a superstitious fear that he was destined to die 
 in Alexandria, and consequently passed little time 
 there. The most conspicuous modern Egyptian 
 buried in this commercial capital, where Archi- 
 medes conceived his most useful inventions, and 
 where St. Mark preached the gospel, is Viceroy 
 Said. 
 
 To-day Alexandria has broad avenues, theaters, 
 clubs, and many other features, good and bad, of 
 a flourishing city in Europe, and better- paved 
 streets than most European towns. Ten or fifteen 
 years since, the condition of the streets left so much 
 to be desired that the leading export merchants 
 took the matter in hand, and agreed to pay to the 
 municipality a small fee on each bale of cotton and 
 sack of grain or sugar shipped by them. The 
 aggregate in a few years was sufficient to give 
 every important thoroughfare a paving of stone 
 blocks, and from the handsome residue a fire-boat 
 and other needed adjuncts were donated to the 
 city. All this was accomplished without taxing 
 the people. 
 
 In these times the harbor exhibits almost as 
 great a variety of foreign flags as the crowd on 
 the quays represents nationalities, More than 
 
 86
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 twenty regular lines of steamers ply to and from 
 Alexandria ; visiting men-of-war and yachts lie for 
 weeks at a time in the harbor, and the life and 
 movement are those of a great international sea- 
 port. - 
 /'^^TKe harbor is protected by a sea-wall nearly 
 two miles in length, constructed of more than 
 twenty-six thousand square blocks of concrete, 
 each weighing twenty- two tons, and is perfectly 
 lighted. The well-protected haven, of a depth of 
 twenty to sixty feet, and an area of eighteen hun- 
 dred acres, thus formed, is supplemented by an 
 inner port of perhaps one fourth the size. The 
 harbor dues are considerable, but these, combined 
 with the income of the country's railways and 
 telegraphs, were pledged to European creditors 
 demanding security when the national treasury 
 had been depleted by Ismail's wild extravagance. 
 Could the bronze statue of the founder of the 
 dynasty, appareled in the Turkish costume of his 
 time, and astride a horse of superb proportions, 
 in the Place Mehemet Ali, be endowed with life, 
 the Great Initiator might see endless processions 
 of cotton-laden vehicles moving toward the docks. 
 If such a return to life were possible, his mind 
 might revert to the time when a friendly botanist 
 found growing wild in a Cairene garden a few 
 plants whose blossoms developed into fiber-filled 
 bolls, which, the savant advised the viceroy, might 
 be cultivated in Egypt on a large scale with great 
 profit. This was the origin of cotton-culture there, 
 representing in shipments from Alexandria now 
 
 89
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 nearly a million bales in a season, and from this in- 
 cident sprang the nation's principal industry. When 
 civil war raged in the United States, and English 
 mills were compelled to find fiber elsewhere for their 
 looms, Egyptian cotton sold at a dollar a pound. 
 In two years Alexandria waxed rich in conse- 
 quence, and its wealth found expression in streets 
 of Italianate business buildings and residences. 
 Those that were smashed to atoms by the British 
 bombardment in 1882 were replaced by larger and 
 handsomer structures, still in the Italian style of 
 architecture. 
 
 One feature of the massacre of Europeans on 
 that memorable July 11, 1882, and of the subse- 
 quent sacking of the city, was peculiarly signifi- 
 cant. The grand square of Mehemet Ali was 
 wrecked from end to end, and its sidewalks ran 
 with blood. But one thing was respected by the 
 brutal mob, sparing no one, nothing, save this. 
 Imperious Mehemet Ali sat there throughout all 
 the strife on his Arab horse. The crowd suffered 
 no one to molest it. Had it been an efiigy of 
 Ismail instead, it would have been destroyed by 
 the fanatical, degraded ruffians at the outset of 
 their orgy of blood. 
 
 Apart from the splendid monolith miscalled 
 Pompey's Pillar, and the catacombs, dating from 
 the time of Constantine, of which there are remains 
 of rare architectural symmetry, nothing exists in 
 Alexandria to reward the search of the traveler 
 with a fondness for antiquities. The pillar, erected 
 in honor of Diocletian, and having nothing to do 
 
 90
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 with Pompey, is of the familiar red granite of 
 Assuan. Some investigators beheve that this 
 Corinthian column was once an obelisk, and that 
 it was rounded to its present form by the Romans, 
 and, further, that its situation marks the site of 
 the famous Serapeum. It is known to have been 
 erected in the third century after Christ, to com- 
 memorate the capture of the city by the Emperor 
 Diocletian, after the rebellion of Achilleus. The 
 statue which must have adorned its summit long 
 since disappeared, leaving no trace to tell us whom 
 it represented. The column's shadow falls to-day 
 upon a dreary Arab cemetery— pathetic symbol of 
 the buried glories of the metropolis it once graced. 
 
 The two obelisks which Cleopatra or Caesar 
 removed from the Temple of the Sun at Heliop- 
 olis to adorn the Cassarium were lost to Alex- 
 andria in Ismail's time. One, after lying prone for 
 centuries where it fell, is in London ; the other in 
 New York.___ 
 
 Tothe south of Alexandria lies the extensive 
 but shallow sheet of water known as Lake Mare- 
 otis. It covers what was once a fertile plain, pos- 
 sessing a lake upon which Alexandria depended 
 for fresh water. In 1801, when a British force was 
 conducting an operation before the city, then in the 
 hands of Bonaparte's troops, it was deemed a good 
 strategic expedient to cut off Alexandria's supply 
 of fresh water. To accomplish this the English 
 severed at Mex the neck of land separating the lake 
 from the Mediterranean, thereby admitting the sea 
 and flooding a hundred thousand acres of culti- 
 ^ 91
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 vable soil, sacrificing many lives, and ruining forty 
 villages — and the climate of Alexandria. It was a 
 wicked act, hardly justified by the needs of war- 
 fare. It is a curious example of the irony of fate 
 that monster English pumps and a staff of English 
 engineers — paid for by the Egyptian government 
 —are given constant employment to-day in keep- 
 ing the salt water of Lake Mareotis within bounds, 
 for no engineering resource can now prevent the 
 percolation of the sea to the lower level of Mareotis. 
 Engineering skill can only keep the water from 
 overflowing still more valuable territory. A mil- 
 lion and a half tons of water are pumped back into 
 the Mediterranean every twenty-four hours. ^ - 
 
 Ramleh is the only residential suburb of Alex- 
 andria. It is easier to make the assertion than to 
 describe the limits of the place. It has many titular 
 subdivisions, but generically Ramleh may be said 
 to stretch along the entire sea-front from Alex- 
 andria to Abukir Bay, a dozen miles away. 
 "Ramleh" is the native word for sand, and in 
 this instance is applied with signal appropriate- 
 ness. In summer all that portion of Cairo's official- 
 dom unable to manage European leave of absence 
 betakes itself en masse to the hotels and villas of the 
 Alexandrian suburb, there to keep cool and inci- 
 dentally assail the humid atmosphere by invidious 
 comparison. Hundreds of Alexandria's business 
 men reside throughout the year at Ramleh. Judges 
 of the international courts, consuls,' functionaries 
 of every degree, bourse operators, and Jewish and 
 Greek money magnates, find there peaceful repose. 
 
 92 
 
 I
 
 NATIVK Wu.MA.N" ANJJ tlliLD.
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 A primitive line of railway, owned by Englishmen 
 and very profitable, sets down passengers at several 
 stations. Mustapha Pasha station accommodates 
 the British soldiers housed in the old khedival 
 palace, and St. Stephano station is the objective 
 point of the liaut ton going to spend an evening at 
 the casino, or have a cooling swim in the Mediter- 
 ranean. When Alexandrians desire to celebrate, 
 singly or collectively, they go to the Ramleh casino, 
 and do it well. Pashas and others having no need 
 for observing regularity of hours in town drive 
 back and forth on the splendid road patronized by 
 his Highness the Khedive when he passes to and 
 fro between Montazah and Ras-el-Teen Palace. 
 
 Besides being very convenient, this Egyptian 
 Long Branch is exceedingly pleasant at all times. 
 The blue sea, stretching to the horizon, is ever 
 soothing to exhausted nerves, and in summer bears 
 a refreshing inshore breeze with commendable regu- 
 larity. In the mad race to get away from Egypt in 
 the early summer, hundreds of people go farther 
 and fare worse than if contenting themselves with 
 the easily attainable comforts of Eamleh. 
 
 Abukir possesses resources of interest amply 
 rewarding a visit to this place where history has 
 been made, not to inspect the insignificant village, 
 but to view the bay where one of the greatest 
 of naval engagements was contested. The semicir- 
 cular bay is surrounded by obsolete forts and earth- 
 works, many of whose guns are dismantled, and all 
 of a type long ago discarded. A pleasant half-day 
 may be passed about these forts, with lunch-basket 
 
 95
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 at hand, viewing the scene of the battle of the Nile, 
 and picturing in the mind's eye Lord Nelson's bril- 
 liant manoeuvers, by which thirteen doughty French 
 ships of the line were destroyed. 
 
 There is a distinct admixture of Greek blood in 
 the people of Alexandria, observable in many coun- 
 tenances, and the Greek colony is the largest of 
 foreign origin dwelling in the great seaport. A 
 considerable share of its financial and commercial 
 business is conducted by Greeks, and innumerable 
 names seen over shop doors recall the nomencla- 
 ture of the classics familiar to every student. Some 
 of the palatial homes of the city and its suburbs are 
 those of Greek bankers and merchants, and there 
 is an intimate intercourse between Alexandria and 
 Athens. Love of the home country is a character- 
 istic of these transplanted people, whose patriotism 
 finds frequent expression in gifts to Athenian in- 
 stitutions and causes. It is a boast of many Greeks 
 in Alexandria that their ancestors have dwelt in 
 Egypt since the days of Cleopatra ; that their coun- 
 trymen were there before the advent of the Arabs, 
 and have been there uninterruptedly longer than 
 the people of any other nation. 
 
 One can scarcely walk the historic streets of 
 Alexandria without his thoughts dwelling at times 
 upon the splendid woman wlio once ruled Egypt 
 from that place, whose beauty enslaved all that be- 
 held it, and caused the bravest generals to forsake 
 the conquering missions that brought them from 
 Rome, and let themselves be conquered by the 
 irresistible charm of Cleopatra. Mere presence in 
 
 96
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 the city once her capital marshals in memory all 
 that one has read or seen depicted on stage or can- 
 vas of the fascinating queen, and more than one 
 visitor aimlessly strolls the streets pondering the 
 problem of her nationality, and asking himself 
 whether the tale of her death from the bite of an 
 asp had its origin, like the William Tell narrative, 
 in a popular work of an early romancist. The 
 name haunts one everywhere. Even pleasure- 
 boats in the harbor and cafes in important thor- 
 oughfares record the name of Egypt's last queen, 
 and cigarettes served with after-dinner coffee are 
 called in her honor as well. 
 
 Tarrying travelers discuss Cleopatra with each 
 other, and with those whom they meet, as if she had 
 been of a recent century. Guide-books assure them 
 that she was but thirty-nine when she died by her 
 own hand, that the tragedy preceded the Christian 
 era by only thirty years, and that Alexandria was 
 alike the city of her nativity and her entombment. 
 
 There are Alexandrians sufficiently cultured to 
 entitle their opinions to credence on most subjects, 
 who insist that Cleopatra was a beauty of dusky 
 face; some go so far as to insist that she was 
 undeniably a Nubian, and point to the bas-reliefs 
 of the temple of Hathor, at Denderah, in substan- 
 tiation of their opinion. But no cultured Greek 
 will enter the lists in a debate jeopardizing for an 
 instant the nationality of the great goddess of 
 beauty, for he knows with as much certainty as he 
 does the name of the present King of Greece that 
 Cleopatra was the purest of pure Greek, a Ptolemy, 
 
 97
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 and that lier complexion was as fair as that of any- 
 Athenian belle to-day. The erudite Greek gets out 
 his Plutarch— the best-known historian coeval with 
 Cleopatra, and who must have seen her or talked 
 with those knowing her— and points to chapters 
 leaving as little doubt of the purity of her Greek 
 blood as of her charm of person and conversation. 
 
 The Denderah sculptures when analyzed, the 
 erudite champion maintains with every show of 
 reason, portray a face whose outline and charac- 
 teristics are unmistakably Greek. Were the temj^le 
 of Denderah not situated near the Nubian frontier, 
 no logical examiner could ever have found a sug- 
 gestion in the portraits that the queen was negroid. 
 The shape of the nose proves to the contrary, and 
 the bust of Cleopatra in the Cajntol at Rome sup- 
 ports the assertion. Furthermore, the Egyptian 
 sculptors did not attempt to idealize. They sculp- 
 tured with honest fidelity the faces they saw. In 
 these up-Nile portraits the consummate mistress 
 of the art of fascination wears a winning smile, but 
 the figure of the queen is distorted. 
 
 Painters, poets, novelists, wi'iters of dramas, 
 and actresses seem ever to have had in mind the 
 idea that Cleopatra was a half-caste, in whom the 
 charms of Europe and Africa were combined, a wo- 
 man who ruled the world with the intellect of a 
 thinker directing the arts of an odalisk. It requires 
 little investigation, on the contrary, to learn that 
 the great queen was, as her name suggests, a Greek 
 of the Greeks, of pure and illustrious descent, and 
 not an African. Gerome, Picou, Alma-Tadema, 
 
 98
 
 CLEOPATRA (FROM THE TEMPLE OP DENDERAH)
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 Cabanel, Sichel, G-rolleau, and other artists have 
 exercised as much license in portraying the beau- 
 tiful woman as Shakspere and less renowned poets 
 have in describing her. 
 
 The means employed by the baffled queen — too 
 proud to return to Rome after Antony's self- 
 destruction, to be exhibited in the festival cele- 
 brating the triumph of Octavianus— to produce 
 death unfortunately cannot be as directly dealt with 
 as the question of her descent. In Alexandrian 
 suburbs to-day are groves of fig-trees, whose fruit, 
 arranged in flat baskets and covered with fig-leaves, 
 is sold by the roadside by native lads, as it might 
 have been in the time of Cleopatra. An occasional 
 lizard, basking in the warm sunshine on the sand, 
 which scurries away when footsteps approach, may 
 have suggested the asp story to a writer of long 
 ago, constructing a romantic epic or play. The 
 theory of the poisonous reptile conveyed to the 
 unhappy queen in a basket of figs is improbable.. 
 Cleopatra was too experienced in Eastern ways not 
 to have understood the secret of poisons and have 
 them at hand. The brother-husband, sharing with 
 her the throne, had died from poison years before, 
 under circumstances that indicated his murderess ; 
 and, besides, a woman of her vanity would choose 
 death from one of the destroying drugs known to 
 her, rather than from the poison of the asp, dis- 
 figuring in its agency of destruction. 
 
 Many thousands of Mohammedans of the lower 
 social grades in Alexandria, and for that matter 
 throughout Lower Egypt, are slaves to the hashish 
 
 loi
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 habit. There is a law rigidly forbidding the impor- 
 tation of this noxious product of Indian hemp, and 
 the government employs every means for keeping 
 it out of Egypt. Hundreds of miles of littoral to 
 the west and east of Alexandria, that, were it not 
 for hashish smuggling, would seldom be watched, 
 are systematically patrolled by coast-guardsmen, 
 and every foot of the Suez Canal is similarly under 
 surveillance ; while port authorities at Alexandria, 
 Eosetta, Damietta, and Port Said expend more 
 energy in endeavoring to prevent the secret land- 
 ing of hashish than all other articles declared by 
 Egyptian law to be contraband. 
 
 Notwithstanding these precautions, the cunning 
 of the smugglers enables them to run the forbidden 
 article across from islands of the Grecian Archi- 
 pelago, and land it in Egypt with a certainty per- 
 mitting the demand for the compound to be 
 regularly supplied. It is manufactured in many 
 out-of-the-way places in the eastern Mediterranean, 
 and its excessive value, once within reach of its 
 devotees in Egypt, is enough to compensate those 
 concerned in the trade for the occasional confisca- 
 tion of a shipment. Many of the devices practised 
 for getting it into the country are ingenious in the 
 extreme. A visit to the little museum connected 
 with the Alexandrian custom-house proves this. 
 One may there see innocent-looking trunks and 
 bulging piano-legs, the one with false bottoms and 
 the other with capacious cavities, that were filled 
 with hashish when investigated by the custom- 
 house examiners. These are perhaps the simplest 
 
 102
 
 Alexandria, Seat of Commerce 
 
 tricks resorted to by shippers of the illicit article. 
 Many others more difficult to detect are to be seen 
 in the curious collection. 
 
 By means of confederates on the lookout, many 
 a rubber bag and water-tight box of hashish finds 
 its way ashore, on the Mediterranean beach or in 
 the Suez Canal, nearly every night. The authorities 
 cannot cope with the cunning of the aliens waxing 
 fat from the Egyptian slaves to hashish. I have 
 been assured that in both Alexandria and Cairo the 
 cafes and other establishments where a smoke of 
 hashish may be had number hundreds. The Koran 
 strictly forbidding the use of liquors and wines, the 
 mind of lower-class Mohammedans has seized the 
 intoxicating hemp compound as an alternative. It 
 is more debasing and injurious than strong drink, 
 physicians claim, and often leads to insanity or 
 idiocy. Alexandria, with its native population 
 living in intimate relations with the offscourings 
 of every Mediterranean land, has for generations 
 been the headquarters of the use of hashish. 
 
 103
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 PAKADOXICAL BUT EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATION 
 
 AMONG the nations of the earth Egypt stands 
 ■^^ unique in history, and in unusual and para- 
 doxical conditions. Mysterious and fascinating as 
 it was to Strabo and Herodotus, so it is to the 
 observer to-day, and especially to the winter visitor 
 who endeavors in a brief season to fathom its 
 wealth of archsBological wonders and its scheme 
 of political administration. This last is nearly as 
 difficult to understand as are the hieroglyphs of the 
 monuments, for it has no equivalent in ancient or 
 modern times. 
 
 Nominally a province of the Ottoman empire, 
 Egypt is autonomous, subject only to a yearly 
 tribute to the Sultan of about three million five 
 hundred thousand dollars. The title of its ruler 
 means sovereign, or king, without qualification or 
 limitation; yet the country is in large measure 
 administered by Great Britain, standing in the 
 capacity of trustee for creditors of her own and of 
 several other nationalities as well. This trustee- 
 ship is voluntary on England's part, and is forced 
 upon the khedival government. 
 
 The situation might not inaptly be compared 
 J 04
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 to one by which a farm is worked on shares by 
 an important creditor, with both mortgagor and 
 mortgagee reaping substantial benefit by the ar- 
 rangement, and the farm yearly made more valu- 
 able. This simile describes but one of the conditions 
 contributing to the involved Egyptian situation. 
 Another partnership is represented by the Interna- 
 tional Debt Commission, in which Egypt has six 
 partners— France, Germany, Russia, Austria, and 
 Italy, as well as Great Britain. Each of these 
 countries has a delegate at Cairo to watch the 
 cash-box and collect from time to time a share of 
 the country's receipts, in excess of actual running 
 expenses, proportionate to the amount of Egyptian 
 bonds held by his countrypeople. In this partner- 
 ship Egypt would be described in legal phraseology 
 as the " party of the first part," the six foreign com- 
 missioners combining in the " party of the second 
 part." 
 
 Then comes a third copartnership, the Interna- 
 tional Courts, in which Egypt figures but triflingly. 
 Thirteen European powers and the United States 
 of America have complete jurisdiction in these tri- 
 bunals in actions involving property rights in which 
 a European or American may be interested with 
 other aliens or with Egyptians. In these " mixed " 
 courts a foreigner can bring to the bar the Egyp- 
 tian government, or its titular head, in an action 
 involving property or monetary interest. 
 
 If these conditions fail to complete a predicament 
 remarkable in its complications, the ancient capit- 
 ulations of Ottoman rulers, by which fourteen for- 
 
 105
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 eign governments, including the United States, 
 have almost sovereign rights in Egypt, independent 
 of local authority, will surely do so. The conces- 
 sions of the Sublime Porte give to these nations 
 as full control of their subjects or citizens as if 
 in their own lands. The Egyptian government 
 itself has no stronger control over its subjects. 
 Thus an American, an Englishman, or a French- 
 man, who can be proceeded against in property 
 matters only in the international courts, can be 
 apprehended and tried for a criminal offense solely 
 by the consular authority of his government resi- 
 dent in Egypt. 
 
 It would tax the capacity of the proverbial Phila- 
 delphia lawyer to understand the capitulations suffi- 
 ciently to be able to impart their exact significance. 
 I have known many wiseacres who could explain 
 the legal status of the Debt Commission, give a 
 comprehensible epitome of the jurisdiction of the 
 mixed courts, or define the diplomatic niceties of 
 difference between "occupation" and "protector- 
 ate " ; but not one in a thousand can describe the 
 Ottoman capitulations, beyond telling you that 
 they date from this or that century, and more or 
 less vaguely deal with the rights and privileges of 
 Christians living within the Turkisli realm. 
 
 I am not claiming a knowledge superior to that 
 of other seekers for light who take the time to ex- 
 plore official works on treaties and wade through 
 dozens of massive volumes on Oriental law. It is 
 not difficult to learn that the first capitulation given 
 by the Turkish empire to the United States of 
 
 1 06
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 America was accepted by Congress and the Presi- 
 dent in 1832 ; but this sort of international treaty 
 antedates America's discovery. 
 
 The intercourse of the Christian world with the 
 Mohammedan is not founded upon the law of 
 nations. International law, as professed by the 
 nations of Christendom, is the offspring of the com- 
 munion of ideas subsisting between them, and is 
 based upon a common origin and an almost identi- 
 cal religious faith. Between the peoples of Islam 
 and those of Europe and America there exists no 
 such communion of ideas and principles from which 
 a true international law could spring. Inasmuch 
 as the propagation of Islam is the chief aim of all 
 Moslems, perpetual warfare against Christians and 
 other unbelievers, to convert them or subject them 
 to the payment of tribute, was regarded as the most 
 sacred duty of the Mohammedan. From his point 
 of view the whole world is divided into two parts 
 — the house of Islam, and the conglomerate mass 
 of unbelievers. Yet the Moslem felt that perpetual 
 war with the infidel was not possible, and that con- 
 ventions should be made for the advantage of both. 
 
 Commerce, the source of wealth and the means 
 of satisfying some of the most imperative needs of 
 mankind, could not be carried on without deviat- 
 ing from the severity of the maxims that were pro- 
 fessed. Either the destruction of one of the two 
 peoples must have ensued, or else these maxims 
 must be departed from, the Moslems saw. But a 
 subterfuge was resorted to to escape the severe 
 conditions, whereby a conflict with the doctrine of 
 
 109
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the law in its full vigor might be avoided, and the 
 doctrine itself left intact. Treaty measures were 
 thought of. But it would never do to call them 
 treaties. The representative on earth of the pro- 
 phet could never treat a Christian ruler as an equal. 
 The sultans considered themselves the only sover- 
 eigns of the earth ; all others deserved nothing but 
 pity and toleration. Treaties could be entered into 
 only with their equals, they argued. To their in- 
 feriors only grants and favors were possible. 
 
 So the word " capitulation," meaning letter of 
 privilege, was brought into use. No reciprocal 
 obligation was constituted by a capitulation, as it 
 was meant to be a purely gratuitous concession and 
 favor granted to Christians, by virtue of which they 
 were to be tolerated upon the soil of Islam. 
 
 The need for this concession on the part of the 
 Mussulmans was commerce, as I have said. Had 
 not the ships of the western world come to their 
 eastern shores to exchange with them the products 
 of the Levant, these products would have had no 
 outlet, and the producing country a limited source 
 of wealth; and had not the merchant of Europe 
 been able to establish his domicile in the land of the 
 Moslem, his ships would never have approached 
 Turkish shores. Some of the capitulations with 
 the Italian republics were dated as early as 1150. 
 In an early capitulation with France the Sultan 
 called himself " the Sultan of glorious sultans. Em- 
 peror of powerful emperors, distributor of crowns 
 to those seated upon thrones, the Shadow of God 
 upon earth, the asylum of justice, the fount of 
 
 no
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 bappiness," and much more in the same vein. In 
 response to a memorial from the Queen of England, 
 many years ago, that sovereign was described by 
 the Sultan of Turkey as one praying for certain 
 privileges for her merchants. In bestowing the 
 prayed-for concession, the document from the Sul- 
 tan described him thus modestly : " The King of 
 kings, the Prince of emperors of every age, the 
 dispenser of crowns to monarchs, who, by divine 
 grace, assistance, will, benevolence," etc. 
 
 But these dispensations, notwithstanding their 
 grandiloquence, have the force and character of 
 treaties, and guarantee to the stranger within the 
 Sultan's gates, whether in Turkey proper or in 
 Egypt, full and complete immunity from laws gov- 
 erning native dwellers in those lands. Inviolability 
 of domicile, freedom from taxation of every sort, and 
 immunity from arrest for crime and misdemeanors, 
 are but items in the general promise not to molest 
 the alien. These treaties, it will readily be seen, 
 give to the nations possessing them almost every 
 privilege of extraterritoriality, and are guarded 
 with jealous watchfulness. 
 
 The capitulations occasioned so much confusion 
 of jurisdiction in Egypt, where many Christian 
 nationalities were represented, that Nubar Pasha 
 called the attention of Ismail to the necessity for 
 reform, and himself drew up a project which was 
 communicated to all the governments maintaining 
 representatives in Egypt. 
 
 As a result, an international commission assem- 
 bled in 1869, under the presidency of Nubar, who 
 
 1 1 1
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 was minister of foreign affairs, and united in a 
 report recommending the scheme. This was signed 
 by the representatives of the United States, Aus- 
 tria, Germany, England, France, Russia, and Italy. 
 At subsequent conventions Belgium, Spain, Hol- 
 land, G-reece, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden- 
 Norway approved the plan. On June 28, 1875, 
 Khedive Ismail inaugurated the court at Alexan- 
 dria, although it was not until February 1, 1876, 
 that the new system of jurisprudence was actually 
 launched. 
 
 The procedure is practically that of France, the 
 Code Napoleon, modified to suit the circumstances 
 of a country where local customs and religious ob- 
 ligations must be respected. The jurisdiction is 
 stated in this extract from the code itself : 
 
 " The new tribunals shall have cognizance of all 
 controversies in matters civil or commercial be- 
 tween natives and foreigners, or between foreigners 
 of different nationalities. Apart from questions 
 touching the statut 2)ersonnel [questions of wills, 
 successions, heirship, and the like, which are regu- 
 lated by the laws of the country of the individual], 
 they shall have cognizance of all questions touch- 
 ing real estate between all persons, even though 
 they belong to the same [foreign] nationality." 
 
 It is of good augury for the national progress that 
 the tribunals years ago won the confidence of both 
 natives and foreigners, and that the government 
 bows to their authority. Europe needed no better 
 proof of their efficacy than when Ismail and the 
 government itself were brought before the Court 
 
 I 12
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 of Appeal as defendants, when failing to meet 
 obligations to foreign creditors. 
 
 The practice is common for a native having an 
 important suit to assign his interest to a foreign 
 friend, in order to give the international courts 
 jurisdiction of his cause, thus securing intelligent 
 and fair consideration. A few years since, when 
 some of the powers were dilatory in giving their 
 adhesion to the extension of the courts,— for every 
 five years there is a formal renewal, — something 
 like a panic occurred among the commercial com- 
 munity. 
 
 Courts of first instance are located at Cairo, 
 Alexandria, and Mansurah, and the Court of Ap- 
 peal is at Alexandria. The minimum pecuniary 
 limit of appeal is four hundred dollars. Three 
 languages are recognized in pleadings and docu- 
 ments,— French, Italian, and Arabic,— and it is 
 probable that English will shortly be added to the 
 list. The foreign counselors of the appellate court, 
 nine in number, receive a yearly salary of nine thou- 
 sand two hundred and fifty dollars each, and their 
 four native colleagues half as much. For the three 
 lower courts twenty-seven foreign judges are em- 
 ployed, each receiving a salary of seven thousand 
 dollars, their fourteen native coadjutors receiving 
 half as much. Five judges— three foreign and two 
 native — sit at a time. The United States, like other 
 great powers, has one representative in the upper 
 and two in the lower courts. While the tribunals 
 were not intended to be profit-earners, their receipts 
 for years have been considerably in excess of 
 
 "5
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 expenses. Not since the courts were created has 
 the United States been represented by abler judges 
 than at present. Judges Keiley, Tuck, and Batchel- 
 ler reflect credit alike on their profession and the 
 government that selected them. 
 
 Inasmuch as the jurisdiction of the interna- 
 tional courts has extended since the reconquest of 
 the Sudan, the Egyptian government is agitating 
 the matter of sending judges on circuit to Assuan, 
 Suakim, and other places, if they can be prevailed 
 upon to travel such distances. 
 
 The exclusion of the English language from 
 these courts has for years been an obvious anomaly, 
 particularly so when it is learned that more than 
 one half of the trade of the country is with Grreat 
 Britain and her colonies, and that nearly one half 
 the tonnage entering Alexandria harbor is British. 
 International jealousy has made it difficult to 
 change in any measure the organic scheme of the 
 courts, and until now Great Britain has feared to 
 press the question of admitting the English lan- 
 guage. A change is inevitable. 
 
 To take the census in Egypt it is necessary for 
 the Egyptian government first to assure the repre- 
 sentatives of the powers that its agents will only 
 knock at the foreigner's door and request the desired 
 information. Under no provocation will the in- 
 quisitor enter the domicile, except upon the invita- 
 tion of its occupant. Giovanni, the Italian subject, 
 who opens an innocent roulette game in his back 
 room for revenue, has no more to fear from the 
 police of Egypt than from the police of Patagonia, 
 
 ii6
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 for the simple reason that his domicile is a legal 
 atom of Italy set down on Egyptian territory. His 
 consul alone possesses the right to cause his arrest 
 and to inflict imprisonment or fine. The son of 
 Malta, should he take the life of an Egyptian, as he 
 sometimes does, can be tried and punished only 
 by the consular authority of G-reat Britain. The 
 Greek skipper can sail fearlessly into Alexandria 
 with a cargo of hashish, and the local police can 
 say nothing to him. If he is unwise enough to at- 
 tempt to land the contraband article while the 
 eyes of the Egyptian government are upon him, 
 the police can seize and destroy the hashish, but 
 the smuggler can be reached only through the 
 Greek diplomatic agent and consul-general. This 
 makes it necessary for the skipper to get his mer- 
 chandise ashore when the police are not looking. 
 
 Emanating from the same source as the firman 
 upon which is based the khedival authority, and 
 being generally much older than Egyptian auton- 
 omy, the capitulations were in no degree abrogated 
 or amended when Ismail induced the Sublime 
 Porte to confer upon his family the privileges of 
 entailed rulership. As a consequence, there is at 
 times much vexatious friction and conflict of 
 authority between the Egyptian administration 
 and the governments enjoying these capitulations. 
 Cairo can have no system of modern drainage be- 
 cause some of the European governments refuse to 
 give their consent to sanitary officials to enter the 
 houses of their subjects. 
 
 The highest Egyptian officials, when discharging 
 
 117
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the duties of their positions, sometimes forget the 
 existence of the capitulations. A few years ago a 
 French newspaper published in Cairo was so severe 
 in its criticisms of the local government that a 
 khedival minister felt that the journal could be 
 suppressed under a law found in the statute-book 
 regulating what newspapers could and could not 
 print. The press censor explained to him that his 
 duty was clear, and with a posse of policemen he 
 forcibly closed the office of the offending publica- 
 tion. This was the only bit of good luck the editor 
 had ever experienced. He laid the case before the 
 representative of the French government, who, it 
 being in the midst of the holiday period, happened 
 to be a very young man of inferior secretarial 
 rank. But he was the visible representative of his 
 nation, nevertheless, and alone enjoyed the power 
 to mete out punishment to the French editor. The 
 minister, recognizing the blunder he had made, 
 promptly set to work to repair the damage. 
 Dressed in the full uniform of his high office, he 
 proceeded to the French diplomatic agency and 
 formally apologized to the young diplomatist ; the 
 flag of France was saluted by twenty-one guns from 
 the citadel, and the editor was given one hundred 
 thousand dollars of the Egyptian taxpayers' money 
 for the injury he had suffered through the too 
 summary method by which he had been appre- 
 hended for a flagrant offense against an administra- 
 tion at that time a good friend of France. 
 
 The minister was Nubar Pasha, who died in 1899, 
 and from the incident I have detailed he is said to 
 
 ii8 
 
 1
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 have formed an aversion for journalists amounting 
 almost to detestation. On the occasion of his being 
 made prime minister by Khedive Abbas, I went 
 to his ministry to extend the congratulations and 
 good wishes usual to the event. As I was coming 
 away, a group of correspondents of Continental and 
 English papers called to present their congratula- 
 tions, and incidentally to discover if he had any 
 news to be communicated to the European world. 
 Nubar shook the hand of each almost effusively 
 before saying : " Gentlemen, I am glad to see you, 
 and appreciate your kindness; but while I am 
 preruier there will be no news — none whatever." 
 rTDhe Egypt of the map shows upward of four 
 hundred thousand square miles, an area seven 
 times as great as New England, twice that of 
 France, and more than three times that of the Brit- 
 ish Isles. But the practical Egypt— that which 
 sustains life by vegetation, and the government by 
 taxation — is not nearly as large as the States of 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut together, or of Bel- 
 gium alone. The ribbon-like strip of cultivable 
 land bordering the Nile and forming the Delta be- 
 tween Cairo and the Mediterranean comprises ten 
 thousand five hundred square miles of fertile soil, 
 and makes, strictly speaking, an elongated oasis 
 in the North African desert. 
 
 The Egypt thus sketched stretches from Wady- 
 Halfa (second cataract), 21° 53" north latitude, 
 to the Mediterranean Sea, 31° 35" north latitude. 
 The breadth is limited by the Libyan and Arabian 
 chains of hills on either bank of the Nile, and 
 
 1 19
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 varies from five eighths of a mile to fourteen 
 miles. The name "Egypt" is of Greek origin. 
 According to Brugsch, it is corrupted from the 
 hieroglyphic Ha-ka-pta, that is, " House of the Wor- 
 ship of Ptah," the Creator of the world. The name 
 in vogue among the ancient Egyptians was Chemi, 
 meaning "Black Country," derived from the color 
 of the Nile mud. Among the Hebrews Egypt was 
 called Masar, the Mizraim of the Bible ; and the 
 Arabs of to-day call it Masr, which name applies 
 especially to Cairo, the capital. The Turks call the 
 country Gipt, which is evidently an abbreviation of 
 the Greek Aig^jptos. 
 
 Ten or twelve years ago Egypt was insolvent. 
 To-day she is easy with prosperity. The position 
 of the fellaheen is constantly improving. The cor- 
 vee is abolished, and the people have no more 
 compulsory labor, except to keep the Nile within 
 bounds at high flood, for which they are paid. 
 Slavery is forbidden by khedival decree, land-taxes 
 are gradually being reduced, and extortion and cor- 
 ruption seem to have been stamped out. Egypt 
 sells cereals enough to pay for the imported articles 
 necessary to maintain her simple standard of life. 
 
 The population of Egypt is a theme that has in- 
 terested more than one generation of observers and 
 writers. Under the Ptolemies we are asked to be- 
 lieve that the country had 20,000,000 people ; but 
 it is fairly authentic that Napoleon found only 
 2,500,000 when he went there in 1798. At that 
 time they had long been ground down into hopeless 
 degradation and poverty to pander to the luxury 
 
 I 20
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 and vice of a few haughty masters. Oriental vo- 
 luptuousness had reigned in the palaces, while 
 beggary and wretchedness dwelt in the mud 
 hovels of the defrauded and degraded people. 
 
 In 1846, under Mehemet Ali, the population was 
 estimated at only 4,500,000. The census of 1882, 
 which was a most imperfect one, showed over 
 6,750,000; and that of 1897, to be considered as 
 fairly accurate, as it was made under British su- 
 pervision, indicated a total population between 
 Wady-Halfa and the Mediterranean of 9,750,000. 
 Of this total, 50.8 per cent, were males, and 49.2 per 
 cent, females. After deductions for women, chil- 
 dren under seven years, and desert Bedouins, it 
 was calculated that 12 per cent, of the males could 
 read and write, the remainder being entirely illiter- 
 ate. The native Egyptians numbered 9,008,000, to 
 which were to be added 40,000 originally from 
 other parts of the Ottoman empire, and 574,000 
 Bedouins. Of these last only 89,000 were really 
 nomads, the remainder being described as semi- 
 sedentary. Of foreign residents there were 112,500, 
 of whom the Greeks were the most numerous, with 
 38,000; then came the Italians, 24,500; British 
 (including 6500 Maltese and 5000 of the army of 
 occupation), 19,500 ; French (including 4000 Alge- 
 rians and Tunisians), 14,000; Austrians, 7000; 
 Eussians, 1400 ; Germans, 1300 ; and the remainder 
 divided among ten different nationalities, the 
 United States being represented by less than 200 
 missionaries and naturalized citizens. 
 
 The classification according to religions showed 
 123
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 nearly 9,000,000 Mohammedans, 730,000 Chris- 
 tians, and 25,000 Israelites. The Christians in- 
 cluded the Coptic race, numbering about 608,000, 
 of whom only a small proportion professed the 
 Roman Catholic or Protestant faith. Cairo was 
 found to contain 570,000 inhabitants ; Alexandria, 
 320,000 ; Tanta (the largest town in the interior of 
 the Delta), 57,000 ; Zagazig and Mansurah, 35,000 
 each ; Port Said, 42,000 ; Suez, 17,000 ; and Ismailia, 
 nearly 7000. From the figures dealing with the 
 last three towns it may be inferred that over 
 50,000 persons derive their living from the Suez 
 Canal. The largest town in Upper Egypt, Assiut, 
 had 42,000, Keneh ranking next with 24,000. The 
 total number of centers of population, comprising 
 towns, villages, farms, settlements, and Bedouin en- 
 campments, was found to be 18,129. 
 
 The rapid increase in recent years in the popula- 
 tion is explained in great measure by the prosper- 
 ity of the country, which had drawn a large number 
 of discontented people from the Mahdi's territory 
 south of Wady-Halfa. A decided lessening of mor- 
 tality, resulting from the introduction of rigorous 
 hygienic measures, has likewise had its effect. 
 There has been a marked decrease in child mor- 
 tality of late years. 
 
 With the cultivated area estimated to be ten 
 thousand five hundred square miles, Egypt's popu- 
 lation has increased in density to the enormous 
 figure of 928 to the square milo,^ being thus greater 
 
 1 To make this statement credible to those who may look to other 
 countries for comparisons, it must be explained that in Egypt prac- 
 
 I 24
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 than any conntry in Europe. Belgium has a den- 
 sity of 540 to the square mile, while Great Britain 
 has a home population of only 315, Germany 22-4, 
 and France 186. 
 
 Since the year 1886 the finances of Egypt have 
 improved to an extent emphasizing the nation's 
 emergence from practical bankruptcy to an envi- 
 able condition of credit to be found in the history 
 of but few countries. So marked was the improve- 
 ment that in 1890 the government was in a posi- 
 tion to carry into effect a conversion of the whole 
 of its external debt, thereby scaling the rate of in- 
 terest in some instances nearly half. Although 
 Egypt's burden of interest has thus been greatly de- 
 creased, yet the country has still to find nearly nine- 
 teen million dollars for the yearly interest charges. 
 The present bonded debt, approximately stated, with 
 the current premium quoted on European bourses 
 on the several classes of obligations, is as follows : 
 
 Guaranteed loan, 3 % (quoted 5 premium) $ 42,442,000 
 Privileged debt, 3^% (quoted 2f premium) 142,854,000 
 Unified debt, 4 % (quoted 7 premium) 272,037,000 
 
 Domains loan, 4^% (quoted 5 premium) 19,418,000 
 
 Daira Sanieh loan, 4 % (quoted 1^ premium) 32,191,000 
 Total bonded debt, $508,942,000 
 
 tieally every acre of the soil not belonging to the desert is under cul- 
 tivation, producing one, oftentimes two, and occasionally three crops 
 a year. There are no waste lands, forests, or mountains. Were not 
 almost every foot of the soil utilized, it would not be possible for 
 928 persons to the square mile to be supported. And, further, it 
 should be borne in mind that the official census fixing Egypt's popu- 
 lation at 9,750,000 included many Bedouin tribes and other desert- 
 dwellers, and was further swollen by the inclusion of many Nubians 
 who had left their southern provinces and crossed the fi-ontier into 
 Egypt. 
 
 1 2C
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 This burden, applying to a community purely 
 agricultural, where manual labor is worth from 
 fifteen to twenty cents a day, and to a tillable area 
 estimated at ten thousand five hundred square 
 miles, is almost overpowering. It means a per 
 capita debt of $52.20, accepting the late official cen- 
 sus to be correct. The count of 1882 showed the 
 indebtedness to be $72.70, but the last census aids 
 England's desire to make a statistical showing of 
 progress. The too liberal inclusion of desert- 
 dwellers and Sudanese in the statement of popu- 
 lation has little real bearing upon the condition 
 of the agricultural native. But, accepting the pro 
 rata debt as $52.20, that obligation of the Nilot is 
 more than the present or half a dozen generations 
 can discharge. Even the Turk or the G-reek 
 does not owe as much. Frenchmen and English- 
 men owe considerably more than the Egyptians, 
 but their resources and earning capacity are incom- 
 parably greater, and their creditors are their own 
 countrypeople. The public debt of the United 
 States, recently emerged from a costly foreign war, 
 shows a per capita obligation of only about $19. 
 
 Egyptian securities ruled very low in the year of 
 the Arabi rebellion, and the year following, in 
 which occurred the fiasco in the Sudan. "Uni- 
 fieds" for a time were quoted at 46 J, and an aver- 
 age price for months for nearly every class of 
 Egyptian securities was 50, meaning that prudent 
 investors would give only half its face value for the 
 bonded debt of Egypt. It has never been possible 
 to determine the nationality of holders of Egyptian 
 
 126
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 securities. Interest coupons are presented in Lon- 
 don, Paris, Berlin, and Cairo, and naturally at the 
 place where exchange is highest, or where income 
 taxes can best be escaped. It is believed, however, 
 that Britishers own half of them. 
 
 Discouragements of every sort beset the work of 
 regeneration entered upon by Tewfik Pasha and 
 the Englishmen electing to labor with him, follow- 
 ing the events of 1882. For years it was a neck- 
 and-neck race with bankruptcy. Indemnification 
 of Alexandrians whose property was destroyed by 
 reason of the bombardment and sacking, the mili- 
 tary disaster resulting in the loss of the Sudan, 
 and other inevitable expenditures, swelled the na- 
 tional debt by nearly forty million dollars in excess 
 of what it was when the British went to the coun- 
 try. Recuperation was brought about by checking 
 waste and dishonesty, developing the soil, and add- 
 ing to the cultivable territory by scientific irriga- 
 tion. The reduction by half of railroad, postal, and 
 telegraph rates proved the wisdom of legislating for 
 the earning classes, by doubling the service and 
 augmenting the income. The salt monopoly, as 
 well, was rendered more profitable by the sweeping 
 reduction in the price of that commodity. 
 
 Changes of any sort are made with difficulty, 
 because of the unique conditions detailed in this 
 chapter. The public cash-box guarded by repre- 
 sentatives of six European governments, and treaty 
 privileges possessed by fourteen powers, some of 
 which are not in sympathy with the present control 
 of affairs by England, make progress difficult. The 
 
 I 27
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 restoration of Egypt to admitted prosperity, conse- 
 quently, at a period when shrinkage in prices of 
 cotton, sugar, and grain has been very great, must 
 be regarded as a conspicuous triumph. Khedive 
 Abbas and his co-workers have much to accomplish 
 still; but system and economy being now estab- 
 lished on a secure basis, the attainment to perma- 
 nent success cannot be difficult. 
 
 A striking feature of the governmental manage- 
 ment of railways in Egypt is that only forty-three 
 per cent, of the gross receipts are applied to operat- 
 ing expenses. Native la.bor, moderate speed of or- 
 dinary trains, and a rainless and frostless climate 
 make this possible. The state lines carry now up- 
 ward of ten million passengers in a year, and the 
 receipts from all sources are not far from nine mil- 
 lion dollars annually. By reason of the important 
 reduction of fares, previously spoken of, the num- 
 ber of passengers has been doubled in a few years. 
 All-rail travel from the Mediterranean to the first 
 cataract of the Nile has been possible for nearly a 
 year. From Luxor southward the railway is nar- 
 row-gage, harmonizing with the lines building in 
 the Sudan for military purposes. 
 
 The rapid augmentation of winter travel to the 
 Nile is helping the lot of the Egyptian materially. 
 In an average year the pleasure- and health-seekers, 
 approaching eight thousand in number, distribute 
 fully five million dollars in the country, and it is 
 estimated that in a good season half this sum is 
 left behind by Americans. 
 
 As in all countries where the gulf between the 
 128
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 masses and the upper class is wide, the desire for 
 petty office-holding is one of the crying evils of 
 Egypt. It is estimated that two per cent, of the 
 able-bodied men serve the government in some 
 capacity, and to secure public employ is the dream 
 of nearly every youth not satisfied to become a 
 farmer. Nepotism formerly had full play, and it is 
 now difficult to make the people understand that 
 merit and capacity should place one in the public 
 service, rather than favor. Ministries and public 
 offices appear to be overcrowded with subordinates 
 of every conceivable nationality. The responsible 
 heads of departments are generally English, but the 
 clerks are French, Italian, Syrian, and Egyptian, 
 with a liberal sprinkling of British subjects. Func- 
 tionaries of the Egyptian government are surpris- 
 ingly overpaid or underpaid, their salaries being 
 strangely out of proportion. Cabinet officers are 
 paid fifteen thousand dollars a year, and under- 
 secretaries seventy-five hundred dollars— twice 
 what Washington officials of the same grade receive. 
 But many of the hardest-worked accountants and 
 translators are rewarded with salaries barely suffi- 
 cient to provide the necessaries of life. The de- 
 partments and bureaus of the government are open 
 only in the forenoon, and the official day's work 
 never exceeds five hours, and nearly every week 
 has a religious or other anniversary that is treated 
 as a holiday. In' that halcyon period known as 
 " the good old days " there were more civil servants 
 in Egypt than in Great Britain, with five times the 
 population. Many abuses have been abolished, but
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 thorough reform has yet to be accomplished m the 
 public service of Egypt to place it on a footing by 
 which it might be compared with public employ- 
 ment in either the United States or Great Britain. 
 
 The " international " aspect of Egypt is an expen- 
 sive luxury, and contributes in no small measure 
 to the demands upon the public treasury. The 
 International Debt Commission, for illustration, 
 brings to Cairo delegates of the powers which are 
 the country's creditors. Each is paid a salary of 
 ten thousand dollars by the khedival government 
 for looking after the interests of his countrymen 
 fortunate enough to own Egyptian bonds, which can 
 be sold anywhere at a substantial premium, and 
 which, very likely, were purchased at a price far 
 below their par value. Having no voice whatever 
 in fixing the rate of interest, or the proportion 
 going to the different countries, it might occur to 
 the strict reformer that a competent, trustworthy 
 accountant could perform the service of these six 
 officials, with a great saving to the toiling masses 
 of Egypt. But the countries interested would no 
 more be able to agree on the nationality of such an 
 accountant than were the same powers in deciding 
 the question of nationality of the governor of Crete 
 after the Grreco-Turkish war. 
 
 The railway system of less than fifteen hundred 
 miles is managed by three princely paid men, act- 
 ing for England, France, and Egypt. In Europe 
 or America a single competent man would do it all, 
 for a fraction of the pay, and most likely find time 
 hanging heavily on his hands and want more to do. 
 
 132
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 Similarly, the spirit of internationalism dominates 
 the Daira Sanieh, the State Domains, and other 
 divisions of the government, aggregating a mighty 
 draft on the exchequer. But the customs and post- 
 office departments, each with a single head, are 
 models of perfection. The postal service, managed 
 by Saba Pasha, seems to be faultless. 
 
 The purchasing power, held to be indicative of a 
 nation's pecuniary condition, has advanced with 
 other statistics dealing with the country's welfare. 
 In 1882 the imports were valued at $32,127,650 ; in 
 1890, $40,409,635, and in 1896, $45,750,000. Exports 
 for the same years— cotton, cotton-seed, sugar, and 
 grain— were valued at $54,977,850, $59,373,490, and 
 $66,000,000, respectively. More than half of the 
 foreign commerce is with Great Britain. The cot- 
 ton crop, wholly exported, produces in the neigh- 
 borhood of $50,000,000 a year. Of this the United 
 States buys about $4,000,000 worth. The tonnage 
 arrivals at the port of Alexandria have nearly 
 doubled since 1882, and in a normal year are 
 slightly in excess of two million tons. The port 
 receipts are as high as $7,000,000 in a year. 
 
 To carry on the government requires about $53,- 
 000,000 a year. It used to be more in the free-and- 
 easy times when budget-making was the merest 
 guesswork, and deficiencies could be explained in 
 the convenient phrase, " insufficiency of receipts." 
 The heaviest outlay is for interest on the bonded 
 indebtedness, $18,850,000 ; while the annual tribute 
 to the Sultan (signed away by that monarch to 
 European bankers) consumes $3,365,200 more. 
 
 ^33
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 The khedive, kbedival family, and palace expenses, 
 coming under the head of "civil list," call for 
 $1,159,000. In ordinary times the army and mili- 
 tary police cost $2,390,000, and civil and military 
 pensions $2,150,000 more. 
 
 Nearly half of the sum required to carry on the 
 Egyptian government is produced by direct taxa- 
 tion on land. The other half is made up by in- 
 direct taxation, from the following sources: cus- 
 toms receipts (eight per cent, on imports and one 
 per cent, on exports), tax on date-trees, tobacco tax, 
 municipal octroi on food and merchandise, stamp 
 duties, receipts from railways, post-offices, tele- 
 graphs, lighthouses, and courts of justice. The 
 sale of salt and natron gives a yearly revenue of 
 nearly $8,000,000. 
 
 A reform of the greatest importance, to become 
 effective in the immediate future, is the adjustment 
 of inequalities in the land-tax. By the old scheme 
 of estimating values many anomalies were coun- 
 tenanced, as well as many injustices. It was not 
 unusual to find land renting at thirty or thirty -five 
 dollars an acre paying the government only two 
 and a half dollars in taxes. In Ismail's time there 
 was no rule for the collection of taxes, and the 
 minions of the government went prepared to take 
 from the farmer every penny his crops had pro- 
 duced, and then flog him into boiTowing at hea^^ 
 usury any additional sum the rapacious collector 
 chose to demand. Not until Khedive Tewfik's 
 reign was a receipt of any kind given the peasant 
 to show that he had paid his taxes and that no
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 more was due for the current year. Simple as 
 was the giving of such a receipt, nothing more 
 potent for alleviating the position of the fellaheen 
 was ever inaugurated. It was a reform benefiting 
 every tiller of the soil, and was in operation before 
 " the coming of the English." 
 
 The scheme of taxation in force for some years 
 has been arbitrary and inequitable. A definite tax 
 has been prescribed for certain districts, which only 
 a portion of the land was capable of paying. The 
 reform in hand has been to create a schedule based 
 upon rental values, that each acre may be assessed 
 commensurately with its producing capacity. The 
 total taxation of the country is not to be increased 
 under the new system, the movement being in- 
 tended to relieve the small proprietor, who will pay 
 less per acre, while the pasha landlord, once pow- 
 erful enough to have his thousands of acres assessed 
 at whatever he chose to pay, will be called upon to 
 contribute to the public expenses by a proportion- 
 ately higher estimate of land values. These glar- 
 ing inequalities were brought into prominence by 
 the decreasing prices of crops, and relief was im- 
 peratively necessary. 
 
 The land-tax has ever been the millstone about 
 the neck of the Egyptian, sapping his energies and 
 stunting his intellectual growth. The ancestors of 
 the peasant now toiling from long before sunrise 
 until after sunset, nearly every day in the year, 
 have been tillers of the soil and drawers of water 
 since the world began ; and their incessant toil has 
 produced but little— for them. It will surprise
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 American farmers and British agriculturists to 
 know that some of their brethren of the Nile 
 pay a land-tax of eight dollars per acre annually, 
 and that the average tax of the country approxi- 
 mates four dollars to the acre. The heaviest tax is 
 on the choice lands of the Delta, possessing such 
 exceptional richness that five hundredweight or 
 more of cotton per acre is produced each year with 
 comparative certainty. 
 
 To-day's prosperity of the fellah of Egypt, per- 
 mitting him to have a few dollars after the adjust- 
 ment of accounts following the sale of his crops, 
 occasionally to augment his vegetable diet by 
 a dish of meat, and to seek recreation at his be- 
 loved religious fairs, is of recent origin and slow 
 growth : it began with the introduction of tax re- 
 ceipts, and has been nurtured at intervals by tri- 
 fling reductions in taxation, as the area has been 
 added to by irrigation at a rate in excess of the 
 government's pecuniary needs. Being humanely 
 treated, the present-day Egyptian realizes that he 
 is a human being ; and it is the opinion of those 
 capable of judging that more has been done in the 
 last fifteen years for his well-being than in all the 
 rest of the century. The humane work was inau- 
 gurated under Tewfik Pasha, and the administra- 
 tion headed by Khedive Abbas is carrying it for- 
 ward with intelligent perseverance. 
 
 The country's obligations to European creditors 
 are sufficiently menacing and burdensome to com- 
 pel the small farmer to keep out of the clutches of 
 the Greek or Syrian money-lender at his gates, if 
 
 138
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 he can. Nevertheless, the strictly home indebted- 
 ness secured by farm mortgages is greater than it 
 should be. Some critics insist that this is certain 
 proof that the boasted prosperity of the country is 
 fictitious, and exhibit statistics to support their 
 argument. Critics friendly to English rule array 
 figures calculated to show that the aggregate do- 
 mestic mortgage indebtedness is very small, less 
 than forty million dollars, and that it is the pro- 
 prietors of fifty acres and upward who have 
 pledged their farms ; and, further, that they have 
 done this only to be able to buy more land, being 
 confident of an appreciation of values. It is a fact, 
 I believe, that the proportion of petty holders bor- 
 rowing by mortgage is small, and they are the 
 people whose welfare first deserves consideration. 
 The recent expansion of the cultivable area being 
 chiefly in Upper Egypt and portions of the Nile 
 valley where the fertility cannot be compared to 
 that of Lower Egypt, there has been a correspond- 
 ing decrease in the average value of the acre. 
 When I investigated the subject five years ago, I 
 arrived at the conclusion that $115 was a fair esti- 
 mate of the value of productive Egypt, acre for 
 acre. Now, when the character of the newly ac- 
 quired extensions is considered, it is my judgment 
 that the average value of the 6,720,000 acres has 
 fallen to $105. Readers of mathematical mind, dis- 
 covering that the foreign bonded indebtedness on 
 every acre of productive soil averages $75.74, and 
 adding $8 for home mortgage burden (to my mind 
 estimated at too low a sum), find that but little 
 
 139
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 equity remains to tlie Egj^tian, who for more than 
 six thousand years has been the most industrious 
 and light-hearted of husbandmen. Plainly stated, 
 it means a margin of only $21.26 an acre. And his 
 energy must not flag for generations to come, lest 
 his fellow-creature in enlightened Europe be in 
 arrears over his interest on " Egyptians." Blessed 
 be Allah ! 
 
 In Viscount Cromer the British government has 
 one of its ablest administrators, and as forceful and 
 far-seeing a man as England's group of aggressive 
 empire-builders can show. A Baring, of the bank- 
 ing family, he graduated from the British army 
 into the foreign civil service, where his adminis- 
 trative genius was manifested years ago by his 
 good work in India, and the fact accepted by all 
 political parties in Parliament that he was a man 
 to be trusted. As England's representative in the 
 dual financial control of Egypt, in the years im- 
 mediately precedent to the "occupation" of the 
 country by Great Britain, his tact and honesty 
 contributed greatly to preserving the apparent 
 entente cordiale with France, really chafing under 
 the gradual impairment of prestige in the land of 
 the Nile. The dual control ended. Major Baring 
 was elevated to the position of diplomatic agent 
 and consul-general in Egypt, and given almost 
 plenary power, not only in carrying into effect in- 
 structions and suggestions from London, but in 
 shaping Britain's policy in the Nile valley and Delta. 
 The effective manner in which he has handled 
 Egj^tian affairs has made him his nation's credi- 
 
 140
 
 VISCOUXT CROMER, BRITISH DIPLOMATIC AGEXT 
 AND CONSUL-GENERAL.
 
 Paradoxical Administration 
 
 tor; and the honors bestowed upon him— knight- 
 hood first, then a barony and peerage, and finally 
 the viscountship — but inadequately discharge the 
 debt that his government owes him. So deter- 
 mined is he to carry his administration of Egypt 
 to a triumphant termination that an offer of the 
 viceroyship of India, or a cabinet position in Lon- 
 don, has awakened no desire to leave Cairo. 
 
 Lord Cromer is de facto ruler of Egj^t, the visi- 
 ble but unclassified representative of the majesty 
 of Great Britain, with almost unlimited power and 
 authority. Dejure he is Britain's diplomatic rep- 
 resentative, — nothing more, — and his exequatur is- 
 sues from the Sublime Porte in exactly the same 
 form as that of the representative of any other 
 government at the court of the khedive. This is 
 but one of the paradoxes incident to present-day 
 Egypt. Possessing little aptitude for accepted 
 formulae of diplomacy, perhaps, Lord Cromer 
 makes a thoroughly reliable doyen of the diplo- 
 matic corps, which he is because his appoint- 
 ment antedates that of any of his colleagues. He 
 cares nothing for display, detests shams, is a keen 
 judge of men, and selects his assistants with such 
 discernment that his judgment seldom errs. De- 
 void of a sense of humor, and unimaginative. Lord 
 Cromer analyzes with great care a question in 
 which the interests of others are concerned ; and, an 
 opinion formed, his conclusion is bound to prevail. 
 Viscount Cromer is a man of marvelous industry. 
 He reads Homer, learns a language,— even Turk- 
 ish,— and plays tennis or whist with the same 
 
 H3
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 energy, and with the same object— to win. Since 
 the demise of Lady Cromer he toils harder than 
 ever. In conversation one feels that he is more 
 preoccupied with what he intends to say than with 
 his manner of expressing it. This is but a sketchy 
 description of an interesting man and his charac- 
 ter; but it is sufficient, possibly, to explain the 
 success of England's rule in Egypt. 
 
 144
 
 ^OJL. ^A^X, 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EXPANSION OF PEODUCTIVE EGYPT BY IKKIGATION 
 
 THE most interesting page in the modern his- 
 tory of Egypt is that which records the de- 
 velopment of scientific irrigation. 
 
 Coincident with the preparation of this volume 
 for publication, one of the most stupendous en- 
 gineering feats ever undertaken by man is beings 
 executed on the Egyptian frontier, having for its 
 purpose the ponding back into Nubia of a body 
 of water perhaps a hundred and fifty miles long, 
 crossing the tropic of Cancer, and extending south- 
 ward nearly to Korosko,— a goodly step on the jour- 
 ney to Abu-Simbel and Wady-Halfa,— by means 
 of a great dam across the Nile at Assuan. The 
 Pyramids and the Sphinx have borne testimony 
 through the centuries to the gi'andeur and power of 
 execution which dwelt within the Nile valley ; and 
 what more fitting now than that the same valley 
 should be the theater of a gigantic engineering ex- 
 ploit, audacious perhaps, but certain of success, and 
 ministering to man's necessities, rather than to his 
 vanity ? 
 
 As a wholesale rearrangement of nature's surface 
 the project outranks anything hitherto attempted 
 
 H5
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 by engineering skill ; and as a building achievement 
 the scheme is on a scale worthy of a Rameses or a 
 Pharaoh. To create in the midst of the African 
 desert a lake having possibly three times the su- 
 perficial area of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and 
 control it with scientific precision, so that the im- 
 pounded flood may be turned into distant channels 
 at will, is a comprehensive undertaking. But the 
 engineers claim that their plans can be carried out 
 to the letter ; they have estimated the exact cost of 
 the dam, computed almost to the gallon the volume 
 of water that will be imprisoned, and figured the 
 necessary resistance to be provided at every point 
 of the masonry. In Cairo, the experts of the min- 
 istries of public works and finance, likewise, have 
 calculated to a nicety the sum from taxation that 
 will come into the public treasury through the 
 country's augmented productiveness. 
 
 Subordinate to the great dam, a smaller one, not 
 unlike the barrage at the apex of the Delta, ten 
 miles to the north of Cairo, is to be made at As- 
 siut. Its function will be to give sufiicient head to 
 the river to force the water into the system of irri- 
 gation canals that veins hundreds of thousands of 
 acres between Assiut and Cairo. The completion 
 of the Cairo barrage so develoj^ed cotton-culture as 
 to add to the public revenue of the countiy at least 
 ten million dollars annually. It may safely be con- 
 cluded that the Assuan reservoir is but one of a 
 series which will in time be constructed south- 
 ward to Berber, Khartum, and perhaps the Victoria 
 Nyanza. The reestablishment of khedival author- 
 
 146
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 ity at Khartum practically determined this, as it 
 means that in time the Sudan provinces will be 
 important grain-exporters. 
 
 The agricultural industry that will be chiefly 
 benefited by the Assuan reservoir and the tribu- 
 tary weir at Assiut is cane-culture. With Cuba's 
 productiveness greatly impaired as a result of the 
 prolonged strife in the island, the opening years 
 of the twentieth century are considered propitious 
 for doubling or trebling Egypt's output of raw 
 sugar. The Nile cane is of such exceptional qual- 
 ity that much European capital has been invested 
 in its cultivation, while crushing-factories have 
 gone up on the river's banks as if by magic. 
 
 No subject is receiving wider attention at this 
 time than that of territorial expansion. Great 
 Britain, as well as France, Germany, and Eussia, is 
 yearly pressing forward its domain in Africa or 
 Asia, preceded by the soldier or explorer ; and the 
 fortunes of war have carried the Stars and Stripes 
 oversea, and brought numerous islands as well as 
 an Asiatic archipelago under administrative gui- 
 dance from Washington. 
 
 But the triumph of practical science, such as irri- 
 gation, bearing no relation to the sword or diplo- 
 macy, which turns a single acre of desert sand into 
 a productive field, must be a thousandfold more 
 valuable to the world than the victory of arms that 
 merely changes a frontier or deprives a defeated 
 nation of a single foot of soil : it is the victory of 
 peace ; it is creation. As a method of making terri- 
 tory, it is one over which statesmen can never differ. 
 
 H7
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Old Egypt is now so fairly in step with the march 
 of progress as to be attracting the attention of the 
 civilized world. Irrigation is the lever of this prog- 
 ress — the irrigation of definite science, rather than 
 of chance or guesswork ; and the move to harness 
 the Nile and compel it to surrender its magical 
 richness to the soil is a project that will be watched 
 by millions of students of utilitarianism. Stated 
 simply, it means the increase of the country's pro- 
 ductive capacity by twenty-five per cent., bringing, 
 as it will, considerable stretches of desert soil within 
 the limits of cultivation, while vast sections of 
 land already arable will be rendered capable of pro- 
 ducing two, if not three, crops in the year, by hav- 
 ing "summer water" supplied to the thirsting 
 ground. 
 
 As shown in another chapter, the Egypt of the 
 map contains more than four hundred thousand 
 square miles, an expanse seven times as great as 
 New England ; but the practical Egypt— that which 
 produces crops and sustains life— is considerably 
 less than the States of Massachusetts and Connec- 
 ticut united. This is the ribbon-like strip of alluvial 
 land bordering the Nile, a few miles wide on each 
 side, and measuring not more than ten thousand 
 five hundred square miles. The extension planned, 
 and to be completed in the next six or eight years, 
 wholly by irrigation, is no less magnificent in con- 
 ception than the rescuing from the Libyan and 
 Arabian deserts of twenty-five hundred square 
 miles, or twice the area of Rhode Island. This will 
 be exploitation in its truest sense, and its accom- 
 
 148
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 plishment will be a verification of the ancient say- 
 ing that " Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile is Egypt." 
 
 As an object-lesson, this Egyptian enterprise 
 should have no more interested observers than in 
 America, especially in Colorado, Nevada, Califor- 
 nia, and other States of the West, where the irriga- 
 tion expert is succeeding the railway-builder as a 
 developer. 
 
 British contractors have agreed that the dam 
 that is to "hold up" the historic river on which 
 Cleopatra floated in her gilded barge, and on which 
 Moses was cradled, will be completed by July 1, 
 1903. It will be built of granite ashler, much of 
 which will be quarried from the Assuan side of 
 the river, coming from the ledges that furnished 
 the obelisks that now stand in Central Park in New 
 York, and on London's Thames Embankment, and 
 in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It will be sev- 
 enty-six feet high in places, and with its approaches 
 nearly a mile and a quarter long. The difference 
 in water-level above and below the dam will be 
 forty-six feet ; and the top of the structure, thirty 
 or forty feet in width, will give bridge facilities to 
 pedestrians, camel-trains, and other traffic of the 
 region. It may interest arithmeticians to know 
 that it is estimated that a thousand million tons 
 of water can be stored in the reservoir. 
 
 The laying of the foundation- block, of syenite 
 granite and weighing several tons, was an impres- 
 sive function. Queen Victoria's third son, his 
 Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, performed 
 the office with rule, level, mallet, and silver trowel, 
 
 15^
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 surrounded by many distinguished personages, in- 
 cluding his amiable duchess ; Fakhry Pasha, Egyp- 
 tian minister of public works; Mr. John Aird, 
 member of the British Parliament, who is the chief 
 contractor for the work; and representatives of 
 several branches of the Anglo-Egyptian administra- 
 tion. A guard of honor was furnished by Egyptian 
 troops. The following inscription is chiseled on the 
 face of the stone : 
 
 H. H. Abbas Hilmi, Khedive. 
 
 This Foundation-Stone 
 
 was laid by 
 
 H. R. H. The Duke of Connaught, 
 
 12th February, 1899. 
 
 H. E. Hussein Fakhry Pasha, 
 Minister of PubHc Works. 
 
 After the laying of the stone, the Duke of Con- 
 naught sent the following telegram to the khedive, 
 which he wrote on the stone itself: "Ha\ang this 
 moment completed the laying of the foundation- 
 stone of the great dam here at the request of your 
 Highness, I telegraph my warmest congratulations 
 on the occasion of Bairam. Akthuk." A telegram 
 was likewise sent to the Queen, informing her 
 Majesty that the great work had been formally 
 commenced. The official party subsequently pro- 
 ceeded across the cataract to take refreshments, 
 and see natives swim the rapids. The following 
 day the duke and duchess continued their voyage 
 
 152
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 to Wady-Half a, and later to Omdurman and Khar- 
 tum. 
 
 The contractors present what looks like a moder- 
 ate bill. They are to receive eight hundred thou- 
 sand dollars a year for thirty years, aggregating 
 about twenty-four million dollars. As an incentive 
 for them to live up to their agreement, the first 
 payment by the Egyptian government is not to be 
 made until the work is completed and accepted. 
 The credit is a long one, certainly, and its present 
 actuarial value cannot be much in excess of ten 
 million dollars. The ability of Egypt to make such 
 a favorable contract, by which she apparently takes 
 little risk, and is to pay away each year only a 
 portion of the sum the reservoir brings to her 
 exchequer, reflects the enviable position of her 
 national credit. The transaction may further be 
 taken as an earnest of Great Britain's intention to 
 retain indefinitely her grasp upon the land of the 
 Pharaohs. English engineers and surveyors and a 
 horde of native laborers have for months been at 
 work at Assuan. A single order for three million 
 barrels of cement is being filled from Europe. 
 
 For years Sir William Grarstin, Mr. Willcocks, 
 and other English engineers in the khedival ser- 
 vice have strenuously advocated the creation of one 
 or more reservoirs that would give perennial irri- 
 gation to Egypt. Experts of other nations have 
 been called into consul tatioD, and all admitted 
 the feasibility of the project, but they were not at 
 first in accord as to the location of the principal dam. 
 They were agreed that the natural advantages of
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the Assuan site, with its bed of syenite granite 
 beneath the river, the conformation of the sur- 
 rounding country, and the inexhaustible supply of 
 stone near by, offered advantages approached by 
 no other location. 
 
 A situation thirty miles south, at Kalabsheh, was 
 favored by some ; but the structure proposed, ne- 
 cessarily resting on a foundation of crumbly sand- 
 stone, could not be regarded as permanent or as 
 safe as if it rested on a foundation of granite. The 
 Silsila Gate, fifty miles north of Assuan, having 
 the same underlying sandstone, was rejected as a 
 site on the ground of insecurity. A dam there, 
 besides, would submerge the temple at Kom- 
 Ombos, as well as a good part of the town of As- 
 suan. Hence all the engineers in the end favored 
 damming the Nile at the first cataract, at a point 
 about four miles south of Assuan, and not far 
 from the island of Philse. There nature has been 
 lavish in providing hills of solid rock on each side 
 of the river that will stand the ravages of the ele- 
 ments as long as the world lasts. 
 
 Little time was wasted in the preparation of the 
 original plans for the dam. But the officials hav- 
 ing the matter in charge, intent only on the utili- 
 tarian aspect of the problem, brought about their 
 heads, four or five years ago, a wide-spread outburst 
 of indignation, when it was announced that the 
 treasured ruins of Philae would be submerged for 
 months at a time, were their recommendations car- 
 ried into effect. Meetings were held by learned 
 societies everywhere to protest against any desecra- 
 
 154
 
 LOG-SWIMMIXG DU^VN THE ASSUAN CATARACT.
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 tion of PMlaB, and their memorials besieged the 
 Egyptian government for months. From every 
 country in Europe, from the United States, and 
 from the centers of learning in the East, antiqua- 
 rians, Egyptologists, archaeologists, and literary 
 people generally, joined in vigorous protest. The 
 late Sir Frederick Leighton, president of England's 
 Royal Academy, did not hesitate to say that " any 
 tampering with Philae would be a lasting blot on 
 the British occupation of Egypt." This stinging 
 remark brought the subject into the realm of Brit- 
 ish politics, and did as much as all the protests to 
 cause the too practical plans of the English en- 
 gineers to be held in abeyance until a modified 
 project, conciliating archaeological interests with 
 engineering necessities, could be devised. 
 
 To silence their critics, if possible, the engineers 
 proposed many makeshift plans, some of which 
 displaj^ed surprising ingenuity. Sir Benjamin 
 Baker, of Manchester Canal fame, favored the rais- 
 ing of the island, as a whole, some twelve feet, and 
 offered to do it for a million dollars, guaranteeing 
 its safe accomplishment. Another gravely pro- 
 posed that the temple of Isis, pylons and all, be 
 moved to a neighboring and higher island and re- 
 erected, and submitted a proposal for the contract. 
 Still another recommended building a caisson of 
 masonry around the island, that would protect it 
 from flood, but make it necessary to descend a 
 flight of stairs to view the buildings, themselves so 
 artistic that people travel great distances to admire 
 them. 
 
 ^S7
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 The proposal to remove Pliil^e stone by stone 
 was too fantastic even for the pen of a Jules Verne. 
 An American writer suggested that if Philae's won- 
 drous structures were to be disturbed at all, they 
 should be floated six hundred miles down the Nile 
 and reerected in Cairo. This, the writer urged, 
 would bring to the doors of the tourists' hotels one 
 of Egypt's greatest attractions, and carry business 
 enterprise to its utmost extent. This bit of sarcasm 
 had its effect. 
 
 The publicity given to these absurd proposals 
 caused scholarly Europe and America again to pro- 
 test against the threatened vandalism, and a tor- 
 rent of newspaper invective was hurled at Britain's 
 rule of Egyptian affairs, which threatened to destroy 
 one of the world's most precious gems in order 
 that European holders of Egyptian bonds might be 
 more certain of their interest and security. The 
 reservoir project was now in danger of drifting into 
 European politics, and it was wisely concluded in 
 Cairo and London to let the matter drop from pub- 
 lic notice for a few years. 
 
 " What is a useless temple," asked engineers, " in 
 comparison with a work involving the welfare of 
 millions of human beings ? " " Are sordid commer- 
 cial motives," replied archaeologists, "to override 
 everything artistic in the world, and is a priceless 
 monument of antiquity to be lost to civilization 
 that a few more fellaheen, already prosperous, may 
 grow more cotton and sugar and grain ? " " Why 
 must the Philistine come to Philae at all ? " inquired 
 sentimentalists everywhere.
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 With these conflicting claims to reconcile, the 
 engineers wf^re compelled to weigh the pros and 
 cons of their project in every aspect before again 
 testing public opinion. That they succeeded in 
 their task is shown by the general approval of 
 their modified scheme, by which the dam is to be 
 but two thirds as high as at first proposed. A head 
 of forty-six feet of water satisfies the engineers, 
 and does not alarm the archaeologists ; for, although 
 submerging portions of the island, it leaves the 
 temple, pylons, and prized sculptures fairly above 
 water-level. 
 
 When the builders have finished their labors, vis- 
 itors to Upper Egypt can never realize the present 
 beauty of Philse. The Isis temple, the chapel of 
 Hathor, the Diocletian portal, one of the legendary 
 graves of Osiris, the well-preserved pavilion called 
 " Pharaoh's Bed,"— the designer of which was no 
 stranger to Greek art, and within whose walls thou- 
 sands of tourists have partaken of their midday 
 luncheon, — will all be there, like jewels wrenched 
 from glorious settings. The structures will rise 
 from a placid lake, deprived of the graceful eleva- 
 tion and artistic symmetry that add much to their 
 fame. 
 
 Confessedly PhilaB will be impaired artistically, 
 for it is safe to assume that the zealous engineers 
 understate the extent of the submergence. A 
 scientific English observer, who studied the subject 
 at close quarters, — from the island itself, — says: 
 " The four great pylons will, of course, stand up 
 out of the new lake, but its waters will rise to their 
 
 159
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 floors. The splendid Nilometer will be utterly 
 swallowed up. The colonnade of the temple of 
 Nectanebo will be under water most of the year, 
 and I fear the structures at its ends will tumble 
 into the reservoir, as there are already cracks in 
 the foundation-walls." 
 
 It is not the native population that deplores the 
 disappearance of the antique and the picturesque, 
 for the modern Egyptian has no appreciation for 
 the ancient or his works. To his feelings the mag- 
 nitude of the Pyramids and the mystery of the 
 Sphinx make no appeal. The only value of the 
 priceless antiquities of the Nile valley to the fellah 
 or Bedouin is to bring in piasters. The ruthless 
 hands that stripped the pyramid of Cheops of its 
 outer casing to deck a mosque in Cairo would not 
 spare Karnak or Philse. After all, Philse's remains, 
 noble as they are, appear comparatively young be- 
 side many of the monuments of this hoary land. 
 They do not, it is said, go as far back as 300 b. c. 
 Pharaoh's Bed was really built in Roman times, 
 though, presumably, by native architects. 
 
 Standing without meaning upon a wide stretch 
 of mirroring water, Philce will completely lose its 
 character, and can no longer be the stately sentinel 
 guarding the natural boundary between Nubia and 
 Egypt. The artist's dahabiyeh, drawn well up on 
 the strand beneath Pharaoh's Bed, can never again 
 give a touch of color to the scene. Nor can the 
 patriarchal sheik of the cataract load his clumsy 
 boats at the point of the island with tourists suffi- 
 ciently courageous to "shoot the rapids" on the 
 
 i6o
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 way back to their steamers or hotel at Assuan. 
 The making of the dam will force the nude popula- 
 tion of the region to prosecute their amphibious 
 pursuits elsewhere— most likely in eddying rapids 
 farther down-stream. But the daring soul who has 
 " shot " what will remain of the cataract will, as of 
 old, be landed on the bank at Assuan to the re- 
 sounding "Heep, heep, hooray! Zank you, zank 
 you ! " of his crew of black rowers, whom he will 
 liberally bakshish while yet believing himself a 
 hero. 
 
 The American sun-seeker or English milord, 
 making the voyage to Wady-Halfa by his own 
 dahabiyeh, will no longer have his craft hauled up 
 the Assuan cataract by a hundred shrieking Arabs 
 and Berberins, for most likely it will be taken up 
 the rapids and through the locks by electricity 
 generated by the rushing Nile itself. Indeed, a 
 practical Britisher is in the field for utilizing the 
 cataract's force for electrically lighting Assuan and 
 propelling irrigating machinery for a hundred miles 
 or more down-stream, to the possible relief of the 
 familiar shadoof and creaking sakieh. 
 
 The Assuan structure will differ in several re- 
 spects from any great dam hitherto built. In 
 the first place, none for impounding water has 
 ever been made on any river approaching the size 
 of the Nile ; and, in the second place, it is to be 
 both dam and waterway, a conjunction exceedingly 
 difficult to effect. To confine Father Nile in flood- 
 time would be hopeless, and therefore the river 
 must be allowed to run unimpeded through the dam 
 
 163
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 during several months of the year. As soon as 
 the flood subsides, but while the discharge is still 
 greater than can be at once used for irrigation, the 
 water will be retained for use during the parching 
 summer months. For this purpose the structure 
 will be divided into a large number of piers, with 
 openings that can be closed at will by gates. 
 
 Each pier must be capable of supporting its own 
 weight and the pressure of water against the ad- 
 joining sluice-gates, and the piers must be able to 
 pass the torrent without damage. At times the 
 velocity of the escaping flood-water will be very 
 great ; consequently the piers are to be enormously 
 massive. The locks for steamers and other craft 
 navigating the Nile will be on the west side. 
 
 It being the particles of soil contributed to the 
 river by the wash of the mountains and hills in 
 Abyssinia that enrich the fields, the dam will be so 
 designed that the water released daily, during low 
 Nile, will be drawn from near the bottom of the 
 reservoir. Egyptian farmers prize the " red water," 
 which is vastly richer in fertilizing value than clear 
 water can be. In the autumn, after the silt-laden 
 water has passed off, the sluice-gates will be closed 
 gradually until the reservoir is full, which, with 
 normal conditions, will be in January and Febru- 
 ary. From April to the end of August, when the 
 Nile runs low, and the demand for water for the 
 crops is at its highest, the gates will be systemati- 
 cally opened, and the summer supply of the river 
 supplemented by the water, which, had it not been 
 stored, would have flowed uselessly into the Medi- 
 
 164
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 terranean. Thus Middle Egypt and the Delta will 
 secure more or less perennial irrigation. 
 ;:, ^ The Nile, the only river of Egypt, has a length 
 "^ of 4062 miles, and is thus exceeded only by the 
 Mississippi, having a length of 4112 miles. At 
 Cairo the river is eleven hundred yards in breadth. 
 After the confluence of the Blue and White Niles 
 at Khartum, it receives but one tributary, the 
 Atbara. In Egypt proper the great river has no 
 affluent and is contributed to in no way. The 
 most important of the outlets of the Nile is Joseph's 
 Canal (the Bahr Youssef), that leaves the river 
 near Girgeh, and for two hundred and twenty miles 
 follows along the foot of the Libyan chain of hills, 
 finally entering the Fayum and fertilizing this 
 fruitful oasis, its own creation, in numerous ramifi- 
 cations. In the Delta the most important canal is 
 the Mahmudiyeh, built by Mehemet Ali in 1823. It 
 connects the Rosetta arm with the harbor of Alex- 
 andria. 
 -y. At Assuan the Nile is three hundred and thirty 
 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. From 
 Assuan to Cairo the fall is a trifle under five inches 
 in the mile, and from Cairo to the sea the fall aver- 
 ages nearly an inch to the mile. 
 
 To equalize the distribution of the Nile water 
 among cultivators, the whole country devoted to 
 ■ agriculture is divided by low earthwork dams into 
 large fields, to which the water is conducted by 
 ^ canals. Lands that cannot be reached by the over- 
 flow of the canals have to be mechanically irrigated. 
 To do this the small proprietor lifts the water from 
 
 165
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 r 
 
 the river or canal with the primitive shadoof 
 operated by hand, bnt the important landowner in 
 these days employs cattle or steam-power. 
 
 It was determined by the explorations of Speke, 
 Grant, and Baker that the rainfall of the equatorial 
 region of Africa supplies the Victoria and Albert 
 lakes, and that the overflow of these gives sufficient 
 volume to support the Nile throughout its north- 
 ward course of thirty degrees of latitude, crossing 
 arid sands and burning deserts, until it reaches the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 It might at first sight appear that the discovery 
 of the Nile's sources had completely solved the 
 mystery of ages, and proved the fertility of Egypt 
 to be dependent upon the rainfall of the equator 
 concentrated in the Victoria Nyanza and Albert 
 Nyanza ; but the exploration of the Nile tributaries 
 of Abyssinia divides the Nile system into two 
 parts, and unravels the entire mystery of the river 
 by assigning to each its share in ministering to the 
 prosperity of Egypt. 
 
 The lake sources maintain the life of Egypt by 
 supplying a stream throughout all seasons that has 
 sufficient volume to support the exhaustion of 
 evaporation and absorption; but this stream un- 
 aided could never overflow its banks, and Egypt, 
 deprived of the annual inundation, would be forced 
 to exist with the cultivation of the circumscribed 
 area immediately bordering the great river. 
 
 The two great affluents of Abyssinia are the Blue 
 Nile and the Atbara (called by the natives Bahr- 
 al-Aswad, or the Black Nile), which, although 
 
 i66
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 streams of unusual grandeur during the period of 
 Abyssinian rains, from the middle of June until 
 September, are reduced to insignificance during 
 the dry months. Then, the water-supply from 
 Abyssinia having ceased, Egypt is forced to depend 
 solely upon the equatorial lakes and the affluents 
 of the White Nile until the rainy season shall have 
 again flooded the two great Abyssinian arteries. 
 That flood occurs about the 20th of June, and the 
 rush of water pouring down the Blue Nile and the 
 Atbara into the main channel inundates Egypt, and 
 is the cause of its magical fertility. Not only is 
 the inundation the effect of the Abyssinian rains, 
 but the deposit of mud that has formed the Delta, 
 and which is annually precipitated by the rising 
 waters, is also due to the Abyssinian streams, 
 chiefly to the Atbara, which carries a larger pro- 
 portion of soil than any other tributary of the 
 Nile. Therefore to the Atbara,— spanned by an 
 American-built railroad-bridge, by the way,— above 
 all other rivers, must the wealth and fertility of 
 Egypt be attributed. In writing of his Nile ex- 
 plorations. Baker employed this happy description : ^ 
 f " The equatorial lakes feed Egypt, but the Abyssin- J 
 ^ ian rivers cause the immdationy I 
 
 There is a fascination in the unchangeable fea- 
 tures of the Nile region. There are the Pyramids 
 and Sphinx that have defied time ; the sandy des- 
 erts through which Moses led his people, and the 
 watering-places where their flocks were led to 
 drink. There is no change in these ; and the poor 
 people who dwell in Nubia and Upper Egypt on the 
 
 169
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 banks of the melancholy river rolling toward the 
 sea in the cloudless glare of a tropical sun, to-day 
 as thousands of years ago, snatch every sand-bank 
 from the receding stream, and plant melons, beans, 
 and other articles of their simple diet. Not an inch 
 of available soil is lost; and day by day, as the 
 stream decreases in spring and summer, fresh rows 
 of vegetables are sown upon the newly acquired 
 land. 
 
 In Middle and Lower Egypt, the soil, created by 
 the deposits of the great river and ever fertilized 
 by it, is perhaps the richest in the world, and is 
 tilled with such ease and certain results as cannot 
 fail to excite the envy of the traveling American. 
 The Egyptian peasant is by instinct at once farmer 
 and irrigation expert. With the rudest of wooden 
 plows, a mattock, and a well-sweep water-hoisting 
 shadoof, his labors are blessed with a success im- 
 possible to tillers of the soil elsewhere. 
 
 From ages before the beginnings of history down 
 to the reign of Mehemet Ali, all Egypt followed but 
 one rule of cultivation. The land was saturated in 
 the flood season with the fertilizing waters of the 
 great river, and when the flood abated the seed 
 was sown in the ooze, and the result was a single 
 harvest of great abundance. Mehemet Ali revolu- 
 tionized this system in the Delta. He introduced 
 the cultivation of cotton and sugar, and the system 
 of perennial irrigation which these highly profitable 
 crops require. 
 
 • Nature made the Delta; all that man did was 
 to construct the canals that distribute the water. ^ 
 
 170 y^
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 It has been computed that more than half of the 
 Nile, with its priceless sediment, pours into the 
 Mediterranean. In other words, water and soil 
 enough to create many Egypts run to waste. Much 
 of this loss will always be inevitable, naturally. 
 Napoleon had no sooner seen the Nile at Cairo than 
 he suggested a dam to hold back the surplus waters 
 and irrigate a larger area. Lord Nelson and Gen- 
 eral Abercrombie cut short Napoleon's plans for 
 administering Egypt; but his scheme for irrigat- 
 ing the Delta had been published, and forty years 
 later, in 1837, the construction of the great barrage 
 near Cairo, at the point where the Rosetta and 
 Damietta branches of the Nile bifurcate and their 
 arms inclose the Delta, was begun from plans by 
 Mougel Bey, a Frenchman. It took twenty-four 
 years to construct it, and then it was not a success, 
 for the first time it was tried the force of the 
 dammed-up water was too great for the masonry, 
 which really rested on a foundation of mud. 
 
 I overheard an amusing conversation one day at 
 the barrage. The engineer in charge was explain- 
 ing the importance of the structure to a British 
 tourist, who apparently never permitted his patri- 
 otic ardor to slumber when away from home. 
 " Yes, it 's a great work," said he, " and these for- 
 eigners ought to better appreciate what we are 
 doing for their good. This thing has put them 
 on their feet financially, sure enough ; but I don't 
 believe they feel any gratitude for our having 
 built it." " I beg your pardon," replied the gentle 
 representative of the khedival government, "but 
 
 171
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 it was designed and built by French engineers." 
 " Was it! " ejaculated the visitor in sun-helmet and 
 pugree. " I did n't know that. Well, anyway, they 
 have to get an Englishman to take care of it ! " "I 
 beg your pardon again," was the polite response of 
 Liuener Bey, D. P. W. ; " I have the honor of being 
 a native-born American citizen." The contretemps 
 was of short duration, and as the touring Albion 
 took his leave he remarked, with a twinkle in his 
 eye : " I 'm going back to Shepheard's before some 
 one tells me that Frenchmen built those Pyramids 
 over there." 
 
 It was the countrymen of the gentleman of the 
 sun-helmet, however, that made the barrage safe 
 and effective. Its failure could not properly be laid 
 at the door of Mougel, nevertheless, for Mehemet 
 Ali furnished him little or no support in the way 
 of intelligent labor. It is probable that the foun- 
 dations intended by so talented a man as Mougel 
 would have been properly laid had skilled work- 
 men been employed ; but he was allowed only half- 
 starved fellaheen, receiving no pay. When the 
 work was delayed, extra thousands of natives would 
 be pressed into service, only to spoil what had 
 already been done, it is told. Millions of tons of 
 stone and gravel were thrown into the river, and 
 on this unreliable basis was piled the vast dike 
 of masonry, pierced by one hundred and twenty 
 arches. Mehemet Ali died before it was finished, 
 and his successors carried the work forward in the 
 most desultory manner, until, in 18G1, it was de- 
 clared completed. Two years later the structure 
 
 172
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 would have been swept away had not the sluices 
 been quickly raised. From 1863 until it was taken 
 in hand by Sir Colin Moncrieff and Mr. Willcocks 
 in 1884, it was called upon to perform but a frac- 
 tion of the duty for which it was planned. By 
 reason of Moncrieff's genius, the dam was in a few 
 years rendered safe, and much of the prosperity of 
 the Delta in these times is due to his triumph. 
 
 If tradition be correct, Mougel Bey's quick wit 
 saved the Gizeh Pyramids from destruction. 
 When he went to Mehemet Ali to be told where 
 the stones for the barrage were to come from, the 
 viceroy said : " You have those great useless heaps 
 of stone ; use them up, every block if need be, for 
 the purpose." The engineer, knowing what odium 
 would attach to his name if he agreed to this prop- 
 osition, asked for a few days to make calculations. 
 His autocratic master would give but one day. 
 When the engineer again appeared he said the 
 cost of transporting the stone from the Pyramids 
 would be greater than to quarry it anew in the 
 hills. " Then let the Pyramids stay, and quarry 
 new stone," said the tyrant, and the monuments 
 were saved. 
 
 The added irrigation resulting from the Assuan 
 reservoir, it has been computed, will permanently 
 benefit Egypt fully one hundred million dollars. 
 A direct annual return to the revenue of two mil- 
 lion dollars— more than twice the sum to be paid 
 each year to the firm building the dam— from sale 
 of water and taxation on lands that will be rendered 
 fruitful is promised. The government will fur- 
 
 ^75
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ther realize considerable sums from the sale of 
 reclaimed public lands, and indirect revenues trace- 
 able to the country's augmented producing capa- 
 city. The customs and railways are certain to show 
 large increases, and the reservoir will thus add 
 considerably to the security behind Egyptian bonds 
 of all classes. 
 
 The British diplomatic agent in Egypt, Lord 
 Cromer, has recently had something to say on the 
 financial aspects of the reservoir measure, as at 
 first sight it might appear a somewhat hazard- 
 ous undertaking to increase the liabilities of the 
 Egyptian treasury while development of the Su- 
 dan is only entered upon. It is Lord Cromer's 
 belief that the expenditure of capital to improve 
 the water-supply, thereby increasing the revenue, 
 affords the best and most certain way out of the 
 pecuniary difficulties attending the reoccupation of 
 the Sudan. As regards the views of the native 
 population concerning the Assuan reservoir, he in- 
 formed his government that he had never before 
 known a measure to be received with such unani- 
 mous approbation; and Lord Cromer knows, for 
 the new Egypt is largely his creation. 
 
 There is a legend that the yearly flooding of the 
 Nile is caused by the tears shed by Isis over the 
 tomb of Osiris, and the question has for uncounted 
 centuries been asked as a type of impossibility, 
 "Can man arrest the tears of Isis as they flow?'* 
 Joseph of Israel did it, at Pharaoh's command, by 
 constructing a reservoir and canals, which fertilized 
 the Fayum province, and gave to the Nile an 
 
 176
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 equable flow. It was Joseph who conceived the 
 idea of turning the surplus waters of high Nile into 
 that vast depression in the desert to the southwest 
 of the Fayum, creating thereby the Lake Moeris 
 of^iicient history. 
 
 A delving American, Mr. Cope Whitehouse, ca- 
 pable of intelligently exploring both the desert and 
 moldy manuscripts and maps in Italian libraries, 
 showed the khedive's engineers a few years ago how 
 again to store the flood of the Nile in the same 
 desert depression— or that part of it known as 
 the Wady-Rayan— by utilizing Joseph's Canal, 
 which leaves the Nile at Assiut and conveys the 
 water of life to the Fayum. But the Englishmen 
 guiding the Egyptian chariot of state having no 
 wish to divide honors with Joseph, however worthy 
 as an irrigationist, nor with Mr. Whitehouse, the 
 latter was formally thanked for his scholarly sug- 
 gestion, decorated by the khedive as a Grand Com- 
 mander of the Medjidieh — and the Englishmen 
 proceeded with their studies preliminary to the 
 Assuan dam. 
 
 To comprehend the importance of present-day 
 irrigation in Egypt, it must be borne in mind that 
 the country owes its fertility solely to the Nile. Its 
 agriculture, even the country's existence, depends 
 on irrigation, for Egypt is practically rainless. 
 Wherever the Nile water can be regularly supplied 
 to the soil, the most bountiful crops follow, which, 
 like cotton and sugar, command high prices because 
 of their excellence. Indeed, with a reliable supply 
 of water, farming in the Nile country can be pur- 
 
 177
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 sued with more certainty of success than in any- 
 other country that I have knowledge of. 
 
 ■ V The present census gives to the practical Egypt 
 a population averaging nine hundred and twenty- 
 eight to the square mile of tillable soil— a density 
 far in excess of any European state, and not to be 
 
 ^ equaled outside of Asiatic countries. The provi- 
 sion of sustenance for so many mouths depends on 
 the marvelous fertility of the soil, and that again 
 wholly on the mud and water of the Nile. In going 
 by rail southward from Cairo, or from Ismailia to 
 Cairo, one sees hundreds of striking illustrations of 
 this truth. Side by side one passes rich fields that 
 are under perennial cultivation, and close by sandy 
 wastes that never grow a blade of grass. The ster- 
 ile expanse may be only a foot or two above the 
 luxuriant soil, but water never reaches it, and that 
 is enough. 
 
 It will no doubt surprise most readers of this 
 volume to learn that a fair estimate of the value of 
 Egypt's ten thousand five hundred square miles of 
 cultivable territory is $105 an acre. It is a fact, as 
 well, that the foreign bonded indebtedness— nat- 
 urally based upon the intrinsic value of the coun- 
 try—averages $75.74 per acre, while the per capita 
 proportion of the external debt burden is no less 
 than $52.20. The average land-tax of Egypt is 
 something in excess of $4 per acre. These vital 
 statistics are repeated here to reflect in its fullest 
 importance what the building of the great dam at 
 Assuan means to the people of Egypt. In the cir- 
 cumstances, the world can well afford to permit the 
 
 178
 
 NATIVES HAULING A BOAT UP THE "GREAT GATE.
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 ai'tistic beauty of the island of Philee to be slightly 
 impaired, if necessary. 
 
 It is ajDpropriate here to quote from a book writ- 
 ten more than thirty-five years ago by Sir Samuel 
 Baker. After descending the great river from 
 source to mouth, he wrote : " The Nile might be so 
 controlled that the enormous volume of water that 
 now rushes uselessly into the Mediterranean might 
 be led through the deserts to transform them into 
 cotton-fields that would render Enp-lanrl ii-i/i- 
 
 I rw-v*^"* 
 
 fciuas area to the Delta, the soil thus rescued from 
 the desert is usually planted with cotton. An aver- 
 age year's crop is now equal to one million one 
 hundred thousand bales of five hundred pounds 
 each, and all this is sold in foreign markets at a 
 price two cents per pound in excess of quotations 
 for good American upland cotton. It is its fiber, 
 nearly an inch and a half long, that gives Egyptian 
 cotton its peculiar value. Great as the price is, this 
 is not the only advantage possessed by the fellah 
 cotton-grower over the planter of our Southern 
 States ; for the magical fecundity of the Nile soil 
 permits the harvesting of a crop averaging five , j 
 hundredweight to the acre. This is twice what \ j 
 American planters get from an acre, and the Nilot !/ 
 is exempt from certain disastrous elements ever / 
 menacing his American rival. The Egyptian has 
 no dread of frost, and no labor question to deal with. 
 
 i8i
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 If the assistance of the women and children of his 
 family proves insufficient, the needed additional 
 labor may be secured at the rate of fifteen or eigh- 
 teen cents a day for each man. In the unlikely 
 event of having to sell his cotton at the same price 
 as the American, even then he could make a profit. 
 His prosperity is assured so long as the Southern 
 planter accepts the opinion that long-fiber cotton 
 can be grown only on the Nile, and that European 
 manufacturers will always be content to use the 
 American common staple. 
 
 Egyptian cotton has become a necessity, not only 
 in Europe but in the United States as well, and it 
 brings to Egypt, for staple and seed, nearly fifty- 
 five million dollars per year, which sum is sufiicient 
 to pay the interest on her enormous foreign debt, 
 carry on the government, and, when there are no 
 military operations up the Nile, leave something in 
 the treasury. The United States is buying a hun- 
 dred thousand bales of Egyptian cotton annually, 
 and its consumption by New England spindles in- 
 creases by leaps and bounds, "y 
 
 In the provinces of Dongola and Berber huge 
 tracts are now open to the growing of breadstuffs ; 
 and the Nile basin promises, as in the days of the 
 Pharaohs, to be in the near future one of the gran- 
 aries of the world. This will permit Lower Egypt 
 to be devoted to cotton-culture, and the crop's area 
 may be made to include the Fayum, and extended 
 south of Cairo fifty miles or more. 
 
 It is a conservative estimate that by 1905 Egypt 
 will produce a million and a third bales of cotton ; 
 
 182
 
 Expansion by Irrigation 
 
 and the same hypothesis regarding agricultural 
 development in Dongola and neighboring prov- 
 inces, by which they are to feed the entire country, 
 likewise gives over to sugar-growing the Nile val- 
 ley from Beni Suef to Assuan. Cane-culture has 
 been developed there with amazing rapidity. As 
 with cotton, Egyptian sugar is of superior quality. 
 It now brings nearly ten million dollars per year to 
 Egypt, and it may surprise American readers to be 
 told that the United States has for some time been 
 a liberal buyer of Nile-grown sugar. 
 
 At many points between Assiut and Assuan 
 important crushing-works have recently been 
 erected by native or foreign capital, supplied with 
 the most perfect machinery obtainable in Europe. 
 The peasant farmer in Upper Eg^^t has, by means 
 of enhanced irrigation, become a capitalist in a 
 small way through the sugar crop, and the cane 
 area will be doubled, if not trebled, in a very few 
 years, and statisticians must hereafter take the 
 Egyptian crop into account when dealing with the \ 
 world's production. \ 
 
 / Thus, Lower Egypt is destined to be devoted to 
 /^otton. Middle and Upper Egypt to sugar, while the 
 /provinces south of the first cataract will produce 
 [j more than enough cereals to feed Egypt's popula- 
 tion. All this is feasible and quickly accomplished, 
 and no doubt has a place in England's elaborate 
 scheme for exploiting the valley of the Nile. -' 
 
 183 
 
 <i
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE STOEY OF THE SUEZ CANAL 
 
 yOCABUL ARIES of praise and censure have 
 been well-nigh exhausted on Ismail Pasha 
 and Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose deaths were 
 chronicled, during my residence in Cairo, simply as 
 items of news rather than events; but the nine- 
 teenth century is indebted to them for one of its 
 greatest achievements, a work of incalculable value 
 to the whole world, Egypt alone excepted. Their 
 lives had run in channels strangely similar. Each 
 had been a mighty personage, the cynosure of the 
 world's gaze; and, in the case of each, death de- 
 layed until the man's importance had been forgot- 
 ten in a slough of degradation, the one in exile, 
 the other in the oblivion of mental decay. 
 
 That Egypt reaps no benefit from the interna- 
 tional waterway crossing its domain, there uniting 
 the Orient with the Occident, is an amazing state- 
 ment, manifestly. And it is a sad fact that the 
 Suez Canal, which has played a mighty political part 
 with European nations, has made and unmade khe- 
 dives, and by a strange fatality has passed from the 
 control of the nation that built it to that of the 
 country that fought its construction strenuously, 
 
 184
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 is responsible for the mortgaging of the Egyptian 
 people, body and soul, inasmuch as it inspired and 
 developed to an inordinate degree the borrowing 
 habit of two of their rulers. Prior to the giving 
 of the canal concession in 1856, by Viceroy Said, 
 Egypt had no debt whatever. Her credit was first 
 pledged in Europe by Said Pasha, who, to add lus- 
 ter to his name, subscribed seventeen million dol- 
 lars to the stock of the canal enterprise, although 
 the undertaking was to cost Egypt nothing, a jid 
 for ninety-nine years the country was to receive 
 from it fifteen per cent, of the gross revenue. 
 Said's vainglorious act laid the corner-stone of 
 Egypt's new house of bondage. 
 
 Ismail, succeeding to the throne, lent himself 
 readily to the seductive project. Learning how 
 easy it was to get money simply by affixing his 
 signature to an innocent-looking paper, thought- 
 fully prepared in Europe, thenceforth there was 
 frequent exchange between the khedive and the 
 money-capitals of Europe of these innocent-look- 
 ing papers for gold. There were many investors 
 in the canal scheme, of course ; but it seemed as if 
 Egypt was ever feeding the insatiable monster with 
 money, and human life as well; for four fifths of 
 the laborers who dug the vast ditch were drafted 
 from the Egyptian peasantry, and so poorly cared 
 for that thousands died. A day of reckoning came, 
 however, when financial engagements could not be 
 met; for Egypt was hypothecated to its utmost 
 value, and the usurers of Europe made such bitter 
 outcry that Ismail Pasha was forced by the Sultan, 
 
 185
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the actual sovereign of the country, to surrender 
 his throne and go into exile. Foreseeing the 
 crash, Ismail had sold his personal shares in the 
 canal to the British government for twenty million 
 dollars, and on these the Egyptian treasury faith- 
 fully paid England five per cent, interest for twenty 
 years. This purchase illustrated Lord Beacons- 
 field's shrewdness, for by prompt action he pre- 
 vented these shares from going to France. To-day 
 they are worth more than four times what was 
 paid for them, and secure to England the voting 
 control in canal affairs. The stipulation in the 
 concession that Egypt should receive fifteen per 
 cent, of the tolls had also been marketed, Ismail 
 pledging this consideration as security on which to 
 borrow a few millions when the French company 
 could raise no more money. Thus, having no 
 maritime interests, and possessing not a share in 
 the enterprise, no pecuniary benefit can accrue to 
 the Egyptian people from the Suez Canal. And, 
 further, it can be conjectured that, had Ismail not 
 burdened his subjects with overwhelming indebt- 
 edness, thereby breeding discontent, there would 
 have been no European interference with Egyptian 
 finances, involving his dethronement; no Arabi 
 rebellion, and no British army of occupation. 
 
 The idea of a water communication between the 
 Mediterranean and the Eed Sea is as old as his- 
 tory, and nearly every ruler of Egypt, from Seti, 
 father of Rameses the Great, to Napoleon Bona-, 
 parte, gave attention to the problem, with vary- 
 ing degrees of success. Strabo asserted that Seti, 
 
 i86
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 fourteen centuries before the Christian era, cut a 
 canal fifty-seven miles long, from Bubastis, near 
 the present town of Zagazig, on the Pelusiac branch 
 of the Nile, to Heroopolis, at the head of the Bitter 
 Lakes, then forming the northern extremity of the 
 Gulf of Suez. Eight hundred years later, says 
 Herodotus, the second Necho gave his attention to 
 canal-building, persevering in the task until one 
 hundred and twenty thousand lives had been sac- 
 rificed, but abandoning the undertaking because the 
 oracle he consulted told him that dire results would 
 follow the completion of his labors, and Egypt be 
 surrendered to barbarians — or, in other words, the 
 making of a canal would so entangle the Egyptians 
 with foreign interests that their safety would be 
 imperiled. A century later came the Persian 
 Darius, son of Hystaspes, who took up the work 
 abandoned by Necho ; but being assured by cer- 
 tain wise men that the land would be deluged, he 
 gave up the task when near its completion. 
 Traces of Necho's canal, so archaeologists claim, are 
 still distinguishable near the southern end of the 
 Bitter Lakes. The project of Necho, as well as 
 that of Darius, involved the transhipment of cargo 
 at Heroopolis, and each was unsatisfactory for 
 other reasons. To remedy these defects, Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, in b. c. 285, joined the Nile canal with 
 the Heroopolite Gulf by means of locks, opening 
 when a vessel wished to pass. The southern ter- 
 .minus of this waterway was at Arsinoe, near the 
 Suez of to-day. The failure of Cleopatra's ships to 
 escape through this canal into the Red Sea, two 
 
 187
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 centuries later, indicates that it had fallen into dis- 
 use and was most likely unnavigable. The Roman 
 emperors Trajan and Hadrian aspired each in his 
 time to make it possible for ships to go from one 
 sea to another, but the desert sands finally obliter- 
 ated their efforts to pierce the Suez Isthmus. 
 
 In the interval of centuries thus spanned, the 
 Nile had almost deserted its Pelusiac branch, and 
 Eoman engineers, coming later, tapped the great 
 river above its bifurcation, near the capital of the 
 present day, and ran a new canal from that point 
 to the old Bubastic canal, which they cleared and 
 restored to use. But this system was only tem- 
 porarily successful, and Amrou, the Arabian con- 
 queror, found inter-sea navigation impossible, and 
 himself essayed, with partial success, to solve the 
 great problem. Then, after the sands of the Arabian 
 desert had for centuries asserted their dominion, 
 came the great Napoleon, to whom all things were 
 possible. Shortly after he had conquered the an- 
 cient land of the Pharaohs, in 1798, his engineers 
 were given the task of bringing the Mediterranean 
 into communication with the Gulf of Suez. They 
 studied the project assiduously, and estimating 
 from their surveys, as others before them had done,' 
 that the Mediterranean was thirtj^ feet below the 
 level of the Red Sea, recommended a complicated 
 scheme calling for sluices and locks. Napoleon's 
 evacuation of Egypt in 1801 caused the work to be 
 dropped while yet in embryo. 
 
 Mehemet Ali probably detected the dangers fore- 
 shadowed by the oracle of old when urged to con- 
 
 i88
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 struct a ship-canal across his territory. This sol- 
 dier who had founded a dynasty by successive deeds 
 of bravery, and had butchered three or four hun- 
 dred Mamelukes whom he had asked to a feast, 
 could not have been suspected of lacking in dar- 
 ing; but he never fully yielded to the blandish- 
 ments of foreigners striving to get him interested 
 in isthmian canalization. His sagacious intellect 
 kept him from embarking therein, save in a tenta- 
 tive way. The discovery in 1830, by Lieutenant 
 Waghorn, that the level of the two seas was nearly 
 identical, failed even to impress the hard-headed 
 viceroy. He commissioned Linant Pasha, however, 
 to prepare a plan for a canal across the narrowest 
 part of the isthmus, from Tilreh to Suez; but 
 as this Frenchman accepted the survey of Bona- 
 parte's engineers, and discredited the statement of 
 Waghorn as to the level of the waters, the vice- 
 roy still withheld his confidence from the scheme. 
 In 1846 he asked a board of engineers, comprising 
 representatives of England, France, and Austria, to 
 solve once for all the question of the sea-levels. 
 These experts confirmed the judgment of the Eng- 
 lishman, Waghorn ; but the British member of the 
 board, the renowned Eobert Stephenson, with his 
 instinct for railway-making, persuaded Mehemet 
 Ali to construct instead a railway from Cairo to 
 Suez, in connection with the line from Alexandria. 
 This was done, and it formed the connecting-link 
 between Europe and the East, and brought great 
 profit, and no political dangers, to Egypt. 
 
 In the meantime another mind was occupied 
 191
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 with the project. When Waghorn was carrying on 
 his controversy, young Ferdinand de Lesseps was 
 an attache at the French consulate-general in 
 Cairo, and there conceived the idea of accomplish- 
 ing what had baffled Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and a 
 Bonaparte. Rapid promotion in the diplomatic 
 service in no way lessened his ambition some day 
 to wed the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. For 
 more than twenty years this was his constant 
 dream, until, in 1854, once more in Egypt, facile, 
 accomplished, impulsive, and convincing, he de- 
 veloped his plan to the viceroy. Said Pasha. On 
 January 5, 1856, De Lesseps was given a concession 
 to build the canal. With the coveted document 
 in his pocket, he realized that his aspirations to be 
 famous, some day to be " Le grand Frangais," were 
 to be fulfilled; and incidentally he saw an effec- 
 tive way of crushing the Waghorn "overland 
 route" from Alexandria to Suez, detested by 
 Frenchmen because the creation of a Britisher. 
 
 Said lacked the superstitious caution of his 
 grandfather, Mehemet Ali, and cared nothing for 
 the opinion of an antiquated oracle, if he had ever 
 heard of it. Paris was his Mecca; and, loving 
 Frenchmen as he did, he saw a most agreeable way 
 of making his own name immortal, and his coun- 
 try so prosperous that it would attain to a dazzling 
 position in the family of nations— all by means of 
 the canal, through the facile and convincing De 
 Lesseps. The canal was not to cost Said or his 
 people a single franc ; on the contrary, fifteen per 
 cent, of the revenue coming from its operation was 
 
 192
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 to flow into the national purse ; and at the end of 
 only ninety-nine years the magnificent enterprise 
 would belong to Egypt ! 
 
 The concession gave M. de Lesseps, and "La 
 Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de 
 Suez," to be created by him, the monopoly of 
 operating a waterway to be constructed in a direct 
 line across the isthmus, utilizing the chain of Bit- 
 ter Lakes on the south, and intersecting on the 
 north the vast marsh called Lake Menzaleh. In no 
 sense was the arrangement a contract involving any 
 obligation on Egypt, and it was stipulated that at 
 the end of the period for which the concession was 
 given everything was to revert to the Egyptian 
 government, on payment of the actual value of im- 
 provements on the banks of the canal, as determined 
 by arbitration. The concessionaries were also to 
 build at their own cost a smaller canal from the Nile 
 to the line of the ship-canal, primarily to supply the 
 work-people with fresh water, and ultimately for 
 commercial purposes. To prevent bringing to his 
 country thousands of laborers, representing the 
 flotsam and jetsam of southern Europe, and mer- 
 cenaries of all shades, the viceroy exacted the right 
 of furnishing native laborers if he chose, at a 
 nominal expense to the company ; and it was agreed 
 by the latter that the fellaheen diggers would be 
 fed and have all necessary medical and hospital 
 facilities. 
 
 It was stipulated and reiterated that all these 
 conditions, as well as the concession itself, should 
 be valid only when the Sultan of Turkey, the suze- 
 
 193
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 rain of Egypt, should give his sanction thereto. 
 De Lesseps and his associates were to arrange the 
 matter at Constantinople, providing whatever in- 
 centive in the way of bakshish they might find 
 necessary. 
 
 De Lesseps's initial endeavors to secure funds 
 for his company were disappointing in the ex- 
 treme. French capital in those days was averse 
 to investment away from home ; and, besides, the 
 Suez scheme was a startling novelty, and tra- 
 ditions were against it. France had but recently 
 emerged from the Crimean campaign, and for a 
 time, at least, money was wanted at home. Ger- 
 man bankers, close-fisted and unimaginative, saw 
 nothing financially attractive in the Paris enter- 
 prise. England was opposed to it intuitively. 
 London journals raised a howl against the French 
 project that was to provide a short cut to India 
 for any Tom, Dick, or Harry. As a consequence, 
 Lombard Street said " No," emphatically, and made 
 the fact known to all the world ; and thereafter all 
 possible difficulties were thrown in the way of the 
 scheme by Lord Palmerston's ministry. 
 
 The sum that De Lesseps could raise among his 
 friends was but a drop in the bucket. What he 
 wanted was two hundred million francs. A san- 
 guine engineer had assured him that this amount 
 would be sufficient for ditch, buildings, machinery, 
 and everything. Nothing had yet been done to 
 secure the Constantinople approval, probably be- 
 cause there was no money. There was an unprom- 
 ising drag to the whole matter. Something had to 
 
 194
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 be done, and the man who had spent twenty-four 
 years in meditation over the canal scheme saw that 
 he alone must do it. To create the Suez Canal 
 was to be a feat of financiering, not of engineering. 
 
 There was the easy-going Said, down in Egypt. 
 Why not have a try at him ? Said loved French- 
 men, and believed the Suez Canal was to make his 
 name immortal. So the intrepid diplomat hurried 
 to Cairo and saw the viceroy. "Certainly," was 
 his reply to De Lesseps's appeal, and he actually 
 loaned the money required for making the sur- 
 veys and for exploiting the company throughout 
 Europe— 2,394,914 francs in all. Had the Egyp- 
 tian viceroy said "No" as vigorously as had the 
 London bankers, how different would the modern 
 history of Egypt read, and how different would be 
 the material condition of the people of Egypt ! 
 
 Encouraged by his success with Said Pasha, De 
 Lesseps thought the time propitious for getting 
 from him another concession, cognate but subor- 
 dinate to the great scheme. This was to connect 
 the canal bringing fresh water from the Nile with 
 another small canal running from Ismailia to the 
 termini of the great ship-canal. The concession 
 permitted De Lesseps and his associates to sell irri- 
 gation privileges from this special waterway ; and 
 wherever the magical water of Father Nile can be 
 turned upon the desert, the sands thereof blossom 
 like the rose. 
 
 In 18G0 the Paris company of the long name was 
 again without a copper in its cash-box, and in debt 
 to an extent making the prospect almost hopeless. 
 
 195
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 For two years the subscription books had been 
 open without attracting serious investors. Again 
 did the resourceful De Lesseps think of the amiable 
 pasha down in Egypt, and again was he appealed 
 to for succor. Said was this time induced to sub- 
 scribe for 177,662 shares out of the 400,000 repre- 
 senting the Suez company's total capitalization; 
 and he further pledged himself to contribute in 
 other ways to the construction of the canal — 
 and this was the affair that originally was to cost 
 Egypt not a piaster! The viceroy's magnificent 
 subscription dazzled impressionable France, and 
 for a time a torrent of gold flowed into the Paris 
 offices of the Suez company. When it came 
 time for Said to pay for the bonds he had so 
 dramatically bespoken, however, he was forced to 
 confess that he was suffering from financial cramp 
 himself, and could supply no more cash. " No mat- 
 ter," said the members of the canal ring ; " we can 
 get the viceroy's promises to pay discounted in 
 Europe." This they did, the obligations taking the 
 form of treasury warrants, bearing ten per cent, 
 interest, and payable in four yearly instalments. 
 These obligations, with their interest, the whole a 
 charge upon the Egyptian treasury, totaled 24,- 
 705,734 francs ! Was it to be wondered at that 
 Egypt became a happy hunting-ground for finan- 
 cial sportsmen ? 
 
 In 1863 the magnificent Ismail inherited the 
 viceroyship from his deceased uncle. This placed 
 a prince of immense fortune in control of Egypt, 
 and the impecunious canal ring blessed the good 
 
 196
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 luck that had given them another Oriental, who 
 likewise loved Frenchmen, to fatten on. At their 
 first interview with Ismail Pasha they made a point 
 of their own generosity, assuring him that as one 
 of the fresh- water canals appeared to them to be 
 needless, they would surrender the special conces- 
 sion under which it was to have been constructed, 
 on condition that the new viceroy would agree to 
 complete the other minor canal at his own cost — 
 but for the company's benefit. These suave trick- 
 sters certainly had formed a strange estimate of the 
 character of the new ruler ; and Ismail must have 
 recognized the colossal impudence of the company's 
 request, surely. Had he investigated, he, too, would 
 have learned that the small canal in question could 
 not possibly be constructed because of legal com- 
 plications and rights of jurisdiction. But, not 
 haunted by the ghosts of his astute relative, Me- 
 hemet Ali, and that other King of Egypt, Pharaoh 
 Necho, he assented to the request of the French- 
 men, thereby putting practically another fifty mil- 
 lion francs into the Suez company's coffers. 
 
 The digging of the vast ditch was now only a quar- 
 ter completed. But the vigilant promoters of the 
 enterprise recognized in Ismail a valued " friend," 
 and to their minds an essential problem in con- 
 nection with their work had been solved. Ismail 
 now called himself khedive,^ and was negotiating 
 
 1 In 18G6, in consideration of a large sum of money, Ismail ob- 
 tained the sanction of the Sublime Porte to a new order of succession 
 based on the law of primogeniture ; and in 1867 he was raised to the 
 rank of khedive. In 1873 Khedive Ismail obtained a new firman, 
 confirming and extending his privileges in the matter of indepen- 
 
 199
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 at Stamboul for a firman that would change the 
 order of inheritance in the ruling family, and had 
 another card up his sleeve that he hoped would 
 give him full sovereignty. 
 
 Time went on, and work on the canal proceeded 
 with halting pace. Although the khedive ordered 
 twenty-five thousand peasants every three months 
 to the isthmus, canal-making by a process so primi- 
 tive as the scooping of the sand with bare hands 
 into palm-leaf baskets, to be carried up the steep 
 bank and emptied, without mechanical assistance 
 of any sort, was slow work. The taskmasters used 
 the lash liberally, but forgot about the agreement 
 to provide for the medical and sanitary welfare of 
 the poor slaves. The food was wretched and in- 
 sufficient ; and the matter of the nominal compen- 
 sation — well, that was something that did not con- 
 cern the fellaheen, forced to labor in the corvee. 
 Under the heat of summer the wretched Arabs 
 perished by thousands, and Europe was properly 
 indignant at the tales of suffering and inhumanity 
 to be read in every newspaper. 
 
 Long viewing with distrust and disapproval the 
 work that in time was to give the world an open 
 sesame to their treasure-house in the East, English 
 people were particularly loud in their outcry against 
 the treatment of the poor Egyptians. John Bull's 
 philanthropy and political interest were aroused to 
 
 denee of administration and judiciaries, right of concluding treaties 
 of commerce with foreign governments, rigiit of coining money, right 
 of borrowing money, and pei-mission to increase his army and navy. 
 These were the provisions of autonomy, in consideration of which 
 he was to pay an annual tribute to the Sultan of £681,538. 
 
 200
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 simultaneous action, the outcome being a spirited 
 appeal to the Sublime Porte to have the barbarities 
 stopped. The Sultan was entreated, it is also 
 claimed, to give orders to have the work on the 
 canal cease altogether. This he could do, for his 
 Imperial Majesty had never confirmed the conces- 
 sion under which the canal was being built. For 
 a reason not difficult to discern, M. de Lesseps had 
 omitted to consult him, and the gentlemen forming 
 his divan, on the momentous subject. 
 
 French diplomacy was called upon to nullify the 
 effect of Great Britain's interference, the canal ring 
 swarmed on the Bosporus— and the Sultan an- 
 nounced a happy compromise of the difficulty, by 
 formally approving the concession of his vassal, on 
 condition that the peasant should no longer be 
 forced to do the digging ; this was specifically for- 
 bidden. The Sultan even hinted at the propriety 
 of employing machinery. 
 
 Here was a grievance of real magnitude, the De 
 Lesseps cohort claimed; and they promptly an- 
 nounced their determination to hold the khedive 
 responsible for the Sultan's action, although the 
 imperial indorsement was an essential clause in 
 the Said concession, and any legal tribunal would 
 have said there was no breach of contract— for no 
 contract existed, and the concession imposed no 
 obligation or liability upon Egypt. French jour- 
 nals in the pay of the canal raised a furious out- 
 cry, and De Lesseps and his lieutenants beat their 
 tom-toms with unceasing clamor, insisting that 
 without fellah labor the canal could never be 
 
 20I
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 finished, and that ruin, ignominious ruin, conse- 
 quently stared the enterprise in th^ face. It was 
 an audacious plea; for at the time when their 
 shrieks were loudest, infiltration from the sea and 
 neighboring lakes had flooded the big trench to an 
 extent that practically put at an end the need of 
 an army of men, unless amphibious men could be 
 found. The point had been reached where steam- 
 dredges must be employed. Yet the canal com- 
 pany formulated a bill of damages of portentous 
 amount, and politely requested the khedive to 
 settle. Ismail protested, pointed to the stipula- 
 tions of the concession, and pleaded for justice. 
 Daily fomented by the French press, the dispute 
 became the talk of Europe. Ismail set too high 
 a value upon negotiations of a personal nature at 
 Constantinople to dare appeal to the Sultan for a 
 reconsideration of his canal decision, and had no 
 desire to make ducks and drakes of his chances for 
 securing absolute independence. So he preserved 
 a serene exterior and awaited developments, being 
 now heartily tired of the canal scheme and all con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 Trusting to find a way of advantageously break- 
 ing the deadlock, De Lesseps again went to Cairo, 
 and for weeks plied the khedive with arguments 
 intended to convince him of his liability. The 
 medium of arbitration, as a solvent of stubborn 
 differences of opinion, was finally brought to his 
 notice by the diplomatic De Lesseps ; and Ismail 
 was actually talked into consenting to let the 
 Emperor of the French weigh the pros and cons of 
 
 202
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 the situation, his decision to be final and binding. 
 The influence compelling the khedive to accept 
 Napoleon III as umpire in the dispute between 
 himself and the French people— for the Suez Canal 
 had now become almost a national affair— must 
 have been something unusually potent, perhaps 
 hypnotic. Ismail's abiding faith in Napoleon was 
 sublime, and he was fashioning his own life in more 
 ways than one upon that of the emperor ; and, be- 
 sides, Ismail was hoping to make Cairo a second 
 Paris. The khedive should have remembered that 
 M. de Lesseps was a favorite at the Tuileries, and 
 that his kinship with the empress was recognized. 
 
 The emperor was willing to serve; and with 
 amazing promptness he rendered a decision that 
 must have shattered any remaining trust that 
 Ismail had in humanity, for it gave the canal peo- 
 ple even heavier damages than they had asked for, 
 and opened the way for the presentation of a sec- 
 ond claim by them. Looked at in any light, Napo- 
 leon's monstrous award becomes one of the strong- 
 est arguments against arbitration by a single 
 person, possessing no legal education or judicial 
 aptitude, that history reveals. 
 
 Napoleon decided that the provision relating to 
 the supply of native labor was of the nature of a 
 contract, and that Ismail was responsible for the 
 consequences of its violation. For this the khe- 
 dive was to pay the company thirty-eight million 
 francs, which sum, coming at the very moment it 
 was needed, enabled the company to purchase the 
 labor-saving machinery now indispensable to com- 
 
 203
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 pleting the canal. Secondly, the emperor decided 
 that the retrocession of the company's rights in 
 the small fresh-water canal deprived them of 
 large prospective profits through the renting of 
 lands and providing irrigation therefor. The 
 company's bookkeeper ingeniously figured expen- 
 ditures of seven and a half million francs up to 
 the time the concession was resigned, which, with 
 interest, made a round ten million francs. Napo- 
 leon further gave his countrymen six million francs 
 for the supposititious loss of water-tolls, and thirty 
 million more for the assumed value of the lands that 
 would have been rendered productive by the sweet- 
 water canal, had it been made. This canal, it will 
 be remembered, was not proceeded with because 
 the concessionaries requested Ismail to take back 
 the authorization for its construction ; yet Emperor 
 Napoleon compelled the khedive to pay forty-six 
 million francs for allowing the concession to be 
 canceled. 
 
 The entire award footed up eighty-four million 
 francs, and so successful was the canal ring in this 
 essay at financiering that some of its members 
 grumbled because more items had not been in- 
 cluded in the schedule of claims laid before the 
 emperor for adjudication. They had actually for- 
 gotten to make a demand for the " value of the 
 fish " in the canal that was never built. A supple- 
 mentary bill was sent to Ismail, consequently ; and 
 when he demurred, arbitration was again sug- 
 gested. He had taken his medicine without flinch- 
 ing in the first case, but had had enough arbitration 
 
 204
 
 EGYPTIAN' PROTOTYPE OF FKKKIS WHEEL, HUNDREDS OF YEAKs OEL).
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 in that one dose to last the rest of his life. He 
 preferred compromising a disputed claim, believ- 
 ing it would be cheaper and perhaps end the 
 matter. " Take what you must, but give me a 
 receipt in full," cried the unhappy khedive. The 
 canal harpies got another forty million francs for , 
 the " fish " claim and other more or less specious 
 allegations of loss, included in which payment were 
 ten million francs for the repurchase of some lands 
 sold to the company five years before by Said 
 Pasha for a quarter of the sum. 
 
 The Egyptian treasury was empty, national prog- 
 ress was at a standstill, and Ismail's credit with the 
 money-lenders was as shaky as his political posi- 
 tion at Constantinople, before the canal leeches 
 dropped their quarry. It is estimated by compe- 
 tent experts that the Suez Canal, directly and in- ■, 
 directly, cost Egypt close upon eighty-five million 
 doUars, of which only twenty million dollars are rep- 
 resented in any manner in the capital stock of the 
 now prosperous Compaguie Universelle du Canal 
 Maritime de Suez: this was the personal holding 
 of Ismail in the undertaking, which he practically 
 surrendered to creditors a short time before his 
 dethronement, the British government being the 
 purchaser. 
 
 The banished khedive's legacy to his country 
 was a debt of four hundred and fifty million dol- 
 lars, probably not more than two thirds of which 
 sum ever left the hands of the bankers' agents and 
 negotiators in Europe. Docks and breakwaters 
 at Alexandria and Suez, and a few hundred miles 
 
 207
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 of railways and telegraphs, represented the more 
 important benefits to his people ; for steam- vessels 
 of obsolete type, unwieldy yachts, a score or more 
 of stucco palaces, gilded coaches, and operatic 
 paraphernalia were not regarded as very impor- 
 tant assets. 
 
 After more than ten years' labor, and the display 
 of an energy and perseverance on the part of its 
 chief promoter that formed not the least heroic 
 feature of the undertaking, the new Bosporus be- 
 tween Africa and Asia was ready in 1869 for 
 traffic.^ The magnanimous Oriental, plundered as 
 he had been on an unprecedented scale, determined 
 to make the event of the opening so resplendent as 
 to prevent the world from soon forgetting it. The 
 inauguration of the great enterprise, in Novem- 
 ber, was made the occasion of such festivities as 
 rivaled the traditions of Harun-al-Rashid and Ak- 
 bar. The presence of the Empress of the French, 
 the Emperor of Austria, the Prince and Princess of 
 Wales, and a score of royalties from Continental 
 courts, statesmen, ambassadors, and celebrities be- 
 yond count, and representative squadrons from 
 the navy of every important government, rendered 
 
 1 "On March 18, 1869, the water of the Mediterranean was allowed 
 to flow into the nearly dry, salt-incrusted basins of the Bitter Lakes, 
 portions of which lay thirty or forty feet below the level of the sea. 
 The first encounter of the waters of the two seas was by no means 
 of an amicable character ; they met boisterously, and then recoiled 
 from the attack ; but soon, as if commanded by a qnos ego of Nep- 
 tune, they peacefully mingled, and the ocean once more gained pos- 
 session of the land which it had covered at a very remote period, but 
 only on condition of rendering service to the traffic of the world."— 
 Stephan. 
 
 208
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 the occasion a veritable "triumpli" to the great 
 Frenchman. Forty-eight ships conveyed the illus- 
 trious guests of the kheclive— for Ismail was footing 
 the bill— through the canal ; and, as if illustrating 
 the irony of fate and presaging the future, the first 
 vessel that paid dues after the formal opening flew 
 the British flag. The fetes in Cairo, transforming 
 the capital into fairy-land for a month, at Ismail's 
 bidding, cost that forgiving prince or his govern- 
 
 yment twenty-one million dollars. 
 
 // There was a movement in France at about the 
 time of De Lesseps's death to have his name for- 
 mally given to the canal, but the negotiations to 
 that end were never realized. Surprise had be- 
 fore been felt that this had not been done, and 
 but for the lamentable Panama affair, impoverish- 
 ing thousands of French homes and smirching the 
 reputations of many statesmen, M. de Lesseps 
 would probably have had the satisfaction, while 
 still in the full enjoyment of his faculties, of seeing 
 his name indissolubly linked with his work. It is 
 not strange, however, that while Said Pasha gave 
 his name to an important town and harbor,^ Ismail 
 
 1 The Port Said entrance of the canal is protected by two massive 
 piers, the eastern running out into the sea toward the north for a 
 mile, and the western running toward the northeast for nearly 
 two miles. Where they start from the land these piers are fourteen 
 hundred and forty yards apart, but their extremities approach within 
 seven hundred and seventy yards of each other. The most serious 
 risk to which the harbor is exposed is that of being choked with 
 Nile mud, deposited on the Pelusiae coast by a current in the Medi- 
 terranean constantly flowing from the west. The western pier is in- 
 tended to ward off these accumulations of sand and mud, and also 
 to shelter the harbor from the northwest winds which prevail during 
 
 209
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Pasha to Ismailia, and Tewfik Pasha to Port Tew- 
 fik, nothing in Egypt beyond a pubUc square in 
 Port Said bears the name of De Lesseps. The 
 Suez company is erecting a bronze statue at Port 
 Said of the author of the canal, modeled by M. 
 Fremiet; but as the appropriation for this was 
 paltry, its importance cannot be deemed commen- 
 surate with the achievement it is planned to com- 
 memorate. At the opening of the canal everybody 
 expected that some distinction would be conferred 
 on De Lesseps, the general opinion being that he 
 would be created Due de Suez ; and astonishment 
 was felt at his being merely given the grand cordon 
 
 two thirds of the year. Both piers were constructed of blocks of 
 artificial stone, manufactured of seven parts of sand from the desert 
 and one part of hydraulic lime imported from France. The concrete 
 was mixed by machinery and poured into large wooden molds, in 
 which it remained for several weeks. The molds were then re- 
 moved, and the blocks exposed to the air to harden more thor- 
 oughly. Each block weighed twenty tons, and thirty of them were 
 manufactured daily. In all twenty-five thousand were required. 
 Above the wooden molds, which covered an extensive piece of 
 ground, was constructed a railway, bearing a steam-crane, which 
 could be moved to any required spot, for the purpose of hoisting the 
 blocks and conveying them to their destination. After having been 
 hoisted by the crane, the blocks were transported to a boat, where 
 they were placed on an inclined plane in twos and threes, and se- 
 cured by means of wedges. They were then conveyed to the place 
 where they were to be sunk, the wedges were removed, and the 
 huge masses slid down the incline, splitting the wood and emit- 
 ting sparks of fire on their way, and plunged into the water with a 
 tremendous splash, while the boat staggered from the effects of the 
 shock and was lashed by the waves thus artificially caused. These 
 huge pierrcs perdncs, as they were technically called, were thus 
 gradually heaped up until they reached tlie surface, and the last 
 layers, rising a little above the level of the water, were finally de- 
 posited by means of a crane erected on a steamboat. 
 
 2IO
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 of the Legion of Honor. The omission was never 
 fully explained. Some thought that, as he had no 
 personal fortune, this stood in the way of his re- 
 ceiving a French dukedom: provision for himself 
 and his heirs would have been necessary. Others 
 thought that the success of the canal was too 
 doubtful for a high honor to be based on it. How- 
 ever, in view of the disgrace that De Lesseps fell 
 into over the Panama scheme, it is fortunate for 
 the French nation that the dukedom was never 
 given to him. If it can be said of any man that he 
 lived too long, that surely can be said of Ferdinand 
 de Lesseps. 
 
 The canal destroyed Egypt's important railway 
 traf&c between Alexandria and Suez, besides 
 bringing to the land that foreign domination fore- 
 shadowed by the oracle consulted by the ancient 
 Necho. Of the never-ending throng of humanity 
 that passes through it, few, probably, think of, or 
 i know, the pathetic chapters of its history. It has 
 ^ revolutionized shipping methods, driven the stately 
 sailing-ship from the ocean, and some years ago had 
 developed as much traffic as can be expected to 
 come to it under normal conditions. 
 
 The canal's value to the commerce of the world 
 is sufficiently proved by the saving of distance 
 effected by it, as compared with the route around 
 the Cape of Good Hope. By the latter the dis- 
 tance between England and Bombay is 10,860 miles, 
 by the canal 4620 miles ; from St. Petersburg to 
 Bombay by the Cape is 11,610 miles, by the canal 
 6770 miles; and from New York to Bombay by 
 
 21 I
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the Cape route the distance is 11,520 miles, while 
 by the canal it is 7920 miles. How rapidly the 
 traffic attracted by the economy of distance thus 
 effected has developed, is illustrated by the follow- 
 ing statement, taken quinquennially from the com- 
 pany's returns: 
 
 Year. 
 
 Steamers. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Receipts in Francs 
 
 1871 
 
 765 
 
 761,467 
 
 7,595,385 
 
 1876 
 
 1881 
 
 1,457 
 
 2,727 
 
 2,096,771 
 4,136,779 
 
 27,631,455 
 47,193,880 
 
 1886 
 1891 
 1896 
 
 3,100 
 4,206 
 3,407 
 
 5,767,655 
 8,699,020 
 8,594,307 
 
 54,771,075 
 83,421,500 
 79,652,175 
 
 Eight or ten years ago three quarters of the ves- 
 sels passing the Suez Canal flew the British flag; 
 but in recent years there has been a slight falling 
 off in the number of English ships, the result chiefly 
 of the determined effort Germany is making to 
 secure new markets in the East. But the British 
 flag represents still two thirds of the total traffic. 
 Next to England, Germany is the principal user of 
 the canal; the Putch flag comes third, while the 
 tricolor of France is fourth in the list. Not for 
 many years, I am sorry to say, have the Stars and 
 Stripes of our country been seen in the canal over 
 a commercial vessel. A couple of warships and 
 two or three yachts usually comprise the annual 
 volume of American representation. This is a sad 
 commentary on the decline of our. mercantile fleet, 
 and demonstrates in no equivocal manner how com- 
 pletely our flag has disappeared from the seas. The 
 records of the United States consular agency at Port 
 Said disclose the fact that about eighty American- 
 
 212
 
 A SIMPLE FOKM OF IRRKiATION.
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 bound cargoes— sugar from Singapore and the 
 Dutch colonies, and tea from China and India — 
 pass the canal each year ; but these, in nearly every 
 instance, are borne in British bottoms. 
 
 Our military operations in the Philippines gave 
 an impulse to the canal receipts hitherto never en- 
 joyed from this source by the company, and the 
 United States government, in the closing months 
 of 1898 and the first half of 1899, paid more in 
 tolls for warships, transports, and men, going or 
 coming from Manila, than it had hitherto paid the 
 canal in twenty years. It is truly an ill wind 
 that brings nothing to the Suez company. Every 
 year or two its tribute upon commerce is substan- 
 tially augmented by the presence of armed strife 
 somewhere in Asia or Africa, in which Europe is 
 taking a hand. The years when Italy was hope- 
 lessly fighting the Abyssinians were among the 
 most remunerative in the company's history. 
 
 The economy in using the canal is in the saving 
 of time only. The present toll is $1.90 on vessel 
 tonnage, and $2 for every passenger, not counting 
 the shijo's crew. The toll on tonnage is equivalent 
 to the cost of about three thousand miles of ocean 
 transportation, it is estimated. Since electric lights 
 for night steaming came into use, it requires from 
 seventeen to twenty hours to make the passage 
 of the canal. The cost for a large steamer, like 
 a liner of the P. & O., the Orient or British India 
 companies, or a troop-ship filled with soldiers, is 
 not infrequently ten thousand dollars. I first made 
 the trip from Port Said to the Red Sea in the yacht 
 
 215
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Sagamore^ under the flag of the New York Yacht 
 Club, and for this comparatively small craft the 
 toll was four hundred dollars. 
 
 The Suez company's capital— bonds and shares 
 of every character — is practically one hundred mil- 
 lion dollars ; and the length of the canal is just 
 under a hundred miles. In average years the gross 
 revenue is about 16 per cent, on the capitalization, 
 and the net earnings about 7.6 per cent. These 
 figure^ indicate a remarkable prosperity, and ex- 
 plain the popularity in which the securities are 
 held by Frenchmen and other investors. I recall 
 an interesting conversation with a clever American 
 engineer, two or three years ago, who assured me 
 that by employing the hydraulic excavating ma- 
 chinery of the present day he could make a canal 
 from the Mediterranean to Suez, as wide and deep 
 as the existing canal, for twenty million dollars ; 
 and he regretted that international agreements and 
 vested rights rendered it impossible to "parallel" 
 the Suez waterway. The machinery with which his 
 name was associated had done wonders in making 
 the Chicago drainage-canal, and his estimate of 
 the cost of dealing with the sands of the Egyptian 
 isthmus seemed reasonable. 
 
 It is too early for speculation as to the rever- 
 sionary value of the Suez Canal. Many persons, 
 knowing how Egypt is mulcted in most matters, 
 claim that it will never be turned over to the Egyp- 
 tian government, predicting that in time it will be 
 thrown open to the world, and supported by a 
 nominal tax on vessels using it, after the manner 
 
 216
 
 Story of the Suez Canal 
 
 in which lighthouses are maintained. Of course 
 this is conjecture, pure and simple. Many things 
 can happen in the space of seventy years, and 
 before 1968 conditions may prevail that no one 
 now foresees. The Suez Canal will doubtless be as 
 useful then as now, but the term " Egyptian gov- 
 ernment " may have a meaning foreign to that ex- 
 pressed by the words of the concession under which 
 the canal was made. There is little prospect that 
 this most important artery of marine travel will 
 ever bring substantial benefit to the Egyptian 
 people. Yielding an income in these times of six- 
 teen million dollars a year, the Egyptians would be 
 receiving two million four hundred thousand dol- 
 lars annually from the stipulation of the concession 
 giving them fifteen per cent, of the gross revenue, 
 had not Ismail thrown away their rights in his 
 mad craving for money. 
 
 When United States capital and skill join the 
 Atlantic with the Pacific, let the canal be our 
 own, under whatever guaranties of its neutrality 
 in time of war! 
 
 217
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ISMAIL PASHA AS KHEDIVE AND EXILE 
 
 BUT for two great errors of judgment, Ismail 
 might have ended his days in Cairo, as Egypt's 
 khedive, instead of in Constantinople, an exile. 
 The first and greater of these mistakes was the 
 exaggerated estimate formed of the resources of 
 Egypt. Coming to power at a time when the 
 prices of agricultural produce, and especially of cot- 
 ton, were unduly inflated by the Civil War in the 
 United States, he sprang to the conclusion that he 
 could indefinitely draw a vast tribute from the Nile 
 land. He claimed proprietorship of twenty per 
 cent, of the cultivable acreage of the country, and 
 what was not his belonged to his subjects. These 
 beings, he argued, were his indisputably, soul, body, 
 and all that belonged to them. By this process of 
 reasoning the doughty pasha felt that "Ismail" 
 and " Egypt " were synonymous words. 
 
 His second error was that of exciting the jeal- 
 ousy and ill will of the Sultan, his political master. 
 Had Ismail been properly advised, neither of these 
 mistakes would have been made, and his history 
 would not be so fraught with pathetic contrasts. 
 But half-way measures were unknown to him. His 
 
 218
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 generosities were as magnificent as his vices, and 
 he consulted neither law nor reason in discharging 
 his khedival prerogative, for he was a law unto 
 himself. 
 
 When General Sherman informed him that 
 American military men could give Egypt a capable 
 army, he brought thirty or forty of these specialists 
 to the country and paid them lavishly, instead of 
 fifteen or twenty as advised by the great general. 
 When Ismail sent a wedding-gift of a handful of 
 diamonds to General Sherman's daughter, later on, 
 the value of the dazzling jewels was found to be so 
 great that the limited Sherman fortune was men- 
 aced by the New York customs collector. Asked 
 to present an obelisk to New York's Central Park, 
 Ismail promptly authorized the removal from 
 Egypt of the monolith of red syenite granite that 
 Julius Caesar had brought from Heliopolis to 
 adorn the approach to the Csesarean temple in 
 Alexandria, forgetful of the fact that it was covered 
 with hieroglyphs of the reigns of Thothmes III, 
 Rameses the Great, and Seti II, that it antedated 
 the Christian era fully twelve centuries, and was 
 for other reasons an object of priceless value to 
 students of Egyptology. But there was nothing 
 petty about Ismail, and when he admired a nation 
 as he did the American, he would have given away 
 a pyramid with as little concern as he would a 
 blooded horse from his stable. 
 
 Ismail was born in Cairo on the last day of the 
 year 1830, and died on March 2, 1895. His father 
 was the warrior son of Mehemet Ali7" Ibrahim 
 2 I 9
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Pasha, from whom he inherited that reckless cour- 
 age so discernible in every important action of his 
 life. Caution and prudence were altogether over- 
 shadowed by the daredevil quality descending 
 from men knowing only the law of the sword. 
 He came to the viceroyship on January 18, 1863, 
 inheriting from Said, his uncle, the danmosa liere- 
 ditas of the Suez Canal. Ismail found himself 
 pledged to the undertaking of his predecessor, and 
 the excuse for the vast debt which accumulated 
 during his reign may partially be found in these 
 obligations. 
 
 Prince Ismail was sent to Paris in 1843 to receive 
 a French education, and was authorized to attend 
 the classes at the Polytechnique. He spent every 
 Thursday evening at the Tuileries, and generally 
 dined with the royal family on Sundays. He had 
 been nearly seven years in the French capital when, 
 in 1849, his education was thought to be completed, 
 and he was recalled to Egypt. His sojourn in 
 Paris was coincident with the ferment into which 
 the railway movement, by exciting greed to the 
 utmost, had thrown all France. This was one of 
 the underlying causes of the revolution of 1848, 
 which Ismail witnessed, and the young Egyptian 
 went home with his head filled with ideas derived 
 from Louis Philippe and his courtiers. 
 
 Being learned in mathematics and all the sci- 
 ences that could be acquired in a few years, Ismail 
 thought he was better qualified to reign in Egypt 
 than his uncles. Said and Abbas— both younger sons 
 of Mehemet Ali. The youthful Comte de Paris, 
 
 220
 
 OBELISK AT HELIOPOLIS.
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 figuring as prince royal and taking precedence of 
 his uncles, was an object-lesson over which young 
 Ismail pondered, for he was full of the idea of sub- 
 stituting the European order of succession for the 
 Mohammedan. Yet he was not the eldest son of 
 Ibrahim Pasha, for Achmet was the first-born. 
 
 Ismail had not been at home long before he con- 
 ceived a fondness for Nubar, a crafty and accom- 
 plished Armenian, who had lived on the viceroyal 
 family from the hour that he was appointed reader 
 to Mehemet Ali. At this time Nubar was director 
 of the railways, and it will ever be suspected that 
 he had much to do with the tragedy that placed 
 Prince Ismail in line to succeed Viceroy Said. A 
 special train was ordered to convey the princes 
 and their suites from Cairo to Alexandria, where 
 the viceroy was to give a great garden-party. 
 Strangely enough, Ismail excused himself at the 
 last moment from going, on a plea of sudden ill- 
 ness, the story is told, while, by odd coincidence, 
 Nubar, whose duty it was, as head of the railway 
 administration, to accompany the princely party, 
 pretended, just as the train was about to steam out 
 of the station, a similar indisposition, which forced 
 him to remain in Cairo. The train, in addition to 
 carrying the heir apparent, also conveyed his uncle. 
 Prince Halim. It proceeded safely on its way until 
 reaching Kafr-Zayat, a point about half-way between 
 the two cities, where the road passes over a draw- 
 bridge spanning one of the arms of the Nile. As 
 the train bearing its precious freight rushed around 
 the curve leading to the bridge, the engineer saw 
 
 223
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 to his horror that the draw was open, leaving a 
 yawning space over the muddy and eddying waters 
 forty feet below. It was too late to avoid the ca- 
 tastrophe, and the whole train was hurled into the 
 river. Halim Pasha, a splendid swimmer, managed 
 to extricate himself from the wreck and get ashore ; 
 but Achmet was drowned in his compartment, thus 
 leaving the succession to the throne of Egypt clear 
 for his younger brother. Nubar found himself 
 disgraced temporarily, and with circumstantial 
 evidence pointing to him as a murderer, he found 
 it prudent, the tale runs, to betake himself to 
 Europe. As soon as Ismail ascended the throne, 
 he summoned Nubar Pasha to his side, and named 
 him prime minister, besides bestowing magnificent 
 presents of land and money upon the friend who, 
 so Cairo gossips say, had served him well. 
 
 Another instance of Ismail's disregard even for 
 human life, when seeking to attain an important 
 object, was furnished by the taking off of his 
 quondam favorite known as the " Moufettish." 
 This functionary, holding the purse-strings of 
 Ismail's government, was living in a splendor at 
 times eclipsing that of the khedive himself, and to 
 do this was plundering the people and the official 
 cash-box with a recklessness that promised to has- 
 ten the impending national bankruptcy. Whether 
 this man was more the dme damme or the pernicious 
 counselor of his master is a point never fully settled. 
 In all probability he acted in both capacities, for 
 which liis duplicity and cunning quaUfied him. 
 Ismail, having made certain that the Moufettish 
 
 224
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 was robbing him, invited him to Ghizereh Palace to 
 discuss affairs of state. The man went, as he had 
 done scores of times before, but was never seen 
 again. A small government steamer started that 
 night for Upper Egypt, a brief notice was published 
 to the effect that the Mouf ettish had been sent on an 
 important mission to the southern provinces, and 
 that was all. The opinion was that the minions of 
 the khedive strangled him as soon as he passed the 
 portals of the palace, and that his corpse was car- 
 ried to the bottom of the Nile so carefully weighted 
 that the evidence of the crime would be concealed 
 for all time. The palaces of the dishonest minister 
 of finance were confiscated, and his harem of four 
 hundi'ed women was broken up, most of the beau- 
 ties being sent back to Europe. The tale of the 
 Moufettish ceased years ago to interest Cairenes, 
 and is now resurrected only when some one wishes 
 to show the summary method Ismail Pasha chose 
 to employ in dealing with an official who had be- 
 trayed his trust, as had Saddik Pasha. 
 
 When Ismail came into power, he found his peo- 
 ple living in the middle ages of orientalism, but 
 practically free from debt. Every pound of cotton 
 that his country could send to England brought a 
 dollar ; and this condition spurred Ismail at once to 
 set to work to develop every resource of the Delta 
 and valley of the Nile,— to bring Egypt abreast of 
 the Western countries that he had visited,— with a 
 lordly disregard of cost. Railroads were built, and 
 bridges and docks constructed; sugar-factories 
 sprang up along the Nile like mushrooms, and be- 
 
 225
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 fore cane-cultivation had practically begun; new 
 sections of Cairo were laid out and the land donated 
 to those promising to erect houses ; the harbor of 
 Alexandria was deepened and enlarged ; elaborate 
 schemes for irrigation were organized ; and, in fact, 
 everything appropriate and inapjDropriate was done 
 to transform Egypt into a part of Europe, as fiir 
 as enlightenment and prosperity were concerned. 
 Money was borrowed and spent blindly. Much 
 of it stuck to greedy and dishonest hands, and 
 Ismail's reign may be said to have been the golden 
 age for the most clever and unscrupulous adven- 
 turers from every part of the world.^ 
 
 At length came the inevitable day of reckoning. 
 Egypt was no longer able to pay the interest on 
 the enormous foreign debt of five hundred million 
 dollars that had been piled up in the space of a few 
 years. When the khedive made known the fact 
 that the interest coupons on the debt could no 
 longer be paid in their entirety, the governments 
 of Germany, England, and France stepped in, on 
 behalf of their subjects who had invested their sav- 
 ings in Egyptian state bonds. They protested that 
 
 1 " Generous and open-banded, Ismail's mania was giving ; his gi'eat 
 fault, never to think of the liabilities incurred. In accepting the 
 financial aid of the Continent, he did not discern the political conse- 
 quences, nor the jealous intrigues which were to turn his monetary 
 difficiilties into a source of international meddling and encroachment. 
 Blindfolded, he allowed himself to fall into the hands of the money- 
 lenders ; from high to low, all Continental usurers threw themselves 
 upon Egypt as an easy prey. So long as he had securities to of 
 the anterooms of his ministers were overcrowded with bankers 
 ious to lend him millions at a percentage prohibited by the penal 
 of their own country. . . . Cringing as long as they could hope.i 
 
 226
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 Egypt was solvent, whereupon Ismail invited them 
 to appoint a commission to investigate the financial 
 condition of his country. This commission proved 
 his ruin ; for, while it acknowledged that the coun- 
 try was unable to pay the rate of interest until then 
 demanded, and reduced it from seven to four per 
 cent., it likewise declared that the economic crisis 
 was due wholly to the extravagance of Ismail. 
 
 To prove his good will and patriotism, the khe- 
 dive surrendered private estates and plantations to 
 the value of twenty-five million dollars ; but this 
 was not all that the foreign governments and bond- 
 holders demanded. They insisted on further sac- 
 rifices, not only of a financial but also of a political 
 character, to which the khedive could not agree ; 
 whereupon they invited the aid of the Sultan, who 
 had always resented the spirit of independence 
 displayed by his powerful vassal, and obtained a 
 firman deposing Ismail, and placing on the throne 
 his eldest son, Prince Tewfik. This was in the clos- 
 ing days of June, in 1879 ; and within a week of 
 his degradation Ismail left Egypt for Naples. 
 
 To the last, Ismail seemed unconscious of having 
 
 something out of him, they continued to push him to take their gold, 
 and to mortgage Egypt, to pawn his state and his private properties 
 up to their utmost value, renewing greedily his bonds until they 
 found it more advantageous to liquidate his estate. Had his been 
 the case of an ordinary mortal, a court of law would have reduced 
 the outrageous claims to fair and just proportions. But he was a 
 sovereign, and his creditors were the kings of Jews, or rather the 
 Jews of kings, and powerful enough to bring to bear the authority of 
 their respective governments to enforce their claims by every means 
 available."— Baron de Malortie, in "Native Eulers and Foreign In- 
 terference." 
 
 229
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 committed wasteful extravagance, and only a few 
 hours before his final departure from Cairo pleaded 
 guilty to but one piece of lavish expenditure— that 
 of the colossal sum devoted to the Suez Canal fetes. 
 Ismail did not leave his country empty-handed. 
 Though he had hoped to remain in power, yet he 
 was prepared for an adverse decision at Constan- 
 tinople before the receipt of the fateful telegram. 
 He caused portable articles of value in his many 
 palaces— and they were veritable treasure-houses — 
 to be prepared for shipment, and it was estimated 
 that these belongings were worth millions of dol- 
 lars. The women of the harem were compelled to 
 hand over their jewelry, and thus he obtained a 
 quantity of property easily convertible into cash. 
 Seventy of the harem women were selected to 
 accompany the exile. Those to be left behind did 
 not relish the situation, and they are said to have 
 shown their displeasure by smashing mirrors and 
 articles of a fragile nature, as only a thousand an- 
 gry women could. Ismail's reign had been an orgy 
 of despotic plunder, so to speak, and when he had 
 no throne to sit upon, or palaces to occupy as mas- 
 ter, he appropriated and carried off as nmch of the 
 khedival property as the time and facilities at his 
 command permitted. A long baggage-train was 
 packed with pictures and cabinets, dinner-services 
 and rare carpets, bronzes and silver candelabra, 
 and plate of solid gold, much of it inlaid with 
 jewels. At Alexandria everything was hurried on 
 board the yacht Maliroussa., a steamer as big as an 
 Atlantic liner. Ismail followed in a special train, 
 
 230
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 with two of his sons, a small suite of attendants, 
 and the chosen ladies of the harem. As soon as the 
 passengers were on board, the yacht started for 
 Italy. 
 
 ^-At Naples the ex-khedive occupied a royal palace 
 and maintained a pretentious court. He made fre- 
 quent excursions to Paris, where his fat, dumpy 
 figure and intelligent face, surmounted by an un- 
 usually large tarboosh, were familiar to habitues of 
 the boulevards ; for Ismail was very fond of sitting 
 for hours at a time at one of the little tables in 
 front of the Cafe de la Paix, sipping coffee and 
 watching the passing throng. Tortoni's was an- 
 other of his haunts ; and there, too, he would sip 
 his coffee by the hour, musing, perhaps, on the 
 proud empire that had passed away, and which, in 
 its fall, had crushed his friend Napoleon III, driv- 
 ing him likewise to an exile from which he could 
 never return. 
 
 The wanderer grew in time to dislike Naples; 
 the neighborhood of Vesuvius affected the nerves 
 of the ladies of his household, and all wanted to go 
 elsewhere. His pleading with the Sultan for per- 
 mission to visit Constantinople was finally favored, 
 and he was later " induced " to establish himself in 
 a pretty palace on the European side of the Bos- 
 porus, where he might the better be watched by 
 the Sultan and, possibly, the British government. 
 As he was a vain man, he suffered greatly from 
 being deposed, and for years was hopeful that he 
 might be permitted to return to the khedivate. But 
 when he realized at Constantinople that he was a 
 
 231
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 prisoner in a gilded cage he surrendered himself to 
 the situation and made the best of it. 
 
 A few years after his deposition, Ismail pre- 
 sented to the Egyptian government a claim for 
 twenty-five million dollars, alleged to be the value 
 of personal property he had been deprived of by 
 his expulsion from the country, and more than half 
 this amount was secured for him through the 
 efforts of his counsel. Sir William Marriott. 
 
 Like most imaginative persons, Ismail possessed 
 a keen sense of humor, which disappointments and 
 troubles did not altogether smother. It is related 
 that when in the midst of the depression following 
 the French emperor's surprising award over the 
 canal matter, a certain European was having an 
 audience with him at Abdin Palace, to discuss some- 
 thing connected with the khedive's financial opera- 
 tions; although the temperature was ideal, with 
 not a breath of wind stirring, Ismail was observed 
 to rise from his divan in the midst of the conference 
 and close a window behind the caller. " Monsei- 
 gneur, why did you do that ! " asked a friend who 
 had witnessed the incident. " Because," answered 
 the khedive, " if that sharper could allege that he 
 had sat in a draft and caught cold in my palace, it 
 would take at least a quarter of a million francs 
 to meet the demand that he would make for satis- 
 faction. I am beginning to understand these Euro- 
 pean business gentlemen," he added sadly. 
 
 In examining the correspondence files in the 
 American diplomatic agency in Cairo, I came upon 
 a record that served as a vivid illustration of 
 
 232
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 Ismail's love for doing things that would attract 
 notice and make talk. It was a document relating 
 how one of my predecessors, twenty or twenty- 
 five years before, having business at Ras-el-Teen 
 Palace in Alexandi'ia, was invited to defer his re- 
 turn to the capital, and dine that night with the 
 khedive. The American representative stated that 
 he was unprepared, having brought no evening 
 dress. " That will be all right," exclaimed his 
 Highness. "At seven o'clock you will find your 
 clothes at your hotel." A telegram was despatched 
 from the palace to Cairo, and a special messenger, 
 traveling by special train, brought the desired rai- 
 ment. It cost somebody — probably the Egyptian 
 taxpayer— a considerable sum for running the train 
 a hundred and thirty miles, and was wholly unne- 
 cessary, for the resources of Alexandria could have 
 produced a dozen suits of evening garments in no 
 time. But that was Ismail's way of doing things. 
 In Ismail's character there was little that could 
 be commended, yet one could not wholly withhold 
 admiration for his grandeur of thought and intre- 
 pidity of action. He was a ruler of magnificent 
 but inchoate ideas, in which he often got bewil- 
 dered; and he invariably embarked in enterprises 
 without thinking of the cost. To deal adequately 
 with a character so regal, egotistic, masterful, and 
 subtle, to extenuate nothing, and at the same time 
 set nothing down in malice, is a task not easily 
 performed. He certainly left his impress on his- 
 tory, and had he not lived it is doubtful if Cairo 
 would to-day be half as acceptable to its winter
 
 Present- Day Egypt 
 
 sojourners. There might be no opera, no boule- 
 vards, no Ghizereh drive, and no Teal comfort. 
 What he did for the city might be compared to 
 what " Boss " Shepard did for Washington, " Boss " 
 Tweed for New York, and Napoleon III and Hauss- 
 mann for Paris. In his brief rule of sixteen years 
 Ismail incurred for his people a debt of more than 
 four hundred and fifty million dollars— a greater 
 obligation than any other person that ever lived has 
 succeeded in creating; but to accomplish this he 
 mortgaged the souls of generations of Egyptians 
 yet unborn. 
 
 Half the royalties of Europe helped Ismail to 
 spend twenty-one million dollars in celebrating in 
 Cairo the opening of the Suez Canal. The opera 
 of "Aida" was composed to his order, and pro- 
 duced as an incident to the entertainment of the 
 Empress Eugenie and other guests. When it was 
 discovered that there was no suitable building in 
 the capital for the opera's production, the khedive 
 ordered the present opera-house to be erected. 
 Workmen toiling day and night accomplished this 
 in a few weeks. " Aida " had a cast composed of 
 the greatest singers of the period, the Egyptian 
 Museum was ransacked for jewels and " properties " 
 to be employed in its production, and so delighted 
 was the Egyptian ruler with the work of the com- 
 poser that Verdi was handed a purse of thirty 
 thousand dollars after the opera's first presenta- 
 tion. Mariette Bey, the savant in Egyptology, 
 occupied himself with the reconstitution of the era 
 of the Pharaohs, and it is to his skill and learning 
 
 236
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 that opera-goers owe their enjoyment of the marvel- 
 ous picture of the temple of Ptah in the second act. 
 Perhaps no opera was ever put on the stage in such 
 elaborate fashion or with such scrupulous regard 
 for archaeological accuracy. Planned to stand but 
 a few months, the theater has since been the home • 
 of opera in Cairo, and Verdi's masterpiece is given 
 therein several times every winter. The com- 
 poser's original manuscript of " Aida " is among the 
 treasured archives of the opera-house. 
 
 It was Ismail's di*eam to make an Oriental Paris'"^ 
 of Cairo. The French metropohs, he argued, could j 
 be reproduced : it was simply a question of finance^/^ 
 A goodly portion of the money borrowed by the 
 khedive was spent at Gizeh, nearly opposite the 
 spot where tradition says Moses was found in the 
 bulrushes. Half a dozen lath-and-plaster struc- 
 tures, with walls painted in a style suggesting 
 solidity, went up there, with accompanying gardens 
 like the Tuileries ranging from the Nile nearly to 
 the Libyan desert. One of Ismail's ruling passions 
 was for building palaces, and another found expres- 
 sion in the way he surrounded himself with every- 
 thing deemed fitting to the court of a mighty per- 
 sonage—a king among kings. 
 
 To this day, hidden away in Cairo cellars, are 
 miles of iron fencing made to his order in Europe, 
 a conspicuous feature of whose ornamentation is^ 
 the royal cipher " I. R.," surmounted by a monarch's 
 crown. This was to inclose palace domains, and 
 the design had been agreed upon in anticipation of ^ 
 the successful outcome of negotiations pending at 
 
 237
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Constantinople for absolute independence. So cer- 
 tain was Ismail Pasha of positive rulership, perhaps 
 deceived by the wily Nubar, who was concerned in 
 the negotiations, that it is related that a banquet 
 was given to a group of favorite functionaries in 
 celebration of the news that he believed was forth- 
 coming from the Sublime Porte — that the Sultan 
 had at last consented to give him full sovereignty 
 of the Nile country. The dinner was Lucullian in 
 character, each dish a gastronomic triumph, and 
 the program called for a surpris at the end of 
 the feast. What it was to be, only the khedive and 
 his chef knew. Clothed in immaculate white satin, 
 the chef, wielding an enormous wooden knife, lifted 
 the crust of a huge pie placed in the middle of the 
 festal board, and out stepped a sprite in pink flesh- 
 ings, dainty of face and form. With simulated be- 
 wilderment, she scanned for a moment the faces of 
 those at table, and, her choice decided upon, she 
 stepped over dishes and decorations to the head of 
 the table, and placed a kingly crown upon the brow 
 of Ismail. 
 
 But an edict of another sort issued from Con- 
 stantinople, and a few weeks after the historical 
 feast Ismail was sent away from Egypt, never again 
 to see his beloved capital. When dying, he pleaded 
 to be taken back to Egypt; but not until he was 
 dead was the consent of the Sultan and the powers 
 granted. 
 
 A specially chartered steamship brought the 
 body of Ismail, accompanied by Princes Hussein 
 and Fouadjhis sons, from Constantinople to Alexan- 
 
 238
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 dria. The obsequies in Cairo (March 12, 1895) were 
 marked by all possible pomp and circumstance. 
 Funeral pageants and the stately etiquette of Euro- 
 pean court mourning are entirely foreign to the 
 spirit of Islam ; but the Egyptian capital has long 
 been accustomed to compromises, which are la- 
 mented only by the strictest Mohammedans. 
 
 At an early hour in the forenoon the funeral 
 procession, which must have numbered ten thou- 
 sand people, began to muster near the new railway- 
 station, in one of the private rooms of which the 
 coffin had rested through the night, watched over 
 by old retainers of the dead pasha. Egyptian and 
 British troops lined the sides of the streets from the 
 station, past Shepheard'sand the opera-hou se, up t he 
 Boulevard Mehemet Ali, to the Rafai mosque under 
 the citadel. Along the whole route, a distance of 
 three miles, the pavement, windows, balconies, and 
 housetops were thronged with spectators, blending 
 the bright colors of the East with the more som- 
 ber raiment of the West. But, save for a few flags 
 draped with crape, and the shrill lamentations here 
 and there of native women, it was difficult to real- 
 ize that this chattering, laughing, indifferent crowd 
 was gathered together to witness a pageant of 
 death. 
 
 The procession itself, which defiled for almost an 
 hour in one unbroken column, presented the same 
 strange contrasts, the same curious jumble of 
 Eastern and Western life. Its very composition 
 reflected all the anomalies of modern Egypt. Be- 
 hind detachments of mounted police and Egyptian 
 
 241
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 cavalry came Major-General Sir Herbert Kitchener, 
 the sirdar of the Egyptian army, with his staff- 
 unmistakably English in spite of their Egyptian 
 uniforms. Immediately behind them walked read- 
 ers of the Koran, reciting the sacred verses in a 
 high nasal chant; deputations from the native 
 guilds and corporations, bearing flags and banners 
 with embroidered religious devices ; descendants of 
 the prophet, in green turbans and flowing robes ; 
 mollas and ulema, in long caftans ; dervishes, in tall 
 felt hats ; students from El-Azhar— in fact, the mili- 
 tant and uncompromising Islam in all its old-world 
 picturesqueness. Then, in sharp contrast to the 
 medieval scholasticism of the great Mussulman 
 university, came hundreds of black-coated boys 
 and youths from the modern schools and colleges, 
 with their European teachers. Behind them again, 
 in curious alternation, walked native and European 
 notables : judges from the native and international 
 courts ; gold-laced pashas and beys ; British officials, 
 in the Stambouline coat, indicating their Egyptian 
 employment ; the six European commissioners of the 
 public debt ; long-robed clergy of the different de- 
 nominations, and rabbis of the Jewish community ; 
 and red-coated officers of the British army of oc- 
 cupation, led by General Sir Frederick Forestier 
 Walker. 
 
 Behind this medley of humanity walked the diplo- 
 matic corps, headed by the doyen of the body. Lord 
 Cromer. Save the United States diplomatic agent 
 and his secretary, all were in the spectacular uni- 
 forms prescribed by their governments, gold lace, 
 
 242
 
 Ismail as Khedive and Exile 
 
 feathers, and orders of chivalry making them doubly 
 conspicuous. It seemed to me that the black ci- 
 vilian garb of a diplomatic official of the great re- 
 public harmonized with the ceremonial better than 
 the gorgeous costumes of the representatives of 
 divine-right rulers. Had a United States congress- 
 man seen the procession from Shepheard's terrace, 
 I am certain he would have returned to the halls 
 of legislation a lifelong opponent of the movement 
 to dress our foreign representatives in tinseled 
 coats and cocked hats. 
 
 Next to the diplomatic and consular body came 
 the khedival ministers, and the English advisers 
 for finance, justice, and the interior; and then 
 came Khedive Abbas, walking with Ghazi Moukh- 
 tar Pasha, the Ottoman high commissioner (the 
 hero of Kars), at his side. Following his Highness 
 were fully thirty princes of the khedival family. 
 Behind these mourners and the household of the 
 deceased ex-khedive, a double row of youths sj^rin- 
 kled perfumes and burned incense in front of the 
 coffin. Covered with an embroidered pall, on 
 which were displayed the uniform and decorations 
 of the deceased, the mortal remains of Ismail were 
 borne on the shoulders of twenty troopers from the 
 khedival body-guard, hard pressed by a weird 
 crowd of female mourners, rending the air with 
 their shrieks of woe. Another body of troops, with 
 arms reversed, closed the strange pageant. 
 
 The ladies and women attendants of the ex-khe- 
 dive's harem, to the number of some eight hundred, 
 had expressed their intention of following bare- 
 
 243
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 footed the remains of their former lord and master ; 
 but orders from Abdin Palace ultimately forbade 
 so public a manifestation of their grief. For fully 
 a week before the funeral there had been a nightly 
 " wake " at Kasr el- Ali Palace by these women. 
 
 When abreast of the heroic statue of Ibrahim 
 Pasha, Ismail's father, in the opera square, Khedive 
 Abbas left the cortege, and was taken to Abdin by 
 carriage. The diplomatic body and many of the 
 Europeans left the procession at the same time, 
 while the thousands wended their way slowly to the 
 mosque of Sultan Hassan, where the usual prayers 
 were recited, and then to the mosque of Rafai, 
 opposite. There, beside the tombs of his mother and 
 two of his daughters, Ismail was finally laid to rest 
 in the mausoleum which he had designed for him- 
 self, but which will probably never be completed. 
 The foundations of the huge pile are already show- 
 ing signs of subsidence— a monument perhaps not 
 altogether inappropriate to the man whose life, 
 after a brief period of artificial splendor, ebbed 
 drearily away amid the ruins of his shattered am- 
 bitions. Ismail had planned to have the new Rafai 
 mosque eclipse in beauty and vastness the Sultan 
 Hassan mosque, long regarded as the most perfect 
 example of architecture in the Mussulman world; 
 but his financial disaster interrupted the work when 
 only the outer walls and roof had been completed. 
 
 244
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TEWriK PASHA AND THE AEABI REBELLION 
 
 FEW events in modern history are more pa- 
 thetically dramatic than the substitution of 
 Tewfik for Ismail. The Turkish grand vizir des- 
 patched two telegrams to Cairo on June 26, 1879. 
 One was to " Ismail Pasha, ex-Khedive of Egypt " ; 
 the other to Mohammed Tewfik, his son. In the 
 former it was stated that his Imperial Majesty the 
 Sultan, as the result of a decision of his council of 
 ministers, had formally decided to request Ismail's 
 retirement from the khedivate, in favor of the next 
 in succession, his Highness Tewfik Pasha, and that 
 the irade to this effect had been issued. While 
 Ismail was reading this decree at Abdin Palace, 
 the son was reading the other message at his coun- 
 try-seat a few miles out of Cairo, to the effect that 
 "his Imperial Majesty the Sultan has named you 
 by imperial irade Khedive of Egypt, and the fir- 
 man will be delivered to you with the customary 
 ceremonial. Convoke the ulema and functiona- 
 ries, the chief men of the country, and the gov- 
 ernment employees, and communicate to them 
 the stipulations of the decree relative to your suc- 
 cession, and at once relieve his Highness Ismail 
 
 245
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Pasha from the direction of the affairs of the 
 government." 
 
 It was a matter of great importance to be ar- 
 ranged by telegraph, this change of rulership in 
 almost independent Egypt ; but thus it was done. 
 The Sultan's aversion to the mysterious electric 
 current is known to exclude the telephone, the 
 electric light, and even the trolley-car from Con- 
 stantinople ; but in matters of state, when urgent, 
 his Majesty is a liberal enough user of telegraph 
 and cable. 
 
 In Eastern countries it is a coveted privilege to 
 convey good news to any one. I have the story of 
 the telegrams from a distinguished journalist who 
 was behind the scenes in the abdication affair. He 
 describes, with some license, perhaps, the conster- 
 nation at Abdin when the message was delivered 
 with the words "ex-khedive" so boldly penned on 
 the envelop that there could be no mistaking the 
 purport of the inclosure. The grand master of 
 ceremonies would as soon have fondled a viper; 
 and one and all of his assistants thought of press- 
 ing matters demanding their presence in other 
 parts of the palace. The keeper of the seals said 
 emphatically that the delivering of telegrams was 
 no part of his duty ; and the officer of the khedival 
 guard could not be cajoled into doing this errand. 
 Everybody agreed that a message to his Highness 
 at this particular time must be a matter of state, 
 and no one of less rank than a minister could ap- 
 propriately have anything to do with it. 
 
 At this moment bluff old Cherif Pasha, peren- 
 246
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 nially minister of this or that, strode into the pal- 
 ace. With some reluctance he consented to take 
 the fateful telegram up-stairs to the khedive. 
 Ismail's face changed a little as he read it. " Send 
 at once for his Highness Tewfik Pasha," was all he 
 said. Then he folded the message and laid it on 
 the table by his side. A moment later he handed 
 the bit of paper to Cherif to read, saying as he did 
 so : "I can't go to the investiture ; I do not think 
 that can be expected of me. But I shall be the 
 first to salute the new khedive of Egypt, and wish 
 for him a more successful reign than his father has 
 had." Then, drawing the table nearer, he said to 
 Cherif Pasha : " Now we will have a game of back- 
 gammon." 
 
 Tewfik's message was hurried full tilt from the 
 telegraph office, the messenger making a record for 
 speed, wondering as he ran if he would be made a 
 pasha or a bey. 
 
 True to the habit of punctilious politeness ac- 
 quired in France, Ismail determined to maintain 
 his savoir-faire in the hour of adversity. He 
 quickly cabled to Constantinople that he submitted 
 to the will of his sovereign Sultan ; and, Tewfik 
 Pasha arriving at the palace shortly after, Ismail 
 is said to have greeted him with the words, "I 
 salute my effendina," bowing low to his successor 
 and covering his hands with the kisses of sub- 
 mission. 
 
 Tewfik's account of what passed immediately fol- 
 lowing the greeting in their altered stations is told 
 by Alfred J. Butler, an English tutor in the Tewfik 
 
 247
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 household, in his volume of reminiscences of court 
 life in Egypt. " When I came to the throne," Tew- 
 fik is reported to have said, " I received the news 
 without joy. Sympathy with my father's fall, and 
 the great sense of responsibility, left me no room 
 for rejoicing. After my father's courtly salutation, 
 acknowledging me as his effendina, he heaped re- 
 proaches upon me and accused me of having at last 
 intrigued successfully. I then produced two letters 
 from one of his former ministers, received when I 
 was acting as regent, in his absence from the coun- 
 try. These offered me the support of the army ; and 
 if I consented to the minister's plot, it was proposed 
 to destroy the khedival yacht when it returned to 
 Alexandria, sending Ismail to the bottom of the 
 harbor. My father read these letters, and was much 
 moved. He then kissed me affectionately, saying, 
 ' Forgive me, my son, forgive me ! ' " 
 
 Prince Tewfik was perhaps ten years of age when 
 Ismail became viceroy. He was born in 1852, and 
 his mother w^as an attendant slave in Ismail's harem. 
 Her princely master acknowledged the child and 
 added its mother to his list of lawful wives, com- 
 pleting the quota of four allowed by his religion. 
 Other sons were born to Ismail shortly after, but 
 no amount of intriguing on the part of their 
 mothers could alter the fact that the child brought 
 into the world by the harem slave was their liege 
 lord's first-born and heir. Ismail from the first 
 could not conceal his dislike of Tewfik ; but he dis- 
 liked even more his uncle, Halim. In applying 
 liberal largess at Stamboul to procure a firman pro- 
 
 248
 
 Meliemit Aii I'iish;!. 
 Abb.is Paslia. 
 Ismail Pasha. 
 
 Ibrahim Pasha. 
 Saiil I'asha. 
 Tewtilv Pasha. 
 
 PREDECESSORS OF KHEDIVE ABBAS II.
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 viding for the khedival succession from father to 
 eldest son, he believed, doubtless, that he was pay- 
 ing his money for the lesser of two evils; and, 
 besides, fate might remove Prince Tewfik, the in- 
 truder, permitting the son of his favorite wife to 
 become heir apparent. 
 
 While the other sons were sent to schools and 
 colleges in England and France, Tewfik was kept 
 at home, and little effort was made to give him 
 more than the educational advantages that would 
 fall to the son of any well-to-do Egyptian gentle- 
 man. He once ventured abroad, traveling as far 
 as Vienna ; but the breaking out of the Franco-Ger- 
 man War caused him to return to Cairo, and shortly 
 thereafter he found himself installed at Koubbeh, 
 with a spouse so devoted and good that he was 
 happy to lead the life of a country squire, and 
 leave court intrigue and politics to those caring for 
 them. His princess was the daughter of a man of 
 position, descended from Mehemet Ali, and she 
 possessed a mind and character of an order unusual 
 in the East. 
 
 Tewfik never availed himself of the Moslem right 
 to give rivals to the Princess Emine in the way 
 of other wives. He was an affectionate husband 
 and a model landlord. He took a great interest in 
 the cause of education, and established schools at 
 his own expense, to which not only his own two sons 
 were sent, but the sons of the gentry and officials 
 as well. The educating of children was his great- 
 est hobby. 
 
 Ismail had always played as recklessly with the 
 
 251
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 tenets of the Koran as with other things, and de- 
 lighted to jeer at the strictness with which Tewfik 
 discharged his religious duties, telling him he should 
 adopt European modes of thinking and living. 
 "When you come to the throne, pretend to be a 
 good Mussulman, like me; it is good policy, and 
 the people will like you for it," was the father's 
 flippant advice. When Tewfik, on the day he took 
 upon himself the responsibilities of the khedivate, 
 went in state to the mosque and prayed with the 
 faithful, Ismail is reported to have remarked : " You 
 are acting the Moslem very well." The son replied : 
 " Yes, sire ; but I am truly sincere." 
 
 Tewfik came to the khedivate when it had been 
 shorn of three fourths of its power ; and anxious as 
 he was to use his prerogative for the best interests 
 of his people, the new khedive found himself nearly 
 as helpless as Gulliver bound hand, foot, and body 
 by the Lilliputians. The influence forceful enough 
 to remove Ismail had likewise been sufficiently po- 
 tent to establish the dual control, by which England 
 and France had taken j)ossession of the finances. 
 In no country in the world is everything more 
 vitally dependent on the Finance Office tlian in 
 Egypt. The ministry of finance is the mainspring 
 of the executive machinery, the fountainhead of 
 everything, without which nothing can be done. 
 The ministry of public works devises schemes of 
 irrigation certain to make the soil profitable to 
 agriculture; but the Finance Office pro\'ides the 
 money with which they may be carried into effect. 
 Tewfik might complnin, but he could not drive 
 
 252
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 M. de Blignieres and Major Baring from the min- 
 istry of finance; nor could he procure from these 
 controllers a single piaster for any purpose unless 
 they agreed with him as to the expediency of the 
 appropriation. Foreign intervention had not only 
 removed the cash-box from the custody of the khe- 
 dive, but commissions of liquidation and restrictive 
 measures had completely changed the character of 
 the khedival office in its transition from father to 
 son. 
 
 Hampered thus in the exercise of power, Tewfik 
 made enemies without gaining friends. The ruler 
 who distributes places and pensions has many eu- 
 logists. Tewfik Pasha was ready to cooperate in 
 doing away with extravagances and abuses; but 
 the alien controllers— in effect the "receivers" of 
 an establishment from which they wanted to ex- 
 tract every penny possible for their principals, 
 without destroying its future earning power — 
 effected such sweeping economies that thousands 
 of natives went hungry as a consequence of a stop- 
 page of their supplies. A people unfamiliar with 
 diplomatic methods of collecting overdue accounts 
 knew little of the significance of the dual control, 
 and cared less. Believing their khedive governed 
 Egypt, they addressed to him their petitions for 
 relief; but he could give no relief, and discontent 
 followed as a natural consequence. A glimmer of 
 understanding in time coming to the people, the cry, 
 " Down with the foreigners ! " rang from the Medi- 
 terranean to the Sudan, and was echoed back with 
 the added cry of " Egypt for the Egyptians ! " 
 
 253
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Evidences of insubordination in the native army 
 were brought to public notice daily, furnishing a 
 theme of conversation in bazaar and palace. The 
 soldiers had many grievances, the arrears of pay 
 being the most important. Before Ismail had been 
 driven away, the minister of finance had even been 
 mobbed in the street by four hundred desperate 
 officers, demanding the means to supply their 
 families with food. On another occasion an army 
 officer carried a dead child in his arms to the min- 
 istry of finance, praying for enough of the money 
 due him to provide decent burial for his little one. 
 When the strain to find funds to pay European 
 bondholders was greatest, the crops failed in Upper 
 Egypt, and there was much suffering among the 
 populace. 
 
 Meanwhile the cry, " Egypt for the Egyptians ! " 
 was coming to have more than a sentimental mean- 
 ing. It was maturing into a menace, and one of 
 such force that every intelligent person in Egypt 
 must have recognized its possibilities. I confess 
 that the position of the common people, if truth- 
 fully described by impartial witnesses, reflected 
 a cruel disregard of the principles of justice and 
 humanity. I am certain my sympathies would 
 have gone to the poor Egyptians, ground to star- 
 vation that distant bondholders might continue to 
 receive an exorbitant and usurious interest. 
 
 No universal rule for redressing grievances can 
 be laid down, but there was a right as well as a 
 wrong way of attempting a rational solution of 
 even so complicated a situation as that prevailing 
 
 254
 
 TULIP COLUJIXS AT KAKXAK.
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 in Egypt in the early eighties. Arabi Pasha was 
 the exponent of the wrong process. The logic of 
 argument, reaching the proper ear, should be more 
 potent in these days than ill-considered revolt. 
 Rebellion is usually destructive in its results, and 
 does not always appeal to the seat of true wisdom. 
 
 Ahmed Arabi was constructed on lines too nar- 
 row to make it possible for him ever to become a 
 liberator. He lacked every mental attribute requi- 
 site to successful leadership, perhaps explained by the 
 fact that he was but a peasant, whose forefathers 
 had never known an hour when they were free from 
 the heel of the oppressor. Arabi talked superficial 
 platitudes that pleased his kind, and their flattery 
 convinced him that he was born for a great part in 
 the world. He had risen from a common soldier 
 to be a colonel, and had a fondness for intrigue. 
 His flowery talk and emplojnuent of claptrap 
 dramaticism had lifted him within a year from 
 obscurity to notoriety, and wherever he went he 
 excited the admiration of the common people. 
 
 His propaganda of " Egypt for the Egyptians " 
 was hourly exploited. People followed him in the 
 streets singing his praises, and he was undeniably 
 the man of the hour. It is related that, as he 
 once walked along an important thoroughfare, in 
 a manner indicating profound reflection, knowing 
 he was followed by a hundred worshipers, he 
 struck a dramatic attitude, and said, as if speaking 
 to himself, " Here," — placing his foot over a certain 
 spot,—" buried here is the heaven-sent weapon that 
 will free Egypt from the grasp of the infidels." A 
 
 257
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 dozen eager hands clawed in the earth, and brought 
 to light a Remington rifle, so bright and free from 
 rust as to justify the suspicion that the crafty 
 Arabi had deposited it there but a few hours before. 
 
 Tewfik Pasha was a strange combination of cour- 
 age and weakness. The latter was proved when 
 the spirit of rebellion among his troops first took 
 concrete shape. Arabi had led four thousand sol- 
 diers to Abdin Square to demand from the khedive 
 the dismissal of the Riaz ministry, against which 
 great dissatisfaction had been fomented by Arabi 
 and his brother conspirator, Mahmoud Sami. 
 Three sides of the great square in front of Abdin 
 Palace were filled with soldiery and the accompany- 
 ing rabble, when the khedive, attended by Sir 
 Auckland Colvin, an English official, went forth to 
 meet the insolent Arabi. 
 
 The leader rode across the square, sword in 
 hand, to the point where the khedive stood, with 
 his group of palace officials. Arabi was nervous, 
 and the experienced eye could tell at a glance that 
 he could be cowed as easily as a truant school- 
 boy. " What shall I do ! " Tewfik asked of Colvin. 
 " Tell him to dismount," was the reply. " Iniz il ! " 
 commanded Tewfik. Without a word, and almost 
 with undignified haste, the comic-opera hero was 
 on the ground, but his sword was still drawn. The 
 khedive pointed to it, and Arabi sheathed it 
 promptly. But his hands trembled as he ran the 
 blade into the scabbard, betraying the cowardly 
 heart beating within his jacket. 
 
 It was the moment for action. "Demand his 
 
 258
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 sword," whispered Colvin to bis Highness. Could 
 Tewfik's lips have uttered these words in a manner 
 carrying authority, the craven would have laid his 
 weapon at the feet of his effendina and kissed the 
 skirt of his garment— and the Arabi rebellion would 
 have been stifled while yet in innocent embryo, 
 and a dark chapter in Egyptian history would have 
 been avoided. But the khedive's tongue was as if 
 paralyzed. A word to the troops, later, would have 
 caused a reaffirmation of their loyalty; and, had 
 their sovereign mounted Arabi's horse and led the 
 regiments through the city, Arabi and the cause he 
 was espousing would have been ridiculed out of 
 existence. 
 
 But Arabi saw that he had conquered in this con- 
 flict with spineless Tewfik, and from that instant 
 he was master of the situation and the apostle of 
 a movement now grown to national proportions. 
 Arabi had his way, and the khedive dismissed the 
 ministry of Riaz Pasha. Not many months later 
 Arabi was minister of war, and his better-informed 
 ally, Mahmoud Sami, rose to be prime minister. 
 
 To Mehemet Ali the incident would have been 
 but a playful moment, and he would have pistoled 
 the leader instantly. Ismail Pasha, even, would 
 have dealt with it no less conclusively, but in a 
 different way. But the father and great-grand- 
 father of Khedive Tewfik were men of impulse and 
 quick action. 
 
 After his easy triumph at Abdin, the dreamy 
 Arabi became a bustling bully, full of his own im- 
 portance, and displaying more than usual igno- 
 
 259
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ranee. But to a man the army was with him, and 
 j&fty thousand peasant farmers along the Nile were 
 ready to fight under his banner whenever he called 
 for them. Tewfik did many things to placate Ara- 
 bi, which did much to turn his head. At last the 
 rebel leader forced the khedive to hide himself for 
 safety in one of his palaces near Alexandria, while 
 he became the dictator of the country, basing his 
 authority upon his military prestige. He sent lying 
 proclamations into the interior, and pretended to 
 have divine revelations pointing to a crushing vic- 
 tory over the Christian oppressors of the land. It 
 was his boast that his guns could sink any fleet, 
 whatever its strength ; and he assured his followers 
 that a hundred thousand foreign soldiers, if they 
 landed in Alexandria, would be hacked to pieces. 
 
 The baselessness of Arabi's opinions was quickly 
 proved, for the forts of Alexandria were able to 
 make only feeble resistance to the modern ord- 
 nance of Admiral Seymour's fleet, and were reduced 
 to ruins in short order, with the principal quarter 
 of the city as well. Arabi and his army retreated 
 to the interior in the wildest disorder, and only 
 once made anything like a determined stand against 
 the pursuing British regiments. That was at Tel- 
 el-Kebir, and was of brief duration. The poltroon 
 Arabi a few hours later was glad of the personal 
 safety attending his surrender to the English as a 
 prisoner of war.^ 
 
 1 "On September 13, 1882, the British armyxmder Sir Garnet Wolse- 
 ley stormed the earthworks of Tel-el-Kebir, and with one brilliant 
 dash scattered to the winds the forces and the hopes of 'Ahmed 
 
 260
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 But I find myself drifting into a needless de- 
 scription of the rebellion, and the bombardment 
 of the forts of Alexandria on July 11 and 12, 1882, 
 with the wanton massacre of thousands of innocent 
 people by the natives, maddened to frenzy by Arabi 
 and his followers. It is a page of history too well 
 known to be repeated, and has no place in these 
 slight sketches. 
 
 Mr. Moberly Bell, a fair-minded English writer on 
 the subject of contemporary Egypt, in recording 
 his opinions of the campaign as he saw it, says 
 this of Arabi : " It may be admitted that the whole 
 country sided with Arabi up to the day of Tel-el- 
 Kebir, but the significance of this fact is apparent 
 when we remember that the whole country was 
 against him the day afterward. Again, the gen- 
 eral promise held out to millions of fellaheen that 
 aU debts due to Europeans should be canceled 
 would have enabled the devil himself to have made 
 converts. In Egypt, the man who succeeds is al- 
 ways popular; the man who has power leads the 
 nation. Arabi got power, not by his ability, but 
 
 Arabi, the Egyptian.' Nine tenths at least of the so-called 'rebel' 
 army were only too delighted at the opportunity of throwing away 
 their arms and their uniforms, of donning once more with all haste 
 their galahinhs of blue cotton, and returning to the unconstrained 
 life and patient labor in their beloved fields, which were so much 
 more congenial to them than the duties and the dangers of military 
 service. The next day two squadrons of British cavalry reached 
 Cairo. They had ridden straight across the desert, some forty miles, 
 and both men and horses were nearly dead from fatigue ; yet the 
 citadel and city, though occupied by a strong body of Arabi's troops, 
 surrendered without a show of resistance. The 'rebellion' was at 
 an end."— Sir Alfred Milner, in "England in Egypt." 
 
 26^
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 by the efforts of those supportiug him, and by the 
 blunders of his opponents. After Tel-el-Kebir he 
 never uttered one word of regret, never made a 
 single inquiry as to the fate of those poor wretches 
 who were the victims rather of his dunderhead 
 stupidity than of his intentional wickedness." 
 
 Many times, before and after the revolt, Tewfik 
 Pasha was deplorably wanting in firmness, and, on 
 the other hand, was more than once as heroic as 
 any man could be when in imminent danger. If 
 compelled to decide quickly, the decision was too 
 often on the side of error ; but with time for de- 
 liberation, his conclusion was nearly always to do 
 the right thing, unmindful of the peril or the con- 
 sequences. A man of the greatest genius, however, 
 might have found it difficult to thread his course 
 through such a labyrinth of doubts and misfor- 
 tunes as that in which the khedive was placed. 
 
 If any benefits immediately resulted from Eng- 
 land's voluntary aid to Egypt, the breaking of the 
 dual control was the first in importance. French 
 susceptibilities were so irritated by the non-depar- 
 ture of the British troops, sent to the country to 
 restore the authority of the khedive, that the gov- 
 ernment of France declined to remain a party to 
 the management of Egyptian finances. I do not 
 express an opinion as to the wisdom of this action 
 as a matter of policy, but the withdrawal of France | 
 certainly helped the position of the poor Egyptians,] 
 for they had then one master less. A single con- 
 trol is preferable to any other form of oligarchy,, 
 when the welfare of a suffering people is considered. • 
 
 264
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 By the old system, with each side issuing a procla- 
 mation almost daily to the other, the patient was 
 in danger of succumbing while the rival physicians 
 were deciding which should take the responsibility 
 of going to his relief. 
 
 During the bombardment Tewfik was in his pal- 
 ace three miles out of Alexandria, with his wife. 
 When urged before the shelling of the city to seek 
 shelter on his yacht or on a war-ship, his answer 
 was : " No. I will remain with my people in their 
 hour of danger. I am still their khedive." Within 
 range of shots from the ships in the harbor, and 
 with a bloodthirsty, looting mob near by, Tewfik 
 remained in his Ramleh palace throughout the 
 two days of carnage. Shortly after the crushing 
 of Arabi, cholera broke out in Cairo in its most fatal 
 form. Then this man who had failed to nip a re- 
 bellion in the bud by a commanding word to Arabi 
 went deliberately with his khedivah to the capital, 
 against the advice of his suite, and to the dismay 
 of the physicians. He went from hospital to hos- 
 pital, inspiring courage throughout the stricken 
 city by his example, and helping the bereaved with 
 money from a purse not overflowing. 
 
 Called to a heritage of bankruptcy, discontent, 
 and rebellion, Tewfik Pasha was a virtuous and 
 amiable prince, whose failings inspired sympathy. 
 He regretted the ravages of cholera in Cairo and 
 the Delta more than the losing to the Mahdi of 
 millions of miles of valuable territory in the Sudan, 
 chiefly because he had witnessed the horrors of the 
 home calamity, possibly. 
 
 265
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Tewfik preferred the early morning for work, and 
 documents dealing with public affairs were then 
 read and arranged before his secretaries were astir. 
 He always varied his labors with outdoor exercise, 
 and many were the anecdotes related by him of the 
 experiences with soldiers and policemen who did 
 not recognize as the khedive the sleek, rotund 
 little man taking a morning constitutional. He 
 frequently slipped over to the Grhizereh gardens 
 at sunrise to view the horticultural beauties when 
 only the fellah was astir. Returning to the palace 
 from one of these rambles, he was stopped by a 
 good-natured British soldier doing sentry duty at 
 the main entrance, with these words : " Hi, there ! 
 Yer can't go in 'ere, yer know." 
 
 " But I belong to the palace," said the khedive, 
 enjoying the situation. 
 
 " Oh, do yer ? Well, what sort of a place 'ave yer 
 got, anyway!" added Tommy Atkins, convinced 
 of his right to have a bit of chaff with any " f urri- 
 ner." 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 "Ah, fine times, I s'pose; nothin' to do and 
 plenty to eat, from the look o' yer. Would n't mind 
 servin' this chap meself, if 'e 'd find me five bob a 
 day." 
 
 A sergeant on his rounds cut short the soldier's 
 lingo, and his Highness went into the palace to his 
 books and papers, enjoying the joke more than the 
 discomfited redcoat did. 
 
 When Arabi, Mahmoud Sami, and other ring- 
 leaders of the rebellion had been sentenced to death 
 
 266
 
 Tewfik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 for treason, Tewfik was the first to speak for a com- 
 mutation of sentence to life-banishment. Arabi 
 and his surviving fellow-traitors in Ceylon could 
 not have been forgetful of what they owed to the 
 tender heart of the khedive they had conspired to 
 destroy, when they heard that his Highness had 
 died suddenly, while still a comparatively young 
 man, at Helouan, on January 7, 1892. 
 
 A brief account of Arabi in his exile may not be 
 out of place in concluding my chapter. It is. 
 more than sixteen years since he and the seven 
 other rebels said farewell to their native land, 
 bound for Ceylon, under military escort. Since 
 then Abd-el-Aal Pasha, the most stalwart of them 
 all, and Mahmoud Fehmy, the astute engineer who 
 nearly succeeded in blocking the Suez Canal, have 
 gone over to the great majority. But Arabi him- 
 self, as well as Mahmoud Sami, Toulba Osmat, Ali 
 Fehmy, and Yacoub Sami, are still not only in the 
 land of the living, but in very good health and 
 spirits. 
 
 There has been a good deal of marrying and 
 giving in marriage since the steamer Mareotis 
 took her contingent of prisoners to Colombo. The 
 sons born prior to their fathers' political troubles 
 are, for the most part, serving the present khe- 
 dive in more or less responsible positions; but 
 many children of both sexes have been born to the 
 pashas since they set foot on British soil, and they 
 consequently are both cle jure and de facto British 
 subjects. For some time there was much grum- 
 bling among the exiles, who suffered from the 
 
 269
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 marked difference between the dry heat of the Nile 
 valley and the depressing damp heat of Ceylon. 
 They hoped against hope for permission to return 
 to Egypt, and for years Arabi's friends did their 
 utmost to second his efforts to secure a pardon. 
 
 From the first the exiles were treated as per- 
 sons of importance, and they have been the guests 
 of the various governors who have held sway in 
 Ceylon since 1883. Arabi's home has been visited 
 by many thousands of Mohammedans on their road 
 to Mecca, as well as by an immense number of 
 European and American travelers. He is now 
 located in a picturesque bungalow in the ancient 
 capital of the island, Kandy, in the interior, where 
 the temperature is more like that of his native 
 country than that of the coast. Arabi has ceased 
 to find his life in Ceylon either irksome or other- 
 wise unpleasant. His " visiting-book " is in its way 
 a notable curiosity, and he can now talk of the 
 events of 1882 without the smallest bitterness. He 
 has learned to speak English with tolerable fluency 
 and takes a deep interest in the political events of 
 the day. Sometimes his mind wanders back to 
 the much-loved land from which he s^^rang, and 
 the freedom for which he fought. He is still in the 
 prime of life, for the rebel leader was onlj^ just 
 forty when "he surrendered his sword and his 
 honor into the hands of the English" on the mor- 
 row of Tel-el-Kebir. 
 
 If not such a "dunderhead" in these years as 
 when hatching rebellion in Egypt, Arabi's reflec- 
 tions would be interesting, could we know them. No 
 
 270
 
 Tewiik and the Arabi Rebellion 
 
 longer a political issue himself, the administration 
 of Egypt, owing its creation to him, becomes an in- 
 ternational issue, as well as an anomaly having no 
 parallel in history. This control of affairs, upheld 
 by four or five thousand British bayonets, on soil 
 not belonging to the British empire, is an institu- 
 tion over which European statesmen have long 
 wrangled. "Advisers" to the khedive, under- 
 secretaries of state, irrigation experts, military 
 and civil servants of high degree and correspond- 
 ing pay, and small-fry officials by the hundred, 
 owe their employment in the land of the Nile to 
 the muddle-headed Arabi, now dreaming away his 
 days in the hills of Ceylon. The common people 
 of his beloved Egypt, for whom he was so solicitous 
 in 1881 and 1882, are now enjoying a measure of 
 prosperity greater than they had ever known, 
 oddly enough, as a sequence of his efforts to free 
 them from the grasp of the infidel. 
 
 Some philosophers, maybe, see in Arabi one who 
 has done his share toward making Britain's foreign 
 policy so successful as to excite the jealousy of half 
 the nations of the Old World. Unlike Clive, 
 Hastings, and Cecil Rhodes, Arabi accomplished 
 what he did for England as the result of bigoted 
 ignorance and blundering, not of clear-sighted 
 intention. 
 
 13 ~— ,
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PEESENT KHEDIVE AND KHEDIVAL FAMILY 
 
 HIS Higliness Abbas Hilmi II was born in 
 Cairo on July 14, 1874, and succeeded to the 
 khedivate at the age of eighteen. Estimates of his 
 character are never indefinite, for he is liked or dis- 
 liked intensely— it depends upon the point of view 
 from which the judgment is formed. The public 
 relying upon English newspapers for knowledge 
 of persons and events has no doubt regarding the 
 intractable nature of the khedive. The human mind 
 in time accepts as facts, concrete and unyielding, 
 what is heard and read for years. The unattractive 
 side of Abbas Pasha from the day he came to the 
 khedivate has frequently been paraded in English 
 prints. Hence the majority of English people do 
 not like him. They believe they know him, but 
 manifestly do not. Yet no people on earth so per- 
 sistently demand fair play as our British cousins. 
 The opinion of Abbas held in the British Isles is 
 the outcome of political exigencies. Whenever an 
 Egyptian "incident" calls for official attention in 
 London, Fleet Street is moved to applaud England's 
 foreign policy, and decry the khedive whose rebel- 
 lious spirit has led him to show by manner or word 
 
 272
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 that he would like to guide unaided the government 
 of which he is the titular head. This is an expe- 
 dient of the moment, defensible, possibly, because 
 patriotic. But when the young Egyptian is forced 
 to repress his desire to rule over his people, subject 
 only to his suzerain, the newspapers forget to neu- 
 tralize the harsh things said of him in their zeal to 
 promote Britain's foreign interests. It seldom oc- 
 curs to English journalists that Abbas, too, knows 
 the meaning of the words " fair play." 
 
 This young man, the seventh of the Mehemet Ali 
 line to be at the head of the Egyptian people, 
 makes no pretension to unusual wisdom; yet his 
 capabilities are of an order making of him a not 
 unworthy successor to the Pharaohs and Ptolemies, 
 Alexander and Cleopatra. He lacks some of the 
 amiable characteristics of his father, Khedive Tew- 
 fik, it is true ; but he is incomparably better qualified 
 for successful administrative work. English people 
 approved of Tewfik Pasha, but that khedive never 
 aroused their anger by expressing wishes or opinions. 
 He was pliable as clay in the strong British gnisp. 
 
 Abbas's faults are neither numerous nor serious. 
 His good qualities exceed in number those possessed 
 by the average prince of his years and experience. 
 The sentiment of patriotism is one that justly 
 claims respect, and that he should desire to l^e free 
 from foreign tutelage is natural enough. To learn 
 his true character and arrive at a just conclusion of 
 his worth, he must be measured at home, since the 
 opinions spread before readers of English news- 
 papers and books are scarcely ingenuous. 
 
 273
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 For four years I endeavored to be a fair-minded 
 student of the character of Abbas Pasha. The let- 
 ter of credence that I bore from the President of 
 the United States commended me to him as the head 
 of the Egyptian government ; and throughout my 
 residence in the Egyptian capital I punctiliously 
 treated him as my instructions demanded. Study 
 my credentials as I would, I could discover no in- 
 timation that the khedive was but a nominal ex- 
 ecutive, and my documents from Washington made 
 no reference to Great Britain as the dominating 
 power in Egypt. 
 
 British functionaries of a rank entitling them to 
 come into personal relations with Abbas Pasha 
 form a sincere liking for him. But the petty sub- 
 ordinate, seeing him at a distance, or more likely 
 not at all, is obstinately wedded to the belief that 
 it is his duty as a loyal Briton to utter partizan 
 opinion against the nominal head of the govern- 
 ment from which he may be earning his daily 
 bread. Americans, on the other hand, invariably 
 like Khedive Abbas, and as a people they are not 
 incapable of forming sound judgments. They see 
 him with eyes not blurred with political vapors. 
 
 Less than eight years ago Prince Abbas was a 
 light-hearted student in Vienna, pursuing a course 
 of study at the famous Theresianum fitting him 
 for the exalted position some day to be his. The 
 Austrian emperor took a kindly interest in the lad 
 being educated to rule the oldest nation in the 
 world, and means were provided for giving him a 
 practical insight into the profession of the soldier, 
 
 274
 
 HIS HIUHNESS ABBAS HILMI PASHA II, KHEDIVE OF EGYPT.
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 as well as the calling of the engineer and the skilled 
 artisan. In the midst of these pursuits, at a time 
 when he believed he had many years for study and 
 travel, the news was cabled from Cairo, on Janu- 
 ary 7, 1892, that Tewfik Pasha had died suddenly, 
 and that Prince Abbas had been proclaimed khe- 
 dive. 
 
 Thus ended abruptly the happy student days, 
 and the prince had to exchange the outspoken lan- 
 guage of youth for the carefully considered phrases 
 of the head of a nation to control which several 
 European governments were in jealous rivalry, one 
 of them being represented on Egyptian soil, without 
 any real authority, by an army of five thousand men, 
 and hundreds of officials employed in administra- 
 tive capacities. It was surely not a promising 
 prospect. 
 
 Abbas was taught English as a child, by a gover- 
 ness, and later special tutors were brought from 
 England to perfect his knowledge of the language. 
 An American officer in the Egyptian army was as- 
 signed to teach the military rudiments not only to 
 the heir to the khedivate, but to Prince Mehemet Ali, 
 a year younger, as well. At the age of twelve Abbas 
 was sent to the celebrated Haxius school at Ge- 
 neva to complete the preparatory course fitting him 
 for the Theresianum. 
 
 In his student days Abbas visited every capital 
 in Europe, with the exception of Madrid and Lis- 
 bon. He went to the North Cape and saw the mid- 
 night sun, but, he remarks with a smile, has never 
 made the ascent of the Gizeh Pyi-amids, which 
 
 277
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 overlook his capital. During his travels he ob- 
 served closely such institutions as he considered 
 suitable for application to his own country, and 
 the knowledge thus obtained has no doubt contrib- 
 uted in a measure to the progress of present-day 
 Egypt. Plans had been arranged for a protracted 
 visit of the princes to the United States in the year 
 of the Columbian Exposition. The itinerary would 
 have taken them not only to Chicago and Washing- 
 ton, but also to the principal industrial centers. 
 Tewfik Pasha had planned for instructors to ac- 
 company the young men, who would have given 
 them an insight into the sources of America's great- 
 ness. Abbas Pasha has more than once expressed 
 his keen regret that fate should have deprived him 
 of the advantage of seeing the country with which 
 his grandfather had established valued relations. 
 
 Elevation to exalted position has not obliterated 
 the memory of comradeships at Greneva and Vienna ; 
 for when the khedive is sufficiently acquainted 
 with his caller to lay aside formalities, and the 
 visitor is American, he will recall many pleasant 
 companionships with American youths, mentioning 
 them by name when speaking of their attractive 
 qualities. 
 
 The lingual capacity of the khedive is striking, 
 especially to those who regard a prince's training as 
 purely ornamental. During the course of an " audi- 
 ence-day " it frequently happens that he discusses 
 questions of state with the British and United 
 States diplomatic agents in excellent English, with 
 the representative of France in faultless French, 
 
 278
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 and with the German in the choicest language of the 
 Austrian court. Later he conducts affairs with the 
 Sultan's representative in Turkish, and may con- 
 clude the day by presiding over a council of his 
 ministry, when all sorts of intricate details of policy 
 are arranged in Arabic, the native tongue of Egypt, 
 and one of the most difficult of languages. The 
 evening may see his Highness at the theater, lis- 
 tening with pleasure and understanding to opera 
 rendered in Italian. 
 
 The accomplishment yielding the khedive his 
 greatest pleasure, next to his horsemanship, is his 
 musical proficiency. He is a skilful pianist, and 
 has a correct ear for melody. Included in his en- 
 tourage are forty or fifty picked musicians, consti- 
 tuting his private band, whose position is anything 
 but a sinecure. At Koubbeh the bandsmen are 
 quartered close to the palace, and an abbreviated 
 rehearsal or a flagrantly false note receives imme- 
 diate attention from his Highness, it is said. 
 
 Abbas Pasha does not claim infallibility, but 
 realizes, like his seniors, that administrative mis- 
 takes can be made. He is a very different man 
 from the ordinary type of Oriental sovereign, hav- 
 ing no religious bigotry, narrowness of thought, or 
 ignorance of the outside world. A desire to pro- 
 mote the welfare of his people is his controlling 
 thought, and under his guidance their future would 
 be full of encouragement and hope. 
 
 The khedive receives a yearly grant from the 
 Egyptian government of five hundred thousand 
 dollars. His private wealth is great, and chiefly 
 
 279
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 invested in productive farms and cotton-plantations 
 in the Nile Delta. His habits tend to thrift, per- 
 haps as the natural result of the downfall of Khe- 
 dive Ismail, whose extravagance has no parallel in 
 history. In addition to the khedive's grant from 
 the .national exchequer, he receives another five 
 hundred thousand dollars for the support of his 
 mother, brother, sisters, and the various relatives 
 of the khedival family, nearly a hundred in 
 number. 
 
 He is a strict disciplinarian,— reflecting doubtless 
 his Austrian training,— but is just, considerate, and 
 kind. State and show he dislikes, but insists on 
 receiving the full deference due his rank. In child- 
 hood the two brothers, in addressing each other, 
 invariably employed the full title, as Prince Abbas 
 Bey and Prince Mehemet Ali Bey. On one occa- 
 sion, it is related, however, the latter was inclined 
 to be indolent and shirk his lesson. 
 
 " Come, Prince," urged the instructor, " it must 
 be done." 
 
 Abbas Bey at once exclaimed : " Prince, indeed ! 
 My brother is no prince when idle— he is only a 
 fellah." 
 
 One privileged to meet the khedive is led to the 
 audience-chamber through files of saluting guards- 
 men—in smart blue uniforms if it is winter and at 
 Abdin Palace in Cairo, or in white uniforms if it 
 is summer at Ras-el-Teen in Alexandria. He is 
 greeted at the door in a manner proving the khe- 
 dive's geniality. After shaking hands the visitor 
 is motioned to a seat on the divan with his High- 
 
 280
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 ness. Khedive Abbas has a pleasing face, full and 
 round, with a fair complexion browned by out- 
 door exercise. The upper lip is arched and deli- 
 cately molded ; the lower full, but without a touch 
 of grossness. There is a little dark mustache, to 
 which he puts his right hand in moments of ani- 
 mation, twisting its ends. 
 
 No portrait gives an idea of the wonder of the 
 face, which comes from eyes of light hazel, and the 
 fair, clear complexion derived from his Turkish 
 ancestors. The eyes mirror every emotion, flash- 
 ing with the light of laughter, and deepening with 
 the shadow of thought. Photographs of the khe- 
 dive cannot possibly suggest the charm of face, 
 coming with his mood, and varying therewith. Ab- 
 bas's figure tends to stoutness, and he is not tall. 
 He is unmistakably magnetic, agreeable, and men- 
 tally alert. In his dress there is nothing Oriental, 
 save the red tarboosh, never removed from the 
 head. The clothes might be those of any young 
 American, not particular as to the latest mode, but 
 his coat on ordinary occasions is invariably a frock. 
 Jewelry and glossy boots are never in evidence, 
 except when he wears the uniform of commander- 
 in-chief of the army, with gemmed orders, sword, 
 and accoutrements. 
 
 A visitor quickly discovers that he is dealing 
 with no no\'ice of life and affairs, but with one 
 whose responsible position has forced a precocious 
 maturity, for Abbas's manner and words are those 
 of a man of thirty-five. He quickly grasps the 
 point of a question, and a few minutes' conver- 
 
 283
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 sation shows him to have a good insight into cur- 
 rent events. 
 
 A remarkable memory enables the khedive to 
 converse effectively on almost any topic. When 
 on military subjects he will speak of the excellent 
 services rendered the Egyptian army by the Ameri- 
 cans who placed it on a footing of efficiency in his 
 grandfather's time. It is the firmly set mouth that 
 indicates his determination, inherited from Ismail, 
 and which his own father did not possess. The 
 khedive is by some called stubborn and obstinate ; 
 but, like many others, he can be more easily led than 
 driven. 
 
 His Highness rises usually at half-past five o'clock, 
 and shortly after is in the saddle for a ride about 
 Koubbeh or Montazah, visiting working parties and 
 stables, and giving orders for the day after the 
 manner of any gentleman farmer superintending 
 his own estates. He breakfasts at eight, after 
 which and up to noon, if it is not an audience-day 
 in town, he is occupied with his secretaries in 
 arranging and considering affairs of state, going 
 thoroughly into details before deciding any matter. 
 After luncheon a secretary replies to letters of a 
 personal character under the khedive's direction, 
 and from three to five his Highness receives diplo- 
 matic and other official visitors, and then drives 
 until sunset. It is his custom to appear on the 
 Ghizereh oval, in Cairo, every Friday afternoon in 
 the season. For an Eastern, Abbas Pasha is ex- 
 traordinarily energetic. 
 
 When the Duke of Cambridge was in Cairo, a few 
 284
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 seasons since, it was arranged that a field-review 
 be given of the Egyptian troops quartered in the 
 capital, in honor of the famous commander-in-chief 
 of Queen Victoria's army. The proposition came 
 from Britishers in the Egyptian service, those who 
 believe that Egypt would go to the eternal bow- 
 wows were it not for the fostering hand of England. 
 His Highness the Khedive was to be present, as 
 nominal commander of the army. 
 
 All Cairo was at Abbassieh, on horseback or in 
 carriages, to see the manoeuvers. The khedive gal- 
 loped on to the parade-ground with his aides, and 
 immediately took command of the forces. The 
 spectators were treated to something manifestly 
 not on the bills, for the young Egyptian put the 
 soldiers through their paces in a manner causing 
 consternation to the officials who had intended the 
 khedive to play an ornamental part only in the show. 
 
 Infantry and cavalry were hurried here and there, 
 the camel corps was sent across the desert to repel 
 an imaginary foe, and platoons of artillery were 
 ordered into position, and their guns belched forth 
 volley after volley. This mimic warfare, extending 
 over miles of the desert, was kept up for two hours, 
 and waxed so fast and furious that nearly all the 
 spectators had fallen by the wayside, from inability 
 to keep up, long before it was over. His Royal 
 Highness of England had not experienced such a 
 shaking up for years, and when the campaign ended 
 did not hesitate to say that the Egyptian soldiers 
 were a fine lot of men, knowing every detail of a 
 soldier's calling. 
 
 285
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 This approving formula had become habitual 
 with him in commending British yeomanry and 
 volunteers, but in this case was uttered with unmis- 
 takable sincerity. The old duke had seen more 
 practical soldiering on the plains of Abbassieh than 
 he had anticipated, and from that time he has been 
 an admirer of the young khedive. 
 
 Abbas Pasha never disobeys the command of the 
 Koran by tasting wines or spirits, and the example 
 to the youth of his country is carried further, for 
 he is a total abstainer from tobacco, which, in a 
 land where nearly everybody smokes cigarettes 
 from morning until night, means much. 
 
 A striking phase of character for one occupying 
 so conspicuous a position before the world is the 
 manner in which the khedive dissociates private life 
 from official station. When his work at Abdin 
 Palace is finished, a cavalry guard escorts him to 
 the palace of Koubbeh, five miles out of Cairo, on 
 the border of the desert. There is little suggesting 
 princely estate about Koubbeh, save the few sol- 
 diers of the khedival guard and the musicians 
 and drummer-boys lounging in front of their quar- 
 ters. The palace looks like the seat of a well-con- 
 ditioned European family of country tastes. The 
 presence of its master is indicated by the scarlet 
 flag bearing the threefold star and crescent float- 
 ing over the palace. 
 
 The khedive's consort, described by those who 
 know her as an attractive Circassian, and the 
 four little children, are installed at Koubbeh dur- 
 ing the winter season. It is likewise the home 
 
 286
 
 THE sultan's high C'OMMISSIONKK IN EUVl'T. (iUAZl MUUKHTAH PASHA.
 
 I
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 of the khedivah-mere, who, by reason of having 
 been born a princess, takes rank over the khedivah 
 as the first lady of the court. The khedivah- 
 mere is little more than forty years of age, and is 
 said to be charming and accomplished. She was 
 at one time the most beautiful of the princesses of 
 the East. Her lovely, clear complexion, magnifi- 
 cent eyes, with the shape of her face and the car- 
 riage of the head, made her a very queen of beauty, 
 it is claimed by ladies having the entree at the 
 viceroyal court. Living in strict Mohammedan 
 seclusion, and never appearing in public except with 
 veiled faces, the ladies of the khedival family are 
 not subjected to masculine gaze. Their attendance 
 at the opera is concealed from the audience by 
 screened boxes ; but flashing jewels and shadowy 
 outlines behind the gossamer curtains tell of their 
 presence. 
 
 Up to February 20, 1899, Prince Mehemet Ali 
 was heir to the khedivate ; but on that date the 
 consort of Abbas Pasha gave birth to a son at the 
 villa of Montazah, and while the happy event was 
 being celebrated throughout the country, it was 
 formally announced that Prince Mohammed Ab- 
 doul-Mounaim, the newborn, was heir apparent to 
 the khedival dignity and estate. This was in 
 accord with the Sultan's firman of June 9, 1873, 
 which provided that the succession to the khedi- 
 vate of Egypt is exclusively by order of primogeni- 
 ture in the male line. Should Abbas Pasha die, the 
 firman provides for a regency until the heir attains 
 his legal majority at the age of eighteen years. 
 
 289
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Having no official position in the Egyptian ad- 
 ministration, Prince Mehemet Ali passes a good 
 portion of each year in Paris. Every winter sees 
 him in Cairo, where, although a bachelor, he resides 
 in a bijou palace in the European quarter. 
 
 The khedive has two sisters. The elder, the Prin- 
 cess Khadija, born in 1880, is married to a Turkish 
 notable, and spends much time at Constantinople ; 
 the younger, the Princess Nimet, born in 1882, is 
 wedded to her cousin, Djemil Pasha, an accom- 
 plished and wealthy prince, who resides at Mou- 
 nerah Palace in Cairo. 
 
 While a devout believer in the religion of the 
 Koran, the khedive has never taken advantage of its 
 provision that one may have four wives. He is a 
 monogamist, as was his father. The khedive has 
 no harem in the European sense. Each of his pal- 
 aces, however, has its "harem division," which 
 means simply that portion set apart for the khe- 
 divah and khedivah-mere and their enormous 
 entourage. The attendants are young Turkish 
 women, coming chiefly from the provinces of 
 Georgia and Circassia, and are attired in exquisite 
 garb of semi-European character. 
 
 Although spoken of in the Orient as "slaves," 
 many of these young women have the simplest 
 duties, and in Europe might almost be regarded as 
 ladies in waiting at court. It was a woman of this 
 class that was taken by the khedive for his wife, 
 and the published accounts of the marriage may 
 have shocked western-world readers, knowing little 
 of actual life in the East. It was in keeping with 
 
 290
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 Mohammedan custom, however, and was most pop- 
 ular with the Egyptians. 
 
 For the Koubbeh estate the khedive has imported 
 American farm machinery, to illustrate the advan- 
 tages of tilling with modern appliances. There are 
 extensive stables filled with choice horses from va- 
 rious parts of the world. The position of honor 
 is given to a magnificent Arabian steed with flow- 
 ing tail, sent to Abbas Pasha by the Sultan. Close 
 by is the English thoroughbred Cedar, presented 
 by the late Colonel North, and in a neighboring 
 stall stands an American trotter, the gift of an ad- 
 miring Philadelphian. 
 
 The dairy, kennels, and poultry-yard at Koubbeh 
 are supplied with selected animals and fowls from 
 every clime, and in them the khedive takes the 
 keenest interest. For the work-people there is a 
 model village, with mosque, school, and meeting- 
 place where discussion is encouraged after the 
 lyceum idea— all supported by the khedive, to 
 demonstrate the benefits of order, cleanliness, and 
 community of interests. The native fire-brigade, 
 with English apparatus, would be creditable any- 
 where. 
 
 So devoted is Egypt's young ruler to horses that 
 from his private purse he maintains a commission 
 to improve horse-breeding. He offers valuable 
 prizes at horse-shows, and himself makes entries 
 for the races during the Cairo season, when it not 
 infrequently happens that his colors are carried to 
 victory by his native jockey. The khedive enjoys 
 driving, and may often be met in the outskirts of 
 
 291
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Cairo or Alexandria, holding the reins over a dash- 
 ing pair, and accompanied by an aide-de-camp or 
 one of his many relatives. 
 
 Before the heat of summer comes, the khedival 
 establishment, with its army of officials and atten- 
 dants, moves to Alexandria. Six railway-trains are 
 required to transfer the court. The khedive and 
 his ministers and other high officers go in state in 
 an observation saloon-car of American make. 
 
 The historic structure, Ras-el-Teen, overlooking 
 Alexandria harbor, is treated by the khedive simply 
 as an official palace, as Abdin is in Cairo. The 
 home-loving instinct has caused the khedive to 
 create a summer retreat at Montazah, snugly nestled 
 on the picturesque Mediterranean coast, a few miles 
 to the east of Alexandria. There the family life, 
 with artistic and musical surroundings, is carried 
 on in charming simplicity. Perplexities arising 
 from conferences at Has- el-Teen are left in the 
 precincts of the old palace. 
 
 A mile to the eastward of Montazah is Abukir 
 Bay, made famous by Nelson's victory over the 
 French fleet little more than a century ago. Al- 
 though Montazah was reclaimed from the desert 
 only six years since, forests of quick-growing trees 
 have sprung into existence ; many varieties of game- 
 birds and animals have been domiciled there, in- 
 cluding native antelope and European red deer, for 
 the khedive is an ardent sportsman. In a remote 
 part of the estate is the camp of the khedive's 
 camel-corps, whose Bedouin riders are trained 
 marksmen, and with whom he makes long journeys 
 
 292
 
 BISCHAKINS IN LHPKK EGYPT.
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 in the desert. It is said that his Highness "bears any 
 amount of fatigue when on these excursions, and 
 his caravan frequently marches from sunrise to 
 sunset before bivouacking for the night. 
 
 Montazah harbor shelters many boats, including 
 a small yacht that conveys its master to Alexandria 
 when he prefers the sea to special train or carriage. 
 Safe anchorage is assured by a breakwater costing 
 two hundred thousand dollars to construct. 
 
 The khedival yacht MaJiroussa, of forty-five hun- 
 dred tons and four hundred and forty feet long, is 
 the largest in the world, if one excepts the war- ship 
 Hohensollern, on which the German emperor makes 
 summer cruises. For voyaging to Constantinople, 
 cruising in the Grecian Archipelago, or going to 
 Triest or Venice, if the trip may be regarded as 
 "unofficial," the khedive employs a beautiful 
 Scotch-built yacht of seven hundred tons, capable 
 of steaming fourteen knots an hour, and called 
 Safa-el-Bahr, the Arabic for " Joy of the Sea." 
 
 Khedive Abbas, with his family, spends two or 
 three months each summer in Europe. He is fond 
 of visiting Switzerland incognito for a few weeks' 
 sojourn in a high altitude. His Highness has sev- 
 eral times made protracted stays in Constantinople. 
 One of his numerous habitations is a palace on the 
 Bosporus, presented by his august master, the 
 Sultan. 
 
 In a nautical talk the khedive told me that he 
 was not the best of sailors, and instanced that sad 
 winter voyage when summoned from Vienna to 
 assume the throne of Egypt. Etiquette demanded 
 
 29J
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 that the Austrian emperor place a steamer at the 
 youth's disposal, with an escort of dignitaries from 
 the Vienna court. The vessel was old, "perhaps 
 fifty years old, and very small," said the khedive. 
 Violent storms had made the Adriatic and Medi- 
 terranean turbulent, and the journey from Triest 
 was disagreeable and trying. High seas retarded 
 progress, and even the ship's officers wished them- 
 selves ashore. At Brindisi Prince Abbas begged 
 to have the ship wait for better weather. 
 
 " I must not stop. Highness," was the admiral's 
 reply, " for it is the emperor's command to lose no 
 time, and the etiquette must be observed." 
 
 When the peaceful harbors of Greece came in 
 sight, the khedive again pleaded for delay. But 
 the punctilious commander insisted that " the eti- 
 quette must be observed, for it was his Majesty's 
 order." 
 
 This was too much for the poor sufferer, and he 
 remarked to the ceremonious officer : " Etiquette is 
 well enough in its place ; but his Majesty Francis 
 Joseph is comfortable in Vienna, and not seasick 
 on this awful ship." 
 
 The voyage was successfully completed, never- 
 theless, and the day after landiog on Egyptian soil 
 the illustrious passenger formally took upon him- 
 self the rulership of Egypt. 
 
 The state ball given each winter at Abdin Palace 
 by his Highness, besides being the most important 
 social occurrence of the year, has a spectacular 
 effect not to be excelled anywhere by any similar 
 function. In its variety and contrasts it ecUpses 
 
 296
 
 The Present Khedival Family 
 
 the governor-general's at Algiers, so often painted 
 by great artists, and is claimed to be a pageant 
 equal to the viceroyal ball at Calcutta. The khe- 
 dive's annual ball occurs usually in January or 
 February, and brings together representative types 
 of nearly every race of Europe, Africa, and Asia, 
 with a very liberal sprinkling of Americans. 
 
 Conspicuous in the medley of brilliant uniforms 
 are those of diplomatic celebrities and the leaders 
 of the Egyptian army and the army of occupation, 
 glittering with orders. There are present officials 
 of every hue of countenance, including mudirs and 
 omdehs from distant Egyptian provinces. Bedouin 
 sheiks from the Red Sea coast, and perhaps Indian 
 princes breaking their journey to or from England 
 for a few weeks' participation in the gaieties of the 
 khedival city. Abbas Pasha's hostship elicits gen- 
 eral admiration. He receives those bidden to the 
 festivity with a graceful cordiality, and makes a 
 point of displaying his gallantry to the ladies of the 
 diplomatic corps, whose pleasant duty it is to stand 
 by his side and receive with him. The dancing 
 begun, he appears to find much satisfaction in 
 watching the moving figures in one of the most 
 beautiful ball-rooms in the world. A box of gener- 
 ous proportions, duly screened, is filled with the 
 ladies of the khedival family, who watch the bril- 
 liant scene, unperceived by those participating in 
 it. The supper is a liberal education in gastronomy. 
 
 297
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN'S POSITION IN EGYPT 
 
 THE Egyptian question is perennial, but 
 American readers know only that version 
 of it which British writers prepare, and this, natu- 
 rally, is apt to reflect their partizan bias. Most 
 published opinion is so treated that the casual 
 reader is led to believe that by some feat of diplo- 
 macy, long forgotten by him, the ancient land of the 
 Pharaohs has been segregated from the Ottoman 
 empire and incoi*porated as an integral part of 
 Queen Victoria's realm. This is in effect what has 
 been done, but accomplished more through the co- 
 operation of circumstances than by any precon- 
 ceived intention to secure control of the country. 
 
 Briefly stated. Great Britain's visible right to 
 wield a dominating influence in Egypt is that she 
 is in " occupation " with an armed force, and this 
 only. In theory, at least, "occupation" means 
 much less than " protectorate," and diplomacy has 
 heretofore regarded it as a word fitting a tempo- 
 rary expedient. But England does not bother 
 about definitions. In point of fact, the Nile coun- 
 try has- for seventeen years been more absolutely 
 governed from London than has India, Canada, Aus- 
 
 298
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 tralia, or any crown colony ; yet between England 
 and Egypt there is no tie that is officially recognized 
 by any European power. While Britain is prob- 
 ably permanently established in Egypt, she has 
 yet to legalize her position. Meanwhile, the welfare 
 of the people of Egypt improves each year, Eng- 
 land has become indifferent to the expressions of 
 dissatisfaction by her only outspoken critic, France, 
 and the cause of humanity and progress is steadily 
 benefited by the British occupation, anomalous 
 though it be. The Sultan is the only person pos- 
 sessing an absolute right to demand a halt or a 
 declaration of intentions on the part of the British 
 government ; and the khedive can make his com- 
 plaint of abridgment of authority only to his im- 
 perial master at Constantinople. 
 
 To discuss now the moral right of Great Britain 
 to a foothold in Egypt is as superfluous as for a 
 lawyer to argue in court that the state cannot 
 arrest his client, when he is already a prisoner 
 behind the bars. 
 
 Not one Englishman in a thousand has two 
 opinions on the subject of national expansion; if 
 he has views against territorial acquisition, he never 
 parades them in public prints to be read in other 
 countries. This is a basic principle of the Briton's 
 idea of patriotism. Frenchmen twit the British 
 with being afflicted with the square-mile mania, 
 and insist that the excuse for ministering to this is 
 never analyzed so long as an additional foot of 
 soil may be incorporated within that charmed zone 
 of red encircling the earth, on which the sun 
 
 299
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 never sets. On the other hand, Englishmen say 
 with truth that were this instinct non-existent in 
 their race, there would to-day be no British em- 
 pire, and maintain that the world is enriched 
 through their achievements as empire-builders. It 
 seems to be an impulse difficult of suppression in 
 the Anglo-Saxon, wherever his abode. 
 
 Since France withdrew in 1883 from the dual 
 control with England of the finances of the 
 khedival government, Egypt has been in every- 
 thing but name a dependency of Great Britain, 
 the French in the meantime trying to resume their 
 share in its administration. More than once they 
 have urged the Sultan to interfere and order the 
 English from his domain, and for many years 
 they have doggedly obstructed Britain's conduct 
 of Egyptian affairs, but with little success. 
 
 Englishmen deny that there has ever been any 
 serious thought of annexing Egypt; that would 
 be grossly unjust to the Sultan and his vassal, the 
 khedive, they confess, and lead to endless diplo- 
 matic controversy. The occupation was entered 
 upon with an unselfish motive, and was dictated 
 by necessity, they say; but temporary expedients 
 have the awkward knack of developing into per- 
 manent conditions the world over. The routing of 
 the khalifa and his dervish mob at Omdurman by 
 the Anglo-Egyptian expedition led by Kitchener, 
 the hoisting of the flags of Turkey and Great Brit- 
 ain jointly over Khartum, the entering upon a 
 scheme for constructing Nile reservoirs that cannot 
 be completed for five years at least, and Cecil 
 
 300
 
 LORD KITCHENER, SIRDAR OF THE EGYPTIAN ARMY 
 AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SUDAN.
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 Ehodes's materializing project for building with 
 British money a Cape-to-Cairo railway, taken to- 
 gether, cannot give the foes of British domination 
 in Egypt much hope for expecting any radical 
 change of program for many years to come. I 
 am told that to this day there is periodical specu- 
 lation in Spain as to when England may be ex- 
 pected to restore to the Spanish government the 
 rock of Gibraltar. Having this event always in 
 contemplation, the Madrid council has for a cen- 
 tury regularly appointed a grandee to the governor- 
 ship of the rocky promontory that gives Great 
 Britain control of the Mediterranean. The depar- 
 ture of the English from Egypt is as unlikely to 
 happen as their restoration of Gibraltar to the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 The statesmen guiding France in 1882 claimed to 
 recognize no necessity for bombarding Alexandria, 
 and when it was decided that England's ships were 
 to fire upon the city, the French admiral was 
 ordered to remove his fleet from the scene of con- 
 flict. Frenchmen still insist that the Arabi rebellion 
 could have been successfully dealt with on shore, 
 and that the razing of Alexandria was wanton de- 
 struction. When the war- ships of France steamed 
 away from Alexandria they decided the fate of 
 their country as a participator in the affairs of 
 Egypt, and the record of that July day is an event- 
 ful page in French history, and marks the beginning 
 of the claim on the part of England to govern 
 single-handed a country forming no part of the 
 British empire.
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 It is known that England invited France to share 
 the responsibilities of the bombardment ; but it is 
 not known that France was urged to cooperate in 
 the enterprise, or that anything was said on the 
 point of a division of the spoils that would naturally 
 fall to the power or powers undertaking the quell- 
 ing of the Arabi insurrection. At all events, the 
 French fleet took its leave of the country where 
 French sympathies and influence had prevailed 
 from the going there of Napoleon in 1798. As de- 
 tailed in another chapter, Britain's fleet remained 
 and reduced the best part of Alexandria to dust, 
 making a prisoner of the rebel leader, and in a 
 brief period stamped out what had been an in- 
 differently planned uprising of that portion of 
 Egypt's population easily swayed to fanaticism. 
 
 If Englishmen have any really vital interest in 
 Africa, it is to monopolize the Nile, which means 
 more to their nation than the control of the Niger, 
 the Kongo, and the Zambesi combined ; for the Nile 
 is as potential commercially as it is politically, and 
 the country lying at its mouth is the strategical 
 keystone to Britain's Indian and Eastern super- 
 structure. Statesmen and publicists throughout 
 Europe are perpetually discussing what they term 
 the Egyptian question or the Sudan question, and 
 dilating upon the rights of England in Egypt ; but 
 these are minor themes and subordinate to the 
 great Nile question. 
 
 Great Britain already controls every foot of the 
 Nile valley not in barbaric hands, means to have it 
 all, and has no intention of sharing the river with 
 
 304
 
 Britain^s Position in Egypt 
 
 any other European power. Khartum now reached, 
 England will stop at nothing to bring the valley 
 intervening between Khartum and the equatorial 
 lakes safely within her dominion. Under no cir- 
 cumstances would Britain share her control of any 
 important part of the Nile with France, and she is 
 ready to resist by force of arms any movement 
 directed at a curtailment of her aspirations. Her 
 attitude at the time of the Fashoda incident proved 
 this, and did much to bring France to an under- 
 standing as to the relative spheres of influence 
 of the two governments in Africa. 
 
 The southern provinces being now reconquered, 
 and railways from Assuan to Khartum, and from 
 the Red Sea to Khartum, either planned or building, 
 in effect making the Sudan a British colony, Eng- 
 land at some time may believe it to her advantage 
 to relax her grip on Egypt and withdraw her troops 
 from Cairo and Alexandria. But diplomatic bick- 
 ering or pressure will never bring about this result, 
 and no nation is alone sufficiently strong to enter 
 upon actual warfare to oust the British from their 
 position. The strength of the Muscovite may 
 scarcely be expected to be ever directed against 
 England in a contest for Egypt— the stakes would 
 be too small ; and Russia, however pronounced her 
 sentimental attachment to France, is not going 
 to embark in war to further the ambitions of her 
 volatile friend. Germany, while perhaps regarding 
 England's methods in Egypt as forming a startling 
 precedent in statecraft, has not sufficient inter- 
 est to initiate any active campaign in connec-
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 tion therewith. Italy, again, is in spirit England's 
 ally in more than one African enterprise; and 
 Austria, by reason of being the Sultan's nearest 
 neighbor, chooses to keep her hands free from the 
 Egyptian imbroglio from politic motives. Hence 
 it is no longer necessary for Englishmen to pretend 
 that the occupation will end when Egypt " becomes 
 capable of self-government," or when " normal con- 
 ditions in the country have been restored." No- 
 thing but England's voluntary action can bring 
 about her evacuation of the Lower Nile valley and 
 the Delta. 
 
 The Czar aims at becoming the dictator of things 
 Asiatic, possibly omitting India for the present. 
 By brilliant diplomacy Eussia acquired nearly all 
 the increment of benefit going to Japan as a re- 
 sult of Japan's victory over China ; and her influ- 
 ence in Korea is well-nigh paramount, as it is also 
 in Persia. Russia has various ways of reaching 
 the East independent of the Suez Canal ; she em- 
 ploys Persia as a connecting overland link with 
 India, or can even construct a railway from a Syrian 
 port to the head of the Persian Gulf; while Eng- 
 land's alternative to the Suez Canal would be the 
 old-time Cape route. But no route can offer a 
 fraction of the advantages, commercial, political, or 
 strategic, of the Suez waterway. That is always 
 going to be the favorite avenue to the East. 
 
 Great is the country of the Czar and the marvel- 
 ous Siberian railway. The country is vast indeed, 
 and is constantly growing— has a chronic taste for 
 expansion, and is yearly exhibiting new evidences 
 
 306
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 of that phase of its national character. Russia has 
 within a few months, in further development of its 
 expansion proclivities, secured a port on the Per- 
 sian Gulf,— that is, one that borders on the Indian 
 Ocean, — and, what is ^-itally important, has come to 
 an agreement with England regarding their respec- 
 tive aspirations in China. The aim of this agree- 
 ment is to put an end to the battle for concessions, 
 railway and other, which raged acrimoniously for 
 two years. The Russian object is to avoid a con- 
 flict which would interfere with the successful ex- 
 ploitation of the transcontinental railway, on which 
 she has spent an enormous sum, and also to get 
 funds from Great Britain when needed for the de- 
 velopment of industries at home. 
 
 Russia's desire to avoid British opposition may 
 be taken to mean that the Northern Bear will be 
 slow to direct its gaze toward Egypt in a menacing 
 manner. Two centuries ago Russia had but a sin- 
 gle sea-outlet, the Gulf of Finland. Later she se- 
 cured control of the eastern Baltic and obtained a 
 free course to the North Atlantic. Once more she 
 reached out and gained an outlet into the Mediter- 
 ranean through the Black Sea. Again she reached 
 out for the eastern Asiatic trade and attained that 
 object, and a few months ago she acquired a port 
 on the Indian Ocean and came to an understanding 
 with John Bull respecting Chinese matters; and 
 this can have no other meaning than " hands off " 
 in Egypt. 
 
 England has certainly so interwoven the destinies 
 of the country of the Nile with her own that evacu-
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ation could be accomplished only with great con- 
 fusion to a policy under which Egyptian finances 
 have not only been repaired, but placed on a foot- 
 ing of enviable solvency. 
 
 The Dongola expedition, a few years since, 
 afforded opportunity for England to show Euro- 
 pean military critics and strategists the possibilities 
 of her imperial resources in a defensive way, by 
 bringing from India several native regiments which 
 garrisoned Suakim and other Red Sea ports dur- 
 ing the months when the entire Egyptian army was 
 concentrated on the Upper Nile. It would not be 
 difficult, at any time, for Great Britain to place a 
 good-sized army of Indians in the Nile valley, in- 
 dependent of her naval position in the Mediterra- 
 nean, if she dared weaken her strength in India for 
 a time. Rail connection between the Red Sea and 
 the Upper Nile would render this easy. 
 
 The reconquest of the Sudan cannot, for a year 
 or two at least, mean that the provinces south of 
 Dongola are open to trade. The whole region 
 about Khartum, and for hundreds of miles up and 
 down the Nile valley, is practically depopulated 
 as a consequence of the years of tyranny and mis- 
 rule of the khalifa. To bring the natives back to 
 the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and its con- 
 comitant interests can be accomplished only gradu- 
 ally by Lord Kitchener and his assistants. Not 
 until this is done, and the Anglo-Egyptian author- 
 ity organized in all its civil ramifications, can the 
 Sudan be regarded as " open " to the world. It 
 will be a long time, at all events, before the Su- 
 
 308
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 dan will be able to pay its way; but with good 
 management it should eventually become a con- 
 tributor to the Cairo exchequer. 
 
 It is interesting to observe, by recorded official ut- 
 terances and the sequence of events, how the reten- 
 tion of Egypt by Great Britain could not have been 
 seriously considered until years after the occupa- 
 tion had been entered upon. Oftentimes it is en- 
 tertaining to follow the development of an idea, 
 especially one having for its consummation a result 
 or condition the very opposite of the purpose de- 
 clared at the outset. To begin the evolution of the 
 idea of permanently retaining Egypt, it is instruc- 
 tive to state that the Gladstone government, which 
 sent the troops and ships to Egypt in 1882, asserted 
 that British intervention was made solely in the 
 interests of humanity, and for the purpose of sup- 
 pressing the Arabi rebellion and restoring the au- 
 thority of the khedive. These pledges, although 
 addressed to no specific government, were accepted 
 in Europe in good faith. 
 
 A few hours before opening the bombardment of 
 Alexandria, the commander of the British fleet said, 
 in a formal communication to Khedive Tewfik: 
 " I deem it opportune to reaffirm to your Highness 
 that the government of Great Britain has no in- 
 tention to effect the conquest of Egypt, nor to in- 
 terfere in any way with the liberties or religion of 
 the Egyptians; its sole object is to protect your 
 Highness and the Egyptian people from the rebels." 
 
 Admiral Seymour spoke with the authority of 
 his government in this momentous matter, as did 
 
 3"
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 General Sir Garnet Wolseley, who led the later 
 campaign on shore, when, to hasten the restoration 
 of law and order, after the rebellion had been 
 crushed, he said in a proclamation to the people 
 of Egypt: "The general in command of the 
 British forces wishes to make known that the 
 object of her Majesty's government in sending 
 troops to this country is to reestablish the author- 
 ity of the khedive. . . . The general in command 
 will be glad to receive visits from chiefs who are 
 willing to assist in repressing the rebellion against 
 the khedive, the lawful ruler of Egypt appointed by 
 the Sultan." 
 
 Even that ablest of diplomatists. Lord Dufferin, 
 then ambassador to the Sultan, formally announced, 
 over his signature, that England, by her interfer- 
 ence in Egypt, was " seeking no territorial advan- 
 tage, nor the acquisition of any exclusive privilege, 
 nor any commercial advantage for her subjects 
 which cannot be obtained equally for the subjects 
 of any other nation." 
 
 Arabi was tried in Cairo for treason, defended by 
 English barristers, found guilty, and sentenced to 
 death. His campaign cry of " Egypt for the Egyp- 
 tians " in a way stamping him as a patriot, and the 
 people enrolled under his banner having some show 
 of reason for their objection to the frequent inter- 
 ference of foreign powers clamoring for money, 
 his sentence was promptly modified to banishment 
 for life. 
 
 English influence was responsible for the com- 
 mutation of the sentence, and Great Britain, which 
 
 312
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 seemingly takes upon itself the task of policing half 
 the world, sent Arabi and his principal supporters 
 into exile in British territory, for a crime in no sense 
 committed against England. Thus, for usurping 
 the khedival prerogative,— which, plainly stated, 
 can have no other meaning than the right to direct 
 the administration of Egypt,— Arabi was guilty of 
 an offense punishable by death or deportation. 
 
 The British government announced, shortly after 
 the crushing of Arabi, that its "army of occupa- 
 tion " would be withdrawn as soon as law and order 
 could be restored, and a date six months thence 
 was actually fixed for the departure of the troops. 
 Her philanthropic task not being completed, in her 
 opinion, at the end of the six months, an extension 
 of time for another six months was made. At all 
 events, the occupation was to last only for the brief 
 period that would be necessary to teach the Egyp- 
 tians the easy art of self-government. But the 
 soldiers have never left Egypt. 
 
 Thus the word " occupation " promises for many 
 years to be applied to a novel operation in terri- 
 torial expansion, entered upon in the name of hu- 
 manity ; and the right of ruling Egypt, taken from 
 the khedive by Arabi the rebel, and technically 
 wrested from him by Great Britain, will probably 
 never again fully reside in the family of Mehemet 
 Ali. Military occupation indefinitely extended, as 
 illustrated in Egypt, amounts to annexation. The 
 present system is called euphemistically by some a 
 " veiled protectorate." 
 
 The mind of the reader is certain to revert to the
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 utterance of the Congress of the United States, 
 when, in declaring war against Spain to free the 
 people of Cuba, it was stated in language so clear 
 that ambiguity was out of the question : " That the 
 United States hereby disclaims any disposition or 
 intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or 
 control over said island, except for the pacification 
 thereof, and asserts its determination when that is 
 accomplished to leave the government and control 
 of the island to its people." The Englishman, alert 
 in seeking instances that tend to justify Britain's 
 position in Egypt, believes and hopes that he is 
 to have a helpful parallel in the outcome of our 
 relations with Cuba. 
 
 Englishmen make a point of recalling that the 
 Sultan declined to send Turkish troops to quell the 
 Alexandrian disorders in 1882, and they likewise 
 point to Tunis, when justifying their attitude to- 
 ward Egypt, and assert that France is doing with 
 that country exactly what the British are doing 
 with Egypt. 
 
 There is now and then a spasmodic demand in 
 the British Isles, raised by "Little Englanders," 
 that England's hand be lifted from Egypt, that the 
 Tory policy of grab be reversed. Mr. Gladstone 
 stated on all possible occasions that Britain had no 
 right to remain in Egypt, and politicians of the 
 Dilke, Harcourt, Courtney, Labouchere, and Mar- 
 riott type frequently raise their voices in condemna- 
 tion of a continuance of British rule in Egypt. 
 These men talk only when their party in Parlia- 
 ment is in the minority, however ; should one of 
 
 3H
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 them find himself a member of the government he 
 would in all probability be as silent on the subject 
 of evacuation as the Sphinx itself. 
 
 Does England profit sufficiently from her re- 
 tention of Egypt to warrant the jealous hatred of 
 France, her nearest neighbor ? 
 
 Great Britain has well-nigh made an English 
 lake of the Mediterranean ; the outlet of this lake, 
 the Suez Canal, is the key to the whole scheme of 
 British rule in India and the East. To control the 
 canal, by force of arms if necessary, is the pre- 
 dominant reason why England remains in Egypt. 
 It serves her purpose perfectly to have five thou- 
 sand redcoats within a few hours' journey of the 
 great international waterway, and a guardship at 
 each terminus of it. Without the absolute con- 
 trol of this connecting-link between Occident and 
 Orient, thirty-six million people in Great Britain 
 could not expect long to hold in subjection four 
 hundred millions in India, and to govern a quarter 
 of the globe. 
 
 Monetary considerations have as much weight 
 with Englishmen as with other people. As perhaps 
 half of Egypt's bonded debt was held in England 
 when the occupation began, the gradual apprecia- 
 tion of the value of Egyptian securities has seemed 
 to Britishers another justification, perhaps of secon- 
 dary importance, for continuing their sojourn in 
 Egypt. When they went there, it must be ad- 
 mitted, Egyptian credit was as low as it well 
 could be. 
 
 In 1882, it is estimated, English people owned 
 
 315
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 bonds to the face-value of two hundred and seventy- 
 five million dollars, and these could not have been 
 sold then for more than half that sum. "Egyp- 
 tians " are now quoted at a premium of from three 
 to six per cent., and the difference between the 
 market value in 1882 and the value to-day of 
 England's supposed financial stake in Egypt is the 
 comfortable sum of one hundred and forty million 
 dollars— sufficient to pay for the army of occupa- 
 tion for more than a century ! This restoration of 
 Egyptian credit has benefited all bondholders pro- 
 portionately—French, German, Italian, Austrian, 
 and Russian, as well as English. 
 
 An incidental reason why Great Britain retains 
 her hold upon Egypt is that the cotton crop of 
 the Nile valley reduces more and more each year 
 the dependence of British spindles upon the cotton- 
 fields of the United States. 
 
 There are also several considerations of minor 
 importance which have influenced the Egyptian 
 policy of England. The reconquest of the Sudan 
 could be prosecuted only from the north, and 
 geographers are agreed that whoever controls 
 equatorial Africa and the sources of the Nile be- 
 comes the natural holder of Egypt. Therefore, with- 
 out Egypt firmly in hand, the ambition of British 
 map-makers for a zone of territory stretching con- 
 tinuously from Cape Town to Cairo, and bringing 
 more than half the African continent under British 
 influence, must of necessity be abandoned. 
 
 The statement so often seen in French journals 
 that Egypt possesses a value to England as a dump- 
 
 316
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 ing-ground for younger sons and a horde of civil 
 and military functionaries, furnishing the minimum 
 of usefulness for the maximum of compensation, is 
 petty, and forms no part of a scheme of such mag- 
 intude as the practical absorption of Egypt. 
 
 The land of the Pyramids has become a short cut 
 to English honors, as the Suez Canal is to the Brit- 
 ish possessions in the East, and no act of courage, 
 benefit, or policy on the part of a British military 
 or civil official there passes unrecognized by the 
 home government. At least four peerages have 
 fallen to British servants in Egypt since the bom- 
 bardment of Alexandria, and knighthood and lesser 
 degrees of chivalry have been apportioned to the 
 Briton serving in the Nile land with lavish gen- 
 erosity. In most cases the dignities have been 
 merited, doubtless, under England's system of be- 
 stowing rewards. As a recognition for dealing the 
 death-blow to Mahdiism, Kitchener's peerage and 
 the Parliamentaiy grant of thirty thousand pounds 
 sterling were not excessive. 
 
 Are the people of Egypt materially benefited by 
 English rule? 
 
 Unquestionably they are. Unpopular as it is 
 with a majority of the people of Egypt, humiliat- 
 ing to the Sultan and the khedive, and at times 
 bitterly criticized in Europe, the occupation has 
 done vast good. No fair-minded investigator can 
 witness the present condition of the Egyptian fel- 
 laheen, or peasantry, knowing what it was before 
 the advent of the English, without conceding this. 
 For six or eight years Egypt has fairly teemed with 
 
 3^9
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 prosperity. The story of that country's emergence 
 from practical bankruptcy, with its securities 
 quoted nearly as high as English consols, reads like 
 a romance; and there is no better example of 
 economical progress through administrative re- 
 form than is presented by Egypt under British 
 rule. 
 
 Security is assured to person and propert}^, sla- 
 very has been legally abolished, official corruption 
 is almost a thing of the past, forced labor for pub- 
 lic works is no longer permitted, and native courts 
 have now more than a semblance of justice. Hygi- 
 enic matters have been so carefully looked after that 
 the population has increased from seven to nearly 
 ten millions in a decade or more. Land-taxes have 
 been lowered and equalized and are systematically 
 collected, and scientific irrigation is so generally 
 employed that the cultivable area has been consid- 
 erably extended. Egypt was probably never so 
 prosperous as at the present time. The debt is 
 being slightly reduced, and will be made less bur- 
 densome, as time goes on, by the increased produc- 
 tiveness of the soil. It is indeed a mighty stride 
 from the Egypt of Ismail Pasha to the Egypt of 
 Lord Cromer. 
 
 The present external debt of Egypt is approxi- 
 mately five hundred and eight million dollars, and 
 it is a popular error that it has been reduced since 
 the advent of the English. As a fact, it has been 
 increased by forty million dollars. This went to 
 indemnify Alexandrians whose property was de- 
 stroyed at the time of the rebellion and bombard- 
 
 320
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 ment, to defray the cost of the military campaign 
 resulting in the loss of the Sudan, for the recent 
 reconquest of the Sudan provinces, and for certain 
 public works deemed imperatively necessary. 
 
 By her management of affairs England has, 
 nevertheless, so improved the conditions in Egypt 
 that European bondholders have been satisfied to 
 have the interest on their bonds reduced from seven 
 to three and a half or four per cent. 
 
 England possesses a capacity for conducting 
 colonies and rehabilitating run-down countries 
 which amounts almost to genius. Overbearing and 
 arrogant as the British functionary out of England 
 often appears to be, he must be scrupulously hon- 
 est and generally capable to find a place in the 
 perfectly organized machinery guided from Lon- 
 don. Frenchmen say that Egypt's restoration to 
 prosperity could have been better accomplished 
 by them, and some allege that this prosperity is 
 more apparent than real, charging that much is 
 neglected in the desire to make a favorable show- 
 ing in the yearly balance-sheet. But a frank 
 investigation of what France does with her own 
 dependencies, nearly every one of which is run at 
 a loss, gives support to the belief that Egypt is 
 better off under British guidance than she could be 
 under that of France. No alien power could have 
 done better in Egypt than Great Britain has. But 
 her critics claim to recognize scant justification for 
 Britain's absorption of the country of the khedive 
 merely because of her ability to do good work 
 there, and point to the glaring flaw in her title. 
 
 321
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Has England educated the Egyptians to govern 
 themselves 1 
 
 Not as yet, certainly. 
 
 England's desire to remain in Egypt could not 
 better be served than by making her functionaries 
 appear essential to the well-being of the country ; 
 in fact, by making progress dependent upon her 
 administrators, accountants, and irrigation experts. 
 This they have surely done, and the " understudies " 
 of these clever servants, those who could best take 
 their places, are Englishmen, not Egyptians. There 
 are many hundred native subordinates doing the 
 simplest routine work, who perceive the splendid 
 results, but contribute thereto chiefly by their sub- 
 missiveness. They are not being instructed suffi- 
 ciently to keep Egypt from retrogressing should 
 they find themselves in charge of affairs. 
 
 The khedive is compelled to yield to England in 
 all matters connected with the choice of a ministry, 
 and this necessarily results in a partizan cabinet 
 acceptable to London. On occasions when the khe- 
 dive has appointed a cabinet officer without first 
 securing the consent of England, he has been 
 promptly called to account, and the menacing dis- 
 play in the streets of his capital of thousands of 
 British guns and bayonets has not abated until the 
 office has been filled by an Egyptian practically 
 named by the British government. 
 
 The real business of important executive depart- 
 ments in Cairo is directed by the under-secretaries 
 (assistant ministers), who are English, and their 
 utterances and plans formally receive the sanction 
 
 322
 
 AT THE BASK OF CUEOPS,
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 of their Egyptian chiefs. The native minister is 
 the visible and signatory power, the creative and 
 actual force being the English assistant. Every- 
 thing financial is dictated by an "adviser," as is 
 nearly everything judicial, and these functionaries 
 are British. Similarly, the ministry of the interior, 
 presided over by the educated and capable Egyp- 
 tian premier, is also largely directed by an " ad- 
 viser." 
 
 Lord Cromer is proud of the British assistants 
 who have cooperated with him in the work of re- 
 habilitating Egypt, and especially pleased to in- 
 form inquirers that the work has been accomplished 
 by a body of officials not exceeding one hundred 
 in number— a record that we in America, new to 
 colonial administration, will do well to consider. 
 An interesting example of the way in which 
 English officials seek to carry the Egyptians with 
 them is afforded by some recently announced sta- 
 tistics. In the finance ministry, under the strictest 
 British tutelage, 13 English and 513 natives are 
 employed; in the department of the interior, dic- 
 tated by British rule, 62 English and 784 Eg}^> 
 tians find employment. In the offices under inter- 
 national control the percentage of Britishers is very 
 small. For example, the staff of the mixed courts 
 consists of 242 Europeans (of whom 17 are British) 
 and 101 Egyptians. The Caisse de la Dette em- 
 ploys 50 Europeans (2 being British) and 10 
 Egyptians, and the quarantine board has 48 Euro- 
 pean and 19 native employees. 
 
 Each year sees a slight augmentation of English- 
 
 325
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 men on the Egyptian pay-roll, but always in re- 
 sponsible positions. It is true that one Englishman 
 can perform the work of two native clerks, but he 
 gets usually the pay that would go to three. There 
 are more Frenchmen, Syrians, and Italians em- 
 ployed by the Egyptian government than English, 
 probably. Most foreigners in the Egyptian service 
 are lavishly paid, wholly from the Egyptian ex- 
 chequer. The salary of an " adviser " is about ten 
 thousand dollars a year, and under-secretaries re- 
 ceive seventy-five hundred dollars. 
 
 Seventeen or eighteen years is a considerable 
 lapse of time anywhere ; in the East, where people 
 mature at an early age, it represents a generation. 
 Those who were children in the year of the bom- 
 bardment are now in the prime of their lives, and 
 England has had ample time to fit them for fair 
 administrative work; yet she has done so only 
 in small measure. 
 
 Uninfluenced by political motive, the schools 
 of the American Presbyterian Mission have done 
 tenfold more for the cause of education and the 
 spread of the English language in Egypt than has 
 Great Britain. These schools, upward of a hun- 
 dred in number, are distributed throughout the 
 country, and are yearly elevating thousands of 
 youths to a better condition, teaching them in par- 
 ticular the value of order and system. At Cairo, 
 Alexandria, Mansurah, Luxor, and many other 
 places, these schools for years have done a noble 
 work, and thousands of Egyptians of both sexes 
 owe their well-being to the unselfish devotion of 
 
 326
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 the men and women teachers of the American 
 Mission. The college of the Mission at Assiut, long 
 presided over by the Rev. Dr. Alexander, is a model 
 institution whose standard of education has few 
 rivals in the Turkish dominions. 
 
 Since England has done but little to develop a 
 class that may in time take the positions now filled 
 by her own countrymen, Anglophobe critics point 
 to this as confirmatory evidence of the insincerity 
 of the statement that England ever intends the 
 Egyptians to take the helm of state. 
 
 A flagrant error of British administration, until 
 two years ago, was the omission to introduce the 
 English language. Egypt is a polyglot country, 
 and the incorporation of English as an official 
 language might with propriety have followed 
 the introduction of the present system of affairs. 
 French, consequently, remains the only European 
 language known to any extent by the educated na- 
 tives ; and where there is one Egyptian who knows 
 English, forty who read and write French can be 
 found. Only one of the khedive's ministers knows a 
 word of English, yet all six are proficient in French. 
 
 The official language of the government has been 
 French for many years. Official publications and 
 correspondence are in French. It is the European 
 language of the railways and postal department. 
 Postage-stamps, railway-tickets, and telegraph 
 forms, actually printed in England, express their 
 values and conditions in French and Arabic. Eng- 
 lish employees in governmental bureaus write offi- 
 cially to one another in French, frequently to the 
 
 327
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 confusion of the ideas intended to be expressed. 
 An entire department, having charge of museums 
 and the conservation of antiquities, employing 
 thousands of natives, is exclusively French in ad- 
 ministration, although supported in great measure 
 by English-speaking visitors. So long as the Euro- 
 pean language of the Egyptian official remains 
 French, his mode of thought and action will be 
 French also. 
 
 In Cairo and Alexandria as many as ten newspa- 
 pers are printed in the French language, purveying 
 opinion bitterly hostile to the occupation. One of 
 these, published at the capital, printed daily for 
 years in display-type a list of Great Britain's bro- 
 ken pledges in connection with the occupation, quot- 
 ing from Blue Books and like documents such 
 extracts as appeared to prove its case. Only one 
 English journal is published, and that is forced to 
 print its news and editorials in French as well as 
 English to secure remunerative circulation. 
 -^ All the journals printed in French are antago- 
 nistic to British rule, and being regarded by thou- 
 sands as oracles, their influence is far-reaching. 
 From their columns European opinion favorable to 
 the anti-English cause is translated into Arabic by 
 native journalists, who read French and know not 
 a word of English, and finds currency in the native 
 papers penetrating every village. Public measures 
 are acrimoniously reviewed and made to appear to 
 the native reader as added evils, and any reform 
 introduced by England can have its merits so dis- 
 torted as to be always regarded by the common 
 
 328
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 people as absurd or tyrannical. This is a conspicu- 
 ous reason why England's work in Egypt has never 
 been popular with the masses. 
 
 Two years ago two hundred and fifty-six stu- 
 dents from governmental schools presented them- 
 selves in Cairo for examination, prior to receiving 
 diplomas. Each had to undergo examination in a 
 European language, chosen with a view to equip- 
 ping himself for a career of usefulness. Although 
 the British had long dominated their country, and 
 with every indication that they would never retire, 
 only fifty-five of these students had acquired Eng- 
 lish ; all the others, seventy-eight per cent, of the 
 whole, had learned French. Paraded far and wide 
 by French opponents of English influence, the 
 preponderance of students learning French was 
 brought home to those guiding British policy in 
 Egypt, and attention was immediately directed to 
 promoting the study of English in governmental 
 schools. The Egyptian father being not slow to 
 catch an idea that concerns his welfare, the desire 
 to learn English suddenly became almost epidemic 
 with native lads. That they were encouraged in 
 this is proved by the fact that a few months ago 
 the percentage of pupils in governmental schools 
 studying English was sixty-seven, against thirty- 
 three learning French. 
 
 From the time of Mehemet Ali the traditions and 
 sympathies of the people of Egypt have been essen- 
 tially French, and it has long been the policy of the 
 French government to encourage Egyptian youths 
 to enter their educational establishments ; the mat- 
 
 329
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ter of compensation has ever been a nominal con- 
 sideration. 
 
 English has never been made an official language 
 of the international courts of Egypt, yet advocates 
 therein can plead in Italian, French, and Arabic the 
 principles of the Code Napoleon. Steps are now 
 being taken, however, to have English placed on 
 the list of official languages for pleadings, with 
 every prospect of securing the assent of a majority 
 of the governments interested in the courts. The 
 United States will, obviously, assist the movement. 
 A beginning has been made within a few months 
 by the admission of legal documents in English, 
 and by the appointment of several registrars who 
 understand English. Still England cannot hope to 
 rival France in legal matters in Egypt for many 
 years to come, for every young Egyptian aspiring 
 to the profession of law qualifies therefor at the 
 Cairo School of Law, maintained by the French 
 government, and takes his degree in France. 
 
 All these conditions, by which France has been 
 hourly in evidence, to the almost total effacement 
 of England, have contributed to the bewilderment 
 of the minds of the natives. British trade follows 
 the British flag, but British opinion never follows 
 the French language, surely. 
 
 The administrative blunder of the English in not 
 bringing in their language with the beginning of 
 their intelligent reforms is half responsible for the 
 unpopularity of the occupation, whose benefits 
 would surely be obliterated and forgotten six 
 months after the departure of the last British 
 
 330
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 functionary. This is one of the best reasons given 
 by Englishmen why the occupation should not be 
 terminated, and any member of the so-called anti- 
 English party in Egypt, if asked for his opinion, 
 would assert that the omission to introduce the 
 English language into his country was a triumph 
 of statecraft, and not a blunder thereof. " Having 
 no intention of going, the Britishers want an ex- 
 cuse, even a lame one, for remaining ; and the in- 
 fluence of the Anglophobe press, which they 
 purposely refrain from counteracting, creates one," 
 this critic would say. Travelers have long known 
 that it was a part of Britain's policy in India to 
 allow native discontent to vent itself through the 
 local press. It relieves the Indian grumbler, and 
 does not hurt the English official. 
 
 Is Egypt capable of self-government ? 
 
 The candor prompting one, after long and dis- 
 interested study of Egyptian matters in the country 
 itself, to say that England has performed her self- 
 appointed task better than any other nation could 
 have performed it, likewise compels one to state 
 frankly that Egypt is not capable of complete self- 
 government at the present time, for she has no class 
 of officials trained in the higher ranges of adminis- 
 trative work. No other nation should ever be per- 
 mitted to supplant England as administrator or 
 " occupier," certainly. 
 
 The khedive, in my opinion, is sufficiently earnest 
 and competent to guide an enlightened policy for 
 carrying on the affairs of his country without 
 any European intervention. He would have at his 
 
 333
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 command a group of progressive men like Ti- 
 grane, Boutros, Mustapha Fehmy, Fakhry, Maz- 
 loum, Cherif, and Yakoub Artin, each qualified to 
 render excellent service as an independent minister. 
 As in times prior to the coming of the English, the 
 khedival government could employ expert or tech- 
 nical assistants of any nationality it chose. Ameri- 
 can military officers, before England's assumption 
 of power, gave Egypt as good an army as it ever 
 had. British and other irrigationists and engineers 
 having services to sell should be as willing to labor 
 for Egypt as a self-governing administration as 
 they are under a regime upheld by British soldiers. 
 In this way perhaps the prerogatives of the khedive 
 might be restored, and the " running shriek of de- 
 nunciation " of the army of occupation be silenced. 
 Egypt might, and might not, prosper under these 
 changed conditions. But there is little likelihood 
 of her being permitted to try the experiment, what- 
 ever her right, and " Egypt for the Egyptians " must 
 remain, in all probability, a sentimental illusion. 
 The khedive has the undoubted right to govern his 
 country, subject only to his imperial sovereign at 
 Constantinople, at least until it is demonstrated 
 that he is incapable. It is no reckless hazard, 
 however, to predict that a dozen years hence all 
 that portion of the Nile valley from the Mediter- 
 ranean to Khartum and farther south will be rep- 
 resented in school-books as a pendant from Britain's 
 red girdle of the globe. How it is to be accom- 
 plished, legally and morally, is a matter regarding 
 which I can record no conjecture. In time some- 
 
 334
 
 Britain's Position in Egypt 
 
 thing may " turn up " helpful to the legal aspect of 
 England's position in Egypt. 
 
 To get rid of the present anomalous position, a 
 great many people in the British Isles and else- 
 where would be glad if diplomatic fictions could be 
 brushed away, and the whole of the territory tribu- 
 tary to the Nile openly declared to be a portion of 
 Queen Victoria's empire. But at present the British 
 government thinks it wiser to make sure of the sub- 
 stance than to pay attention to shadowy phrases. 
 British withdrawal would be an act of justice to 
 sultan and khedive, but would serve no other 
 legitimate interest. To annex Egypt, as France 
 did Madagascar, would probably stir up animosities 
 resulting in war. 
 
 The masterly victory of Turkish troops in the 
 Greek war was a blow to Englishmen and others 
 who believed the disintegration of the Ottoman em- 
 pire to be near at hand. They had already ex- 
 perienced a set-back when the Armenian disorders 
 failed to shake the Sultan's throne, and the result 
 of the Greco-Turkish war caused a painful awaken- 
 ing as to the true state of the health of the " Sick 
 Man of Europe." A break-up of the Sultan's empire 
 may come in time, and Egypt fall to England, and 
 Syria to France, in the general parceling out of 
 Turkish possessions. But the " Sick Man " keeps 
 such watchful attention on the Bosporus that the 
 scramble for Ottoman territory may be postponed 
 for many a long year. 
 
 335
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WINTERING IN EGYPT FOR HEALTH'S SAKE 
 
 IN consequence of the warm and chemically pure 
 atmosphere, Cairo and Upper Egypt offer an 
 ideal climate for persons suffering from consump- 
 tion, anemia, asthma, and rheumatism, as well as 
 for those convalescing from illnesses. The climate 
 is dry and tonic throughout the year, and during 
 the season when travelers are there— from Novem- 
 ber to the end of March — these characteristics are 
 more observable than in summer. Violent varia- 
 tions of temperature are unknown, and sunshine 
 prevails even to monotony. It may truthfully be 
 said that the Nile valley is as bountiful in rest and 
 recreation to the invalid as in matchless sights to 
 the tourist. That the natural conditions will suit 
 all health-seekers would be a statement too com- 
 prehensive for a lay writer to venture. But the 
 ailments that would be benefited by a winter passed 
 rationally on the banks of the Nile greatly out- 
 number those that would not. The word " miasma " 
 has no place in the vocabulary of Cairo or Upper 
 Egypt. 
 
 The annual rainfall in Cairo is scarcely more than 
 an inch and a half. This means, perhaps, but three
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 or four rainy days during a winter. At Mena 
 House and Helouan the rainfall is generally less 
 than in the capital, while at Luxor and Assuan a 
 shower is regarded by the natives as a wonder of 
 nature. Alexandria and other places on the Medi- 
 terranean do not share the general immunity of 
 the rest of the country from storms. Cairo's mean 
 temperature for November, December, January, 
 and February is about 62° F., as compared with 63° 
 at Orotava, 61° at Madeira, and 49° at Nice and 
 Mentone. Egypt is the winterland par excellence. 
 
 On the coldest days in Cairo the thermometer 
 never falls below 34°, and this degree of frigidity 
 occurs only at long intervals. Some Cairenes re- 
 call a slight snowfall a half-century ago, and a thin 
 film of ice on pools in the suburbs may be seen sev- 
 eral times in the average winter. This is caused 
 by the desert influence on the early morning air, 
 and is of short duration after sunrise. The cool 
 nights of winter give the air much of its stimulat- 
 ing property; and in summer, however hot the 
 days, the nights are nearly always made comfor- 
 table by cooling breezes from the desert. 
 
 The Egyptian year has but two seasons, summer 
 and winter. The period of warm weather lasts eight 
 or nine months, while winter is confined practically 
 to the months of December, January, and Febru- 
 ary. It is only in July, August, and September that 
 the heat is intense ; the rest of the year is climati- 
 cally agreeable. When the Nile is high, in the 
 autumn, there is at times sufficient humidity to 
 cause some discomfort, especially when the humid- 
 
 337
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 ity is combined ■with a run of abnormally warm 
 weatber. The period of comparatively cold weather, 
 six weeks at most, commences early in January. 
 From April until the end of June the increase of 
 heat is gradual, the maximum being reached usu- 
 ally by July 1; but in some years the highest 
 temperature is not recorded until August or Sep- 
 tember. The so-called khamsin period sets in by 
 the middle of February, with its parching desert 
 winds, freighted with impalpable particles of sand 
 that cannot be excluded by door or window. Wher- 
 ever air has access, there the khamsin leaves its 
 layer of dust. The word " khamsin " is Arabic for 
 " fifty," and the belief is that this is the number of 
 days prior to the summer solstice when the scorch- 
 ing winds are liable to occur. A khamsin generally 
 lasts two days, but a season seldom sees more than 
 eight or ten days of these sand-storms. It is no- 
 thing to be dreaded, beyond making it desirable to 
 remain indoors during its prevalence. Sufferers 
 from certain forms of asthma even profess to enjoy 
 a khamsin day. 
 
 ■^'It is difficult to believe that the country's in- 
 creased canalization and the added area of vege- 
 tation are contributing to a diminution of the 
 frequency and force of the khamsin, when one real- 
 izes the overwhelming expanse of desert in which 
 these winds have uninterrupted play. Like the 
 severity of New England winters, the force of the 
 khamsin in the Nile valley has manifestly been mod- 
 ified in recent years. Those who wrote of Egypt a 
 hundred or even fifty years ago emphasized their 
 
 338
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 descriptions of the horrors of this hot wind. If the 
 contemporary development of Egypt is in any way 
 affecting the blowing of the khamsin, as many 
 claim, then the British are responsible for a benefit 
 heretofore overlooked by their championing press. 
 Alexandrian boatmen, a few years ago, in enumer- 
 ating their reasons for not favoring the English 
 occupation of their country, would claim that fish- 
 ing had become impossible in certain parts of the 
 harbor. " The fish no longer bite since the British 
 came," they would say. This serious charge, if 
 challenged, would lead to the explanation that the 
 debris gathered after the bombardment of 1882, in- 
 cluding hundreds of tons of mortar and plaster, 
 was dumped into the sea at points where naviga- 
 tion would not be impeded, and that the lime 
 drove the fish away, never to return. This is a 
 fact. 
 
 If it is believed that Cairo presents too many se- 
 ductive dissipations for the health-seeker, Mena 
 House, at the foot of the Pyramids, has much to 
 offer to those needing rest with nerve-toning sur- 
 roundings, and especially those having weak lungs. 
 The neighborhood itself possesses enough to keep 
 the mind profitably employed for weeks ; for tow- 
 ering over Mena House are the Pyramids of Gizeh 
 — in fact, the hotel is built with material removed 
 from titanic Cheops, though it is scarcely missed 
 from the king of pyramids. Close by is the Sphinx, 
 as mysterious to the present-day person pursuing 
 a rest-cure as it was to Napoleon on the occasion 
 of his midnight invocation, or to Herodotus, or the
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 great Rameses, or Menes himself, nerve-resting in 
 its inscrutability. 
 
 The excursion to Sakkarah and Memphis is more 
 easily made from Mena than from Cairo, and the 
 choice of conveyances ranges from camels to broad- 
 wheeled "sand-carts." To the west of Mena is 
 desert, stretching far and wide for thousands of 
 miles, to Tripoli, Algeria, and Morocco, terminating 
 only when the Atlantic Ocean is reached. To the 
 east is the Nile valley, and Cairo ten miles away. 
 Polo and shooting are every-day diversions. More 
 interesting still is the ever-present opportunity to 
 study the human species, from the lordly Bedouin 
 sheik to the highly developed product of latter-day 
 civilization in Europe, who, maybe, has success- 
 fully "tooled" a four-in-hand coach all the way 
 from Shepheard's, over a faultless road, to the Mena 
 piazza. Of the two, judged physically, the brown 
 son of the desert is the finer and better-visaged. 
 " Happily possessed of a golfing-ground and a mar- 
 ble swimming-bath, as well as a resident chaplain 
 for the piously inclined, and a * dark room ' for the 
 ubiquitous photographer, what more," asks cynical 
 Marie Corelli in her Egyptian novel " Ziska," quot- 
 ing from the Mena House advertisement, " can the 
 aspiring soul of the modern tourist desire ? " 
 
 It surely is a far cry from invalidism to chicken 
 incubators; but persons who have lolled away a 
 winter at Mena can hardly expect to be invalids 
 when February or March comes. By that time 
 daily jaunts have taken the place of physicians' 
 prescriptions. To these I can recommend nothing 
 
 342
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 more interestiDg than a visit to an "incubatory" 
 in any one of the native villages in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Pyramids. It will be found that the 
 incubatory is constructed of sun-dried bricks, and 
 so arranged internally that the eggs, placed in 
 mud-constructed ovens on trays cushioned with cut 
 straw, are constantly under the attendant's view. 
 No scientific apparatus is employed by this man, 
 not even a thermometer. He knows from expe- 
 rience and his own feeling how much heat- is 
 needed, and he systematically turns the eggs sev- 
 eral times each day until they are developed into 
 peeping chicks. These hatching establishments 
 exist throughout Middle and Upper Egypt, and in 
 a season bring fully twenty million chickens into 
 the world, that grow up to be scrawny, unattrac- 
 tive fowls. The industry is thousands of years old, 
 and seems conclusively to settle the question of a 
 chicken's maternity by allocating that parentage 
 to the hen laying the egg. The incubator is a 
 foster-mother only, and is responsible for stifling 
 the "setting" instinct with Egyptian hens. The 
 keepers of the incubatories have a system of traffic 
 with peasant farmers by which eggs are purchased 
 outright, or six live chicks given in exchange for 
 a dozen fresh eggs. 
 
 Villa life, with quietude and health-giving air, is 
 offered at Matarieh, six or eight miles to the east- 
 ward of Cairo. Uninteresting itself, the village is 
 surrounded by points of historical association in 
 sufficient number to keep the attention of sojourn- 
 ers occupied for a few weeks at least. The plain 
 
 343
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 of Heliopolis, the Virgin's tree, and the locale of 
 Kleber's victory over the Turkish legion, present 
 possibilities of great scope to the reader of history. 
 The ostrich-farm close by, and the neighboring 
 khedival estate of Koubbeh, are objects of inter- 
 est, as well. Matarieh has much to commend it to 
 sufferers from incipient consumption and bronchial 
 disorders. 
 
 Singly or in combination, the springs and un- 
 adulterated air of Helouan are believed by hosts of 
 people to offer a complete cure for rheumatism and 
 neuralgia. To the imagination of some folks, the 
 odor of the j)lace is of a suggestive character, for, 
 set in the middle of the desert, where sulphur- 
 springs abound, the air smells strongly of brim- 
 stone whichever way the wind blows. But this 
 effect soon passes off, and to the neuralgic patient in 
 particular, after a little time, the place appears a 
 heaven. Helouan is a gem of a town set in a 
 golden circle of sand, with a grand view of the river, 
 and palm forests bounded by more desert and a 
 number of pyramids in front of you ; and behind, 
 the everlasting Mokattam Hills, that run from Cairo 
 hundreds of miles southward, with a branch range 
 extending to the Red Sea. To the left is the 
 desert again, with a view of the pencil-proportioned 
 minarets of the Mehemet Ali mosque in Cairo, 
 fields of intensely verdant green, and beyond, the 
 great silent form of the Cheops j^yramid keep- 
 ing watch over all. At Helouan are comfortable 
 hotels, first-rate bath establishments with capable 
 physicians in attendance, plenty of little white 
 
 344
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 houses— many of them of bungalow design— in 
 their little gardens, the whole enveloped in the 
 driest, most exhilarating air you can dream of. 
 The Eomans, clever fellows as they were, knew the 
 importance of Helouan, and built there grand 
 houses and bathing-places, remains of which the 
 visitor to-day may gaze upon. Did they have neu- 
 ralgia or rheumatism ! Not for long, surely. The 
 hills around Helouan contain many caverns to be 
 explored, many sepnlchers to be discovered ; there 
 are glorious walks — even the rheumatic can walk 
 here— for those who like exercise, and shady gi'oves 
 of sweet- smelling acacia, verbena, and every flower 
 that grows " in and out of season as the seasons 
 go." For those who prefer rest, a good story-book, 
 or a color-box and sketching-materials, are in 
 order. And all this is little more than a half- 
 hour's journey from the Egyptian metropolis! 
 The medicinal advantages of Helouan, perhaps as 
 potent as those of Aix-les-Bains, are known far 
 afield, in England, France, Germany, and even in 
 Russia. 
 
 A district that should be better known to the 
 seeker for health whose invalidism is not too pro- 
 nounced is the Fayum, accessible from Cairo in 
 two or three hours by slow railway-train. It has 
 more natural beauty than any other place in Egypt, 
 and is not inappropriately called the "rose-gar- 
 den." If one would combine the pleasure of the 
 artist with the quest of health, and be not too 
 exacting in the matter of hotel comforts, I know of 
 no place so fascinating and fruitful of subjects for 
 
 347
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the sketch-book or camera as El Medineh, the 
 capital town of the Fayum oasis. The journey 
 from Cairo takes the traveler through the heart of 
 the pyi'amid region, on the west bank of the Nile, 
 affording opportunity for observing at close range 
 nearly every pyramid of renown in the ancient 
 necropolis. I am here tempted to incorporate a 
 gem of a poem by Professor Clinton Scollard, that 
 sings the praises of the Fayum in graceful but 
 unexaggerated language. 
 
 THE ROSE OP FAYUM 
 
 Could I pluck from the gardens of old 
 The fairest of flowers to behold, 
 And fashion a wreath for the shrine 
 Of the Muses,— the deathless divine,— 
 A garland I 'd weave from the bloom 
 Of the redolent rose of Fayum. 
 
 Still the hills with their sun-smitten crest 
 Tower barren and bold to the west, 
 Stdl slumbers the Lake of the Horns 
 'Neath the glory of luminous morns ; 
 Still is attared the glow and the gloom 
 By the redolent rose of Fayum. 
 
 Arsinoe's temples are prone. 
 And scarce is there stone above stone 
 Of the palace whose grandeur and girth 
 Was one of the wonders of earth ; 
 But in triumph o'er time and the tomb 
 Springs the redolent rose of Fayum. 
 
 348
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 The rose of to-day is a shoot, 
 Like the song of a glorious root. 
 Side by side, till the ages shall close, 
 Go the love of the lute and the rose ; 
 And my song I enlink with the bloom 
 Of the redolent rose of Fayum. 
 
 As health-stations, Luxor and Assuan, in Upper 
 Egypt, have every recommendation, and are more 
 and more appreciated each season by rheumatic 
 and consumptive persons, and by healthy people in 
 want of mental rest and physical recreation. To 
 these an entire winter passed in either Luxor or 
 Assuan, or divided between the two places, may- 
 lead to the return of mental energy and bodily 
 health and vigor. These up-river places have the 
 purest and driest air to be found in Egypt, being 
 many degrees warmer than Cairo ; and fast steam- 
 ers and all-rail connection with the capital being 
 provided, they have sprung into a popularity not 
 to be wondered at. Their visitors keep better 
 hours, dance less frequently in overcrowded rooms, 
 and take more rational exercise, than do fashion- 
 able sojourners in Cairo. And besides, the daily 
 ride on donkey-back, necessary in making excur- 
 sions to view objects of intei'est, has a more bene- 
 ficial effect upon inactive livers than any amount 
 of driving in a Cairo victoria. 
 
 Rain is rare in Upper Egypt, and the oldest in- 
 habitant has no recollection of frost. There are no 
 newspapers to disturb one's equanimity, no quo- 
 tations of the stock exchange; yet the telegraph 
 
 349
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 brings Luxor and Assuan into intimate touch with 
 the world. Luxor has good hotels, a small hospi- 
 tal, and competent medical men. The Luxor Hotel 
 is good enough to satisfy any reasonable person ; its 
 gardens include hundreds of varieties of tropical 
 plants and trees. If time presses, the journey to 
 Cairo, four hundred and fifty miles, may be made 
 by train in a day, but not with the comfort to be 
 found on the steamers. In archaeological attrac- 
 tions Luxor is without a peer. Karnak is admit- 
 tedly unapproachable in grandeur and antiquarian 
 interestj^and the plain of Thebes rich with storied 
 jruins/An excursion to the Tombs of the Kings, 
 where the royal mummies rested for thousands of 
 years previous to their transfer to Der el-Bahari, 
 repays one for taxing strength and energy. From 
 the moment of mounting your donkey on the Nile 
 strand to the final dismount on the return, diminu- 
 tive Egyptians, not overclad, keep pace with the 
 animal throughout the day, demanding bakshish 
 with smiling faces at every step— and it is a long 
 and tortuous journey to the Tombs of the Kings. 
 However resolute one may be not to give, and al- 
 though your command to " inishif " has been sternly 
 repeated a thousand times, you generally relent at 
 the last moment, as the youngsters know you will, 
 and shower your milliemes and half -piasters among 
 the descendants of Mizraim. There is something 
 consoling and stimulating to robust sightseer as 
 well as to semi-invalid in this exercise of benevo- 
 lence. 
 From Luxor to Assuan is a short one hundred
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 and thirty-five miles, yet the journey seemingly 
 takes one into the heart of Africa. Assuan is the 
 frontier of Egypt proper, the first cataract of the 
 Nile bein^ nature's indicated boundary, south of 
 which is the limitless domain of Nubia and the 
 Sudan — Egypt's territorial extension, so to speak. 
 Assuan has many of the characteristics of frontier 
 towns in other countries. One sees there the mili- 
 tary side of the governmental administration, and 
 discovers that martial rather than civil law is in 
 force. The temperature is a few degrees higher 
 than at Luxor, abbreviating the season of sojourn 
 by a week or two, many travelers there meeting 
 the tropical sun and moving northward with it. 
 The roomy Assuan Hotel has culinary possibilities 
 and material comforts in sufficient number to make 
 one forget that its location almost borders on the 
 tropic of Cancer. Lacking the unique antiquarian 
 value of Luxor, perhaps, Assuan in these days pro- 
 vides many compensating attractions. It is a cen- 
 ter where strange-looking desert people congregate, 
 whose dress and customs admit of no suspicion of 
 being assumed for spectacular effect. Among 
 members of the tribe of Bischarins may be seen boys 
 and girls who would make the sculptor long to re- 
 produce their classical features and graceful poses. 
 If the trip to the island of Elephantine be disap- 
 pointing, the excursion to Philse is wholly satisfy- 
 ing, for there exists nothing more beautiful in the 
 domain of ancient art. But the army of dam-build- 
 ers, engaged in a work meaning much for the 
 country's progress, is destined so to alter nature at
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the cataract that Philse's charm must necessarily 
 be impaired. The bazaar in Assuan is essentially 
 African in character, and a mine of entertainment. 
 If not an out-and-out invalid, one is certain to 
 go several times to Phil^e. I should urge the visitor 
 to make at least one trip by donkey-back. In this 
 way one can take in the quarries from which the 
 ancient kings drew the colossal obelisks and stones 
 for their stupendous structures. Great humps of 
 rich red granite crop up through the tawny sand, 
 and here and there are plain traces of the methods 
 employed by these marvelous builders in work- 
 ing and moving their blocks of material. A huge, 
 nearly completed obelisk, as large as the one in 
 New York or that in London, lies in situ as it 
 was hewn from the solid rock, from which it has 
 never been quite separated ; it still bears the inci- 
 sions for fastening the ropes and pulleys by which 
 it would have been dragged to the river, half a 
 mile away. Its contour is perfectly outlined by 
 rows of oblong holes for the insertion of blocks of 
 soft wood, which would have been expanded by the 
 application of water, breaking the monolith from 
 the ledge with as much certainty as it could be 
 accomplished to-day by explosives. The ancient 
 stone-workers understood the simple secrets of 
 natural forces, certainly. On the way back from 
 Philae, if coming by boat, a dozen other places may 
 be seen where vast pieces of granite have been 
 broken out of ledge or boulder by the primitive trick 
 of wetting confined blocks of porous wood. It is 
 good for the moderate invalid to study the curious
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 things about Assuan, and in the matter of the 
 haK- finished obelisk one will speculate why the 
 work was stopped, whether there was a change in 
 the dynasty, or if an appropriation gave out ; and 
 it will do no harm, when studying the cartouches 
 chiseled on the boulders along the river-bank, for 
 the mind to endeavor to determine whether they 
 are autographs or were cut by command of kings 
 desirous of leaving an indelible impress of their 
 reigns. 
 
 Loiterers about Assuan must not be disappointed 
 when told that the crocodile is no longer to be 
 found within the tourist limits of the Nile. It will 
 be but another illusion shattered, like the popular 
 behef that the tailless Manx cats may be seen in 
 the Isle of Man, or gray Maltese cats in Malta. 
 Outside of a few princely gardens at Cairo not a 
 stalk of the papyrus plant can be found nearer 
 Egypt in these days than at Syi'acuse in Sicily; 
 and more and better examples of the Egyptian lotus 
 may be seen in August in the public fountain of 
 Union Square in New York than a winter's search 
 in Egypt will reveal. 
 
 The evening songs of the Assuan boatmen are 
 soothing to jaded nerves, and the invalid who can- 
 not find peace and benefit at this delightful up- 
 river station can hardly expect to regain health in 
 Egypt. 
 
 The health-seeker who desires to linger beyond 
 the usual time for quitting Egypt in the spring or 
 early summer may find comfort and stimulating 
 sea-breezes at Ramleh, the Mediterranean suburb 
 
 355
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 of Alexandria; but dry air must not, of course, 
 be looked for there. It is, nevertheless, a de- 
 servedly popular resort, with superb sea-bathing, 
 and a temperature ten or fifteen degrees cooler than 
 Cairo. 
 
 I must caution my readers that my enthusiastic 
 statements on the subject of the climatic charms of 
 Egypt must not be accepted to mean that its mar- 
 velous air and peaceful environment combine to 
 offer a panacea for all ailments, or that Egypt is 
 a country in which reasonable precautions against 
 colds, chills, and other illnesses are not necessary. 
 There are forms of illness and debility that cannot 
 be benefited by a Nile sojourn, I am assured by med- 
 ical men long experienced in Egypt. They are few, 
 it is true, but included in the list are advanced heart- 
 disease; advanced organic disease of any organ, 
 excepting cases of chronic and extensive lung-con- 
 solidation, tubercular or otherwise, which are often 
 reheved ; locomotor ataxia, the lightning pains of 
 which seem to be increased by the electrical con- 
 ditions incident to the atmosphere of the desert; 
 many forms of skin-disease ; insomnia, except when 
 arising from worry or excessive brain-work ; forms 
 of neurosis, liable to be irritated by the brilliant 
 sunshine; hypochondria with melancholy ten- 
 dency; convalescence from acute diseases, where 
 vigorous exercise is essential for recuperation. For 
 these a colder climate is better. 
 
 An eminent authority. Dr. Hermann "Weber, has 
 prepared the following list of cases that should be 
 cured or relieved by a winter visit to Egypt : " All
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 forms of chest-disease where rest is desirable— for 
 such cases the climate acts as a charm ; all forms of 
 incipient phthisis, where the constitutional disorder 
 preceding the disease is marked, and especially 
 where the patients have still plenty of energy left, 
 and are fond of riding in moderation, and of a quiet 
 life ; chronic bronchitis, where the expectoration is 
 more or less abundant, and persons with a gouty ten- 
 dency ; asthma, especially those cases complicated 
 with bronchitis ; gout ; heart-disease, if uncompli- 
 cated with dropsy ; all forms of anemia and chloro- 
 sis ; renal diseases and sufferers from gi'avel ; con- 
 valescents from acute diseases, such as influenza, 
 pleurisy, etc., and in the quiescent forms of chronic 
 affection of the lungs, trachea, or bronchi, especially 
 old-standing pneumonic conditions following influ- 
 enza ; atonic forms of dyspepsia ; chronic rheuma- 
 tism and the milder cases of rheumatoid arthritis ; 
 chorea, deteriorated health, and general break-up 
 of the system, following overwork, especially in 
 men between fifty and sixty years of age, with 
 gouty tendencies associated with arterial degen- 
 eration." 
 
 " To persons who are either healthy or merely in 
 want of mental rest and recreation or of healthful 
 occupation— for instance, persons who are socially 
 or mentally overworked, or who have sustained 
 shocks or disappointments, or who have been ex- 
 posed to one of the thousand forms of more or less 
 prolonged worry, or who are without profession 
 and occupation, and lack either the power or the 
 inclination to procure a healthy substitute for them 
 
 357
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 —in such persons a winter spent in Egypt may lead 
 to the return of mental energy and bodily health 
 and vigor," remarks the same authority. 
 
 It is the duty of any writer on the subject of 
 Egypt as a resort for health-seekers to caution 
 those reading from an interested standpoint, that 
 one may contract a cold there perhaps as easily 
 as elsewhere. The winds of the Nile valley, the 
 marked difference between sun and shade tempera- 
 ture, and the excessive chill coming with sunset, 
 are certain to seize the unwary person feeling that 
 his presence in North Africa gives exemption 
 from such mishaps. A Nile cold has potentialities 
 of seriousness, and cannot be annulled by power of 
 will. On the contrary, an Egyptian cold is stub- 
 bornly difficult to be got rid of. 
 
 No climate is without its disadvantages as well 
 as advantages, and it is important that a seeker for 
 mental rest and physical benefit should be as cog- 
 nizant of the former as of the latter. Change of 
 climate, intelligently planned, frequently helps an 
 ailment when other forms of treatment have failed ; 
 and in cases where it may have caused amelioration 
 merely, it may by repeated trials eventually effect 
 a lasting cure. Immediate recovery is no more cer- 
 tain to be effected by a change of air and scene 
 than by other remedial agents. Maladies of a con- 
 stitutional character, such as Egypt is believed to 
 cure, may not even be relieved in a single season, 
 while a second visit may eradicate them for all time. 
 Expert medical opinion is worth securing before 
 setting out for the Nile country, and should be f re- 
 
 358
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 quently sought while in that heaven-favored land. 
 A well-known British physician, Dr. James Clarke, 
 writing on the subject of climates in their health- 
 giving aspect, wisely says : " The air, or climate, is 
 often regarded by patients as possessing some spe- 
 cific quality by virtue of which it directly cures the 
 disease. This erroneous view of the matter not un- 
 f requently proves the bane of the invalid, by leading 
 him, in the fullness of his confidence in climate, 
 to neglect other circumstances, an attention to 
 which may be more essential to his recovery than 
 that in which all his hopes are centered." And 
 again : " If a patient would reap the full measure of 
 good which his new position places within his reach, 
 he must trust more to his own conduct than to the 
 simple influence of any climate, however genial; 
 he must avail himself of all the advantages which 
 the climate possesses, and eschew those disadvan- 
 tages from which no climate or situation is exempt ; 
 moreover, he must exercise both resolution and 
 patience in prosecuting all this to a successful 
 issue." 
 
 As a rule, robust as well as delicate visitors leave 
 Egypt too early in the spring, thereby undoing in 
 many instances the benefits of their sojourn by 
 encountering the cold weather of Europe. The 1st 
 of March sees a stampede to get away, and every 
 steamer goes crowded to its limit; the up-Nile 
 contingent is seized with a common impulse to get 
 to Rome or Venice or Paris for Easter Sunday, and 
 rushes pell-mell through Cairo to Alexandria or 
 the canal to take ship for the Continent, perhaps 
 
 359
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 to find gales and cold storms that effectually undo 
 the physical improvement resulting from the season 
 passed in Egypt, Instead of hurrying away as 
 the first khamsin blows, it is better to remain in 
 Cairo or Alexandria until the end of April. These 
 cities are replete with out- of- season comfort, and 
 no danger lurks in the honest warm weather. 
 March is delightful, and if the midday sun of April 
 is avoided, there is no discomfort worthy of con- 
 sideration. Strangely enough, the ever-present 
 mosquito is less annoying in spring and early sum- 
 mer than in winter. 
 
 As temperaments vary, so differ the ways of see- 
 ing the Nile, even of reaching Luxor and Assuan. 
 The trip is in no case inexpensive, unless made by 
 rail ; and in a country possessing so many unri- 
 valed interests, no one wishes to travel by railway 
 except in case of necessity. Up to comparatively 
 recent years the voyager to Upper Egypt made 
 the journey only at great expense of time and 
 money. It meant months on a dahabiyeh, generally 
 chartered for an entire season. Nothing more 
 agreeable can ever be devised ; but there are stages 
 and conditions of invalidism where it is undesirable 
 to take the risk of being several days between towns, 
 unless the invalid be accompanied by a physician. 
 Steam, under these circumstances, with its definite 
 schedule, is safer. The large tourist- steamers carry 
 medical officers, experienced and efficient, and com- 
 bine every convenience and comfort of a floating 
 home. Stopping at fewer places, and having no 
 program of excursions to points of interest far re- 
 
 360
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 moved from the river-banks, as offered by the 
 tourist-boats, the post-steamers are quicker and 
 much less expensive. In either case, the traveler 
 is seldom out of telegraphic touch with the world 
 for more than a few hours at a time. 
 
 Sanitary skill has liberated Egypt from the list 
 of eastern countries where epidemics may rage un- 
 controlled, and there is no more important item 
 of benefit through British intervention than the 
 introduction of measures which quickly suppress 
 or limit outbreaks of cholera and fevers. A visi- 
 tation of cholera a generation ago ran riot for many 
 months and decimated the population of Egyptian 
 cities and towns. Dreadful as it must ever be, 
 cholera nowadays is so promptly and intelligently 
 dealt with that well-conditioned people run little 
 risk of contracting the malady. The last serious 
 appearance of this disease in 1896, although re- 
 quiring months to exterminate, was so skilfully 
 handled that the mortality was kept at an un- 
 heard-of low figure ; and had it not been for the 
 sensational chroniclings of the press of Europe but 
 few persons dwelling in the European quarters of 
 Cairo and Alexandria would have suffered anxiety. 
 Travelers on the Nile were no more in danger than 
 if making a tour of the fiords of Norway. The in- 
 ternational quarantine board in Egypt keeps a 
 vigilant watch of Asiatic epidemics, and apprehends 
 the spread of a virulent disease usually long before 
 it has reached Suez in its western progress. Were 
 it not for the timely work of the international 
 bor;rd, whose labors were augmented by those of
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 the Egyptian sanitary service— a thoroughly or- 
 ganized department of the national administra- 
 tion—the Nile country would probably not have 
 escaped the recent scourge of bubonic plague 
 originating in Bombay. The presence of a few 
 isolated cases in Alexandria, disquieting as the 
 despatches were, in no way imperiled the coun- 
 try. The time has passed when an ordinary out- 
 break of cholera or plague can menace winter 
 visitors to Egypt— though the proprietors of Con- 
 tinental winter-resorts are never angry when 
 Continental newspapers announce the appearance 
 of an infectious disease in Egypt. 
 
 A good dragoman contributes much to one's 
 comfort and enjoyment. Persons spending the 
 season in or near Cairo, or making the usual tour 
 of the Nile, have no need of a special dragoman. 
 Nearly every steamer provides well-informed 
 guides. For sight-seeing in towns, or brief excur-' 
 sions, one may be taken for the day — and hotels 
 swarm with them. A good dragoman is a blessing 
 undisguised ; but one in whom you lack confidence 
 is an unmitigated misfortune. Interpreter-guides 
 proffer their services at steamship landing, railway- 
 station, and even in the street. Most of them are 
 plausible and insinuating, but a display of firmness 
 will protect the visitor from imposition. They are 
 cunning students of human nature, but easily kept 
 in place. It is wise to engage a dragoman recom- 
 mended by an acquaintance who has tested him, or 
 one guaranteed by a reputable agency. Most of 
 the professional guides are capable, painstaking, 
 
 364
 
 In Egypt for Health's Sake 
 
 and honest; but a well-defined written contract 
 aids greatly in keeping them exact in disbursements 
 and duties, and the average man of this calling 
 greatly values money given him as "bakshish." 
 For a dahabiyeh voyage a dragoman-contractor 
 is almost indispensable. With the wane of the 
 Egyptian season, dragomans endeavor to secure 
 parties going to Palestine or Mount Sinai, and 
 have this object in mind while serving winter 
 patrons. 
 
 It has become almost a truism that " T. Cook & 
 Son own the Nile." They were the pioneers of 
 systematic navigation on the great river, and for 
 twenty years have conducted their affairs in such 
 a businesslike manner that competition, if exist- 
 ing at all, has been weak and ineffective. Prac- 
 tically every steamer and modern dahabiyeh on the 
 Nile is owned by the firm of Cook, which has a 
 seemingly perennial contract with the government 
 for carrying the mails. This chapter would be in- 
 complete, in dealing with the vitally important sub- 
 ject of the Nile as a resort for health- seekers, if 
 mention of the facilities offered by the fleet of Cook 
 steamers and dahabiyehs were omitted. In Egypt, 
 Cook is unique. 
 
 Continuing in the desire to make this chapter 
 valuable to the inquirer for information, I must 
 explain how easily the voyage from New York to 
 Egypt may in these times be made. The route 
 best suited to those willing to sacrifice a few days' 
 time for the sake of comfort in traveling is by the 
 direct service of North German Lloyd steamers to 
 
 365
 
 Present-Day Egypt 
 
 Naples or Genoa, changing at one of these ports to 
 a steamer of the same line, that will land passen- 
 gers at Port Said or Ismailia, whichever canal 
 station offers a favorable train to Cairo. If there 
 be no German Lloyd boat sailing from Genoa or 
 Naples at a convenient time, there are several other 
 first-class lines starting from or touching at these 
 ports, and one should find an available steamer 
 without much trouble or delay. In this way the 
 voyage from New York to Egypt is made with the 
 maximum of comfort in from sixteen to twenty 
 days. Every winter offers occasional excursions 
 by the North German Lloyd, Hamburg- American, 
 and French lines from New York to Alexandria di- 
 rect ; and as travel to Egypt grows, which it does 
 by leaps and bounds, the facilities for getting there 
 are sure to increase. A regular direct service be- 
 tween New York and Alexandria, during the win- 
 ter months at least, is almost certain to be soon 
 established. 
 
 The robust traveler bound for the land of the 
 Pyramids can disembark from his Atlantic liner in 
 England or France, as the case may be, catch a quick 
 train to Marseilles, Brindisi, Genoa, Naples, Ven- 
 ice, or Triest, and be in Alexandria or Port Said in 
 a few days' less time than if he went by the all-sea 
 route. If he is willing to travel post-haste, he may 
 be in Cairo in fourteen days after leaving New 
 York, or possibly in thirteen. 
 
 " He who has once tasted the water of the Nile," 
 says an Arab proverb, " longs for it inexpressibly 
 forevermore." 
 
 366
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbas Hilmi, khedive, l, 272; crit- 
 icism of, iu England, 273; student 
 days, 274, 277 ; lingual capacity, 278 ; 
 civil list, 279 ; description of, 283 ; 
 habits, 284 ; heir of, 289. 
 
 Abbas I, viceroy, 220. 
 
 Abukir Bay, 92, 05, 292. 
 
 Agi-iculture, value of cotton crop, 133 ; 
 cane-culture developed by Assuau 
 reservoir, 147 ; fertilized by deposit 
 of soil from Abyssinia, 164; facility 
 of, in Delta, 170; primitive cultiva- 
 tion, 170; division of crops, 183. 
 
 ■*'Aida," original production of, 22, 
 236. 
 
 Alexander, forethought of, iu found- 
 ing Alexandi-ia, 80. 
 
 Alexandria, autiquity of, 78 ; custom- 
 house, 79, 102 ; medley of pojiula- 
 tion, 79; ancient Pharos, 80; as seat 
 of learning aud great library, 83; 
 Mehemet All's interest in, 85 ; city 
 and harbor of present day, 86, 87 ; 
 shipments of cotton from, 90 ; mas- 
 sacre of Christians, 90; railway to 
 Eamleh, 95; Greeks at, 96; port re- 
 ceipts, 133; bombardment of, 260, 
 263. 
 
 American judges in international 
 courts, 116. 
 
 American Presbyterian Mission, edu- 
 cational work of, 326. 
 
 Anglo-Egyptian expedition, 53, 300. 
 
 Anniversaries, 14. 
 
 Arabi Pasha, rebellion, 186; lacking 
 in attributes of leadership, 257 ; de- 
 mand for dismissal of Riaz ministry, 
 258; as minister of war, 259; crush- 
 ing of rebellion, 260, 263, 264 ; in ex- 
 ile, 269 ; ti-ial, sentence, and banish- 
 ment, 312. 
 
 Area of practical Egypt, 119. 
 
 Assiut, constructioo of barrage at, 
 146 ; cane-culture near, 183. 
 
 Assuan, great dam at, 145 ; reservoir 
 greatly to increase country's pro- 
 ducing capacity, 148; dam to be 
 completed in 1903, 151 ; laying foun- 
 dation-stone of dam by Duke of 
 Connaught, 151 ; cost of dam, 153 ; 
 as health-station, 349-352. 
 
 Bakshish, 41, 350, 365. 
 
 Barrage, near Cairo, 146 ; designed by 
 French, made practicable by Brit- 
 ish, 172. 
 
 Bazaars, of Cairo, 41-43; of Assuau, 
 352. 
 
 Bedouins, 5, 292, 342. 
 
 Bible, scenes thereof, 6. 
 
 British army of occupation, cost of, 
 55, 186. 
 
 Cairo, founding of, 1 ; quaint life, 2 ; 
 letter-writers, 7; street scenes, 8, 
 12, 21 ; polyglot, 13 ; confusing cal- 
 e7idar8, 14; sacred carpet ceremo- 
 nial, 16; funerals, 20; adornment 
 with statues, 34 ; tram-cars, 36 ; ba- 
 zaars, 41, 42 ; Mouski, 45 ; mosques, 
 47 ; El-Azhar University, 59 ; Suez 
 Canal fetes in, 209; climate and 
 rainfall, 338. 
 
 Canals, Mahraudiyeh, 165 ; early proj- 
 ects for canal from NUe to 8uez, 
 187 ; prediction of trouble there- 
 from, 187. 
 
 Capitulations, 105 ; origin of, 106-110. 
 
 Census, difficulty of taking, 116 ; of 
 1«97, 123. 
 
 Ceremonials, sacred carpet, 16 ; cut- 
 ting of Khalig, 69. 
 
 Cigarettes, their manufacture, 75. 
 
 Cleopatra, 96 ; pure Greek, 97, 98 ; va- 
 riety of portraits, 98 ; death by asp- 
 bite improbable, 101. 
 
 Climate, 336, 356, 358, 359. 
 
 Consular courts, 106. 
 
 369
 
 Index 
 
 Oomer, Viscount, able administra- 
 tor, 140 ; de facto ruler, 143, 320, 325. 
 
 Dancing-girls, 30. 
 
 Debt, national bonded, 125 ; per cap- 
 ita, 178. 
 
 De Leeseps, Ferdinand, 184; concee- 
 eion for Suez Canal, 192 ; movement 
 to give name to canal, 209 ; monu- 
 ment to, 210. 
 
 Divorce, simplicity of, 27. 
 
 Dongola and Berber, to become im- 
 portant producers of breadstuffs, 
 182. 
 
 Dongola expedition, 308. 
 
 Dragomans, 364, 365. 
 
 Egypt, involved administration, 104 ; 
 limited area, 119; origin of name, 
 120; from insolvency to prosperity, 
 120; population, 120, 123, 124; im- 
 provement of financial position, 125 ; 
 debt, 125, 320; debt compared with 
 otber countries, 126; imports and 
 exports, and Alexandria port re- 
 ceipts, 133 ; budget and tribute to 
 Sultan, 133; sources of revenue, 
 134 ; land-tax, 134, 137 ; value of 
 land, 139; producing capacity in- 
 creased by Asstian dam, 148; no 
 benefit from Suez Canal. 184; cost 
 of canal to, 207 ; reversion of canal 
 to, 216 ; governed from London, 298; 
 short cut to English honors, 319; 
 present prosperity, 319, 320; sell- 
 government, 333, 334. 
 
 Egyptian cotton, origin, 89; prolific- 
 ness, 138 ; Delta a great cotton-field, 
 181 ; advantages of fellah cultiva- 
 tor, 181 ; necessity in United States 
 and Europe, 182 ; predicted increase 
 of, 182; importance to Great Brit- 
 ain, 316. 
 
 Egyptian question, 298. 
 
 Egyptian Museum, 5, 66, 236 ; new, 69. 
 
 "Evil eye," superstitious fear of, 33. 
 
 Fayum, 347 ; Rose of (poem), 348. 
 
 France, in Suez Canal affair, 201; 
 emperor arbitrates, 201-204 ; witli- 
 drawal from dual financial control, 
 300 ; non-participation in bombard- 
 ment of Alexandria, 303 ; invited to 
 share responsibility of same, 304; in 
 Tunis, 314 ; French as official lan- 
 guage, 327; journals in French lan- 
 guage, 328. 
 
 Great Britain, saving Egypt from 
 bankruptcy, 127 ; work of regener- 
 ating Egypt, 127 ; territorial expan- 
 sion, 147 ; treatment of Khedive Ab- 
 bas, 272, 273; right to be in Egypt, 
 298 ; retention of Egypt not at first 
 intended, 311; official utterances 
 I'egarding intervention in Egypt, 
 311, 312; advantage of control in 
 Egypt, 315, 316 ; not prepared Egyp- 
 tians for self-government, 322 ; sub- 
 jects in administrative offices, 325, 
 326 ; introducing English language, 
 328, 329; anomalous position in 
 Egypt, 335. 
 
 Harem, ceasing to exist, 28; descrip- 
 tion of, 28. 
 
 Hashish, 101 ; how smuggled, 102, 103. 
 
 Health, 33G, 341, 344 ; cases not bene- 
 fited by sojourn in Egypt, 356 ; cases 
 
 , benefited, 357 ; Nile colds, 358. 
 
 Heliopolis, 48, 344. 
 
 Helouau, 344 ; baths of, 347. 
 
 Howling dervishes, 28. 
 
 Ibrahim Pasha, viceroy, 2l9. 
 
 Incubatories, chicken, 343. 
 
 International courts, 105 ; originated 
 by Nubar Pasha, ill ; procedure 
 and jurisdiction, 112 ; location, lis ; 
 languages of, 330. 
 
 International Debt Commission, 105 ; 
 cost of and limitation of powers, 
 132. 
 
 International quarantine board, 363. 
 
 Irrigation, reservoir near Assuan, 
 145; triumph of science, 147; har- 
 nessing Nile to increase country's 
 production twenty-five per cent., 
 148; contrasting methods of, 165, 
 166; imi)ortance of present, 177. 
 
 Ismail Pasha, khedive, beautifying 
 Cairo, 35; entailed rulership, 117; 
 no rule for collecting taxes, 134, 184 ; 
 interest in Suez Canal project, 185 ; 
 sale of canal shares to British gov- 
 ernment, 186; firman from Sublime 
 Porte ordering succession by pri- 
 mogenitiu-e, 199, 200; errors of, 218; 
 education in France, 220; disap- 
 pearance of the " Moufettish," 224 5 
 generosity, 226; surrender of es- 
 tates, 229; leaves Egypt, 230; at 
 Naples, 231 ; at Constantinople, 231; 
 character, 235 ; debts incurred, 236 ; 
 death, 238 ; funeral, 241-243. 
 
 370
 
 Index 
 
 Karnak, 350. 
 
 Khamsin, 338, 341. 
 
 Khedivab, 286. 
 
 KUedivah-mfere, 289. 
 
 Kitchener, General Lord, sirdar, S3, 
 54, 55, 319. 
 
 Koran, 24; as text-book, 63; forbid- 
 ding liquors and wines, 103. 
 
 Lake MareotiH, sea admitted to, 91. 
 Lake Menzaleh, 193. 
 Luxor, 349, 350. 
 
 Marriage, description of, 15; growth 
 of monogamy, 24. 
 
 Matarieh, 343. 
 
 Mecca, pilgrimage to, 19. 
 
 Mehemet Ali, prince, brother of Khe- 
 dive Abbas, 277, 280, 289. 
 
 Mehemet Ali Pasha, founder of dy- 
 nasty, 1 ; revels at Shubra Palace 
 75 ; interest in Alexandria, 85 ; con- 
 nected Alexandria with NUe, 85; 
 revolutionized irrigation, 170; inter- 
 est in isthmian canalization, 191. 
 
 Mena House, 39, 337, 342. 
 
 Mohammed Abdoul-Mounaim, prince, 
 heir to khedivate, 289. 
 
 Mortality, diminution of death-rate, 
 124. 
 
 Mosques, 47. 
 
 Mouski, 45, 46. 
 
 Napoleon I, suggested barrage for 
 irrigating Delta, 171 ; considered 
 canalization between Mediterra- 
 nean and Suez, 188. 
 
 Napoleon III, amazing award of, iii 
 Suez Canal dispute, 203. 
 
 Nile, travel to, 128; sugar-cane of, 
 147; alluvial valley of, 148; length, 
 breadth, and fall of, 165 ; sustained 
 by rainfall of equatorial region, 
 166 ; unchangeable features of, 169 ; 
 waste of water and deposit, 171; 
 monopolization by Great Britain, 
 304 ; high, 337 ; how to see, 360 ; Arab 
 proverb of, 366. 
 
 Nubar Pasha, originator of inter- 
 national courts. 111 ; difficulty with 
 French newspaper, 118, 223, 224. 
 
 Obelisks, none in Cairo or Alexandria, 
 
 48, 91 ; in situ at Assuan, 352. 
 OfHce-holding, 131. 
 Ophthalmia, 33. 
 
 Palaces, Gizeh, 69; Shubra, 71, 72; 
 Montazah, 95, 292; Ras-el-Teen, 95, 
 
 292 ; Ghizereh, 225; Abdln, 246 ; state 
 ball at Abdin, 296; Koubbeh, 251, 
 
 268. 
 PhUse, site of Nile dam, 154 ; protests 
 
 against desecration of, 157 ; date of 
 
 temples, 160. 
 Pilgrimage to Mecca, 19. 
 Polygamy, 24. 
 
 Population, 120, 123 ; density of, 124. 
 Port Said, entrance to canal (note), 
 
 209 ; statue to De Lesseps, 210. 
 Professional letter-writei's, 7. 
 Professional mourners, 20. 
 
 Railways, electric, in Cairo, 36; to 
 Pyramids, 36; from Alexandria to 
 Ramleh, 95 ; receipts and operating 
 expenses of state, 128 : in the Sudan, 
 128 ; international aspect of, 132 ; 
 from Cairo to Suez, 191 ; from Luxor 
 and Assuan to Cairo, 349. 
 
 Rainfall, 336, 337. 
 
 Ramadan, 14. 
 
 Rameses the Great, 5, 69. 
 
 Ramleh, 92, 355. 
 
 Religion, devotion to, 23; sects of 
 Mohammedan, 01 ; classification of, 
 124. 
 
 Rosetta Stone, 66. 
 
 Russia, interest in Egypt, 305 ; Asiatic 
 aspirations, 306; ways of reaching 
 East, 306; desire to avoid British 
 opposition, 307. 
 
 Sacred carpet, 16. 
 
 Said Pasha, viceroy, giving of Suez 
 Canal concession, 185, 192 ; subscrip- 
 tion to canal's capital, 185, 196. 
 
 Sakkarah, 342. 
 
 Seasons, 337, 338. 
 
 Slavery, not obligatory, 28 ; " slave " 
 palace attendants, 2S0. 
 
 Soldiers, 52 ; efficiency of, 54 ; British 
 army of occupation, 55 ; at Khalig 
 ceremonial, 70 ; cost of army, 134. 
 
 Sphinx, 341. 
 
 Sudan, reconq'uest of, 305, 308, 316 ; in- 
 come from, 308. 
 
 Suez Canal, 103, 184; concession for, 
 192, 193 ; cost to Egypt, 207 ; value to 
 commerce, 211 ; nationality of ships 
 using, 212 ; economy of, 215 ; capital 
 and profit, 216 ; reversion to Egypt, 
 216 ; advantages of. 306. 
 
 Sultan, EgjT)tian tribute to, 104 ; de- 
 poses Ismail, 245 ; makes Tewflk 
 khedive, 245 ; annexation of Egypt 
 
 371
 
 Index 
 
 uiyust to, 300; declined to send 
 troops to Alexandria, 314; disinte- 
 gration of empire of, 335. 
 
 Taxation, 134 ; land-tax, 137. 
 
 Temperature, 337. 
 
 Tewflk Pasha, bhedive, favored single 
 marriage, 24; improved method of 
 collecting land-taxes, 134, 229; 
 named khedive by Sultan, 245; hirth, 
 248 ; diflaculties in rule of, 253 ; want- 
 ing in firmness, 264 ; in cholera- 
 infested Cairo, 265 ; pleaded for com- 
 mutation of Arabi's sentence, 269; 
 Admiral Seymour's communication 
 to, 311. 
 
 Thebes, plain of, 350. 
 
 Tobacco, cultivation forbidden, 75. 
 Tombs of Kings, 350. 
 
 United States, use of Egyptian cotton 
 in, 182 ; use of Suez Canal by ships 
 of, 212, 215, 217 ; utterance of Con- 
 gress regarding intervention in 
 Cuba, 314; Egypt, how reached 
 from, 366. 
 
 University of El-Azhar, oldest in 
 world, 59 ; description of, 60-^5. 
 
 Whitehouse, Cope, project for storage 
 reservoir near the Fayum, 177. 
 
 Women, aversion to European cus- 
 toms, 23; impi'oving condition, 27; 
 graceful water-carriers, 56, 251 ; at- 
 tendants in khedive's household, 290. 
 
 372 
 
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