A Confederate Soldier in Egypt E-Book

William Wing Loring

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 697

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

General Loring was one of many Confederate officers who after the close of the War of the Rebellion offered their services to foreign rulers. A number of these officers took their way to Egypt, and the author of this book was one of the most successful ot them all. He was made Pasha by the Khedive, and he rendered that ruler honorable and efficient service. It was natural that Loring Pasha should have been led to give his Egyptian experiences durable shape, and his book gives a clear and agreeably written account of the country. Such a writer has much more authority than the mere traveler. General Loring lived long in the country, and in intimate relations with persons at the centre of affairs; being withal a man of thought and intelligence he could not, with his opportunities, fail to acquire and retain impressions and facts of interest and value.

Leseprobe

A Confederate Soldier in Egypt

WILLIAM WING LORING

A Confederate Soldier in Egypt, W. Wing Loring

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849649708

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

Availability: Publicly available via the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA) through the following Creative Commons attribution license: "You are free: to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work; to make derivative works; to make commercial use of the work. Under the following conditions: By Attribution. You must give the original author credit. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above." (Status: unknown)

Cover Design: Based on an artwork By http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/5f/54/16acb3fb576e2a52d88913ca88db.jpgGallery: http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0040697.html, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36640231

CONTENTS:

PREFACE.1

PART I. EGYPT.2

CHAPTER I. ALEXANDRIA.2

CHAPTER II. ROSETTA.12

CHAPTER III. MEHEMET ALI.18

CHAPTER IV. ABBAS AND SAÏD PACHAS.27

CHAPTER V. TANTA.32

CHAPTER VI. THE FELLAH AND HIS MASTER.39

CHAPTER VII. ISMAIL PACHA.47

CHAPTER VIII. CAIRO.52

CHAPTER IX. MARRIAGE.68

CHAPTER X. THE HAREM.74

CHAPTER XI. MAHOMET AND HIS RELIGION.82

CHAPTER XII. THE NILE LANDS AND THEIR CULTIVATION.90

CHAPTER XIII. THEBES.97

CHAPTER XIV. THE OVERTHROW OF ISMAIL.107

CHAPTER XV. MAHMOUD TEWFIK PACHA.119

CHAPTER XVI. ACHMET ARABI PACHA.126

CHAPTER XVII. A JOURNEY TO MOUNT SINAI.136

CHAPTER XVIII. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN.144

CHAPTER XIX. THE SUEZ CANAL.157

CHAPTER XX. THE CLIMATE OF EGYPT.162

CHAPTER XXI. THE FUTURE OF EGYPT.165

PART II. MILITARY EXPERIENCES IN ABYSSINIA.. 188

CHAPTER I. THE KHEDIVE'S ANXIETY FOR AFRICAN CONQUEST.188

CHAPTER II. ABYSSINIA— ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS.200

CHAPTER III. HABITS AND CUSTOMS IN ABYSSINIA.208

CHAPTER IV. START OF THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION FOR ABYSSINIA.216

CHAPTER V. PREPARING FOR THE CAMPAIGN.223

CHAPTER VI. SOMETHING ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION AND PERSONNEL OF THE EGYPTIAN ARMY AND THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION.230

CHAPTER VII. THE MARCH INTO THE INTERIOR.240

CHAPTER VIII. INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES OF OUR PROGRESS.246

CHAPTER IX. THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.257

CHAPTER X. THE BATTLE OF GURA.264

CHAPTER XI. THE CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN.278

CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION.287

PREFACE.

THE author's purpose has not been to write a history of Egypt, but to trace to their probable causes the events which have for the last decade made Egypt so conspicuous a thread in the tangled skein of Old World politics.

An acquaintance of more than a quarter of a century with Eastern lands and peoples, and ten years passed in high command in Egypt itself, with unlimited opportunities for study and observation in every direction, may perhaps justify the writer in hoping that the results here presented may not be unwelcome to the general reader.

He has endeavored to give in succinct outline such features of Egypt's history, political, religious, and social, as was deemed necessary to a complete understanding of the drama now being enacted on her soil. He has dealt in some detail with her last six rulers, more particularly with Ismail Pacha, the ex-Khedive, to his thinking the only man who thoroughly understood the wants of his country, or who had any adequate idea of how to engraft upon the customs and habits of a people accustomed for ages to despotism in its most absolute form such features of modern civilization as would gradually open the way to a regeneration of the land.

Another interesting figure has appeared lately in Egypt in the person of El Mahdi, a new prophet, who has suddenly caused wonderful excitement both as a military and political leader. Destined to play an important though brief part in the future of Egypt, something has been said of his antecedents and recent exploits, together with the traditional pretensions under the authority of which he assumes the rôle of prophet.

The selfish, cruel policy of the two Western powers, France and England, but more particularly of the latter, has been outlined, to the best of the author's ability, with impartial truth.

To these main features of the work are added brief accounts of recent explorations, and the reasons for penetrating the Dark Continent, as well as the influences which operated upon Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty, and Ismail Pacha, the greatest of his successors, in undertaking to extend the area of their empire. As a part of this policy, encroachments were made upon the frontier of Abyssinia. War followed these ambitious designs, and in its train came further financial and political embarrassments to Egypt.

It is therefore proper that there should be given an account of the Abyssinians and the campaign into their country; and as the author was a participant, he has thought it essential to relate somewhat in detail accounts of battles and the terrible tragedies which followed.

NEW YORK, April, 1884.

PART I. EGYPT.

CHAPTER I. ALEXANDRIA.

The mysterious past of Egypt—The Nile in the religious symbolism of the country—The colossal ruins and strange political mutations of Egypt— The traveller's first impressions—Mariette Bey and the Boulac Museum —Recent changes in Egyptian character—Alexandria and its surroundings —An Egyptian funeral—The ruin wrought by English policy in the past and present—How Christian England is completing the evil work of Mahometan misrule.

THE first impression of every traveller who lands in Egypt is that the country is strangely unlike any other in the world; and he who tarries long, making Egypt his home for years, as the present writer did, finds that impression strengthened with every day's increased knowledge. No other country has a history so ancient or so remarkable. Thousands of years before any other nation had civilized existence, Egypt was the scene of great events, the records of which have come down to us in stone. Babylon and Nineveh, Greece and Rome, copied their religion and borrowed their science and their learning from this ancient and mysterious land. Here was the primeval repository of learning and civilization. From this source all other ancient peoples drew the inspiration of advancement and gathered strength for great achievements. There is reason to believe that the very earliest civilization that mankind knew had its centre in the rich valley of the Nile.

That great river, deified by the early Egyptians in sheer wonder at its fertilizing power, cleaves in its course five thousand miles of desert. Without its miracle-working alluvium, the valley lands which are now a garden of marvellous fruitfulness would speedily become an arid waste. The bounty of the Nile lands is the wonder of every traveller; and this fruitfulness is guarded by the Mokattum and Libyan hills as by nature's sentries. On those hills the desert winds are broken, and the valley is thus preserved from the choking drift of sand which would otherwise cover its fair surface, converting it—in spite of the inundations— into a desolate plain.

To the primitive Egyptians water was the obvious source of life, the necessary agent of the earth's fruitfulness; the Nile was their benefactor and the chief of their divinities. Their conception of it gave to the great river a human form, in which the characteristics of both sexes were combined. To make it still more typical of observed facts, they covered this figure with the leaves of various plants in the form of a great rainbow. The office of this Nile numca was to make offerings to the great gods of Egypt, in the name and behalf of the Pharaohs. Before this Nile god were set four vases containing the sacred water, each separated from its fellows by a sceptre. By every fact of life and every device of symbolism the people were taught reverence for the Nile, and it taxed their imaginations very little to invest the river with so holy a character that a person drowned in its waters was held to be sacred. The corpse, in such a case, could be touched and embalmed only by the priests at the expense of the temple specially dedicated to the god of the Nile.

Standing on the main heights of the Libyan and Mokattum hills and surveying the seemingly boundless desert through which the Nile courses, the spectator is impressed with the awful grandeur and solitude of the scene. In contemplating, too, the great ruins beneath these hills which fringe the silver thread of the river from the Pyramids to Isamboul, the mind is still more awed by the stupendous structures which the genius of man has raised there. The wealth of the Nile waters and the aridity of the deserts bordering the stream gave rise to the beautiful fable of the ancients that Osiris—that was the river, the greatest of all the Egyptian gods—had for his spouse the sweet and lovely Isis, who represented the fruitful Earth. The desert they embodied in Nepthis, another interesting divinity, whom they made the sterile spouse of Typhon, the god of rain. They held, further, that Nepthis could only be made beneficent through the power of Osiris.

Amrou, the Mussulman conqueror of Egypt, in a letter written twelve hundred years ago to Omar the Khalif, well described the extraordinary changes wrought by the inundations: “To the most abundant harvest succeeds sudden sterility. It is thus that Egypt offers successively, O Prince of the Faithful, the image of an arid and sandy desert, of a liquid and silvered plain, of a marsh covered with black and thick soil, of a green and undulating prairie, of a parterre ornamented with flowers the most varied, and of a vast field covered with a golden harvest. Blessed be the name of the Creator of so many marvels!”

More than twenty years since, after visiting the different kingdoms of Europe and while in the interior of Russia, where intercourse between the people of Asia and Europe is constant, the writer became specially interested in the peculiar habits, customs, and dress of the Eastern nations. He then determined, before returning home, to visit Constantinople, Damascus, and, Cairo, where the Oriental can be seen and studied better perhaps than in any of the other great capitals of the East. The interest engendered more than twenty years ago has been more recently deepened and intensified by a long official residence in Egypt; and the experience thus gained may, it is hoped, interest the reader.

The traveller landing in Alexandria looks on a city of which Ampère graphically says: “It was founded by Alexander, defended by Cæsar, and taken by Napoleon.” Embellished by Ptolemy, it became the most famous city of its day; but, suffered to fall into decay under Christian and Mussulman rule, it is only in these latter days that it has again arisen from its dejection under the inspiration of Mehemet Ali and his successors, but more especially under his grandson, Ismail Pacha.

The last twenty years had done wonders for Alexandria, until recent Christian diplomacy laid the fairest portions of the city in black and unsightly ruins. Entering the port, formerly an open roadstead, a beautiful revolving light, on the site of the ancient Pharos, guides the seafarer into one of the finest harbors in the Levant. To Ismail Pacha the country is indebted for this surprising change. He it was who constructed the grand and costly breakwater which incloses numerous solidly built quays. The harbor is filled with shipping which anchors in perfect safety, thanks to the energy of the late Khedive. At the landing the familiar Oriental scenes are encountered. That very questionable product of modern civilization, the tide waiter, is here. The guttural tones of the Arab, intent on his piastre, drowns all other noises, and the traveller is but too glad to get under the patronizing protection of his dragoman, a nondescript and objectionable but necessary person, who pushes him into a carriage.

Though amused with his first impressions of the picturesque Oriental scene, the traveller, unaccustomed to the din of a people unlike any he has ever encountered before, is delighted to get away from the noise and turmoil. He congratulates himself on this, his first visit to Egypt, on having made his way safely through the greatest confusion of tongues and the most dissonant screeching and yelling with which his ear has ever been assailed. Proceeding further his amusement increases as he passes through the narrow Arab streets lined with small shops, and his joy is complete when he finds himself quietly seated at his fine European hotel, where he can breathe freely and leisurely retemper his nerves for another essay among these people.

It does not take him long to gain a realizing sense of the fact that he is in the East, in the midst of a race totally different from his own in customs, color, dress, and religion. Having fought his first battle and won it by a masterly retreat, he finds his new acquaintances harmless and amiable, extremely anxious to serve him, always provided the piastre is at once forthcoming. This understood, he sallies forth with renewed energy to new scenes and encounters, and is greatly delighted that the fates have guided him to this distant land. Next he is astonished at the broad, well-paved streets of the new city, with its colossal statue of Mehemet Ali in the grand square, and its stone buildings which would beautify any European city. There is one nuisance which meets him at every turn— namely, the traditional beggar, whose cry for backsheesh is agonizing and whose deformity—which the Arab petitioner thinks a blessing—is painfully obtruded upon attention. Soon, however, one learns the magic Arab expression “Rue al Allah” (“Go to the Lord”), which acts like a charm and sends the beggar flying as though the Khedive himself were after him with uplifted kourbash.

It is difficult to convey an idea of the impressions made upon one by early experiences in this strange land. One is haunted by a persistent but indefinable sense of the greatness of the race that inhabited it ages ago, whose works on every hand attest their prodigious energy, industry, and skill.

As painters differ in the chosen subjects of their art—one being enamored of the human face or form, another of beauty in landscape—so the visitors to such a land as Egypt differ in the choice of objects upon which to bestow their attention. Human kind in the present, the evidences of what was done by human kind in the remote past, the phenomena of nature, the monuments of art—all these and other subjects of interest are there, and each visitor is affected by one or another of them according to his mood.

I have seen one in love with nature absorbed in the peculiarities of a desert flower, or forgetful of all else in contemplation of a nest of ants in the very shadow of the Pyramids. In a land so rich in interest of every kind, no one mind can hope to grasp all or do justice to all. Each must see as it is given him to see, and each must submit to his limitations In recording the observations made during a long and intimate acquaintance with Oriental and especially with Egyptian life, therefore, I ask the reader's indulgence not only for the infelicities of a hand better used to the sword than the pen, but also for any apparent slighting of matters in which the individual reader may feel special interest. Seeing with but one pair of eyes and led by but one set of sympathies, the writer can scarcely hope that his observations have always taken precisely the direction which each reader could wish.

Most noteworthy are the changes wrought in Egypt during the last ten years, and they are all in favor of the traveller and the student. Ismail turned modern science to account in working improvements almost as wonderful as those wrought in fable by Eastern magic. He beautified the villages and made the cities wonders of splendor and magnificence. He brought the ruins that lie scattered for hundreds of miles along the Nile within easy accessibility by dahabeeyah and steamer, making the journey even to the remotest of them easy and speedy. He stayed the hand of prying chippers and mutilators and relichunters, and instituted scientific excavation and investigation in the stead of mere idle curiosity. In his devotion to this purpose and his zeal for knowledge, the late Khedive appointed as sole conservator of the ruins of Egypt, Mariette Bey, a man of world-wide reputation as a scientific and single-minded archaeologist. Under his care the Museum at Boulac, near Cairo, has been filled with objects of the rarest interest, selected and arranged with such care and skill that the intelligent student may there read the records of the human race, on stone and papyrus, almost from the earliest dawn of history. But of the museum and of Mariette Bey's work we shall have occasion to write more fully hereafter.

Among the changes wrought by Ismail's policy, not the least interesting is the improvement in the character of the fellah. In his former estate he submitted to kicks and cuffs without a whimper, accepting ill-treatment as his due. Long ages of oppression had effectually crushed the manhood out of him. The change in this respect has been great. The Arabs have begun to feel their manhood and to assert themselves in various ways—mostly noisy, as the traveller is reminded every day. They do not talk, they scream. Seeing a pair of them in apparent altercation, swinging their arms, seeming to threaten each other with immediate destruction, yelling, screaming, with distorted faces and snapping eyes, the bystander fancies their fury to be such that nothing but blood can appease their wrath. Upon inquiry he finds that all this is a harmless harangue preliminary to a bargain. Among themselves all these Eastern people are given to loud talking. Of late they have gone so far as to assert their rights by boxing-matches with Europeans, when refused the piastre agreed upon, where before they were ready to take a kicking as a settlement in full of all claims.

Other changes of a less pleasing character have been made in Egypt, however, by one of which our own country has profited in a questionable way. In former times the so-called Cleopatra's Needle was the first object of interest to the traveller landing at Alexandria; but now the land that knew it for three thousand years will know the great obelisk no more. It seems a sad desecration to have removed from the land where it had significance to a park where it has none, a shaft written of by Herodotus, which had looked down upon the achievements of Alexander, Cassar, and the great modern captain, Napoleon. One of England's poets bitterly rebuked his countrymen for plundering Greece of her marbles in gratification of a selfish vanity; and now even America “violates a saddened shrine,” and bears to her shores one of Egypt's altars.

Pompey's Pillar, the only monument now left standing to link Alexandria with the past, was not named after the great warrior, but after a Prefect of Alexandria, who erected it by order of the people in honor of Diocletian's clemency. The destruction of Alexandria had been ordered, but the Emperor's horse stumbled on a hill, and, anxious to save the city, he seized upon this omen as an excuse. This magnificent monument of red granite, one hundred feet high, was erected on this sole commanding eminence in or near the city.

Alexander, who conquered all the country east of the Mediterranean Sea, turned to account the advantages of the bay, where stood the ancient fishing-village of Racotis. He conceived the idea of a new and splendid city at the mouths of the mud-choked Nile, to be the great mart between the Greek mainland and archipelago and the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs. This was to be the crowning of his plan of a great Greek empire. The legend runs that in 323 B.C. the oracle of Ammon-Ra informed the Macedonian madman that he was the son of the gods, and that in the future, as in the past, he would be invincible. Enchanted, he returned from his visit to the shrine determined to build a great city on this site and to give it his own name. It will be recollected that there is another legend of a venerable old man appearing to the Macedonian in a dream and repeating the lines of Homer (Od. w. 545):

“One of the islands lies in the far-foaming waves of the sea, Opposite Egypt's river, and its name is Pharos.”

There is but little left of the past grandeur of the mighty city, only here and there the fragment of a column deeply imbedded in the earth; while the modern city, with its stately structures and teeming population, covers the ground where stood the temples, palaces, and museums of the Ptolemies and Cæsars. Not being a city of the earlier Pharaohs, Alexandria has scarcely anything within its borders to remind you of the ancient people. A few stones among its débris tell you in hieroglyphics that they came from the Delta of the Nile to aid in the construction of the museums and seats of learning of a later day. The imagination readily carries one back to the days of the city's splendor described by the earlier writers, and sees the bold Origen mingling with the Egyptian priests and distributing palms near the gates of the temple of Serapis to Pagan and Christian while exclaiming, “Receive them not in the name of the gods, but of the one and only true God”; the myrmidons of Julian dragging the Christians to the altar and immolating them for refusing to worship the god Serapis; and then again the Christians under Theodosius breaking the mosaic doors, overturning and destroying beautiful objects of art because they were called idols. The temple, with its hundred steps, was a noble specimen of Greek art. It was destroyed in the year 389 A.D. by Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, in a frenzy of religious fanaticism. The god to whom the temple was dedicated was an invention of the Greek Ptolemies. In this god the wrangling Greek and Egyptian priests had a divinity at whose shrine they could forget their quarrels in a common worship. Serapis was a compound of the Pluto of the Greeks and the Osiris of the Egyptians, and as both of those personages were inhabitants of the infernal regions, the religious zeal of the wranglers was satisfied.

A picturesque structure built by Mehemet Ali, though devoid of much architectural beauty, stands on a small island once surrounded by the sea but now a part of the mainland. It is called the Ras el Tin (Head of the Fig), because of its resemblance to that fruit. Part of it was destroyed by English cannon shot in the recent war. It is the first object observed on entering the harbor, and stands upon the island of Pharos, the same upon which stood the ancient lighthouse of that name.

There is another palace west of the city known as Gabara, beautifully situated on a neck of land between the sea and Lake Mareotis, which commands a fine view. It is picturesque because of its massive rotunda, domes, and marble mosaic terraces. Erected for the summer palace of Saïd Pacha, the former Viceroy, its large rooms and galleries were expensively decorated, and its façade was of wonderful beauty. The surroundings were embellished with fountains and gardens, and planted with rare flowers, exotics, and fruit trees. This prodigal man covered several acres of ground in front of this palace with an iron pavement, in order that he might escape the dust on his elevated terrace while watching the drill of his favorite Nubians. It was here, when in command of Alexandria, that for a long time I had my headquarters.

This palace to the south-west of Alexandria was the ancient site of the Necropolis of the Ptolemies. They, like the ancient Egyptians, embalmed their dead. Time and modern improvements have swept away from this interesting locality the last vestige of the past, and the Arab has not the slightest idea of its former use. I recollect one night conversing on the subject with an intelligent Arab, who had never before heard that this was the resting-place of countless dead. Just then an owl on one of the huge acacias near by gave an ominous screech, and my companion trembled with fear while his dilated eyes expressed great agony of spirit. He insisted that the owl was a genius embodying the spirit of Saïd, the Viceroy who had lived here. At the next screech my companion fled, upsetting chairs and tables and smashing my astral lamp. This accelerated his speed, convincing him that the evil spirit was pursuing him. I tried to overtake him, but he was soon lost to sight, and the only sound disturbing the stillness of the night was the clattering of his heels over the iron pavement which the folly of the earthly Viceroy had put there for his comfort. The Arabs believe that they are surrounded by good and bad genii, and darkness is a terror to them. They never sleep alone, if they can help it, and always burn a light at night. They even burn torches in their stables to protect the animals. An Arab never enters a solitary or dark place without supplicating the presiding genius to guard him against the spirits under his orders. The ancient Egyptians, Mariette Bey writes, always had their city of the dead close by the side of their city of the living, and it was uniformly situated to the west. In speaking of the ruins of ancient Egypt which I have visited, I shall enlarge more fully upon this interesting theme, as well as upon their religion, so intimately connected with it. This custom rested on a very sacred belief, as they placed in the region where the sun sets the dwelling-place of their souls after death, expressing both by the word Amenti.

Driving out through the Rosetta Gate, on the road which leads to the famous old city of Canopus, you come to comparatively high hills, formed to a great extent by the débris of the ancient city. On one of these heights, about three miles out, there are two new palaces, beautifully situated immediately on the sea and commanding a picturesque view of the surrounding country.

These palaces, adorned with lavish magnificence, surrounded by luxuriant gardens, and fanned by refreshing breezes from the sea, are the most desirable summer residences in Egypt. The first season, about 1875, that the Khedive occupied them with his numerous harem, a great affliction overwhelmed him and his family in the death of his daughter, Zaneeb, a most interesting and beautiful young lady who was just married. Cairo being the mausoleum for Egyptian royalty, every preparation was made to vacate these palaces at once. The corpse was carried in great state to a train to be conveyed to the tomb at Cairo. It was preceded by numbers of men called the “Yemeneeyah,” who recited the profession of faith to a melancholy strain, “There is no deity but God; Mahomet is God's apostle; God bless and save him.” They were followed by the present Khedive, then a prince, accompanied by a number of Pachas and Beys and other distinguished personages; then came several boys carrying the Mushaf (Koran) on a support covered with an embroidered handkerchief, and chanting verses from the poem called “Hashieeyah,” descriptive of events of the last day and judgment. These marched in front of the bier, which was a long box with a roof, resembling in make and size the mummy-case of the ancient Egyptians. Ordinarily the Egyptians bury simply in winding-sheets. The bier on this occasion was covered with rich Cashmere shawls. An upright piece at the head was also covered by a shawl and surmounted by a lace head-dress ornamented with glittering gems. The bier was borne upon the mourners' shoulders, a goodly number of veiled women following, but not with the lamentations customary at funerals. There were, however, terrible shrieks coming from the carriages of the ladies of the harem, the friends and relatives of the dead princess, who were passing at the time, and their cry of “Zaneeb!” the name of the young lady, was heard in the most piteous sobs. Numbers of camels, loaded with bread, dates, and other food for the poor, walked in front and on the sides of the cortège. Their burdens were distributed to the crowds of Arabs assembled to witness the procession. Arriving at the station, all male spectators were inclosed in the salon, so that the Queen and the ladies accompanying her might pass into the cars unobserved. Subsequently, while I was standing on the platform near Tewfik in the midst of a great crowd, one of those occurrences happened which sometimes mar the solemnity of such an occasion. Alone in front of the vast and silent assembly on the opposite side of the track stood two enormous Arab fellahs in the tarboosh and blue dress, sobbing and bellowing as though their hearts were breaking, and attracting the attention of everybody. Suddenly a policeman, coming up in the rear, gave each of them a kick, and the dumb-struck howlers at once took to their heels. The scene was exquisitely ridiculous, and the whole crowd broke into a loud laugh; and even one of the princes, a half brother, who, like the two Arabs, seemed more distressed than the others, joined heartily in it until his governor, standing behind him, gave him a prod with his stick which renewed the flow of his tears. At Cairo there was great pomp and ceremony in the final disposition of the body. According to the custom, it was so placed that the face should look toward Mecca. On the first night it is believed by the Moslem that the soul remains in the body and is visited by two angels, who examine and sometimes torture it. A Fakir, one of the Mahometan saints, remains with the dead to instruct it what answers to make, which he takes from the Koran. He is particular in giving the Islam or profession of faith. This night is called the Leyht-Wahdeh (the night of solitude). The soul after this takes its flight to the place of good souls until the last day, or to the abode of the wicked to await its final doom. The religion of the Faithful gives very minute accounts of the soul's place of abode between death and judgment.

I have said this much upon this subject because in no relation of life can we learn the hopes and fears of a people so well as in their manner of disposing of the dead. With how much interest do we read of Abraham bowing to the great law in purchasing a sepulchre in the land where his posterity were to live, and of Jacob and Joseph showing their faith in accepting the covenant. “There,” said Israel, “they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, and there I buried Leah … bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.” The ancient Egyptians buried deep into the rock, and the Greeks and Romans cremated their dead, and encased the urns holding the sacred ashes in magnificent mausoleums. Mahomet, believing in the importance of funeral rites, left an elaborate law to guide the Faithful; though, strange to say, in this as in much that he said to them, they violate his law in the most palpable and extraordinary manner. It is a curious fact that the site on which the palace just mentioned was built was for two centuries a Roman cemetery, though, luckily for the peace of its Mahometan inmates, the fact was not known. As in the case of the palace of Gabara, all trace of this former use had been swept away and forgotten. In digging the hills for the railroad near by a populous abode of the Roman dead, numerous cinerary urns were found. Like the mummies of a still earlier people, these urns with their contents could be bought at that time in great numbers for a few francs each. The Khedive could not for some time induce his ladies, who were full of every kind of superstition, to inhabit the deserted summer abode. They finally consented, provided that for more than a year he would give in these palace halls grand banquets, balls, and entertainments to the Europeans, so that they might, by eating, dancing, and making a noise generally, dance Affreet (the devil) out of them. On that condition only would they return. It is said that they had commenced dancing Old Nick out, but before effecting this most desirable object the English and French danced the Khedive out of Egypt, and the lovers of fun and good living not only lost their entertainments, but Old Nick still remained in undisputed possession.

In attempting a survey of the splendid ancient city the mind is saddened, as not even vestiges enough remain to mark its limits. But for natural landmarks the boundaries could not be traced at all. Leaving Alexandria, the railroad crosses a broad sheet of shallow salt water called Lake Mareotis. In vain you search for traces of those old convents,filled with thousands of Christian devotees, which bordered the beautiful basin once filled with fresh water. Nor is there a vestige of the splendid gardens where, amid clustering vines, Cleopatra and Antony drank golden wine to celebrate their union. All is swept away, and a salt lake with its arid border covers the spot. To add the finishing touch to the picture of sad havoc which Mahometan misrule had produced was reserved for civilized Europe. Just below Aboukir there was a massive dike, erected by the ancients to separate the sea from the shore, and in the course of centuries a large tract of land was reclaimed. The splendid engineering skill of the English opened this obstruction, created the present vast expanse of waste, and covered it with destructive salt water, in the merciful attempt to drown the French out of Egypt, when these most Christian nations were so intent upon annihilating each other. No less than sixty villages were submerged by the ocean and their teeming population driven from their homes to starve. The waters still cover the once fertile fields. How much more magnanimous it would have been if England in our own time, instead of driving Ismail from his home and battling against Arabi Pacha, who fought for the liberties of his race, had paid into the Egyptian treasury the value of the great property and territory thus destroyed. It might then have prevented the kourbash from wringing from the impoverished fellah the means needed to pay the indebtedness of Egypt. The hopeless misery entailed by British policy can never be estimated. The principal inhabitants of this inhospitable region are now jackals, which live here in great numbers. They are the scavengers of the suburbs of the city, and are named by the Arabs, for some unknown reason, “the father of Solomon.” There is another little animal, more gentle and more numerous, often seen jumping about its borders, called the jerboa, which burrows in the ground. It is of reddish color, with short fore and very long hind legs, about the size of a large rat, and makes its appearance at dark, hopping about like a bird. Such are the living creatures which now monopolize a region where, less than a century ago, the eye was delighted with great numbers of thriving villages and the rich green of rice and wheat fields. Here, as elsewhere in the East, Christian England has left the eternal blight of her greed.

CHAPTER II. ROSETTA.

Rosetta, modern and ancient—Interesting associations of this locality—Ruins and mosques—Wonderful activity of bird life during the winter months —Experiences at Rosetta and other fortified cities on the coast—An Arab dinner, its etiquette and its dishes.

WHILE in command of the coast it became necessary for me to make frequent visits to Rosetta, thirty miles east of Alexandria, near the mouth of one of the branches of the Nile delta. Before the construction of the railroad, the beautiful bay of Aboukir was a delightful half-way station at which to take a day's rest. I often visited the bay and the site of the ancient city of Canopus, picturesquely situated on the tongue of land between the sea and the bay. Here are a nest of fortifications and a fine prospect, both seaward and landward. Excavations twenty or thirty feet down have disclosed the débris of the city, and there have been unearthed many statues and broken fragments, as well as the ruins of a marble aqueduct built to convey fresh water from the old Canopus branch of the Nile, now lost in what is known as Lake Elko, all trace of its connection with the ruin being at present obliterated. Here a temple of Isis attracted great throngs of the religious to the shrine of the goddess, and thousands of joyous devotees made the river resound with song and dance on their way to this notorious centre of sin and amusement. Under Greek rule Canopus became a great watering-place, to use a phrase of to-day, no less celebrated than of old for its orgies held in honor of the voluptuous goddess who had been adopted into the Greek Pantheon. It was in this beautiful bay that Nelson achieved his naval triumph in 1798 (battle of the Nile) in the destruction of the French fleet under Brueix. The French subsequently revenged themselves by plunging into this very bay 10,000 Turks as a propitiation to the manes of their vanquished countrymen. One of the attractions of the place to me was the hospitable old Turk whose chief occupation was prayer, and whose sole diversion was the inspection of his numerous forts. He was remarkable for his fondness for cats, of which he had a regiment. Besides, they and the dogs are really institutions of Egypt. Throughout his life the old Bey showed in this way his reverence for the Prophet, who, it is related, had a similar weakness. Mahomet upon one occasion carried his tenderness so far that he cut off a piece of his robe upon which his pet cat was lying, rather than disturb the animal's dreams.

The favorite perch of this man's cats was his shoulder, and the caterwauling afforded no little merriment, as one cat descended in order that others might occupy this post of honor in their turn. The ancient Egyptians, like my friend the Bey, venerated the cat, and the killing of one of these animals was followed by instant death. Many mummies of cats are now found entombed, and the story is told that the killing of one led to the expulsion of a famous Greek from Egypt, who in revenge brought back Cambyses, the Persian conqueror, to defile her temples. While the Mahometan loves the cat, he evinces a dislike for the dog, an animal which, among all nations and in all ages, has been the ever-faithful companion of man. Homer says of Ulysses that, forgotten by his wife and family, he was remembered by his dog. Nature seems to have intended him as the companion of man, and he delights in adding to his master's pleasure and protection. I have seen even the savage share with him his last morsel of game. But Mahomet disliked the canine race, and impressed his hatred upon his followers. They alone hold the dog in detestation as an unclean animal, excluding him from their houses and shunning him as they would a viper, for they hold that the touching of the creature is contamination which destroys the efficacy of prayer unless followed by numerous ablutions. The Arabs do not strike these animals, but give them food and shelter and use them as watchdogs and scavengers. They are seen asleep in crowded streets, the Arabs carefully passing them by. It is a singular fact that hydrophobia is unknown in Egypt. Though he is ordinarily a scurvy-looking cur, the Egyptian dog becomes a handsome animal under good treatment and makes a good watchdog. The Bedouin, on the contrary, in his isolated life, knows the value of dogs, and though a Mahometan, treats them with much greater kindness. It is dangerous to injure or kill one belonging to him.

The Mahometans' treatment of the dog affords an excellent idea of their habits. Their abhorrence grows out of the fact that the animal sometimes eats offal. But the cat is even worse than he, when not famished with hunger, and its vicious instincts have to be carefully guarded against. The ancient Egyptians understood the value of both cats and dogs, for Egypt was overrun then, as now, with rats and mice in houses and in the fields. Prudence required that the natural enemies of these vermin should be encouraged, so the priests protected them by law and religion. It was a piece of political wisdom thus to command the respect of the people by protecting these animals, so indispensable in their purely agricultural country.

Rosetta, called by the Arabs Raschid, is thought to be the ancient city of Melitus, and is situated near the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. There was always a large garrison here, where I have often inspected as many as 10,000 men. A few miles distant is the old fort of St Julian, which was occupied by the French when they were in Egypt. It was at this place that the famous Rosetta stone—the first key to the hieroglyphic writings of ancient Egypt—was found.

The city was once populous, but for many years its venerable-looking structures, desolate and uninhabited, have reminded the traveller of a city of the dead. The mouth of the river being choked by the Nile mud, Mehemet Ali conceived the idea of cutting the grand Mamondieh Canal so as to connect the Nile above here with the magnificent Bay of Alexandria. This isolated Rosetta and destroyed its importance, but now that a railroad connects it with the bay, it is being transformed once more into a busy mart; its once beautiful gardens begin again to smile with verdure, and the feathered songsters that had abandoned the sterile wastes have returned to their rosy bowers. The remains of parterres and gardens begin again to look beautiful with their perfumed hedges inclosing the pomegranate, citron, orange, and the waving date-tree. Here in the month of October no blighting frost stops the progress of nature, and a shower now and then, like a spring day in a cold climate, tempers the atmosphere, while the beams of the returning sun bring a more genial warmth. There is never any check to vegetation, as is the case for so many months in other countries, where nature clothes herself in the mantle of decayed vegetation. At Rosetta, as everywhere on the coast, the winds and rains alone temper the climate. Artificial heat is rarely necessary, and the songbirds of Europe prefer this for their winter residence to the drier climate of Cairo. They like the neighborhood of Rosetta, where they can linger among perfumed flowers and broad fields extending for many miles on both sides of the river. The Arab's fondness for birds is remarkable. He will sit for hours in these gardens watching and listening to them with patient delight. His favorite among all the birds that visit him is the dove, and he will often follow that bird into the thick shades of the shrubbery that he may the better hear the music of its cooing.

The nightingale on his winter visit to Egypt seems strangely gloomy and unsocial. To the wonder of the Arabs, he shuns all communion with his fellows, mopes in solitude, and remains as silent as the desert which surrounds his seclusion. There he sits moping from October till March, but the happy return of spring inspires him with new life, and he once more seeks the vine-clad hills of his native land, where the forests soon echo with the sweet strains of the king of the singing birds. In the month of September the great migration of the quail commences from Europe across the Mediterranean to the shores of Egypt, and then the air is dark with countless thousands of those birds. Many rest on the islands in their passage, and numbers seek a resting-place on any passing vessel; some fall into the sea, but the myriads that darken the shores of Egypt constitute a real wonder. Tired with their long flight, they are easily captured, and Egyptian hospitality is violated by their seizure when deprived of strength to fly. Over two hundred thousand of them are sent alive to Paris and London, at the time of their coming in September and on their return in the spring.

At a fort, a short distance above Rosetta, situated on quite a high isolated sand-hill, there is a view across a perfect level, with no barrier but the distant horizon, and yet the picture is a majestic one. To the north the thread-like outline of the shore which separates the landscape from the sea and the foaming waves at the mouth of the Nile mark the boundary of the distant waters. To the east are unfolded emerald fields and the ever-beautiful carpet of the delta. To the west lies the Libyan Desert, which nature has forever stamped with the indelible seal of sterility. Beneath the hill upon which the fort is situated is the mosque of Abou Mandar, or “Father of Light.” Besides being a brilliant example for the Faithful, the saint possesses many other remarkable virtues. As Rosetta through all her history has been fearful of being overwhelmed by the sands of the desert, the presence of this pious saint alone has saved it from the impending doom. Not only do deserts stand in dread of this mighty lord who holds in his hands their shifting sands, but he is the canonized enemy of all sterility. The beautiful women of Egypt who have no saint nearer at hand come hither to implore the beneficent offices of the Father of Light, and after performing nine days' devotion under the protecting care of the sheik who attends the mosque, it is rarely that the great boon so absolutely necessary to the fortune and happiness of a Mahometan woman is not bestowed. This mosque is situated immediately on the bank of the river, and no boat or vessel ever passes it without propitiating its powerful titular saint.

During official visits along the coast of Egypt, the arrival of the commanding general at any of the forts is the signal for a fête. The fatted lamb being killed, the low round table is soon set, covered by a single waiter. The dinner, el ghada, being announced, basin and ewer, tisht and ibreck, are brought, and every one is expected to wash his hands and mouth carefully with running water. A silver tray, seeneeyah, is placed upon the table, sufrah, and is large enough to cover it. The guests being seated (usually at each sufrah there were five or six persons), condiments and lemons with round cakes of bread in shape something like a Mexican tortilla are placed before each guest, together with an ebony, tortoise-shell, or ivory spoon. The roomy sleeve of the Arab being rolled up above the elbow, and the Bismi-llah (“in the name of God”) repeated by each person present, the repast commences. The first dish, a large tureen of very fine soup slightly flavored with lemon-juice, is placed in the midst of the table. It is etiquette for the highest Pacha to help himself first, and it was usually my office to take that dip, which was done with the ivory spoon, all others following suit, and all helping themselves out of the same tureen. No one was expected to stop until the Pacha signalled “enough,” and knowing that they liked soup, I have often felt, when ready to acknowledge myself surfeited, that politeness made it necessary for me to continue the interesting occupation. The next dish was a whole sheep barbecued and perfectly well done. Again the Pacha took the first pick—no knives or forks were ever used. During the picking process, if the host particularly cherished his guest, he testified his regard by picking out a very nice piece and giving it to him, even putting it into his mouth if their relations were very friendly. This compliment is of course returned.

The “picking” never stopped until only the skeleton of the sheep was left. The result of this effort was that by the time the sheep was devoured we were tolerably sated. This eating with the fingers is much more delicate than those unacquainted with the process would imagine. The Saviour and apostles ate from one dish, and it is a general Eastern custom. Even in Greece and Rome the cultivated classes ate with the fingers. The food is specially prepared to aid this manner of disposing of it. The other dishes which followed in succession for twenty or more courses at an Arab banquet, were stuffed turkey and chickens, rich stewed and boiled meats with onions, okra eaten with lemon-juice, and other vegetables. A very fine dish called the warak-mashee consisted of minced meat and rice wrapped in vine-leaves delicately seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, garlic, and parsley, the whole being boiled together. Cucumber, khiyar, and a kind of gourd called the kara koosah are stuffed with spiced mince-meat and boiled, and are very nice to the taste. Small pieces of lamb roasted on skewers, fish dressed with oil, and every variety of vegetables, sweets, and fruits between the dishes were wont to appeal to the most capricious tastes of the guest. The kunafeh never fails. This is a dish made of flour, and it looks like vermicelli, but is finer, being fried in butter and sweetened with sugar and honey. Thin pastry is rolled into leaves as fine as paper and put one on the other, with curd scattered through the folds, and then it is baked. The last dish is rice boiled with butter, ruzz mufelfel, and seasoned with salt and pepper. This is followed by a sweet drink, khushaf, water sweetened with raisins boiled in it and then cooled; rose-water is added, which perfumes it. Before leaving the table the guests are perfumed with rose-water or the smoke of some aromatic plant. I can give but a meagre description of an Arab dinner. This hospitable treatment being extended at numerous forts made it a great pleasure to get back to an ordinary dinner at home, and a secret dread of the feasting would come over me when the time for visiting came. These feasts are exceptional; ordinarily the people are the most economical in the world, and live frugally; it is only on an occasion like this or some fête day that they show such prodigal hospitality. After dinner you squat on the divan, and the traditional pipes and cigars are served, the ceremonial coffee is introduced, numerous salaams or salutations are exchanged between the guests and the host, and these acceptable accessories are discussed with unrestrained zest.

The conviviality commences in earnest while sipping coffee and smoking. Arabs then lose their gravity and continually joke one another, being very fond of badinage. A funny saying quite captivates them. The merchant and the donkey-boy are easily moved with a jest, and the women in their hours of ease, with coffee and cigarettes, which with the higher classes consume most of the time, amuse themselves at each other's cost. They never get angry, however sharp the jest may be. At all these entertainments if the host thinks it will be pleasing, the Ghawazzee or dancing girls are introduced, many of them being very handsome. These dance without their veils, to the slow music of the kamingah or kanoon, a dance resembling the fandango of Spain. As the women of the harem are very fond of the dance, the dancing girls usually make their display where the ladies can see the performance through their veiled windows.

Rosetta and Aboukir were the scene of torpedo experiments under the direction of Colonel William Ward, who was stationed here for a long time. It was a great pleasure to meet him here in his field of operations. These two interesting places would, in my association, lose much of their interest without him. The colonel had been an officer in both the United States and Confederate navies, and was appreciated in them. No officer labored in Egypt in more varied duties, for he was a true American type of adaptability where sense and experience were required. If the Khedive wanted a distant exploration made where ability and scientific training were essential, or if he desired a perfect system of torpedoes, or a distant and unknown harbor and river critically and faithfully reported upon, this gallant sailor and soldier, for he seemed equally adapted to both professions, was certain to be selected. The Khedive knew that no one could be more trusted to furnish him the information he required.

CHAPTER III. MEHEMET ALI.

The birth and rise of Mehemet Ali—How he became Viceroy of Egypt—His genius and astuteness—the massacre of the Mamelukes—Attempts of the Sultan to get rid of his dangerous vassal—Mehemet's wars and his attempts to benefit Egypt—Neslé-Hannoum and her husband, Ahmet Bey —Ahmet's exploits in Upper Egypt and the Soudan—His remorseless cruelty—Anecdotes of Ahmet—How Neslé-Hannoum killed her husband for the supposed good of Mehemet Ali—Extraordinary character of Neslé—Her licentiousness and exploits—Incidents of cruelty in harem life.

THE Egypt of to-day was founded by Mehemet Ali, a simple fisherman of Greek descent, who was born at the small town of Cavalla, on the coast of Roumelia, about the year 1768. As few Mahometans keep registers of births, he never knew his own age. Illiterate in his youth, he learned to write through the teaching of a slave, after he was forty years of age. He won his first promotion by an act of treachery. He pretended to pray in a mosque by the side of a friend who had done something which for-feited his life to the government. He secured the confidence of this man, and when he had learned his secret by gross deception, handed him over to the authorities. Mehemet was rewarded by a lieutenancy. His ambition satisfied, he then used his cunning and power to save the life of his victim, the betrayal of whom had been his first stepping-stone in promotion.

His courage was daring even to desperation, and when an end was to be gained there was no sacrifice or treachery which he hesitated to use to attain it. Born a soldier of consummate ability, he intuitively grasped the science of war. Coming to Egypt as a lieutenant and rising rapidly to the rank of Bey (colonel), he was very soon, next to the Viceroy, the most important man in the government. The fact that the Mamelukes were troublesome during this time and in conflict with authority gave the young Greek an opportunity to play a subtle part. Becoming a mediator, he betrayed both parties and advanced his own schemes.

After driving from power no less than three Viceroys and standing in open revolt against the Sultan, he found him-self hampered by the force of the Mamelukes whom he had deceived, but who were still a strong power in the land. The Ulumas, the people, and the army presented to him the supreme authority, and the Sultan, driven by policy, though against his will, invested him by a firman with the post of Governor-General. It was only after a great show of reluctance that the cunning Greek accepted the lofty position of authority for which he had been intriguing. Like Caesar, he needed to be pressed to accept the crown. Thus he consummated the ambition for which he had long been working alike by craft and the commission of dark crimes. English influence with the Porte subsequently induced the latter to offer him the Pachalik of Salonica in exchange for his Egyptian authority, in order to get the wily soldier out of the way of British plans in the East. But Mehemet Ali made a bold stand. Again courting the alliance of the Mamelukes whom he had formerly tricked, and securing the friendship of France, he so worked on the fears of the Sultan, who dreaded the danger of losing his valuable suzerainty, that the Porte again made a virtue of necessity, and confirmed his unruly vassal in the title of Viceroy, on his agreeing to pay a yearly tribute of a million dollars.

England, indignant at this arrangement, sent an expedition to Egypt, which was encountered by Mehemet near Rosetta, and was vanquished by him. He was guilty of acts of great brutality and cruelty toward his foe, but becoming aware that it was not his interest to appear before the world in the light of a monster, he afterward sent the remaining prisoners in his power as a peace-offering without ransom to appease the wrath of his enemy. It is interesting to follow the history of this man, who by the force of native genius eventually attained power in perpetuity, shaking the throne of the Sultan and wresting from him the highest dignity ever conferred upon a subject—the dominion of a practically independent empire. He was given the domain extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Equator, a vast empire in itself, and the hereditary succession was established forever, according to Mahometan law, in the eldest of his blood. Like Napoleon, Mehemet Ali was a natural soldier. The fortunes of both were carved out with the sword in countries of which they were subjects but in which they were not born, and both attained the highest power. The one died a prisoner in the hands of “perfidious Albion,” the other died a maniac in his palace near Cairo. The successor of Napoleon closed his reign in an ocean of blood; the descendant of Mehemet has just emerged from an inglorious war against his own people, escaping by the aid of English bayonets.

Travellers, on going to Cairo, wind their way in a gradual ascent through the famous street called Mouski, while crowding through a throng of shrieking Arabs and ungainly camels, and crushing against donkeys, people, and carriages, only to emerge into a still more crowded Arab street. Aided by your syce (the man who runs before your horse or carriage) you manage, in the greatest confusion of sounds and smells, to commence the steep ascent to the citadel. After many halts the great gate is entered fronting the mosque of alabaster, erected by the Grand Pacha to receive his remains.

A little to the left of this mosque there stands the remnant of a Saracenic building which was a part of the palace where once resided the great warrior, Saladin. This site is some two hundred and fifty feet above the city, on one of the heights of the Mokattim hills. Beyond this, and on the other decline, a short distance away, is an historical well, nearly two hundred feet deep, cut through the limestone rock. It bears the name of the patriarch Joseph, and, according to tradition, was excavated by him. Retracing the road and passing around the mosque to a stone platform, we see the spot from which a Mameluke leaped on horseback to the distance of sixty feet below, as told by the dragoman of to-day. Passing through the mosque a short distance, another great gateway is entered, fronting a long building with many entrances, stairways, salons, and an extensive harem establishment. This building was the palace and residence of Mehemet Ali. All the buildings just described are inclosed by high walls and surrounded with fortifications and barracks which overlook the city and valley of the Nile, the Pyramids, and tombs of the Khalifs, with the great surrounding desert. The whole is called the Citadel. It is here that Mehemet Ali committed one of his greatest crimes, which only an Eastern despot could justify on grounds of policy. The Sultan having great doubts—for he then had ambitious dreams of empire —and wishing to weaken his powerful vassal, sent an order to the Viceroy to make war upon the Wahabees, who were then threatening Mecca. Knowing the power of the Mamelukes, those independent lords in the interior, whose influence was still great, and who, he knew, were plotting against him, Mehemet determined, before leaving, to settle the question with them once and forever. After coquetting with his victims and thoroughly inspiring them with confidence, he invited all their leading men to a grand, elaborately prepared banquet.

After the magnificent feast was ended the haughty guests were dismissed, and they descended into the courtyard to mount their horses. But this time they were invited to a banquet of death. The inclosure was lined with artillery, which instantly opened fire on the unfortunate men, while a rain of bullets fell upon them from hidden soldiery in the Citadel. Thus occurred the instant butchery of four hundred men. At the same time thousands were hunted down and slain like dogs in the provinces. This was the end of those celebrated freebooters, the Mamelukes. Emin Bey, the chief, who leaped the wall on horseback and landed safely on the débris below, was afterward taken into favor, and became one of Mehemet's stanchest supporters.

The Mamelukes dead, the Viceroy's sons, Ibrahim and Toussoun, marched against the Wahabees, and in person he led an army to the Hedgas. The Sultan, taking advantage of the supposed absence of Mehemet's soldiery, sent Latif Pacha to assume power in Egypt. The envoy was welcomed by Mehemet, the Pacha's representative, with a gracious smile and offers of services. A Turk is never so treacherous as when most gracious. Biding his time until he had Latif Pacha completely in his power, Mehemet put him to death. Stirred by this act of declared hostility on the part of the Porte, the Viceroy set seriously to work to establish a firm government, with the sole object of throwing off the Turkish yoke, and it has been thought that he even aimed at conquering the entire East. His Arabian and Syrian wars which followed caused him, however, to abandon his dreams of an Arabian empire.

In creating a nation he borrowed his policy largely from the example of Napoleon, with whom he had come in close contact in Egypt; and in following the policy of the great Corsican he naturally made many mistakes, chiefly in trying to accomplish too much. There are many evidences of his folly pointed out by those who have lived long in Egypt. In attempting the great work of damming the two rivers of the Nile known as the Barrage, twelve miles below Cairo, that he might irrigate the lower delta, he miscalculated his means. The scheme was too mighty for so poor a country, if not absolutely impracticable in any case, on account of its cost. After immense sums had been spent upon it the attempt was only partially successful; but some of the great engineers of the world have expressed the opinion that even in its unfinished state the work is one of the greatest conceptions of human genius. The incident is often quoted of Mehemet's reply to a French engineer relative to his manner of cutting the Mammondieh Canal, which connects Alexandria with the Nile, one of the substantial monuments of his reign. The inquisitive Giaour was disposed to joke the Viceroy on the crookedness of the canal. Mehemet asked him if all the rivers were not made so by Allah. And the reply being in the affirmative, he said the example of Allah was good enough for him to follow.