aware that it is difficult for any European to arrive at a true estimate of Oriental wishes, aspirations, and opinions.

Those who have been in the East and have tried to mingle with the native population know well how utterly impossible it is for the European to look at the world with the same eyes as the Oriental. For a while, indeed, the European may fancy that he and the Oriental understand one another, but sooner or later a time comes when he is suddenly awakened from his dream, and finds himself in the presence of a mind which is as strange to him as would be the mind of an inhabitant of Saturn.1

I was for some while in Egypt before I fully realised how little I understood my subject; and I found, to the last day of my residence in the country, that I was constantly learning something new. No casual visitor can hope to obtain much real insight into the true state of native opinion. Divergence of religion and habits of thought; in my own case ignorance of the vernacular language; 2 the reticence of Orientals when speaking to any one in authority; their tendency to agree with any one to whom they may be talking; the want of mental symmetry and precision, which is the chief distinguishing feature between the illogical and picturesque East and the logical West, and which lends such peculiar interest to the study of Eastern life and politics; the fact that religion enters to a greater extent than in Europe into the social life and laws and customs of the people; and the further fact that the European and the Oriental, reasoning from the same premises, will often arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions, all these circumstances place the European at a great disadvantage when he attempts to gauge Eastern

1 Professor Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, p. 558. 2 I have a fair acquaintance with Turkish, but I do not speak Arabic.

opinion. Nevertheless, the difficulty of arriving at a true idea of the undercurrents of native opinion is probably less considerable in Egypt than in India. Notably, the absence of the caste system, and the fact that the social and religious fabric of Islamism is more readily comprehensible to the European mind than the comparatively subtle and mystical bases of Hinduism, diminish the gulf which in India separates the European from the native, and which, by placing a check on social intercourse, becomes a fertile source of mutual misunderstanding. On the whole, though I should not like to dogmatise on the subject, I am inclined to think that by constantly seeing people of all classes, and by checking the information received from different sources, a fair idea of native opinion in Egypt may in time be formed.

I would add that it is not possible to live so long as I have lived in Egypt without acquiring a deep sympathy for the Egyptian people. The cause of Egyptian reform is one in which I take the warmest personal interest. A residence of half a lifetime in Eastern countries has made me realise the force of Rudyard Kipling's lines

If you've heard the East a'calling,
You won't ever heed aught else.

PART I

ISMAIL PASHA

1863-1879

It is

It were good that men in their Innovations would follow the example of Time itself, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived. good also not to try experiments in States except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation.

BACON, On Innovations.

It is singular how long the rotten will hold together provided you do not handle it roughly... so loth are men to quit their old ways; and conquering indolence and inertia, venture on new. . . Rash enthusiast of change, beware! Hast thou well considered all that Habit does in this life of ours?

CARLYLE, French Revolution.

CHAPTER II

THE GOSCHEN MISSION

NOVEMBER 1876

Financial position in 1863-And in 1876-Suspension of payment of Treasury Bills-Creation of the Commission of the Public DebtDecree of May 7, 1876-The Goschen Mission-Decree of November 18, 1876-Appointment of Controllers-General-Sir Louis Mallet -I am appointed Commissioner of the Public Debt-Ismail's predecessors-Crisis in the career of Ismail Pasha- Accounts Department.

THE origin of the Egyptian Question in its present phase was financial.

In 1863, when Said Pasha died, the public debt of Egypt amounted to £3,293,000. Said Pasha was succeeded by Ismail Pasha, the son of the celebrated Ibrahim Pasha, and the grandson of the still more celebrated Mehemet Ali.

In 1876, the funded debt of Egypt, including the Daira loans, amounted to £68,110,000. In addition to this, there was a floating debt of about £26,000,000.

Roughly speaking, it may be said that Ismail Pasha added, on an average, about £7,000,000 a year for thirteen years to the debt of Egypt. For all practical purposes it may be said that the whole of the borrowed money, except £16,000,000 spent on the Suez Canal, was squandered.1

1 Mr. Cave, after making out a balance-sheet for the years from 1864 to 1875, adds: "Two striking features stand out in this balancesheet, namely, that the sum raised by revenue, £94,281,401, is little