have been either Artillery or Engineer officers: Lord Roberts, Lord Cromer, Lord Kitchener, and Sir Reginald Wingate. In Wingate is vested supreme command, both civil and military. In emergencies he can enforce his decrees by martial law, which may be defined as no law at all, but merely the will of the commander; practically the normal procedure is by civil rule. Irrigation, cultivation, and trade avocations have replaced misery, rapine, and murder. He has successfully repressed the slave-dealers, and equally successfully waged war against that scarcely less noxious pest, the deadly mosquito of malaria. Before the rule of the Mahdi the population had amounted to eight and a half millions; at a later period holocausts of war and famine had reduced the numbers to under two millions: the figures are now returned as over three millions, with amazingly rapid augmentation. These statistics must be considered irrefragable proofs of prosperity to all but such socialists and suffragettes as despise facts and ridicule figures. Wingate is not as remarkable for possessing many friends as for having no enemies. Nature has been invidiously partial to him in bestowing on him not only distinguished intellectual capacity, but in endowing him with an attractiveness manner rarely surpassed. of There are a host of names in the Egyptian annals of late as years of those who have successfully laboured and nobly sacrificed themselves to an extent characteristic of Englishmen toiling for their country in far-off lands such Milner, Colin Scott Moncrieff, Hamilton Lang, Law, a judge so endeared to the natives that he was designated by them "the just Judge," Garstin, Willcocks, Aird, Slatin Bey (an Austrian), Captain Lyons, Major Brown, Andrew Balfour, and others. But I forbear to indulge further in my humble echo of public appreciation, at a time when vituperation is wont to be greeted as a masterpiece of patriotism. In mere point of numbers the English constitute a minute, an utterly insignificant, fraction of the entire population. How, then, is our increasing and masterful sway regarded by the remaining mass, which includes aliens from other countries? By the Egyptians themselves, both magnates and fellahin, it would seem, with stolid oriental satisfaction,— silent, perhaps, by the prominent natives, because here, as in England, they are alive to the self-interest of party popularity mongering; but deep, because they realise the prosperity which accrues to them through our rule. As personages, we continue to be universally and greatly disliked; we are pronounced imperious, exclusive, arrogant, and ungenial. "Would you," I have sometimes asked the cosmopolitans, "prefer some other European Government?" and the answer difference. As for Austria and Russia, they have been wise enough to know that they cannot, and to declare that they will not, meddle with Egypt. Turkey dares not. What civilised nations would tolerate corrupt and exhausted robbers forcing themselves into a community which at all events is at last emerging into opulence and rectitude? As to other minor nations, it is sufficient merely to allude to them and then to dismiss them. has invariably been "No. regarded with complacent inWere the English administration displaced, most of the prosperous traders would leave the country." "Well, then, Turkey?" With an expression of horror: "The Fates forefend. Better the worst European control than the best Turkish.” I was once in a position to question a highlyplaced Egyptian on the subject of national independence. Gravely and emphatically he shook his head. "At all events, not for many years to come,-not until by slow process our upper classes have learned how to rule, and our subordinates how to obey. As for the stump-orators from England, the majority of sensible Egyptians have learned that their ravings about Egypt for the Egyptians is but a pernicious self-advertisement. For the last 4000 4000 years, saving for one brief period, we have had no kingdom of Egypt; at the present moment we represent rather a race than a nation, and our vista for absolute self-rule is still far ahead." Turning to our co-residents of various European nationalities: A short paragraph will suffice for Germany. She is welcome to a free hand in occupying her Egyptian "spot in the planet." The results of her Sergeant - Major - administration in two or three parts of the planet, which she is pleased to call colonisation, have been such that all of her similar efforts in in the country of the Nile may be The French, however, claim our forbearing, and even generous, consideration. For decades they have felt, like an ever-aching bruise, the tottering of their own influence and interests under those of England. This sensitiveness was accentuated by the fact that their own orders for their ships of war to quit Alexandria on 11th July 1882-the morning when the English opened the bombardment-marked the death-knell of French power in Egypt. In 1912 this tenderness has subsided to a degree which no one would have dared to hope in 1901. They have accepted their waning in Egypt with a wisdom and dignity for which we should surely feel both appreciative and grateful. Their former habitual denunciations of Albion's perfidy, cupidity, and arrogance have almost died away. They have ceased to thwart useful measures 66 pour embêter les anglais." They no longer start fresh minor diffi culties which were liable to be chafed into a quarrel. A single feature indicates a substitution of English for French nationality among the masses. Twenty-two years ago French was the principal language taught in the Government schools. About 76 per cent of the pupils exercising their option of being taught either the French or the English language elected French. The figures are now singularly reversed: over 80 per cent choose English, and under 20 per cent French. Again, the sole medium of communication available for those ignorant of Arabic with native employés is the French language if they are over thirty-five years old; English if they are under thirty years of age. The names of the streets, the advertisements and public notices, have ceased to be in French. Yet French sentiment and rightful pride should be much solaced by the fact that the spirit of their nation still largely pervades Cairo and many of the principal towns. The shops, especially those for costumes, the chemists, florists, stationers, and sellers of articles de luxe, show their national taste and skill in displaying their merchandise; while their method of business, their system of checks, their atmosphere of manner and language, are almost as much Gallic as in Paris, and they ply a very lucrative trade. The numerous cafés are counterparts of those in the Rue de Rivoli; the carnivals and street shows are essentially French, and three or four French newspapers are published daily. The official language is French, and-touch of the ridiculous!-young English Government employés are sometimes expected to change correspondence in a dog-dialect which they fondly term French. ex The foregoing are merely illustrative trifles. The fact that France has retained for herself a fine pre-eminence in antiquarian research, in the disinterment of historical monuments, and in the reconstruction and preservation of noble temples, is no trifle. For example, take Karnak, the kernel of old world - famed Thebes. There the local chief of the French "Service des Antiquités,' Monsieur Legrain, has since 1894 patiently, ploddingly, carried out the work of excavation and the far more difficult task of reconstruction. Mariette, justly reverenced as an Egyptologist, many years ago recorded in writing his certainty that he had brought to light every fragment of architecture and statuary at Karnak, and that whoever might undertake further investigation would assuredly lose both his time and his money. In eighteen years Monsieur Legrain has there brought to light some thousands of statues and several buried buildings. So late as last March he discovered an entombed statue of an Egyptian king, Merkouri, who lived about 2500 B.C.; and if I may be pardoned a sentence of egotism-the sensation of being one of the first to "pass the anachronism of arches; and, time of day" to a memorial still worse, have bedaubed of 3400 years back 1), whose pillars and walls with a staring last greeting must have been gamboge yellow, producing a with those who were cotem- flaunting effect which seems to poraries of Noah, was one of challenge to rivalry the large intense awe. Monsieur Legrain tourist hotel on the opposite has already reconstructed bank of the Nile. forty-eight gigantic columns, broken fragments of which he pieced together with magic skill, and he anticipates that within two years he will have restored the Hypostyle Hall to its original aspect of grandeur and beauty unsurpassed by any other building in the world. His feat will be a proud monument of French science and architectural success. Alas! the reconstruction of the Temple of Hatasu, on the western bank of the Nile at Thebes, serves as a sad counterfoil to French skill and taste. Under the auspices of an American Society, which has furnished the funds, the executives, whose names I forbear to gibbet, have succeeded in renovating into hideousness this jewel of an 18th Dynasty temple, about 1500 B.C., which, left to its natural condition, is of extreme beauty and grace. The reconstructors, far from following the principles of Monsieur Legrain and restoring according to original construction and and aspect, have thought fit to indulge in their own vandal variations. For example, they have added the A retrospection of ten years' changes in Egypt must inevitably prompt a prospection into the near future. While guarding against optimism, probable hindrances in the progress of the good towards the better seem remote. Doubtless there still exist anomalies and inconveniences some notably the theoretical subordination of Egypt to the Ottoman Empire, the payment of tribute to Turkey, and the preposterous and pernicious Capitulations which will automatically expire in 1915, but which now enable malefactors of any insignificant European nationality to escape lawful jurisdiction. Patience and persuasion can hardly fail to sweep them away. It is unlikely that wanton "cussedness" will tempt any one of the Great Powers to obstruct the cause of civilisation without any advantage to themselves, and for the stupid purpose of snatching up any stick wherewith to beat any envied dog. It is as plain as the multiplication table that, under present auspices, finance, administration, orderliness, wealth, and general 1 The interpolation of commentators in Reference Bibles that the first man in the world was created B. C. 4004 years is balderdash not warranted by the original Scripture record. Monsieur Legrain asserts it is as certain as any fact on earth or in sky that human beings in a comparatively advanced state of civilisation existed at least 20,000 years B.C. prosperity must develop into rule, it is beyond question that still further excellence. Serious intestine troubles should have but a minimum scope among a people who are already learning to contrast the former reign of infamous cruelty, servitude, and poverty, with the new rule of justice, comfort, and affluent ease. The party of National Independence has dwindled into a condition of atrophy which the spouting of English demagogues will fail to resuscitate. The leaders of Egyptian thought, who have long been scheming for the weakening of English influence and the withdrawal of English troops, are now accepting the occupation of the country as steadfast fact for many years to come. The mere word "Protectorate" was I was hooted ten years ago; its employment is now almost advocated. Whatever be the official nomenclature adopted for our an uncon the whole tenor of feeling, action, and demeanour of each and every Englishman in Egypt indicates scious conviction that he is residing in a portion of the British Empire, and not in a foreign country. It has been surmised that Lord Kitchener's sphere of activity may in the near future be shifted to Constantinople. Alas for the day when he quits prematurely a country whose prosperity and welfare he has so immeasurably furthered! If he remains to bring to fruition the noble undertakings he has begun, and if in fulness of time the population be transformed into a nation fit for, and capable of, self-government, the latest generation of Egyptians will gratefully revere the names of our illustrious Proconsuls, Lord Cromer and Lord Kitchener. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. |