CHAPTER VIII INTIMATE TALKS WITH TWO KHEDIVES TO-DAY Egypt is governed by a king. Her last sovereign had the title of sultan, and for fifty years before that she was ruled by khedives. There were four khedives in that time, and with two of them I had face-to-face chats. The first was with Tewfik Pasha, whom I met in the Abdin Palace during my second visit to Cairo. The other was with Abbas Hilmi, the son and successor of Tewfik, with whom I talked sixteen years later. Abbas Hilmi’s pro-German intrigues finally led to his being deposed by the British and to the establish¬ ment of the Protectorate, which ended in the nationaliza¬ tion of Egypt under a ruler with the title of king.

I give you here the stories of the two interviews, repro¬ ducing the notes I made at the time.

* ***** * I have just returned from a long audience with the Khe¬ dive of Egypt. Khedive is a Persian-Arabic word, mean¬ ing “king,” and Mohammed Tewfik occupies much the same position now as the Pharaohs did in the days of Moses. It is true that he is in a measure the vassal of the Sultan of Turkey to whom he pays a tribute of about three and three quarter million dollars a year, and that he has also several European advisers who keep sharp watch over the revenues of his kingdom to see that a great part of them 58