INTIMATE TALKS WITH TWO KHEDIVES go to the interest on the debts that he and his predecessors have contracted with the bankers of Europe. But he is, nevertheless, the king of Egypt, and as kings go to-day, he has more power than many other monarchs. His resi¬ dence in Cairo is a grand palace with hundreds of rooms filled with magnificent furniture. He drives about the city with soldiers carrying swords, riding prancing horses in front of his carriage, and with a score of cavalry fol¬ lowing behind. He has five hundred thousand dollars a year for his personal expenses, and he has several palaces besides the one he occupies in Cairo.

It was at the Abdin Palace that I met His Highness to¬ day. The interview had been arranged by the Ameri¬ can consul general. We left his office together in the consular carriage. The dragoman of the legation, a bright-eyed Syrian in the most gorgeous of Turkish clothes of brown covered with gold embroidery and with a great sword shaped like a scimitar clanking at his side, opened the carriage door for us and took his seat by the coachman. The Arabian Jehu cracked his whip and away we went through the narrow streets. We drove by the modern European mansions of the rich Greeks, past the palaces of Egyptian princes from which came the sweet smell of orange flowers and over which whispered broad spreading palms. We then went through a business street amid droves of donkeys, through a caravan of camels, by veiled women clad in black, past the palace in which Ismail Pasha had his harem when he was khedive, and on into a great square of many acres. On the right of this square were vast barracks filled with Arab troops in blue uniforms and fezzes. A regiment of Egyp¬ tian troops was going through a gymnastic drill, performing 59