INTIMATE TALKS WITH TWO KHEDIVES sums brought into Egypt by tourists and said that it bettered the business of his country.

Throughout our whole conversation the talk was of the most cordial and unceremonious character and I left the palace with the impression that the Khedive of Egypt is a man of great sense and of more than ordinary ability. He stands well with his people. Indeed, the leading men in Cairo tell me he would do much for Egypt if he were not hampered by foreign intervention. He gave up a number of his palaces a year or so ago and he is, for a king, most economical. Had other rulers of the past been equally careful, Egypt would be a rich country to-day instead of being ridden with debts. He is a man of domestic tastes, and though a Mohammedan and an oriental king, he is the husband of but one wife to whom he is as true as the most chaste American. A friend of Tewfik Pasha reported to me a talk he recently had with him upon this subject in which the Khedive expressed himself strongly in favour of monogamy: “I saw/' said he, “in my father’s harem the disadvantages of a plurality of wives and of having children by different wives, so I decided before I came to manhood that I would marry but one woman and would be true to her. I have done so, and I have had no reason to regret it.”

From what I can learn the ruler’s family life is a happy one. He is much in love with his wife, who is said to be one of the cleverest women of Egypt. A woman friend of hers, who visits often at the royal harem, tells me that this queen of Egypt is both beautiful and accomplished. She keeps up a big establishment separate from that of the Khedive, and when she sits down to dinner or breakfast it is not with her husband, but with her own ladies. The 65