2- ...-• " I .9 [ -THE ROAD TO RUIN Sultan forbids issue of further loans in Egpt — Ismail and his financial agents— Services rendered by the Mufettish— The Khedive resorts to desperate expedients to avoid bankruptcy — The forced loan of the Moukabala — Gathering of birds of prey at Cairo — Sale by Ismail of his Suez Canal shares to England — Payment of State bonds suspended.

The first writing on the wall, announcing that the end was at hand, came, of all places in the world, from Constantinople, and appeared on the very morrow o£ the Suez Canal inauguration. The Empress and the other Royal guests had quitted Egypt before the end of November, 1869. In the following month /the Sultan issued a firman, by which the Viceroy was debarred in future from contracting any fresh loans and imposing any new taxes. It hardly needs saying that this decree was not dictated by any disinterested desire on the part of the Suzerain to promote the welfare of the vassal province. The I most probable explanation of its issue is that the \ Porte was alarmed at the apparently inexhaustible < command of money secured to the Khedive by the j readiness of Europe to supply his pecuniary needs ; I and partly by an impression that the competition of Egypt, as a borrower, was likely to increase the