198 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

anomalous institutions will sometimes work satisfactorily, provided good will and good faith are employed to facilitate their working. In the history of the United States, there is a period, previous to the outburst of the Anti-Slavery agitation, which is commonly designated " the era of good feeling." A similar term might be applied to the few weeks which followed the establishment of the Anglo-Franco-Egyptian Ministry.

At the outset nothing could be pleasanter than the reception his Highness accorded to his foreign Ministers. He possessed a singular talent for impressing upon all persons, whose support he desired to conciliate, a conviction that he 'attached especial value to their good opinion, and was prepared to follow their advice. I came out to Egypt just at this period in connection with some business affairs, in which I was then interested, and was only known, if at all, to Ismail Pasha, as the writer of an article which had contributed, in however small a degree, to the appointment of the Commission of Inquiry, and to the line of investigation they had adopted which had compelled him to surrender his estates. Yet his first act, on learning of my arrival, was to invite me to dinner, and to show me every civility in his power. He acted in the same way towards every personal friend of his new Ministers. His one desire, apparently, was to smooth away any difficulties which might arise in the working of the constitutional experiment. Not many weeks, however, had elapsed, after the new