262 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

a champion of Egyptian nationality, and of a patriot N desirous to establish the independence of his country \ and to free her from foreign rule. I should doubt extremely how far Arabi understood the phrases his English counsellors placed into his mouth, or whether he even read the letters composed for him, which bore the signature of ".jchmed-tlie Egyptian/' But there can be no question that the crusade on behalf of Arabi, set on foot in the English press by Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and Sir William Gregory, and caught up by that section of the British public which is always ready to espouse the cause of any oppressed nationality outside the British Isles, did a great deal to encourage the leaders of the military insurrection in Egypt, and what was more important, to hamper the action of the British /•Government in respect of the mutiny. To a certain, \ though very limited extent, the cry of Egypt for the / Egyptians found a hearing amongst the native popu-J lation. Patriotism, in our Western sense of the \ word, has no existence in the East. The fact of men being bom on the same soil, and subject to the same rulers, does not there constitute any special bond of union. No Egyptian, except in the columns of a European newspaper, would dream of describing himvself as an Egyptian. He would call himself an Arab, a Turk, a Copt, an Armenian, a Syrian, a Bedouin, or a Jew, but an Egyptian never. Community of creed is a tie potent enough ; so is community of language to a lesser degree ; but between Turks and Arabs, Copts and Armenians, a community of Fatherland is rather