cr^

^ r/ i8 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

/an Egypt rendered independent of Turkey, an Egypt ^ • / deprived by death, exile or confiscation of any element

A ( strong enough to shackle the supreme authority of^the

\ Viceroys, an Egypt enslaved but enjoying internal

- A >^ I order and tranquillity, an Egypt whose vast natural

/ resources were to be developed by the introduction of

/ an European element, but whose development was to

\ enrich the coffers, not of the people, but of their Lord Iand Master. The saying of Louis XIV. of France, L'Etat cest moi, would have expressed faithfully

Mahomet Ali's conception of the policy he had carried out so successfully and so ruthlessly during his reign,

first as a Turkish Pasha, and then as an hereditary (Viceroy. |The State, being in his view identical with himself, it was his interest to see the State well administered, though any direct profit, arising from ^ good administration, was to be employed for his own (^enrichment and aggrandizement./ By character, by

temperament, and by experienc^ Ibrahim was well qualified to carry on the policy of Mahomet Ali. But

before his death, Ibrahim had become subject to fits of insanity. He was the victim of insomnia, unable, as he is reported to have said himself, to sleep at

night, because in his dreams he was haunted by the ghosts of the men he had done to death. So, by a sort of Nemesis, the dying days of Mahomet Ali were troubled by the reflection that his power must pass into hands unfit to rule. In the Club at Alexandria there hangs a picture of the founder of the reigning

dynasty, who, whether as a matter of policy or of