/" 442 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

the internal administration of the country in native hands, and relying on the supreme authority of a Resident to see that the power entrusted to the native Administration was not seriously abused. Under such a system, Nubar would have been an ideal head of the native Administration. Conscious of his own ability, he felt keenly his enforced submission to the authority of British officials, who, whatever their other merits, were comparatively unacquainted with the social, economical, and religious conditions of the country they had to administer. ** The curse of the granted prayer" weighed upon Nubar, as it does upon so many of us, who find that the realization of our life's desire has brought about an entirely different result from that we anticipated. For the time he was undoubtedly embittered against the representatives of British officialdom in Egypt. Indeed, the chief satisfaction which he derived from his first Premiership after the occupation was that he had succeeded, with Lord Cromer's active support, in abolishing the corvee, and thus enabling the fellaheen to bestow their own labour upon their own lands. The fellaheen are far too alive to their own interests not to be aware that when, as often must happen, a flaw occurs in the complicated system of irrigation upon which Egypt, literally speaking, depends for her existence, compulsory labour to repair the flaw is absolutely indispensable. To the corvee, therefore, when enforced compulsorily in order to secure a constant supply of water, they entertained no objection.