THE ACCESSION OF ABBAS II. 469 Khedivial family and over native Cairene society. He occupies himself mainly in the management of his estates, and devotes much attention to stock-breeding.

In features he is a handsome likeness of his grandfather, with, as yet at any rate, a far better figure. The eyes and mouth and chin remind me of Ismail, but the face is wanting somehow in the geniality of expression which redeemed the plainness of the first of the Khedives. Taking him altogether, I should say, that since he abandoned the ambitions he entertained at the outset of his reign— or perhaps I should say, since he has postponed, for the present at any rate, all idea of carrying these designs into execution — he has been, from a British point of view, a model Viceroy. Though he had accepted Nubar Pasha as Premier after the Wady Haifa crisis, he never took very kindly to him as being both a . Christian and a partisan of the British occupation.

On his Highness's return from a visit to Constantinople, during which Nubar had acted as Regent in his absence, a palace intrigue was got up against the Premier, and within a few weeks he was dismissed from office. As. in the opinion of the British agency, no question of State importance was concerned in the dispute between the Khedive and his Ministers, and as his proposed successor was Mustapha Fehmi, a persona grata with the British community, no objection was raised by our Consul- General to the change in the Ministry. The