A RETROSPECT. 517 our occupation, Egypt would be more prosperous, and the condition of her people would be materially improved. But though I rejoice to see this belief fulfilled, as the result of the reforms introduced into the administration of Egypt under British control, I have never been able to convince myself that it was England's duty to reform Egypt. It is her duty, as I maintain, to uphold her own " world might,'' and it is on this ground alone that her intervention in Egyptian affairs — an intervention which has led to a permanent military occupation — can, to my thinking, be fully justified.

But whatever my views may be as to the grounds on which our intervention may best be defended, I have no doubt as to the benefits Egypt has derived from our intervention. When I first set eyes on Cairo, more than thirty years ago, the process of reconstruction had already commenced on the initiative of Ismail Pasha. The desert then stretched up to the back of the New Hotel, which had just been opened ; the Esbekieh gardens were a waste of tond, across which roadways were marked by posts and pales ; Shepheards Hotel was the centre of the European city ; the quarters of Ismailia and of Kasr-el-Noubara were bare open spaces, dotted here and there with a few sparse wooden buildings; the roads of the city were mere tracks of sand ; donkeys were the usual means of locomotion ; and all the principal shops, frequented by European visitors, were in the Mouski, the central thoroughfare of the native quarter, and its