36 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

received orders to furnish a certain tale of labourers. These orders were transmitted to the sheiks of the province, and from every village in Egypt a number of wretched fellahs were taken from their homes and despatched under military guards to the isthmus of Suez, where they were compelled to work in gangs, under local overseers armed with the kurbash.

/Twenty-five thousand men formed the tale of labourers demanded by the Company. These labourers received no pay whatever. The rations supplied them were of a very meagre description. What with bad food, poor clothing, the heat by day and the cold by night, overwork and misery, they died like sheep. The places made vacant on the labour roll by death or disease had to be constantly filled up by fresh drafts of fellahs ; and if the contract had been carried out in its integrity, it is hardly too much to say that the population of Egypt would have been seriously diminished. The matter became a public scandajjeven in a country where the fellaheen had for years immemorial been looked upon as beasts of burden ; and.naturally enough the scandal was made the most of by the opponents o£_lhe Canal.

Lord Palmerston was Erirne,3IioistejLat the time ; and, apart from his very genuine British hatred of /Slavery in any form, I have little doubtpie was influenced ( by his political antagonism to the extension of French influence in Egypt, certain to accrue to her through the successful completion of the Canal. By his instructions, our ambassador at Constantinople protested to the Porte against the employment of forced labour on