46 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

himself, I am by no means certain. He had many personal English friends, and, as a man of the world, had very few prejudices. The only occasion on which I ever heard him say anything which seemed to display a latent ill-will to England was on his return from the United States, whither he had made a journey in the hope of inducing the American public to take up the Panama scheme, then at the outset of its financial difficulties. In answer to a question on my part as to the reception he had met with across the Atlantic, his answer was, " Mon chir les Americatns, S07tt vos vrais cousms With these digressions, which will, I think, render my story more easily intelligible to persons not acquainted with recent Egyptian history, previous to the date when England became intimately associated with Egypt, first financially, and then politically, I pass on to the main subject of my narrative.