50 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

absolute power to dispose of the lives and properties of his subjects. This view was naturally enough adopted by the Effendina the Lord and Master : what is more strange, is that it was readily accepted by the people over whom he held supreme power. The existence of this popular belief in the divine right of the Effendina to rule as he thought fit, must fairly be borne in mind by any one who attempts to sit in judgment on the conduct of the first and greatest of the Khedives.

/ The accession of Ismail Pasha was regarded in I his own country, but still more abroad, as the advent j of a new and a better era for Egypt. He was , ['( \ deemed, and rightly deemed, to be a man of I, .. J' exceptional ability, he was understood to possess \ unusual ability as an administrator; he was reported " to entertain a high appreciation of Western civilizato l7tion, and to be wishful of introducing European rej ' f forms into Egypt, in as far as their introduction was lonsistent with Oriental ideas. In Egypt, the notion of his, or of any other native ruler, being either a philanthropist or an humanitarian, would have been scouted then as a flagrant absurdity. But subject to this limitation, I am inclined to think the character assigned to Ismail Pasha abroad, at the period when he first attracted European attention, was not altogether undeserved. ' His theory of government was (that of Louis the XlVth, " I am the State." He had, however, sufficient intelligence to realize that it was / for his own interest the State should be sufficiently