THE PURSE OF FORTUNATUS. 57 of Mahomet Ali's family, Ismail had travelled abroad / as a young man. At the age of fifteen he was sent . to Paris, and resided there for two or three years.

He acquired a very fluent, though not very accurate, knowledge of French. I should doubt, however, whether he ever made, as a pupil, what the French call des dtudes serieuses and I fancy that, in common with ninety-nine Orientals out of every hundred who are sent to Europe to study, he learnt very little that was worth learning in European civilization, and a great deal that he would have been better for not learning at all. Being, however, a very shrewdobserver, he had noted enough during his travels to appreciate the social, though not the moral, strength of European civilization, and to understand how important it was for himself to enlist the sympathies of Europe in his favour. The first object to which he devoted his attention was to weaken, if not to sever, the bonds which still placed Egypt under vassalage to Turkey. The experience of Mahomet Ali showed that this severance could not be effected by force of arms ; and though there is no reason to suppose that Ismail was wanting in courage, an appeal to the God of Battles was not in accordance ■ with his character. Knowing, however, the financial straits of the Ottoman Empire, and the venality of almost all her public men, he came to the conclusion that he could secure, by the power of the purse, what his grandfather had failed to obtain by the power of . the sword.

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