70 THE STORY OF THE KHEUIVATE.

he might become the virtual, if not the nominal, successor of the Sultan ; and he was carried away by the delusion that if he could only secure the continuance of European financial support, he might extend his sovereignty from the Nile to the Bosphorus.

Whether, under any conceivable circumstances, he could have realized his ambition is a question I should hesitate to answer in the affirmative. All I contend is that the ambition was not altogether sordid. If I may venture an opinion of my own as to a very complex, and, from the point of view of a student of human nature, a very interesting character, Ismail's main defect was an inability to separate his personal greed of power from his political aspirations.

The one principle to which he remained constant was a resolve to make himself absolutely supreme at home, if he could not do so abroad. In accordance with this principle, he was bent upon converting Egypt into a farm, of which he was to be the sole landlord. His ruling idea was to acquire possession of the whole land of Egypt, and to work it for his own advantage and profit. It was with this view that he contrived, by fair means or foul, by confiscation, by exactions, or .' even, if necessary, by purchase, to make himself the Vjjersonal owner of one-fifth of the whole soil of Eg}'pt.

If his credit had not been exhausted before his object could be obtained, he would have constituted himself a sort of Royal Alexander Selkirk, the monarch of all <he surveyed. IThat, by so doing, he would simply 7 have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, was k