Shilluk warriors, Blue Nile.
Bread-making in the Lado Enclave, Sudan.
WORK AND PLAY IN BLACK MAN'S AFRICA.
Whether this Arabi Pasha was at heart a patriot or a plunderer is a question which has never been satisfactorily decided, nor is it one which particularly concerns us, although, if you ever happen to find yourself at Kandy, in the hills of Ceylon, where he still lives in exile, I would recommend you to call upon him, for he will receive you with marked hospitality and will talk to you quite frankly about those stirring events in which he played so prominent a part. As this is a story of the present, rather than of the past, suffice it to say that Arabi, then an officer in the Egyptian army, instigated a military revolt which had as its object the ending of European influence in the affairs of Egypt. So rapidly did this propaganda of “Egypt for the Egyptians!” spread among the lower classes of the population, and so perilous became the position of foreigners resident in the country, that, upon Alexandria being captured and looted by the revolutionists, a British squadron bombarded and partially destroyed that city, while a British army, hurried from Malta for the protection of the Canal, in which England held the dominating interest, dispersed Arabi's forces at Tel-el-Kebir, pushed on across the desert to Cairo, stamped out the remaining embers of the revolt, and restored in a measure the authority of the Khedive, though not without taking the precaution of surrounding him with British “advisers” and garrisoning his cities with British troops. Such, in tabloid form, is the story of the beginnings of British domination in the land of the Valley of the Nile.
In view of the chaotic condition of the country, England naturally decided that the only way to insure the safety of her subjects, as well as of her great financial and political interests in that region, was to continue the military occupation of Egypt, for the time being at least, and boldly to begin the task of its financial, judicial, political, and military reconstruction. The form of government which has resulted is, I suppose, the most extraordinary in the history of nations.
Nominally a province of the Turkish Empire, and administered by a viceroy who theoretically derives his power from the Turkish sovereign, Egypt is autonomous (so far as Turkey is concerned), though it still pays annual tribute of about three million five hundred thousand dollars to the Sultan. Though the title “khedive” means sovereign or king, without qualification or limitation, the real ruler of Egypt is not his Highness Abbas Hilmi II, but his Britannic Majesty's Agent and Consul-General—at present Lord Kitchener of Khartoum—who, though officially Britain's diplomatic representative in Egypt and nothing more, in reality exercises almost unlimited authority and power. In other words, England has assumed the position of a receiver for Egypt's foreign creditors and has apparently made the receivership—which has never been agreeable to the khedivial government—a permanent one. Egypt's situation might, indeed, be quite aptly compared to a railway system which has been forced into bankruptcy by the extravagant methods of its directors, and one of whose largest creditors has become receiver with full power to reorganise the system for its stockholders' and its creditors' best good.