But it is as you get away from the broad streets of new Cairo, and plunge into the bazaars and the narrow streets, that you realize what a bewildering place old Cairo is. The city of Cairo covers an area of three square miles, and greatly exceeds the limit of the old walls. On the south stands the ancient citadel, on a rock, memorable for the massacre of the Mamelukes. Of the most perfect of the old gateways still remaining is the Gate of Victory. Above the archway is an Arabic inscription: ‘There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His Prophet.’ The streets are narrow and irregular, and badly paved, while the white houses, with their overhanging windows, are, at any rate, picturesque.
The bazaars are of all sorts: the leather-sellers have one, the carpet-dealers another, silk-merchants another, and everywhere purchaser and buyer seem to spend a great deal of time in smoking cigarettes. The gold bazaar is so narrow that three persons can scarcely pass; there, and at the silver bazaar, you see the artificers constantly at work. Coptic churches and mosques you meet everywhere. There is a good attendance at the English Church; there are also a Presbyterian Church, and two Roman Catholic churches. I saw the bishop of one of them, who was to preach, driving along in very grand style. The Wesleyans have also a chapel. The howling dervishes have also their sanctum, where they exhibit their peculiarly unpleasant powers. I decline to go and see them, as everyone tells me they are a fraud; and if I want to be deceived, there is the Egyptian conjuror always ready with his little tricks. He comes daily to the hotel to give a performance; also daily resort there the Egyptian minstrels, whose performances we all greatly applaud.
The English have a party paper called the Sphinx, which, however, I fancy has little influence in the formation of public opinion. In Alexandria a daily English paper is published, which reaches Cairo about eight in the evening, but which gives little general news, and is chiefly devoted to trade and commerce. It was with a heavy heart I left Cairo and its bright and busy life for the gray skies and bleak winds of my native land. My consolation is that we breed better men than they do in southern climes—a fact of which the Roman Cæsars were aware when they drew their best troops from Britain or Northern Gaul.
The French complain bitterly of English influence in Egypt—a country for which we have done much, and which, if it ever becomes prosperous, will owe its prosperity to England alone; and yet it is the fact that the Englishman in Egypt lies under peculiar disadvantages, and that as much as possible English enterprise is discouraged and destroyed. It ought not to be so. We who have made Egypt what it is, who have fought its battles, developed its resources, improved the condition of its people, destroyed its corrupting and enervating influences, put its finances in a healthy condition, may be expected to have, at any rate, fair play there.
That this is not so, the case of Mr. Fell, of Leamington, one of the few men who have raised themselves from the ranks and become honoured far and near, is a notorious illustration. In 1890 he obtained a concession from the Egyptian Government giving him the right to make tramways in the city of Cairo. The particular department of the Egyptian Government which has to do with such affairs has at its head a Secretary of State—at that time the office was held by Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff—and a financial adviser appointed by the Egyptian Government on the recommendation of the English Government. Mr. Fell went to Egypt, had the whole city surveyed, and the plans drawn, a difficult task which occupied a considerable amount of time. In August of the same year he bought the steel rails, ordered the cars to be built, and did all he could to hasten the fulfilment of his contract, and, as a security, deposited with the Egyptian Government twenty-two Egyptian bonds of the value of £100 each. To still further strengthen his position, he had a letter from Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff to the effect that he was quite satisfied that Mr. Fell had complied with legal requirements.
So far all was straight sailing, but in April the Egyptian Government confiscated the bonds Mr. Fell had deposited with them, and also declared the contract null and void, on the ground that he had failed to comply with the conditions under which the contract was made. Mr. Fell had a long correspondence with the Egyptian Government of a very unsatisfactory character. In 1893 he returned to Egypt, and interviewed the authorities. Lord Cromer advised him to go to law. In his action against the Government, he was defeated on the plea that the letters written by Sir Scott Moncrieff, as Secretary of State, were not valid. In the meanwhile, the Egyptian Government advertised for a new concession in July, 1894, for which Mr. Fell again tendered, depositing a thousand guineas. In compliance with a request from the Egyptian Government, Mr. Fell again returned to Egypt, but found, on his arrival, that the contract had been given to a Belgian firm, who frankly admitted that they had paid so much for the concession that it was scarcely worth having. ‘My loss in consequence,’ said Mr. Fell to me, ‘is at least from £17,000 to £20,000, and this all through French intriguing.’
Such is a brief outline of a case of hardship, not to an individual, but the whole nation. Practically speaking, there is no British capital invested in Egypt except what was there previous to 1882. In the railway department, for instance, of late years all the works have been carried on by French and Belgian—to the exclusion of British—contractors. All the contracts for bridges which have recently been let have been let to Belgian contractors. The only companies that thrive in Egypt are French companies. Everything is in their favour. The law officers of the Crown are exclusively foreign, principally Corsicans, and they are able to control the native tribunal, notwithstanding the fact that there are English judges upon it; and to these Corsican law officers it is due that so much anti-English feeling exists in Egypt at this present time. Assuredly, Egypt makes us but a poor return for the money and blood we have spent in its behalf. We have a right to expect better treatment. If John Bull stands this sort of thing, he must be a poor creature indeed.
Anthony Trollope gives us an amusing illustration of the official life of Cairo in his time. He was sent there by the English Post-Office to accelerate the mail-service to Suez, and it took him two months to do his business. ‘I found, on my arrival,’ he writes, ‘that I was to communicate with an officer of the Pasha, who was then called Nubar Bey. I presume him to have been the gentleman who lately dealt with our Government as to the Suez Canal shares, and who is now well known as Nubar Pasha. I found him a most courteous gentleman, an Armenian. I never went to his office, nor do I know that he had an office. Every other day he would come to me at my hotel, and bring with him servants and pipes and coffee. I enjoyed his coming greatly, but there was one point on which we could not agree,’ and that was as to the rate of speed with which the mails should be carried through Egypt. The Post-Office said it must be done in twenty-four hours. The agent of the Egyptian Government contended that it would take forty-eight hours at the least. For a long time they could come to no agreement. Both were equally obstinate. It was impossible, said Nubar, that the mail could be carried at such a rate. It might do for England, but would not do for Egypt. The Pasha, his master, he said, would, no doubt, accede to any terms demanded by the British Post-Office, so great was his reverence for anything British. In that case, he, Nubar, would at once resign his position and retire into private life. He would be ruined, but the loss of life and bloodshed which would follow would not rest on his head. Nevertheless, he gave way after many days’ delay and a good deal of smoking and coffee-drinking. The twenty-four hours gained the day. It is to be hoped that official business is done more quickly now. A two months’ stay in Cairo over such an affair may have been pleasant. It certainly was expensive, and someone other than Mr. Trollope had to pay the bill.
Lord Cromer’s latest report of the state of matters in Egypt is cheering. The finances are better. The income from railways, customs, and tobacco has improved. A great boon has been conferred on the fellaheen by the experimental money advances made by Government to tide them over till their cotton-crop is ripe. Hitherto they have had to borrow from Greeks, who, however admirable in the character of liberators, are not so lovely as money-lenders. They charge from 20 to 30 per cent. for their loans, and, in addition, always take back an Egyptian pound, equal to £1 0s. 6d., for the pound sterling. This is really more than an extra 2½ per cent., for the loans are not for a whole year. There are Mohammedan lenders, too. Their religion forbidding usury, they take it out of the fellaheen in cotton. The Government in their experimental loans have charged a half per cent. per month, or 6 per cent. per annum. The experiment was successful. Of nearly £8,000 lent between February and July, all but £20 had been repaid with interest by the end of November. The benefit that an agricultural bank would be to the smaller cultivators has been in this way realized by Lord Cromer, who suggests that private bankers should take the experiment in hand.
The Government has also been checkmating the money-lenders by sending them good seed at 58 pounds Turkish an ardeb, payable in three instalments, upon finding out that the usurers were advancing inferior seed at 70 to 100 pounds Turkish, payable at cropping-time.