"Part of the duty of the Police force will be to suppress that cruelty to animals which is one of Egypt's many abominations. The want of some active measure has long been felt, and during the last ten years a succession of dilettanti has attempted to take the matter in hand. The Khedive has been interviewed; a Princess or two has been secured as patroness, and even subscription-lists have been opened. But the work is too serious, too continuous, for amateurs. Here we require an experienced delegate from the parent society in London, who, in concert with a local committee, will lay down the lines of work, and will determine what ought not to be done as well as what ought to be done. But the 'sinews of war' must also be forthcoming; and they can readily be supplied by military and naval economies.
"Lastly of the slave, who, theoretically free, is as much a bondsman as ever. Egypt yielded with her usual good grace, the moment serious pressure was brought to bear upon her. This is her way, the way of the universal East. She grants every demand, and takes especial care that nothing be granted. Pashas were appointed to issue certificates of freedom and to inquire into the case of runaways, whom the masters invariably denounced to the police as criminals, and proved their crimes by false witnesses—a drug in the market. As soon as the first excitement was over, a reaction set in and action slumbered: this was all the Government wanted. The one thing needful is still needed—a standing mixed committee of Europeans and Egyptians, presided over by a responsible English official. Its duties will be to make the abolition of slavery generally known throughout the length of the land, and to see that emancipation is fairly worked. As for that other abomination, the neutral, penalty of death should be unflinchingly inflicted upon those with whom it originates. All their names are well known, yet it causes us no surprise that the law has been and still is impudently broken, while the law-breakers have invariably escaped punishment.
"Egypt is now virtually independent of Turkey: during the court-martial of the Rebels not an allusion was made to the 'Suzerain.' It is unfair that she should continue to transmit money which is wanted for public works and internal improvements, because the so-called Tribute has been mortgaged to Frankish creditors of Turkey. The Porte is still rich enough to pay her debts, and, if she chooses again to be bankrupt, shareholders must put up with the losses which, for a high consideration, they have so long risked. Egypt now expects a complete disruption of the injurious tie: the living land must no longer be bound, in Mezentiaes-fashion, to the Ottoman corpse. She will have a fair field, and favour enough, under an English Protectorate if we only govern like men, not like Philanthropes and Humanitarians.
"Richard F Burton."
[1] "Mekhitar the Armenian, nat. 1676 at Sebastia in ancient Media, est. a congregation confirmed by Clement IX. in 1712, and ob. in the island of S. Lazzaro, Venice, 1749. The Mekhitarists have educational establishments in Paris, Vienna and Rome, Constantinople, Venice, Trieste, etc."
[2] Richard Burton whilst preparing for Mecca.—I. B.
[3] Native Christians mingled with Moslems are generally cowardly. They do not unite to make a stand; if they did, they would never be attacked.—I. B.
[4] "The word should be Taufík, but we have adopted an ugly Gallicism derived from Turkish, in which it would be pronounced Tewfík."
[5] "I spent some months amongst the Huwaytát, and have described them in three volumes ('The Gold Mines of Midian,' 1878, and 'Midian Revisited,' 1880), besides a number of detached papers."