ISLES OF THE BLEST, or Fortunate Islands (Gr. αἱ τῶν μακάρων νῆσοι: Lat., Fortunatae Insulae), in Greek mythology a group of islands near the edge of the Western Ocean, peopled not by the dead, but by mortals upon whom the gods had conferred immortality. Like the islands of the Phaeacians in Homer (Od. viii.) or the Celtic Avalon and St Brendan’s island, the Isles of the Blest are represented as a land of perpetual summer and abundance of all good things. No reference is made to them by Homer, who speaks instead of the Elysian Plain (Od. iv. and ix.), but they are mentioned by Hesiod (Works and Days, 168) and Pindar (Ol. ii.). A very old tradition suggests that the idea of such an earthly paradise was a reminiscence of some unrecorded voyage to Madeira and the Canaries, which are sometimes named Fortunatae Insulae by medieval map-makers. (See [Atlantis].)
ISLINGTON (in Domesday and later documents Iseldon, Isendon and in the 16th century Hisselton), a northern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded E. by Stoke Newington and Hackney, S. by Shoreditch and Finsbury, and W. by St Pancras, and extending N. to the boundary of the county of London. Pop. (1901) 334,991. The name is commonly applied to the southern part of the borough, which, however, includes the districts of Holloway in the north, Highbury in the east, part of Kingsland in the south-east, and Barnsbury and Canonbury in the south-central portion. The districts included preserve the names of ancient manors, and in Canonbury, which belonged as early as the 13th century to the priory of St Bartholomew, Smithfield, traces of the old manor house remain. The fields and places of entertainment in Islington were favourite places of resort for the citizens of London in the 17th century and later; the modern Ball’s Pond Road recalls the sport of duck-hunting practised here and on other ponds in the parish, and the popularity of the place was increased by the discovery of chalybeate wells. At Copenhagen Fields, now covered by the great cattle market (1855) adjoining Caledonian Road, a great meeting of labourers was held in 1834. They were suspected of intending to impose their views on parliament by violence, but a display of military force held them in check. The most noteworthy modern institutions in Islington are the Agricultural Hall, Liverpool Road, erected in 1862, and used for cattle and horse shows and other exhibitions; Pentonville Prison, Caledonian Road (1842), a vast pile of buildings radiating from a centre, and Holloway Prison. The borough has only some 40 acres of public grounds, the principal of which is Highbury Fields. Among its institutions are the Great Northern Central Hospital, Holloway, the London Fever Hospital, the Northern Polytechnic, and the London School of Divinity, St John’s Hall Highbury. Islington is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of London. The parliamentary borough of Islington has north, south, east and west divisions, each returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 60 councillors. Area, 3091.5 acres.
ISLIP, a township of Suffolk county, New York, U.S.A., in the central part of the S. side of Long Island. Pop. (1905, state census) 13,721; (1910) 18,346. The township is 16 m. long from E. to W., and 8 m. wide in its widest part. It is bounded on the S. by the Atlantic Ocean; between the ocean and the Great South Bay, here 5-7 m. wide, is a long narrow strip of beach, called Fire Island, at the W. end of which is Fire Island Inlet. The “Island” beach and the Inlet, both very dangerous for shipping, are protected by the Fire Island Lighthouse, the Fire Island Lightship, and a Life Saving Station near the Lighthouse and another at Point o’ Woods. Near the Lighthouse there are a United States Wireless Telegraph Station and a station of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which announces to New York incoming steamships; and a little farther E., on the site formerly occupied by the Surf House, a well-known resort for hay-fever patients, is a state park. Along the “Island” beach there is excellent surf-bathing. The township is served by two parallel branches of the Long Island railroad about 4 m. apart. On the main (northern) division are the villages of Brentwood (first settled as Modern Times, a quasi free-love community), which now has the Convent and School of St Joseph and a large private sanitarium; Central Islip, the seat of the Central Islip State Hospital for the Insane; and Ronkonkoma, on the edge of a lake of the same name (with no visible outlet or inlet and suffering remarkable changes in area). On the S. division of the Long Island railroad are the villages of Bay Shore (to the W. of which is West Islip); Oakdale; West Sayville, originally a Dutch settlement; Sayville and Bayport. The “South Country Road” of crushed clam or oyster shells runs through these villages, which are famous for oyster and clam fisheries. About one-half of the present township was patented in 1684, 1686, 1688 and 1697 by William Nicolls (1657-1723), the son of Matthias Nicolls, who came from Islip in Oxfordshire, England; this large estate (on either side of the Connetquot or Great river) was kept intact until 1786; the W. part of Islip was mostly included in the Moubray patent of 1708; and the township was incorporated in 1710.
ISLY, the name of a small river on the Moroccan-Algerian frontier, a sub-tributary of the Tafna, famous as the scene of the greatest victory of the French army in the Algerian wars. The intervention of Morocco on the side of Abd-el-Kader led at once to the bombardment of Tangier by the French fleet under the prince de Joinville, and the advance of the French army of General Bugeaud (1844). The enemy, 45,000 strong, was found to be encamped on the Isly river near Kudiat-el-Khodra. Bugeaud disposed of some 6500 infantry and 1500 cavalry, with a few pieces of artillery. In his own words, the formation adopted was “a boar’s head.” With the army were Lamoricière, Pélissier and other officers destined to achieve distinction. On the 14th of August the “boar’s head” crossed the river about 9 m. to the N.W. of Kudiat and advanced upon the Moorish camp; it was immediately attacked on all sides by great masses of cavalry; but the volleys of the steady French infantry broke the force of every charge, and at the right moment the French cavalry in two bodies, each of the strength of a brigade, broke out and charged. One brigade stormed the Moorish camp (near Kudiat) in the face of artillery fire, the other sustained a desperate conflict on the right wing with a large body of Moorish horse which had not charged; and only the arrival of infantry put an end to the resistance in this quarter. A general rally of the Moorish forces was followed by another action in which they endeavoured to retake the camp. Bugeaud’s forces, which had originally faced S. when crossing the river, had now changed direction until they faced almost W. Near Kudiat-el-Khodra the Moors had rallied in considerable force, and prepared to retake their camp. The French, however, continued to attack in perfect combination, and after a stubborn resistance the Moors once more gave way. For this great victory, which was quickly followed by proposals of peace, Bugeaud was made duc d’Isly.
ISMAIL (1830-1895), khedive of Egypt, was born at Cairo on the 31st of December 1830, being the second of the three sons of Ibrahim and grandson of Mehemet Ali. After receiving a European education at Paris, where he attended the École d’État-Major, he returned home, and on the death of his elder brother became heir to his uncle, Said Mohammed, the Vali of Egypt. Said, who apparently conceived his own safety to lie in ridding himself as much as possible of the presence of his nephew, employed him in the next few years on missions abroad, notably to the pope, the emperor Napoleon III. and the sultan of Turkey. In 1861 he was despatched at the head of an army of 14,000 to quell an insurrection in the Sudan, and this he successfully accomplished. On the death of Said, on 18th January 1863, Ismail was proclaimed viceroy without opposition. Being of an Orientally extravagant disposition, he found with considerable gratification that the Egyptian revenue was vastly increased by the rise in the value of cotton which resulted from the American Civil War, the Egyptian crop being worth about £25,000,000 instead of £5,000,000. Besides acquiring luxurious tastes in his sojourns abroad, Ismail had discovered that the civilized nations of Europe made a free use of their credit for raising loans. He proceeded at once to apply this idea to his own country by transferring his private debts to the state and launching out on a grand scale of expenditure. Egypt was in his eyes the ruler’s estate which was to be exploited for his benefit and his renown. His own position had to be strengthened, and the country provided with institutions after European models. To these objects Ismail applied himself with energy and cleverness, but without any stint of expense. During the ’sixties and ’seventies Egypt became the happy hunting-ground of self-seeking financiers, to whose schemes Ismail fell an easy and a willing prey. In 1866-1867 he obtained from the sultan of Turkey, in exchange for an increase in the tribute, firmans giving him the title of khedive, and changing the law of succession to direct descent from father to son; and in 1873 he obtained a new firman making him to a large extent independent. He projected vast schemes of internal reform, remodelling the customs system and the post office, stimulating commercial progress, creating a sugar industry, introducing European improvements into Cairo and Alexandria, building palaces, entertaining lavishly and maintaining an opera and a theatre. It has been calculated that, of the total amount of debt incurred by Ismail for his projects, about 10% may have been sunk in works of permanent utility—always excluding the Suez Canal. Meanwhile the opening of the Canal had given him opportunities for asserting himself in foreign courts. On his accession he refused to ratify the concessions to the Canal company made by Said, and the question was referred in 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III., who awarded £3,800,000 to the company as compensation for the losses they would incur by the changes which Ismail insisted upon in the original grant. Ismail then used every available means, by his own undoubted powers of fascination and by judicious expenditure, to bring his personality before the foreign sovereigns and public, and he had no little success. He was made G.C.B. in 1867, and in the same year visited Paris and London, where he was received by Queen Victoria and welcomed by the lord mayor; and in 1869 he again paid a visit to England. The result was that the opening of the Canal in November 1869 enabled him to claim to rank among European sovereigns, and to give and receive royal honours: this excited the jealousy of the sultan, but Ismail was clever enough to pacify his overlord. In 1876 the old system of consular jurisdiction for foreigners was modified, and the system of mixed courts introduced, by which European and native judges sat together to try all civil cases without respect of nationality. In all these years Ismail had governed with éclat and profusion, spending, borrowing, raising the taxes on the fellahin and combining his policy of independence with dazzling visions of Egyptian aggrandizement. In 1874 he annexed Darfur, and was only prevented from extending his dominion into Abyssinia by the superior fighting power of the Abyssinians. But at length the inevitable financial crisis came. A national debt of over one hundred millions sterling (as opposed to three millions when he became viceroy) had been incurred by the khedive, whose fundamental idea of liquidating his borrowings was to borrow at increased interest. The bond-holders became restive. Judgments were given against the khedive in the international tribunals. When he could raise no more loans he sold his Suez Canal shares (in 1875) to Great Britain for £3,976,582; and this was immediately followed by the beginning of foreign intervention. In December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave was sent out by the British government to inquire into the finances of Egypt, and in April 1876 his report was published, advising that in view of the waste and extravagance it was necessary for foreign Powers to interfere in order to restore credit. The result was the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette. In October Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen and M. Joubert made a further investigation, which resulted in the establishment of Anglo-French control. A further commission of inquiry by Major Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer) and others in 1878 culminated in Ismail making over his estates to the nation and accepting the position of a constitutional sovereign, with Nubar as premier, Mr (afterwards Sir Charles) Rivers Wilson as finance minister, and M. de Blignières as minister of public works. Ismail professed to be quite pleased. “Egypt,” he said, “is no longer in Africa; it is part of Europe.” The new régime, however, only lasted six months, and then Ismail dismissed his ministers, an occasion being deliberately prepared by his getting Arabi (q.v.) to foment a military pronunciamiento. England and France took the matter seriously, and insisted (May 1879) on the reinstatement of the British and French ministers; but the situation was no longer a possible one; the tribunals were still giving judgments for debt against the government, and when Germany and Austria showed signs of intending to enforce execution, the governments of Great Britain and France perceived that the only chance of setting matters straight was to get rid of Ismail altogether. He was first advised to abdicate, and a few days afterwards (26th June), as he did not take the hint, he received a telegram from the sultan (who had not forgotten the earlier history of Mehemet Ali’s dynasty), addressed to him as ex-khedive, and informing him that his son Tewfik was his successor. He at once left Egypt for Naples, but eventually was permitted by the sultan to retire to his palace of Emirghian on the Bosporus. There he remained, more or less a state prisoner, till his death on the 2nd of March 1895. Ismail was a man of undoubted ability and remarkable powers. But beneath a veneer of French manners and education he remained throughout a thorough Oriental, though without any of the moral earnestness which characterizes the better side of Mahommedanism. Some of his ambitions were not unworthy, and though his attitude towards western civilization was essentially cynical, he undoubtedly helped to make the Egyptian upper classes realize the value of European education. Moreover, spendthrift as he was, it needed—as is pointed out in Milner’s England in Egypt—a series of unfortunate conditions to render his personality as pernicious to his country as it actually became. “It needed a nation of submissive slaves, not only bereft of any vestige of liberal institutions, but devoid of the slightest spark of the spirit of liberty. It needed a bureaucracy which it would have been hard to equal for its combination of cowardice and corruption. It needed the whole gang of swindlers—mostly European—by whom Ismail was surrounded.” It was his early encouragement of Arabi, and his introduction of swarms of foreign concession-hunters, which precipitated the “national movement” that led to British occupation. His greatest title to remembrance in history must be that he made European intervention in Egypt compulsory.