When the late Mohammed Ali heard at length of the taking of Acre by his troops under Ibrahim, he exclaimed, "That place," adding an energetic but somewhat unsavory expression, "that place has cost me," not the lives of so many thousand men, but, "so many thousand cantars of gunpowder." These words illustrate pretty forcibly the narrow and selfish views of that celebrated but overrated man. We do not believe, indeed, that during the whole period of his sway in Egypt, the thought ever crossed his mind that he was bound to govern for any other purpose than his own personal aggrandisement, or that he was to regard in the slightest degree the feelings, the comfort, the property or the lives of his people.
The system which arose from this wretchedly egotistical state of mind was to a certain extent successful. Although great schemes of conquest, which even a more magnanimous species of selfishness might have carried out, were destined to end in comparative shame and disgrace, yet a somewhat brilliant de facto sovereignty was erected and maintained to the termination of the old man's life; and he died regretting only that he had not been allowed to march to Constantinople. To the end of his days he was rolling in wealth, and possessed of arbitrary power in dominions of great extent, where he was not the less arbitrary because he was compelled to acknowledge a superior, and to send a tribute, instead of a fleet and an army, to the shores of the Bosphorus. The provinces which he called his own, lay sleeping in a death-like tranquillity; and because he could ride through the streets without a guard, his flatterers told him that he had secured the fear, respect and love of the people. For he had many flatterers, this ancient of days;—not merely his own minions, whose business it was, but European gentlemen, who affected to be awe-struck in his presence, and gathered and treasured up and repeated his wise sayings, his profound observations, and, save the mark! his wit; but they never could impress on any impartial hearer the belief in any of these things. His sayings and observations were sometimes very foolish, sometimes distinguished by respectable common-sense; and his wit consisted in prefacing a very silly or impertinent remark with a peculiar grunt. Whenever, therefore, his courtiers, being in a narrative mood, began to tell how on a certain occasion the pasha said, "Hunk!" &c., a crowd of admirers were ready to smile, and one or two disinterested lookers-on were compelled to smile likewise, though, perhaps, for a very different reason.
Nothing is easier than to surround a man who has sufficient talents to fight or wheedle himself into a position of authority with a halo of false reputation; but it is rather more difficult to impress a character on the civilization of a country, and, now-a-days, to found an enduring dynasty. We shall not here recapitulate the enormous blunders of Mohammed Ali, in political and economical questions, nor explain how these blunders arose from a selfish desire to make what is vulgarly called a "splash," nor waste an anathema on his crafty cruelty and abominable tyranny. We wish merely to remind the reader that his period of power having come to a close, little good had been done, except, perhaps, improving the method of transacting public business.
Well, there were plenty of people to succeed him. The pasha had a large family of children and grandchildren, to whom he had behaved sometimes with indulgence, but generally with unreasoning and perverse severity. There was scarcely a member of his family with whom he had not had many little quarrels, and who did not avoid his presence as they did the plague. Even the favorite Ibrahim could not bear to live in the same city as his presumed father; and the rest would have been little less startled by the last summons of all, than they were by an occasional order to appear in the presence of the angry and savage old man. One feeling, however, was pretty general amongst them,—they regarded the pasha as a wonderfully important personage, and themselves consequently, being his children, as little less wonderful and important. Their hopes were in the uncertainty of life; and very many of them, in their own minds, had arranged what they would do in case they came to be viceroy—how they would make the money spin, and what mighty devices they would put in practice, to emulate and surpass the splendors of "Effendina"—"Our Lord," par excellence.
It must be confessed that Abbas Pasha alone had the good sense to take up a position of his own. Whether he was as crafty and politic as some pretend before his elevation to power, it is difficult to decide; but the plan, at that time generally ascribed to him, of forming what was called a Turkish or bigoted party—a party of discontented great folks, and fanatical Ulemas—a party which should appeal to the religious prejudices of the good Caireens, and oppose itself to the inroad of European adventurers and improvements,—this plan, if distinctly formed, was certainly a very sagacious one. Let us be frank: Europeans have done more harm than good in Egypt; that is to say, whenever they have appeared, except as mere commercial men, bringing the goods of their own countries, and anxious to take away the surplus of the luxuriant crops of the valley of the Nile. As political advisers, partly, perhaps, because men undertook to advise who were fit only for the counting-house, partly because their own interests were concerned, their intermeddling has been most pernicious. Even the benefits, for some such there are, which have been conferred by their wisdom, have been mingled with an immense amount of misery. There is one fact which has attained an almost mythological dignity, from its notoriety, and the admirable manner in which it symbolises European meddling in Egypt. An English merchant, who ought to have known the manners of the country, advised the construction of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal. It has been most useful to commerce; but twenty thousand people were starved or worked to death within six weeks, in order to complete it. Fifty illustrations of the same kind might be given; but we wish merely to have our meaning understood, when we say that, if Abbas Pasha or his party ever contemplated, as there is reason to suppose they did, the utter destruction of foreign influence, the total change of a system, under which French and English measures alternated like whig and tory administrations, we must candidly admit they had some very good grounds to go upon.
The creation of the party was a long and laborious work; very likely it was brought and kept together more by mutual discontents, ambitious hopes, and straightforward bigotry, than by any very Machiavellian policy. Probably Abbas Pasha really liked ram-fighting, and was a pigeon-fancier, and did not assume these tastes, as the elder Brutus played the fool, in order to accomplish his ends. But, however this may be, he certainly occupied a more respectable position than his uncle Ibrahim, whose whole ideas of the duties of government were getting money and playing at soldiers; and than any of the other members of this most obese and heavy-headed family. Even if it be true that he meditated a revolt against the broken-down conqueror of Syria, and was only withheld by fear of the European powers, this fact gives an impression of his energy, and by no means derogates from his character in this country. The Saids and the Ahmeds, the Ismains and the Mustaphas, would, each and all of them, strike a blow and rid the country of their beloved relations, if the little word impossible did not stare them in the face. As it is, they are in perpetual feud with the head of the family, and there is no end to their bickerings, heart-burnings, jealousies, and hatreds. Abbas is haughty and overbearing to them; they as insolent as they may be to him. Be sure that, on all sides, direful causes of affront have been given; but probably Abbas has been provoked by unbecoming pretensions. What else could be expected from a set of ignorant, debauched adventurers, who have got a temporary footing in the country, and actually talk with the pride of an ancient respectable line of hereditary princes of their rights, and their expectations, and their rank, and so forth! Abbas, of course, has not the same natural influence over this unruly brotherhood as had the ruthless old man, and his more savage immediate successor; and probably, in attempting to exert his rightful authority, has been betrayed into undignified squabbles. It is certain that many members of his family have fled or retired to Constantinople; among others, Mohammed Ali Bey, and the notorious Hazlet Hanem. Some remarks have been made on this subject, to the effect that Abbas is frightening away his dutiful relations by his violent and unreasonable conduct; but if Egypt never loses two of its natives whom it can worse spare than these, it will be fortunate. Without further inquiry than into their character, one would be inclined to admire and respect the man who had quarrelled with them. Mohammed Ali is a debauched worthless lad; and Madame Nazlet cannot have justice done to her without details into which our pen is not at liberty to enter.
It is a sad thing, certainly, to view the breaking up of a large family; but it would be a sadder thing to witness vice unpunished, and harmony arising out of the reckless indulgence of unbridled passions. Abbas Pasha himself, if report speaks true, has little in his private life to plead for lenity in judging of his public character. His taste leads him to the most trifling amusements. Just as of old, when he was the supposed head of a kind of Conservative Turkish party, when he was Governor of Cairo, and silently nourishing his ambitious schemes, he spends time and money in the undignified, though not inelegant, and certainly innocent, occupation of a pigeon-fancier. Near the new palace which he is building (none of these Turkish princes seem to care about living where their fathers lived before them) rises a magnificent square tower, entirely devoted to the loyal winged favorites of his Highness the Viceroy, who is reported to be quite learned in this department of natural history. Another of his tastes, for which Englishmen will have more sympathy, is for horses; and the public will remember his bold challenge to the Jockey Club. In what way he passes the remainder of his leisure hours we do not inquire; but we give him, in common with his relatives, the advantage of an excuse that has before been urged in their favor—namely, that of an infamous education.
Abbas Pasha has not exactly carried out the views which were attributed to him before he reached his present elevation. He has not, for example, done all that his fanatical anti-Frank friends could expect in shaking off foreign influence. He began, it is true, by getting rid, in rather a hasty and shabby manner, of many Europeans, chiefly English, in his employ; and showed a disposition entirely to put a stop to that enormous blunder of the Barrage. His first, and very wise impulse, was either to destroy the works altogether, or, abandoning them, simply allow the river to work its own majestic will. But a clamor was raised on all sides! After throwing so many millions of dollars into the river, why should not a few millions more be thrown? I believe the French, who have a fondness for this undertaking because it was suggested by or through Napoleon—(the Osiris of his day is parent of all wonderful inventions)—I believe, I say, that France made it almost a national question; and so this work, which already impedes the navigation of one of the finest rivers in the world, and which, if successful, would only achieve an object that one quarter of the expense in the establishment of steam-engines at various points for raising water would effectually accomplish, is allowed to drag on slowly towards its conclusion. We must give Abbas credit for the courageous good sense which suggested to him that the first loss was the best; and yet we must not withhold from him some praise for yielding to the influence of friendly persuasion, and refraining from carrying out his own opinion, however well founded, when he was told that, by doing so, he would incur the risk of being accused of treason to his grandfather's fame. The old man had fondly believed that his Barrage would join the Pyramids that look down upon it in that restricted category of the "Wonders of the World," and might well be supposed to lie uneasily in his grave if all the piles which he had caused to be driven, all the mighty walls, and piers, and arches, which he had caused to be raised with a disregard of expense and human labor worthy of Cheops, were allowed to sink and lie forgotten in the slimy bed of the Nile.
This was the first point on which it appeared that Abbas Pasha was not disposed to act up fully to his presumed plan of destroying European influence altogether; but, on many occasions, he early showed a disposition to temporize between his prejudices and his interest. We cannot here enter into details of minor importance, but, coming down to a recent period, we may mention another instance of a similar nature. For many years before his death, Mohammed Ali had held out hopes that he would construct, or allow to be constructed, a railway from Cairo to Suez. This was preëminently an English project—not likely to be unuseful to the country at large, it is true, but calculated chiefly to promote the more expeditious and comfortable transit of passengers to and from India. The Pasha, however, deceived by an excess of cunning, really entertained no intention of performing his promise. With great want of sagacity, he confounded the proposed stations on the line of railway, which he might have held in his own hands if he chose, with the counters which he was told had formed the nuclei of the British power in India. He believed the English had some sinister designs upon his country, and were engaged in all sorts of schemes for introducing themselves into it. The same policy which made him refuse to deepen the entrance of the port of Alexandria, lest a British fleet might come in, made him unwilling to throw a railway across the Desert of Suez, even if he kept the whole management in his own hands. The recommendations, he saw, came all from one country: the objections, nearly all, from another. France was opposed to the railway because it had another darling Neapolitan project in hand—namely, the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, which was much talked of once, but which now nobody mentions but to laugh at. The difficulties of execution, immense as they were found to be by the Austrian commission, were not the most decisive objections. The real ones were contained in an answer to the very appropriate question—Cui bono? However, the railway was shelved for a time. It has lately come again upon the tapis; and although it is now proposed to lay down a line in the first instance between Alexandria and Cairo, to compensate for the water communication which M. Moujel is spoiling by his Barrage, yet there is every probability of proper extensions and branches being made in due time.
If, indeed, the project be really a serious one. Many say, in spite of the official manner in which the announcement has been made, that it is only a ruse, a piece of policy in order to propitiate English influence, and that as soon as certain manœuvres shall have been successful or otherwise, nothing more will be said about the railway. There is no answering for the diplomacy of Eastern courts; but this explanation seems a little too Machiavellian. I have no doubt the promise has been made, in part, because it is thought to be agreeable to the English; but I can hardly imagine Abbas Pasha is so foolish as not to know that if he coaxes Lord Palmerston with a sugar-plum, and when his lordship opens his mouth, puts a finger in instead, Lord Palmerston will bite pretty sharply.