look down upon us," and they are forty centuries of almost unvarying oppression. In the fourth dynasty of the ancient empire the pyramids were built by the unpaid labor of the people, and in the same way the great canal connecting Alexandria with the Nile was made by Mohammed Ali Pasha, the founder of the dynasty which now occupies the khedivial throne. The splendors of the ancient rulers have been imitated by those of modern times, and the result is that the country is oppressively burdened with taxation and hopelessly involved in debt. At present the foreign debt of the country exceeds £100,000,000, or $500,000,000, without including the Moukabalah, or forced interior debt, which amounts to many millions more. The population of Egypt proper is a little more than 5,000,000, so that the national indebtedness exceeds $100 for each and every man, woman, and child in the country. The land is wonderfully fertile, producing ordinarily three crops a year; but even with this fertility it is impossible to meet the expenses of a costly government and pay the interest on the enormous debt.
Mohammed Ali Pasha, who came to Egypt as a Turkish captain in 1799, and became ruler of the land and founder of the dynasty, was fond of war, and spent large sums of money in its prosecution. He began the conquest of the Soudan by sending his son to conquer Nubia and Sennaar; in 1822 he founded Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and White Nile, and long before his death in 1848 he had the satisfaction of knowing that the flag of Egypt waved over a large area that it did not dominate when he ascended the throne. Except in war, he was not specially extravagant, but the same cannot be said of his successors, Abbas and Said Pashas. Abbas gave little attention to the affairs of the government; he spent a great deal of money on palaces, abolished the educational institutions which Mohammed Ali had established, and dissolved the army in order to have for his personal use the money which a
