viving son of the old man. It was understood, however, that he was only stepson to the Pasha, having been four years old when his mother was received into the hareem of Mehemet Ali. He had always been a great favourite with his stepfather; had been publicly destined to the succession from the time when Tussoun Pasha, the eldest son, had perished in an expedition into the interior; and had lately gained a high military reputation by his Syrian campaigns, though they proved unavailing to keep Syria under Egyptian rule. Ibrahim might be met in his factory, or visiting his sugar-boilers, almost before it was light, making everybody tremble by the sharpness of his observation, and the smartness of his investigations. Though he was stout, and his step was quick, there was an impression abroad that his health was bad, and his life precarious. The question which interested every human being, from one end of the Nile valley to the other, was—who would succeed if Ibrahim should die? If ever a life was devoutly prayed for in that valley, his was now. It was not so much from any popularity of his own, as from hope and fear about who should succeed Mehemet Ali if he did not. The candidates on whom hung so many fears and hopes were to be seen also.
Mehemet Ali had an unpardonable habit of giving away villages, with all the people in them, to anybody who won upon him by services or otherwise. He would bestow one or a dozen as might happen: and this want of consideration for the people—this breach of the very first condition of social advancement,—security of person and property—rendered his many boasted improvements ineffectual. Nothing could be done while the people were always running away and hiding themselves as soon as princes or officials, military or civil, approached. If, among the Pyramids near Memphis, the people ran particularly fast, or the dwellings and fields were found deserted, it was a sign that Abbas Pasha was at hand. He was the owner of this district, and the most unwelcome person who ever entered it. His father was the Tussoun Pasha who had gone up against the Arabs in the interior, and never returned. There was some mystery about his death; but the story given out is that the Arabs built up with bushes the house or tent in which he slept, and set it on fire, so that no one escaped from within. His son was watched with a fearful sort of curiosity as he grew up,—his evil tendencies being unconcealable, and the probability of his excluding the sons of Ibrahim from the succession seeming to increase as the race between the two lives of the aged Viceroy and the unhealthy Ibrahim grew more doubtful. Men and frightened women and children peeped at Abbas as he ordered his boat to shore at Masgoon, or as he sat under a palm clump awaiting the people whom he had sent for, and who were not to be found. All Cairo had its eyes on him at another time when, amidst bursts of wild music and the banging of guns, he took charge for a minute or two of the sacred camel which had brought back the Mahhmil from Mecca. Abbas, as he led the camel hither and thither, and then out of the square formed by the troops, was regarded, as by this act too probably indicated, as a future ruler of the country. He was more of a Greek in appearance than his grandfather, and the people never lost the impression of their being foreigners.
At that time there were two lads riding about Cairo and the neighbourhood who set all eyes sparkling, and all countenances smiling wherever they appeared. The popular love for those youths seemed to be a perpetual sunshine about them. These were the alternative candidates—the sons of Ibrahim Pasha. He had married a native wife, and their children were dark; and the longing of the people for rulers who should be of their blood, though also of the able and ambitious Greek family, was very striking at that time to strangers.
One element in the case was the policy of certain European governments. The whole issue might depend on whether the French or the English Consuls, or somebody else, should obtain the preponderant influence over the old pasha; and many and keen were the eyes that were bent on the transactions and the intercourses between Mehemet Ali and the foreigners in and about his court.
There was something humiliating as well as amusing in the spectacle of the time. Of course everybody boasted of particular intimacy with the Pasha, except the discreet and gentlemanly Consuls-General, who, in Egypt, held the real rank of ambassadors, as the Viceroy held in fact that of sovereign. Adventurers from various countries were there—English as well as others; and the most vulgar among them were wont to speak in a patronising tone of the old gentleman whom they could wind round their finger, and who liked nothing so much as to be amused by them. They played off their inventions, and puffed their schemes, and pretended that their way was clear, when the shrewd old man had been picking their brains, sounding their projects, and amusing or irritating himself with their impertinence. It was really agonising to hear a braggart Englishman telling stories of the Pasha’s silly simplicity, or of his temper and manners, in the Pasha’s own palace, in the presence of his attendants, some of whom seemed to us, by their countenances, to know something more of English than the low-bred gossip imagined. As for the practical evidences,—the old man let himself be surrounded by obsequious Frenchmen, accepted the most affectionate letters from the King of the French, and allowed his palaces to be filled with clocks, tables, &c., from Paris; but he could never be got to say “Yes” to the proposal of the Suez canal. He listened to English praises of a particular railway made of some very particular rails; and he did not let out that he knew that such rails were lying ready, locking up capital most inconveniently, while he was so long making up his mind. He simply kept silence on important matters while conscious of not fully understanding them; and thus he never could be got to make promises about the Suez canal, and many other artful and unsound projects. He did a few foolish things in his unconscious ignorance of some of the first principles of government; and he also showed the highest intelligence and steadiness in important affairs which he fully comprehended. His fidelity to England in the matter of transit to India is