from the parade at which I had received so much praise. The Emperor had himself just recovered from the grippe, and felt still unwell in consequence; and on hearing how roughly the sentence of banishment had been carried out he was much moved. He called in the Procureur-General, and with tears in his eyes requested him to wait immediately on my father, apologize for his petulance, for the cruel injustice of which he had been guilty, and entreat his forgiveness. After this kind message, he sent every day, sometimes twice, to inquire about my father's health, and when he was at length able to go out and wait on his Majesty, a most touching scene of reconciliation took place in Becklisheff's presence: my father being of course restored to his former position.

repent; his doom was sealed, he was to perish. Whenever Pahlen heard high words of criticism, he used to call the speakers to order, saying, "Messieurs! Jean f.... qui parle brave homme qui agit."

Edinburgh Review.

LETTERS FROM EGYPT.*

EGYPT, at the commencement of the present century, was almost as unknown and mysterious as her own hieroglyphics. If we except the Arabic histories and descriptions open only to the learned in that recondite language, Herodotus was our most recent authority. Egypt, possessing the highest interest to the historian and the divine, was scarcely as much This occurrence was most unfortunate known to Europe as the wilds of Tartafor the Emperor in public estimation, ry. Napoleon first broke the spell of both my parents being very much loved mystery that held the land, and the celeand respected; indeed, there were not brated commission of the French Institwo more popular people in Petersburg, tute, headed by Dénon, accompanied the and deservedly so, from their kindness armies which fought beside the Pyramids. and benevolence to those who were op- Then followed Bruce, Belzoni, Niebuhr, pressed or distressed, and their polite- Burckhardt; all of whom did good work ness to all. During the few days of my towards disinterring Egypt from the sands father's banishment, and afterwards on of its deserts, and removing the obstacles his return home, constant inquiries were raised by Mohammedau intolerance and made for him; and the detestation peo- apathy. At length, about the year 1825, ple felt for the treatment he had experi- a small party of Englishmen met in Cairo, enced was loudly expressed, and in no living among the people like Copts or measured terms, both in conversation Arabs, and patiently studying the manand in letters which arrived from Mos-ners and customs both of ancient and cow and the interior. It may appear in credible that, in a country subject to the autocratic rule of a sovereign whose power was not limited by constitutional rules and customs, and whose natural violence was untamable, so much "freedom of blame" should have been used: but the old Russian spirit was then still in existence, and not to be silenced by severity or police regulations.

With a man of the Emperor Paul's character, so anxious to do right and so generous in his disposition, how differently things might have happened if Count Pahlen had taken advantage of my father's severe illness and used the police-master's report, thereby giving the Emperor time to reflect and examine the cause of provocation. But it did not suit the plans of Count Pahlen and those who acted with him, to allow Paul to NEW SERIES-VOL. II., No. 5.

modern Egypt. Two of that party were Wilkinson and Lane, one of whom exhausted the ancient people, the other, with inimitable accuracy, the modern Egyptians.

Such was our acquaintance with the land of the Pharaohs, of Joseph, and of Moses, when, five-and-twenty years ago, a line of steam-packets to Alexandria threw open the country to pleasure-seekers and health-seekers. The Nile soon superseded the Rhine for a fashionable tour, and we have been inundated, not by its fertilizing waters, but by a flood of books about Egypt, of which it may be generally said that they have done little to increase our knowledge of the antiquities of the country, nothing whatever

*Letters from Egypt, 1863-65. By LADY DUFF GORDON. London: 1865.

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to make us better acquainted with its! people. We know no more at the present day of the inhabitants, of their feelings and tastes, their human sympathies and religious hopes, than we did before the stream of tourists set Nilewards. True, Mr. Lane may be said to have done all that can be done in the way of describing that people; but the "Modern Egyptians" is not intended to give us everyday experience of life in Egypt-rather the results of that experience. Even the brilliant pages of Eōthen, of Miss Martineau, and those of two or three other writers, afford us little insight into the inner life of the Egyptian. Nor is the cause far to seek. A foreign people can not be understood in a short, and generally hurried, visit; nor indeed can they be appreciated by the oldest resident, unless he will consent to waive all prejudice and live among them as one of themselves.

Perhaps Lady Duff Gordon will not be envied for the experience she has gained. It has been dearly bought, enforced by protracted illness, and involving banishment from her family and friends, the privileges of society, even the common comforts of life. She went to Egypt unprejudiced against the people, and has lived among them, chiefly at Thebes. Her letters, which form the little volume at the head of this article, were not written for the public eye, but were addressed to her two nearest relations: they are, therefore, entirely free from constraint, and do not pretend to high literary merit, although they are written in a singularly captivating and vigorous English style; but they possess the rare virtue of enabling the reader to realize the position of the writer and the true aspect of the people. Livingstone has borne witness to African virtues, the "Competition Wallah" has courageously fought the battle of our Indian fellow-subjects, we have felt with Vambéry the parting from his faithful but filthy friends, who were so repulsive till on better acquaintance we learned to respect their hearts. The same lesson may be learned from these letters, for it is not often that an Englishman, let alone an English lady, lives among modern Egyptians. Every one who has done the same in any country of the East will enter into her feelings when she says:

"I am so used now to our poor, shabby life, that it makes quite a strange impression on me to see all the splendor which English their boats,-splendor which, two or three travelers manage to bring with them on board years ago, I should not even have remarked. And thus, out of my inward consciousness' (as Germans say), many of the peculiarities and faults of the people of Egypt are explained to me and accounted for." (p. 357.)

To form a just estimate of the Egyptian, we ought to have more of an acquaintance with him as he is; we require some knowledge of the events of history that have reduced him to his present state, and of the government that every day moulds his thoughts. Let us briefly relate how he has reached his present condition, and what is the pedigree of the people whose "country is a palimpsest, in which the Bible is written over "Herodotus, and the Koran over that.”

For the last two-and-twenty centuries, Egypt has been without a native ruler. The ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs fell with the second subjugation of the country by the Persians, about the year B.C. 350; after having been shaken to its foundations, and its capital destroyed, by Cambyses two centuries before. The Persians were succeeded by the Greeks, to whom the possession of Egypt passed, with that of Persia, of which it was a province, by the conquest of Alexander the Great; and under the Ptolemies it recovered much of its prosperity, albeit theirs too was an alien rule. Three hundred years later, when it became a Roman province, the population consisted partly of Greek, partly of slaves. The Egyptian himself was almost denationalized. Augustus perpetuated the degradation of the native inhabitants, and since his time the system he inaugurated of government by lieutenants of the Empire has continued, with the exception of the more brilliant period corresponding to the times of the Crusades. The Mohammedan invaders, six centuries later, found the country in every respect weaker than when the Romans first gained possession of it. Religious animosities had been added to political feuds. The native population having embraced. Christianity under the ritual of the Coptic Church, hated the Greek communion and its professors more than they hated the newly promulgated faith of Arabia.

After a brief show of resistance, they joined the invaders, and rendered easy the conquest of the country.

failed to perpetuate the line, the children of foreigners rarely attaining to manhood in Egypt. During its existence as an inWith the Arab domination, the final dependent Mohammedan kingdom, Egypt extinction of the Egyptian race as a na- reached great importance; but the inhertion was consummated. So complete ent weakness of the government preventwas the subjugation that the Arabs im- ed its duration. The people suffered seposed their language, both vocabulary verely from the constant political feuds and grammar, upon the native inhabi- of the grandees and court favorites, and tants; and by an enormous immigration it was but the shadow of its former self rendered them in a far greater degree Arab that fell to the sword of Seleem nearly than Copt. Since that period, the Copt has four centuries ago. Still how far above been little heard of in history. The an- what we now find it after those four cencient Egyptian element, already reduced turies of Turkish tyranny and lust! in numbers, was, to a great extent, ab- Governed by Pashas, following each sorbed by the Arab colonists, and the other at short intervals, the unhappy remnant (called Copt to this day) has population has since been used merely gradually dwindled to insignificance, al- to enrich each successive ruler. Every though not without passing through the step, until our own times, has been a fiery ordeal of insurrection and persecu- downward one. Mohammed Ali Pasha tion. It is now about one-fourteenth of found the country distracted by political the whole population of the country. The struggles. A new race of Memlooks had modern Egyptian, however, though far sprung up, and profiting by the wretched more Arab than Copt, retains many of weakness of the Turks, bid fair to seize the characteristics of the latter, and in- the reins of government. We all know herits his oppressed condition. The coun- the end of these Memlooks. Enough has try was at first governed by Arab lieu- been written both in condemnation and tenants of the early Khaleefehs and of extenuation of the massacre of the 1st of those of Damascus and Baghdad; until March, 1811. Of Mohammed Ali's rule, with the gradual weakening of that great history will say that he desired a better Empire, and the struggles of the ortho- destiny for the country than it is ever dox followers of Othmán, or Sunnees likely to have under Turkish pashas. His with the heretic adherents of "Alee, or political sagacity was Western rather Shiy'aees, it became, under the govern- than Eastern, and if he had been allowed ment of a foreign ruler, Ahmad Ibn- to establish his family as independent Tooloon (whose mosque in Cairo, by-the- rulers, a dynasty of men like himself bye, contains the earliest known instance might have raised Egypt again to an imof the pointed arch), nearly independent, portant place in the world's history. But forshadowing its speedy independence as England decided against his indepena kingdom, although under foreign dy- dence, when the Egyptian army was alnasties, until its final ruin by the Turks. most at the gates of Constantinople; and In the year 968-9, the heretic Fátimee while the country has relapsed into the Khaleefehs of Western Africa seized the position of a Turkish province, his succapital, and transferred their throne to cessors have not proved themselves to be the site of Cairo, calling their new city much better than preceding Turkish govEl-Káhireh, or the Victorious. To these, ernors. The irresistible advance of civiliafter a duration of two hundred years, zation has made some acts of oppression succeeded, by the arbitrament of the impossible; some flagrant abuses have sword, the orthodox Kurds, of whom the been suppressed; the influx of travelers, first and greatest was Saladin (or Saláh- the overland route to India, and lately, ed-Deen). Then commenced the sys- the cultivation of cotton, have thrown tem of rearing slaves, or Memlooks, who more money into the country than it has should hold all places of power, and in seen for many years, we had almost said, the event of the king dying without issue, centuries. But it is more than doubtful succeed to the throne; for the offspring if any real improvement in the condition of the Kurds and of their successors the of the people is taking place. The FelTurkish and Circassian Memlook sultans | lah still hoards his savings, unable to dis

play prosperity lest he should be marked endowed, in a higher degree than most for pillage by the nearest petty gover- other people, with some of the more imnor; unable to buy land lest the Pasha portant mental qualities, particularly should exchange it for an equal measure quickness of apprehension, a ready wit, of desert; unable to look forward to his and a retentive memory. In youth, they sons succeeding to an inheritance, for generally possess these and other intelthey are at the mercy of the conscription lectual powers; but the causes above and forced labor. As we now find him, he alluded to gradually lessen their mental is spiritless and hopeless, his very manhood energy." almost ground out of him by centuries of debasement. The townsman, by friction with other minds, retains more mental vigor; he possesses a portion of independence, by combination with his fellow-citizens; and a rising in Cairo has always been regarded with apprehension by the Government. But with all this, with his patient fatalism, and his natural cheerfulness, fostered as they are by the meeting some hundreds of the poor souls, who in the coffee-shop and the market-place, the Cairene has become a melancholy "The faces are all sad, and rather what the Scotch call 'dour-not méchantes at all, but harsh, like their voices."

man.

Notwithstanding all the disadvantages of his position both past and present, the modern Egyptian is a remarkable man. He is pious, possessed of strong religious feeling, and exhibits a constant sense of God's providence; his filial piety and respect for the aged are conspicuous, with benevolence and charity, and humanity to dumb animals. Hospitable and courteous, he is frugal, temperate in food and drink, cleanly in his person, and honest in the payment of debts. On the other hand, he undoubtedly may be charged with religious pride and hypocrisy, with a levity amounting in our ears to profanity in speaking of holy things; with indolence, obstinacy, and libidinousness, a want of truthfulness, and a habit of cursing. While murders and other grave crimes are rare, petty thefts are common. Such is a very brief summary of his moral qualities, taken from the "Modern Egyptians," and concurred in by all who have had sufficient opportunities of forming a judgment. Of his mental qualities Mr. Lane also says: "The natural or innate character of the modern Egyptians is altered, in a remarkable degree, by the religion, laws, and government, as well as by the climate and other causes; and to form a just opinion of it is, therefore, very difficult. We may, however, confidently state that they are

The reader will find in these letters abundant evidence of the Egyptian's virtues; and, unhappily, of his wrongs. The authoress witnessed the gangs of unhappy wretches on their way to the forced works of M. Lesseps or the Pasha. Writing in the latter part of 1862, she says: "Four huge barges passed us, towed by a steamer, and crammed with

had been torn from their homes to work at the Isthmus of Suez or some palace of the Pasha's for a nominal piastre (three halfpence) a day, finding their own bread and water, and cloak." Again, in May, 1863, she says:

is my near neighbor, and he comes

in, and we discuss the government. His heart is sore with disinterested grief for the sufferings of the people. Don't they deserve to be decently governed,-to be allowed a little happiness and prosperity? they are so docile, so contented; are they not a good people?' Those were his words as he was recounting some new iniquity. Of course, half these acts are done under pretext of improving and civilizing, and the Europeans applaud and say, 'Oh, but nothing could be done without forced labor,' and the poor Fellaheen are marched off in gangs like convicts, and their families starve, and (who would have thought it?) the population keeps diminishing. No wonder the cry is, 'Let the English Queen come and take us.' You know that I don't see things quite as our countrymen generally do, for mine is another Standpunkt, and my heart is with the Arabs. I care less about opening up the trade with the Soodán, or about all the new railways, and I should like to see person and property safe, which no one's is here,-Europeans of course excepted. "Ismaeel Pasha got the Sultan to allow him to take 90,000 feddans of uncultivated land for himself as private property. Very well. But the late Viceroy granted, eight years ago, certain uncultivated lands to a good many Turks, his employés,-in hopes of founding a landed aristocracy, and inducing them to spend their capital in cultivation. They did so; and now Ismaeel takes their improved land, and gives them feddan for feddan of his new land (which will take five years to bring