must disclaim
all knowledge of modern politics, I am quite sure that it is no
meaningless phrase to say that England will most carefully hold this
tendency in check prevent an incursion into Syria; but, with a strong
controlling hand relaxed, it would require more than human strength to
eradicate an Egyptian tendency--nay, a habit, of six thousand years'
standing. Try as she might, Egypt, as far as an historian can see, would
not be able to prevent herself passing ultimately into Syria again. How
or when this would take place an Egyptologist cannot see, for he is
accustomed to deal in long periods of time, and to consider the
centuries as others might the decades. It might not come for a hundred
years or more: it might come suddenly quite by accident.

In 1907 there was a brief moment when Egypt appeared to be, quite
unknowingly, on the verge of an attempted reconquest of her lost
province. There was a misunderstanding with Turkey regarding the
delineation of the Syrio-Sinaitic frontier; and, immediately, the
Egyptian Government took strong action and insisted that the question
should be settled. Had there been bloodshed the seat of hostilities
would have been Syria; and supposing that Egypt had been victorious, she
would have pushed the opposing forces over the North Syrian frontier
into Asia Minor, and when peace was declared she would have found
herself dictating terms from a point of vantage three hundred miles
north of Jerusalem. Can it be supposed that she would then have desired
to abandon the reconquered territory?

However, matters were settled satisfactorily with the Porte, and the
Egyptian Government, which had never realised this trend of events, and
had absolutely no designs upon Syria, gave no further consideration to
Asiatic affairs. In the eyes of the modern onlookers the whole matter
had developed from a series of chances; but in the view of the historian
the moment of its occurrence was the only chance about it, the _fact_ of
its occurrence being inevitable according to the time-proven rules of
history. The phrase "England in Egypt" has been given such prominence of
late that a far more important phrase, "Egypt in Asia," has been
overlooked. Yet, whereas the former is a catch-word of barely thirty
years' standing, the latter has been familiar at the east end of the
Mediterranean for forty momentous centuries at the lowest computation,
and rings in the ears of the Egyptologist all through the ages. I n