rted
from a poverty-stricken population.

A striking picture of the condition of the people at this period is
given by Lady Duff Gordon in _Last Letters from Egypt_. Writing in
1867 she said: "I cannot describe the misery here now--every day some
new tax. Every beast, camel, cow, sheep, donkey and horse is made to
pay. The fellaheen can no longer eat bread; they are living on
barley-meal mixed with water, and raw green stuff, vetches, | &c. The
taxation makes life almost impossible: a tax on every crop, on every
animal first, and again when it is sold in the market; on every man,
on charcoal, on butter, on salt.... The people in Upper Egypt are
running away by wholesale, utterly unable to pay the new taxes and do
the work exacted. Even here (Cairo) the beating for the year's taxes
is awful."

Steps leading to the deposition of Ismail.

In the years that followed the condition of things grew worse. Thousands
of lives were lost and large sums expended in extending Ismail's
dominions in the Sudan (q.v.) and in futile conflicts with Abyssinia. In
1875 the impoverishment of the fellah had reached such a point that the
ordinary resources of the country no longer sufficed for the most urgent
necessities of administration; and the khedive Ismail, having repeatedly
broken faith with his creditors, could not raise any more loans on the
European market. The taxes were habitually collected many months in
advance, and the colossal floating debt was increasing rapidly. In these
circumstances Ismail had to realize his remaining assets, and among them
sold 176,602 Suez Canal shares to the British government for
L3,976,582[25] (see BEACONSFIELD). This comparatively small financial
operation brought about the long-delayed crisis and paved the way for
the future prosperity of Egypt, for it induced the British government to
inquire more carefully into the financial condition of the country. In
December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave, M.P., and Colonel (afterwards Sir John)
Stokes, R.E., were sent to Egypt to inquire into the financial
situation; and Mr Cave's report, made public in April 1876, showed that
under the existing administration national bankruptcy was inevitable.
Other commissions of inquiry followed, and each one brought Ismail more
under European control. The establishment of the Mixed Tribunals in
1876, in place of the system of consular jurisdiction in civil actions,
made some of the courts of justice in