. Jumel, introduced improvements in the production of
cotton, whilst M. Drovetti, the pasha's tried friend, helped to further
the establishment of manufactories by his advice and great experience of
men and things. Before long, cotton mills were built, cloth factories, a
sugar refinery, rum distillery, and saltpetre works erected. The foreign
trade despatched as much as seven million _ardebs_ of cereals every
year, and more than six hundred thousand bales of cotton. In return,
European gold flowed into the treasury of this industrious pasha, and
the revenues of Egypt, which hitherto had never exceeded $150,000,000,
were more than doubled in 1816.
The very slight success which Mehemet Ali had obtained when commanding
the irregular forces during the expedition against the Wahabis decided
him to put a long-cherished idea into execution, namely, to organise an
army on European lines. Henceforth this became the sole occupation of
the enterprising pasha and the exclusive goal of his perseverance.
The Nizam-Jedyd was proclaimed in the month of July, 1815, and all the
troops were ordered to model themselves after the pattern of the French
army.
This large undertaking, which in 1807 had cost Selim III. his life,
proved almost as fatal to Mehemet Ali. A terrible insurrection broke
out amongst the alien soldiers, who principally composed the army; the
infuriated troops rose against the tyrant and the unbeliever, the palace
was pillaged, and the pasha had scarcely time to seek the shelter of his
citadel. His only means of saving his life and recovering his authority
was solemnly to promise to abandon his plan. Mehemet Ali therefore
deferred his military schemes and awaited the opportunity to test its
success upon the natives, who would be far more easily managed than the
excitable strangers, brought up as they were on the old traditions of
the Okaz and the Mamluks. The war which still raged in Arabia gave
him the means of ridding himself of the most indomitable men, whom he
despatched to Hedjaz under the command of Ibrahim Pasha, his eldest son.
Now came success to console Mehemet Ali for the failure of his
reformatory plans. After a long series of disasters, Ibrahim succeeded,
in the year 1818, in taking Abd Allah Ibn-Sonud, the chief of the
Wahabis, prisoner. He sent him to the Great Pasha, a name often applied
to Mehemet Ali in Egypt, at Cairo, bearing a portion of the jewels
taken from the temple at Mecca. The unfortunate
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