asha, but it tends
to become troublesome and baneful when it attempts to interfere with the
government of an active and enlightened sovereign animated by just and
generous intentions.

Muhammed Said, the successor of Abbas Pasha, was born in 1822, nine
years later than his nephew Abbas. He was brought up in Europe by French
professors, and M. Kornig, a distinguished Orientalist, remained with
his pupil and became his secretary. He not only instructed him in all
branches of knowledge becoming to his rank, but also developed in him
a love of European civilisation and noble sentiments, of which he gave
proof from the moment of his accession. He was imbued with liberal
principles, which in an Eastern potentate give proof of great moral
superiority, and in this respect Muhammed Said wras second to no prince
in Europe. He worked for the emancipation of his subjects and the
civilisation of Egypt, and was not content to produce that superficial
civilisation which consists in transplanting institutions that the mass
of the people could not understand. Said Pasha endeavoured to pursue his
father's policy and to carry out his high aims. He had not, however,
the strength of character nor the health necessary to meet the serious
difficulties involved in such a task, and he will be chiefly remembered
by his abolition of the more grinding government monopolies, and for the
concession of the Suez Canal.

After his death Said Pasha was succeeded in the vice-royalty by his
nephew, Ismail Pasha, who was proclaimed viceroy without opposition
early in the year 1863. Ismail, the first who accepted the title of
khedive from the sultan, was born on December 31, 1830, being the second
of the three sons of Ibrahim, and grandson of Mehemet Ali. He had been
educated at the Ecole d'Etat Major at Paris, and when Ahmed, the eldest
son of Ibrahim, died in 1858, Ismail became the heir to his uncle Said.
He had been employed, after his return to Egypt, on missions to the
sovereign pontiff; the emperor, Napoleon III.; and the Sultan of Turkey.
In the year 1861 he was despatched with an army of 18,000 men to
quell an insurrection in the Sudan, which undertaking he brought to a
successful conclusion. On ascending the throne he was much gratified
to find that, on account of the scarcity of cotton, resulting from the
Civil War in America, the revenues had very considerably increased from
the export of the Egyptian cotton. At this date the cotton crop was
w