ns.

Hekekian Bey is my near neighbour, and he comes in and we _fronder_ 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 labour,' and the poor
Fellaheen are marched off in gangs like convicts, and their families
starve, and (who'd have thought it) the population keeps diminishing. No
wonder the cry is, 'Let the English Queen come and take us.' You see, I
don't see things quite as Ross does, but mine is another _standpunkt_,
and my heart is with the Arabs. I care less about opening up the trade
with the Soudan and all the new railways, and I should like to see person
and property safe, which no one's is here (Europeans, of course,
excepted). Ismail 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 Said granted eight years ago certain uncultivated
lands to a good many Turks, his _employes_, in hopes of founding a landed
aristocracy and inducing them to spend their capital in cultivation.
They did so, and now Ismail Pasha takes their improved land and gives
them feddan for feddan of his new land, which will take five years to
bring into cultivation, instead. He forces them to sign a _voluntary_
deed of exchange, or they go off to Fazogloo, a hot Siberia whence none
return. The Sultan also left a large sum of money for religious
institutions and charities--Muslim, Jew, and Christian. None have
received a foddah. It is true the Sultan and his suite plundered the
Pasha and the people here; but from all I hear the Sultan really wishes
to do good. What is wanted here is hands to till the ground, and wages
are very high; food, of course, gets dearer, and the forced labour
inflicts more suffering than before, and the population will decrease yet
faster. This appears to me to be a state of things in which it is no use
to say that public works must be made at any cost. The wealth will
perhaps be increased, if meanwhile the people are not exterminated.
Then, every new Pasha builds a huge new palace while those of