Before leaving Cairo to meet and oppose the French advance, Murad Bey had arranged that a large chain was to be stretched, as a boom, across the river, and batteries erected upon the adjacent shore to play upon the enemy in the confusion he anticipated would arise from their meeting with this obstacle. It was not, however, until the news of the defeat of the Mamaluks at Shebriss had thrown the capital into the utmost confusion, that any serious efforts were made to prepare the defences of the city. When that news came to the people, who had been looking forward to receiving tidings of the destruction of the French, then Ibrahim Bey and Bekir Pacha, filled with alarm at this first note of disaster, jointly called upon the whole population to take up arms and hasten to the riverside for the defence of their homes and families. Weapons and ammunition were served out as long as they could be got to all comers, and when the supply of deadlier arms ran short, the deficiency was made good in intention, if not in fact, by the distribution of naboots, long staffs of hard wood, which the Egyptians of the lowerclasses are accustomed to use much as our distant forebears used their quarter-staffs. Other impromptu weapons were provided by the people themselves, such as knives lashed to the end of long sticks, this primitive arm which could be either wielded as a lance or thrown as a javelin being destined at a later date to deprive the French of one of their ablest generals.
Cairo was at that time separated from the river by an open stretch of ground, now covered by the avenues lined by the villas and mansions that form the Kasr el Aini and Ismailia quarters of the town. At the north end of this space was the small town of Boulac, which served as the port of the city then as it still does. This was the spot chosen by Ibrahim Bey as the headquarters for the defence of the town, and here and around the people were gathered, and quantities of stores and ammunition of every kind collected, whatever was needed or desired, if not found in the magazines of the State, being seized without ceremony wherever it could be got. For several days the space between the two towns was covered with the crowds coming and going, engaged in the transport of the various materials required; and so great was the haste to finish the work and the desire to help it on, that men of almost all degrees assisted in the task. As it was impossible to find accommodation for everybody at Boulac, a large number of the people returned to their homes in the city to pass the night and gain well-earned repose, but only to return at the first dawn of day. Unwonted and severe as was the labour they had toundergo, all worked not only willingly but with the greatest enthusiasm, and with all the needless noise and tumult that is a never-failing part of any exertion the Egyptian worker is called upon to make. Not unnaturally the workers encouraged each other by vaunting cries of contempt and derision for the enemy they were expecting, and thus incurred the censure of the Egyptian historian Gabarty, who condemns such conduct as lacking in the dignity that should distinguish the defence of Islam.
The Ulema, who, like the Druids of old, have always been exempt from military service and taxation, were like them, not backward in encouraging others in their toil or in assisting in such ways and manners as befitted their character. Very properly they busied themselves especially in prayer, and at all the stated hours of worship offered up fervent supplications to the Deity for protection and victory, and, the children of all the schools being under their charge, they gathered these and led them in processions reciting invocations suited to the occasion.
The dervishes, or, as they are often incorrectly termed, the "Monks of Islam," who are in reality simply members of lay confraternities, such as those of the Catholic Church, also assembled themselves and paraded the streets flying their banners and accompanied by the weird Arab music of pipes and drums that, unwelcome to European ears, has a strange fascination for the Arab and Egyptian, and, like the "Ça ira" or "Marseillaise" in the streets of Paris, fills its hearers with a fierce longing for actionand excitement, a wild craving to be up and doing they know not what, or why.
Some of the wealthier citizens left the town to seek refuge in the neighbouring villages, others simply sent their families and valuables away and joined the gathering at Boulac, and the town being thus practically deserted—even the Sheikhs el Harah, petty officials appointed in all the quarters of the town to look after public order, being engaged at Boulac—the streets, which in ordinary times were swept and watered daily, were neglected, and business of every kind being of necessity at a standstill, the poorer classes, who lived from hand to mouth on their daily earnings, no longer finding any employment, were driven by sheer starvation to seek in robbery and crime a means of living.
The Dewan having been broken up by the departure of Murad Bey and others of the Mamaluk chiefs, no regular council could be held; but Bekir Pacha, with some of the Ulema and leading men who remained, held frequent consultations and were in constant communication with Ibrahim Bey, who remained at Boulac day and night to supervise the work there and along the river, by the side of which batteries were being erected for a distance of nearly three miles north of Boulac.
Ibrahim Bey appears to the last to have preserved his confidence in the certainty of the Mamaluks proving victorious, but Bekir Pacha, when the news of the near approach of the French was received, decided in conjunction with some of the Ulema to make an attempt to treat with the enemy. With thisobject in view they sent for a Monsieur Bandeuf, who was regarded as the leader of the French colony, and begged him to tell them candidly what he thought was the object of the invasion. He, of course, was no better informed upon this point than they were themselves, but he could at least form an idea, and his reply was that he believed it most likely the French desired nothing more than a free passage through the country to enable them to proceed to India to join their countrymen there in their struggle with the English. Accepting this as, at least, a possibly true explanation of the invasion, they proposed to Monsieur Bandeuf that he should go as an envoy from them to Bonaparte, and assure him of their willingness to facilitate him in every way if such were his object. Not without some hesitation occasioned by his fear that it would not be possible for him to reach the French camp in safety, Monsieur Bandeuf consented to do this, and was preparing to set out, with an escort of the Mamaluks of Ibrahim Bey for his protection, when the reverberations of the cannon at Embabeh were heard, and they realised that it was too late for such an embassy as they had proposed.
As soon as Ibrahim Bey heard the commencement of the battle he began to take such steps as he could to forward assistance to Murad Bey, but long before any effective move in that direction could be made the battle was over, and Ibrahim Bey, hearing of the flight of Murad, hastened back to Cairo with Bekir Pacha, to take their families and valuables and flee.
Words fail to describe the panic that overwhelmedthe people. Utterly helpless, and unaccustomed to think or act for themselves, unarmed and without any possible means of defence, they saw themselves, deserted by their leaders, at the mercy of a foe from whom, as they thought, they could expect no quarter and no pity, while the military force, in the protection of which they had felt such unbounded confidence, was in full flight leaving them to their fate. To any unwarlike and helpless people to be thus suddenly abandoned as a prey to an unknown foe must have seemed an appalling disaster, but in this case no circumstance seems to have been wanting that could by any possibility add to the natural terror of the people at the calamity that had so suddenly befallen them. In less than an hour they were plunged from an exulting ecstasy of triumphant anticipation to the crushing despondency of the direst despair. The consternation that had been occasioned by the first news of the defeat of the Mamaluks at Shebriss had been largely, if not wholly, dissipated by the representations of the Mamaluks, and so loud and blatant were the vauntings of the people that Gabarty, whose Arab blood had but little sympathy for any open expression of the emotions, speaks in the most contemptuous terms of their conduct as wholly unworthy of a people deserving of any esteem. Nor had the Mamaluks, knowing well how little love the people bore them, neglected to contribute all they could to their fear of the French by attributing to these the lust of rapine and bloodthirsty cruelty. And with the news of the defeat and flight of Murad Bey came the tale of the slaughter of the Mamaluksby the riverside to confirm and augment the worst fears of the people. Later on reports were spread that the French were still busy slaying and destroying all before them, and, Ibrahim Bey having ordered the burning of all the boats to prevent the French using them to cross the river, the people, ignorant of this, took the dense columns of smoke arising from the riverside as confirmation of the ruthless ravage the French were said to be wrecking. In the dire madness of the despair that seized them no room was left for any other thoughts than those of self-preservation, and, as the evening closed in and night fell, the whole population, laden with all they could carry of their goods or wealth, streamed out of the city gates. In the maddened rush for safety, all the claims of blood and friendship were forgotten, and men and women alike, frantic from their fears, fought their way through the fleeing crowds heedless of parents, wives, brothers, sisters.
More than one writer has taken this wild exodus as a text to accuse the people of cowardice. Nothing could be more unjust. They were flying from what to them was a very real and immediate danger, and for the most part on foot from mounted foes. They could see no other choice but fly or die, and the darkness of the night, the suddenness of the danger, everything helped to urge them onward. Not more sure was Christian that he was fleeing from the City of Destruction than were they. It was a panic such as seizes a people with all the more uncontrollable force in that it comes as a sudden revulsion from peaceful ease; one such as those that in our owndays in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco have turned laughing, joyous crowds of pleasure-seekers into mobs of frenzied fugitives. When in the days of the dynamite scare in London the crash of the Scotland Yard explosion was heard in the Strand, men dashed here and there for safety from the danger that had passed. Not long after I saw a roomful of men hurl themselves headlong down a narrow flight of stairs, fleeing madly from the report of a detonating cigar! I have seen panic seize a thousand emigrants on board a German ship in mid-ocean; another, the pilgrims for Mecca on an Austrian ship in Bombay Harbour; another, the coolies working on the Hurnai Railway in Beloochistan. In these cases the panic-creating danger was an imaginary one, and yet in real danger these same victims of panic remained calm and collected. It was so, as we shall have occasion to see, with the unhappy Cairenes.
I have spoken already of the fears that the coming of the French had awakened in the hearts of the people, and to the Cairenes it must have seemed on that most miserable of nights as if the realisation of all the worst of those fears was but the question of a few moments. As the evening had fallen had they not seen the columns of flame-emblazoned smoke that to them were a proof of the ferocious fury of the foe? Had they not seen the Mamaluk Chiefs, the bravest of the brave, fleeing for life with breathless haste? With no arms, no leaders, nothing but instant flight as the only means of safety they could conceive, surely a people who had not beenpanic-stricken in such dire peril would have been a nation of heroes such as the world has never yet seen!
But if safety for them lay outside the city, it was not beneath its walls, for there the Bedouin tribesmen, whom Ibrahim Bey had summoned to assist him in the defence of the town, disappointed of the plunder of the French army to which they had looked forward as their only inducement to take part in the contest, with untroubled consciences turned to the pillage of the unhappy fugitives as a heaven-sent compensation for their unrealised hopes. Nor were they content with the rich plunder that thus easily fell into their hands, but with wanton savagery murdered the men and outraged and slew the women. Thus finding at the hands of their co-religionists, who had been summoned for their defence, no better mercy than the unrestrained cruelty they feared from the French, the unhappy people, or at least so many of them as escaped from the Bedouins, returned to their homes, while the Mamaluk Chiefs and their followers rode away through the desert indifferent to the fate of all they had left behind them.
Meanwhile the French army, after a short rest, had advanced along the left bank of the river as far as Ghizeh, a village lying in the line between the city and the pyramids, where Bonaparte decided to encamp. On their way from Embabeh the troops had an opportunity of seeing across the river the town of Cairo and the nearly mile-wide stretch of open land lying between, studded with the gardensand summer residences of some of the wealthier of the Beys. Elated by their victory, and perhaps still more so by the rich loot they had gleaned from the dead bodies of their fallen foes, they forgot the fatigues of their long advance, and set themselves to enjoy the rest they so much needed and the comparatively luxurious fare they expected to compensate them for all the hardships they had endured. Many were the castles that rose in the air as they sat around the bivouac fires, and joked and jested until, wearied by the labours of the day, "Nature's soft nurse" lulled them to the repose she withheld from their vanquished enemies.
But the coming of daylight on the morrow of the battle brought to the horror-whelmed citizens some small gleam of comfort. Fugitives from the west bank of the river told them how the French had settled peacefully down at Ghizeh, and people coming into the town from Boulac explained the fires that had added so much to the terror of the night. With the calmer mood thus induced came the remembrance of what they had heard of the mildness and humanity of the French at Alexandria and Rosetta, and along the line of their advance, and though the mourners were wailing for their dead and missing in every street and corner of the town, and their homes had been dismantled or disordered by the flight of the night before, and swept by the thieves of the city of whatever had been left behind, the people still, as ever, impulsive and hopeful, began with the truest of courage to repair as best they might the havoc that awful night had wrought, and to face the fears anddangers yet before them with a spirit little short of heroism.
Early in the morning the Ulema and the few leading men who remained in the town gathered together to consult as to what course it would be best for them to follow. They had not much scope for discussion, for they recognised from the first that the only question left for them to deal with was how best to conciliate the conquerors. Eventually it was agreed to send a deputation to the French camp to announce their submission and crave the forbearance and protection of the French General, and thus to ascertain as far as possible what they had to hope and what to fear. Tactless as he is in a moment of emergency, when he stays to take thought with himself in calm and serious mood, the Egyptian not unfrequently shows a wisdom that his critics seldom accord him. Thus, wholly inexperienced as they were in such diplomatic matters, they wisely judged that to send as the representatives of the town men who could claim to be neutrals would tend to further the objects of their mission. Two Maghribeen Sheikhs—that is members of the Ulema from the Barbary States—were therefore selected, and with many injunctions and entreaties counselled to plead the cause of the town in the most earnest manner they could achieve. Accompanied by the prayers and blessings of the whole population, the deputation, not without some small lingering doubt as to the nature of the reception that might await it, set out for Guizeh.
Bonaparte, to whom their coming was not so unexpectedas they themselves thought it to be, received them with the affability he so well knew how to show, and which throughout his stay in Egypt did much to lessen the friction between the two peoples. One of the Sheikhs was able to speak French, and had had some experience of French manners, and he, acting as spokesman, discharged his task well and discreetly, and concluded his address by an appeal for clemency. Bonaparte replied that he was the friend of the Egyptians—not their enemy—that he came to the country to release them from the tyranny of the Mamaluks, and in short gave them a verbal restatement of the proclamation, with many fine flourishes, about the high aims and noble ideals by which the French were actuated. So with many fair words the deputation was dismissed, but with the request that the chief men remaining in the town should wait in person upon the General to hear from him the arrangements he proposed to make.
All the town was awaiting the return of the deputation with an eagerness and suppressed excitement that made their short absence seem an age, and great was the relief when they were seen once more approaching the landing, and great the joy with which the news they bore was received throughout the town. No time was lost in responding to Bonaparte's invitation, and, taking with them the keys of the city, all the chief men set out for Guizeh, anxious at once to gain renewed assurance of the fair hopes awakened by the report of the deputation, and at the same time give the French General a proof of their readiness to comply with his desires.
Bonaparte was, if possible, more gracious than before, and again dilated upon the purely friendly and beneficent intentions of the invasion, of his sympathy for Islam, and his desire to make his coming the opening of a new era in the history of the people, who were thenceforth to enjoy all the blessings that the establishment of the Republic had already conferred upon the French themselves. He was listened to with the emotionless stolidity of the Oriental, but not without occasional exclamations of approval, yet as he went on his hearers were moved by steadily growing wonder at and distrust of a speech so utterly unlike anything they had ever heard of, or conceived as possible, from the lips of a conqueror. They had, indeed, read the proclamation, copies of which had been sent to Cairo, but it had failed with them, as with the people of Alexandria, to convey any intelligible conception of the ideas it was intended to impart, and the "Little Corporal's" discourse reaching them through the mouth of an interpreter helped them nothing at all to grasp the real aims and object of the French. All that they could comprehend was that they were expected to accept the French as their rulers; that their lives, property, and religion would be respected; and that the French were as eager to reward their friends as to annihilate their enemies. But loyalty to the French and loyalty to the Sultan were so mixed up in the proclamation and in Bonaparte's speech, and were in themselves, in the eyes of the Egyptians, two such absolutely irreconcilable things, that the Sheikhs were completely bewildered by the attempt to solve the enigma thus presentedto them. So they were content for the moment to accept the French assurance that they were to be treated as friends, and for the rest God was great, and they put their trust in Him.
But if the speech of Bonaparte thus made upon them but little impression of a definite kind, the courtesy shown them by all the French with whom they came in contact was not so barren. Accustomed as they were to the hollow insincerity of Court life under the Beys, the Sheikhs could not fail to appreciate the genuine character of the politeness with which they had been received by the French. It was due rather to this appreciation than to the plausible promises of the General that they returned to the city somewhat, though not wholly, reassured as to the immediate future. On their part the French were sufficiently pleased with the docility of the deputation, and from the dignity, self-possession, and courtesy of its members augured well for the realisation of their own views.
As a consequence of the good understanding thus arrived at, boats were sent over to Guizeh to convey the advance guard of the army to Cairo, and returning after sunset with a detachment of the troops escorted through the town by some of the leading men, and, lighted by torches, led to the citadel, of which it took possession.
The following day the bulk of the army was moved across the river, and historians record, with some disgust, the revolting glee with which the soldiers fished out of the stream the hideously swollen and disfigured bodies of the Mamaluks andof the horses that had perished in the attempted escape from Embabeh that they might despoil the miserable carcases of whatever remained upon them of value. We must remember, however, that in those days the armies of Europe were recruited from classes that had scarcely as yet been touched by the advance of civilisation. Nowhere was human life then regarded with the sanctity a more enlightened age accords it. To his superiors the soldier was of no value but as "food for powder," and it is not surprising that the little value placed upon his life by others should lead him to look upon the lives of his foes at a still lower rate and deprive him of all feelings of humanity towards them.
As to the people of the town, released from the fears that had plunged them in such disastrous despair and as responsive as always to the impulse of the moment and the play of their surroundings, these received the French, if not with the open arms that Bonaparte had looked for, at least with a toleration and absence of hostile demonstration that speedily put the French at their ease. Everything thus bidding fair for the realisation of all his hopes, Bonaparte himself crossed over the river on the 27th of July and took up his quarters in a new palace that Elfy Bey, one of the wealthiest of the Mamaluk chiefs, had only just had completed and furnished in a magnificent manner, on the bank of the small lake to the north-west of the city, the site of which is now occupied by the garden and buildings of the Esbekieh quarter of the new town.
Bonaparte having thus accomplished the first and, though he did not think so, last step on the way towards the building of the great Eastern Empire that he had dreamed was to "take Europe in reverse," despatched a portion of the army in pursuit of the fugitive Mamaluks, and settled down in his new quarters to scheme and prepare for the future.
The troops remaining in Cairo, in the best of humour at the agreeable change the city gave them from the hardships of the advance, began with the rough good-humour of the soldier to fraternise with the people. At first, diffident and distrustful of the French, the lower classes seeing that these went about unarmed, and that not only were their own lives and property respected, but that even the common soldiers paid liberally and promptly for all they needed, were not slow in adapting themselves to the position. They were still depressed by the loss of kin and property that had resulted from the panic, but believing, as all Moslems do, in Pope's doctrine that "Whatever is, is right," they rapidly recovered theirwonted cheerfulness, and wherever the French went in the town they, like Rasselas, "met gaiety and kindness, and heard the song of joy or the laugh of the careless," almost untinged by the dread of reflection Imlac so dolefully attributed to the merriest.
That the people should have thus readily accepted the rule of an alien army has often enough been the subject of cynical criticism on the part of authors compiling the history of the country from such documents as fell in their way, but from their ignorance of the people and of humanity in general, incapable of reading aright the true meaning of the records they perused. Let us avoid their error, and try to grasp the real meaning of this oft-condemned "levity" of the Egyptians, and let us do so with the more seriousness of purpose that, in learning what we can of the real attitude of the people towards the French in 1798, we shall be learning much that will help us to understand their attitude towards the English in more recent years. To begin with let us note that in fraternising with the French the Cairenes were true to their natural instinct, for they are and always have been a volatile, light-hearted people, fond of jest and pleasure, enjoying the present with no heed for the morrow, and the rank and file of the invaders being of the same temperament, these traits supplied a ready bond of good feeling between the two bodies. And in yielding to the spirit of fellowship thus engendered the Egyptians betrayed no trust, and were guilty of no treachery or disloyalty. To theMamaluks they owed no more loyalty than did the Saxon English or the Celtic Irish to the Normans, and no more love than the French revolutionists had had for the aristocrats. Whatever of loyalty they had was given to the Sultan, and since Bonaparte professed to respect his authority and to be acting in his interest, this loyalty was not outraged by the presence of the French. Nor did the flight of Bekir Pacha, the Sultan's representative, impeach the good faith of the French, for it was no uncommon sight to see a Turkish governor in arms against, or fleeing from, his sovereign.
Two things only separated the victors from the vanquished, the want of a common language and the religion, or rather irreligion, of the French. The former was too trivial a matter to sway either the French or the Egyptians, and the latter, though it was an effectual barrier to any deep friendship between the two peoples, was scarcely any restraint upon such purely social intercourse as was possible between them. Finally, the Egyptians had but one of two courses open to them—they must either frankly accept friendly relations or offer a sullen and unavailing opposition. This was so because they were as little anxious for, as incapable of, self-government, or self-protection. Without some governing body to direct the affairs of the country they would have been like a flock without its bellwether. Of this they were conscious, and though it is not probable that they for a moment looked at the question before them with regard to this fact, it was chiefly this that prevented their seeingany alternative to the acceptance of the French. To the present day, many of the peoples of India are influenced by the same sense of their own incapacity, and it is there one of the strongest of the elements tending to the consolidation of the Empire under its British rulers. As this incapacity and the belief that it is an irradicable defect of the peoples concerned has largely affected public opinion in Europe as to the present and future of the Egyptians, it will be well for us to see here to what causes it is due.
Remembering how little we can see beyond the surface of the lives, not only of our own countrymen but even of our own most intimate friends, we need not wonder that in seeking to gauge the character of a people so altogether apart from us as are the Egyptians we are apt to wander widely from the truth in our efforts to understand the ideas by which they are guided, and to be misled by giving undue weight to some feature that seems to mark them out as different from ourselves. It is thus we find the Egyptians so commonly spoken of as "fatalists"—a term perhaps not unfairly applied as a reproach to them, but one that is too often most wrongly taken as a sufficient explanation of all their real or alleged incapacity. It is this, we are told, that has rendered them incapable of controlling their own affairs, this that has made them "the servile slaves of foreign masters." The truth is that the fatalism of the Egyptians not only plays a very small part in the framing of their characters or the guidance of their lives, but it isa fatalism of a kind not commonly understood or implied by the term. We must look elsewhere, therefore, for the explanation we need, and a slight knowledge of their history is enough to point us to the enervation caused by the system of government under which they have lived for so many centuries as at least a powerful factor in the limitation of their aptitudes. From generation to generation deprived of all right or power of initiative, wholly without voice or influence in the affairs of the country, and habitually treated as slaves, having no other duty and owning no other privilege than that of the most perfect submission to all representing the governing power of the moment, they were of necessity entirely unaccustomed to think of or discuss any other subjects than the paltry matters of their daily lives. Yet it must not be supposed that they were debarred the liberty of speech or of comment and criticism, or that they were in any sense wholly passive victims of the tyranny from which they suffered. Under the Beys they from time to time "demonstrated" as loudly, if not as effectively, as our own people are wont to do. Thus, as a protest against a new impost, or, as the Tudors and Stuarts would have termed it, "Benevolence," laid upon them in the year 1794, with common consent all the business of the town was suspended, and the people went in a mass to the Cadi, or Chief Justice, and the leading Ulema, and through their intermediation obtained the revocation of the impost—for the moment, but for the moment only, forthe wily Beys, though they stormed and fumed, felt it wiser to submit and to annul the impost, but a little later substituted for it a whole series of imposts, which, being demanded at intervals and only from one or two sections of the people at a time, finally proved more profitable to the Beys and more burthensome to the people than it would have been in its first form. It is clear, however, from this incident that the people had a fair conception of the power of united action, but the mob that marched to the Cadi's, while it was like those of the French Revolution, leaderless, could not like those march in column, but pressed forward in a mass, a mere throng of men stirred by a common impulse. When the Beys, to adopt a military phrase, attacked them in detail this want of leadership was fatal to their cause, and this want of leaders was due to the conditions under which the people were living, for the man who had dared to act as leader would have paid the penalty of his folly with his life, and the people would have been helpless to avenge his death. Hence anything in the nature of effective organisation or combination was impossible. Unlike their critics, the Egyptians saw then, as they do now, that without the power and opportunity of arming themselves they were, and must remain, helpless to combat the tyranny of their rulers, otherwise than by such passive means as the suspension of all trade and business.
It will be seen, then, that the condition of the Egyptians at the time of the French invasion was, ina broad way, similar to that of the Saxons under the Normans, but we need not go back to the time when Gurth bewailed the condition of his countrymen to find the masses of the English people but little better off in this respect than were the Egyptians under the Mamaluks. When in 1795 Bishop Horsley, speaking in the House of Lords, said he "did not know what the mass of the people in any country had to do with the laws but to obey them"; and the Chief Justice, in sentencing Muir, cried, "As for the rabble, who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation on them?" they might both have been speaking for the Mamaluk rulers of Egypt, and yet they spoke nothing more than the sentiment of their class. In many other ways the condition of the English people at the close of the eighteenth century was not only not better than that of the Egyptians, but absolutely worse. In Egypt the people suffered from the Corvée—that is to say, their liability to forced labour. In England the press-gangs dragged them from their homes for foreign service. In Egypt the people were liable to be flogged or executed on the least pretext at the whim of their rulers; in England they were subject to the same penalties by "just process of law," interpreted by such humane and benevolent persons as the two men whom I have just quoted. Let any one who will study the records of the time with regard to the condition of the people of England, those of France, and those of Egypt, and they cannot fail to see that the advantage lay with the Egyptians. I have elsewhere tried to show how the Egyptians looked upon the evils from which theysuffered, and it must be obvious from what I have there said that this people had but little inducement to revolt. Could they have risen and annihilated the Mamaluks the only result would have been the immediate invasion of the country by a Turkish army that they could not possibly withstand and which would not fail to exact a terrible penalty from them for their temporary success.
In Egypt, then, the people had to endure much, but the ills that afflicted them were intermittent, coming upon them only now and then after longer or shorter intervals of at least comparative peace and comfort, reminding one, indeed, of the hurricanes that ravage the South Sea Islands with death and destruction, but, swiftly passing, leave the people once more to the enjoyment of the indolent, care-free life they ordinarily live.
How different had it been in France just before the Revolution! In Egypt the people always had the Ulema to plead their cause, and if these commonly urged them to the exercise of patience and submission, they did so with a sympathy that was real. In France priest and politician alike were aloof from the people, and the evils that were crushing these were growing steadily day by day with increasing force, with no intermission, and with no possibility for a hope of better days, no possibility but one—one that found its expression in the cry of "Down with the aristocrats!" There was no such agony of want and misery for the people of Cairo as there was for the people of Paris in those bitter days when the Revolution, unseen but with many warning mutterings,was gathering to itself the hearts of men that these might form its army of vengeance upon that "cream of civilisation" that had grown so exquisitely fine and sensitive that it had lost its natural sympathies and ceased to be conscious of its fellowship with any humanity not fitted to adorn its salons. To the Egyptian the cry of "Down with the Beys!" would but have meant "Up with the Turks!" To the French the cry of "Down with the aristocrats!" meant "Up with myself!" and so Justice, robed in the crimson garb of Vengeance, swept over the land and, like another Frankenstein, aristocratic brutality fled from its own creation.
In England, bad as was the condition of the people, the circumstances that determined their action were very different from those that controlled the French or the Egyptians. In Egypt everything tended to discourage the people from any attempt to permanently better their condition. In France everything drove them to desperate but victorious struggle. In England the people had every incentive to action of another type. There the principle of constitutional government was recognised, and if the laws were "the most savage that ever disgraced a statute book" it was within the bounds of possibility to hope for their improvement. The right of the people to govern themselves was not yet admitted, but their right to be heard was only denied by a class which was not beyond attack or defeat by legal means, and in the last resort rebellion was possible and by no means foredoomed to failure. The English were in the same position as the Egyptians in one respect,namely, that it was not a change in the form of government or the normal and proper condition of the people that they needed, but simply the abolition of evils that were accidental and not essential to that form or those conditions. To the French reform had become virtually impossible. No making or mending of laws or regulations will mend the hearts of men. The Beys of Egypt, the governing class in England, and the aristocrats in France were all heartlessly tyrannical, but the Beys were so through capricious selfishness, the English through distorted views of justice and right, and the French through callous, persistent inhumanity. The difference in character of the tyranny under which each of the three peoples were groaning was, therefore, not less than that of their hopes for its mitigation.
The mere fact that the oppression from which he suffered was consistent with the laws of the land stirred the Englishman to hope for better things, for if he could by any means bring about a change of the laws he could not fail to benefit from it, and that such changes as he desired could be brought about he was convinced. French and Egyptians suffered not from the laws, but from the abuse of such legal authority as existed. The English, too, might, and did, hope to benefit from the mutual rivalries of the parties and classes that jointly oppressed them. The others had no such resource. And the Englishman's belief in his ability to rebel, and to rebel successfully, gave him a self-reliance and determination that everything denied to the Egyptian, and which the French could only employ in the extermination of theirtyrants. Other influences were in favour of the peaceful realisation of the Englishman's hopes. He had friends in the classes above him. There were men like Howard and Wilberforce to plead the cause of the prisoner and the slave, like Cobbett, Paine, and Wilkes to stir the people up to effort, like Burke and Pitt to preach reform, and yet more potent than all these, like Lindsey and Raikes, the founders of Sunday Schools, who, by teaching the people the value of education, laid the real foundations of the England of to-day. In Egypt there were not, and could not be, such men as these. The Egyptians had, as we have seen, friends and protectors in the Ulema, but friends whose ability to aid them was altogether out of proportion to their willingness, and whose narrow training and insufficient culture unfitted them to cope with the evils they had to face, and which many of them would have honestly laboured to amend could they but have found a way to do so. Thus all the conditions and circumstances in the three countries tended in different directions—in one, to move the people to peaceful action; in another, to drive them to destructive wrath; and in the third, to lead them to patient submission. For the Englishman and the French, then, there were ways to progress—ways encumbered with difficulties and dangers, but with something more than a mere possibility of success to draw them onward—while the Egyptian was on all sides hemmed in by the impossible. Nor have we yet seen all the causes that have helped to determine the present character of the English and that of the Egyptians.
Then, as now, the Mahomedan peoples were taught by the Ulema, as were, and are, the people of England by the Church Catechism, that it is their bounden duty to submit themselves to all their governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, and to order themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters. But the reception accorded to this teaching by the two peoples was, and is, vastly different, and that it was and is so is mainly due to the conditions under which they are placed. The blood of the English is largely tinged with that of the restless, adventurous peoples whose early invasions of their island fill so many pages of its early history, and by descent, the influence of climate, and the whole course of their history they have become possessed of a spirit of independence, energy, and self-reliance that instinctively leads them to a broad and healthy interpretation of this doctrine. But this spirit was altogether foreign and unknown to the Egyptian, and that it should be so was an almost inevitable result of the peculiar conditions affecting their country as contrasted with those prevailing in England. Thus in our sea-girt home, with its uncertain weather, the success of the farmer's labours was always in a great measure dependent upon his own skill and energy. Through all the changes of the seasons of the year each day brought to him its round of duties to be performed, duties exacting not only toilsome labour, but thoughtful care and wise foresight in adjusting that labour to the ever-varying conditions he had to meet. It was not so in Egypt. There the measure of the farmer's success was mainly the result of theoperations of Nature, for the richness or poverty of his harvest was proportioned, not to his efforts, but to the abundance or scarcity of the inundation of the Nile. With a bountiful flood he had little to think of but the purely routine labours of his fields; with a scanty stream no labour, no energy of his could save him from the disaster of an impoverished harvest. In England, therefore, where constant foresight, thought, and well-arranged labour were needed to win subsistence from an ungenerous soil, the farmer learned to think and act for himself, whereas in Egypt, where he was at the mercy of the Nile, he drifted on from day to day undisturbed by aught but the mere mechanically performed labour of the fields. In both countries the bent thus given to the minds of the agricultural classes with respect to their daily labour naturally affected their manner of regarding other matters. Thus the Englishman brought to all matters that he had to deal with at least something of the care and thought he gave to his daily work, and weighed and balanced probabilities and possibilities in his political and social affairs just as he did in the choosing of a crop, while the Egyptian left almost all things to shape their own course, even as he of necessity accepted his harvest as it came. The character which the agricultural classes in the two countries thus acquired reacted upon the people generally, for it is the character of the great mass of the people that in general finally decides the character and fate of a nation.
And other causes contributed to increase the difference in the character of the two peoples. InEngland taxation was excessive and crushing in its effects upon all but the wealthy, but it was systematic and did not prohibit or prevent the accumulation of wealth, whereas in Egypt, while the nominal taxation was lighter it was in effect far worse, and the more so that its arbitrary assessment and irregular collection, coupled with the atrocious tyranny and cruelty by which these were accompanied, and the oft-recurring infliction of illegal taxes and impositions, effectually deprived the people of all opportunity of, or desire for, improving their position. In England, too, labour of some kind was indispensable. Life was a constant struggle, and he who did not work was ever in imminent danger of starving. It was quite otherwise in Egypt. The grinding, hopeless poverty that not only then but still exists, though happily we may hope in an ever-lessening degree in England, was and is unknown in the East. There so few and simple are the needs of the poor that the humblest can always afford to share the little he has, and the absolute destitution, but too common in England, is there practically impossible. Moreover, the Englishman, though enjoying the benefit of a temperate climate, if he would not perish from inanition from the inclemency of its winter, was compelled to find by some means or other food of a more nourishing and stimulating quality than that which the Egyptian needed. He had also to provide himself with an amount of clothing and artificial warmth which the genial though enervating air of his native land rendered altogether unnecessary to the Egyptian. Of necessity, therefore, the Englishman's needs stirredhim to an activity and energy to which the conditions of life in Egypt supplied no inducement.
Lastly, the Englishman who could acquire wealth was assured of the peaceful enjoyment of it, whereas the Egyptian knew but too well that the merest rumour of his possessing aught more than the bare necessaries of life could but subject him to tyranny and torture, until he had surrendered his last coin or seizable pennyworth of value. From this diversity in the conditions and circumstances of the two people, we can see why to the one the instruction to be content with that state of life in which he found himself was as unpalatable as to the other, it was a mere summing-up of the whole philosophy of life. However hard the condition of the Englishman's lot might be he could always look to improve it; in fact for him the one hope of happiness lay in the possibility of bettering his condition, while that of the Egyptian lay in passive submission to the chains that bound him. That, of the two people, the Egyptian was in some respects, for the time, the happiest is at least possible. Like the Englishman, the Egyptian prizes more than all else his individual freedom: the mere liberty to come and go, to work or idle as the impulse of the moment dictates, and detests constraint and compulsion of every kind. This freedom he enjoyed with no other bar than the recurring fear of the tax-collector, the Corvée, or the Korbag, to which he was liable. These, however, were evils that afflicted him only at intervals, and the Corvée, one that he always hopefully looked to escape from, while as to the Korbag, the long strip of hippopotamushide, which was the common instrument of punishment and extortion, ever in the hands of his oppressors, though too often used with the murderous brutality to which the negro slaves of America were then and long after subject, this would seem in general to have been to the fellaheen not much more terrible than was the cane of a flogging master to the boys of an English Dotheboys School of the time. Hence his personal wants being too few and too easily supplied to give him any serious thought, the Egyptian sauntered through life on the whole contentedly enough, while the Englishman was ever ceaselessly engaged in a struggle for the bare necessaries of life; and it was as natural, therefore, for the Egyptian to accept with passive acquiescence the submission taught him by his guides, as it was inevitable that the Englishman should criticise or ignore that preached to him. Thus it was the circumstances of their lives, and not, as has so often been said, their religion, or their "fatalism," that caused the Egyptians to lack so absolutely the energy and self-reliance so dominant in the character of the Englishman, and this lack that rendered them so incapable of self-government.
That this is a correct deduction from the facts, we may see by comparing the Egyptian Moslems with the Copts, for these are of the same race, inhabit the same country, and are subject to most of the conditions of life affecting the Moslem Egyptians, and yet are essentially different from them in character and aptitude. So great and so marked is this difference that it is referred to and commented upon byevery one who has undertaken to write of Egypt and its peoples, although, apparently incapable of discovering the true origin of the contrast, those who have discussed it have either dismissed it as a problem admittedly beyond their comprehension, or have claimed that the Copt's superiority in intelligence and energy is the product of his religion. But save in matters of doctrine and dogma the religious teaching that the Copt receives is almost exactly the same as that given to the Egyptian Moslem, with this important difference, namely, that the Copts have always considered that obedience given to a non-Christian Government is but a duty of expediency, one exacted by force and not by right, and binding upon them only so far as submission is essential to their self-preservation. It was a matter of life and death to the Copt that he should court the forbearance and favour of his superiors. That he should do this he was bound to acquire all that he could of wealth and influence, and his relations with the rulers of the country as an indispensable servant enabled him to do this in a manner, and to an extent, wholly impossible to his Moslem countrymen.
Thus political conditions acted upon the Copt as climate and social conditions upon the Englishman, forcing him to bestir himself with energy on his own behalf, to cultivate and exercise his natural ingenuity, and trust solely in his own ability. The comparatively easy-going life of the peasant was not for him, inasmuch as he was not permitted to own land, and therefore, like the Englishman, he must either work or starve. And in doing this he had not only tocompete against his fellows, but to make his way against the open hostility of the governing classes and of the people generally. Hence it is not to his religion but to the circumstances surrounding his profession of that religion that the Copt is indebted for both the good and bad characteristics by which he is distinguished, for it was these that gave him the energy, intelligence, and self-reliance he undoubtedly possesses, while at the same time they too often rendered him servile, false, bigoted, and fanatical.
It should now be clear that it is neither the "fatalism" nor the religion of the Egyptian Moslem that unfits him to govern his country. If any further evidence be wanted to justify this conclusion it is to be found in the Mamaluks and the Jews. The former, although they were Mahomedans, were by race, training, and all the circumstances of their lives, exactly opposed to the Egyptian Moslems in all their characteristics; their restless activity was strenuously employed in promoting their own interests, and in the acquisition of wealth, and in seeking these they were recklessly indifferent to the baseness of the treacheries and brutal tyranny that served their ends, and yet their religion and fatalism were the same as those of the Egyptians. As to the Jews, these were a people suffering graver political and social disabilities than those that burthened the Copts, and wholly foreign to the Egyptian Moslem or Copt in race, habits, and aptitudes; yet under the same conditions we see them developing, not in Egypt only, but in all parts of the world, the same qualities as those of the Copts and developing them in greater orless degree, precisely as the exigencies of their surroundings control them. And as the inhabitants of towns and cities in which the struggle for existence is always keener than it is in rural districts are invariably intellectually superior to the people of those districts, so it was in Cairo, the Moslem traders and artisans, who formed the bulk of the population there, approaching the Copts in the intelligence and energy so lacking in those employed in the cultivation of the land.
I have now, I hope, shown with sufficient clearness and detail how the character and actions of the Egyptians in 1798 corresponded to the circumstances of their lives. We have been told that men should rise above their surroundings, but as I have already said, the very existence of the Egyptian depended upon his submission. The swimmer, caught in the fierce rush of a cataract, has no hope of safety but in submitting to the current and devoting all his energies to guarding himself from the rocks and eddies that are the most pressing of the dangers of his position. Such was the case with the Egyptian. To have struggled against the stream would but have been to waste his strength in futile and fatal effort, and although it was probably unconsciously that he did so, he acted in the only way to ensure the continuance of his own existence.
Cairo in 1798 as a city wherein to wander was much safer for the wanderer than was London in that year of grace. It had no Alsatia, such as Whitefriars had been in the days of Nigel, nor "Holy Land," such as the Seven Dials was down almost to our own day. It had no criminal class, and its mendicants were then as now few, and almost all strangers from elsewhere. The peaceful citizen or stranger could walk through any part of the town by day or night free from the dangers he would even to-day encounter if he ventured through some of the slums of the "World's Metropolis." Cairo is to-day unchanged from what it was in this respect save in the infamous quarter of the town devoted to the nightly carnival of vice that European civilisation demands, and, under the august protection of Consuls-General and all the pomp and glory of diplomatic dignity, obtains.
Volney has drawn a sufficiently deplorable picture of the visible poverty of the Cairenes as he saw them in 1783, but it is highly probable that this glaring poverty was to a large extent of the same self-flauntingtype so common in India, where certain sufficiently well-to-do classes of the people seem by their outward showing to know no mean between ostentatious prodigality and a pretence of poverty. But there was then in Cairo a class that gained its uncertain meals from still more uncertain employment, or from the hospitality or charity that in the East so seldom fails. There were, too, some waifs and wastrels, as there will always be in all great cities and towns until civilisation shall have passed its present hobbledehoy-hood. These two classes suffered much from the total suspension of business in the town, and rendered desperate by the complete failure of all their ordinary means of livelihood, and emboldened by the absence of all authority resulting from the flight of the Mamaluks and almost all the officials and leading men of the town, broke out in lawless disorder, and, joined by many of those whom the panic-stampede had reduced to poverty, began pillaging the deserted houses and mansions of all that was left in them.
Bonaparte being informed of this, at once sent parties of soldiers into the town with the double object of suppressing outrage and robbery and of seizing everything of value that the Mamaluks and other fugitives had been forced by the haste of their departure to leave behind them. Proclamation was also made that whatever had been taken by any person from any of the deserted houses should at once be surrendered to the French, and, as a warning to those who might be inclined to disobey this command, several men who were caught either in theact of stealing or in the possession of stolen property were summarily executed. Not content with these measures for the recovery and protection of what he no doubt regarded as his lawful booty, Bonaparte is said to have countenanced, if he did not actually order, the infliction of torture with a view to forcing the disclosure of hidden wealth.
The prompt and energetic steps taken by the French quickly restored order in the town, and this having been done Bonaparte began to take in hand the work of introducing civilisation as it was then understood in France. Like the common type of "Reformer" and "Philanthropist," in doing this he effectually barred the way to the success of his efforts by coupling his professions of friendship for the people with conditions. It was a case of "Be my brother, or I will slay you." He was going to render the people for ever happy and content beyond their dreams, but they, on their part, must yield the most implicit obedience to all that seemed necessary or advisable to him. They were to have cake and apples like the good children in the nursery tale, but, like them, they must all sit in a row and behave nicely—in the French fashion, which at least was appropriate, since the cakes and apples they were promised were all of the latest fashion from Paris itself. It is rather a pitiable picture that the "Little Corporal" makes, thus playing the part of a glorified Bumble with "Civilisation" and other fallacious figments for his "parochial" board, and the porridge bowl of "the house" filled with "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," to be doled out in duly measuredspoonfuls to the hungry and needy. Poor Cairenes! like the hungry Oliver they were to take what they got and be thankful, and not mutinously set up a standard of their own. They were not only to be fed but feasted. They were to remain good Mahomedans, be free in all respects, and be most happy and prosperous but—they must wear the cockade, and shout "Vive la République" in such French or Arabic as they could. So, as a foretaste of the banquet to which they were invited, fair words and fine promises were lavishly scattered among them, but not without a liberal seasoning of orders, warnings, and threats. For a short time all went well, but it was not very long before the people began to think that the seasoning was somewhat out of proportion to the rest of the dish.
In the time of the Beys, which within a week seemed to the Cairenes to have grown old and distant, the streets of the town had been swept and watered by day and lit by night, but, like everything else good and useful in those days, these things had been done in a manner that left much to be desired. As the town settled slowly back to its old round of life, if left to themselves the people would, undoubtedly, have renewed these and others of their ancient customs; but these were matters in which French propriety could brook no delay, and orders were therefore issued that sweeping, watering, and lighting should at once be brought into play. To this no objection would have been taken had the order stopped there; unfortunately it is a virtuous vice of the French to love precision—a quality whichthe Egyptian appreciates only when applied to the attainment of grammatical purity in the use of the Arabic language, but which, being otherwise repugnant to his spirit, is not to be found in his native dialect or everyday speech or thought, and still less in more important matters. Hence when the French, in obedience to their natural impulse, fixed times and methods and degrees for the sweepings and waterings and lightings they demanded from the people, and enforced the orders by the proclamation of pains and penalties to be inflicted upon defaulters, and, moreover, did all this without consulting anyone as to the native customs and recognised conventions applicable to such matters, there was much grumbling. Thus the lighting of the streets by night was ordered on a scale that made it a real grievance, for each and every house was commanded to hang out upon its outer wall not a banner but a lamp—a prodigality of illumination that the Cairene looked upon as utterly unprofitable. Very primitive were the lamps available in those days. In London itself ladies returning in their chairs at night from balls and routs, and not improbably bemoaning the damage done to their attire by drippings from the spluttering candles of the ballroom they had left, were lighted on their way by linkmen carrying torches. And since even the Beau Brummels of those days had to put up with such primitive forerunners of the incandescent lights that to-day seem to us as indispensable for comfort, it is not surprising that the honest citizen of Cairo, when delayed from home until after dark, was content to be accompanied by a servant carrying a small, rudelymade lamp set in a lantern of paper—a custom that survives to the present day in the harahs, or back streets of the native town, though now the lamps used are lit by Russian oil and sheltered from the wind in lanterns of Austrian glass. But when every reputable man who went through the town at night had his lantern-bearer with him there was not much need for the lighting of the streets in a more general way, and so the Cairenes had been satisfied to consider a street well lighted if it had a lamp hung out here and there at longer or shorter intervals to serve rather as a beacon than as a light. A lamp to every house was to them, therefore, an absurd extravagance, and when householders were further made responsible, under penalty of a fine, not only for the placing and lighting of the lamps, but also for seeing that they were kept alight throughout the night, this, to the French idea, most judicious measure became to the Cairenes a very real grievance and one that worried and annoyed all classes.
To provide for the administration of the affairs of the town generally, and to act as an intermediary between the French and the people, a Dewan was constituted similar to that which had already been established at Alexandria. This consisted of ten Sheikhs, who appear to have been chosen principally as being those most openly opposed to the Mamaluks. But on the urgent representations of the leading men, that the Turks or Mamaluks were the only men in the country accustomed to, or capable of, exercising efficient authority, Bonaparte very unwillingly appointed three or four Mamaluk officials who hadremained in the town to different posts; and several Frenchmen were added, nominally to co-operate with, but in reality to control, the native members of the Dewan. Notwithstanding the assurances thus given to the people, that it was the intention of the French to carry on the government with all respect to their religion and customs, the merchants and dealers showed some reluctance to reopening their shops and stores. When, however, the troops mixing freely with the people, as we have seen, and abstaining from the violence and injustice that it had always been the experience of the townsmen to receive at the hands of the followers of the Beys, confidence was restored, not only was the former trade of the town resumed, but shops, especially intended for the benefit and service of the French, were started.
Meanwhile, the expedition having been accompanied by a body of scientific experts, who had been instructed to prepare the most detailed and elaborate accounts of everything that could throw light upon the state of the country and its people, and the capacity of each for development, these men were set to work, each with a definite task to fulfil. Furnished with quarters in the deserted mansions of the fugitive Beys, they at once commenced the labours which were to give to the world the vast, though unhappily incomplete, description of Egypt, which is unquestionably the most marvellous work of the kind ever undertaken. Of these men it may be said that they represented all that is best and noblest in the French nation and the higher aspirations of the revolution.
But however eager Bonaparte was to restore order in Cairo and to promote the scientific, commercial, and colonising objects of the expedition, his strongest desires and ambitions lay in another direction, and he began therefore to prepare for further action. That he might do this with the greater ease he resolved upon two steps, which tended not a little to diminish the contentment of the people with his rule. The first of these was a demand for money presented to the Dewan, which was instructed to collect the stipulated amount from the whole community, Christian and Jewish as well as Moslem. To this, though not without demur, the Dewan consented; but the announcement of the impost that was to be raised was to the people the betrayal of the cloven hoof, and although it was a measure they had been fearing, and which, had it been imposed upon them immediately after the arrival of the French in the city, would have been accepted as a natural exercise of the prerogative of a conqueror, was now looked upon as a breach of faith, and as such completely destroyed confidence in the fair words and promises of the French. The discontent and uneasiness thus occasioned gave birth to open and evident dismay and agitation when the second measure taken by Bonaparte was announced. From its first building, the town had been divided into harahs or quarters—districts separated from each other by the run of the streets, and by walls and gates. These gates it was the custom to close soon after sunset, and thereafter no one was allowed to pass from one quarter to another without the permission of the watchmen charged with the care of thegates. In thus dividing the town its founders had two main objects in view—one, by the separation of the inhabitants into a number of clearly defined groups, to be able to fix responsibility for crime on a particular group; and the other that, in the event of a mutiny or rebellion, the closing of the gates might serve to isolate the various groups from each other, and thus facilitate the work of the Government in dealing with them. Bonaparte, however, far from thinking the existence of the harahs as contributing to the maintenance of order, regarded them as affording dangerous shelter to malcontents, and resolved to abolish them. Parties of soldiers were therefore set to work to remove the gates. As soon as the people became aware of this the most alarming rumours were circulated, such as that this was being done to enable the French to carry out a wholesale massacre of the people, either by night or when they should be assembled in the mosques for the special prayers of the Friday noon, which at that time it was the pride, as well as it still is the duty, of all Moslems to attend. So great was the alarm of the people at this idea that the newly opened shops were closed once more, and business, which had been growing as brisk as it was profitable, was again suspended; but nothing occurring to justify their fears, the alarm passed, and the bazaars, that for the moment had been more or less deserted, again began to fill with life and animation.
As was but natural, the arrival of the French had from the first been hailed with delight by the Christian population. Under the Mamaluks these, whethernative or foreign, had suffered from many disabilities, and, though rarely openly molested by the Moslems, were at all times subject to the insults and rudenesses of the lower classes. Now, under the protection of the French, they threw off the restraints to which they had so long submitted, and excited the anger of the Moslems by appearing in public in the silk and gold-embroidered costumes that had been forbidden to them under the Mamaluks. Cafés, restaurants, and wine-shops were opened by the Greeks and others, and wine was sold and drunk in public, to the great indignation of the Ulema and all the better class of the Moslems. These and other things, of little moment in themselves, became important factors in modifying the feelings of the people towards the French, by marking the change in the relative standing of the followers of the two religions, and by largely discounting the professions of friendship for the Moslem faith with which Bonaparte endeavoured to conciliate the goodwill of the Mahomedans.
Many other causes helped to keep the people from settling down quietly under the French. Among these was the constant searching of houses for arms or valuables belonging to the Mamaluks, and the arrest and imprisonment of those suspected or accused of concealing wealth or property of any kind on their behalf. One of those who suffered directly in this way was the wife of Radwan Kachef who had fled with Ibrahim Bey. This lady had paid a sum of one thousand three hundred dollars to the French as reconciliation money, in consideration ofwhich she had been granted the right to remain in Cairo under French protection. A few days afterwards, a report having reached Bonaparte that her husband had left a quantity of arms and money in her care, a search was made, and some clothing, arms, and other things being found, all the women in the house were arrested and a fine of four thousand dollars imposed upon the lady as the condition of their release. Had the French been content to seize the arms no objection would have been taken to their action, but the fine was, in the eyes of all the people, a breach of faith.
If thus rigorous with the Mahomedan population, Bonaparte made it plain that he had no intention of unduly favouring the Christians. On the 2nd of August Nelson, having returned to Alexandria, had, in the famous battle of the Nile, destroyed the French fleet, and the army in Egypt was thus cut off from all communication with Europe and left entirely dependent upon itself. News of this event having been brought to Cairo, the Moslems were as elated as the French and Christians were depressed. Bonaparte at once instituted a search for the persons who had first made the ill news known, and these proving to be two Syrian Christians and a Moslem, all three were condemned to have their tongues cut out or pay a heavy fine. This was in every way a foolish measure. It had the effect of checking the open discussion of reports unfavourable to the French, who, by adopting this ostrich-like policy, deprived themselves of the only method they had of gauging the tendency of public opinion, and,while they could not thus prevent the dissemination of news or rumours, gave the people a fresh and reasonable grievance, for under even the most tyrannical of the rulers they had previously known they had been allowed a liberty of speech that it was clear was now to be denied them, and the distrust of the fair words that Bonaparte was so lavish in offering them was still further increased. Nor did the punishment of the Christians impress the Mahomedans with any sense of the impartiality that Bonaparte intended it to convey, for it was regarded as nothing more than the wreaking of his anger, at the bad news received, upon those who, Christian or not, were, according to popular opinion, guiltless of any real offence. It was thus an act such as they were accustomed to expect from the Mamaluks, and, in the eyes of the Cairenes, placed the boasted justice and humanity of the French on the same level as those of the Beys.
As time went on almost every day brought some fresh incident to swell the stream of ill-feeling towards the French that Bonaparte, in his self-sufficient direction of affairs, was creating. Had he but acted with some little consideration for the wishes of the people, and consulted their prejudices, it is certain that the storm that was now rapidly approaching would never have arisen. But Bonaparte was never able to get beyond the nursery policy of cake or cane. There was no worse policy open to him. Neither with cake nor with cane was it possible to persuade or drive the Cairenes to adopt his views.By a ceaseless play of petty tyranny he was able to force from them an unwilling compliance with his demands, but every little victory thus gained served to widen the gulf between the two peoples, and thus to defeat that which any man of real ability would have seen was the aim that of all others it was the interest of the French to pursue—the conciliation of the Egyptians.
While thus blundering along, baffling his own desires, Bonaparte, always believing in his own tact and good judgment, decided to give his patronage to the annual ceremony of the Cutting of the Khalig, or canal, that from the time of the Pharaohs has been held in Cairo in celebration of the flooding of the Nile. In the old heathen days this had been essentially a festival of thanksgiving to the gods, but as the greatest and most popular feast of the year it had survived the conversion of the people to Christianity and Islam and was kept as a day of merry-making upon which the people gave unrestricted play to their tireless love of gaiety. But the Moslems were in no mood to join in revelry when Bonaparte summoned them to do so, and though the French have recorded the occasion as one of unbounded success the fact is that it was far otherwise.
It was the same with the celebration of the Molid, or birthday of the Prophet, that occurred soon after. This being in its first inception a religious feast, had, like the wakes and feasts of the saints of Christendom, long been accompanied by revelries and rejoicings of a most unsaintly character, and was, to the Moslem population of Cairo, the great event of the year, thepious celebrating it with prayer and praise and the zikrs—that would seem to be an Islamic adaptation of the ancient worship of the Israelites when they sang songs unto the Lord with timbrels and harps—while others less piously inclined spent the night in carousings and sports. But whether pious or otherwise the Moslems of Cairo had no desire to hold the feast of their Prophet under the auspices of the Christian invader, and the anniversary would have been allowed to pass unnoticed but that the Sheikh Sadat, the recognised head of the family of the descendants of the Prophet living in Egypt, fearing that Bonaparte would take the refusal to hold it in bad part, gave the order for its celebration, and invited the General and his Staff to be present.