the introduction of the cultivation of
indigo, cotton, opium, and silk, the viceroy had also planted thousands
of trees of various kinds, including 100,000 walnut-trees; he ordered
the maimours, or prefects, to open up the roads between the villages,
and to plant trees. He wished the villages, towns, and hamlets to be
ornamented, as in Europe, with large trees, under whose shelter the
tired traveller could rest.

In the various districts were vast tracts of land which for a long time
the plough had not touched. Concessions of these lands were made to
Franks, Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, which concessions were free, and
for a term of seven or eight years, while the guarantees were exempt
from taxes.

During the closing years of his life, between 1841 and 1849, Mehemet
occupied himself with improvements in Egypt. He continued to prosecute
his commercial speculations, and manufacturing, educational, and other
schemes. The barrage of the Nile, which has only been finished during
the British occupation, was begun under his direction. In 1847 he
visited Constantinople, and was received with the rank of a vizier. In
the year 1848 symptoms of imbecility appeared, and his son Ibrahim
was declared his successor. After a reign of only two months he died.
Mehemet Ali's death occurred on the 3rd of August, 1849. His direct
successor was his grandson, Abbas Pasha, who held the sceptre of
Egypt as the direct heir of Ibrahim Pasha. This prince took but little
interest in the welfare of his country. He had in him no spark of the
noble ambition of his predecessor, and no trace of his genius, and he
showed no desire for progress or reforms. He was a real prince of the
ancient East, suspicious, sombre, and careless of the destiny of the
country entrusted to his care. He liked to withdraw to the privacy of
his palace, and, isolated in the midst of his guards, to live that life
of the distrustful and voluptuous despots of the East. The palace of
Bar-el-Beda, which he had built on the road to Suez in the open desert,
a palace without water, lifting its head in the solitude like a silent
witness of a useless life and tragic death, impresses the traveller with
astonishment and fear.

Abbas Pasha was weak in his negotiations with the European Powers, and
this was well for Egypt, as their representative was able to hold in
check his silent hostility to Western civilisation. Such guardianship
is useful when exercised over a prince like Abbas P