by Bonaparte in Egypt. The three years of French occupation had no
great political results except the awakening of British statesmanship to
a sense of the value of Egypt for the safeguarding of India. They also
served to weaken the power of the Mamelukes, a Circassian military caste
which had reduced the Sultan's authority over Egypt to a mere shadow.
The ruin of this warlike cavalry was gradually completed by an Albanian
soldier of fortune named Mohammed Ali, who, first in the name of the
Sultan, and later in defiance of his power, gradually won the allegiance
of the different races of Egypt and made himself virtually ruler of the
land. This powerful Pasha conquered the northern part of the Sudan, and
founded Khartum as the southern bulwark of his realm (1823). He seems to
have grasped the important fact that, as Egypt depends absolutely on the
waters poured down by the Nile in its periodic floods, her rulers must
control that river in its upper reaches--an idea also held by the ablest
of the Pharaohs. To secure this control, what place could be so suitable
as Khartum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles?

Mohammed Ali was able to build up an army and navy, which in 1841 was on
the point of overthrowing Turkish power in Syria, when Great Britain
intervened, and by the capture of Acre compelled the ambitious Pasha to
abandon his northern schemes and own once more the suzerainty of the
Porte. The Sultan, however, acknowledged that the Pashalic of Egypt
should be hereditary in his family. We may remark here that England and
France had nearly come to blows over the Syrian question of that year;
but, thanks to the firm demeanour of Lord Palmerston, their rivalry
ended, as in 1801, in the triumph of British influence and the assertion
of the nominal ascendancy of the Sultan in Egypt. Mohammed was to pay
his lord L363,000 a year. He died in 1849.

No great event took place during the rule of the next Pashas, or
Khedives as they were now termed, Abbas I. (1849-54), and Said
(1854-63), except that M. de Lesseps, a French engineer, gained the
consent of Said in 1856 to the cutting of a ship canal, the northern
entrance to which bears the name of that Khedive. Owing to the rivalry
of Britain and France over the canal it was not finished until 1869,
during the rule of Ismail (1863-79). We may note here that, as the
concession was granted to the Suez Canal Company only for ninety-nine
years, the canal will become the prope