of a man’s life, even if he had not professed to be an enemy to slavery and the crimes which it necessarily involves. It may be true, as we hear on all hands, that the guilt abides chiefly with the tempter. In him it can be no surprise to anybody, after his professions and practices in regard to slavery. It would have been no surprise in Mehemet Ali, with his barbaric training, and after his annihilation of the Janissaries. In Said Pasha, whom we saw here so lately, and who seemed so like ourselves when he discoursed of free-trade and the prosperity of peasant industry in growing cotton, such an act as that of the betrayal of these negro soldiers to misery and death, to please a cajoling and exploiting patron, is one which we are glad to lose sight of by turning to a new reign.
And whose is this new reign? Who is this Ismail Pasha who has spoken the most surprising and promising address that ever came from any member of his house? It is no other than the eldest son of Ibrahim. Thus has the wheel of Fortune gone its round, (or rather the course of retribution made its circuit), so that the youth who was so beloved in Cairo sixteen years ago is now in a position to show whether he is worthy of the love and hope of the people.
His manifesto,—his reply to the Consuls,— seems to show that his sixteen years of manhood passed in privacy, till his regency of last summer, have been well spent in studying the course of public affairs at home and abroad. This is, no doubt, what is meant by the complaint on the spot that he is too English. If he is of like mind with us, what has made him so? It can be nothing but the spectacle before his eyes: for he is no pupil of ours. Moreover, the English have no projects, no speculations, no adventurers in Egypt. The French have; and thus, to be too English, can mean only that Ismail Pasha does not think well of the great French speculation. The main interest to us in the matter is that the new ruler declares his intention to put an end to forced labour,—the crowning curse of Egyptian misrule. Mehemet Ali saw 23,000 of his subjects perish in six months under the system of forced labour by which he made his canal (the Mahmoudieh). It is believed all over the world that it is labour on similar terms of compulsion which has carried on the French works so far, though there has not been the same mortality from want and hardship. If Ismail fulfils this one promise, he will have the blessings of every man who pays the tax upon a palm-tree, and every woman and child who sits under it. If he further watches, as he promises, over free trade, over education, and over the development of agriculture, promoting it by funds saved from the personal expenses of princes, he will make his subjects think that it was worth while to wait sixteen years, and to endure an Abbas, and be patient with a Said, to have at last an Ismail, born of an Egyptian mother, and able to sympathise with native subjects, while bringing to their relief the resources of European wisdom. If his will does but prove as strong as his convictions are clear, a new day may be dawning on Egypt; and this man’s days will probably be long in the land. There was a time when eight millions of prosperous people lived in that valley. Now, there are at most two millions and a half. The wonder is that, without security of person and property, there are so many, even though manufactories and schools may be attempted and boasted of. Ismail will be one of the world’s great rulers if he does what his people fondly hope,—if he gives Egypt to the Egyptians, and takes care that they hold their possession in peace and quiet. As I write this, I think of him as I saw him in his sprightly young days, when his father and all the people were proud of him, and the only doubt about the fate of the country was whether there would not be a war of succession if any other should be thrust before him. He has seen others preferred before him: and now his turn has come. May he so live and rule as that his name may be as great as his grandfather’s, without any disgraces of barbarism, or treachery, or ferocity! In his reign may every man dare to be seen in his own field by day, and in the evening sit amidst his own melon beds and under his own palm-tree, with none to make him afraid!
From the Mountain.
THE SHIP OF MAIL.
(FROM THE GERMAN OF BARON LITTSON.)
The wind roars loud, the sea in wildest surges
Is flash’d with foam, and writhes in savage glee;
The heavens are dark, not e’en one star emerges
From out the storm’s black-frowning canopy.
One ship alone in distant darkness lowers,
Defying wind and wave in very might;
Like some huge phantom, which in midnight hours
O’erwhelms the dreamer with its cold affright.
Its hulk, invincible, bestrides the ocean,
As strongly mournful as the power of death;
On deck is seen no sign of life—no motion,—
Pilot nor helmsman on that ship draws breath.
No white sail floats—no masts aloft are riding—
No sound breaks from that vessel’s silent side;
And yet—as though some demon force were guiding
Its sullen way—it spurns the darkening tide.
The walls of strongest iron planks are framèd,
No hull of wood, but hull from iron wrought;
And never have those giant frames been strainèd
By aught that foeman hath against them brought.
And see! the monster’s hideous throat is brighten’d
From time to time with flash of lurid fire!
Just, as of old, from dragon nostrils lighten’d
The hellish fury of demoniac ire!
Hark! from the deep a sudden voice is sounding,
Like some great captain’s, clearly heard afar,
Like admiral’s tones, from metal tube rebounding:
“Stay! ship! thou moorest here by Trafalgar!”
Then sudden! bursts a radiance o’er the ocean,
As tho’ on far horizon broke the morn,
And o’er the water’s wild and black commotion
White sails, in thronging multitude, are borne.
And lo! the squadron’s now in order going,
Line after line, as though for deadly fight;
And on each mast, from slender spar down flowing,
Waves England’s flag in all its wonted might.
“Thou art the ‘Warrior’!” a voice speaks loudly
“The giant now by every nation fear’d—
I know thee well; yet bear thyself less proudly,
For where thy valour? hath it yet appear’d?
