Ismailia

“ It contained a good collection in a small space, of African, Australian, and Brazilian plants. Many, that with us require almost constant stove-heat, were flowering here, in January, in the open air. Among the inhabitants, as at Ismailia, are to be found many of the (in the East) ubiquitous Greeks.
Ismailia is very preferable every way to Port Saïd. It is in the heart of the desert, and on the shore of a considerable lake. I can imagine a not unprofitable, or over dull, month spent here by a man who finds a pleasure in coming in contact with strange sorts of people ”

“ At this time the mail steamers did not pass through the Suez Canal at night-time, and the Cuzco anchored off Ismailia. A run ashore to pass away the time was only natural, and Edgar, accompanied by Will Brown and other members of the team, made up a party. This night ashore at Ismailia [215] was destined to effect a change in Edgar’s future life.
The population of Ismailia is a mixture of different nationalities, some of them being of a rather desperate and fierce nature. An Egyptian wedding-party passed through one of the streets ”

“ We are repairing the Ismailia; the barricade of the steersman of the Husseinyeh got struck by a shell. We raised a parapet on the river bank to defend any approach of the Arabs to Husseinyeh. Omdurman had yesterday a quarter of a million cartridges—Remington.
Omdurman Fort has one and a half month’s supply of food and water; it was a fault to place it so far from the river; [227] yesterday it had not its flag up; to-day it has. The Arabs have sent 250 men to Goba; but the village Hogali, which was the one close to the palace, having been levelled, they are too far off to do us any harm. ”

“ Until they awake to a sense of the incongruity there is little hope of a reform in the right direction. Thus we hear Ismailia, Port Said, &c, pronounced in the French fashion, which is altogether wrong, either with reference to the diphthong or to the Arabic name. ”

“ DIARBEKR
All the nations that passed over the lands have fought for and owned it. Assyria knew it not by name, though if it existed then, it was an outpost of the empire. Armenians, Persians, Parthians, and Romans fought over it, but the chronicles tell us little. In Christian times the Persian leader Kawad (Sasanian) practically destroyed it; in A.D. 507 and in A.D. 1124 seven hundred persons of the Assassin or Ismailia sect were massacred. It fell into Turkish hands in A.D. 1056, when Tughril Bey of the early Seljuq dynasty captured it. ”

“ The pupil of the Ecole Centrale had had a fine physique when he went away, but his features had acquired greater firmness, his shoulders were broader, and it was a far cry from the tall, studious- looking boy who had left Paris two years before, for Ismailia, to this handsome, bronzed corsair, with his serious yet winning face.
While Risler was gazing at him, Frantz, on his side, was closely scrutinizing his brother, and, finding him the same as always, as ingenuous, as loving, and as absent-minded as times, he said to himself:
"No! it is not possible—he has not ceased to be an honest man." ”

“ In the person of the Fatimites, the Ismailians had ascended the throne, and deprived the Abbassides of a considerable portion of their empire: but their ambition was not satisfied. The race of the prophet ought not to share the sovereignty230 with the descendants of usurpers, and even the honour of Islamism, and of the doctrine taught and propagated by the imams, required that all Musulmans should be united in the same faith, and pay obedience to a single legitimate pontiff. ”

“ To secure the water supply it had become necessary to push forward a force into the Desert nearly twenty miles from the base of operations at Ismailia. The question arose how the troops were to be supplied with food, and the want of a proper organization for the transport of provisions began to be severely felt. The men, weakened by prolonged exertion under a terrible sun, were forced to live for two or three days on biscuits and muddy water, flavoured only with the dead bodies of Egyptian men and horses. The English horses also were short of forage and showed signs of fatigue and exhaustion. ”

“ Just after midnight the train pulled up at Ismailia and the desert was struck for the first time. The moon was bright, making night like day, and under the leadership of camp guides the Battalion marched through the heavy sand for about a mile or so and were soon allotted their lines in a huge base camp. Tea, as usual, was soon made and partaken of. Every one then retired to their tents and soon fell asleep; here was a land, at last, where blankets were not absolutely essential. However, dawn is early in these latitudes, and the sun shone down with considerable fierceness from about 5 a.m. ”

“ Ismailian teaching had spread through the Empire of Mohammed and reached even Southern Arabia. About 892 a certain Mohammed Alhabib, who claimed his descent from Ismail, son of Jaffar es Sadik, sent one Abu Abdallah to the north coast of Africa. Abu Abdallah impressed the Berber tribes greatly, and his success was so enormous that they drove out the Aglabid dynasty then ruling them. He roused expectations to the highest degree by announcing a Mahdi, or infallible guide for believers. He then summoned in Obeidallah, a son of that Mohammed Alhabib, who had sent him to Africa. ”

“ They are always smiling, and never tired. I had one run by my side from Bellianéh to Abydos and back, which, I suppose, must be seventeen miles. They will gladly do you any little service they can, carrying anything for you, or running a long way to get you what you may want—of course, for a few piastres. When we had got on board the steamer at Ismailia, and were on the point of starting for Port Saïd, my companion found that he had left his binocular at the hotel. He told a donkey-boy, who happened to be at hand, to ride off, as fast as he could go, to the hotel, and ask for the instrument. ”

“ As we passed the numerous villages we were joined by curious bands of natives, who by degrees swelled our party to nearly a thousand persons. There was no doubt that these people expected to witness a row, as they knew that Abdullah had been threatened. It was therefore highly probable that we might be attacked, as the slave-hunters would imagine that my small force of forty men was the last remnant of my detachment.
No one at Fatiko had an idea of my existence: thus we should arrive as though risen from the dead. ”

“ Rich and well-populated countries were rendered desolate; the women and children were carried into captivity; villages were burnt, and crops were destroyed or pillaged; the population was driven out; a terrestrial paradise was converted into an infernal region; the natives who were originally friendly were rendered hostile to all strangers, and the general result of the slave trade could only be expressed in one word—"ruin."
The slave hunters and traders who had caused this desolation were for the most part Arabs, subjects of the Egyptian government. ”

“ They are not worth the trouble, and they are only fit for slaves, to which position their race appears to have been condemned.
"I believe I have wasted my time and energy, and have uselessly encountered difficulties, and made enemies by my attempt to suppress the slave trade, and thus improve the condition of the natives.
"It is now 4.40 P.M., and I am anxious about Ramadan and Hafiz, who have not returned.
"My men have been on half rations since the 8th inst., and we have supplies only for to-morrow, after which we shall be obliged to forage, unless Kabba Rega sends the promised provisions. ”

“ Abdalla ate, and Dicky dipped his fingers in the basin before them, saying, as he lifted them again: “I will speak as to my brother. Ismail has staked all on the Soudan. If, in the will of God, he is driven from Berber, from Dongola, from Khartoum, from Darfar, from Kassala, his power is gone. Egypt goes down like the sun at evening. Ismail will be like a withered gourd. To establish order and peace and revenue there, he is sending the man his soul loves, whom the nations trust, to the cities of the desert. If it be well with Gordon, it will be well with the desert-cities. ”

“ I knew that I had him in my power, provided I should be supported by the authorities in Egypt; therefore I gave him line, and occasionally held him tight, as though he had been a salmon on a single gut; but I was determined to land him safe at last, in such a manner that his greatest supporter should be obliged to acknowledge that he had received the fairest play. Abou Saood's Fatiko station was crowded with slaves. His people were all paid in slaves. The stations of Fabbo, Faloro, and Farragenia were a mass of slaves. ”

“ The natives were always assured of justice and protection.
On 19th May, my people were ready to start, with the post and the prisoner Suleiman, to Fatiko. Kabba Rega declared that the 300 carriers were in readiness with fifty loads of flour for the journey; and he said that he had already sent orders to Foweera to prepare the deserted zareeba of Suleiman for the reception of Major Abdullah and his detachment on their arrival.
The party was to consist of a serjeant and ten men (regulars) , together with twenty-five irregulars under the charge of my old Cairo dragoman, Mohammed. ”

“ He then threw out skirmishers in line, supported by the force that held the village. The natives were yelling in all directions, and I never before saw them make such a good fight upon the open ground. They not only outflanked, but entirely surrounded Abdullah's detachment of ninety men. The troops were keeping up a heavy fire, which did not appear to produce any decided result, as the natives thronged to the fight and advanced close up to the fire of the soldiers, whom they attacked with bows and arrows. ”

“ For four months Egypt knew him not. For four months the Khedive was never told the truth save by European financiers, when truths were obvious facts; for four long months never saw a fearless or an honest eye in his own household. Not that it mattered in one sense; but Ismail was a man of ideas, a sportsman of a sort, an Iniquity with points; a man who chose the broad way because it was easier, not because he was remorseless. ”

“ The best of rulers without good ministers is predestined to failure.
To add to a falling house must always be a desperate remedy. No other course seemed open to Ismail, if he was really to cope with the slave-trade. So long as the basin of the Upper Nile remained in the hands of the ‘Khartoumers,’ the sources of the traffic flowed as briskly as ever, and at the same time the Red Sea ports afforded every facility for export. Accordingly, in 1866 Ismail purchased the districts of Suakin and Massowah from the Turks by an increase of tribute. ”

“ It needed a bureaucracy which it would have been hard to equal for its combination of cowardice and corruption. It needed the whole gang of swindlers—mostly European—by whom Ismail was surrounded.” It was his early encouragement of Arabi, and his introduction of swarms of foreign concession-hunters, which precipitated the “national movement” that led to British occupation. His greatest title to remembrance in history must be that he made European intervention in Egypt compulsory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In maintaining their sovereignty, the Seveners or Ismailites, were more fortunate than the other sect. Their power first originated with the dynasty of the Fatimites, on the coast and in the interior of Africa, at Mahadia, and Cairo; and, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, in Asia, by the dominion of the Assassins, in the mountainous parts of Irak, and the coasts of Syria. By the oriental historians, the African Ismailites are termed the western, the Asiatic the eastern Ismailites. ”

“ It was a very serious misfortune to Egypt that during his sojourn abroad Ismail had learned many luxurious ways, and had also discovered that European nations were accustomed to make free use of their credit in raising sums of money for their immediate advantage. From this moment Ismail started upon a career which gave to Egypt, in the eyes of the world, a fictitious grandeur, and which made him one of the most talked-of rulers among the cabinets and peoples of the European countries. ”

“ There's no man in Egypt Ismail loves and fears so much—"
"Except little Dicky Donovan!"
"That's all twaddle. There's no man Ismail fears so much, because he's the idol of the cafes and the bazaars. He's the Egyptian in Egypt to-day. You talk about me? Why, I'm the foreigner, the Turk, the robber, the man that holds the lash over Egypt. I'd go like a wisp of straw if there was an uprising." ”

“ Of these Aliites, eventually called Shiáhs, a chief sect, and parent of many heretical branches, were the Ismailites, who took their name, from the seventh Imam, whose return to earth they professed to expect at the end of the World. About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili stock was established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the mountainous districts of Northern Persia; and, before their suppression by the Mongols, 170 years later, the power of the quasi-spiritual dynasty which Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as Ḳáïn. ”