I have heard a great deal of these khedivial farms since I have been in Egypt. Abbas Hilmi inherited much land from his father, but he has other large tracts, which he himself has redeemed from the desert, and yet others which he has made good by draining. Not far from Cairo he owns twenty-five hundred acres which a few years ago were covered with swamps, quagmires, and hillocks. He bought this cheap and then began to improve it. He cut down the hills, drained the swamps, and put water on the land. At present that estate is paying over sixty thousand dollars a year, bringing His Highness thirty per cent. and upward on his investment. He has another great farm not far from Alexandria which was all desert not long ago. The Khedive has irrigated it and thus turned four thousand waste acres into cultivated fields. Farm villages have grown up about them and His Highness has so laid out the estate with trees and flowers that it is said to be like an earthly paradise. In one place he has a plantation of fifteen thousand mulberry bushes, the leaves of which furnish food for his silkworms. This estate is at Montzah, a few miles out of Alexandria, on a beautiful bay of the Mediterranean Sea. Abbas Hilmi has built a palace there, or rather two palaces, a little one for himself and a larger one for his family. In other parts of the estate he is carrying on all sorts of breeding experiments. He has chicken houses and rabbit hutches as well as a tower containing thousands of pigeons. The Khedive is interested in fine stock and is doing much to improve that of Egypt. On his various farms he has high-bred horses, cattle, and sheep. He has a large number of Arabian thoroughbred horses, and some Jersey, Swiss, and other fine breeds of cows. His water buffaloes, known here as _gamoushes_, are far better than any others of the Nile valley. He is also breeding cattle for oxen and mules for draft animals. He has a school on his estate near Cairo where two hundred boys are being educated to take places on his various properties. This school is run at his own expense, the boys being taught farming and surveying as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic. The course of study lasts for five years, at the end of which the graduate is pretty sure of a good position as a steward or overseer on one of the khedivial farms. Abbas Hilmi has made a great deal of money within the last three or four years. He is investing largely in Cairo and is building apartment houses with elevators, telephones, electric lights, bathrooms, and all other modern improvements. He has a brick factory on one of his estates near here, and his profits from cotton and other crops must be very large.