But the miserable people of Egypt, the burdened fellaheen, resented the interference of Christian money-lenders, demanding more than their pound of flesh. The Arabi rebellion resulted, when British regiments and warships were sent to quell the uprising and restore the authority of the Khedive. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago; but since the revolution the soldiers and civil servants of England have remained in Egypt, and to all intents and purposes the country has become a colony of England. The defaulted debts of the canal-building period were responsible for these happenings, be it said. Verily, the fulfilment of Necho's oracle came with terrible force, and generations of Nile husbandmen must toil early and late to pay the interest on the public debt incurred through Ismail's prodigality. This degraded man in his exile persistently maintained that he believed he was doing right when borrowing for the canal, for it was to elevate Egypt to a position of honor and prominence in the list of nations. And it is the irony of fate, surely, that Ismail's personal holding in the canal company was sacrificed to the British government for half its actual value, on the eve of his dethronement, and that every tittle of interest in the enterprise held by the Egyptian government--including the right to fifteen per cent, of the receipts--was lost or abrogated. Owning not a share of stock in the undertaking, and having no merchant shipping to be benefited, Egypt derives no more advantage from the great Suez Canal than an imaginary kingdom existing in an Anthony Hope novel. The canal has prospered beyond the dreams of its author; but this means no more to the country through which it runs than the success of the canals of Mars. De Lesseps died in a madhouse and practically a pauper, while Ismail spent his last years a prisoner in a gilded palace on the Bosporus, and was permitted to return to his beloved country only after death. These are but some of the tragic side-lights of the great story of the Suez Canal. A few years since there was a movement in France to perpetuate De Lesseps's name by officially calling the waterway the Canal de Lesseps. But England withheld its approval, while other interests having a right to be heard believed that the stigma of culpability over the Panama swindles was fastened upon De Lesseps too positively to merit the tribute desired by his relatives and friends. As a modified measure, however, the canal administration was willing to appropriate a modest sum to provide a statue of the once honored man to be placed at the Mediterranean entrance of the canal.