During the closing years of his life, between 1841 and 1849, Mehemet occupied himself with improvements in Egypt. He continued to prosecute his commercial speculations, and manufacturing, educational, and other schemes. The barrage of the Nile, which has only been finished during the British occupation, was begun under his direction. In 1847 he visited Constantinople, and was received with the rank of a vizier. In the year 1848 symptoms of imbecility appeared, and his son Ibrahim was declared his successor. After a reign of only two months he died. Mehemet Ali's death occurred on the 3rd of August, 1849. His direct successor was his grandson, Abbas Pasha, who held the sceptre of Egypt as the direct heir of Ibrahim Pasha. This prince took but little interest in the welfare of his country. He had in him no spark of the noble ambition of his predecessor, and no trace of his genius, and he showed no desire for progress or reforms. He was a real prince of the ancient East, suspicious, sombre, and careless of the destiny of the country entrusted to his care. He liked to withdraw to the privacy of his palace, and, isolated in the midst of his guards, to live that life of the distrustful and voluptuous despots of the East. The palace of Bar-el-Beda, which he had built on the road to Suez in the open desert, a palace without water, lifting its head in the solitude like a silent witness of a useless life and tragic death, impresses the traveller with astonishment and fear. Abbas Pasha was weak in his negotiations with the European Powers, and this was well for Egypt, as their representative was able to hold in check his silent hostility to Western civilisation. Such guardianship is useful when exercised over a prince like Abbas Pasha, but it tends to become troublesome and baneful when it attempts to interfere with the government of an active and enlightened sovereign animated by just and generous intentions.