But apart from the ceremonial, the scene was deeply interesting. If the day’s routine was insignificant, it was because the overpowering presence of the Dam itself dwarfed every other presence. And the names of those assembled there recalled vividly the thrilling history of Egypt during the last twenty years. There were statesmen and diplomatists, soldiers and engineers, men of business and men of letters, all of whom, in some field or other, had done their part in building up the fallen country. Some, too, were there who, submitting contentedly before the logic of accomplished facts, burying old rivalries and animosities, had come in no unfriendly spirit to witness the realization of much that it had once been their policy to hinder. But if all the rest had been absent, the presence of one man, the Chief, whose wise counsel and guiding hand had been everywhere, would have been sufficient to represent all that these twenty years have meant to Egypt. Well might Lord Cromer and the irrigation engineers review their work with satisfaction. To them the Reservoir means the successful culmination of a great policy long and steadily pursued, nothing less than the establishment of the prosperity of Egypt upon a sure and certain basis: for that is what the regulation of the Nile involves. In Egypt, at any rate, they require no formal monument. Their praise stands clearly writ on the face of every cultivated field throughout the country. CHAPTER X BRITISH RULE IN EGYPT At the inauguration of the Nile Reservoir at Assouan, it was an Egyptian Minister of Public Works who read an Arabic speech congratulating the Khedive on the completion of the great work which is to make his name famous among the rulers of Egypt. Among all the flags that decorated the town and the craft on the river, the most infrequent was that of England. A casual observer, knowing nothing of the country, might easily have overlooked the number of Englishmen wearing the tarbush, that red badge of Egyptian officialdom, and gone away thinking that even the presence of the brother of the King of England marked nothing but a compliment paid by one great Power to another. He might well have been astonished to be told that the Dam, which will confirm and increase the prosperity of Egypt, is no less an evidence of the stability of British rule. It is just possible that immediately after our first occupation we might have been able to evacuate the country—not, indeed, without danger to our hold upon the highroad to India, or without detriment to the true interests of Egypt, but at least without loss of honour to ourselves. Since then, in spite of the efforts of our statesmen at home, it has become more and more impossible.