The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
refraining from carrying out his own opinion, however well founded,
when he was told that, by doing so, he would incur the risk of being
accused of treason to his grandfather's fame. The old man had fondly
believed that his Barrage would join the Pyramids that look down upon
it in that restricted category of the "Wonders of the World," and
might well be supposed to lie uneasily in his grave if all the piles
which he had caused to be driven, all the mighty walls, and piers, and
arches, which he had caused to be raised with a disregard of expense
and human labor worthy of Cheops, were allowed to sink and lie
forgotten in the slimy bed of the Nile.
This was the first point on which it appeared that Abbas Pasha was not
disposed to act up fully to his presumed plan of destroying European
influence altogether; but, on many occasions, he early showed a
disposition to temporize between his prejudices and his interest. We
cannot here enter into details of minor importance, but, coming down
to a recent period, we may mention another instance of a similar
nature. For many years before his death, Mohammed Ali had held out
hopes that he would construct, or allow to be constructed, a railway
from Cairo to Suez. This was preëminently an English project--not
likely to be unuseful to the country at large, it is true, but
calculated chiefly to promote the more expeditious and comfortable
transit of passengers to and from India. The Pasha, however, deceived
by an excess of cunning, really entertained no intention of performing
his promise. With great want of sagacity, he confounded the proposed
stations on the line of railway, which he might have held in his own
hands if he chose, with the counters which he was told had formed the
nuclei of the British power in India. He believed the English had some
sinister designs upon his country, and were engaged in all sorts of
schemes for introducing themselves into it. The same policy which made
him refuse to deepen the entrance of the port of Alexandria, lest a
British fleet might come in, made him unwilling to throw a railway
across the Desert of Suez, even if he kept the whole management in his
own hands. The recommendations, he saw, came all from one country: the
objections, nearly all, from another. France was opposed to the
railway because it had another darling Neapolitan project in
hand--namely, the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez, which was much
talked of once, but which now nobody mentions but to laugh at. The
difficulties of execution, immense as they were found to be by the
Austrian commission, were not the most decisive objections. The real
ones were contained in an answer to the very appropriate
question--_Cui bono?_ However, the railway was shelved for a time. It
has lately come again upon the tapis; and although it is now proposed
to lay down a line in the first instance between Alexandria and Cairo,
to compensate for the water communication which M. Moujel is spoiling
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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