CHAPTER II.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7071, 12 April 1901, Page 4

CHAPTER 11.

In Egypt Flinders made a reputation ; not at once, but ! he did make it, by the help of that strong little man in favour with the Khedive, Dicky Donovan. The first two years of his stay he had plenty, to do. He was given no responsible position, but meanwhile he studied, and' meanwhile certain members of the Government eyed him askance. , There was not a report or blue-book on irrigation in Egypt which he did not make his own. At the end of the time he could; have drawn % map of. the Nile from Uganda to the Barrages ; he knew the rains in each district from the region of the Sadds to the Little Borillos ; there was not a canal, from the small Bahr Shebin to the big Rajeh Menoufieh or the majestic Ibrahimie'h, whose slope, mean velocity and discharge he did not know ; and 1 he carried in his mind every drainage cut and contour from Tamis to Damanhur, from Cairo to Beltim. He knew neither amusement nor society, for every waking hour was spent in the study of the Nile and what the Nile might do^ He spent the last thousand pounds he had in the world in travelling about the country, an buying scientifio instruments, in gathering data, not only as to canals and barrages and drainage cuts, but in finding how the water was distributed, in what way the- fellah fared in relation to the pasha, how he feaid for his water, and what his crops and taxes were. At last the Government began to fear him. Reform was a bogey-man to the pashas and the ministers, and Flinders was persistent. After one of Qris journeys up the Nile Imshi Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, said to him: "Ah, my dear friend, with whom be peace and power, what have you seen as you travelled?" I saw a fellah yesterday who has worked nine months on the corvee^ — six months for tire Government and three for a pasha the friend of the Government. He supplied his own spades and baskets ; his lantern was at the service of the Khedive ; he got his own food as best he could. He had one feddan of land' in his own village, but be had' no time to work or harvest it. Tet he had to pay a house-tax of five piastres, a war-tax of five piastres, a camel-tax of five piastres, a palm-tax of five piastres, a salt-tax of nine piastres, a poll-tax of thirty piastres, a land-tax of ninety piastres.. The canal for which he was taxed gave his feddan of land no water, for the pasha, the friend of the Government, took all the water for his own land.". Prince Imshi stifled a yawn. "I have never seen so much at one breath, my friend. ' And having seen, you feel mow that Egypt I must be saved— eh?" ' Imshi Pasha was an Egyptian of the Egyptians — a Turk of the Turks, Oriental in mind with; the polish of a Frenchman. He did not like Flinders, but he did not say so. He knew it was better to let a man

have his fling and come a. cropper over his own work than to have him unoccupied, excited and troublesome, especially when he was an Englishman, and knew what he was talking about. ImsM Pasha saw that Flinders was a dangerous man, as all enthusiasts are, no matter how right-headed ; but it comforted him to think that many a reformer, from Amenhotep down, had, as it were, cut his own throat in the Irrigation Department. Some had tried to distribute water fairly, efficiently and scientifically, but most of them had got lost in the underbrush of officialdom, and never got out of the wood again. This wood is called backsheesh. Reformers like Flinders had drawn straight lines of purpose for the salvation of the country, and they had seen these straight lines go crooked under their very eyes, with a devilish smoothness almost occult. Therefore Imshi Pasha, being a wise nian and a deeply-dyed official who had never yet seen the triumph of the reformer and the honest Aryan, took Flinders' hands and said suddenly, with a sorrowful 'break in his voice : "Ah, my friend, to tell the whole truth as God gives it, it is time you have come. Egypt has waited for you— the man who sees and knows. I have watched you for two years. I have waited, but now tha time has; come. You shall stretch your arm over Egypt and it will rise to you. You shall have paper for plans, and men and money for travel and works— cuttings, and pumps, and sand-bags for banks a nd barjages. You shall be second in, your depart-ment-4)Ut first in fact, for shall not I, your friend, be your chief— and you shall say •go there,' and they shall go, and 'come here,' and they shall come. For my soul is with you for Egypt, O friend of the fellah and saviour of the land : have I not heard of the .great reservoirs you would make in the 1 Fayoum, of the great dam at Assouan? Have I not heard, and waited, and watched? and now " He paused and touched his foreast and his forehead in respect to Flinders. Flinders was -well-ndgh ta.ken off his feet. It seemed too wonderful to be true : a free hand in Egypt, and under Imshi Pasha, the one able Minister of them all, who had, it was said, always before resisted schemes for irrigation proposed by the. foreigner,, who believed only in the corvee and fate ! Had he not heard of Imshi Pasha diverting water from hundreds of feddans of land to his own fields in winter, leaving the poor man with half-grown, barley and flax and beans and tobacco? Had nob ImsM Pasha, in the summer, ere the flood came, monopolised the water in the canals in his own anudirieh for himself and his friends, leaving the poor .man lamenting the crop of sultana rice to save which he had worked months on the corvee, sleeping at night with no shtelter, starving by day, thinking of the land at home untilled, of the poor f eddan he had slaved to 'buy, the taxes for which had been -wrung out of him by the kourbash? Flinders thought of all this, and rejoiced that at the very beginning of his career he iad so inspired the great Imshi Pasha with confidence. With something very like emotion' he thanked Imshi Pasha, and said he was proud the new responsibility had not been offered him through the intercession of English authority, 'but had' come direct from an Egyptian Minister renowned albove all others. "Ah my dear friend," answered the Pasha, "the love of Egypt has helped us to understand each other. And we shall know each other better still by-and-by — by-and-by. . . . You shall oe gazetted to-morrow. The love of Allah preserve you from all error ;