The Birth of Modern Egypt 37
the Mamelukes, the French favouring the Albanians.
The Egyptians themselves only appear at this early epoch
as occasionally acclaiming or attacking one or other
faction.
The Mamelukes had lost their military prestige, but
they still retained their pomp and panoply. They also
had a political power based on their hold over the land
and on their inheritance of political ability from that
Georgian race to which their leaders mostly belonged.
But their power as a separate party was doomed, for the
"Gorz" was detested by all Egyptians. And it was
characteristic of British diplomacy that it should have
selected this moribund aristocracy for its ally. The
British candidate for Pasha of Egypt was the most
gorgeous and most greedy of the Mameluke Beys, one
Elfi. Diabasti (Chroniques, vol. viii.) tells us that this
personage was distinguished for taking about with him a
portable kiosk when he travelled ; also for having put up
a splendid palace in Cairo only to pull it down and then
to put it up again. His Mamelukian magnificence had
much impressed London, where a company was floated
to finance his fortunes in Egypt, which funds were, how-
ever, intercepted by that Bolshevik, Mehemet AH, and
invested by him in attaching the Albanians to himself and
in detaching them from Khosrew, the Pasha of Egypt,
whom he deported (May, 1803). At the same time he
had his friend and only possible rival, Tahir, murdered by
his Albanian officers.
It would not be worth while to unravel in detail the
intricate intrigues by which Mehemet AH made himself
sole ruler of Egypt. The main masterstrokes by which
he overthrew his principal opponents are perhaps worth
noting. He had got sole command of the only reliable
military ferce, the Albanians, but had no control over the