38 Egypt
only recognisable political party, that of the Mamelukes.
So he forced the Mameluke leader, Bardissi, to raise
taxes to pay the Albanians, until Cairo rose in riot. He
then appeased the riot by forcing Bardissi to remit the
taxes. Having thus become a popular hero, he expelled
Bardissi and his Mamelukes and took their place. When
the Turks, alarmed at his aggrandisement, ordered him
and his Albanians out of Egypt, he raised another riot,
and forced the new Pasha, Kurshid, to withdraw the order.
Kurshid then, having got him out of Cairo on a cam-
paign against the provincial Mamelukes, took the oppor-
tunity to occupy the capital behind his back with a
Kurdish contingent. These wild men, however, with
their birdlike faces and their beastly manners, soon made
Cairo sincerely regret their old tyrants, the Albanians.
A deputation brought back Mehemet Ali, and demanded
the deposition of Kurshid. Mehemet Ali was elected
Pasha, and besieged Kurshid in the Cairo citadel.
Kurshid was recalled, and Mehemet Ali occupied the
citadel (August, 1805), and was confirmed as Pasha of
Egypt with general applause (November, 180,5). Ap-
plause became even more hearty approval when his first
measure was to solve the financial problems of the State
by plundering the Copts, who had grown wealthy as the
tax-collectors for and moneylenders to the Mamelukes
and Turks.
But in the Ottoman Empire it was a good deal easier
for an obscure tobacco trader to become ruler of a pro-
vince in six years than for that ruler to keep his position
for six months. The Capoudan Pasha appeared at
Alexandria with an Ottoman fleet and an imperial firman
transferring Mehemet Ali to Salonica. Whereupon both
Alexandria and Cairo declared so demonstratively for
Mehemet Ali that the Pasha was glad to take ^Instead a