66 Egypt
loose gunpowder, candle in hand, to test their nerves.
He built the Suez Canal, and thereby altered the trade
routes of the world, and he covered his parade-ground
with iron plates to keep the dust off his Paris clothes.
Life with Said was never dull. " Give him two hundred,"
he would shout, without explaining whether he meant
kurbash or baksheesh. He was as popular as a gross
joke, and some of his reforms, such as the abolition of
slavery (1856), of corporal punishment (1863), and of
conscription, were much appreciated jests.
Said's share in the pawning of Egypt has been rather
eclipsed by that of Ismail. But it was Said that first
called the tune, though Ismail finally paid the piper.
His personal extravagance was almost as fantastic as
that of Ismail. But his embezzlements of the State's
profits that should have been put back into the business
would not have mattered had he maintained the machine.
His final abolition of the monopolies, which was much ap-
plauded by foreign traders, his exaction of taxes in cash
instead of in kind, which was highly approved by foreign
financiers, together with his restoration of private owner-
ship in the land (1858), which was very popular with the
peasantry, were, when thus imposed all together and at
once, simply disastrous. For both the peasant and his
property fell an easy prey to the Greek moneylender who
lent the necessary cash, and to the foreign trader who
bought up his crops at forced sale prices. While the
disorganisation of the fiscal system made the State more
and more dependent on loans from foreign financiers at
ruinous rates. The abolition of internal Customs was
economically beneficial, but again a blow to the Budget.
Said is represented in most histories as the emancipa-
tor of Egypt from the economic experiments of his
father. But these enterprises were based on the estab-