194 Egypt
cratic authority acquired by Kitchener merely the sub-
servience of a servile race to a successful soldier.
Egyptians could feel that Kitchener, as a public person-
age, was Egyptian. Egypt had made him. For Egypt
had raised him, as it raised Mehemet All, from the ranks
to a world-wide reputation, and, like Mehemet AH, he
was adopted by and adapted himself to Egypt. His
mastery of the minds of his Egyptian subjects was the
delight of the bazaars even as his masterful ways with
his British subordinates were the dismay of the bureau-
cracy. He made progresses through the provinces, re-
ceiving and replying to petitions in the vernacular with
the condescension of an Oriental autocrat. His own
mind had shaped itself into that baffling blend of despotic
decision and diplomatic duplicity peculiar to Oriental
princes. And, like them, he was a poseur. For example,
Coles Pasha speaks of interpreting for him *(as his
Arabic was often incomprehensible to village sheikhs/*
But he put it across all the same. " He put his hands
on my shoulders," cried an old Sheikh, "and said to
me : * Am I not your father ? Will a father forget his
children?' " (Weigall, Egypt, p. 358). He was no less
idolised by foreigners. That anomalous foreign body,
the Cairo Municipality (Tanzim), could refuse hiir
nothing. The local Press ascribed all legislation to hirr
personally. We read of " Lord Kitchener's Great Pro
ject"—the new public square. "Lord Kitchener*i
Agricultural Syndicates.'* "Lord Kitchener's Refora
of the Wakf." " Lord Kitchener's Five Feddan Law/
When the long deferred concessions to demands for self
government came in the shape of the new Legislate
and Constitution (1913), they were gratefully accepte
as gifts from Kitchener, and the elections were loyall
postponed until his return from leave. He personall