142 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



million and a half. I accordingly appealed to my 

 friends, who each subscribed 200, and I went on 

 until all this was spent. I then said to the Viceroy, 

 " The question as to the possibility of making the 

 canal is settled. "Would you like me to put myself in 

 the hands of financiers at Paris who will probably get 

 the best of me ? " He replied that he had a good 

 reserve fund (Egyptian finance was not in the terrible 

 state that it is in now), and would bear all the cost. 

 And in forming my company I introduced a clause 

 according to which a certain percentage of the profits 

 was to go to the Egyptian Government. This being 

 settled, I set to work. "We continued to make our 

 surveys for the canal, but the opposition of England 

 was at one time so pertinacious that the unhappy 

 Prince was at his wits' end. It was no use his 

 saying, "I have imprudently granted the concession 

 to a friend, a Frenchman ; you must apply to him or 

 to his Government. I cannot withdraw it." The 

 English opposition did not disarm for that, and he 

 was positively wasting away, so I said to him one 

 day, " There is only one course left open. We will 

 continue our surveys for the canal, which is outside 

 Egypt, in the desert. But the fact will be known, 

 and you will be constantly pestered on the subject. 

 Let us take another line. There is a population in 

 the Soudan, which has been much oppressed by your 

 family. You have a brother who was massacred near 

 Khartoum." Mehemet Ali, I should explaiu, had 



