Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

Midday passed, and the battle went on with no abatement of ardour on either side, and with no talk or thought of submission on the side of the rebels. But as the time of the afternoon prayer approached the Ulema who could, in spite of their pacific character, form a better and more reliable estimate of the probable final result of the struggle, appealed to the people, and went to General Bonaparte himself to intercede for peace, begging him to stop the bombardment that was making such havoc in the town, and was more harmful to the innocent and helpless than to those most in fault. Bonaparte, accusing the Ulema of being responsible for the outbreak, reproached them bitterly, but finally yielded to their entreaties, and, ordering the batteries to be silenced, promised an amnesty for all who should at once lay down their arms.

Evening was drawing near as the Sheikhs returned from their self-appointed embassy. The people, wearied with the heavy strain of the long night and day of constant action, with their small stock of munitions almost exhausted, and finding their strength failing, with their women and children shrieking and weeping in terror at the houses crumbling around them under the hail of shell from the French batteries, were compelled to accept the offered peace, and as the sun went down the firing on both sides stopped, save that the warlike Maghrabins, who thoroughly enjoyed the battle, kept up a fight upon their own account for yet an hour or so longer, being most loath to abandon it at all.

The storm that thus ended almost as abruptly as it had broken out had cost the French one of their best generals, and not a few valuable lives of less degree in the service. The Egyptians, too, had lost heavily. Many peaceful citizens had been slain, and many houses more or less completely wrecked. For the Cairenes it had been their "baptism of fire." They had taken up arms to fight, scarcely knowing how to handle them, and to be under the fire of an enemy was a wholly new experience to them, scarce one of them having even seen a cannon fired save for the harmless purpose of a salute. Yet, astounded as they were at the destruction wrought by the French guns, they had held their ground staunchly all through that to them most terrible day, and in doing so learned something of their own strength though almost nothing of how to use it.

But whatever the people had learned, Bonaparte learned but little from the storm. It taught him, indeed, that the people were not quite so docile as he had thought them to be, and that they were still less friendly to the French and their ideas than he had imagined possible; but that was all. It taught him nothing of that which it would have been most serviceable for him to have learned – something of the real nature of the people and of the best and wisest way of dealing with them. Had he been a great man in any true sense of the phrase, had he been even a clever one, or still less nobly, even a cunning one, he might have turned the storm and its collapse very greatly indeed to his own advantage. Never from the day of his arrival had he had the people so completely at his mercy, so wholly under his own control, if he had only known how to exercise it. But knowing no means of attaining his objects but through the brute force of his battalions and such terror as they could inspire, and no higher diplomacy than the yielding of minor points as to which he was in truth indifferent, he, most naturally for him, did exactly the things most calculated to strengthen the hatred of the people for the French, and thus to heap up difficulties in his own path.

Whether done through thoughtless indifference or from a wanton desire to outrage the feelings of the people, the French cavalry were stabled in the mosque of the Azhar, the great university, not only of Egypt but of the whole Moslem world, and this venerated building, to which students came from every land in which Islam had even a small group of followers, was desecrated and defiled, as well by the horses of the troops as by the troopers themselves, in every possible way. If it had been the object of the French to humiliate and insult the people and their faith in the greatest conceivable degree, this was of all others the surest and simplest way of accomplishing it.

Once more the Ulema went to Bonaparte to plead with him for the exercise of a little humanity, and once more he ungraciously granted their request. The evacuation of the mosque was ordered, but, as always, the concession was marred, so far as Bonaparte could mar it, by the arrest of a number of the Sheikhs accused of having fomented or encouraged the revolt, and by his refusal to hear any intercession on their behalf.

The storm had come and gone. Like all storms it had left a trail of damage, but it had to some extent cleared the air. Frenchmen and Egyptians understood one another less than before and yet better; and so drawing daily more and more apart, both literally and figuratively, the French – many of whom had been living here and there in the town amidst the people – began to move and gather themselves more and more together, whilst the Egyptians living in the Esbekieh and other parts that had been specially adopted by the French were ordered to leave.

Other changes followed. The flood-tide of reforms had reached its height and ceased to flow, to the vast relief of the people no longer driven hither and thither by its currents and eddies. The Sheikhs accused of fomenting sedition having been executed, the daily stream of arrests and executions that had continued throughout the occupation was checked, and so the people sadly, but not sullenly, settled themselves down peacefully enough to wait the early coming of the Turkish army that, as they fondly believed, was to scatter the French as the sirocco scatters the sand-heaps of the desert, so that the place should know them no more, and their very name be but as the memory of a dream. Yet with all this, while the people had just cause to congratulate themselves that their outbreak was not altogether unfruitful in its effects, and to grieve over the long list of their dead and wounded and the crumbled ruins of their dwellings, the truth is that they were repenting for their wild outburst; for now that the passionate wrath that had urged them on was gone, the philosophy that had carried them through so many centuries of woe reproached them for their faithlessness. They had fought a stout fight against long odds, and though beaten in form had proved victorious in substance, since, as I have said, the torrent of reform that had so exasperated them was stayed, and it was the French and not they who had to abandon in every way the position they had occupied. But as reflection came they asked themselves whether the gain was worth the cost, and finding less cause for exultation than for regret, so far from rejoicing over what they had done, spoke only of the fight to ask God's forgiveness for their madness.

But the French, knowing nothing of the true feelings of the people, and quite unable to fathom their thoughts, so far from thinking that they had never before been so safe from the anger of the people, began to take all sorts of needless precautions, and not only kept together in their walks and wanderings, but carried arms and shunned the native quarters of the town.

CHAPTER XI
AFTER THE STORM

Under the changed conditions in which the French were now living they began to find time hanging heavily on their hands, so they turned their attention to the task of providing occupation for their leisure hours, and as a first step in the realisation of this desirable object built themselves an assembly-room. This and some other projects kept them busy for some weeks, and helped to heal the bitterness that the revolt had created, and, like the Egyptians, if not ready to bury the past altogether, they were willing enough to let it lie in oblivion, and, largely influenced by the fact that the destruction of the fleet had left them locked in the country with no very hopeful possibility of their being soon able to receive help from France, they set themselves to get on with the people as well as might be, and included in their schemes some intended at once to please and gratify the Cairenes and impress them with a sense of the superiority of the French.

Among the other devices that it was thought could not fail to serve these ends and win general applause was the construction of a Montgolfier balloon. This having been successfully accomplished, the public were invited to come and see a wonderful contrivance by which the French were able to communicate with far-off lands, and thus, if need should arise, seek and obtain help from their native country or elsewhere. Such an announcement naturally brought the Egyptians, who are always curious to see and inspect novelties of all kinds, in crowds to the Esbekieh on the day appointed for the ascent. Fortune, however, was not generous to the French, and though the balloon was a success in all things that skill could command, an adverse and indifferent wind left it loitering in sight until the moment of its collapse arrived, and it sank ignominiously to earth, to the great scorn of the people, who derisively styled it a "big kite," and compared it to the kites that the boys of Egypt had long been wont to amuse themselves with. The failure was a sad blow to the French, who had hoped to see the balloon float majestically away and disappear in the north, as though it were indeed bound for Paris.

A worthier and more successful enterprise that the French engaged in was the opening of a public library in the district to the south of the town still known as the Nasrieh. Of this Gabarty, who is not sparing in his ridicule of the balloon, gives an enthusiastic description, and records with the most unstinted appreciation his sense of the high courtesy with which the French received all visitors. He himself went often, and tells us not only of the delight with which he enjoyed its wonders, but of the pleasure afforded by the welcome offered to all visitors, and especially to those who showed an interest in or knowledge of the sciences. For their inspection all the treasures of the place were freely produced, and all help given them to understand the object and worth of what they were shown. There were many things in the library that the Egyptian visitors could thoroughly appreciate – rare Oriental manuscripts, maps and atlases of all parts of the world, illustrated volumes, astronomical and other scientific diagrams and philological works. For all these, as well as for the French savants who so freely and liberally put their time and knowledge at the service of their guests, Gabarty has unstinted praise and admiration.

Even more successful than the library, from the popular point of view, was the laboratory that the French threw open to all comers. Popular science was then in its infancy. The chemistry of to-day was altogether unknown and undreamt of. Electricity was in its early babyhood, even the telegraph being yet to come. Steam was an unharnessed giant. Gas, photography, and a host of things that are now-a-days among the most commonplace of our surroundings were unknown, not only in Egypt but in Europe. And by the Nile, where art and science once flourished, the little knowledge that still survived was the inheritance and privilege of the Ulema, and was sadly cramped and debased by the false theology that had elevated religious pedantry above all other knowledge or desire. It is no wonder, therefore, that the French were able to astonish their guests beyond measure by showing them a host of those "experiments in natural science" that in our own boyhood days we delighted in when presented to us as the "magic of chemistry," such as the production of a solid by the mixing of two liquids. The marvels of electricity as then known were also displayed, and, as Gabarty says with his customary candour, "other wonders that intelligence like ours could neither understand nor explain."

All the visitors to the library and laboratory were not, of course, as intelligent or appreciative as the Sheikh Gabarty, and some of the few historians who condescend to mention things unconnected with the battles and bloodshed that is their proper subject, record with glee, as a fitting illustration of the native mind, the story of the Sheikh who, having beheld with Oriental stolidity all the marvels the French could show him, asked whether the science of Europe was equal to the task of enabling him to be present in two places at once, and, being assured that it could not, expressed his contempt for such lamentably imperfect science. That the incident really occurred there is no reason to doubt, but the Sheikh's attitude was not such a childishly absurd one as our friends the historians would wish us to believe. To understand it we must go back to the time and the place, though even from the present we may gain a hint. Not long since an Italian boy showed me a little booklet that had been given to him by his teacher, a Catholic priest. It was a short history of the life of a saint, and recorded how a mule had gone on its knees out of respect for the "Host." The book had the printed imprimatur of his Holiness the late Pope. I asked the boy if he really believed the story, and he replied, "Why not?" Why not, indeed! Luther not only believed in the devil, but saw him, and threw his ink-bottle at him; notwithstanding which, I, though not a Christian in any sense, most firmly believe in Luther, and hold him as one far beyond the world's great hero Bonaparte in all that constitutes true greatness. I can, therefore, quite understand how a pious Sheikh in Cairo, in the year of grace 1799, could believe in the possibility of a man being, by the aid of lawful or unlawful arts and sciences, both here and there at the same time, for to him, as to Luther, belief in the supernatural made all things possible, and, just as Luther had a hundred hearsay traditions of the pious and godly to justify his interpretation of the hallucination produced by an overworked brain, so the Sheikh had not only traditions but the sworn testimony of many eye-witnesses to the possibility of the impossibility in which he thus expressed his belief. And as it held in the closing days of the eighteenth century, so in these, the early years of the twentieth, the Church of Rome still holds as heretic whoever disputes the truth of the worshipping mule, and in the East not only are miracles firmly believed in, but do actually, in a sense, take place. A night's march from Hodeidah, up in the hills of Yemen, there was in the seventies of the last century a certain saint who held open court for all who came, and it was the tradition, and, as I can testify, the verity of the place that when his guests sat down to meals the more they ate the more was left. I have seen this miracle as it was, and perhaps still is, commonly accounted, repeated not once, but again and again during my stay. And this same saint was held by all the populace of Hodeidah, which in those days did not number a single Christian among its residents, to have on many occasions attended the public prayers in Hodeidah and those in Sana'a at one and the same time. The saint, grown old and bedridden when I saw him, was a fine old Arab, and though speaking with difficulty, asked me a few intelligent questions about India and England. Whence, as it seems to me, having abundance of such evidence before him, and having a boundless faith in the omnipotence of the Creator and of His regard for the doings of His people, the mocking Sheikh in the French laboratory was in fact ridiculing not French science but French infidelity. In the Cairo of to-day there are but few who have such simple, honest faith as that old Sheikh. Whether on the whole Cairo or its people are much the better of the change is a question not altogether so beyond discussion as my reader probably thinks.

But whether the old Sheikh was serious or ironical in his question, it is quite certain that the Sheikh Gabarty was perfectly serious in his comments, and in the records of these things that he has left us there is much to guide us in forming an idea of the Egyptian of the period, for though he was one of the "learned," he was essentially one of the people, and, like them, when under no special restraint, accustomed to speak his mind clearly and without any other bias than the impulse of the moment. Born in Cairo in the year 1754, he was like Sayed Mahomed Kerim, the Governor of Alexandria, of Arab origin, and, like him, though preserving much of the Arab in his nature, essentially an Egyptian. Originally from Zeilah on the African coast of the Gulf of Aden, his family had been settled in Egypt for seven generations, and had taken the name Jibarty, or, as it is pronounced in Egypt, Gabarty, from their first home, Jibart being one of the names by which Zeilah is still known. Claiming descent from the family of Abou Talib, that uncle of the Prophet of Islam who, though unconverted to the faith of his nephew, accorded him his protection and sympathy in the days when he so sorely needed a friend, the Gabarty family had in Egypt been scarcely less famous for its origin than for its piety, learning, and wealth. Sheikh Ali, the great-grandfather of the Sheikh Abdu Rahman Gabarty – the historian of whom I am writing – attained full honours as a saint, and in the time of Bonaparte his tomb at Edfoo was still a place of pilgrimage for the pious, not only of Egypt, but of Arabia and Abyssinia and other lands of Islam.

Another notable member of the family was the Sheikh Abdu Rahman's father, a man of great learning, a deeply read student of all the sciences and branches of learning then cultivated in Egypt, a noted bibliophile and the author of many works covering a wide range of subjects. The "Standard-bearer of knowledge" and "Moon of Islam and its followers" are some of the phrases in which his son with filial piety describes him, and it is certain that, considering his time and place, he was not unworthy of them. Recognised by the Ulema as the most accomplished and brilliant scholar of the day, in private life he was beloved for his affability, generosity, and public spirit, the latter being evidenced by, among other things, his establishing in his own house a lending library, which he placed at the free disposal of all students. As an author he produced a long list of works chiefly of a controversial character, but some of an eminently practical nature, such as his guide to the ceremonies of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Nor was he without inventive skill – an instrument for ascertaining the kibla, or point to which all Moslems are bound to turn when praying, and a circular calender covering a long period of time, and supplying corresponding dates for a number of different eras, such as the Moslem, Coptic and Greek, being among the more noteworthy. He was also a great amateur of sundials, and constructed many of various types. His scientific knowledge, public spirit, and practical nature were all combined to enable him to carry out single-handed a reform in the weights and measures of the Cairo markets.

Abdu Rahman, the historian, was a worthy son of this distinguished man. Like him, a great scholar, though less broad in his reading, an acute thinker, indefatigable worker, an earnest and conscientious follower of his religion, and yet free, as his history proves, of all fanaticism and bigotry, independent in spirit, truthful and candid in speech and writing, yet withal courteous and generous in his intercourse with others, it was but natural that he should succeed his father as one of the foremost of the Sheikhs of the Azhar University, and that he should have been one of the men chosen to form the Dewan when Bonaparte asked for the names of the leading men.

Such being the man and his origin, it is not difficult to understand how bitter to him must have been the events that had followed the arrival of the French. But he records the history of the time with the staid reserve of the "Father of History," setting down the good and the bad with equal fidelity, neither concealing the truth as he saw it, nor speaking aught in malice. All through his story of the French occupation one can see how greatly his heart rebelled against it, but, none the less, he never grudges the invaders his admiration when they could win it, as in the case of the library and the laboratory, though he could, when he would, be sarcastic enough, as when laughing at the fiasco of the balloon, and is capable of righteous indignation, not only against the French but also against the Moslems who sinned against that which he held to be the laws of right and truth. So while he more than hints his belief that many of the "reforms" were but excuses for the collection of taxes, he readily admits the utility of the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, sees no harm in the wearing of the cockade, and admits the benefits of disinfection and quarantine. His book is therefore what he never intended it to be – a wonderful picture of the man himself as well as it is that which he intended it to be – a full and, above all else, a truthful account of the events of his time. And it is even more than this, for it is to those who know something of the East and its peoples a valuable guide to the character of the Egyptians, and, without any intention on his part, or indeed any idea that he is touching such a subject, he is constantly showing us how and why the French failed to gain the goodwill or friendship of the people. And through it all, in the gathering of the storm as in its burst, and in the days of dire grief that followed it, we see the man himself placid and calm, with unfaltering though aching heart, going steadily on, maintaining his daily life as much as might be unchanged, ever in fear and yet never in fear; ever in fear that the morrow might bring some new trouble or vexation, never in fear but that, come what might, in the end all must be well, for after all was not all this flood of affliction let loose on the country "that God might accomplish His decrees"?

And as Gabarty thought of all these things, so, in a measure, thought all the Egyptians. Much as they enjoy peace, comfort, society, and all the good things of this life, they all sit in the tub of Diogenes and mock at the power and grandeur of the great. Robert of Sicily in his magnificent attire may be a very gorgeous spectacle, but they are quite prepared to see him to-morrow, or the day after, running "bare-headed and besprent with mire," and so when Bonaparte, who, not having yet heard the dismal droning of St. Helena's surges, by no means shared such silly ideas, issued his decrees and warned the people of the certain destruction that was to overtake all who dared oppose him, they, though they held their tongues, felt inclined to reply, as did Akhbar the Great of India's prisoner, "Would it not be well to say 'With God's permission'?" And of what avail all this bloodshed and rapine? What madness and utter folly all this tumultuous turbulence of Beys and Bonapartes! What could they gain by it? Did they forget "th' inevitable hour"? Were there no graves awaiting them wherein they would lie and rot while others no wiser than they would be furiously fighting over the heritage they had left?

And so also for smaller things. Why worry and fret about these reforms? They may be good and beneficial in their way, but peace and quiet were better. And if the French really desired reforms, why not give the people the reforms they did really long for? To live in peace and quiet and be left to seek their own welfare in their own manner? These were things to be sought after and, if possible, attained: things worth some little sacrifice. Give them these and leave them free to enjoy their lives as they would, and they would pay willingly enough whatever reasonable taxes you might desire, even though these pressed a little heavily upon them.

And these being the ideals of the Egyptians, it should be easy for the reader to see that after all for them the French, as rulers of the land, were scarcely as desirable as the Beys. Instead of giving the people liberty, this was just what they took from them. Under the French they felt all the horror that convicts have told us they have felt in English and other jails at the knowledge that they were always under restraint and observation. The French complained that the Egyptians were ungrateful, but it is not easy for a man to be grateful for a benefit of which he is unconscious. That the French were in many things their superiors the Egyptians could plainly see; that they were far beyond them in the arts and sciences and manufactures; that their ideas of governing and administering the town and country were better than those of the Turks, or Mamaluks: all these were things that the Egyptians could and did admit, but they could not and would not admit that the benefit to be derived from these was worth anything like the price the French asked them to pay. From the days of the Pharaohs they had carried their bricks and their mortar in hods on their heads or on their shoulders. The French wheelbarrows were ingenious and useful things, and there was no reason why the Egyptians should not avail themselves of these or any other of the endless conveniences that they were now seeing for the first time, provided that the employment of these things was not to be made a burden, and that they were employed to lighten and not to increase the labourer's task. And it was so in higher things and among the higher classes. It was good to register births and deaths – was it not the custom of the Arabs themselves from the very earliest days? – but it was not good to tie people down to making their records in a certain way, at a certain time, at a certain place, or to put them under pains and penalties for any failure in conforming to the burthensome rules the French had laid down with respect to such matters.

It was thus that Gabarty and his countrymen reasoned then and it is thus that the Egyptian still reasons, and while they so reasoned and so reason it was and is impossible for the European and the Egyptian to coalesce socially or politically. The ultimate aim of the French and of the Egyptians was one and the same thing – the happiness of the people; but their conceptions of happiness were radically distinct, nor were their ideas as to the means whereby happiness was to be attained less irreconcilable. Throughout the world, turn where we will, we find all men engaged in the same pursuit, carrying on the same struggle. The silly-pated fools lounging at the bars of London and the hard-handed labourer toiling at his daily work, the Salvation Army lass tending the sick and poor, and the Buddhist fanatic burning himself alive – these and the million types that range between these extremes, these are all seeking the same goal, struggling each in his or her own way for the attainment of the same end, the realisation of their own ideal of happiness. I have in an earlier chapter tried to show why the Egyptian and the English characters are of necessity so different, and in doing that I have, to some extent at least, shown why the French and the Egyptians were so opposed in their valuation of the reforms that Bonaparte was so assiduous in introducing. That Bonaparte cared the value of a brass farthing for the welfare of Egypt or the happiness of the Egyptians is simply inconceivable, but that he really and earnestly desired to see both these things realised is certain. Had an overwhelming inundation swept Egypt and the Egyptians into the sea, Bonaparte's chief regret would have been that he had neither ships nor men with which to avail himself of this new and most convenient route to India. But so long as their existence was conducive, or might possibly be made conducive, to his own interests he certainly desired that the country should prosper, that he might reap the benefit, and that the people should be happy, or at least content, so that he need not waste his resources in combating or providing against hostility on their part. This is the debt, and this only, that Egypt owes to the goodwill of Bonaparte.

In Gabarty's picture of the library and laboratory we find Frenchmen of a very different type to the Corsican. To these men and to others that were yet to come Egypt owes much. Had there been nothing to counteract their influence Egypt would indeed have had reason to bless the day the French arrived, for their patient, courteous, kindly enthusiasm was just what was needed to give the people a real and lasting impulse towards better things, and as we see the pettiness and mean ambitions of Bonaparte for ever blocking this the only true road to the ends he desired, we cannot but feel that, once in the country, the best thing he ever did for it was to take himself out of it as he did, stealing away like a thief in the night, deserting the army that had served him faithfully and well utterly reckless of the fate that might await them. That, indeed, was good for Egypt.

But the Frenchmen who would and could have benefited the country had many difficulties to overcome; had they once been in a position to set themselves seriously to the task, they would have wrought much good. But they were forced to act as if the happiness of Egypt was to be attained by casting its social and political conditions in the mould of the French Republic. To the Egyptian, not yet being able to fully comprehend the spirit of these men, and seeing nothing in the French occupation but the worries and vexations with which the tyranny of Bonaparte overwhelmed them, the only happiness the French could offer them was to leave them alone. Their ideals and the French were altogether different and never could agree. The Egyptian could see this but the French could not, and least of all Bonaparte. What was possible was that the Egyptians should learn much and benefit much from French civilisation and its adaptation to the needs and circumstances of the country and its people. This and nothing more. But Bonaparte was of all men the least capable of seeing such a fact as this, and so he kept stretching the Egyptians on a Procrustean bed of reform, and was wroth that they did not enjoy the experience.