3-082-380 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ismail Pasha, the late Khedive, 1895. Ismail Pasha...was proclaimed Viceroy [of Egypt] in 1863. His head was turned by the possibilities of his position and its, to him, boundless wealth. He conducted the negotiations with M. de Lesseps relative to the Suez Canal with Eastern astuteness, and when the great engineering work was opened in 1869 Ismail entertained royal visitors with lavish magnificence. For twelve years he reigned in the most extravagant manner, creating a huge national debt in the lighthearted way which was the "note" of his life...Needing money, he sold his Suez Canal shares to the British Government for £4,000,000, boasting that he had made £40,000 profit out of the bargain...[Because of his] extravagance, he had to surrender his private property...[He] abdicated on June 26, 1879, and five days later left Egypt for ever. He...was permitted by the Sultan to return to his palace on the Bosphorus. The writer not long ago saw the deposed Khedive riding through the streets of Constantinople, wearing an air of settled melancholy on his sallow countenance...He was one of the many examples of men who have nothing but their hereditary descent to fit them for rulers, and it may truthfully be said "Egypt was glad" when he departed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.