of our interview, which had been a long and a friendly one, shuffled his feet uneasily, then replied,—

'I will lay your letter before the Council of Ministers. They must decide upon it.'

Upon receiving this promise I took congé, and withdrew, feeling, like Charles V. in his convent, after abdication, not happy, but content.' From thence I drove to the divan of Riaz, to report progress to him. He smiled, and said, 'We shall see,' giving me no further assurances. The next morning I made a round of ceremonious visits to all the other ministers composing the Grand Council, with whom I partook of coffee and cigarettes, inviting their patronage of the plan, and was most graciously received by them, although only three of their number spoke or understood any foreign language, and preferred communicating through an interpreter, who understood me but little better than they would have done. The official, or high, language is Turkish, not Arabic, the latter being the vulgate.

Two weeks elapsed and I heard nothing, either from the Khedive, the Council, or Riaz Pacha. I therefore employed an old acquaintance, who had the back-door entrance to the palace and the divans, to ascertain what progress was making. He found out that there had been no progress at all, the letter never having been forwarded by the Khedive to the Council, in consequence of its not having been translated into Arabic, as was necessary. This I caused to be done, and the letter was duly forwarded to the Council. Another fortnight having elapsed without further sign, I visited Riaz, and asked his intervention to awaken the Council, which he promised to do.

Three weeks later I received a large official envelope, with a red seal as large as a saucer, containing an official communication of two sentences, informing me that the Council had decided that the condition of the country was not such as to warrant the introduction of the telephone, and that my proposal was not acceptable to them. This, with distinguished consideration,' was all the Council had to say.

Finding that this road would not bring me to the end of my journey satisfactorily, I turned into another, and applied to the Controllers, Messrs. Colvin and De Blignières, to whom I explained my wishes, asking their co-operation and support.

Sir A. Colvin freely and frankly tendered his aid and counsel as to the best and shortest way to attain my object without exciting the fears or the jealousies of the Egyptian authorities; and, by following that advice and the friendly suggestions of Sir E. Malet, the English Consul-General, I smoothed the way, and finally succeeded in obtaining what I asked for-in a modified form, it is true, yet substantially all that was essential.

From M. de Blignières I obtained neither sympathy nor assistance. He took not the slightest interest in the affair, which he designated as a poulet maigre, but was persuaded by Sir A. Colvin not to oppose me.

There were two features in my proposal which Sir A. Colvin

induced me to modify, as the conditions under which he could support me :

Ist. Instead of asking for an exclusive privilege, or monopoly, that a permission to establish and work his telephone exchange system in Egypt should be accorded to me for the inventor.

2nd. That that privilege should be confined to the cities of Alexandria and Cairo, and their suburbs, to begin with.

Acting on this advice, I promptly drafted another letter to the President of the Council, modifying my proposition as above, and, after several weeks of constant diplomatic negotiation with Riaz Pacha, the Khedive, and the Controllers, obtained the formal sanction of the Egyptian Government to establish telephone exchanges in the two cities and their suburbs, at the cost and risk of the Professor and his associates, through me; I binding myself and associates never to claim any indemnity against the Egyptian Government, for any losses or damages subsequently sustained in prosecuting such enterprise.

For arranging the details of the work I was referred to the Minister of Public Works, Ali Pacha Moubarek, an Egyptian of pure blood, who had been educated at Paris, spoke French like a Frenchman, and enjoyed the reputation of being at once an honest man and educated engineer, though not over partial to foreigners.

To his divan accordingly I proceeded to settle the preliminaries with him, according to the tenor of my instructions: and was well received by the Pacha, who, after coffee and cigarettes, opened the business thus:

'I am empowered by the Council to arrange with you for the establishment of your telephone at Cairo and Alexandria. The first condition I shall insist on is, "pas de poteaux!" (there must be no posts!).'

I saw dismay depicted on the face of the person who accompanied me, and whose local knowledge I was utilising. He actually gasped for breath. I was rather taken aback a moment myself by this staggering announcement; but, after a moment's reflection, to my companion's astonishment, blandly responded, "In principle, Excellency, I have no objection.'

Yes,' triumphantly repeated the Minister of Public Works, en principe, pas de poteaux. They destroy the look of the streets, and stop the way. We have too many with the telegraph already.'

'Your Excellency is an engineer, and I am not. Doubtless you know best. Let us take the map and see how posts can be dispensed with.'

The minister took down the plan of Cairo from the wall, and we both bent over it. Laying my finger on the large open space of the Ezbekieh garden, which divides the old from the new city, I asked innocently, 'How does your Excellency propose that I should convey the telephone wires across this garden, to connect the two quarters of

the city, dispensing with the posts you so justly object to. engineer your Excellency can instruct me?

As an

His Excellency raised his red tarbouche and scratched his head with an air of blended perplexity and sagacity which seriously imperilled my gravity. Then he said, 'Put the wires underground.'

6

6

The induction, Excellency, you must know well, will not allow us to do so successfully,' I answered, gravely. Electricians are decided on the point of underground communication.'

His Excellency looked more puzzled still, and I determined to leave him the nut to crack at his leisure.

6

I

'Reflect on the matter, Excellency,' I said cheerfully, and I am sure you will devise the means for effecting our common purpose. shall call again to-morrow when you have thought it over.' Saying which I left him.

On the ensuing day we came to a compromise, by which, in our articles of agreement, while the first section declared, that in principle no posts were to be used; in the second section a modification was made, that in cases of absolute necessity, where no other substitute could be adopted, posts might be planted to support the wires; with which compromise both the minister and myself were well contented, he saving the principle and I the needed permission to make an exceptional use of such posts as might be needed.

But from the placing of the first post in Alexandria up to the last one, the poteaux were a source of ever-recurring negotiation, correspondence, and annoyance to my workmen, the minister, and myself, he fighting for his principle,' and I for my practice; and several times we came to a dead lock and a dead stop in consequence of such collision.

The diplomatic portion of the work being thus happily concluded, the next thing was to excite the public interest in the enterprise, and introduce my interesting stranger to the mixed and polyglot population of Alexandria and Cairo, which cities had gathered in the remnants of the Tower of Babel in point of diverse languages, races, thoughts, habits, and feelings. A more divided, discordant and combative community than the European colony of Egypt the world never witnessed; and the native population comprises sixteen different Eastern nationalities, all alien from each other, socially, morally and religiously. Judge therefore of the difficulty of conciliating all, or even a considerable portion, of such a community, and bringing them to approve of and patronise an innovation like the telephone. A month after my arrival my electrician, imperfectly provided with instruments and wires to exhibit the working of the telephone, had followed me to Cairo.

With the friendly aid of Stone Pacha, this extremely clever electrician did his part of the work thoroughly and well; private and public exhibitions of the working of the telephone and of the exchange system were given both at Cairo and Alexandria, and public curiosity and admiration highly excited.

The mercantile and banking community were prompt to see and seize on the advantages it would afford them, and I recorded fifty annual subscribers to the exchange in Alexandria alone, before I had commenced to stretch a wire. The earlier exhibitions presented many comic features, as may be imagined, taking into account the composition of the audience, native and exotic. Suspicions of fraud, on the part of the electrician, were at first universal, and found expression on one occasion in a very amusing way. At an exhibition at the house of the Italian Consul-General, the Chevalier de Martino (who kindly allowed an instrument to be put up in connection with a friend's), an Egyptian official who had been educated in Europe, and who had loudly declared he would unveil the imposture, while conversation through the telephone was going on, stooped down, and with a cunning leer on his face, lifted the cloth of the table on which the instrument stood, to exhibit the accomplice he supposed was concealed beneath. His change of countenance when he found no one there, and was greeted with a roar of laughter at his discomfiture, was as comical as any theatrical exhibition. Needless to say that pacha did not appear at subsequent séances.

The chief of police at Alexandria also at first declined to test the matter for himself, on the ground that we might be able to talk the Frank languages through our 'box,' but how could it speak Arabic?' His incredulity on this point gave way to wild astonishment on his part and that of his officers, when four of them, stationed at different parts of the city, conversed with each other in their native tongue.

There are, or were, several French, Italian, Greek, and Arab journals widely circulated among the better classes of the population, and I made diligent and effective use of these, by conciliating their respective editors and managers.

The whole Egyptian press sounded the marvels of the telephone, and my friend M. de Lesseps, who was under obligations to me for co-operation in the early days of his Suez Canal project, delivered a public eulogy on the telephone when presenting one in my name to the public schools, on the occasion of one of his lectures on the Panama Canal, for which he was soliciting subscriptions.

The Khedive himself became excited and interested in the matter, and ordered that the first line built in Egypt should be one connecting two of his palaces at Cairo--about a mile apart. This was the pioneer line, and, when completed, he became so enamoured of his new toy, that he spent hours conversing with the Princesse Reine (he has but one wife) and their children through it, (as was said) often to the detriment of public business.

A similar order was given for his Alexandria palace, which was connected with the governor's and chief of police's divans, as well as with the public schools at the other extreme of the city, thus securing our chief trunk line, as well as the powerful aid of all the Khedive's officials, when native prejudice or cupidity sought to

interrupt our communications by refusing right of way over the house-tops along the route.

For when the work of laying the line with a network of communicating wires--which, passing over the great open square, gave the appearance of a vast spider's web overhead-commenced, our engineer and line-layers, brought from England, found daily and hourly difficulties arising from this quarter. Partly to avoid the worry of the post question, and partly from supposed motives of economy, the plan was adopted of running the wires over the tops of the flat-roofed houses, supported by iron fixtures made chiefly of tubing. To put up these, and attach the insulated wires to them, required permission of individual proprietors and occupants of these houses, and this was the source of more delay and vexation than can possibly be conceived. The natives worried us, because of their bitter prejudice against allowing men, and especially infidels, access to their houses, on any terms, or for any purpose. Often after their unwilling consent had been extorted by persuasion or influence brought to bear upon them, and the work was half finished, they withdrew the permission, complained to the governor, and the route was thus interrupted, and the labour lost. Superstitious fears also were excited by the uncanny' character of the instrument, which was endowed with diabolic attributes, and considered an Afreet' Devil. Pious Moslems shook their heads over it; and the sanctity of the 'hareem' (women's apartments) was considered to be compromised by the presence of the workmen on the premises. A detailed account of my multiplied annoyances from the intrigues of natives, Levantines, and Europeans, would fill a volume. The labyrinth of lies and false reports through which I had to grope, the attempts at swindling which I had to thwart, the vexatious intermeddling of people who comprehended neither the place nor the population, surpass the imagination of the stranger. The sharpest customer in Europe would be but as a babe in the hands of the Levantine of European experiences, with whom lying and swindling are branches of the fine arts.

The honest but bigoted old natives gave us a world of trouble, and rendered the governor's life a burden to him, with their chorus of complaints. One old sheik-a pious pilgrim from Mecca-whose house unfortunately for him stood on the line of the Khedive's communication with the governor, on being peremptorily ordered by the palace officials to permit my workmen to pass up his stairway, which led past his hareem apartments, tore his grey beard, spat on the ground to show his loathing, and, throwing wide open all the doors of his house, declared he would never close them again, but invite the whole public of Alexandria freely to make use of it, since he never was to enjoy privacy any more. Curiously enough, I never was able to learn that any complaint or opposition was ever made by the Arab women, of high or low degree.

The Levantines (Europeans) of the lower class thought it a good opportunity to extort money, either for granting the privilege of pas