then be only fifty piastres, but I insisted and so served. I was put soon after to another examination, out of which I came first, and they made me chowish, and then to a third and they made me lieutenant when I was only seventeen. Suliman Pasha el Franzawi was so pleased with me that he insisted with Saïd Pasha on giving me promotion, and I became captain at eighteen, major at nineteen, and Lieutenant-Colonel, Caimakam, at twenty. Then Saïd Pasha took me with him as A. D. C. when he went to Medina, about a year before he died. That was in A. H. 1279 (1862?).
Saïd Pasha's death was a great misfortune to me and to all, as he was favourable to the children of the country. Ismaïl was quite otherwise. In his time everything was put back into the hands of the Turks and Circassians, and the Egyptians in the army got no protection and no promotion. I went on serving as Caimakam for twelve years without much incident till war came with Abyssinia. I was not sent to the war with Russia, but when the war with Abyssinia broke out all available troops were wanted, and the garrisons were withdrawn from the stations on the Haj Road, and I was sent to do this. I was sent quite alone without a single soldier or a single piastre and had to get there as best I could on a camel. I went in this way to Nakhl and Akaba and Wej collecting the garrisons and putting in Arabs to take charge of the forts there as ghaffirs. Then we crossed over the sea to Kosseir and so by Keneh to Cairo. I was not paid a penny for this service or even my expenses. The country was in a fearful state of oppression, and it was then I began to interest myself in politics to save my countrymen from ruin. I was sent on to Massowa from Cairo and took part in the campaign of which Ratib Pasha was commander-in-chief, with Loringe Pasha, the American, as Chief of the Staff. I was not present at the battle of Kora, being in charge of the transport service between Massowa and the army. It was a disastrous battle, seven ortas being completely destroyed. Loringe Pasha was the officer mostly in fault. The Khedive's son, Hassan, was there, but only as a boy, to learn soldiering. He was not in command nor is it true that he was taken prisoner by the Abyssinians.