In Egypt Dimsdale made a reputation; not at once, but he did make it.
The first two years of his stay he had plenty to do. At the end of the
time he could have drawn a map of the Nile from Uganda to the Barrages;
he knew the rains in each district from the region of the Sadds to the
Little Borillos; there was not a canal, from the small Bahr Shebin to
the big Rayeh Menoufieh or the majestic Ibrahimieh, whose slope, mean
velocity and discharge he did not know; and he carried in his mind every
drainage cut and contour from Tamis to Damanhur, from Cairo to Beltim.
He knew neither amusement nor society, for every waking hour was spent
in the study of the Nile and what the Nile might do.
After one of his journeys up the Nile, Imshi Pasha, the Minister of
the Interior, said to him: “Ah, my dear friend, with whom be peace and
power, what have you seen as you travel?”
“I saw a fellah yesterday who has worked nine months on the corvee--six
months for the Government and three for a Pasha, the friend of the
Government. He supplied his own spades and baskets; his lantern was at
the service of the Khedive; he got his own food as best he could. He had
one feddan of land in his own village, but he had no time to work it or
harvest it. Yet he had to pay a house-tax of five piastres, a war-tax
of five piastres, a camel-tax of five piastres, a palm-tax of five
piastres, a salt-tax of nine piastres, a poll-tax of thirty piastres, a
land-tax of ninety piastres. The canal for which he was taxed gave his
feddan of land no water, for the Pasha, the friend of the Government,
took all the water for his own land.”
Prince Imshi stifled a yawn. “I have never seen so much at one breath,
my friend. And having seen, you feel now that Egypt must be saved--eh?”
This Pasha was an Egyptian of the Egyptians--a Turk of the Turks,
Oriental in mind with the polish of a Frenchman. He did not like
Dimsdale, but he did not say so. He knew it was better to let a man
have his fling and come a cropper over his own work than to have
him unoccupied, excited, and troublesome, especially when he was an
Englishman and knew about what he was talking. Imshi Pasha saw that
Dimsdale was a dangerous man, as all enthusiasts are, no matter how
right-headed; but it comforted him to think that many a reformer, from
Amenhotep down, had, as it were, cut his own throat in the Irrigation
Department. Some had tried to distribute water fairly, efficiently
and scientifically, but most of them had got lost in the underbush of
officialdom, and never got out of the wood again. This wood is called
Backsheesh. Reformers like Dimsdale had drawn straight lines of purpose
for the salvation of the country, and they had seen these straight lines
go crooked under their very eyes, with a devilish smoothness. Therefore
Imshi Pasha, being a wise man and a deep-dyed official who had never yet
seen the triumph of the reformer and the honest Aryan, took Dimsdale’s
hands and said suddenly, with a sorrowful break in his voice:
“Behold, my friend, to tell the whole truth as God gives it, it is time
you have come. Egypt has waited for you--the man who sees and knows. I
have watched you for two years. I have waited, but now the time is ripe.
You shall stretch your arm over Egypt and it will rise to you. You shall
have paper for plans, and men and money for travel and works-cuttings,
and pumps, and sand-bags for banks and barrages. You shall be second
in your department--but first in fact, for shall not I, your friend, be
your chief? And you shall say ‘Go there,’ and they shall go, and ‘Come
here,’ and they shall come. For my soul is with you for Egypt, O friend
of the fellah and saviour of the land. Have I not heard of the great
reservoirs you would make in the Fayoum, of the great dam at Assouan?
Have I not heard, and waited, and watched? and now...”
He paused and touched his breast and his forehead in respect.
Dimsdale was well-nigh taken off his feet. It seemed too wonderful to be
true--a free hand in Egypt, and under Imshi Pasha, the one able Minister
of them all, who had, it was said, always before resisted the irrigation
schemes of the foreigners, who believed only in the corroee and fate!
Dimsdale rejoiced that at the beginning of his career he had so inspired
the powerful one with confidence. With something very like emotion he
thanked the Minister.
“Yes, my dear friend,” answered the Pasha, “the love of Egypt has helped
us to understand each other. And we shall know each other better still
by-and-by-by-and-by.... You shall be gazetted to-morrow. Allah preserve
you from all error!”