GUARDING THE KHEDIVE.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1001, 23 February 1883, Page 4

GUARDING THE KHEDIVE.

The Khedive lives in-a palace sur- - surrounded .by a whole regiment' of ’ British soldiers. Extraordinary ; precautions arc taken to prevent his assas-; sinatiqn. He sleeps. in a room, the: only access to which is by means of a passage-way barred by four doors, each door.. having a different combination lock, and each key being intrusted to a separate guardian. The countersign of •the . soldiers in lho : palace is often: changed two: or three .times during the same night. Secret service agents are .charged with the task of keeping a watchful eye upon the palace officials, as well as upon each other. And perhaps in time the Khedive’s palace may bear some slight resemblance to Yildiz Kiosk —that holy of holies of Abdnl Hamid—where masked batteries of spies and secret agents lay concealed behind every shrub, screen, or flower-pot. Whenever the Khedive drives ,out the roads through which he passes are lined with gendarmes on foot and on horseback. His carriage-—usually an open Victoria is surrounded by n dozen Circassian bntriders; and, in short, all those pre.cautions are taken l>y lS£okammccl ;Tewfik that are usually taken by a Tuler who finds himself in the melancholy position of being hated or despised by his subjects. It was only lately that as the Khedive drove, by n •guard of the new Egyptian gendarme, one of the gallant gendarmes, after presenting' arms to his “ sovereign,” dashed his rifle violently to the ground and predicted of Mohammed Tewfik an epithet that decency here forbids me to reproduce. A.nd what is far more significant, the officer in command:; pfthe . detachment did- not seem’ to think it .wise ‘or . discreet to even .notice .this act. of gross insubordination; I have Sven seen donkey boys injhe streets of Cairo turn, their backs at the; Khcdivcr when driving by, and make vilifying noises with their mouths. A carious incident happened the other day in the garden of the Ghezereh palace, where the Khedive is in the habit of strolling about after lunch. is surrounded by the Nile and by very high walls, and is vigilantly guarded by both Highlanders and Circassians. The Khedive was walking in the shade of some'palm trees unattended and dressed as an ordinary Egyptian officiar^TTarbousli)—Nack, clerically cut coat, tweed trousers, and patent leather shoes. Nothing about him indicated his rank, Passing by a narrow gateway the Khedive noticed a tall Highlander pacing to and fro on sentry duty;" His Highness, who speaks English quite fluently, asked the sentry, f* How doyondike Egypt ?” ■ The Highlander—a soldier of the gallant 42nd (the Black Watch),, who afterward recounted to me the conversation that ensued—replied, “ Got tolikeit pretty well, now that we are in barracks,” and glad to find any one who could talk English, and hot dreaming who is interlocutor was, the Scotchman continued. ;the i conversation by > asking, “What sort of a berth have you got here ?” ; The Khedive replied/ 1 “ Oh, not a bad one *, I am attached to the palace.” The" Highlander then continued, “ What sort of a chap is that # ere Khedive? Ho must be a rum’un from all I hear.” The Khedive, whose good nature is proverbial, asked, “ What do you liear, about him ?” The Sort replied, “ Well, as near as I can make out, this. Khedive is about the worst man out of the whole lot of ’em.” The conversation was .at this interesting point: Jnterrupted by ■ the appearance of the ; guard relief, who presented arms to the Khedive, and then revealed to the Highlander, now utterly discomfited and as; red as a lobster, the fact that he had been talking to no less a personage than the successor of the Pharaohs.;