DONOVAN PASHA AND SOME PEOPLE OF EGYPT

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 3.



THE MAN AT THE WHEEL
A TYRANT AND A LADY




THE MAN AT THE WHEEL

Wyndham Bimbashi's career in Egypt had been a series of mistakes. In the
first place he was opinionated, in the second place he never seemed to
have any luck; and, worst of all, he had a little habit of doing grave
things on his own lightsome responsibility. This last quality was
natural to him, but he added to it a supreme contempt for the native
mind and an unhealthy scorn of the native official. He had not that
rare quality, constantly found among his fellow-countrymen, of working
the native up through his own medium, as it were, through his own customs
and predispositions, to the soundness of Western methods of government.
Therefore, in due time he made some dangerous mistakes. By virtue of
certain high-handed actions he was the cause of several riots in native
villages, and he had himself been attacked at more than one village as he
rode between the fields of sugar-cane. On these occasions he had behaved
very well--certainly no one could possibly doubt his bravery; but that