The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-01-10


mating role at Asiatic courts. Thus the
present Queen Of Siam is a remarka-
BILE woman, and ruled her husband 5
kingdom with the utmost sagacity and
craftsmanship during his long visit to
Europe. In Egypt, too, the mother OF
the present Khedive, strong minded
and in every sense Of the word remark
able woman, has frequently been the
power behind the throne during the
somewhat stormy events which have
succeeded one another in Egypt since
the time of her marriage. Her nus
band, the late Khedive Tewfik, was al
together subject to her rule. Whether
this was owing to his appreciation OF
her intellectual superiority or due to
fear have never been able to discover.
There is reason, however, to believe
that apprehension had something to do
with it. For his wife took. after her
mother, a Turkish Princess who is as
serted to have presented to her hus-
band on a golden salver the head OF
one of her adalisques that he had ven
tured to admire, and who then had
him fastened up in sack and pitched
into those swiftly flowing waters OF
the Bosporus which have witnessed so
many other tragedies of the same kind.
Khedive Tewfik did not relish the idea
of sharing the fate of his father-ln-
law, and chiefly on this account re-
stricted his affections exclusively to
the Khediviah instead of taking the
usual number of wives allowed by Ma
homet and filling his harem with love-
ly Slaves It was this, too, that led
him to obey so implicitly her advice,
an advice which is accountable for the
somewhat suspicious role which he
played at the time of the Arab in
surrection in 1882 Owing to the fact
that the Khediviah had some near and
dear relatives among the leaders of the
rebellion against the European ele-
ment, she induced her husband to IA
vor their cause as much as possible,
and his loyalty to England was in con-
sequence to such an extent questioned
in London that in 1888 Lord Randolph
Churchill demanded in Parliament that
he should be deposed.
With the advent of Lord Cromer to
Cairo, however, matters there under
went a change. The Khediviah, who
tanned the warmest affection for the
friended her at times during the reign
of Ismail, when no one dared to visit
Tewfiks palace for fear of mourning
the displeasure of his father. who was
eager to put him out of the way, and
who hated him. The Khediviah never
forgot the kindness of Lady Cromer
(Mrs. Barring, as she was them in those
days of her peril and loneliness, and
<I,o hn ct, yxhio h
from 1884 on became the distinguish
ing trait of Khedive Tewfik was large
ly due to the friendship of the Khe-
diviah for Lady Cromer and the kindly,
healthy influence which the latter ex-
ercised in the vice regal harem.
Lady Cromer, however, found it i'm
possible to establish relations of the
same kind with the wife of the pres
ent Khedive, potentate whom she
had known from babyhood, and on the
subject of whose infant ills she had
oftentimes been consulted by his
mother His consort is not a highly
educated Turkish great woman, like
the widowed Khediviah, but a former
odalisque, or slave who was merely
raised by her husband to the rank of
wife because she was the first woman
of his seraglio to afford him the joys
of fatherhood. She is a relatively ig-
norant woman, possessed of no intel
lect or breeding, and is entirely sub
ject to the influence of a Russian wo-
man established at Cairo, and married
to an Italian, the influence of this wo-
man being largely responsible for the
antagonistic attitude of the young
Khedive toward the English.
HOW THE NEGUS IS RULED.
In Abyssinia woman is likewise the
chief factor. For it is the Empress
who is by far the most important ner-
sonage; her influence over the Neels
is unbounded, and he consults her in
everything that he does. preferring her
advice to that of everybody else. In
deed it is to her clever craftsmanship
that is ascribed the extraordinary
manner in which he succeeded in not
freeing himself from the protectorate
of King Humbert, but likewise in driv-
ing the Italians out of his land. All
those who have visited his dominions
are united in declaring that she is far
and away the most important figure in
the contemporary history of Abyssinia,
and that she is far more dreaded by
the people and by the great chieftains
than her husband, whose intellect, In
spite of his alleged lineal descent from
King Solomon, and from the Biblical
Queen of Sheba, is universally admit
ted to be distinctly inferior to her own.
The British authorities in India have
always found the Begums, or sovereign
Princesses of the Deccan, far more diff
ficult people to deal with than the
Maharajahs and native Kings. And
both the great Duke of Wellington and
Lord Give are on record as declaring
that the Begums had offered a more
stubborn resistance to the English con-
quest of Hindoostan than any of the
more celebrated Indian potentates. 1t
is likewise an undeniable fact that in
the present day, as in the past, the
native States subject to feminine rule
are more wisely governed and more
progressively administered than those
controlled by male sovereigns. True,
some Of the Begums have achieved an
unenviable celebrity for cruelty, and
none of them seem to have erred on
the side of leniency But with all that,
their dominions have always been SUI
perior, SO far as prosperity and the
maintenance of order are concerned,
to those of their neighboring brother
chiefs.
AN EX-SLAVE GIRLS POWER
Every one knows how for the last
thirty years the Dowager Empress of
China has exercised sovereign sway at
Picking, bending to her own will every
one, even statesmen of such acknowl-
edged skill and worldwide fame as
Prince Kung. the late Marquis Tseng.
and old Ii Hung Chang. Sarting life
as a mere slave girl. with nothing in
the form of family prestige or infiu-