The Pasha has power sufficient to hold them in subjection, and by his extortions fills his coffers; but necessity alone induces them to submit. He not only imposes most enormous taxes upon every article of produce, but obliges them to cultivate what he chooses, and take the price he offers for the produce. He is the only purchaser of the grain, cotton, and indigo, and of the gum of Kordofan, ostrich feathers, and other articles. Slaves are almost the only commodity the merchants now are allowed to take in exchange for the manufactures they carry to Sennaar and Kordofan: even wild animals of the desert, as the giraffe, are a monopoly of the government.
The Pasha is the great landlord of this immense district: the people are his slaves. His revenues are derived not only from the regular taxes, but from his profits as a merchant, which are enormous, in consequence of the low rate at which he pays the peasants for their produce, compared with that at which he sells it again to the Europeans. It is true that this source of gain is greatly diminished by the roguery of the different officers through whose hands it passes. From the highest to the lowest there is seldom any exception,—mahmoors, nazrs, katshefs, kaimacams, and soldiers, all concur in diminishing the amount, and, in particular, the mallums, or Coptic accountants. The latter not only cheat the ignorant Turks, who generally cannot read their accounts, but often trade with the money of the treasury, and incur losses which they are unable to repay. A number, on this account, are always immured in the prisons of the Pasha.
The peasants in Upper Nubia are free from these pecuniary distresses, and are comparatively happy. It is very true, that, instead of paying only one dollar in money, two pieces of linen cloth, and a sheep, thirty piastres, which was all they paid their ancient meleks, they are now obliged to pay fifteen dollars in cash, and five in grain; in all, three hundred piastres: ten times as much as they paid formerly. Instead of sleeping, as was their custom, the greater part of the day, they are now obliged to work: but the man who is at all industrious may earn an ample sufficiency to afford food and dress such as he has been accustomed to. The following calculation will show more precisely their present condition.
Each sakkea, or Persian wheel, is sufficient to water three quarters of a feddan of land, planted with indigo, and each feddan produces a hundred cantars of the herb, and sometimes more, when carefully irrigated: being seventy-five cantars for the extent of land which one wheel will water. The government pay the peasants 12½ Egyptian piastres for each quintal; that is, 937 piastres for the whole, which, at the current rate of the dollar here, 15 piastres, is equal to 62½ dollars; whence we must deduct twenty for the duty, and there remains for the persons to whom the wheel belongs, 42½ dollars, or 637 piastres: but, as this is the lowest calculation, we may fairly estimate nearly two piastres per day for each water-wheel. This will go to the support of one family, provided it can afford five persons capable of putting their shoulders to the wheel; but otherwise, two families must unite to reckon up that number. A great deduction on the gain of the peasant in Egypt is the immense expense of the wheel: but here they are so much more simple, they cost a very trifling sum; the oxen only 30 piastres each, and their keep next to nothing.
However small a sum two piastres, or sevenpence English, may appear to a European, it is amply sufficient in this climate, where every necessary is so cheap. In Lower and Upper Egypt, where bread is so much dearer, and meat and milk double the price, the fixed price of a labourer amounts to half a piastre per day, to sustain himself and perhaps a family. Most of the peasants here, too, have other slips of land which are watered by the inundation of the river, and they gain considerably by their date trees, notwithstanding that they pay a tax of a piastre for each tree. They also rear flocks, and cultivate vegetables, particularly the favourite Arab ones, bamia and malakkhia; they make linen, spirit, bouza, &c. They allow, too, that grain pays them still better than indigo.
The condition of the peasants of Upper Nubia is thus happy, compared to those of Egypt. In this country, you very rarely see a peasant with a ragged garment, and there are very few of the men who have not their harems. Those who live near the seat of government have also the advantage of supplying the markets with the few vegetables the country produces, and of being employed as workmen. Some also keep camels, which afford them a large profit.
The Arabs of the desert have still more reason to be satisfied with the present government, so far as regards their pecuniary interests. They pay tribute only for the land they cultivate, which is in general very little, and in many cases none at all; but otherwise they gain a sufficient livelihood, by transporting to Egypt, with their camels, the grain collected as revenue, or purchased by the government, and in aiding the now constant passage of troops and merchants. Many of the Arab tribes of Kordofan, who formerly never came here, now participate in the profit of carrying the 2500 camel loads of gum, which, as before stated, are annually sent from that country to Cairo.
Thus the labouring peasants of the Nile and the Arabs of the desert in Upper Nubia, so far as regards the taxes and means of subsistence, are in happy circumstances compared to the Fellaheen of Egypt; but in other respects they are equally galled by their Turkish rulers. In Egypt, the officers only are oppressive: the soldiers, who are Fellaheen, like the peasants, are not so insolent as here, where their comparatively white complexion, their character as conquerors, and their pride as askari, or soldiers, induce them to despise the natives, and oppress them more than the government authorises.
When the chief governor of a province is possessed of talent, energy, and firmness, the officers and soldiers are prevented from committing many excesses; but when the country has the misfortune to be under a man like the Mahmoor of Dongolah,—too timid to redress the complaints continually made against the disorderly soldiers,—its state may easily be imagined. Each soldier is a little tyrant, and commits a series of gross and petty vexations inconceivable to a European. Of the many I have witnessed, I will give only a few specimens:—If the soldier wants a sheep, fowls, eggs, or any other article, he obliges the peasant to sell them at half the market price, and not unfrequently refuses to pay any thing at all. When becalmed on the river, he goes on shore, and forces ten, and sometimes twenty, natives to drag his boat, without any remuneration. If he meets a peasant girl carrying milk or butter, he often helps himself to half without paying for it, unless with a salute; and woe betide the imprudent sheahk or peasant who refuses to give gratuitously the best his house affords, or neglects the horse or camel of the Turk or soldier who has taken up his quarters for the night at his house. If camels or donkeys are wanted, they must furnish them, and consider themselves fortunate if they get any trifle in return. The haughty manner of the conquerors is still more galling to the Arabs: their usual manner of addressing them is, “Kelp, Marhas!”—“Dog! villain! Do this! do that! quick! quick! cursed be your race!” with threats of a beating, even actual blows, and sometimes with the sole of the shoe, which is the greatest indignity that a Mahometan can receive.
Men whose ancestors have been chiefs in the country for ages must now submit to the insolence and contumely of this vile and lawless soldiery. From negligence the latter often do not demand the tax on the water-wheels for some time; then, all at once, they appear, calling out, “Pay me to-morrow, or the bastinado!” The peasant, not being allowed sufficient time to raise the money, is obliged to suffer this degrading punishment, and often even have his ears nailed to a board. Being at a distance, perhaps, from the seat of government, or large market towns, he has no opportunity of selling his produce; nevertheless, with double the value of the sum required in effects, he has to undergo a disgraceful punishment, because he has no dollars.