In point of population Kharga ranks second of the four great oases of the Libyan Desert. In 1897 the inhabitants numbered 7,856, and ten years later had increased to 8,348. The 1907 census showed the male to be slightly in excess of the female population, a result entirely owing to the preponderance of men in the northern part of the oasis. The present distribution of the inhabitants, according to the last census, is shown in the table on the following page.
In the oases of the Libyan Desert there is a very close connection between population and water-supply. No water is intentionally allowed to run to waste, every drop being utilized to raise
| Male. | Female. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kharga District | 2,819 | 2,503 | 5,322 |
| Gennâh District | 207 | 237 | 444 |
| Bulaq District | 487 | 529 | 1,016 |
| Beris District | 767 | 799 | 1,566 |
| Total | 4,280 | 4,068 | 8,348 |
the crops of rice, dates, barley, and wheat, which form the staple food-supplies of the inhabitants. Cut off by a waterless desert, these people have little intercourse with the outside world, except for a few weeks in the early winter months, when they dispose of their surplus date-crop to the Bedawin traders who cross the desert with droves of camels from the Nile Valley. The dates are usually paid for in cash, ready-money being required in order to meet the annual taxes levied by the Egyptian Government. Practically the only food-stuffs imported consist of such commodities as tea, coffee, and sugar, which are used sparingly, and regarded as luxuries even by the better classes.
It is evident, therefore, that the inhabitants rely almost entirely for subsistence on the products they are able to raise by their own toil and industry. Owing to there being no rainfall, the acreage of land which can be put under crops depends absolutely on the amount of water available for irrigation by wells. The total yield of the latter has, we know, fluctuated to a considerable extent at different times, and one may surmise that, could figures be obtained giving the number of inhabitants and the volume of the water-supply for different periods during the last 5,000 years, a remarkably constant ratio would be observable between the two.
Taxes are levied by the Egyptian Government on both date-trees and wells. Over 60,000 adult palms exist in the oasis, each one being subject to a yearly tax of 1½ piastres (about 3½d.). The output or yield of a well is, for purposes of taxation, determined in a somewhat rough-and-ready manner by a method which appears to have been in use for a number of generations. Whenever a new bore is completed, or an old well requires remeasurement, all the most influential personages in the oasis, headed by the Omda or chief of Kharga village, armed with a number of primitive appliances, solemnly proceed to the spot.
After first ascertaining that the well has not been temporarily blocked by interested persons—even here in the remote interior of the desert there is an inherent objection to the paying of taxes—the bed and sides of the water-channel are made as smooth as possible for a distance of five or ten paces below the mouth of the well, so that the water flows away with an even ripple. A small pointed stick is now inserted in the centre of the bed of the stream, in such a way that the top of the peg is exactly flush with the surface of the water. Then the Omda, hitching up his flowing robes, steps into the stream, and, selecting a gauge of suitable dimensions, fixes it firmly in the bed of the channel, in such a position that the whole of the flow passes freely through, without raising or lowering the surface of the stream above, as indicated by the peg. The interior of the gauge, a roughly-made wooden frame, is intended to be a definite number of centimetres in length, but in many of those used there is a small error. As soon as the stream flows evenly over the gauge or weir, without its surface-level being altered, the depth of water is measured on a scale. The latter is wetted and plunged into a heap of dry sand before being used, the depth of water being indicated by that portion of the scale from which the sand has been removed by the immersion. Observations are made at both ends of the weir to insure any error due to want of horizontality of the frame being detected.
The actual discharge is reckoned in ‘qirats’ and eighths of a qirat (tumns), a qirat being a water-section of 64 square centimetres. For example, if the depth of water passing over a gauge having an internal length of 40 centimetres was found to be 8 centimetres, the water-section would amount to 40 × 8 = 320 square centimetres, which would be reckoned as a discharge of 5 qirats.
The Omda and his attendants carry out the operations with the utmost care and solemnity, and have the most touching faith in the accuracy of their results. Apart, however, from errors in the gauges and scales used, and from the want of provision of a free fall on the downstream side of the weir, the fact that the velocity of the stream is entirely left out of account is sufficient to give the qirat a very variable value, low for small and high for large streams, the result being that the small wells are being taxed at about 50 per cent. higher rates than the large ones. In order to ascertain the average value of the qirat for streams of different size, I arranged with Mr. Patterson, who at the time was the Government Representative in Kharga, to send the Omda to headquarters and instruct him to measure a number of new bores belonging to the Corporation of Western Egypt, as these bores, being cased and provided with proper outlet valves, lend themselves to exact measurement better than the majority of the native-owned wells. The Omda employed the ordinary local native method just described, while I, using a tank of known capacity and a reliable stop-watch, made direct measurements immediately afterwards. The results obtained show that below 2 the qirat has a value of 22 gallons a minute; from 2 to 4 of 26 gallons a minute; and from 5 to 6 of 38 gallons a minute.
The annual tax levied on the water amounts to 50 piastres (about 10s. 3d.) per qirat. If the average value of the qirat be taken at 25 gallons per minute, the tax works out at approximately 1s. for every 6,000 cubic metres of water. Looked at from another point of view, it may be considered that the tax amounts to about 1s. 6d. an acre, as with every qirat of water the native cultivator in the oasis will annually raise about two acres of rice and five of wheat or barley.