The boasted civilization which Mehemet Ali has introduced into the countries under his sway is entirely superficial, and has no origin whatever in any real improvement or amelioration in the condition or for the benefit of their respective populations; and the reason why a contrary impression has so generally prevailed amongst late travellers is as follows:—When travellers arrive at Alexandria, and more particularly those of name or rank, they immediately fall into the hands of a set of clever persons, some of them consuls, who having either made their fortunes by the Pacha, or having them to make, leave no effort unemployed to impress them with favourable opinions of his government. They are then presented at the Divan, where, instead of a reserved austere-looking Turk, they find a lively animated old man, who converses freely and gaily with them, talks openly of his projects to come, and of his past life, tells them that he is glad to see them, and that the more travellers that pass through Egypt, the better he is pleased; that he wishes every act of his government and institutions to be known and seen, and that the more they are so, the better will he be appreciated. He then turns the conversation to some subject personal to them, for he is always well informed of who and what they are, and what they know, and at last dismisses them with an injunction to visit his establishments with care, and to let him know their opinion of them on their return; and if they happen to be persons of distinction, he offers them a cavass to accompany them on their journey. All this is done in a simple pleasing manner, which can hardly fail to captivate when coming from so remarkable a man. Instructed by the clique, and won by the Pacha, they proceed on their journey to Cairo, where the delusion begun at Alexandria is completed; for travelling through the country is now easy, and comparatively safe to what it was, and establishments of various kinds, such as polytechnic schools, schools of medicine and general instruction, and manufactories, have been formed in Cairo and those parts of the country which are most frequently visited. These are under the direction of foreigners, chiefly Frenchmen, and are open to those who choose to visit them; consequently, as the greater proportion of travellers seek for sights more than instruction, these gentlemen, won at Alexandria, and delighted at the facility of their journey from that place, neither turn to the right nor the left from the beaten track, but, judging of what they do not see by that which is purposely prepared to be shown them, return to Europe, and on grounds such as I have above described, and without looking an inch beneath the surface, proclaim the Pacha the civilizer and regenerator of Egypt. How far such is the case, you will be able to judge from what follows, in which there is no exaggeration. The journey I made extended up to the second cataract on the Nile, throughout Egypt and Nubia, and then through Palestine, the whole of Syria, and the Libanus. I consequently visited very nearly all the countries under the domination of Mehemet Ali, and as I did not allow myself to be influenced at Alexandria, and missed no occasion of informing myself of the state of things whilst on my journey, I may fairly say that I can give an unbiassed opinion as to what is going on in that unhappy part of the world.
In Egypt the whole of the land belongs to the Pacha; besides himself there is no land-proprietor, and he has the absolute monopoly of every thing that is grown in the country. The following is the manner in which it is cultivated:—Portions of land are divided out between the fellahs of a village, according to their numbers; seed, corn, cotton, or other produce, is given to them; this they sow and reap, and of the produce seventy-five per cent. is immediately taken to the Pacha’s depots. The remaining twenty-five per cent. is left them, with, however, the power to take it at a price fixed by the Pacha himself, and then resold to them at a higher rate. This is generally done, and reduces the pittance left them about five per cent. more; from this they are to pay the capitation tax, which is not levied according to the real number of the inhabitants of a village, but according to numbers at which it is rated in the government books; so that in one instance with which I was acquainted, a village originally rated at 200, but reduced by the conscription to 100, and by death or flight to 40, was still obliged to pay the full capitation; and when I went there, 26 of the 40 had been just bastinadoed to extort from them their proportion of the sum claimed. After the capitation comes the tax on the date-trees, raised from 30 to 60 paras by the Pacha, and that of 200 piasters a-year for permission to use their own water-wheels, without which the lands situated beyond the overflow of the Nile, or too high for it to reach, would be barren. Then comes an infinity of taxes on every article of life, even to the cakes of camels’ dung which the women and children collect and dry for fuel, and which pay 25 per cent. in kind at the gate of Cairo and the other towns. Next to the taxes comes the corvee in the worst form, and in continual action; at any moment the fellahs are liable to be seized for public works, for the transport of the baggage of the troops, or to track the boats of the government or its officers, and this without pay or reference to the state of their crops.
When Mehemet Ali made his famous canal from Alexandria to the Nile, he did it by forcibly marching down 150,000 men from all parts of the country, and obliging them to excavate with their hands, as tools they had not, or perhaps could not be provided. The excavation was completed in three months, but 30,000 men died in the operation. Then comes the curse of the conscription, which is exercised in a most cruel and arbitrary manner, without any sort of rule or law to regulate it. An order is given to the chief of a district to furnish a certain number of men; these he seizes like wild beasts wherever he can find them, without distinction or exemption, the weak as well as the strong, the sick as well as those in health; and as there is no better road to the Pacha’s favour than showing great zeal in this branch of the service, he if possible collects more even than were demanded. These are chained, marched down to the river, and embarked amidst the tears and lamentations of their families, who know that they shall probably never see them again: for change of climate, bad treatment, and above all, despair, cause a mortality in the Pacha’s army beyond belief; mutilation is not now considered an exemption, and the consequence of the system is, that from Assouan, at the first cataract, to Aleppo, you literally speaking never see a young man in a village; and such is the depopulation, that if things continue as they now are for two years more, and the Pacha insists on keeping up his army to its present force, it will be utterly impossible for the crops to be got in, or for any of the operations of agriculture to be carried on.
The whole of this atrocious system is carried into action by the cruelest means—no justice of any sort for the weak, no security for those who are better off: the bastinado and other tortures applied on every occasion, and at the arbitrary will of every servant of the government. In addition to this, the natives of the country are rarely employed—never in offices of trust—and the whole government is entrusted to Turks. In short, the worst features of the Mameluke and Turkish rules are still in active operation; but the method of applying them is much more ingenious, and the boasted civilization of Mehemet Ali amounts to this: that being beyond doubt a man of extraordinary talents, he knows how to bring into play the resources of the country better than his predecessors did, but like them entirely for his own interest, and without any reference to the well-being of the people; and that with the aid of his European instruments he has, if I may say so, applied the screw with a master-hand, and squeezed from the wretches under his sway the very last drop of their blood.
Such is the state of these two countries. Syria is perhaps the worst off of the two: for the Egyptians used to oppression bear it without a struggle: whilst the Syrians, who had been less harshly treated in old times, writhe under and gnaw their chain.—From the Sun newspaper.
Rotation Railway.—This invention aims at effecting a complete revolution in the present mode of railway construction and locomotion. In place of having the ordinary rails and wheeled carriages, two series of wheels are fixed along the whole length of the road at about two yards apart, and at an equal distance from centre to centre of each wheel. These wheels are connected throughout the whole length of the line by bands working in grooved pullies keyed on to the same axle as the wheels, but the axles of one side of the line are not connected with those of the opposite line. The axles of the wheels are raised about one foot from the ground; the top of the wheel, which is proposed to be of 3 feet diameter, will be therefore elevated 2½ feet above the surface. On these wheels is placed a strong framing of timber, having an iron plate fastened on each side in the line of the two series of wheels. A little within this bearing frame, so as just to clear the wheels, is a luggage-box or hold, descending to within a few inches of the ground, in which it is proposed to stow all heavy commodities, for which purpose it is well adapted, opening as it does at either end, and its flooring close to the surface of the ground. At each end of the lower part of the framing of this luggage-box, are fixed horizontal guide or friction wheels, working against the supports of the bearing wheels and pullies, by which arrangement curves will be traversed with little friction, and it will be impossible for the framing to quit the track. The framing of timber will be about 19 feet in length, so that it will rest alternately on six and eight wheels, but never on less than six. On this framing the passenger carriages are erected, which, in its progression forward, it is thought will be kept steady and free from lateral motion by the weight in the luggage-box, assisted by the horizontal guide-wheels. Locomotion is produced by putting the wheels in motion by means of machinery at either end, which would be effected for an immense distance with a moderate power, as there would be very little more friction due to the wheels than that arising from their own weight; and the frame which bears the carriage would not be run on to the bearing-wheels until the whole were in motion, when its weight would act almost after the manner of a fly-wheel, resting as it would on the periphery of the bearing-wheels. It will be perceived that by this plan the bearings of the wheels must be kept perfectly in the direction of the plane of the road, whether inclined or horizontal; otherwise serious concussions would occur. But this would not be the case by the depression of one wheel, or even by its entire removal, as the framing will be constructed sufficiently stiff as not to deflect by having the distance of the bearings doubled. If this plan should be found to answer, it will present facilities of transport never before thought of, as carriages might be continually dispatched without a chance of collision, either by stoppage or from increased speed of the last beyond the preceding. It also promises to remove the present great drawback to railway progression, viz. the being able to surmount but very slight acclivities by locomotive power with any profitable load; but by the rotative system, inclines may be surmounted of almost any steepness without the chance of accident. If a band should break, the action of this railway would not be impeded, as the power being transmitted from either end, rotation would take place throughout its whole length, but the power would not be transmitted from either end past the disjunction. Even should two bands be destroyed at a distance from each other and on the same side of the track, its action would not be destroyed, for although the isolated portion of wheels would be dead, those on the other side of the track would be in action, which, with the horizontal guide-wheels, would move forward the carriage, although, on such portion, at a diminished speed. Instead of an increased outlay being required in the formation of railways on this system, it is estimated that a very considerable saving will be effected, as a single track will be sufficient, with sidings of dead wheels at the termination of the several portions into which a long line would be divided. In crossing valleys, a framing of piles to support the bearing-wheels would be quite sufficient, and the road might be left quite open between each line of wheels, as it would be impossible for the carriage to quit the track, and therefore no necessity for making a solid road for safety sake.—Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal.
Magnanimity.—When the Spanish armies invested Malaga in 1487, when in possession of the Moors, a circumstance occurred in a sortie from the city, indicating a trait of character worth recording. A noble Moor, named Abraher Zenete, fell in with a number of Spanish children who had wandered from their quarters. Without injuring them, he touched them gently with the handle of his lance, saying, “Get ye gone, varlets, to your mothers.” On being rebuked by his comrades, who inquired why he had let them escape so easily, he replied, “Because I saw no beard upon their chins.” An example of magnanimity (says the Curate of Los Palacios) truly wonderful in a heathen, and which might have reflected credit on a Christian hidalgo.—Prescott’s History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Boston, 1839.
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