In Kahira every trade or profession has its shech or leader, who has great authority over the rest of his order; and this circumstance tends much to the good order of the city. The gates no less, which are at the end of every street, and which, though not capable of resisting violence, impede the progress, and render difficult the escape of ill-intentioned persons. The articles above enumerated form collectively the Miri or public revenue; 1200 purses of which should be annually forwarded to Constantinople, but it is retained by the Beys, under pretence of repairing mosques and other public works.
The Pasha receives, for his whole expenses, one thousand mahbûbs, or three thousand piastres per day. His establishment however is large, so that this is not esteemed a rich pashalik.
Murad Bey is accustomed to have from the mint daily, for his pocket expenses, five hundred half mahbûbs, and his wife the same. This amounts to fifteen hundred piastres, and is only a small part of his disbursements.
The value of land in Egypt is far from being inconsiderable, as is evident from the large amount of the annual impost which is paid for it. Yet not having been present at the formalities of bargain and sale, I feel myself unprepared to give an exact estimate of it.
The same may be said of the value of labour; for as the agricultural labourer is paid in the produce, a number of circumstances combine to diminish the value of what is thus received. Comparing the wages of the husbandman with the price of other labour, I should be inclined to state them at about six medines, or one-seventh of a piastre per day, which, as his toil is often remitted, cannot exceed forty-five piastres annually. Exclusively of the value of the peasant’s clothing, which lasts long, it is scarcely possible that the maize, lentils, milk, butter, &c. on which he feeds, can amount to less than three paras or medines daily, for each individual.
Tenure of Lands.
An explicit declaration of Mohammed himself, “That property, after the death of the proprietor, cannot be detained from division among his heirs,” shews in how great respect inheritance was held by him, and how little he was inclined to consider as annexed to the sovereign power, the property of the lands of the countries it governed.
But the same moderation and good policy has not been found among his successors. His code has been perverted to sanction abuses, or trampled on by the insolence of power.
In many of the countries over which the Othman emperor exercises or claims the sovereign authority, the property of the land is claimed by the Government in right of conquest; and though material exceptions must have had place in Egypt, with respect to the great number who embraced Mohammedism, or consented to pay the Jizié, and who consequently did not forfeit their lands, all these distinctions are now confounded, and, alienations, forfeitures, and, more than all, violence, have reduced the whole to one undistinguished mass.
The greater part of the lands in Egypt, is to be considered as divided between the Government, and the religious bodies who perform the service of the mosques, who have obtained possession of what they now hold by the munificence of princes and rich men, or by the measures taken by individuals for the benefit of their posterity. The property of the mosques is called wakf, a term signifying, in its technical acceptation, the appropriation of a thing in such a way, that the proprietor’s right in it shall continue, but the profit belong to some charitable establishment.