He Tests The Accuracy Of The Weights And Scales; Fines And
Imprisons The Impostors, And Institutes A Complete Reform, Concluding
His Sanitary And Philanthropic Arrangements By The Imposition Of Some
Local Taxes.
The town is comparatively sweet; the bread is of fair weight and size,
and the new governor, like a new broom, has swept all clean.
A few weeks
glide away, and the nose again recalls the savory old times when streets
were never swept, and filth once more reigns paramount. The town
relapses into its former state, again the false weights usurp the place
of honest measures, and the only permanent and visible sign of the new
administration is the local tax.
From the highest to the lowest official, dishonesty and deceit are the
rule - and each robs in proportion to his grade in the Government
employ - the onus of extortion falling upon the natives; thus, exorbitant
taxes are levied upon the agriculturists, and the industry of the
inhabitants is disheartened by oppression. The taxes are collected by
the soldiery, who naturally extort by violence an excess of the actual
impost; accordingly the Arabs limit their cultivation to their bare
necessities, fearing that a productive farm would entail an extortionate
demand. The heaviest and most unjust tax is that upon the "sageer," or
water wheel, by which the farmer irrigates his otherwise barren soil.
The erection of the sageer is the first step necessary to cultivation.
On the borders of the river there is much land available for
agriculture; but from an almost total want of rain the ground must be
constantly irrigated by artificial means. No sooner does an enterprising
fellow erect a water wheel, than he is taxed, not only for his wheel,
but he brings upon himself a perfect curse, as the soldiers employed for
the collection of taxes fasten upon his garden, and insist upon a
variety of extras in the shape of butter, corn, vegetables, sheep, &c.
for themselves, which almost ruin the proprietor. Any government but
that of Egypt and Turkey would offer a bonus for the erection of
irrigating machinery that would give a stimulus to cultivation, and
multiply the produce of the country; but the only rule without an
exception is that of Turkish extortion. I have never met with any
Turkish official who would take the slightest interest in plans for the
improvement of the country, unless he discovered a means of filling his
private purse. Thus in a country where Nature has been hard in her
measure dealt to the inhabitants, they are still more reduced by
oppression. The Arabs fly from their villages on the approach of the
brutal tax-gatherers, driving their flocks and herds with them to
distant countries, and leaving their standing crops to the mercy of the
soldiery. No one can conceive the suffering of the country.
The general aspect of the Soudan is that of misery; nor is there a
single feature of attraction to recompense a European for the drawbacks
of pestilential climate and brutal associations.
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