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. To a stranger it
appears a superlative folly that the Egyptian Government should have
retained a possession, the occupation of which is wholly unprofitable;
the receipts being far below the expenditure, "malgre" the increased
taxation.
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