The Most Flagrant Injustice Is Committed
With Respect To The Property Of Deceased Persons, As Well During The
Plague As At Other Times; And The Kadhy, With A Whole Train Of Olemas,
Officers, And People In Inferior Employments, Share In The Illegal
Spoil.
In the same manner the property of military officers, and of many
soldiers, is sequestrated at their death.
Upon a moderate calculation,
the plague this year in Egypt, which carried off in the city of Cairo
alone from thirty to forty thousand, added twenty thousand purses, or
ten millions of piastres, to the coffers of the Pasha, a sum large
enough to stifle any feelings of humanity in the breast of a Turk. That
the population has diminished, and consequently the regular revenues
suffered, is a reflection which a Turkish governor never makes, who
calculates merely the immediate consequences of an event; and, provided
he be safe himself, and his wealth increasing, cares little for the fate
of his subjects. As the plague seldom visits the open country, and
therefore does not deprive the soil of its labourers, its effects are
less dreaded by the Pasha. He will never be convinced that policy, as
well as humanity, dictates a removal of the causes of plague, until he
has seen a whole province depopulated, and the fields which yield him
his revenues deserted. [The little care taken by the government in Egypt
for preserving the lives of the subject is evinced in an equally strange
manner, by the neglect with which the small-pox is treated; a disease
that makes as great ravages in Upper Egypt as ever the plague could do,
which, itself seldom visits those southern provinces. The numerous
representations made to Mohammed Aly for the introduction of vaccination
have been of no avail, though, if he had chosen to inquire, he might
have known that in 1813, in the small town of Esne alone, upwards of two
hundred and fifty persons, adults and children, fell victims to the
small-pox, the violence of which is much greater in these climates than
in Europe.]
[p.418] It should seem as if Constantinople and Cairo were the great
receptacles of plague in the East, communicating it mutually to each
other, and to the neighbouring countries. How far the joint and
energetic representations of European powers might induce the Grand
Signior to adopt measures of safety for his capital, and to insure by
that means the safety of the population of European Turkey and Anatolia,
I am unable to decide; but I have little doubt, that a firm remonstrance
from the English government would induce the Pasha of Egypt to obey the
call of humanity, and thus benefit Egypt, as well as Syria and the
English possessions in the Mediterranean.
The ravages of the plague were still more deplorable at Djidda than at
Yembo; as many as two hundred and fifty persons died there per day.
Great numbers of the inhabitants fled to Mekka, thinking to be safe in
that sacred asylum; but they carried the disease with them, and a number
of Mekkans died, although much less in proportion than at Djidda.
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