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.
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