From What Has Been Said, It Is Evidently Impossible For The Fellah To
Foresee The Amount Of Miri Which He
Shall have to pay in any year; and
in addition to this vexation, the Miri for each village, though it
Is
never diminished upon a loss of inhabitants, is sometimes raised upon a
supposed increase of population, or upon some other pretext. It may,
generally, be remarked, that the villages inhabited by the Druses
usually pay more Miri than those in the plain, because some allowance is
made to the latter, in consideration of the tribute which they are
obliged to pay to the Arabs, and from which the former are exempt. At
Aaere, the year before my first visit, the Fedhan had paid one hundred
and fifty piastres, at Ezra, one hundred and eighty, and at some
villages in the plain,
[p.301]one hundred and twenty. In the year 1812, the Miri, including
some extra demands, amounted in general to five hundred piastres the
Fedhan.
The second tax upon the Fellahs is the expense of feeding soldiers on
the march; if the number is small they go to the Sheikh's Medhafe; but
if they are numerous, they are quartered, or rather quarter themselves,
upon the Fellahs: in the former case, barley only for their horses is
supplied by the peasant, while the Sheikh furnishes provisions for the
men, but the peasant is not much benefited by this regulation, for the
soldiers are in general little disposed to be satisfied with the frugal
fare of the Sheikh, and demand fowls, or butcher's meat; which must be
supplied by the village. On their departure, they often steal some
article belonging to the house. The proportion of barley to be furnished
by each individual to the soldiers horses, depends of course upon the
number of horses to be fed, and of Fedhans in the village: at Aaere, in
the year 1809, it amounted to fifty piastres per Fedhan. The Sheikh of
Aaere has six pair of oxen, for which he pays no taxes, but the presence
of strangers and troops is so frequent at his Medhafe, that this
exemption had not been thought a sufficient remuneration, and he is
entitled to levy, in addition, every year, two or three Gharara of corn,
each Gharara being in common years, worth eighty or one hundred
piastres. Some Sheikhs levy as much as ten Gharara, besides being
exempted from taxation for eight, ten, or twelve pair of oxen.
The third and most heavy contribution paid by the peasants, is the
tribute to the Arabs. The Fahely, Serdie, Beni Szakher, Serhhan, who are
constant residents in the Haouran, as well as most of the numerous
tribes of Aeneze, who visit the country only in the summer, are, from
remote times, entitled to certain tributes called Khone (brotherbood),
from every village in the Haouran. In return
[p.302]for this Khone, the Arabs abstain from touching the harvest of
the village, and from driving off its cattle and camels, when they meet
them in their way.
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