The boasted civilization which Mehemet Ali has introduced into the
countries under his sway is entirely superficial, and has no origin
whatever in any real improvement or amelioration in the condition or
for the benefit of their respective populations; and the reason why a
contrary impression has so generally prevailed amongst late travellers is
as follows:--When travellers arrive at Alexandria, and more particularly
those of name or rank, they immediately fall into the hands of a set
of clever persons, some of them consuls, who having either made their
fortunes by the Pacha, or having them to make, leave no effort unemployed
to impress them with favourable opinions of his government. They are then
presented at the Divan, where, instead of a reserved austere-looking
Turk, they find a lively animated old man, who converses freely and gaily
with them, talks openly of his projects to come, and of his past life,
tells them that he is glad to see them, and that the more travellers
that pass through Egypt, the better he is pleased; that he wishes every
act of his government and institutions to be known and seen, and that
the more they are so, the better will he be appreciated. He then turns
the conversation to some subject personal to them, for he is always
well informed of who and what they are, and what they know, and at last
dismisses them with an injunction to visit his establishments with care,
and to let him know their opinion of them on their return; and if they
happen to be persons of distinction, he offers them a cavass to accompany
them on their journey. All this is done in a simple pleasing manner,
which can hardly fail to captivate when coming from so remarkable a man.
Instructed by the clique, and won by the Pacha, they proceed on their
journey to Cairo, where the delusion begun at Alexandria is completed;
for travelling through the country is now easy, and comparatively safe
to what it was, and establishments of various kinds, such as polytechnic
schools, schools of medicine and general instruction, and manufactories,
have been formed in Cairo and those parts of the country which are
most frequently visited. These are under the direction of foreigners,
chiefly Frenchmen, and are open to those who choose to visit them;
consequently, as the greater proportion of travellers seek for sights
more than instruction, these gentlemen, won at Alexandria, and delighted
at the facility of their journey from that place, neither turn to the
right nor the left from the beaten track, but, judging of what they do
not see by that which is purposely prepared to be shown them, return
to Europe, and on grounds such as I have above described, and without
looking an inch beneath the surface, proclaim the Pacha the civilizer
and regenerator of Egypt. How far such is the case, you will be able to
judge from what follows, in which there is no exaggeration. The journey
I made extended up to the second cataract on the Nile, throughout Egypt
and Nubia, and then through Palestine, the whole of Syria, and the
Libanus. I consequently visited very nearly all the countries under the
domination of Mehemet Ali, and as I did not allow myself to be influenced
at Alexandria, and missed no occasion of informing myself of the state
of things whilst on my journey, I may fairly say that I can give an
unbiassed opinion as to what is going on in that unhappy part of the
world.
In Egypt the whole of the land belongs to the Pacha; besides himself
there is no land-proprietor, and he has the absolute monopoly of every
thing that is grown in the country. The following is the manner in which
it is cultivated:--Portions of land are divided out between the fellahs
of a village, according to their numbers; seed, corn, cotton, or other
produce, is given to them; this they sow and reap, and of the produce
seventy-five per cent. is immediately taken to the Pacha’s depots. The
remaining twenty-five per cent. is left them, with, however, the power to
take it at a price fixed by the Pacha himself, and then resold to them at
a higher rate. This is generally done, and reduces the pittance left them
about five per cent. more; from this they are to pay the capitation tax,
which is not levied according to the real number of the inhabitants of a
village, but according to numbers at which it is rated in the government
books; so that in one instance with which I was acquainted, a village
originally rated at 200, but reduced by the conscription to 100, and by
death or flight to 40, was still obliged to pay the full capitation; and
when I went there, 26 of the 40 had been just bastinadoed to extort from
them their proportion of the sum claimed. After the capitation comes the
tax on the date-trees, raised from 30 to 60 paras by the Pacha, and that
of 200 piasters a-year for permission to use their own water-wheels,
without which the lands situated beyond the overflow of the Nile, or too
high for it to reach, would be barren. Then comes an infinity of taxes on
every article of life, even to the cakes of camels’ dung which the women
and children collect and dry for fuel, and which pay 25 per cent. in kind
at the gate of Cairo and the other towns. Next to the taxes comes the
_corvee_ in the worst form, and in continual action; at any moment the
fellahs are liable to be seized for public works, for the transport of
the baggage of the troops, or to track the boats of the government or its
officers, and this without pay or reference to the state of their crops.
When Mehemet Ali made his famous canal from Alexandria to the Nile,
he did it by forcibly marching down 150,000 men from all parts of the
country, and obliging them to excavate with their hands, as tools they
had not, or perhaps could not be provided. The excavation was completed
in three months, but 30,000 men died in the operation. Then comes the
curse of the conscription, which is exercised in a most cruel and
arbitrary manner, without any sort of rule or law to regulate it. An
order is given to the chief of a district to furnish a certain number
of men; these he seizes like wild beasts wherever he can find them,
without distinction or exemption, the weak as well as the strong, the
sick as well as those in health; and as there is no better road to the
Pacha’s favour than showing great zeal in this branch of the service, he
if possible collects more even than were demanded. These are chained,
marched down to the river, and embarked amidst the tears and lamentations
of their families, who know that they shall probably never see them
again: for change of climate, bad treatment, and above all, despair,
cause a mortality in the Pacha’s army beyond belief; mutilation is not
now considered an exemption, and the consequence of the system is, that
from Assouan, at the first cataract, to Aleppo, you literally speaking
never see a young man in a village; and such is the depopulation, that
if things continue as they now are for two years more, and the Pacha
insists on keeping up his army to its present force, it will be utterly
impossible for the crops to be got in, or for any of the operations of
agriculture to be carried on.
The whole of this atrocious system is carried into action by the cruelest
means--no justice of any sort for the weak, no security for those who are
better off: the bastinado and other tortures applied on every occasion,
and at the arbitrary will of every servant of the government. In addition
to this, the natives of the country are rarely employed--never in offices
of trust--and the whole government is entrusted to Turks. In short, the
worst features of the Mameluke and Turkish rules are still in active
operation; but the method of applying them is much more ingenious, and
the boasted civilization of Mehemet Ali amounts to this: that being
beyond doubt a man of extraordinary talents, he knows how to bring
into play the resources of the country better than his predecessors
did, but like them entirely for his own interest, and without any
reference to the well-being of the people; and that with the aid of his
European instruments he has, if I may say so, applied the screw with a
master-hand, and squeezed from the wretches under his sway the very last
drop of their blood.
Such is the state of these two countries. Syria is perhaps the worst
off of the two: for the Egyptians used to oppression bear it without a
struggle: whilst the Syrians, who had been less harshly treated in old
times, writhe under and gnaw their chain.--_From the Sun newspaper._
* * * * *
ROTATION RAILWAY.--This invention aims at effecting a complete revolution
in the present mode of railway construction and locomotion. In place of
having the ordinary rails and wheeled carriages, two series of wheels are
fixed along the whole length of the road at about two yards apart, and
at an equal distance from centre to centre of each wheel. These wheels
are connected throughout the whole length of the line by bands working in
grooved pullies keyed on to the same axle as the wheels, but the axles of
one side of the line are not connected with those of the opposite line.
The axles of the wheels are raised about one foot from the ground; the
top of the wheel, which is proposed to be of 3 feet diameter, will be
therefore elevated 2½ feet above the surface. On these wheels is placed a
strong framing of timber, having an iron plate fastened on each side in
the line of the two series of wheels. A little within this bearing frame,
so as just to clear the wheels, is a luggage-box or hold, descending to
within a few inches of the ground, in which it is proposed to stow all
heavy commodities, for which purpose it is well adapted, opening as it
does at either end, and its flooring close to the surface of the ground.
At each end of the lower part of the framing of this luggage-box, are
fixed horizontal guide or friction wheels, working against the supports
of the bearing wheels and pullies, by which arrangement curves will be
traversed with little friction, and it will be impossible for the framing
to quit the track. The framing of timber will be about 19 feet in length,
so that it will rest alternately on six and eight wheels, but never on
less than six. On this framing the passenger carriages are erected,
which, in its progression forward, it is thought will be kept steady and
free from lateral motion by the weight in the luggage-box, assisted by
the horizontal guide-wheels. Locomotion is produced by putting the wheels
in motion by means of machinery at either end, which would be effected
for an immense distance with a moderate power, as there would be very
little more friction due to the wheels than that arising from their own
weight; and the frame which bears the carriage would not be run on to
the bearing-wheels until the whole were in motion, when its weight would
act almost after the manner of a fly-wheel, resting as it would on the
periphery of the bearing-wheels. It will be perceived that by this plan
the bearings of the wheels must be kept perfectly in the direction of
the plane of the road, whether inclined or horizontal; otherwise serious
concussions would occur. But this would not be the case by the depression
of one wheel, or even by its entire removal, as the framing will be
constructed sufficiently stiff as not to deflect by having the distance
of the bearings doubled. If this plan should be found to answer, it will
present facilities of transport never before thought of, as carriages
might be continually dispatched without a chance of collision, either
by stoppage or from increased speed of the last beyond the preceding.
It also promises to remove the present great drawback to railway
progression, viz. the being able to surmount but very slight acclivities
by locomotive power with any profitable load; but by the rotative system,
inclines may be surmounted of almost any steepness without the chance
of accident. If a band should break, the action of this railway would
not be impeded, as the power being transmitted from either end, rotation
would take place throughout its whole length, but the power would not
be transmitted from either end past the disjunction. Even should two
bands be destroyed at a distance from each other and on the same side of
the track, its action would not be destroyed, for although the isolated
portion of wheels would be dead, those on the other side of the track
would be in action, which, with the horizontal guide-wheels, would
move forward the carriage, although, on such portion, at a diminished
speed. Instead of an increased outlay being required in the formation of
railways on this system, it is estimated that a very considerable saving
will be effected, as a single track will be sufficient, with sidings of
dead wheels at the termination of the several portions into which a long
line would be divided. In crossing valleys, a framing of piles to support
the bearing-wheels would be quite sufficient, and the road might be left
quite open between each line of wheels, as it would be impossible for the
carriage to quit the track, and therefore no necessity for making a solid
road for safety sake.--_Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal._
* * * * *
MAGNANIMITY.--When the Spanish armies invested Malaga in 1487, when in
possession of the Moors, a circumstance occurred in a sortie from the
city, indicating a trait of character worth recording. A noble Moor,
named Abraher Zenete, fell in with a number of Spanish children who had
wandered from their quarters. Without injuring them, he touched them
gently with the handle of his lance, saying, “Get ye gone, varlets, to
your mothers.” On being rebuked by his comrades, who inquired why he
had let them escape so easily, he replied, “Because I saw no beard upon
their chins.” An example of magnanimity (says the Curate of Los Palacios)
truly wonderful in a heathen, and which might have reflected credit on
a Christian hidalgo.--_Prescott’s History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella, Boston, 1839._
* * * * *
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the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane,
College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
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