AGRICULTURE. 443 CHAPTER XX. AGRICULTURE-MANNER OF REAPING —CULTIVATION OF DHOUrra, RICE, AND SUGAR IBRAHIM PASHA'S OLIVE PLANTATIONSPUNCTUALITY OF HIS PAYMENTS - RATE OF LABOUR-CASSIA FISTULA-MAGNIFICENT CARRIAGE-ROAD AVENUES OF SYCA MORES INTRODUCTION OF THE TEAK TREE ANECDOTE A TURKISH OFFICER OF FAILURE OF THE COFFEE-TREE IN LOWER EGYPT - CURIOUS METHOD OF TRANSPLANTING LARGE TREES IMPREGNATION OF THE FEMALE PALM ANTIQUITY OF THE PRACTICE- PASHA'S REVENUE - FEDAN, OR EGYPTIAN TYRANNY OF THE DI MAMALOOK METHOD OF LEVYING TAXES TYRANNY UNEQUAL TAXATIONS LAND-TAX — INIQUITOUS SEIZURE OF PROPERTY — MOULTEZIMS, MONOPOLY OF THROUGHOUT EGYPT FEMALE INSURRECTION DCXCI. THE processes of agriculture vary in dif. ferent provinces. In the southern districts of Upper Egypt, the corn is sown immediately on the retiring of the waters, while the earth is still soft; and, as soon as its moisture is sufficiently exhaled, the land is ploughed, in order to bury the seed. Here, therefore, in all probability, the practice mentioned by Herodotus, and of which we witnessed one example, prevailed in antiquity, of casting the wheat on the soft mud, and then driving animals over the field to tread it in. In Lower Egypt, the ground is twice ploughed; the second operation, which takes place after the corn has been sown, serving instead of harrowing. Sowing time, in Lower Egypt, is over by the end of November, and the harvest takes place in May; but in the Saïd, both sowing time and harvest are a month earlier. Sickles, specimens of which have been found among the ruins, were made use of by the ancient Egyptians; but the fellahs pluck up the wheat by the roots. A similar process is observed in the cultivation of barley. Beans, now produced in great quantities throughout Egypt, are sown in October, and gathered in a month earlier than the wheat. Lentils are cultivated in small quantities. Dhourra sef, or "summer dhourra," is sown in March, and reaped in July; upon which the ground is again ploughed lightly, and sown with maize, or dhourra shámy. The chiche pea and the lupine are sown in November, and gathered in March. Rice, the cultivation of which is chiefly, if not wholly, confined to the Delta, is sown in April, and reaped in November. The sugar-cane is cultivated to a great extent in Upper Egypt, more especially in the province of Minieh. Flax, indigo, tobacco, henna, &c.* are also cultivated; but, under Mengin, Histoire de l'Egypte, &c., t. ii. pp. 345. 371. — This writer enters into considerable details respecting each particular branch of agriculture; but appears, in most cases, very much to under-rate the productiveness of the soil. OLIVE PLANTATIONS. 445 an enlightened government, the produce of Egypt might be greatly varied, improved, and augmented. DCXCII. In fact, the present government, however barbarous and despotic, is not wholly insensible to the advantages which might be derived from a more scrupulous attention to the arts of husbandry. Ibrahim Pasha, during his campaigns in the Morea, appears to have been struck with the commercial importance of olive plantations; many of which he destroyed. Soon after his return to Egypt, he commenced clearing all that extensive district lying between the tomb of Mohammed Lars, his own Divan, and the Aqueduct, of the prodigious mounds of rubbish, many of them exceeding seventy feet in height, which had been accumulating there from the period of the foundation of Cairo. In this useful work seven hundred and fifty carts, each drawn by two oxen, were daily employed, together with a number of excavators, and about two thousand children of both sexes, under the direction of forty or fifty men. The birkets and hollows in the neighbourhood were filled up; and a space of ground of about six square miles, having been thus cleared and levelled, was planted with olive trees, which bore fruit the second year. His grounds at Koobah were laid out in a similar manner; and both plantations now, perhaps, contain one hundred and eighty thousand trees. The produce is pickled and sent to the fleet. DCXCIII. Ibrahim Pasha is very punctual in the payment of his work-people. The wages of a child are thirty paras per day: excavators, drivers, and overseers, able-bodied men, obtain, upon an average, two piastres, or sixpence, per day. In the gardens of Sheikh Ibrahim, chief of the Shiah sect at Cairo, are about twelve trees of the cassia fistula, which produce annually three thousand piastres. This fact coming to the knowledge of Ibrahim Pasha, he immediately caused several hundreds of these trees to be planted along the new carriage-road leading in a straight line from the Defterdar Bey's palace at Castel Jubarra to the college of Kasserlyne. This road, not yet quite completed, is about sixty feet broad, and has a footpath on either side. The cassias are planted twenty-five feet apart. In avenues of sycamores the space between the trees is seldom less than forty feet. Among the various species of trees recently introduced into Egypt, the teak is considered by far the most valuable; it being the opinion of Mr. Traile, the English botanist, that it will thrive there as well as in India. About a dozen seeds having been sent as a present to Ibrahim Pasha from Hindoostan, they were sown in the English garden at Rhouda, towards the close of 1829. Three of them took; and in two years one of the specimens had reached the height of nine feet. A Turkish officer, walking in the garden, happening to observe the straightness and beauty of the tree, thought it would make a good naboot, and with one stroke of his sabre levelled it with the ground. Several years ago Mr. Briggs introduced the mango into various parts of Egypt; but the specimen planted at Shoubra is the only one which has survived. This, however, now bears fruit; but his Highness, too impatient to enjoy his new possession, has always plucked it green. An attempt has likewise been made to naturalise the pine-apple: several hundreds were planted at Shoubra and Alexandria; but; through neglect and mismanagement, they have all perished. Ibrahim Pasha's pine-apples have succeeded better in the English garden at Rhouda. The coffee tree has been tried in Lower Egypt, but without success. Several plants have also been sent, as an experiment, into the Saïd; but whether or not the climate will prove more congenial to their growth, is unknown. Those who are engaged in these undertakings appear to be ignorant that, in hot countries, the coffee tree requires to be planted in the shade of trees of more elevated growth, and will not flourish in the sun.* To ensure its growth in the Saïd, therefore, it would be necessary to commence with plantations of sycamore. DCXCIV. In the agricultural economy of the Arabs there is one very remarkable practice, not noticed, I believe, by any traveller, and which came to my own knowledge altogether by accident. Previous to my voyage up the Nile, I had frequently This has been found, by repeated experiments, in the coffee plantations of Yemen and Brazil. |