150 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



necessary to keep them clear of the mud which the Nile at the 

 period of its annual overflow brings down in large quantities ; and 

 to effect this, no other labor than that of the fellahs' is available. 

 Finding that this indispensable work could be done by contract 

 and paid labor, for about 400,000 ($2,000,000) per annum, the 

 commission appropriated, from the funds made available from 

 loans and the reduced expenses of the Government, the sum of 

 250,000, to be paid annually as compensation for such service, 

 and thereby at Once reduced by more than fifty per cent the num- 

 ber of men formerly called out and compelled to perform service ; 

 without payment. In addition, the employment of skilled engi- 

 neers and the introduction of improved machinery for dredging 

 and excavating, still further reduced both the necessity for the 

 labor of individuals and the general aggregate of former expendi- 

 tures. Whatever of the obligation of the corvee is still incum- 

 bent on the fellah, as, for example, when he is called in any sud- 

 den emergency to prevent breaks in embankments in time of 

 flood, or keep clear the irrigation of his own land, is therefore 

 largely in his own interest, and even this will probably at no dis- 

 tant day be abolished. But, be this as it may, it is certain that 

 what of the corvee the commission has felt compelled to retain 

 does not represent one tithe of the awful incubus which the old 

 corvee represented " in the days of the oppression/' The use of 

 the koorbash, or lash, which was the former invariable accompani- 

 ment of unpaid labor in Egypt, has also been absolutely prohib- 

 ited. Of other forms of relief to the people of Egypt, effected by 

 the English fiscal commission, the following may be mentioned : 



An abandonment of a tax on sheep, goats, and camels, which 

 was very obnoxious to the agriculturists ; a tax on weighing and 

 measuring ; octroi taxes on rice, oil, and other commodities ; and 

 a tax on all trades and crafts, in the nature of licenses on business 

 and professions, which was collected in innumerable small sums 

 from the poorest of the people. The price of salt, the supply and 

 sale of which was a monopoly of the state, has been reduced to 

 the extent of forty per cent, while large abatements have been 

 made in judicial fees, postal and telegraph rates, and in railway 

 rates and fares. 



As formerly, the tax on land is yet the corner stone of Egyp- 

 tian finance, and can not be rapidly or radically disturbed ; but 

 large measures of relief have nevertheless been instituted. A 

 vexatious diversity of rates at which land has been assessed in 

 different parts of the country has been simplified to the extent 

 that a former total number of fourteen hundred different rates 

 has been brought down to two hundred. The value of land varies 

 greatly, according to its proximity to the Nile, and the extent to 

 which it can be profitably supplied with water for irrigating pur- 



