Delmar.] z.4b [Oct. 2, 



occasion, when the French packet from Marseilles arrived in the after- 

 noon with seven millions of francs in specie, I was informed by the agent 

 of the company, the same evening, that he had reason to believe that not 

 a single coin of the whole amount had remained in Alexandria. It had 

 been taken to the villages where it is generally buried in the earth." — 

 Com. Rtl. 1865, p. 4S4. 4th. The monopolies. In 1864, during the high 

 price of cotton, the Vicei'oy refused permission for the cotton of other 

 cultivators to be brought to market until his own was first shif>ped.— iftfd. 

 In 1865 and 1866, though there was a famine in Egypt, corn fetched a 

 higher price at Jidda, in the Hedjaz, a province of Arabia on the Eastern 

 coast of the Red Sea. The merchants, who hastened to ship corn to Jid- 

 da, were stopped by the Viceroy ; who, disregarding the famished con- 

 dition of his own people, hastened to sell his corn to the Arabians and 

 obtain the higher prices which necessity compelled them to offer. — Br. C. 

 R. 6-1867, p. 134. 



The following quotations exhibit the rates of interest current in Egypt 

 of late years. 



1863. Three to five, and even seven, per cent, a month was paid by 

 fellahs to the Levantine traders who lent them money wherewith to pay 

 their taxes. Same year, five to ten per cent, a mouth was paid on good 

 security.— C. R., 18G3. 



1864. "Minimum rate, ten per cent, per annum. Two and three per 

 cent, a month often paid by parties of the first position for temporary 

 loans."— C. R., 1864 and 1865. 



1872. Seven to ten per cent, per annum on government securities. — M. 

 S., 1872. 



Agricultural Implements. 



On the estates of the Khedive and other large planters, modern imple- 

 ments ard in use ; but the natives appear to be so ill-fed as to lack the 

 physical strength and skill to wield them. Hence their reluctance to work 

 on these estates, and the cruel practice of forcing them by blows ; for, as 

 things go, the Khedive pays them well. (C. R., 1871.) In 1862-3 the 

 Khedive employed steam irrigatiog machinery in Upper Egypt. At the 

 same time there were in operation eighty steam cotton-gins ; steam 

 pumps were used by other large proprietors, and steam plows were tried 

 on the barren " halfa " lands of the Delta. (C. R., 1863.) Since that time, 

 other improved implements have come into use on the same class of 

 estates ; but \ he peasants continue to employ the antique and inefficient 

 implements c )mmou to the Orient from the most ancient times, the cause i 

 for this preference being poverty, physical infirmity and, above all, polit- 

 ical insecurity. These implements consist of the plow, which is merely a 

 crooked stick, sometimes barbed with iron ; the mattock, the hoe, the 

 spade, the dulab or hand-gin for cotton, and the sakye or sahia, the 

 cliadouf or shadouf^ and the tabout, for irrigating purposes. The sakye 

 is a horizontal wooden cog-wheel, turned by oxen and working into the 

 perimeter of a vertical wooden cog-wheel, which, in revolving, elevates 



