64:6 Report on the State of Agriculture 



of the world hitherto generally considered stagnant in respect 

 to all that is good, and in the full plenitude of suffering from 

 much that is eviL It is impossible to read this Report without 

 being struck with admiration and astonishment at the comprehen- 

 sive mind, impartiality, and delightfully liberal views of Dr. 

 Bowring. The government which has employed such a man 

 deserves immortal honour. A man, indeed, with so many quali- 

 fications for such a mission is rarely to be found ; and we trust 

 that he will be long blessed with health and strength to be simi- 

 larly employed, and that a government may always be at the 

 head of affairs in this country which has sense, liberality, and 

 independence enough to engage him in labours which may be 

 truly said to have for their object, not only the welfare of Great 

 Britain, but the progress of civilisation throughout the world. 



" Agriculture. — The causes of the general stagnation of agricultural and 

 manufacturing improvement in the East will be found to be deeply seated and 

 widely spread ; for, though some evidences of progress may be here and there 

 discovered, they must be considered as presenting a striking contrast to the 

 almost universal result. 



" There is in the Mahomedan religion itself a great want of encouragement 

 to art, science, or industry. It does not give honour to labour. The book 

 and the sword are the only two objects which it presents as worthy the 

 ambition or the reverence of its votaries. The Imams, who sometimes preach 

 with the Koran in one hand and a wooden scimitar in the other, are living 

 emblems of the present state of the Mussulman world, — for the sword is 

 powerless, and the book speaks in vain. Agriculture has no praise in the 

 Koran, nor has manufacture nor commerce : it is the book of the desert, 

 addressed to the inhabitants of the wilderness. The Nile is, indeed, an object 

 of religious veneration among the Egyptians, as wells and water-springs are 

 to the Arabs ; but the attachment of the fellahs to their fields and to their 

 plantations, which distinguishes them from the great body of the Mahomedans, 

 has in it much of Paganism, which, indeed, held the plough in honour. The 

 Koran was addressed to warriors — to the fighting men of the waste. The 

 Mahometan cultivator seems to accept and resign himself to a recognised 

 condition of humiliation and inferiority — for him there is little comfort in the 

 holy book. If an Egyptian artisan be asked to undertake any labour ana- 

 logous to the cultivation of the soil ; as, for example, to assist in the care of a 

 garden, in the enclosure of a field, or any similar work, he will indignantly 

 answer, " Am I a fellah ? " Hence the pursuits of agriculture imply degrada- 

 tion, and the peasantry represent not the pride, but the poverty — not men 

 aspiring to wealth and influence, but those contented with a meek and un- 

 resisting servility." 



After speaking of the measurement of land and the rights of 

 property, the principal agricultural produce of the country is 

 stated to be trefoil, grain, beans, barley, peas, and other seeds, 

 which are threshed at " a kele per day," and the threshed corn 

 watched by a man at a kele per night, " independently of what 

 he steals. The distribution of lands, the soil, "the powers of 

 which are incalculable," the encroachments of the desert, the 

 hot winds, and the locusts, are next reported on. 



" Encroachments of the Desert. — But a perpetual struggle is carried on 

 betv/een the desert and cultivation. In many parts of the Delta the desert has 



