358 



NORTH-EAST APEICA. 



proprietors themselves, who no longer pay the taxes in kind, have certainly 

 benefited by the new order of things. At the same time a new social class has 

 been constituted, that of the agricultural proletariates, a multitude of hand to mouth 

 labourers, who have no longer any share in the land, and who are obliged to accept 

 employment on any terms in order to live.* The lands of dispossessed peasants, 

 nearly all confiscated for non-payment of taxes, have enlarged the personal domain 

 of the sovereign, of various members of his family, and of many high dignitaries 

 of State. The Suez Canal Company has also become one of these large landed 

 proprietors. All the estates that under sundry titles have fallen into the hands of 



Fig. 106. — Domains or the Daïrah in the Delta. 

 Scale 1 : 2,500,000. 



30 



L . of b reen wicK 



Estates of the Khedive. 



60 Miles. 



the khedival family are estimated at about one-fourth of all the arable land in 

 Egypt. Between Assiut and Bedrashein nearly all the soil belongs to the Khedive. 

 Another fourth of the land consists of the so-called ushuri, or " tithings," held in 

 absolute right by those cultivating them. On the other hand the lands of the poor, 

 divided into small lots round the villages, and comprising, with the commercial 

 possessions, about half of the country, are burdened with the karaj, a variable tax^ 

 which may be increased at the pleasure of the Government, but which still averages 

 about one-fifth, as in the time of Joseph. On paying this tax the occupier of the 

 * Average wages of the peasant liibourer : fourpence to sevenpence, according to the season. 



