THE FORCED LABOUR OR CORVÉE SYSTEM. 361 



The Forced Labour or Corvée System. 



For these vast works the combined labour of the whole population is needed. 

 As the daily labour of the fellah scarcely suffices on the average to displace half a 

 cubic yard of earth, or three-quarters at the utmost under favourable conditions, the 

 days of labour on these works must be reckoned at tens of millions. In 1872 

 Linant de Bellefonds estimated at 450,000 the number of hands employed on an 

 average for two months every year in clearing out the sefi canals. Each fellah 

 has, moreover, to attend to the nili canals of his commune, as well as to the 

 particular canal bringing water to his own fields. On the Mahmudieh Canal alone, 

 Mohammed Ali employed 313,000 under the corvée system of labour. 



Nor is this all. The exceptionally high inundations of the Nile might be the 

 cause of widespread disaster were the dykes not carefully maintained, and even 

 under dangerous circumstances raised to a higher level. In 1874 all the summer 

 crops — sugar, cotton, durrah, maize — were threatened with complete destruction, 

 and the whole wealth of the land would have been engulphed, had not the 

 entire population, animated by a sense of the common danger, kept up an inces- 

 sant struggle with the rising waters. For over a whole month 700,000 men 

 laboured to repair and strengthen the embankments, so as constantly to make 

 head against the swollen stream. Frequently a third of the population has been 

 simultaneously engaged in this struggle with the Nile, and even in normal years 

 the Government calls out 160,000 men imder the corvée system, drawn in about 

 equal proportions from Upper and Lower Egypt. 



These constant efforts to adapt the land to the fluvial conditions have seldom a 

 spontaneous character. Summoned under the corvée, and receiving from the 

 authorities nothing but a shovel and a basket, the peasantry present themselves in 

 gangs at the works, preceded by their Sheikh-el-Beled, or village headman, and 

 often accompanied by their women and children. Temporary .encampments are 

 established along the embankments, and the men enter the canal to dredge and 

 bring up a little mud, gradually heaping it to a height of 30 or 40, and even 

 50 feet, over the side of the dyke. The women do the cooking — that is, prepare 

 a few cakes of durrah in the fire; the children tumble about in the sand, while the 

 armed pickets tramp silently up and down the embankment. It is doubtless natural 

 and reasonable that all the inhabitants should take their share in the maintenance 

 of the canals. From the mud of the Nile springs all the wealth of Egypt, and in 

 this respect the whole population has a common interest. The canals, also, which 

 distribute the fertilising waters, and but for which the riverain peoples would be 

 reduced to starvation, represent an amount of labour far beyond the resources of 

 private enterprise. But, on the other hand, it seems only fair that this work, to 

 which all hands contribute, should be really carried on in the interest of all. It 

 should tend to promote the prosperity not only of a few large domains, but also 

 that of the smaller village holdings. It should certainly not weigh as a heavy 

 burden exclusively on the labourers who are too poor to purchase exemption or 

 find substitutes for the onerous task. Nor should the wretched victims of the 



