182 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



be visited by two years of drought and famine the 

 whole village is ruined and abandoned ; and the 

 tax which it should have paid, is levied on the 

 neighbouring lands.* 



The same mode of proceeding takes place with 

 regard to the tax on the Christians, which has been 

 raised by these means from three, five, and eleven 

 piastres, at which it was at first fixed, to thirty- 

 five and forty, which absolutely impoverishes 

 those on whom it is levied, and obliges them to 

 leave the country. It has been remarked that 

 these exactions have made a rapid progress during 

 the last forty years ; from which time are dated 

 the decline of agriculture, the depopulation of the 

 country and the diminution in the quantity of 

 specie carried into Constantinople.^ 



The food of the peasants is almost every where 

 reduced to a little flat cake of barley or doura, 

 onions, lentils and water. Not to lose any part 

 of their corn, they leave in it all sorts of wild 

 grain, which often produce bad consequences. 

 In the mountains of Lebanon and Nablous, in time 

 of dearth, they gather the acorns from the oaks, 

 which they eat after boiling or roasting them in 

 ashes.^; 



By a natural consequence of this misery, the 

 art of cultivation is in the most deplorable state. 

 The husbandman is almost without instruments, 

 and those he has are very bad. His plough is fre- 



* Voy. de Volney, torn. ii. c. xxxvii. p. 375. 

 t Id. p. 376. 

 J Id. p. 377. 



