FEARFUL FAMINES OF THE PAST 



7o 



Tacitus left grim pictures of the dis- 

 tress and suffering which afflicted the 

 civilized world in that era, when houses 

 were filled with dead bodies and the 

 streets with funerals. 



A peculiar feature of the famine and 

 pestilence which visited the Roman prov- 

 ince of Apulia a hundred years later was 

 the amazing swarm of locusts which 

 filled the air and covered the ground. 

 Sicinius was dispatched with an army to 

 try to battle with the winged pests. Thou- 

 sands of peasants lay down to die on the 

 highroads, and so dire was the pestilence 

 which accompanied the famine that even 

 the vultures refused to feed upon the 

 fallen. 



This scourge of starvation and pesti- 

 lence extended as far west as England. 

 During a brief period 5,000 people died 

 daily in Rome, where the only method of 

 combatting disease was the practice of 

 "filling the noses and ears with sweet- 

 smelling ointments to keep out the con- 

 tagion." 



It is not improbable that the suffering 

 of this time was a "flareback" from the 

 pestilence of 166 A. D., which had been 

 borne to Rome from Arabia, where, ac- 

 cording to Ammianus Marcellinus, it had 

 emanated from the foul air which es- 

 caped from "a small box opened by a 

 Roman soldier. Pandora-like, at the cap- 

 ture of Seleucia." 



Not only did famine and pestilence 

 spread from Arabia to the banks of the 

 Rhine, but also "inundations, caterpillars, 

 vapors, and insects," leaving in their wake 

 decayed and deserted villages through- 

 out Gaul. 



EGYPTIAN FAMINES UNDER MOHAMME- 

 DAN RULE 



Probably in no other country in the 

 world has a people been brought to such 

 a low ebb of morality or become so com- 

 pletely lost to all semblance of rational 

 humanity as in the series of famines 

 which swept over Egypt during the 

 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, 

 under Mohammedan rule. 



A low Nile in 967 A. D. resulted in a 

 famine the following year, which swept 

 away 600,000 people in the vicinity of the 

 city of Fustat. G'awhar, a Mohammedan 



Joseph, founded a new city (the Cairo of 

 today) a short distance from the stricken 

 town and immediately organized relief 

 measures. 



The Caliph Mo'izz lent every assistance 

 to his lieutenant, sending many ships 

 laden with grain; but the price of bread' 

 still remained high, and G'awhar, being 

 a food controller who had no patience 

 with persuasive methods, ordered his sol- 

 diers to seize all the millers and grain 

 dealers and flog them in the public mar- 

 ket place. The administrator then estab- 

 lished central grain depots and corn was 

 sold throughout the two years of the 

 famine under the eyes of a government 

 inspector. 



In taking these steps to mitigate the 

 suffering of the Egyptians the Moham- 

 medan viceroy was far in advance of the 

 European rulers of his day, but in allow- 

 ing the natives to cast their hundreds, of 

 unburied dead into the Nile, thereby 

 tainting the waters all the way to the sea, 

 he failed to evince any glimmer of under- 

 standing of the laws of sanitation. 



TERRIBEE PUNISHMENT EOR A REBEL 



During this famine and the subsequent 

 plague a petty official of lower Egypt re- 

 volted against G'awhar. The rebellion 

 was suppressed with some difficulty, but 

 the leader was finally captured in Syria. 

 As an example of the fate which would 

 befall all rebel leaders in times of na- 

 tional calamity, G'awhar made the un- 

 happy captive drink sesame oil for a 

 month, after which his skin was stripped 

 from him and stuffed with straw, then 

 hung upon a beam and displayed through- 

 out the country. 



There was no G'awhar to conduct the 

 relief work during the next Egyptian 

 famine, which came in 1025, during the 

 Caliphate of Zahir. The suffering, there- 

 fore, was much more wide-spread. It 

 became necessary to prohibit the slaugh- 

 ter of cattle, and there was no meat to be 

 had anywhere, as fowls, the common 

 meat of Egypt, had quickly disappeared. 



The stronger among the population 

 turned brigand and began to prey upon 

 the weaker members of society. Cara- 

 vans and pilgrims were attacked and Syr- 

 ian bands besran to invade border towns. 



