SUGAR. 



173 



but native sugar commands the highest price, ' because,' say the 

 Egyptians, ' it goes much farther ; ' which indicates that the imported 

 is beetroot sugar. This explains the fact that though the produce 

 does not suffice for the consumption of the country, it is never- 

 theless exported to the Hedjaz and other parts of Arabia. About 

 nine hundred of these pots, equal to twelve tons raw sugar, are filled 

 here daily when in full work; and the crop season lasts for three 

 months. The manufacture goes on night and day by relays, and the 

 labourers receive from one to four piastres for ten hours. The camel 

 hire amounts to five piastres a day for each — tenpence. The usual 

 proportion of rum and molasses is obtained. 



" There are two kinds of cultivated land in Egypt, the Eei, which is 

 watered by the natural rise of the Nile, and the Sharackee, which 

 is artificially irrigated. The latter may be subdivided, as it is watered 

 by the Shadoof worked by men ; the Sakia worked by oxen, or the 

 steam engine. It is plain that the cane, grown on the Eei lands, must 

 be planted just before the inundation covers the field, or it would die 

 of drought, and must be taken off before the next rise. Whereas, that 

 which is grown in fields banked round and artificially irrigated, may 

 be planted at other times, and the planter is free from the great un- 

 certainty as to the height of the inundation, which is a constant 

 source of anxiety to the proprietor of the Rei lands, as a deficient 

 inundation causes wholesale destruction to the products of the soil. 



" The manufacture can only take place at low Nile, so that the 

 growth of the cane in the Sharackee lands does not exceed twelve 

 months, the planting season being about February and March, and 

 the reaping commencing in January. At Eanda there were three 

 steam pumping engines which watered about four hundred acres each. 

 On these fields the canes grow to the height of 10 feet, but on the 

 Eei lands, where the planting is two months later, they are necessarily 

 much shorter. Eatooning for any length of time does not answer, 

 and at least one-fourth of the crop is planted annually. The canes 

 are planted in holes banked up with the hoe, much as in old times in 

 the West Indies ; the moulding is done naturally by the deposit of 

 the Nile, there is no trashing, and for reaping a short heavy knife is 

 used which cuts the cane close to the ground. The Egyptian native 

 cane, as it is called, is much like that known by the same name and 

 now nearly extinct in Barbados ; but the West Indian varieties have 

 been successfully introduced. The juice is usually watery, as might 

 be expected from the length of time the canes are covered by the 

 inundation, and the yield is not more than four or five kantars a 

 feddan, or about 500 lbs. refined sugar to an acre. 



" The chief manures are a nitrous saline earth found on the borders 

 of the desert, and pigeons' dung. Vast quantities of half- wild 

 pigeons are encouraged to breed in the Egyptian villages for the sake 

 of their manure, and the turreted pigeon-houses form a conspicuous 

 feature in the Nile landscape. 



" In a country like Egypt it is extremely difficult to arrive at any 

 accurate statistics. M. Clot. Bey fixes the quantity of refined sugar 

 made in 1833 at 382,449 kilogrammes, or about 370 tons, and the 

 raw sugar made at the three factories of Eeramoon, Sakiet Monee, 



