Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/445

 THE FORCED LABOUR OB COBVEE SYSTEM. 861 The Forced Labour or Corv£e System. For these vast works the combined labour of the whole population is needed. As the daily labour of the fell&h 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 corv^ system of labour. Nor is this all. The exceptionally high inundations of the Kile 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 ixjpulation, animated by a sense of the common danger, k<'j>t 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 100,000 men imder the corvee 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 corvee, 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-BeltHl, 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 bunlen 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