Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/714

 6 9 o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

Arabian Gulf, and thence to Yambo, the port of Medina on that gulf.

The traitor Greeks, who had delivered the country to the Saracens, had probably informed him of the great plenty which conilantly reigned in Egypt, and which every body had an opportunity of knowing by the cheapness or grain at the market.

Omar thought that a larger tribute was due to put the conquerors a little more upon a footing with the conquered ; for Egypt, which had once 20,000 cities, had not then the tenth part of them. Having therefore a larger extent to culti- vate, with the fame quantitycf water,it produced more grain, and at the fame time having fewer people to eat it, nothing was lefs oppreflive than that a part of the furplus of the pro- duce fhould go in augmentation of the tribute. For this purpofe, following the very weak lights of his own judg- ment, he introduced a different meafure on the Kilometer, and the confequence of that meafure, impofed by a conquer- or, affected the people (not reflecting upon their decreafe in population) fo much, that they prepared to fly the country; from which it immediately would have followed, that all Egypt would have lain de folate and uncultivated, and all Arabia been ftarved.

They were perfectly acquainted with their ancient mea- fure, and it is probable that Omar made an exceflive addi- tion by the new Milometers which he had erected ; fo that faith being thereby broken between the government and peo- ple, the Egyptians fet about watching the Nile upon the Milo- meter with its new meafure, as the only way of being inform- ed when poverty or famine was to overtake them. This being 3 told