SUFFERINGS OF THE FAMINESTRICKEN IS EGYPT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 7

SUFFERINGS OF THE FAMINESTRICKEN IS EGYPT.

Me. W. Robertson , Smith writes from Cairo as follows :—" I send you some account of what I have seen with my own eyes, and gathered from conversation with the people during a journey, from Assint to Edfn and back, which extended from the 10th February to the I2th March. Iα 1877 there was no ' Kile' above Assint, and the wheat and bean' crops of the following spring were a total failure. There remained the crop of dura planted on the; higher land, which ; ought to have been ripe at the beginning of last winter. But this crop was in great ■ measure destroyed by the excessive ioun- ■ dation of IB7S. Then 5 successive strokes • were the proximate enuse of the famine. ' But there has been no real scarcity of food < in Egypt. Wheat is cheaper than it was 1 last ye'ar. An occasional failure of the Nile must always be counted upon, and where the peasantry are so frugal and industrions, the surplus of good years ought to be eafficient to meet the deficiencies of a bad season. The existence of a widespread famine, with numerous deaths from hunger when food ' was not at an unreasonable price, can only 1 be ascribed to the fact thai when the bad ' year came the stores of the peasantry were ' already exhausted by oppressive taxation. : Thai at least is the explanation which ■ I have invariably received. The snf- 1 fering has been extreme through the 1 whole country south of Assint, but 1 especially, so far aa I can observe, in the \ district above Girgeh. When food began to fail in the country distriots there was a ' great rush of starving people to the towns In ' quest of charity. The town of Assint was ' the chief centre towards which they col- 1 lected, and here an attempt was made to ' relieve their necessities by an organised distribution of bread. But, in spite of this, ' the streete, as I passed up the river,' were full of poor wretches crawling about in the . last stage of emaciation, or unable to rise from the ground.. A month later a great ' change was visible. Many, no doubt, '< had died, and the survivors had > scattered through the fields to gather ' green beane, now sufficiently near ma- 1 turity to support existence. In other ' towns tho earns eight was repeated on a ■ smaller scale. One did not see so i many persona stretched in public places ' in the last Btage of hunger, . bnt in ! every market-place there were children •' and old people cowering in corners and chew- ' ing herbs or straws, whose pallor and i extreme emaciation shewed how real wae ' their distress. In places little visited 1 by European, travellers they often did not ' oven ask for alms. In fact, the mag- ' nitude of the calamity and the great ' rush of sufferers to the towns seem ! to nave paralysed the private charity 1 for which the Egyptians have generally ' a good report. 'If a man gave an ashard '• (a halfpenny) one day,' I was told, 'he had ] a hundred applicants next morning.' At Bellianeh. amid a great crowd of the ordinary I professional beggars who congregate wher- ' ever tourists stop, 1 was called by the by- ' stauders to help a poor creature lying 'utterly broken' beneath a wall. Then quite a crowd of real sufferers came up, chiefly children, some in a state of ravenous hunger, others scarcely able to eat the bread which, gathering them in a circle, I began to distribute. The sight of bread roused them almost to frenzy, and every cake was torn into morsels by contending hands. Each moment the crowd thickened, till I had 200 or 300 people, of whom probably two-thirds were ■ mere professional beggars, Jo3tling me, on one another, and tearing the bread fr-iva. weaker hands. I was at length com M *'■ ito retire to my boat, seeing it to < be hop ess to do anything without the aid : of the police. In the country districts there ■ was mnch less visible distress. The flight of i so many to the towns made it easier for pri- i vate charity to operate, and the villagers i are always helpful to one another. < But everywhere I heard the same ; story. A large number of the poor had been living through the winter on roots and green fodder, wild mustard, fenugrek, coarse : lettuce, and the like. Thoee who were , strong enough to wander through the fields and steal had survived, and as the spring crops approached . ripeness, and afforded more nourishing foo.l the worst of their distress was past. The weak and the eick had died. The blamn was universally laid on the Goeernmeafc. It was impossible, I am told, for the people to live under the present exactions, and this I believe is strictly true."