Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-03
UNHAPPY EGYPT.
Each Year Sees New Calamity Be-
fall This Country.

fall This Country.
INTERESTING FACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE
UNITED STATES coSsuI-GESrRAL At CAIRO
HOW TIE FLOODS OF THE NILE BOTH DAMAGE
AND BENEFIT THE INTERMEDIATE TERRITORY.
Calamity upon calamity befalls Egypt" re-
marks Mr. John Cardweil, United States con-
sul-general at Cairo. in a recent report to the
State department upon the rise Of the Nile for
the year 1883. THE Nile food Of 1887 was
disastrous, being so excessive as to destroy
great quantities of growing crops, while il also
laid waste villages. demolished and filed up
shadoofs and sakheyebs, and drove many per-
sons, with their animals, to the edges Of the
desert, where numbers of the latter died or be-
came so impoverished as TO be useless for some
time In the requirements of agriculture. Pri-
vate property was in consequence increased
and public debt was augmented.
The Nile flood Of 1855, which has now en-
tirely subsidized,
HAS PROVEN ANOTHER DISASTER
in contrary sense TO what befell the country
in 1887. The highest point recorded by the
nilometer at Rhodd. near Cairo. in 1857. was
25 pics kirats (about A feet and inches).
while In 1888 the greatest altitude 10 which the
feeD, difference of IL feet. food of %
PICS (4o feet is regarded as quite adyan-
tageous to all sections of the country.
Owing TO the success Of the Bauage, the
great water elevator for filling the bitches Of
the Delta, the state of agriculture in Lower
Egypt is good. The well-guarded bikes of the
branches of the Nile and Of the great canals in
the Delta protected Lower Egypt against the
high water OF 1887. while the Damage has saved
the same region from present barrenness and
W,+a, -, - Ia.
all the good lands of Lower Egypt in quantity
sufficient to increase production III growing crops
and the lands have been properly prepared
and planted in winter crops while. because OF
the Banage, those now growing, and those 10
be planted before the season of another food,
may be safely calculated upon as remunera-
tive.
IN LIMITED DISTRICTS.
Even in the Delta there has been and will be
| some scarcity of water, but on the whole the
! agriculturists of Lower Egypt are, in an
| Egyptian sense, blessed. The cultivatable area
| OF Lower Egypt is 2.744.o00 feddaus, not quite
| Z,OOOO0 acres. not more than one-seventieth
| OF which is lost TO agriculture because of the
| low Nile of this year. Still. complaint is made.
and will be continued TO be made. of an insult
| tcient supply of water in many parts of the
| Delta. The loss to agriculture, therefore. may
| be placed at more than double the loss in cul-
| tlvated area-say one-thirtieth or more in pro-
| ductiOn.
In Upper Egypt there is no mammoth svs-
TEN for water elevation like the Banage. and
canalization is quite limited. There, when the
great river fails in its annual bounty shadoofs
and sakheyebs may be operated increasingly
| through the days and nights of a long year,
| and yet vast areas 60 unwatered, and hence in
TINS ralniess land remain as barren desert
wastes. The cultivatable area of Upper Egypt
is 233l 900 acres, and of this nearly one-seventh
| Is lost to agriculture.
"Unwatered land is not subject to govern
| ment taxation. and the direct loss 20 the state
on account of the low Nile OF this year will
amount to sum about equal to 81, $50, 900.
The relation OF area to population
PRESENTS THE APPALLING FACT,
that nearly one-tenth of the entire agricultural
| population of Egypt have no lands to work for
one whole year. In Upper Egypt the unfor-
Inmates amount to nearly one-sixth of its entire
! population. Unless the government give these
| poor beings employment on public works.
/ which appears improbable, there must be
widespread starvation. portion of the I'M
fortunates may exc out a bare subsistence by
| repairing to cultivated districts and quartering
| themselves upon the more fortunate, but relief
so obtained will be little better than starvation.
The agriculturists who are supplied with water
will have little more than is necessary to keep
body and soul together. No sort of relief is
| possible until another food has watered the
lands and thus enabled them to produce crops,
| which will be in the spring of $780, provided
| there be not low Nile in 1882"
! The Nile begins to rise between the middle
| of June and the middle of July. and the
| highest food level is reached between the
middle and end of October.
DURING THE LAST sIxTY-THREE YEARS
| there has been but one lower Nile than that OF
this year. In 1877 the food rose to only about
! 30 feet and in consequence fully 100000 acres
were lost to agriculture. In 1895. 1896 and
| 1887 there were successfully low Niles. the
| highest water levels for those years being re-
spectively l9 pics Is kirats, 20 pics IL kirats.
| and 10 pics kirats. The result was the noted
| three years famine. which almost wholly
ruined Egypt, and vet at that time the country
had no foreign debt and the modern bond
| curse was unknown.
The low Nile of this year gives rise to much
| speculation" states the consul-general ''in re-
! gard to more complete facilities for irrigation.
| But little more is necessary for the Delta. and
what may be necessary is simply more csnaliza-
ton. In Upper Egypt the case is different. There
water elevation Is necessary, and with il per-
| feet system of canals and bitches. What will
| be adopted il is impossible TO predict Riaz
| Pasha, prime minister. favors a L lumber of very
powerful pumping machines while there are
! also strong advocates of the Lamotte proposal
| for damming the Nile at Silsileh. This would.
however be an enormous undertaking, and
| it would cost huge sum of money more by
| far than Egypt's financial condition could COM
mand. Filling the Raian basin, according to
| the Whitehouse proposition, is of possible ac-
complishment, and it will have due considera-
tion."