Travels In Kordofan Classic Reprint PDF Download

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. GOVERNMENT. The form of government of Kordofan resembles that of other countries under Egyptian sway, that is to say, it is despotic; but the inhabitants of this province are subjected to particularly severe oppression, being situate, as we have above observed, at so great a distance from the seat of government, that it indeed almost amounts to an impossibility to proffer a complaint to the first authorities. The people feel themselves, therefore, extremely miserable, the more so since, under the dominion of Sennaar and Darfour, neither property nor life were endangered, as they are at present. The difference may be deduced from the fact, that, in former times, nearly all the women wore ornaments of gold, a metal which is now rarely, or never seen in the province. Under the government of Darfour, there were no taxes, no duties, trade was free, and everywhere reigned opulence. Now the reverse is observed. Duties and imposts of every description oppressthe people, and have reduced them to abject poverty. The old proverb, Where a Turk sets his foot no grass will grow, is, in this province, adequately exemplified. The originator of all this misery was, undoubtedly, the Defturdar, the conqueror of this country. With the conquest, government was out of the question, for every one was subjected to arbitrary and tyrannical treatment. Mehemed Ali, indeed, recalled the Defturdar, but the people experienced, on the whole, no material relief by this measure, for the subsequent governors were by no means idle in scraping treasure together, and gradually exhausted all the sap from this already impoverished country. The province is now governed by the Bey, (colonel, ) of the first regiment of the line, quartered at Lobeid, to whom the Casheffs, (chief magistrates of th...