Light, Henry: Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Holy Land, Mount Libanon, and Cyprus in the year 1814 (London, 1818)

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alert, came down in large bodies, when the smallness of the
Turkish force ensured success.

The Porte, disappointed in its hopes of shaking the
Pasha's power by revolution, tried to prevent his obtaining
recruits from Europe and Asia Minor, and for a long time
prohibited any from leaving those countries; in consequence
of which, Arabs, Copts, and even negroes were enrolled, to
enable him to sustain himself in his possessions on the Red
Sea. Money, too, began to fall short: our successes in Spain
prevented so great a demand for corn, supposed at one time
an inexhaustible source of wealth. New modes of obtaining
money were adopted ; all the land of Egypt was at once
considered the property of the divan. It was portioned off
to the different villages, overseers stationed to be answerable
for its cultivation, the produce divided into a certain number
of parts, of which one fifth remained to the community, and
the rest was at the disposal of the Pasha: the same de-
mands were made in bad as in good seasons. A temporary
relief was thus given to the government, which Avas supposed
would end in its final ruin. The specie that entered the
country was seized as the property of government, which in
return paid the nominal value in Egyptian piastres, that
diminished in value, during my residence of six months in
Egypt, in the proportion of one in seven : having received,
on my arrival, only seven and a quarter; and, on my depart

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