Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

Chap. V.J EXACTIONS. 279

detrimental to some other peasant. Thus, if the
shekh, surveyor, or Copt scribe are bribed, the
donor's field of a hundred acres is measured with
the more accurate and approximate census of
one hundred and five, and the additional ten are
added to the hundred and fifteen of a neighbour;
or the proportion of cotton he is to sow is dimi-
nished ; or he is allowed to carry home an ardeb of
wheat by night from the field he has cultivated for
the granaries of the pasha.

To such an extent are the exactions of the in-
ferior governors carried in Upper Egypt, that if the
government demand for one qantar of butter is to
be raised from the peasants, they do not fail to
increase it to two, or one and a half, the surplus
being appropriated by and divided between them ;
and the nominal ardeb of seed, diminished to three
quarters, must be received without a murmur, and
returned in full to the Efendee of the government
granary. In complaining of the number of persons
who prey upon the fruits of his labours, justly
might the peasant exclaim, " sic vos non vobis
fertis aratra boves ; " and his humorous comparison
of the government of Egypt with the habits of fish,
whose smaller fry serve to feed those of a larger
and more voracious kind, is well known, and aptly
applied to the present system, when every Verres
is enriched by the spoliation of the peasant, from
the mamoor to the mequddem, or beadle of the
lowest governor.