The Contemporary Review, January 1883

Second. Wakoof lands dedicated to the maintenance of holy places at Mecca, or to charitable institutions and sacred sanctuaries.

Third. Mulk, or freehold property. This is subdivided into four categories, which I need not enumerate. Such lands are owned and cultivated by private individuals, without payment to the Government. The owners of such lands are free to dispose of them as they please, and at their deaths they pass to their descendants in accordance with the rules of inheritance prescribed by Mohammedan law.

Fourth. Waste lands.

Fifth. Lands abandoned through non-cultivation.

The above classification has the advantage of being theoretically simple, and easily understood by the people; and the different items of taxation, as laid down by law, cannot be said to be onerous. The following are the chief heads:—

Verghi.—A rate of four per mil., as stated above.

Ushr.—A tenth of the produce of the soil. This is sometimes raised to 12½ per cent., and in the manner in which it is collected it sometimes amounts to 20 or 30 per cent.

Income Tax.—Which amounts to 3 per cent. on the estimated income of those engaged in trade.

Military Exoneration Tax.—Payable by Jews, Christians, and other non-Moslems, at the rate of £T.50 for every 182 males of all ages. There is a new law limiting this payment to males between the ages of 15 and 60, but it has not yet come into operation.

Military Exemption Tax.—Payable by Moslems who are drawn by conscription, but wish to escape service, at the rate of £T.50 each.

Tax on the Registration of Real Property.

Sheep and Goat Tax of sixpence per head (3 piastres).

Besides these there are stamp duties:—auction fees of 2½ per cent., fees on contracts of 2½ per cent., on sale of all animals 2½ per cent., on recovery of debts 3 per cent., on transfer of real estate 1 per cent.; import duties of 8 per cent., export duties of 1 per cent., and a charge of 8 per cent. on all native produce and manufactures when carried by sea from one part of the Turkish Empire to another. There are also the duties on tobacco, liquors, salt, &c. In addition to these Vice-Consul Jago, in his Commercial Report, dated Beyrout, July 11, 1876, gives a summary of seventeen agricultural burdens, which are worthy of the consideration of all who feel disposed to embark in agriculture in Syria under its present rulers.

IV. European emigrants, on landing in Syria, would find themselves in an unhealthy climate. The whole of the first batch of German settlers, and a very large number of the American emigrants who preceded them, fell victims to the fevers of the country. Captain Conder, referring to the difficulties of the German colonists, says:—

"There are other reasons which militate against the idea of the final success of the Colony. The Syrian climate is not adapted to Europeans, and year by year it must infallibly tell on the Germans, exposed as they are to sun and miasma. It is true that Haifa is, perhaps, the healthiest place in Palestine, yet even here they suffer from fever and dysentery, and if they should attempt to spread inland, they will find their difficulties from climate increase tenfold."66

The privations and discomforts of Syrian peasant life would be intolerable to European emigrants. The men would work by day under a blistering sun, and sleep at night the centre of attraction for sand-flies and mosquitoes, and all the other nameless tormentors that leap and bite. Mr. Oliphant speaks feelingly of a night spent at Kefr Assad:—

"No sooner had the sounds of day died away, and the family and our servants gone to roost, than a pack of jackals set up that plaintive and mournful wail by which they seem to announce to the world that they are in a starving condition. They came so close to the village that all the dogs in it set up a furious barking. This woke the baby, of whose vocal powers we had been till then unaware. Fleas and mosquitoes innumerable seemed to take advantage of the disturbed state of things generally to make a combined onslaught. Vainly did I thrust my hands into my socks, tie handkerchiefs round my face and neck, and so arrange the rest of my night attire as to leave no opening by which they could crawl in. Our necks and wrists especially seemed circled with rings of fire. Anything like the number and voracity of the fleas of that 'happy village' I have never, during a long and varied intimacy with the insect, experienced."67

These experiences were made near the troglodyte village es-Sal; and as Mr. Oliphant peeped into the subterranean dwellings and dark caves, with a view to his colonization company, he exclaimed,

"Indeed, there is probably no country in the world where an immigrant population would find such excellent shelter all ready prepared for them, or where they could step into the identical abodes which had been vacated by their occupants at least 1,500 years ago, and use the same doors and windows."68

It is just possible, however, that emigrants might not care to have their necks and wrists circled with rings of fire, and their bodies covered with swarms of loathsome insects, for the romantic delights of living in underground dens that had not been occupied for 1,500 years.

Mr. Oliphant's scheme only contemplates Jewish emigrants, to whom such conditions would not be altogether novel.

"I should not," he says, "expect men to come from England or France, but from European and Asiatic Turkey itself, as well as from Russia, Galicia, Roumania, Servia, and the Slav countries."

He has, however, his eye on the whole Jewish race throughout the world when he says:—

"As the area of land which I should propose, in the first instance, for colonization would not exceed a million, or, at most, a million and a half acres, it would be hard if, out of nearly 7,000,000 of people attached to it by the tradition of former possession, enough could not be found to subscribe a capital of £1,000,000, or even more, for its purchase and settlement, and if, out of that number, a selection of emigrants could not be made, possessing sufficient capital of their own to make them desirable colonists."69

This article is not a review of Mr. Oliphant's interesting book, and therefore I shall not follow him into the details of his colonization scheme, where he narrows it, first, to Oriental Jews exclusively, and second to the elevation of such Jews into petty landlords.

"It has been objected," he says, "that the Jews are not agriculturists, and that any attempts to develop the agricultural resources of the country through their instrumentality must result in failure. In the first instance, it is rather as landed proprietors than as labourers on the soil, that I should invite them to emigrate into Palestine, where they could lease their own land at high prices to native farmers if they preferred, instead of lending money on crops at 20 or 25 per cent. to the peasants, as they do at present."70

This is the point to which Mr. Oliphant's fine enthusiasm dwindles down—the floating of a joint-stock company, limited, with one million sterling capital, for the purpose of transforming into "landed proprietors" a number of Oriental Jews, who would neither have the heart to work themselves nor the skill to direct the labour of others. Those who have read modern history, or political economy, will not require an elaborate exposure of a scheme which aims at setting up in Gilead, under the guise of philanthropy, the rack-renting and ornamental landlording which have received such severe rebukes in Europe. We refer to the general outline of Mr. Oliphant's fascinating scheme, inasmuch as he has reduced to practical shape what others vaguely theorize about.

He gives us a map of the proposed colony, connected by railways and tram-cars with the outer world. It embraces "the plains of Moab and the land of Gilead," from the Jabok to the Annon. I know the country well. It is even more beautiful and fertile than Mr. Oliphant describes it to be. It is impossible to pass through it without the constant thought of what it might be in the hands of an Anglo-Saxon race. Mr. Oliphant was struck with the beauty of the girls of Ajlun, one of whom tried in vain to remove the vermin from his blankets. Dr. Thomson and I lay on a grassy slope, a whole afternoon, at the village of es-Souf, watching the children pelting each other with flowers, and we both agreed that we had never seen an assemblage of merrier or lovelier children. "I cannot make them out," said Dr. Thomson, with unwonted enthusiasm; "they seem to be English children."

Supposing the land for the proposed colony were secured, on Mr. Oliphant's plan, partly by judicious bribing at Constantinople, and partly by buying out the interest of the present proprietors, and that the undertaking proved to be the "sound and practical scheme containing all the elements of success" which its promoters predict—the very success of the colony would expose the colonists to a great and terrible danger. Travellers must have noticed that the fellahîn cultivate their fields with long guns slung over their shoulders, and an armoury of pistols and daggers in their belts. Why is this? Because, as the proverb, tested by experience, has it—"A Turkish judge may be bribed by three eggs, two of them rotten; and a fellah may be murdered for his jacket without a button upon it."

Mr. Oliphant came upon Circassians re-occupying deserted villages in the midst of the Bedawîn, and he takes the fact as "valuable evidence that the problem of colonization by a foreign element, so far as the Arabs are concerned, is by no means insoluble."71 He seems to forget that the traveller with empty pockets may whistle in the face of the highwayman. The Circassians are settling in abandoned villages by the wish of the authorities. They have the deep sympathy of all Moslems on account of their sufferings. Besides, they have nothing to lose which would compensate the Bedawîn for the alienation of the Turkish Government.

The case would be far different with a rich and prosperous colony of foreigners supported by foreign capital.

In his hurried tour beyond Jordan, Mr. Oliphant came upon the Fudl Arabs with 2,000 fighting men, and in their midst a colony of 300 Circassians. In another place he came on a colony of 3,000 Circassians in the midst of the Naïm Arabs, who muster 4,000 fighting men. "The Anezeh Arabs, who control," he says, "an area of about 40,000 square miles, and who can bring over 100,000 horsemen and camel-drivers into the field," would be on the borders of the colony, and the Druzes, who are born warriors, and who inhabit Jebel-ed-Druze, he places at 50,000. Besides these there are the Beni Sukhr, and other local tribes, whose fanaticism and cupidity would be moved by the presence of a prosperous colony of foreigners.

On April 12, 1875, Dr. Thomson and I started from Der'a in a southwesterly direction over wavy hills covered with splendid wheat, the sides of the way ablaze with anemones. As we approached Remthey, we saw what in the miragy atmosphere seemed a row of trees fifteen or twenty miles long. I had been over the path before, and I was struck with this new feature in the landscape. Soon it seemed to us that the line, as far as we could see, was in motion, and as we approached closer to it, we found that it was composed of camels. We spurred our horses, and soon we found ourselves by the side of the great living stream of the Wuld 'Aly Arabs moving from the Arabian Desert to the pastures of Jaulan. The procession marched six or seven abreast, and in families of from 20 to 150. The camels had curious baskets fixed on their humps, and in these were stowed women and children, and kids and dogs, while cooking utensils were hung all round the baskets, and by the sides of their dams trotted little baby camels. The stream flowed past silent and orderly, with here and there a spearman riding by the side of his family. At short intervals flocks of sheep and goats marched parallel with the living stream.

A party of Arab horsemen were reclining on a little hill with their spears stuck in the ground watching their people pass. We rode up to them, and their chief received us with great courtesy, and urged us to await the arrival of the cavalry with the Sheikh, to whom I had once done a favour which they remembered. We remained about an hour, and still the stream flowed past. The Arabs told us they had begun to move at an early hour, and would continue on the march for days, and as far as we could see, looking north and south, the procession was without break or pause. They told us they could bring into the field 100,000 fighting men, and their people, they said, was "like the sand of the sea." Never before or since have I seen such a swarm of human beings—"a multitude that no man could number." Any trans-Jordanic colony would have to calculate on the proximity of this horde, whose power has never been broken, not even by Joshua nor Ibrahîm Pasha, and whose rule in their own land is supreme in virtue of their resistless might. Even the Turkish Government bribe the Arabs in this region to let the Mohammedan pilgrims pass to Mecca! How much black-mail would the prosperous colony of infidels have to pay for permission to exist in the land of the faithful? And supposing arrangements could be made to secure the tolerance of the Bedawîn, there would still remain the Druzes and Circassians, and local sub-tribes and aggrieved fellahîn, who would form combinations to which an agricultural colony could offer no effective resistance.

Mr. Oliphant speaks of driving the Arabs "back across the Hadj road, where a small cordon of soldiers, posted in the forts which now exist upon it, would be sufficient to keep them in check." Turkish soldiers would not be the slightest protection to a prosperous colony of infidels, nor would a small cordon of any soldiers suffice, should the colony ever become a tempting prize.

In the spring of 1874, a small party of us were returning from Palmyra, and a few miles beyond Karyetein we passed close by a desperate battle in progress between the Giath and Amour Arabs, and a powerful caravan proceeding from Baghdad to Damascus. The camels of the caravan were formed into a circular rampart, the head of one camel being made fast to the next; and from behind this living rampart the hardy villagers, who were bringing provisions for their families from beyond the Euphrates, defended themselves throughout a long summer day—the sound of the battle being distinctly heard by the Turkish garrison at Karyetein. The Bedawîn galloped round the circle, making a feint here and an attack there until the villagers were worn out and their ammunition exhausted. Near sunset a wounded camel staggered and fell, and broke the line. The circle opened out and became a crescent. Quick as lightning the Bedawîn rushed in at the breach, the camels fled in panic in all directions, and the wiry Arabs with their flashing spears decided the victory in a few minutes. I had full details of the fight afterwards from the victors and the vanquished. The Bedawîns took possession of 120 loads of butter, and a large amount of tobacco, dates, Persian carpets, horses, mules, and camels, valued at £4,000. All the caravan people, dead and alive, were stripped naked in the desert. What did the Bedawîn do with 120 loads of butter? They had it brought into Damascus and sold publicly. What did the Bedawîn do with the splendid carpets from the looms of Persia and Cashmere? They distributed them among their powerful friends in Damascus, in return for efficient protection, and some of the best found their way into the gorgeous saloons of those whose duty it was to administer justice. One of my friends found three of his camels in the hands of the robbers' friends, and though he got several orders from the Government for the restoration of his property, he could never get them carried out. The above incident, of which I have complete details, may be interesting to those who have any idea of entrusting their lives and property to the Bedawîn hordes and the protecting Turk.

And what is true of the land of Gilead is true of all lands bordering the Desert. In the north-east of Syria there is as fine a peasantry as is to be found anywhere. They are handsome and courteous, though picturesque in rags. They are thrifty and frugal, but penniless and starving. They are comparatively truthful and honest, but without credit or resources. They have broad acres which only require to be scratched and they bring forth sixty-fold; but they cultivate little patches surrounded with mud walls and within range of their matchlocks. During the greater part of the year these poor people dare not walk over their own fields for fear of being stripped of their tattered rags. And yet these are the most heavily taxed peasantry in the world. They pay black-mail to the Bedawîn, who plunder them notwithstanding; and they pay taxes to the Turks, who give them no protection. The Bedawîn enforce their claims by cutting off the ears of any straggling villagers from defaulting villages, who fall within their power, and by carrying off for ransom a number of village children into the Desert. The Turks enforce their claims by imprisoning the Sheikhs of the villages till they have paid the uttermost farthing. With protection and fair government, the peasantry of Northern Syria would be among the happiest in the world. But in their land, what the Turkish caterpillar leaves the Bedawy locust devours.

From the foregoing remarks it is evident that the agricultural resources of Syria and Palestine are very great, and capable, under good government, of being largely developed: that the difficulties encountered by those who invest capital in land in Syria and Palestine are such as to deter immigrants from embarking in agricultural enterprises under Turkish rule in that land: and that immigrants in Syria and Palestine would be exposed to great personal dangers, which would increase in proportion to the success of their labours.