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 oppress the 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 the five districts, and generally captains in the same regiment,) are subordinate. The Bey is again responsible to the Pasha (general) of Khartoom, who is, at the same time, governor of the whole Belled Soodan.[11]

The Bey, or governor, is the superior authority in all civil and military affairs; his decision is peremptory; but, in matters of importance, orders must be received from Khartoom. In judicial cases, the kadi passes judgment, and the governor sees it executed; this, however, is generally a mere blind, to keep up the appearance of a just administration of the law to the people, for every judgment is perfectly arbitrary.

The revenue consists of the ordinary taxes, and in the levy of custom duties, but these are never exacted in proper proportion, or after a fixed scale; for when a contribution is ordered to be levied from Cairo, the country is generally forced to contribute double the amount,—a very natural consequence, when we consider that all the government situations are held by officers, who purchase their commissions from the governor. It is, of course, an understood thing, that one functionary endeavours to outbid the other, in which practice he is encouraged by the knowledge, that he will in time be able to make good his outlay. They certainly cannot reckon on enjoying their privileges for any length of time; for if a person present himself, and pay a few purses of money more, the colonel is not long in finding a cause for turning one of his former employes out of office, and conferring the vacant situation on the new candidate. Every officer, therefore, endeavours to extort as much as he possibly can by oppression, in the shortest possible time, in order to reimburse himself for his expenditure, and to gain something by his bargain. Each casheff, or captain of a district, is provided with a few subordinate officers, who are distributed in the distant localities. These subalterns, and the Sheikhs el Belled, or village magistrates, must occasionally make presents to the casheffs. The sheikhs are by no means thoughtless of themselves; and lastly, the copts, who perform the duties of secretaries, all and every one prey upon the small gains of the poor inhabitants, so that we may easily conceive what the unfortunate people have to suffer. Mehemed Ali, acquainted with the arbitrary proceedings of the governors, and subordinate functionaries, notwithstanding the great distance from the scene of their rapacity, has done everything in his power to put a limit to these impositions. Thus, in the years 1838 and 1839, a greater part of the _employés_ were summoned before a commission of enquiry, and sent into different provinces,—in short, everything was done to bring about a just administration, but all in vain. With the best intentions, the Viceroy was incapable of curing the cancer which preyed upon the bowels of the land; and although, indeed, much of the property, which had been unjustly scraped together,—or we should rather say, the plunder of the government functionaries,—was confiscated; the Viceroy was, in the end, the gainer, not the people. To the latter, nothing is returned; and this restitution, indeed, would be no easy undertaking, inasmuch as the individual sufferers could not be readily found, and Mehemed Ali, moreover, does not trouble himself in the slightest about the matter. It is true that the country swarms with spies, who observe every action of the government officers with great accuracy, and make their reports in a higher quarter; but the state, in these cases, confiscates the plunder, as I have before mentioned, and the poor people receive no indemnification. The interests of the separate functionaries are, moreover, too closely united for the one to place any impediment in the way of the other. The judges are bribed, and a mere deposition, or loss of office, generally terminates the affair. When the detected fraud is, however, too flagitious, the criminated officer is immediately sent into a distant province, and then prosecuted, in order that he may have no opportunity of coming to an understanding with his judges, or accusers. In this case he is certainly lost; but the state confiscates the proceeds of his rapacity, and his successor plunders and extorts again, as much as he possibly can, as long as he can manage to keep his actions secret.

An additional, and chief grievance, is the circumstance of the Viceroy being obliged to treat the governors with the utmost lenity and forbearance; for he knows full well how dangerous it would be to irritate them, and thus, perhaps, to goad them on to rebellion. In one moment the whole Belled Soodan would be lost, and not so easily regained. The troops of the garrison consist of native negroes, who implicitly obey those who give them the most, or merely make them the largest promises, and who more especially treat them with kindness. The country in general detests the Viceroy, believing him to be the cause of all the oppression under which it groans, as it considers all the acts of injustice, under which it has to suffer, to be perpetrated by his orders. In case of a governor, therefore, rebelling against the government, the whole province would instantly attach itself to his faction, if he merely released them of a portion of their taxation. To re-conquer the country by force of arms would be a more difficult matter than it was twenty years ago; we know what resistance the negroes of Kordofan and Sennaar offered the Turks, when armed with spears and swords only; and at present, there are 15,000 muskets in the arsenal at Khartoom, which would give the insurgents no small advantage. Mehemed Ali knows all this very well, and acts very wisely in conciliating the governors: the authority of the latter is, therefore, virtually far greater than that of the Viceroy, and most wofully do they use it to their advantage; for, with few exceptions, they exert unlimited power, are masters over life and death, as also over the property of the people. A code of laws has certainly been instituted, but these are totally disregarded, and in every case will is law. Judgment is sometimes even passed according to the whim or fancy of the individual in the most unjustifiable manner. During my residence in this country, I had the opportunity of convincing myself of this fact.

A Turk, who travelled with a large quantity of goods, was murdered in the desert of Bahiouda,[12] and robbed of his property. All investigations and endeavours to detect the murderer proved fruitless; thus much was, however, subsequently discovered, that the goods had been sold at Darfour, and it was suspected that the perpetrator of the crime was secreted in Kordofan. Several persons were taken into custody, and examined, but in vain; the delinquent could not be discovered. A prophetess, who, by casting a handful of shells on the sand, pretended to be able to look into futurity, and to explain the past, arrived, by means of her mystic art, at the conclusion, that the son of the Sheikh of Haraza was the murderer. The result of her sorcery was imparted to the governor, Mohammed Bey, in conversation over a pipe of tobacco. The governor, a man of weak mind, who placed more confidence in the idle talk of an old woman, than in common sense, gave credence to this tale, and had the man accused instantly arrested, and conducted by a party of soldiers to Lobeid; he was then loaded with irons, and cast into prison; whereupon the investigation immediately took place. Although he asserted that he was at that time in quite a different place, and was able to corroborate this statement by witnesses, the testimony of a fortune-teller was regarded as better evidence, and the unfortunate man was subjected to the most cruel tortures to force a confession from him. He was bound, by order of the governor, hand and foot, close to a large fire, whence a soldier took a burning branch, and burnt his body; he received twenty wounds, and not until he writhed like a worm with pain and anger did the governor put a stop to the cruelty. The true criminal was shortly after this discovered, and the son of the Sheikh, who had been so frightfully tortured, was now proved to be innocent; but no one could alleviate his sufferings, and any further compensation was totally out of the question.

When an individual is guilty of any offence, the examination generally takes place as soon as he is arrested, judgment is quickly passed, and instantly executed. Two circumstances are, however, necessary for the conviction of the party accused,—namely, detection in the act, or confession. If he plead not guilty, and deny the charge, he is submitted to torture, and thus it frequently happens that the innocent suffer for the guilty.

Stealing a slave, an ox, a camel, an ass, &c., is punished by the loss of a hand. The judgment is executed by the first butcher casually met with in the streets. The delinquent is ordered to lay his hand upon a block, in which situation it is held down by two men: the butcher then chops it off. The stump is immediately thrust into a vessel containing butter, heated nearly to the boiling point, which stands in readiness, for the purpose of stopping hæmorrhage, and preventing mortification, and the limb is then enveloped in a rag. In the course of ten minutes all is over, and the sufferer returns home.

Murder, with the exception of negroes, is of very rare occurrence. One single instance of this crime occurred in the year 1838; the murderer was detected, and, after a short examination, hung on a gibbet erected in front of the house of the governor. In praise of Mehemed Ali, it must be stated that there is not at present that danger for an European travelling through the country as was the case during the time it was under the government of Darfour, when no Djelabi could venture to undertake a journey into this province, excepting under the protection of a considerable escort. At present, any person may traverse the country from one end to the other without fear. I myself, on nearly all occasions, travelled alone, or merely accompanied by my servant, and never met with the slightest delay from robberies, or other hinderances; on the contrary, I was everywhere received with the utmost hospitality and courtesy,—the more so when it became gradually known that I was no Turk, although of white colour, but a Frank.

Cases of petty larceny are of frequent occurrence; for thieving is almost a congenital vice with many of the negroes. What they see they wish to possess, and if it be not given to them freely, they will watch their opportunity of appropriating it to themselves; but we never find several persons conspiring together to commit a robbery.

A single mountain,—“Mount Dyre,” inhabited by negroes, who have not yet been brought to submission, is to be dreaded; for these people live solely by plunder and robbery. They make incursions into the neighbouring country in large bodies, even to Milbes, situate at three hours’ march from Lobeid, and steal and rob everything that comes in their way, both men and cattle, which they either use for their own purposes, or sell to others, The Djelabi, and other travellers, avoid this hill, by making a great circuit, in order to escape the negroes of “Dyre.”

The jurisdiction over the offences and crimes of slaves, is an affair _sui generis_. This class of beings is not looked upon, or treated as men, but as cattle. The master of a slave acts as judge in cases of offences, which the one or the other may commit in his house. If one slave murder or stab the other, the proprietor must bear the loss, if both the slaves be his property; and he can merely punish the criminal, or sell him, if he please. In this case, the affair is regarded in the same light as when, in Europe, one horse kills the other, both belonging to the same owner. If, on the other hand, the murdered slave be the property of another, the proprietor of the murderer must make the loss good; and only if he refuse, or offer too little, proceedings at law are entered upon,—not a criminal process for murder, but a suit for damages. Only in case a slave murder a free man, is he ever brought to trial, and executed according to sentence.

The revenue is collected partly in money, partly in kind, _i. e._, in products, or slaves; there is no systematic arrangement in the mode in which the contribution is levied; the governor fixes the rate, and it is the duty of the casheffs, and Sheikhs-el Belled, to collect it. Whosoever is suspected of possessing any treasure is forced to give it up, or his cattle, or other property, is taken away from him by force. In the year 1838, the country was obliged to contribute, in addition to the imposts in money, beside cattle, butter, and slaves, 4,000 ardeb[13] (about 118,000 sacks) of doura,[14] or millet; and the Bakkara nomadic tribes, 12,000 oxen, and kine. Cattle is only received from the villagers when they cannot produce cash; a large ox is then taken by the government to the value of 35 piaster, (3 fl., 30 kr., C.M.; about 9 shillings sterling). During several years, 8,000 heads of horned cattle were annually sent to Cairo, the greater part of which perished on the road. The government have now had their eyes opened to the absurdity of driving beasts so great a distance, and the transport of cattle to Cairo has consequently ceased; they are now only driven to Khartoom. The cash received as revenue proceeds from taxes, duties, the sale of slaves, and other produce of the country. It is impossible to describe the cruelty with which the taxes and contributions are collected; and it is really wonderful that it should be yet possible to drain a country, where so little trade is carried on, of such large sums annually. But this state of things cannot last long; for the ready money decreases with every year, and the trade of the country is scarcely worthy of consideration. The people will, in fact, eventually be obliged to emigrate, as they have already from several parts, or a general insurrection will be the result; this revolution would, indeed, have taken place in 1838, if a leader had been forthcoming. Droughts, or excess of rains, may cause the harvest, in many districts, to fail, or the locusts may totally devour it; the cattle, moreover, may fall a prey to epidemic diseases; but none of these circumstances are ever taken into consideration, and the contributions are levied without mercy or compassion. In the year 1838, the inhabitants of several villages, were forced, in consequence of an unsuccessful harvest, to take refuge in a forest, and to live upon the fruit of a tree, called Egelit, and on milk; but the government knew very well where to find them, and took away all their cattle. When a village has nothing left wherewith to pay its taxes, it is obliged to find a certain number of slaves, who are drafted as recruits into the various regiments, or publicly sold; in the former case, the government receives these slaves at a value of 150 to 300 piasters, (15 to 30 fl., C.M.; from 30 shillings to £3 10s.) a-head; children at 30 piasters, or more; but always below the market price, in order that Mehemed Ali, the great slave-merchant, may gain something by the bargain, at the expense of his oppressed subjects. A great portion of the imposts is even now paid in slaves; and on these occasions truly revolting scenes frequently take place. Should it ever happen that Mehemed Ali puts an end to slave-hunting, as he has confidently promised, he would yet remain the most extensive slave-merchant, because he endeavours to cover his revenues by slaves, and receives them in lieu of money. It is, indeed, much easier in this country to find a slave than a dollar of ready money; and this state of things is rather on the increase than on the decrease. With what right, may I ask, is Mehemed Ali called, by many Europeans, the civilizer of his country, when we have ample proof of his forcing his people to steal slaves, in order to be able to satisfy his claims as regent! Many of these subjects meet with an untimely end in these expeditions; for the negroes defend their freedom most stubbornly. If a native of Kordofan lose his father, his brother, or his friend, in one of these private depredatory excursions, he lays the blame on the free negroes, and endeavours to revenge the death of his relative; he becomes cruel, and, lastly, stains himself with the crime of murder, whilst the blame is due to no one but Mehemed Ali, the great slave-trader. Even if it were really ever to happen, that the transport of slaves to Cairo should cease, I have a strong suspicion that those slaves which Mehemed Ali receives in Kordofan, and elsewhere, in payment of imposts, would be sold to the Djelabi, to be transported into Arabia, to which country thousands are being daily sent.

As far as my observations went during my sojourn in this country, and it is an opinion of the correctness of which I had the opportunity of convincing myself in a great measure, there are many sources in the state to cover its revenue, without proceeding to such extreme and inhuman measures as slave-hunting or slave-trading. The sugar-cane grows here without cultivation and thrives exceedingly. The soil is, in many situations, well adapted to the growth of indigo, and the country would yield many other products, if the experiment were made, and water were not so scarce as it is in many situations. Although the White Nile flows close to the confines of the province, yet the water of this river could not be rendered serviceable for the irrigation of Kordofan by means of a canal, for the excavation of the bed would cost millions of money, and the country is so elevated that a simple canal would not answer the purpose. No less than twenty thousand heads of horned cattle might, with ease, be annually sent to Egypt, for there is no lack of pasturage; but the transport of cattle should be intrusted to the care of more sensible people than it has been hitherto, who have acted entirely on their own discretion. Mehemed Ali has, further, not yet made an attempt to derive any benefit from the large forests of gum trees in Nubia. They might be a source of great profit to the state, and would prove far more productive than those contemptible and atrocious slave-hunts. He need only employ the tenth part of those troops whose services are required in these abominable excursions as inspectors in collecting the gum, and allow the negroes of Nubia small wages, as is done in Kordofan; both the state and the people would in this way gain, and the negroes would enjoy their liberty; their confidence in the government would be augmented, when they came to understand that they were treated as a free people and not as slaves; trade, commerce, and agriculture would, by this measure, receive a stimulus and improve; and every man would with pleasure engage in an undertaking whence a small profit might be expected, because he would not have to tremble for his freedom and his life. The mountains of Nubia might yield from ten to twenty thousand cantari[15] of gum of the best quality annually; and Mehemed Ali would soon find out, that he could with as much ease obtain two cantari of gum as one slave, and that the acquisition would be attended with less expense.

The governors and government functionaries look upon Kordofan as their private property, and, regarding the inhabitants as slaves, treat them as such, in every sense of the word; thus the country is subjected to every possible species of extortion. In the year 1838, Mehemed Ali determined to undertake a journey to Sennaar. Many cases of oppression had probably reached his ears which were likely to lead to proceedings, and might prove productive of considerable sums. On his arrival at Khartoom, he summoned the chief sheikhs of Kordofan into his presence, and listened to the complaints of his subjects. On accurate investigation, and where he was convinced of unlawful actions he had the guilty party immediately prosecuted. Thus the governor of Kordofan was deposed, and all the staff-officers, with nine other officers and copts, were brought to trial. Much property which had been illegally acquired was certainly confiscated; but, as I have before observed, Mehemed Ali was, in the end, the sole gainer by this measure, and not the people. On his departure, the former arbitrary system prevailed; he left, indeed, strict orders with the governor and other government officers, rigorously prohibiting them from indulging in cruelties, but these measures were insufficient to mitigate the evil. Mehemed Ali was, on this occasion, cunning enough, in travelling to Fazoglo, to liberate a convoy of slaves he casually met on the road, who had but a few days before left their native hills;—but why? Because several Europeans were in his suite. No such orders were left in Kordofan; the stipulated number of five thousand slaves were delivered to a man. I was the only European at that time in Kordofan, and the governor condescended to request that I would not mention this circumstance in Europe. The country, in fine, could only be relieved and gradually raised from its present degraded state, by sending a governor to Kordofan who would act, not upon private interest, but on the interests of the state and people: in fact, as a man, as well as a diplomatist.