The direct taxes on land are proportioned to the natural advantages of the soil. Their average amount is about 8_s._ per feddán, which is nearly equal to an English acre.[228] But the cultivator can never calculate exactly the full amount of what the government will require of him: he suffers from indirect exactions of quantities (differing in different years, but always levied per feddán) of butter, honey, wax, wool, baskets of palm-leaves, ropes of the fibres of the palm-tree, and other commodities: he is also obliged to pay the hire of the camels which convey his grain to the government shooneh (or granary), and to defray various other expenses. A portion of the produce of his land is taken by the government,[229] and sometimes the whole produce, at a fixed and fair price, which, however, in many parts of Egypt, is retained to make up for the debts of the insolvent peasants.[230] The felláh, to supply the bare necessaries of life, is often obliged to steal, and convey secretly to his hut, as much as he can of the produce of his land. He may either himself supply the seed for his land, or obtain it as a loan from the government: but in the latter case he seldom obtains a sufficient quantity, a considerable portion being generally stolen by the persons through whose hands it passes before he receives it. To relate all the oppressions which the peasantry of Egypt endure from the dishonesty of the Mamoors and inferior officers would require too much space in the present work. It would be scarcely possible for them to suffer more, and live. It may be hardly necessary, therefore, to add, that few of them engage, with assiduity, in the labours of agriculture, unless compelled to do so by their superiors. The Básha has not only taken possession of the lands of the private proprietors, but he has also thrown into his treasury a considerable proportion of the incomes of religious and charitable institutions, deeming their accumulated wealth superfluous. He first imposed a tax (of nearly half the amount of the regular land-tax) upon all land which had become a “wakf” (or legacy unalienable by law) to any mosque, fountain, public school, etc.; and afterwards took absolute possession of such lands, granting certain annuities in lieu of them, for keeping in repair the respective buildings, and for the maintenance of those persons attached to them, as Názirs (or wardens), religious ministers, inferior servants, students, and other pensioners. He has thus rendered himself extremely odious to most persons of the religious and learned professions, and especially to the Názirs of the mosques, who too generally enriched themselves from the funds intrusted to their care, which were, in most cases, superabundant. The _household_ property of the mosques and other public institutions (the wakfs of numerous individuals of various ranks) the Básha has hitherto left inviolate.