Burckhardt, John Lewis, 1784-1817; Nile River Valley -- Description and travel; Nubia -- Description and travel
I found Daoud Kashef, the son of Hosseyn Kashef, encamped with a
party of men at Dehmyt, in huts constructed of Dhourra[4] stalks. I
alighted at his own hut, and breakfasted there, informing him,
that I was sent on business to his father and uncles. The governors
of Nubia are continually moving from one part of their dominions
to another, to collect the tribute from their subjects, and are
always accompanied by a guard of forty or fifty men, in order to
levy it by force, wherever necessary, and to be the better able to
commit depredations. On the night preceding my arrival at Dehmyt,
a Nubian came to me at Sak el Djemel, to complain of Daoud’s
tyranny; it had been reported to the latter, that this man, with
his family, was secretly indulging in bread made from wheat, a
sufficient proof of great wealth. Daoud’s people, in consequence,
surrounded his house during the night, and demanded from him a
camel, as a present to their master: on his refusal to comply,
they attacked the house; and as the owner had no near neighbours,
he in vain attempted to defend himself: he was severely wounded,
and the whole of his property fell a prey to the aggressors. Daoud
was but poorly equipped; he was dressed in the common white shirt
of the country. He asked me for some gunpowder,[5] and, on my
telling him that the supply I had of that article was scarcely
sufficient for myself, he did not appear at all offended by the
refusal. Several hundred peasants were assembled round the camp,
with herds of cows and sheep, with which they pay their land tax.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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