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has at present; his cavalry and artillery having always been Turks, and organized after the Turkish fashion.

Remarkable as the condition of Mohammed Ali's army is, when compared with all other troops in Turkey, it is far less astonishing than other improvements which he has introduced in Egypt. This extraordinary man has appropriated to himself, as his own property, most of the soil of the country. Moreover, he assumes an absolute monopoly of all the productions of Egypt, which are exported and sold in his name. Not only is he pacha of Egypt, but he is the greatest and only landlord, merchant, and manufacturer. Previous to his obtaining the government, there was not a manufactory, nor even any of the commonest European machinery, in Egypt. Mohammed Ali has erected a large number of cotton manufactories, besides having all the ordinary implements and machinery, which are found in Europe. Add to these facts, that he has constructed many public works of magnitude, among which is a canal from the Nile to Alexandria, and we shall have some idea of the plans and proceedings of Mohammed Ali for the improvement of Egypt.

But all things have been accomplished, with such total disregard of the welfare of his people in the

conception, and such atrocious tyranny in the execution, that it is impossible either to esteem Mohammed Ali, or to expect that his arrangements will outlast his life. The Egyptians are depressed to the lowest degree of wretchedness, by the weight of taxes and conscription; and their condition cannot be materially raised, so long as the pacha's monopoly of the commerce and manufactures, and his ambition of foreign conquest, keep the people in absolute and hopeless indigence. In all his designs, their lives and well being are accounted as nothing. Thus he employed 313,000 men in constructing the canal of Alexandria, immense numbers of whom perished from ill treatment, want of provi sions, and excessive fatigue. They were set to work without suitable implements for excavating the earth, which they were obliged to dig incessantly, and with their hands, by the merciless soldiers employed as guards. No magazines of provisions had been formed for their subsistence. So fatal were these hardships, that, for the space of two months, two hundred of these wretched men perished daily.

Nothing, it is manifest, but the talents, energy, and personal influence of Mohammed Ali himself, can reconcile the improvements of refined life with such cruel op

pressions. Nor is the duration of his power much to be desired. Miserable and distracted as Egypt was under the mamelukes, we believe that the semi-civilized despotism of Mohammed Ali is a greater curse to the country. And who, that contemplates the ferocious tyranny of his government, can fail to deprecate the extension of it

over the classic lands of Greece? Most fervently do we pray that, instead of such a consummation, the fertile regions which now groan under the Turkish yoke, if they cannot become independent, may pass under the dominion of some Christian power, capable of redeeming them from desolation.

LOCAL HISTORY,

AND

DOMESTIC OCCURRENCES.

FOR THE YEARS 1825-6.

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