Note 67 — JOURNEY ALONG THE BANKS OF THE NILE. (continued 3)

The quantity of dates imported from Nubia, by way of Assouan, into Egypt varies, according to the harvest, from fifteen hundred to two thousand Erdebs annually; every Erdeb weighing about two hundred weight. The freight from Assouan to Cairo is five piastres per Erdeb, from each of which the governor of Assouan takes half a piastre, as transit duty. The date trade, which is extremely profitable, is now, for the greater part, in the hands of the government.