Smoking nargyles, or the Persian pipe, is as general here as at Mekka; common pipes are more in use here than in other parts of the Hedjaz, the climate being colder. The use of coffee is immoderate. In the gardens fruit can be bought with coffee-beans as well as with
[p.386] money; and the fondness for tea in England and Holland is not equal to that of the Arabians for coffee.
The people of Medina keep no horses. Except those of the Sheikh el Haram, and a few of his suite, I believe there is not one horse kept in this town. In general, these parts of Arabia are poor in horses, because there is no fine pasture for them: the Bedouins to the N. and E. of the town, in the Desert, have, on the contrary, large breeds. The gardens of Medina might afford pasturage; and formerly, when there were warlike individuals in the town, horses were kept by them, and expeditions planned against Bedouins with whom they happened to be at war. At present the spirit of the Medinans is more pacific; and the few horses yet kept when the Wahabys captured the town, were immediately sold by their owners, to escape the military conscription to which principally the horsemen in the Wahaby dominions were subjected. Some of the richer families kept mules, and also dromedaries. Asses are very common, especially among the cultivators, who bring to town upon them the produce of their fields. They are of a smaller breed than those of Mekka and the Hedjaz. The wants of the Turkish army had caused a great diminution in the number of camels formerly kept by the cultivators, who sold them, under the apprehension of their being placed in requisition. The Bedouins of the eastern Desert, at three or four days journey from the town, are rich in camels; a strolling party of the horsemen of Tousoun Pasha sent in, during my stay, seven hundred of them, which they had taken from a single encampment of the Beni Hetym tribe.
It is not unworthy of remark, that Medina, as far as I know, is the only town in the East from which dogs are excluded: they are never permitted to pass the gate into the interior, but must remain in the suburbs. I was told that the watchmen of the different quarters assemble once a year to drive out any of those animals that might have crept unperceived into the town. The apprehension of a dog entering the mosque, and polluting its sanctity, probably gave rise to their exclusion; they are, however, tolerated at Mekka.
Among the sheep of this neighbourhood, a small species is noticed with a white and brown spotted skin; the same species is likewise
[p.387] known about Mekka. It is of a diminutive size: they are bought up by foreigners, and carried home with them as rarities from the Holy Land. At Cairo they are kept in the houses of the grandees, who cause them to be painted red, with henna, and hang a collar with little bells round their necks, to amuse the children.
I believe the people of Medina have no other times of public rejoicing than the regular feast-days, except the Mouled el Naby or Prophets birth-day, on the twelfth of the month of Rabya el Thany. This is considered a national festival: all the shops are shut during the day, and every one appears in his best dress. Early in the morning the olemas and a number of well-dressed people assemble in the mosque, where one of the Khatybs, after a short sermon, reads an account of Mohammeds actions, from his birth to his death; after which the company, at least the chief people present, are treated with lemonade, or liquorice-water. The zealous Muselmans pass the night preceding this day in prayer. The lady of Mohammed Aly Pasha, who, having performed the pilgrimage to Mekka, came here to visit the tomb, and see her son Tousoun Pasha, passed the greater part of the night in devotion at the mosque: when she returned to a house she had taken for that purpose, close by the gate of the mosque, her son paid her a short visit, and then left her to repose, while he himself ordered a carpet to be spread in the middle of the street, and there slept, at the threshold of his mothers dwelling; offering a testimony of respect and humility which does as much honour to the son, as to the character of the mother who could inspire him with such sentiments. The wife of Mohammed Aly is a highly respectable woman, and very charitable without ostentation. Her son Tousoun I believe to be the only one of the family, whose breast harbours any noble feeling; the rest are corrupted by the numerous vices inseparable from a Turkish grandee: but he has given, in many instances, proofs of elevated sentiment; and even his enemies cannot deny his valour, generosity, filial love, and good-nature. We must regret, that he is as much inferior in intellect to his father and his brother Ibrahim, as he is superior to them in moral character. His mother had appeared here with all the pomp of an eastern queen: from her donations to the temple, and to
[p.388] the poor, she was regarded by the people as an angel sent from heaven. She brought to her son presents to the value of about twenty- five thousand pounds sterling, among which were remarked twelve complete suits, including every article of dress, from the finest Cashmere shawl down to the slippers; a diamond ring worth five thousand pounds; and two beautiful Georgian slaves. In her retinue there was also a Georgian slave of great beauty and rare accomplishments, whom Mohammed Aly had lately married at Mekka; but as she had not yet borne any children, she was considered much inferior in rank to Tousouns mother, who counted three Pashas as her own sons. [Ismayl Pasha is the younger brother of the two mentioned above. It is reported that Ibrahim Pasha is not the son of Mohammed Aly, but was adopted by him when he married his mother, then the widow of an Aga of Karala, on the Hellespont, the native town of the present Pasha of Egypt.] This slave had belonged to the Kadhy of Mekka, who brought her from Constantinople. Mohammed Aly, who had heard his own women praise her beauty and accomplishments, obliged the Kadhy, much against his will, to part with her for the sum of fifty thousand piastres, and soon after presented her with the marriage contract.
I can say little of any customs peculiar to the Medinans, having had so few opportunities of mixing with them. I may, however, mention, that in the honours they pay to the dead, they do not comply with the general rules observed in the Fast. I believe this to be the only town where women do not howl and cry on the death of a member of the family. The contrary practice is too generally known to need repetition here; or that, in other parts of the Levant, a particular class of women is called in, on that occasion, whose sole profession is that of howling, in the most heart-rending accents, for a small sum paid to them by the hour. There is no such practice here, (though it is known in other parts of the Hedjaz) and it is even considered disgraceful. The father of a family died in a house next to that where I lived, and which communicated with it. His death happened at midnight, and his only boy, moved by natural feelings, burst into loud lamentations. I then heard his mother exclaiming, For Gods sake,
[p.389] do not cry: what a shame to cry! You will expose us before the whole neighbourhood; and after some time she contrived to quiet her child. There is also a national custom observed at funerals: the bier, on issuing from the house of the deceased, is carried upon the shoulders of some of his relations or friends, the rest of whom follow behind; but when the procession advances into the street, every by-stander, or passenger, hastens to relieve the bearers for a moment; some giving way to others, who press forward to take in their turn the charge, which is done without stopping. The bier, thus unceasingly passes from shoulders to shoulders, till it is finally deposited near the tomb. If we could suppose for a moment, that this simple and affecting custom was the offspring of true feeling, it would prove much more sensibility than what is displayed in the funeral pomp with which Europeans accompany their dead to the grave. But in the East every thing is done according to ancient custom: it originated, no doubt, in the impulse of feeling, or a sense of duty and piety in those who introduced it; but has become, in these days, a mere matter of form.
The women of Medina never wear mourning; in which respect they differ from those of Egypt. It has been often stated by travellers, that the people of the East have no mourning dresses; but this is erroneous, as to Egypt at least, and part of Syria. The men, it is true, never indulge in this practice, which is prohibited by the spirit of the law; but the women, in the interior of the house, wear mourning in every part of Egypt: for this purpose, they first dye their hands blue, with indigo; they put on a black borko, or face-veil, and thus follow the funeral through the streets; and if they can afford it, they put on a black gown, and. even a black shift. They continue to wear their mourning for seven, or fifteen, or sometimes for forty days.
As to the state of learning, I shall add that the Medinans are regarded as more accomplished olemas than the Mekkans; though, as I have mentioned above, there are few, if any, public schools. Several individuals study the Muselman sciences at Damascus, and Cairo, in both of which cities there are pious foundations for the purpose. As at Mekka there is no public book-market, the only books I saw exposed
[p.390] for sale were in some retail clothes-shops near the Bab es Salam. There are said to be some fine private libraries; I saw one in the house of a Sheikh, where at least three thousand volumes were heaped up; but I could not examine them. As it often happens in the East, these libraries are all wakf, that is, have been presented to some mosque by its founder, or entailed upon some private family, so that the books cannot be alienated. The Wahabys are said to have carried off many loads of books.
Notwithstanding my repeated inquiries here, as well as at Mekka, I could never hear of a single person who had composed, or even made short notes of, the history of his own times, or of the Wahabys. It appeared to me, on the whole, that literature flourished as little at Medina as in other parts of the Hedjaz; and that the sole occupation of all was getting money, and spending it in sensual gratifications.
The language of the Medinans is not so pure as that of the Mekkans; it approaches much nearer to that of Egypt; and the Syrians established here continue for several generations to retain a tinge of their native dialect. It is common to hear natives talk, or at least utter a few words of Turkish. The gardeners and husbandmen in the neighbourhood have a dialect and certain phrases of their own, which often afford subject for ridicule to the inhabitants of the town.
[p.391]ON THE GOVERNMENT OF MEDINA.
MEDINA, since the commencement of Islam, has always been considered as a separate principality. When the Hedjaz came under subjection to the Khalifes, Medina was governed by persons appointed by them, and independent of the governors of Mekka. When the power of the Khalifes declined, the chiefs of Medina made themselves independent, and exercised the same influence in the northern Hedjaz that those of Mekka did in the southern. Sometimes the chiefs of Mekka succeeded in extending a temporary authority over Medina; and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this power seems to have been well established; but it often became dependent on the mighty Sultans of Egypt, whenever they assumed the sovereignty over Mekka. When the family of Othman mounted the Turkish throne, the Emperor Selym I., and his son Soleyman, (who paid, in general, more attention to the welfare of the Hedjaz than any of their predecessors,) thought it necessary to acquire a firmer footing in this town, which is the key of the Hedjaz, and became of so much importance to the great pilgrim caravans. They sent hither a garrison of Turkish soldiers, composed of Janissaries and Spahies, under the command of an Aga, who was to be the military commander of the town; while the civil government was placed in the hands of the Sheikh el Haram, or Aga el Haram, the prefect of the temple, who was to correspond regularly
[p.392] with the capital, and to have the same rank as Pashas in other towns. With the exception of a short period towards the end of the seventeenth century, when the Sheikh el Haram and the whole town fell under the jurisdiction of the Sherif of Mekka, this mode of government continued until the period of the Wahaby invasion. An Aga was at the head of a few soldiers, some of whom were in possession of the castle; and the Aga el Haram, who also had a small train of soldiers, was the nominal chief of the town. But great abuses had prevailed for the last century: the military commander was no longer chosen by the Sultans, but by his own people, and there were no longer any Turkish soldiers, but only the descendants of those originally sent hither, who had intermarried with the natives. This Aga had become the real master of the town, and his party was spread over all the first families. He had no other soldiers than the rabble of the town itself, and was chosen by the first officers of the garrison, whose employments were still kept up by their descendants, as they had been settled in former times, although the greater part of them had renounced the military profession. This tribe of soldiers, called Merabetein, had been enlarged to strengthen the Agas party, and its privileges extended to many other inhabitants of the town, and foreigners who settled here. They were entitled to share in the yearly salaries originally fixed by the Sultan, for the pay of the garrison, and regularly transmitted from Constantinople; and had, besides, usurped a share of the surra or stipends sent to the mosque and to the whole town.
The Aga el Haram, together with the Kadhy, who was sent hither annually from Constantinople, to preside over the tribunal of justice, became, under the above circumstances, mere ciphers. The former was usually a eunuch, who knew nothing of Arabic, and who received the appointment rather in the way of exile, than as a preferment. His income, which he received from Constantinople, although handsome, did not enable him to keep up any military guard sufficient to cope with his rival, the Aga of the town; and he soon found himself only left in the charge of the temple, and the command of the eunuchs and
[p.393] Ferráshyn. But the Aga of the town himself was not complete master; several of the chiefs of the different quarters had great authority; the Sherifs settled here had their own chief, called Sheikh- es-Sadat, a man of great power; and thus, much disorder prevailed. The people of the town, and the gardeners and inhabitants of the suburbs, were often contending for months together: in the interior of the town itself bloody affrays often occurred between the inhabitants of the different quarters, on which occasions they sometimes barricadoed the streets, and kept up a firing upon each other from the tops of their houses. Instances are related of people firing even into the mosque upon their enemies, while engaged in prayer.
Within the last twenty years a man named Hassan had been appointed Aga of the castle, which gave him the surname of Hassan el Kalay. Born among the dregs of the people, his great skill and cunning, and determined hardihood, had raised him to this office. He was a man of a very short stature and a limping gait, but notwithstanding of great bodily strength; and his voice, when he was in anger, is said to have terrified even the boldest. After several years hard struggle, this man succeeded in becoming complete master and tyrant of the town: he kept a guard of towns-people, of Bedouins, and Moggrebyns in his service, and had all the rabble on his side. He was guilty of the most flagrant acts of injustice; he oppressed the pilgrims, extorted money from them, confiscated the property of all the hadjys and foreigners who died here, withheld the surra brought from Constantinople by the Hadj, from the people for whom it was destined, and amassed great wealth. Instances are recorded of tyranny and brutality which cover his name with infamy. A rich old widow, with her daughter, having arrived at Medina, from Constantinople, to visit the tomb, he seized on her, and compelled her to marry him; two days after, she was found dead, her property was seized by him; and a short time after he forced the daughter to yield to his embraces. Many complaints were made at Constantinople against this man, but the Sultan had not power enough to dispossess him; and whenever the caravan arrived from Syria, Hassan el Kalay showed
[p.394] so imposing an attitude, that its chiefs could attempt nothing against him. He threw great obstacles in their way; and it is generally ascribed to him, that the last caravan from Damascus, which attempted to perform the journey after the Wahaby conquest, was obliged to return to Syria.
When the Wahabys began to make inroads into the Hedjaz, and to direct their forces against Medina, the conduct of Hassan became still more violent. During the two or three years which preceded the capture of the town, he set no bounds to his oppressions, and was often seen to inflict the severest punishments upon persons who happened to be laughing among themselves when he passed by, pretending that his limping gait was the cause of their mirth. During the night shops were robbed by the Arabs in his service, who patrolled the streets in large parties, and no justice could be obtained against them. When he saw the impossibility of holding the town longer against the Wahabys, after all the surrounding Bedouins, and Mekka itself, had surrendered, he gave up the place to Saoud, on condition that he should be continued in his command; this was promised, and the promise was kept: a Wahaby garrison was then placed in the castle; the Aga el Haram, with all the Turks residing in Medina, were obliged to leave the town, where he had been for several years a mere shadow; and Hassan el Kalay remained governor under the Wahabys. Being now unable to act with the same injustice as he had before done, he affected the greatest zeal for the new religion, and oppressed the inhabitants, by enforcing upon them, with the most scrupulous severity, the precepts of the Wababy creed. Saoud showed much less respect for Medina than he had done for Mekka: the income of the latter town was left, as it was, in the hands of the Sherif, and the inhabitants were exempted from the zekat, or tribute, which the other Wahaby subjects paid to the chief, who here abandoned his right in favour of Ghaleb. The same conciliatory system was not observed at Medina: the inhabitants, who had never before known what imposts were, except the payment of some trifling land-tax, found themselves grievously oppressed; and Hassan el Kalay, with the tax-gatherers of Saoud, enforced the taxes with the utmost rigour.
[p.395] The Hadj caravans now ceased; few pilgrims arrived by way of Yembo; Saoud, soon after, prohibited the passage to the town to all Turkish pilgrims; and the surra or stipends were of course withheld. Under these circumstances the Medinans felt most heavily the pressure of the times, and became exasperated against the Wahabys. Some further details on the subject will be found in my account of Mohammed Alys campaign.
When Mohammed Aly first prepared an expedition against the Hedjaz, a strong garrison was placed in Medina, consisting principally of warlike Bedouins from Nedjed and the southern provinces, under the command of Medheyan, whom Saoud had named Sheikh of the tribe of Harb. Hassan el Kalay showed great zeal for the common cause; and, after the first defeat of Tousoun Pasha at Djedeyde, was confirmed in his situation at Medina; but when Tousoun returned a second time with a larger force, Hassan, foreseeing his success, entered into secret negotiations with him, and received the promise of being continued in his office, provided he would facilitate the capture of the town by the Osmanlys. On their arrival before its gates, he joined them, and was received by Ahmed Bonaparte, the Turkish commander, with distinguished honours; the town was soon after attacked, and the castle taken by capitulation: but after the Wahaby party was totally suppressed in these parts, both Medheyan, to whom safe-conduct had been promised, and Hassan el Kalay, were seized, put in chains, and sent by way of Cairo to Constantinople, where they experienced the fate which, the latter at least, well merited, though his crimes can never excuse the treachery of those who seized him.
Soon after the above events, the Aga el Haram, a Kislar Agassi of Sultan Selym, returned, and partly recovered his authority; but the real command was now in the hands of the Turkish governor. Towards the end of the year 1814, Tousoun Pasha came here as governor, preparatory to his intended attack upon Nedjed; and here I found him on my arrival. His government was not bad, because his intentions were good, and he was liked by the inhabitants for his
[p.396] generosity and devotion; but his proceedings were foolish enough: he frightened away the Bedouins, by seizing their camels; he thus cut off the supplies from the town, created a general want of every kind of provision, and other necessaries; and his soldiers then soon began to commit excesses, which he neglected to suppress by punishment. After Tousouns departure, his father, Mohammed Aly, arrived here in April, 1815, and with his more experienced judgment immediately took the proper measures for repairing the errors of his son.
Medina now continues under the government of a Turkish commander; a post filled for a few months by the Scotchman, Thomas Keith, or Ibrahim Aga, whom I have mentioned as being the treasurer of Tousoun Pasha. The Aga el Haram keeps about sixty or eighty soldiers, a motley crew of Turks, Arabs, Moggrebyns, and people of Medina; and all ecclesiastical affairs, and the pecuniary business of the mosque, are left in his hands. Next to him in importance stands the Kadhy, who, in the time of the Wahabys, had been obliged to retire. The Sheikh of the Sherifs, or Sadat, continues to enjoy great respect, as well as several other Sheikhs of the town; and I believe, after all, that the Medinans dislike their present masters, the Turks, less than any other class of the people of the Hedjaz, although they certainly have not yet been cordially reconciled to them.
Prior to the Wahaby invasion, the Sherif of Mekka kept an officer here of inferior rank, to receive some trifling duties upon vegetables, flesh, and other provisions brought to market; the only tax of the kind paid by the Medinans, and the last remnant of the jurisdiction once enjoyed by the Sherif of Mekka over Medina, and which, in later times, has been entirely lost. Sherif Ghaleb had no authority here whatever; but I believe, though I am not quite sure, that he still assumed the nominal superiority, or the title of Chief of Medina; and that Medina was supposed by the Porte to form part of the Hedjaz, under the command of the Sherif of Mekka.
Several respectable Arabian writers affirm, that Medina forms a part of Nedjed, and not of the Hedjaz, situated as it is on the eastern side of the great chain; and this opinion seems to be well founded,
[p.397] if the natural boundary be considered; but, in the common acceptation of the word on the coast, and at Mekka and Medina, the latter town is supposed to form part of the Hedjaz, although the Bedouins of the interior give quite a different meaning to this appellation.
[p.398] CLIMATE AND DISEASES OF MEDINA.
I FOUND the climate at Medina, during the winter months, much colder than that of Mekka. Snow is unknown here, though I heard that some old people remembered to have seen it in the neighbouring mountains. The rains have no fixed period in winter, but fall at intervals, and usually in violent storms, which last for one day, or perhaps two days, only: sometimes a whole winter passes without more than one fall of rain, excepting a few light showers; the consequence of which is a general dearth. The Medinans say, that three or four gushes of rain are necessary to irrigate their soil; the water of the torrents then inundating many parts of the country, especially the pasturing grounds of the Bedouins. Uninterrupted rains for a week, or longer, such as often occur in Syria, are quite unknown here; and after every gush of rain, which lasts for twenty-four hours, the sky clears up, and the finest spring weather prevails for several weeks. The last storms are usually in April, but occasional showers are not unfrequent even in the middle of summer.
The Medinans, and many foreigners, assert, that the summer-heat is greater here than in any other part of the Hedjaz: I was not able to judge myself. I have already stated that the saline nature of the soil and water, the stagnant pools of rain-water round the town, and perhaps the exhalation and vapours produced by the thick date-groves
[p.399] in its neighbourhood, render the air of Medina little favourable to health.
Fevers are the most common disease, to which many of the inhabitants themselves are subject, and from which strangers who remain here any time seldom escape, especially in spring. Yahya Effendi, the physician of Tousoun Pasha, assured me, when I was sick, that he had eighty persons ill of fever under his care; and it appeared that he was more fortunate in their cure than in mine. The fevers are almost all intermittent, and attended after their cure by great languor: relapses are much dreaded. When I went out after my recovery, I found the streets filled with convalescents, whose appearance but too clearly showed how numerous were my fellow-sufferers in the town. If not cured within a certain time, these fevers often occasion hard swellings in the stomach and legs, which are not removed without great difficulty. The Medinans care little about this intermittent fever, to which they are accustomed, and with them it seldom proves fatal; but the case is otherwise with strangers. In some seasons it assumes an epidemic character, when as many as eighty persons are known to have died in one week; instances of this kind, however, seldom happen.
Dysenteries are said to be rare here. Bilious complaints, and jaundice, are very common. There appears to be in general a much greater mortality here than in any other part of the East that I have visited. My lodgings were very near to one of the principal gates of the mosque, through which the corpses were carried when prayers were to be said over them; and I could hear, from my sick bed, the exclamations of La illah il Allah, with which that ceremony was accompanied. During my three months confinement one funeral at least, and often two, passed every day under my window. If we reckon on the average three bodies per day carried into the mosque through this gate, as well as the others, besides the poor Arabs who die in the suburbs, and over whose bodies prayers are said in the mosque situated in the Monakh, we shall have about twelve hundred deaths annually, in this small town, the whole population of which, I believe
[p.400] to be at most from sixteen to twenty thousand; a mortality which cannot be repaired by births, and would long ago have depopulated the place, did not the arrival of foreigners continually supply the loss. Of this population I reckon about ten or twelve thousand for the town itself, and the rest for the suburbs.
[p.401] JOURNEY FROM MEDINA TO YEMBO.
April 21st. 1815. OUR small caravan assembled in the afternoon near the outer gate of the town, and at five oclock P.M. we passed through the same gate by which I entered, on my arrival, three months ago. Then I was in full health and spirits, and indulging the fond hopes of exploring unknown and interesting parts of the Desert on my return to Egypt; but now, worn down by lingering disease, dejected, and desponding, with no more anxious wish than to reach a friendly and salubrious spot, where I might regain my health. The ground leading to the town on this side is rocky. About three quarters of an hour distant, the road has a steep short descent, hemmed in by rocks, and is paved, to facilitate the passage of caravans. Our direction was S.W. by S. In one hour we came to the bed of a torrent called Wady el Akyk, which during the late rains had received so copious a supply from the neighbouring mountains, that it had become like a deep and broad river, which our camels could not attempt to pass. As the day was fine, we expected to see it considerably diminished the next morning, and therefore encamped on its banks, at a place called El Madderidje. Here is a small ruined village, the houses of which were well built of stone, with a small birket or reservoir, and a ruined well close by. Its inhabitants cultivate some fields on the bank of Wady Akyk, but the incursions of the Bedouins had obliged them to retire.
[p.402] Wady Akyk is celebrated by the Arabian poets. [Samhoudy says, that this torrent empties itself into the same low ground called El Ghaba, or Zaghaba, to the west of Medina, in the mountains where all the torrents in this neighbourhood discharge themselves. He says also, that on the banks of this torrent, eastward, stood the small Arab fortification called Kasr el Meradjel; and from thence towards Ghaba the torrent crosses a district called El Nakya. About five miles distant from Medina was a station of the Hadj, called Zyl Haleyfe, situated on the banks of Wady Akyk, with a small castle and a birket, which was rebuilt in A.H. 861. Perhaps this Madderidje is meant by it.] On its banks stand a number of ashour trees, which were now in full flower. We were accompanied thus far by a number of people from Medina, in compliment to one of the Muftis of Mekka, who had been on a visit to the town, and was now returning to his home, intending to leave our caravan at Szafra. He had several tents and women with him. My other fellow- travellers were petty merchants of Medina going to await at Djidda the arrival of the Indian ships, and a rich merchant from Maskat, whom I had seen at Mekka, where he was on the pilgrimage: he had ten camels to carry his women, his infant children, his servants, and his baggage; and he spent, at every station, considerable sums in charity. He appeared, in every respect, a liberal and worthy Arab.
April 22nd. The torrent had decreased, and we crossed it in the afternoon. We rode for an hour in a narrow valley, following the torrent upwards. At the end of an hour and half we left the torrent: the plain opened to the east, and is here called Esselsele; our road over it was in the direction W.S.W. The rocks spread over the plain were calcareous. At the end of three hours and a half we again entered the mountain, and continued in its vallies, slowly descending, for the whole night. At the break of day we passed the plain called El Fereysh, where I had encamped the day before I reached Medina; and alighted, after a march of twelve hours and a half, in the upper part of Wady es Shohada. [The distances of this journey do not exactly agree with those given in coming to Medina; but I prefer stating them as I found them noted down in my journal.]
April 23rd. We had no sooner deposited our baggage than a
[p.403] heavy rain set in, accompanied with tremendous peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. The whole Wady was flooded in a moment, and we expected that it would be necessary to pass the whole day here. I found shelter in the tent of the merchant of Maskat. In the afternoon the storm ceased. At two P.M. we started, and at the end of an hour passed the tombs of the Martyrs or Shohada, the followers of Mohammed, forty of whom, it was said, lie buried there. We continued slowly descending in the Wady, mostly in the direction S.S.W. At the top of Wady Shohada, the granite rocks begin, the upper ranges of that chain being calcareous. At the end of five hours we issued from the Wady. In the night we passed the plains of Shab el Hal and Nazye; and, after a march of thirteen hours and a half, encamped in the mountains, in the wide valley called Wady Medyk, which lies in the road from Nazye to Djedeyde, two hours distant from the former, and which we had passed at night in my former journey. I heard that in these mountains between Medina and the sea, all the way northward, mountain-goats are met with, and that leopards are not uncommon.
April 24th. A few Arabs of Beni Salem here sow some fields with durra, which they irrigate by means of a fine spring of running water issuing from a cleft in the mountains, where it forms several small basins and pretty cascades—the best water I had drank since leaving the mountains of Tayf. We started from hence in the afternoon, and encountered more heavy rain from mid-day to sun-set. In the caravan were several sick and convalescents, especially women, who were all complaining. I had had a strong attack of fever during the night, which returned to-day, and lasted till I reached Yembo. It was particularly distressing to me, being accompanied by profuse perspiration during the night, followed by shivering fits towards day-break; and as the caravan could not halt on my account, I had no opportunity to change my linen. We were, moreover, obliged to encamp upon wet ground; and as the number of camel-drivers was very small, considering the quantity of baggage, I could not avoid assisting to load, my own Bedouin being one of the most ill-natured and lazy fellows I ever met with among people of his nation.
[p.404] We rode in the winding valley for two hours and a half, to El Kheyf, the beginning of Wady Djedeyde, where the chief of the Turkish post stationed there inquired for news from head-quarters: he had been a whole fortnight without hearing what was done at Medina. During the whole Turkish campaign in the Hedjaz, no regular couriers had been any where established. Tousoun Pasha was often left for months at Medina, ignorant of the state of the army under his father; and even the latter usually received his intelligence from Mekka and Djidda by ordinary conveyances of caravans; expresses were seldom despatched, and still less any regular communication established over land between Cairo and Mekka. Not merely in this respect, but in many other details of warfare, the best Turkish commanders show an incredible want of activity or foresight, which causes the surprise even of Bedouins, and must expose their operations to certain failure whenever they encounter a more vigilant enemy with no disparity of force.
The camp of the soldiers at Kheyf was completely inundated, and the whole breadth of the wady covered with a rapid stream of water. Without stopping any where we passed Djedeyde at the end of three hours and a half, and further on Dar el Hamra, where the inhabitants had cultivated several new plantations, since I passed this way in January. The copious rains were a sure prognostic of a plentiful year, and the ever-recurring questions put to our guides by the people they passed on the road were, whether such and such a spot in the upper country was well drenched with rain. In seven hours we came to Szafra. The party from Mekka that was with us, separated here, having hired their camels only thus far, from whence they intended to take others for the journey to Mekka; and those which had carried them thus far, followed our party to Yembo. All those camels which are engaged in the transport and carriage between the coast and Medina, belong to the Beni Harb tribe.
We remained a few minutes only, about midnight, at Szafra, to drink some coffee in one of the shops, and then continued our road to the westward of the route by which I reached Szafra in coming from Mekka. Thick date- plantations form an uninterrupted line on both
[p.405] sides of the narrow valley in which we slowly descended. After nine hours and a half we passed a village called El Waset, built among the date-groves, and having extensive gardens of fruit-trees in its vicinity. At every step water is found in wells or fountains. A little beyond this village we left the valley to the right, and took our way up a steep mountain, this being a nearer road than that through the valley. The route over the mountain was rocky and steep; our guides obliged us to walk, and it was with difficulty that I mustered strength sufficient to reach the summit; from thence we descended by a less rough declivity, and, after twelve hours march, again fell into the road in the valley, near a small village called Djedyd. The mountain we had crossed has the name of Thenyet Waset. The valley we had left to our right takes a western circuitous tour, and includes several other villages, of which I heard the following mentioned: Hosseynye, (nearest to Waset); then, lower down, Fara and Barake, in the vicinity of Djedyd. Below Waset the the valley is considered as belonging to Wady Beder, and above it to Szafra. Djedyd has very few date-trees and fields; it stands upon a plain, through which the torrent passes, after having irrigated the upper plantations of the wady. We continued on this plain for one hour, direction S. 50 W. After a thirteen hours march we entered a chain of mountains, extending westward, the same which I have mentioned in my journey to Medina, as branching out westward from the great chain near Bir-es-Sheikh. Our road lay in a broad sandy valley, with little windings, which brought us, after a very fatiguing march of fourteen hours and a half, to Beder.
April 25th. Beder, or as it is also called, Beder Honeyn, is a small town, the houses of which are built either of stone or mud, and of better appearance, although less numerous, than those of Szafra. It is surrounded by a miserable mud wall, ruined in many places. A copious rivulet flows through the town, which rises in the ridge of mountains we had just passed, and is conducted in a stone channel: it waters extensive date-groves, with gardens and fields on the south-west side of the place; and, although at a distance from its source,
[p.406] is still somewhat tepid. El Assamy, the historian of Mekka, says that El Ghoury, Sultan of Egypt, built a fine reservoir at Beder, for the Hadj; but I did not see it, and am ignorant whether it be yet in existence.
Beder is situated in a plain bounded towards the N. and E. by steep mountains; to the S. by rocky hills, and to the W. by hills of moving sand. The Hadj caravans usually make this a station; and we found the place where they had encamped just by the gate of the town, four months ago, still covered with carcases of camels, rags of clothes, and remains of broken utensils, &c. Beder is famous in Arabian history for the battle fought here by Mohammed, in the second year of the Hedjra, with a superior force of the Koreysh Arabs, who had come in aid of a rich caravan expected from Syria, which Mohammed intended to waylay on this spot. Although very ill, I walked out with the Maskat hadjys, to inspect the field of battle, to which we were guided by a man from Beder. To the south of the town, about one mile distant, at the foot of the hills, are the tombs of the thirteen followers and friends of the Prophet, who fell by his side. They are mere heaps of earth, enclosed by a row of loose stones, and are all close together. The Koreysh, as our guide explained to us, were posted upon the hill behind the tombs, while Mohammed had divided his small force into two parts, with one of which he himself advanced in the plain against the enemy, and the reserve was entrusted to Aly ibn Aby Taleb, with orders to take his post upon the sand-hill on the western side. The battle could not be won without the interposition of heaven; and three thousand angels, with Gabriel at their head, were sent to Mohammeds assistance. The above-mentioned thirteen persons were slain in the first onset. The Prophet, hard pressed, hid himself behind a large rock, which opened miraculously to admit him, and enabled him to reach his reserve; he then made a second attack, and with the heavenly auxiliaries was victorious, not losing another man, although seventy of his adversaries were killed on the spot. A handful of stones, or dust, which he (or according to the Koran, which God) threw towards his enemies, caused them to fly. After he had forced their position, he rested a little upon
[p.407] a stone, which, sensible of the honour, forthwith assumed the form of a seat. The rock and the stone are shown; and, at all events answer one good purpose, which is to excite the visiters charity towards the poor of Beder, who assemble at it whenever a caravan arrives. The position of Alys troop upon the distant hill, that of the party of Mohammed close to the enemy, and the plain beyond that hill, where the caravan from Syria pursued its route during the battle, are made to explain the passage of the Koran, which alludes to it thus; You were on the nearer side of the valley, and they on the further side, and the caravan was below, (Sur. 8.): but I could not well understand that passage, according to the usual interpretation; and rather believe that by the word rukb, which is taken here as synonymous with caravan, the party of horsemen under Aly must be understood, whose position, although upon a hill, was, with relation to Beder, a low one, the ground descending slightly. Several small domes, which had been erected here, were ruined by the Wahabys. In returning to the village, we walked, on its south side, into the mosque called Mesdjed el Ghemáme, built on the spot where Mohammed once sat exposed to the suns rays, and prayed to God for a cloud which might overshadow him; this was immediately granted; and the mosque derives its name from the cloud. It is better built and more spacious than might be expected in such a poor place.
The market of Beder is furnished with the same articles as that of Szafra. Some water-melons, the produce of the gardens, were offered for sale. The Maskat merchant purchased, without my knowledge, five pounds of Mekka balsam, all that remained in the market, which he intended for a present to the Imám of Maskat. It was in the same adulterated state as that I had formerly seen at Szafra. The inhabitants of Beder are chiefly Bedouins of the tribe of Sobh, belonging to Harb, some of whom have become settlers here. Others only have their shops here, and return every evening to the tents of their family in the neighbouring mountains. Beder being a place much frequented by Bedouins and travellers, the houses are in great request, and a small shop in the market pays as much as twenty
[p.408] dollars a year rent. Some Sherif families are also established here, to whom the Hadj pays at passing considerable stipends.
In the evening several hundred camels belonging to Bedouins came to be watered at the rivulet, escorted principally by women, who freely entered into conversation with us. The Beni Harb established at Djedeyde, Szafra, and Beder, give their daughters in marriage to strangers, and even to settlers; and a few Turkish soldiers, attracted by the beauty of some Bedouin girls, had fixed themselves here, and married them: one of them, an Arnaut, who spoke good Arabic, and had been accustomed from his youth to the wild life of warlike mountaineers, intended to follow his young wife to the mountain. In the neighbouring mountains are immense numbers of the eagle (rakham); hundreds of them were constantly hovering about us; and some actually pounced down, and carried off the meat from our dishes.
April 26th. We had remained here the whole of yesterday. Some people of Beder kept watch at night over our caravan, for which they received a small compliment. This place abounds with robbers, and we were encamped outside the gate of the town. We left Beder in the evening, and took a direction N. 45 W. After proceeding for three quarters of an hour, we came to the ridge of sand-hills above mentioned, the highest summit of which is called Goz Aly, in memory of the position occupied there by Aly, during the battle of Beder. We crossed these hills for half an hour with difficulty, the sands being very deep, and then descended into the great western plain, extending as far as the sea, which is reached from Beder in one nights march, at a small harbour, south of Yembo, called Bereyke, much frequented by shipping. The plain, which we entered in the direction W. 1 N. is overgrown with shrubs. During our night-march we saw the fires of different Bedouin encampments. We met two negro pilgrims, who had started from Yembo by themselves, and were in great distress for water: we gave them both meat and drink, and directed them towards the Bedouin encampments. Without a compass, these enterprising travellers find their route across deserts: the direction of the road is shown to them at starting, and they pursue it in a straight line by
[p.409] night and by day, until they arrive at the destined spot. After a ride of ten hours from Beder, we encamped at the break of day in a part of the plain, where low acacia-trees grow, called adheyba.
April 27. I found myself in a very low state this morning. Violent vomiting and profuse sweats had rendered the last night one of the most disagreeable nights I passed in my travels. A quarrel with my guide, about victuals, further increased my fever to-day, to which perhaps the late relaxation of my nerves through illness contributed. To our right, northwards, about six hours distant, a chain of high mountains extends towards the sea. Nearer to us a lower ridge takes the same direction. The plain upon which we encamped is sandy, covered with small pebbles and petrosilex. We set out after mid-day. Four hours and a half, direction N.W. by N., trees and shrubs are no longer seen; a few saline shrubs only indicate the proximity of the sea; and a little further on, the ground becomes covered with a salt crust, while the air is strongly impregnated with sea-vapours. At the end of seven hours and a half, we again found some trees in the plain, interspersed with salt-increased spots. At fourteen hours, having travelled the whole night over bad ground, we saw Yembo at sun-rise; and after a ride of fifteen hours and a half, at a very slow pace, we reached the gate of the town: just before it we crossed an inlet of the harbour, it being then low water, but which extends to a considerable distance inland at high tide.
[p.410] YEMBO.
IT was with some difficulty that I could find a room in one of the okales or khans of the town, which were filled with soldiers, who had received permission to return to Cairo, after their last expedition against the southern Wahabys, and had come here from Djidda and Mekka; and, besides them, there were many hadjys, who, after their return from Medina, intended to embark for Suez or Cosseir. Among the latter was the lady of Mohammed Aly Pasha, who had arrived from Medina; for the transport of whose escort, suite, and baggage, four ships were in a state of preparation. After having deposited my baggage in an airy room, on the terrace of an okale, I walked towards the harbour, to inquire about a passage to Egypt. This, I soon understood, it was impossible to obtain at present. Positive orders had been given, that none should embark but soldiers, who had already engaged three or four ships, then ready to sail; and of whom upwards of fifteen hundred, including many Turkish hadjys, who passed for soldiers, being armed and dressed like them, were still waiting for conveyances.
While I was sitting in a coffee-house near the harbour, three funerals passed at short intervals; and upon expressing my surprise at this, I learned that many people had died within these few days of feverish complaints. I had heard, when at Beder, that a bad fever prevailed at Yembo, but then paid little attention to the report. During the rest of the day I saw several other funerals, but had not the slightest
[p.411] idea to what so many deaths were to be attributed, till night, when I had retired to my room up-stairs, which overlooked a considerable part of the town; I then heard, in every direction, innumerable voices breaking out in those heart-rending cries which all over the Levant, accompany the parting breath of a friend or relative. At that moment the thought flashed upon my mind, that it might be the plague: I attempted, in vain, to dispel my apprehensions, or at least to drown them in sleep; but the dreadful cries kept me awake the whole night. When I descended early in the morning into the okale, where many Arabs were drinking their coffee, I communicated to them my apprehensions; but had no sooner mentioned the word plague, than they called me to order, asking me if I was ignorant that the Almighty had for ever excluded that disorder from the holy territory of the Hedjaz? Such an argument admits of no reply among Moslims; I therefore walked out, in search of some Greek Christians, several of whom I had seen the day before, in the street, and from them I received a full confirmation of my fears. The plague had broken out ten days ago: it had been raging at Cairo with the greatest fury for several months; and at Suez a large part of the population had died: from that port two ships laden with cotton stuffs had carried it to Djidda, and from thence it was communicated to Yembo. No instance of the plague had ever before been witnessed in the Hedjaz, at least none within the memory of man; and the inhabitants could with difficulty persuade themselves that such an event had occurred, especially at a time when the holy cities had been reconquered from the Wahabys. The intercourse with Egypt had not at any time been greater than now, and it was, therefore, no wonder that this scourge should be carried to the Hedjaz. While ten or fifteen people only died per day, the Arabs of the town could not believe that the disease was the plague, although the usual appearance of the biles upon the bodies of the infected, and the rapid progress of the disorder, which seldom lasted more than three or four days, might have been convincing proofs. In five or six days after my arrival the mortality increased; forty or fifty persons died in a day, which, in a population of five or six thousand, was a terrible mortality. The inhabitants now felt a panic: little disposed to submit
[p.412] as patiently to the danger as the Turks do in every other part of the East, the greater part of them fled into the open country, and the town became deserted; but the disease followed the fugitives, who had encamped close together; and thus finding no remedy to the evil, many of them returned. They excused their flight by saying, God in his mercy sends this disease, to call us to his presence; but we are conscious of our unworthiness, and feel that we do not deserve his grace; therefore, we think it better to decline it, for the present, and to fly from it: an argument which I heard frequently repeated. Had I been myself in full strength, I should, no doubt, have followed their example and gone into the Desert; but I felt extremely weak, and incapable of any exertions. I thought also that I might escape the disease, shut up in my insulated room, and indulged moreover the hope of a speedy passage to Egypt; in the latter, however, I was deceived. By making a few presents, and a little bribery, I might perhaps have found means to embark forthwith; but the vessels now ready to sail were crowded to excess, and full of diseased soldiers, so that a stay in the infected town was to be preferred to a departure by such a conveyance. Some days after, I learnt that a small open boat, free from troops, was ready to sail for Cosseir, and I immediately agreed for a passage on board it; but its sailing was delayed from day to day, until the fifteenth of May, when I finally left Yembo, after a stay of eighteen days in the midst of the plague.
It was, perhaps, my own bad state of health, and the almost uninterrupted low fever under which I laboured, that preserved me; for, notwithstanding all my care, I was many times exposed to infection. The great street of Yembo was lined with sick, in the very agonies of death, asking for charity; in the yard of the okale where I lived, an Arab was dying; the master of the okale lost a sister and a son in his own family, and related to me, as he sat on my carpet, how his son died the preceding night in his arms. The imprudence of my slave likewise counteracted all my measures of precaution. Having missed him for several days early in the morning, I inquired the cause of his absence, when he told me that he had gone to assist in washing the dead bodies. The poor who died during
[p.413] the night were exposed in the morning upon biers, on the sea- shore, to be washed before the ceremony of praying over them in the mosque; and my slave thought it meritorious to join in this office, which had devolved upon several negro pilgrims, who happened to be at Yembo. I desired him to remain at home, for the future, at that hour, to prepare my breakfast; but I was as little able to prevent his walking out at other times, as I could myself dispense with that duty; and one could scarcely pass the bazar without touching infected people, or at least those who had been in close contact with them.
The sense of the danger which then threatened me is much greater, now that I find myself far removed from it, than I felt it at the time. After the first four or five days, I became tolerably familiarized with the idea of the plague, and compared the small numbers who died every day with the mass of the remaining inhabitants. The great many cases of persons remaining in full health, notwithstanding the closest connexion with the deceased, considerably removed the apprehensions of the malady being communicated by infection; and example works so powerfully on the mind, that when I saw the number of foreigners then in the town quite unconcerned, I began to be almost ashamed of myself for possessing less courage than they displayed. The disease seemed, however, to be of the most malignant kind; very few of those who were attacked, escaped, and the same was observed at Djidda. The Arabs used no kind of medicine; I heard of a few people having been bled, and of others having been cured by applying a drawing-plaster to the neck; but these were rare instances, which were not imitated by the great mass. As it is the custom to bury the dead in a very few hours after decease, two instances occurred during my stay at Yembo, of persons supposed dead being buried alive: the stupor into which they fell when the disorder was at a crisis, had been mistaken for death. One of them gave signs of life at the moment they were depositing him in the grave, and was saved: the body of the other, when his tomb was re-opened several days after his burial, to admit the corpse of a near relation, was found with bloody hands and face, and the winding-sheet torn, by the unavailing
[p.414] efforts he had made to rise. On seeing this, the people said, that the devil, being unable to hurt his soul, had thus disfigured his body.
The governor of Yembo took great care that the exact amount of the mortality in the town should not be known; but the solemn exclamations of La illaha ill Allah, which indicate a Moslim funeral, struck the ear from every side and quarter of the town, and I counted myself forty- two in one day. To the poor the plague becomes a real feast; every family that can afford it, kills a sheep on the death of any of its members, and the day after, the men and women of the whole neighbourhood are entertained at the house. The women enter the apartments, embrace and console all the females of the family, and expose themselves every moment to infection. It is to this custom, more than any other cause, that the rapid dissemination of the plague in Mohammedan towns must be ascribed; for when the disease once breaks out in a family, it never fails of being transmitted to the whole neighbourhood.
It is a common belief among Europeans, and even eastern Christians, that the Mohammedan religion forbids any precautionary measures against the plague; but this is erroneous. That religion forbids its followers from avoiding the disease if it has once entered a town or country; but it warns them at the same time, not to enter any place where the plague rages: and it accordingly forbids individuals to shut themselves up in a house, and to cut off all communication with the rest of the infected town, because this is the same as flying from the plague; but it favours measures of quarantine, to prevent the importation of the disease, or its communication to strangers upon their arrival. The belief in predestination, however, is so deeply and universally rooted in the minds of the eastern nations, that not the slightest measures of safety are any where adopted. The numberless extraordinary instances of the disease sparing those who have come into closest contact with it, confirm them in their opinion that it is not epidemic; and their prophet Mohammed has declared to them, that the plague is caused by the demons hostile attack upon mankind, and that those who die of it are martyrs. The universal opinion
[p.415] prevails among Moslims, that an invisible angel of death, armed with a lance, touches the victims he destines for the plague, whom he finds out in the most hidden recesses. The trunk of a palm-tree lay in one of the streets of Yembo, and it had been observed that many people who had stepped over it, had soon after been seized with the plague; it was therefore believed that the demon had there taken his favourite stand, to wound the passer-by; and therefore the Arabs took a circuitous road, to avoid their foe, although they were persuaded that he was light-footed and could overtake them wherever they went.
That the Christians and Franks escape the disease by shutting themselves up in their houses, affords but a feeble proof to the contrary. Imprudence, and the tardy adoption of these measures, always cause a slight mortality even among them; and such cases are afterwards adduced in proof of the folly of attempting to oppose the decrees of Providence. Besides, there are many Christians in the East, who follow Turkish maxims, and, impressed with the same notions of predestination, think it superfluous to take any steps for their safety. Turks trifle with so many of the prescribed duties of their religion, that it might not, perhaps, be difficult, in this instance, to make them adopt rational opinions; and the more so, as the Koran is silent upon this head: but no private measures can be adopted, and rigidly observed, as long as every individual, almost, is convinced in his own mind of their folly and inefficacy. If this were not universally the case, the Turks themselves would, long ago, have found means of resorting to prophylactics, in spite of their religious doctrines; as the Arabs now did in the Hedjaz; and their olemas would have furnished them with fetwas, and quotations from the law, in favour of what their good sense might have led them to adopt. In the Hadyth, or sacred traditions, a saying of Mohammed is recorded: Fly from the leprous, as thou flyest from the lion.
The case is different, respecting the means of preventing the plague from being imported, or to establish regular quarantines. This is a measure depending entirely upon the government. The most fanatic and orthodox Muselmans, those of the Barbary states, have adopted this system; and the laws of quarantine are as strictly enforced in their
[p.416] harbours, as they are in the European ports on the northern shores of the Mediterranean. That a similar system has not been introduced into Turkey is matter of deep concern, and may be attributed rather to motives of interest, than to bigotry. Constantinople, and the ports of the Archipelago, I have not visited myself; but I know that it would be easy for the governors of Syria, and still more for the governor of Egypt, to use their authority in introducing a system of quarantine on the coast, without any dread of opposition from their subjects. The governments of Syria, however, must be guided in such matters by the Porte, and would hardly attempt to establish quarantine, without the authority of their sovereign: but Mohammed Aly has often acted directly contrary to the orders of the Porte, even in matters affecting his sovereigns pecuniary interest; and we may believe that it is not solely the fear of displeasing his master, which has prevented him from listening to the frequent friendly advice and representations made to him on this subject by European powers; and, at the same time, his loose religious principles are too well known, to suppose that bigotry restrains him from yielding to their solicitations.
While for four succeeding years, from 1812 to 1816, the plague has every spring made ravages in Egypt, Mohammed Aly himself, with his family and principal officers, have been shut up in their palaces with scrupulous care; thus offering infinitely more scandal to the people than they would have done by the establishment of quarantine regulations. Wishing, however, to be considered by Europeans as a liberally-thinking man, devoid of any prejudices, he had really given orders, in 1813 and 1814, to establish a quarantine at Alexandria; but the shameful manner in which it was conducted, clearly proved that he had no sincere wish to guard his subjects from the horrors of infection; and the whole scheme was soon after abandoned. My own inquiries, and the opinion of many Turks themselves, who judge of the measures of their own government much better than is generally supposed, have led me to believe, that the Grand Signior, as well as his Pashas, tolerate the plague in their dominions, because the numerous deaths fill their purses: with respect to Egypt, I hold this to be indisputably the secret cause. The commercial towns of Cairo, Alexandria,
[p.417] and Damietta, are crowded with foreign merchants, and other strangers from all quarters of the East are established there: according to the law, the property of all persons who have no near heirs to claim it, falls to the Beit el Mál; a treasury, formerly destined for purposes beneficial to the subjects, but now entirely at the private disposal of the governors. The increased mortality thus causes great sums to fall into their hands. The prefect of every quarter of the town must, under the heaviest penalties, inform the government of any stranger or individual without heirs who dies within his district; and not only is the property of such people seized, but even that of those persons whose heirs, although known, are absent in foreign countries, and to whom no other privilege is granted, in return, than that of addressing their unavailing claims to the same governor, who converts the income of the Beit el Mál to his own use. The most flagrant injustice is committed with respect to the property of deceased persons, as well during the plague as at other times; and the Kadhy, with a whole train of olemas, officers, and people in inferior employments, share in the illegal spoil. In the same manner the property of military officers, and of many soldiers, is sequestrated at their death. Upon a moderate calculation, the plague this year in Egypt, which carried off in the city of Cairo alone from thirty to forty thousand, added twenty thousand purses, or ten millions of piastres, to the coffers of the Pasha, a sum large enough to stifle any feelings of humanity in the breast of a Turk. That the population has diminished, and consequently the regular revenues suffered, is a reflection which a Turkish governor never makes, who calculates merely the immediate consequences of an event; and, provided he be safe himself, and his wealth increasing, cares little for the fate of his subjects. As the plague seldom visits the open country, and therefore does not deprive the soil of its labourers, its effects are less dreaded by the Pasha. He will never be convinced that policy, as well as humanity, dictates a removal of the causes of plague, until he has seen a whole province depopulated, and the fields which yield him his revenues deserted. [The little care taken by the government in Egypt for preserving the lives of the subject is evinced in an equally strange manner, by the neglect with which the small-pox is treated; a disease that makes as great ravages in Upper Egypt as ever the plague could do, which, itself seldom visits those southern provinces. The numerous representations made to Mohammed Aly for the introduction of vaccination have been of no avail, though, if he had chosen to inquire, he might have known that in 1813, in the small town of Esne alone, upwards of two hundred and fifty persons, adults and children, fell victims to the small-pox, the violence of which is much greater in these climates than in Europe.]
[p.418] It should seem as if Constantinople and Cairo were the great receptacles of plague in the East, communicating it mutually to each other, and to the neighbouring countries. How far the joint and energetic representations of European powers might induce the Grand Signior to adopt measures of safety for his capital, and to insure by that means the safety of the population of European Turkey and Anatolia, I am unable to decide; but I have little doubt, that a firm remonstrance from the English government would induce the Pasha of Egypt to obey the call of humanity, and thus benefit Egypt, as well as Syria and the English possessions in the Mediterranean.
The ravages of the plague were still more deplorable at Djidda than at Yembo; as many as two hundred and fifty persons died there per day. Great numbers of the inhabitants fled to Mekka, thinking to be safe in that sacred asylum; but they carried the disease with them, and a number of Mekkans died, although much less in proportion than at Djidda. Even the Kadhy of Djidda, an Arab, made his escape to Mekka, with all his olemas; but Hassan Pasha, then governor of the holy city, ordered him, under pain of death, to return immediately to his post; and he died on the road. The principal marketstreet of Djidda was quite deserted, and numbers of families were entirely destroyed. As a great many foreign merchants were then in Djidda, their property considerably increased Mohammed Alys treasure; and I heard from eye-witnesses, that the only business then done in the town was the transport of corpses to the burial-ground, and that of the deceaseds valuable property to the house of the commandant. Medina remained free from the plague, as did the open country between Yembo and Djidda.
I shall mention here a particular custom of the Arabs. When the
[p.419] plague had reached its height at Yembo, the Arab inhabitants led in procession through the town a she-camel, thickly covered with all sorts of ornaments, feathers, bells, &c. &c.: when they reached the burialground, they killed it, and threw its flesh to the vultures and the dogs. They hoped that the plague, dispersed over the town, would hasten to take refuge in the body of the camel, and that by slaughtering the victim, they would get rid at once of the disease. Many of the more sensible Arabs laughed at this; but it was so far of some use, that it inspired the lower classes with courage.
The town of Yembo is built on the northern side of a deep bay, which affords good anchorage for ships, and is protected from the violence of the wind by an island at its entrance. The ships lie close in shore, and the harbour is spacious enough to contain the largest fleet. The town is divided by a creek of the bay into two parts; the largest division is called exclusively Yembo; the other, on the western side, bears the name of El Kad, and is principally inhabited by seafaring people. Both divisions have the sea in front, and are enclosed on the other sides by a common wall, of considerable strength, better built than those of Djidda, Tayf, and Medina. It is flanked by many towers and was erected by the joint labour of the inhabitants themselves, as a defence against the Wahabys, the ancient wall being ruined, and enclosing only a part of the town. The new wall comprises an area almost double the space occupied by habitations, leaving between it and the latter, large open squares, which are either used as burial-grounds, encamping-places for caravans, for the exercising of troops, or are abandoned as waste ground. The extent of the wall would require a large garrison to defend it at all points; the whole armed population of Yembo is inadequate to it: but Eastern engineers always estimate the strength of a fortification by its size; and with the same view a thick wall and deep ditch have been lately carried along the outskirts of the old town of Alexandria, which it would require at least twenty-five thousand men to defend.
Yembo has two gates towards the east and north; Bab el Medina, and Bab el Masry. The houses of the town are worse built than those
[p.420] of any other town in the Hedjaz. Their structure is so coarse, that few of the stones with which they are built have their surfaces hewn smooth. The stone is calcareous, full of fossils, and of a glaring white colour, which renders the view of the town particularly distressing to the eyes. Most of the houses have only a ground-floor. Except three or four badly-built mosques, a few half-ruined public khans, and the house of the governor on the sea-side, (also a mean building), there is no large edifice in the place.
Yembo is a complete Arab town; very few foreigners are settled here: of Indians, who have such numerous colonies at Mekka, Djidda, and Medina, two or three individuals only are found as shopkeepers; all the merchants being Arabs, except a few Turks, who occasionally take up a temporary residence. Most of the inhabitants belong to the Bedouin tribe of Djeheyne, in this neighbourhood, (which extends northward along the sea-shore), many of whom have become settlers: several families of Sherifs, originally from Mekka, have mixed with them. The settlers in this town, or, as they are called, the Yembawys, continue to live and dress like Bedouins. They wear the keffie, or green and yellow striped silk handkerchief, on the head, and a white abba on their shoulder, with a gown of blue linen, or coloured cotton, or silk stuff, under it, which they tie close with a leathern girdle. Their eating, and whole mode of living, their manners and customs, are those of Bedouins. The different branches of the Djeheyne tribe established here have each their sheikh: they quarrel with each other as often as they might do if encamping in the open country, and observe the same laws in their hostilities and their blood-revenge as the Bedouins.
The principal occupation of the Yembawys is trade and navigation. The town possesses about forty or fifty ships, engaged in all branches of the Red Sea trade, and navigated by natives of the town, or slaves. The intercourse between Yembo and Egypt is very frequent. Many Yembawys are settled at Suez and Cosseir, and some at Cairo and Kenne in Upper Egypt, from whence they trade with their native place. Others trade with the Bedouins of the Hedjaz, and on the shores of the Red Sea, as far Moeyleh, and exchange in their encampments the
[p.421] provisions brought to Yembo from Egypt, for cattle, butter, and honey, which they sell again at a great profit upon their return to the town.
The people of Yembo are less civil, and of more rude and sometimes wild behaviour, than those of Djidda or Mekka, but, on the other hand, their manners are much more orderly, and they are less addicted to vice than the latter, and enjoy, generally, over the Hedjaz, all the advantages of a respectable name. Although there are no individuals of great wealth in the town, every body seems to enjoy more ease and plenty than even at Mekka. Almost all the respectable families of Yembo have a country-house in the fruitful valley called Yembo el Nakhel, or Gara Yembo, or Yembo el Berr, about six or seven hours distance from. hence, at the foot of the mountains, in a N.E. direction. It is similar to the valleys of Djedeyde [There is a road, of difficult passage, from Yembo el Nakhel to Djedeyde, over the mountains to the north of the great road.] and Szafra, where date-trees grow, and fields are cultivated. It extends about seven hours in length, and contains upwards of a dozen hamlets, scattered on the side of the mountain. The principal of these is Soueyga, the market-place, where the great Sheikh of the Djeheyne resides, who is acknowledged as such by the Bedouins of that tribe, as well as by the people of Yembo.
The valley of Yembo is cultivated exclusively by Djeheyne, who have either become settlers, and remain there the whole year, or keep a few labourers in their plantations, while they themselves remain encamped in the mountain, and reside in the valley only at the time of the date- harvest, when all the Yembawys who possess gardens there, likewise repair for a month to the same place. All kinds of fruits are cultivated there, with which the market of Yembo is supplied. The houses, I heard, are built of stone, and of a better appearance than those of Djedeyde. The Yembawys consider this valley as their original place of abode, to which the town and harbour belong as a colony. The Egyptian Hadj route passes by Yembo el Nakhel, from whence it makes one nights journey to Beder: this caravan, therefore, never touches the
[p.422] harbour of Yembo, although many individuals of it, in returning from Mekka, take from Mastoura the road to Yembo, to transact some business in the town, and rejoin the caravan at one days journey north of Yembo.
The trade of Yembo consists chiefly in provisions: no great warehouses of goods are found here; but, in the shops, some Indian and Egyptian articles of dress are exposed for sale. The ship-owners are not, as at Djidda, merchants, but merely carriers; yet they always invest their profits in some little mercantile speculation. The transport trade to Medina occupies many people, and all the merchants of that town have their agents among the Arabs of Yembo. In time of peace, the caravan for Medina starts every fortnight; lately, from the want of camels, it departed only every month. There are often conveyances by land for Djidda and Mekka, and sometimes for Wodjeh and Moeyleh, the fortified stations of the Egyptian caravan on the Red Sea. The people of Yembo are very daring smugglers, and no ship of theirs enters the harbour without a considerable part of its cargo being sent on shore by stealth, to elude the heavy duties. Parties of twenty or thirty men, well armed, repair to the harbour at night, for this purpose, and if detected, often resist the custom-house officers by open force.
The skirts of the town are entirely barren, no trees or verdure are seen, either within or without the walls. Beyond the salt-ground, next to the sea, the plain is covered with sand, and continues so as far as the mountains. To the N.E. is seen a high mountain, from whence the great chain takes a more western course towards Beder. I believe this to be the mountain of Redoua, which the Arabian geographers often mention. Samhoudy places it at one days journey from Yembo, and four days from Medina. About one hour to the east of the town is a cluster of wells of sweet water, called Aseylya, which are made to irrigate a few melon- fields. Bedouins sometimes encamp there; at this time a corps of Turkish cavalry had pitched their tents near these wells.
In the town are several wells of brackish water, but no cisterns. The supply of water for drinking is obtained from some large cisterns,
[p.423] at about five minutes walk from the Medina gate, where the rainwater is collected. Small canals have been dug across the neighbouring plains, to convey the streams of rain-water to these cisterns. They are spacious, well-cased, subterranean reservoirs, and some of them large enough to supply the whole town for several weeks. They are the property of private families, whose ancestors built them, and who sell the water, at certain prices, fixed by the governor, who also exacts a tax from each of them. The water is excellent, much better than that of any other town of the Hedjaz, where the inhabitants are not industrious enough to form similar cisterns. When the winter-rains fail, the inhabitants of Yembo suffer severely, and are obliged to fill their water-skins at the distant wells of Aseylya.