We knew of how little avail the ordinary futile recommendations of letters were. We were veteran travellers, and knew the style of the East too well, to be duped by letters of mere civility. There is no people on the earth more perfectly polite in their correspondence with one another, than are those of the East; but their civility means little more than the same sort of expressions do in Europe, to shew you that the writer is a well-bred man. But this would by no means do in a journey so long, so dangerous, and so serious as mine.
We, therefore, set about procuring effective letters, letters of business and engagement, between man and man; and we all endeavoured to make Metical Aga a very good man, but no great head-piece, comprehend this perfectly. My letters from Ali Bey opened the affair to him, and first commanded his attention. A very handsome present of pistols, which I brought him, inclined him in my favour, because, as I was bearer of letters from his superior, I might have declined bestowing any present upon him.
The English gentlemen joined their influence, powerful enough, to have accomplished a much greater end, as everyone of these have separate friends for their own affairs, and all of them were desirous to befriend me. Added to these was a friend of mine, whom I had known at Aleppo, Ali Zimzimiah, i. e. ‘keeper of the holy well at Mecca,’ a post of great dignity and honour. This man was a mathematician, and an astronomer, according to their degree of knowledge in that science.
All the letters were written in a style such as I could have desired, but this did not suffice in the mind of a very friendly and worthy man, who had taken an attachment to me since my first arrival. This was Captain Thomas Price, of the Lion of Bombay. He first proposed to Metical Aga, to send a man of his own with me, together with the letters, and I do firmly believe, under Providence, it was to this last measure I owed my life. With this Captain Thornhill heartily concurred, and an Abyssinian, called Mahomet Gibberti, was appointed to go with particular letters besides those I carried myself, and to be an eye-witness of my reception there.
There was some time necessary for this man to make ready, and a considerable part of the Arabian Gulf still remained for me to explore. I prepared, therefore, to set out from Jidda, after having made a considerable stay in it.
Of all the new things I yet had seen, what most astonished me was the manner in which trade was carried on at this place. Nine ships were there from India; some of them worth, I suppose, L. 200,000. One merchant, a Turk, living at Mecca, thirty hours journey off, where no Christian dares go, whilst the whole Continent is open to the Turk for escape, offers to purchase the cargoes of four out of nine of these ships himself; another, of the same cast, comes and says, he will buy none, unless he has them all. The samples are shewn, and the cargoes of the whole nine ships are carried into the wildest part of Arabia, by men with whom one would not wish to trust himself alone in the field. This is not all, two India brokers come into the room to settle the price. One on the part of the India captain, the other on that of the buyer the Turk. They are neither Mahometans nor Christians, but have credit with both. They sit down on the carpet, and take an India shawl, which they carry on their shoulder, like a napkin, and spread it over their hands. They talk, in the mean time, indifferent conversation, of the arrival of ships from India, or of the news of the day, as if they were employed in no serious business whatever. After about twenty minutes spent in handling each others fingers below the shawl, the bargain is concluded, say for nine ships, without one word ever having been spoken on the subject, or pen or ink used in any shape whatever. There never was one instance of a dispute happening in these sales.
But this is not yet all, the money is to be paid. A private Moor, who has nothing to support him but his character, becomes responsible for the payment of these cargoes; his name was Ibrahim Saraf when I was there, i. e. Ibrahim the Broker. This man delivers a number of coarse hempen bags, full of what is supposed to be money. He marks the contents upon the bag, and puts his seal upon the string that ties the mouth of it. This is received for what is marked upon it, without any one ever having opened one or the bags, and, in India, it is current for the value marked upon it, as long as the bag lasts.
Jidda is very unwholesome, as is, indeed, all the east coast of the Red Sea. Immediately without the gate of that town, to the eastward, is a desert plain filled with the huts of the Bedowèens, or country Arabs, built of long bundles of spartum, or bent grass, put together like fascines. These Bedowèens supply Jidda with milk and butter. There is no stirring out of town, even for a walk, unless for about half a mile, in the south side by the sea, where there is a number of stinking pools of stagnant water, which contributes to make the town very unwholesome.
Jidda, besides being in the most unwholesome part of Arabia, is, at the same time, in the most barren and desert situation. This, and many other inconveniencies, under which it labours, would, probably, have occasioned its being abandoned altogether, were it not for its vicinity to Mecca, and the great and sudden influx of wealth from the India trade, which, once a-year, arrives in this part, but does not continue, passing on, as through a turnpike, to Mecca; whence it is dispersed all over the east. Very little advantage however accrues to Jidda. The customs are all immediately sent to a needy sovereign, and a hungry set of relations, dependents and ministers at Mecca. The gold is returned in bags and boxes, and passes on as rapidly to the ships as the goods do to the market, and leaves as little profit behind. In the mean time, provisions rise to a prodigious price, and this falls upon the townsmen, while all the profit of the traffic is in the hands of strangers; most of whom, after the market is over, (which does not last six weeks) retire to Yemen, and other neighbouring countries, which abound in every sort of provision.
Upon this is founded the observation, that of all Mahometan countries none are so monogam as those of Jidda, and no where are there so many unmarried women, altho’ this is the country of their prophet, and the permission of marrying four wives was allowed in this district in the first instance, and afterwards communicated to all the tribes.