Most of the inhabitants are of foreign origin, and present as motley a race as those of Mekka. No year passes without some new settlers being added to their number; and no pilgrim caravan crosses the town without leaving here a few of its travellers, who stop at first with the intention of remaining for a year or two only, but generally continue to reside here permanently. Descendants of people from northern Turkey are very numerous; but the greater part trace their origin to settlers of the southern countries of Arabia, Yemen and Hadramaut, and from Syria, and Egypt, and many also from Barbary. My cicerone was called Sheikh Sad-eddyn el Kurdy, because his grandfather was a Kurd who had settled here: the proprietor of the house in which I lived was Seyd Omar, a Sherif of the Yafáÿ tribe of Yemen, whose ancestors had come hither several hundred years since. Indians are likewise found, but in less number than at Mekka. As there, they are druggists, and petty shopkeepers; but I believe that no Indian wholesale dealers in their native products are to be found at Medina. They adhere to their national dress and manners, forming a small colony, and rarely intermarry or mix with the other inhabitants.
The individuals of different nations settled here have in their second and third generations all become Arabs as to features and character; but are, nevertheless, distinguishable from the Mekkans; they are not nearly so brown as the latter, thus forming an intermediate link between the Hedjaz people and the northern Syrians. Their features are somewhat broader, their beards thicker, and their body stouter, than those of the Mekkans; but the Arab face, the expression, and cast of features are in both places the same.
The Medinans in their dress resemble more the Turkish than their southern neighbours: very few of them wear the beden, or the national Arab cloak without sleeves; but even the poorer people dress in long gowns, with a cloth djobbe, or upper cloak, or, instead of it, an abba, of the same brown and white stripe as is common in Syria and all over the Desert. Red Tunis bonnets and Turkish shoes are
[p.373] more used here than at Mekka, where the lower classes wear white bonnets, and sandals. People in easy circumstances dress well, wearing good cloth cloaks, fine gowns, and, in winter, good pelisses, brought from Constantinople by way of Cairo; which I found a very common article of dress in January and February, a season when it is much colder here than Europeans would expect it to be in Arabian deserts. Generally speaking, we may say that the Medinans dress better than the Mekkans, though with much less cleanliness: but no national costume is observed here; and, particularly in the cold of winter, the lower classes cover themselves with whatever articles of dress they can obtain at low prices in the public auctions; so that it is not uncommon to see a man fitted out in the dress of three or four different countries-like an Arab as high as his waist, and like a Turkish soldier over his breast and shoulders. The richer people make a great display of dress, and vie with each other in finery. I saw more new suits of clothes here, even when the yearly feasts were terminated, than I had seen before in any other part of the East. As at Mekka, the Sherifs wear no green, but simple white muslin turbans, excepting those from the northern part of Turkey, who have recently settled here, and who continue to wear the badge of their noble extraction.
Prior to the Wahaby conquest, when the inhabitants were often exposed to bloody affrays among themselves, they always went armed with the djombye, or crooked Arabian knife: at present few of these are seen; but every body, from the highest to the lowest, carries in his hand a long heavy stick. The rich have their sticks headed with silver; others fix iron spikes to them; and thus make a formidable weapon, which the Arabs handle with much dexterity. The women dress like those of Mekka; blue gowns being worn by the lower classes, and silk mellayes by the higher.
The Bedouins settled in and near the suburbs, use exactly the same costume as those of the Syrian Desert: a shirt, abba, a kessye on the head, a leathern girdle in which the knife is stuck, and sandals on the feet. Even those who have become settlers, form a distinct race, and do not intermix with the rest of the towns-people. They preserve their national dress, language, and customs, and live in their
[p.374] houses as they would under tents in the Desert. Of all Eastern nations, the Arabian Bedouins perhaps are those who abandon their national habits with most reluctance. In Syria, in Egypt, and in the Hedjaz, settlements are seen, the members of which have become cultivators for several centuries back; yet they have adopted only few of the habits of peasants, and still pride themselves on their Bedouin origin and manners.
The Medinans have not the same means of gaining a living, as the Mekkans. Although this town is never free from foreign pilgrims, there is never that immense influx of hadjys which renders Mekka so populous for several months in the year, and which makes it a market for all parts of the East. The hadjys who come to Medina are seldom merchants, or at least do not go there for mercantile pursuits, and therefore leave on the coast their heavy baggage. Even the Syrian merchants who pass with the great caravan seldom engage in trade, unless it be for some camel-loads of tobacco and dried fruits. The Medina trade is therefore merely for home consumption, and to supply the neighbouring Bedouins with articles of dress and provisions. These are received by way of Yembo, and come almost exclusively from Egypt. No great merchants are settled in Medina: the trade is merely retail; and those who possess capital, generally invest it in goods, as usual throughout Syria and Egypt, there not being any public institution like banks, or trading societies, or national funds, from which the capitalist might derive interest for his money. The Turkish law rigorously forbids the taking of interest; and even if it were otherwise, there is not any government nor any class of men to which the people would intrust considerable sums. The investment of capital in landed property is also liable to great risk. [By a decree of Mohammed Aly in 1813, the purchase of land in Egypt is rendered impracticable; for it orders all the Moltezims (or landed proprietors who shared in the possession of villages and grounds, and who formed a class living on their rents in the country towns,) to receive their yearly revenue from the Pashas treasury, where they suffered every kind of humiliation and injustice; and the whole of the soil was declared to be the property of government, or in other words of Mohammed Aly himself, who leaves the cultivation of it to the fellahs on his own terms. It happened lately that the Fellahs, who farmed five thousand acres belonging to the village of Damkour near Cairo, were deprived of their leases on the land being declared public property, because the Pasha wished to sow clover for his cavalry upon the soil that the Fellahs had possessed. Landed property in Syria also subjects the owner to great inconveniences: he is oppressed by every governor of a district, and by every soldier who passes; he suffers in his receipts from the extortions of the Pashas, which generally fall more heavily upon the cultivator than upon the monied man: and if he do not constantly watch his peasants, he is most probably cheated out of all his profits.] The usual
[p.375] method is to enter into partnership with different petty merchants or retail dealers, and obtain a share of their profits; but it is subject to almost as much anxiety as an active trade, from the necessity of keeping a constant account with the partners, and incessantly watching them. Usury is practised, and an annual interest from thirty to fifty per cent is paid at Cairo for money: but few of the Turkish merchants descend to this practice, which is reckoned dishonorable. Usury is wholly in the hands of Jews, and Christians the outcasts of Europe. There is, perhaps, nothing in the present deplorable state of eastern society that has a more baneful effect upon the minds and happiness of the people, than the necessity of continuing during their whole lives in business full of intrigues and chances. The cheering hopes which animate an European, the prospect of enjoying in old age the profits of early exertions, are unknown to the native of the East, whose retirement would bring nothing but danger, by marking him as wealthy in the eyes of his rapacious governor. The double influence of the Turkish government and Muselman religion have produced such an universal hypocrisy, that there is scarcely a Mohammedan (whose tranquil air, as he smokes his pipe reclining on the sofa, gives one an idea of the most perfect contentment and apathy,) that does not suffer under all the agonies of envy, unsatisfied avarice, ambition, or the fear of losing his ill-gotten property.
Travellers who pass rapidly through the East, without a knowledge of the language, and rarely mixing with any but persons interested in misrepresenting their true character, are continually deceived by the dignified deportment of the Turks, their patriarchal manners and solemn speeches,—although they would ridicule a Frenchman who,