The form of government which existed under Ghaleb has not been changed by the Osmanlys. It happened that Tousoun Pasha could seldom reside in his capital, being placed under the command of his father, who received from the Porte the entire direction of the Hedjaz war, and the disposal of all the resources of that country. Tousoun was more usefully employed in moving about with the troops under his command, till he returned to Cairo in the autumn of 1815. Since the year 1812, a military commander has always resided in the town, with a garrison of two or three hundred men, which the Pasha takes care to change every three or four months. The collection of the customs, the entire regulation of civil affairs, the correspondence with Cairo and Mekka, the conveyance of troops, stores, and government merchandize between Egypt and Djidda, and the Pashas treasury, are in the hands of this commander, whose name is Seyd Ali Odjakly. His father was from Asia Minor, and belonged to the corps of Janissaries (Odjak), whence his son takes the epithet of Odjakly. He is disliked by the merchants of Djidda, because they remember his selling nuts in the streets about twenty years ago. In the time of Sherif Ghaleb,
[p.49] he was employed by him in his private commercial affairs; and as he possesses great talents and activity, joined to a good knowledge of the Turkish language, Mohammed Ali could with difficulty have pitched upon a person more competent to fill the post which he now holds.
The public revenue of Djidda arises almost exclusively from the customs, called here ashour, or tithes. This ought legally to be, as I was informed, ten per cent. upon all imported goods; but, in consequence of abuses which have been long practised, some articles of merchandize are charged much higher, while others pay less. During the latter period of the sherifs power, coffee was charged at five dollars the quintal, which may be computed as fifteen to twenty per cent. Spices pay somewhat less than ten per cent.; India piece-goods something more. Great irregularity, therefore, exists in levying the customs; and it is in the power of the officer of customs to favour his friends without incurring any responsibility.
After the sherif had embraced the Wahabi doctrine, his income was greatly diminished; because Saoud, the chief of the Wahabis, insisted that the goods of all his followers should pass duty-free, and thus the greater part of the coffee trade became exempt. I heard from a person who had means of knowing the truth, and who had no motive for concealing it from me, that the amount of customs collected at Djidda in 1814 was four hundred thousand dollars, equal to eight thousand purses, or four millions of piastres, which would give an annual importation of about four millions of dollars, a sum certainly below rather than above the truth. Customs are levied after the same rate at the two gates of the town, called Bab Mekka and Bab el Medina, upon all provisions coming from the interior of the country, principally cattle, butter, and dates, which, in time of peace, when the communication with the interior is uninterrupted, becomes a matter of importance. Except these, the people of the town pay no imposts whatever.
[p.50] During my residence, the Turks had made Djidda the principal depot for their army. A large magazine of corn belonging to the Pasha, received almost daily supplies from Egypt, and caravans were every day despatched to Mekka and Tayf; the commerce of the town also was much increased by the wants of the army and its followers. The police of the place was well regulated; and the Pasha had given the strictest injunctions to his troops that they should not commit excesses, as he well knew that the high-minded Arabians do not so quietly submit to ill- treatment as the enslaved Egyptians: whenever quarrels happened between Arabs and Turks, the former generally had the advantage. No avanies (or wanton act of oppression and injustice) had, under any pretence, been exercised upon individuals, except in the occupation of a few of the best houses by the Pasha as lodgings for his wives. The merchants suffered, however, as in the sherifs time, from the arbitrary rates of customs, and from the necessity of frequently purchasing all kinds of merchandize from the Pasha, who, while he was in the Hedjaz, seemed to be as eager in his mercantile as he was in his military pursuits. But after an impartial view of the merits and demerits of both governments, it may be said that the people of Djidda have certainly gained by the Osmanlys; yet, strange to mention, not an Arab could be found, whether rich or poor, sincerely attached to his new masters; and the termination of the sherifs government was universally regretted. This must not be attributed wholly to the usual levity of a mob, which is found among the subjects of the Porte, even in a greater degree than among those of any European nation. The Ottoman governors or Pashas are continually changing, and every new one becoming a supreme ruler, gives ample cause for complaints and private hatred and disgust; while their rapid succession inspires the people with the hope of being soon rid of their present despot, an event to which they look forward with pleasure, as the first months of a new governor are generally marked by clemency and justice.
[p.51] The Arabians are a very proud, high-spirited nation; and this may be said even of those who inhabit the towns, however corrupted the true Bedouin character may be among this degenerate race. They despise every nation that does not speak the Arabic language, or that differs in manners; they have, besides, been accustomed, for many years, to look upon Turks as a very inferior people, who, whenever they entered the Hedjaz, were overawed by the power of the sherif. The rigid ceremonial of a Turkish court was not adapted to the character and established notions of Mohammed Alys new subjects. The sherif, in the height of his power, resembled a great Bedouin Sheikh, who submits to be boldly and often harshly addressed. A Turkish Pasha is approached with the most abject forms of servitude. Whenever the Sherif Ghaleb wanted a loan of money, observed one of the first merchants of the Hedjaz to me, he sent for three or four of us; we sat in close discourse with him for a couple of hours, often quarrelling loudly, and we always reduced the sum to something much less than was at first demanded. When we went to him on ordinary business, we spoke to him as I now speak to you; but the Pasha keeps us standing before him in an humble attitude, like so many Habesh (Abyssinian) slaves, and looks down upon us as if we were beings of an inferior creation. I would rather, he concluded, pay a fine to the sherif than receive a favour from the Pasha.
The little knowledge which the Turks possess of the Arabic language, their bad pronunciation of it even in reciting prayers from the Koran, the ignorance of Arabia and its peculiarities which they betray in every act, are so many additional causes to render them hateful or despicable in the eyes of the Arabs. The Turks return an equal share of contempt and dislike. Whoever does not speak the language of the Turkish soldier, or does not dress like one, is considered as a fellah, or boor, a term which they have been in the habit of applying to the Egyptian peasants, as beings in the lowest
[p.52] state of servitude and oppression. Their hatred of the Arabian race is greater, because they cannot indulge their tyrannical disposition with impunity, as they are accustomed to do in Egypt, being convinced by experience that an Arabian, when struck, will strike again. The Arabians particularly accuse the Turks of treachery, in seizing the sherif and sending him to Turkey after he had declared for the Pasha, and permitted Djidda and Mekka to be occupied by the Turkish troops, who, they assert, would never, without the assistance of the sherif, have been able to make any progress in Arabia, much less to acquire a firm footing therein.
The term khayn, treacherous, is universally applied to every Turk in Arabia, with that proud self-confidence of superiority, in this respect, for which the Arabs are deservedly renowned. The lower classes of the Arabs have discovered a fanciful confirmation of their charge against the Turks in one of the Grand Signors titles, Khán, an ancient Tatar word, which in Arabic signifies he betrayed, being the preterite of the verb ykhoun, to betray. They pretend that an ancestor of the Sultan having betrayed a fugitive, received the opprobrious appellation of el Sultan Khán, (the Sultan has been treacherous;) and that the title is merely retained by his successors from their ignorance of the Arabic language.
Whenever the power of the Turks in the Hedjaz declines, which it will when the resources of Egypt are no longer directed to that point by so able and so undisturbed a possessor of Egypt as Mohammed Ali, the Arabs will avenge themselves for the submission, light as it is, which they now reluctantly yield to their conquerors; and the reign of the Osmanlis in the Hedjaz will probably terminate in many a scene of bloodshed.