[p.249] From twenty to thirty pilgrims are under the care of the same Mekowem, who has his tents and servants, and saves the hadjys from all fatigue and trouble on the road: their tent, coffee, water, breakfast, and dinner are prepared for them, and they need not take the slightest trouble about packing and loading. If a camel should die, the Mekowem must find another; and, however great may be the want of provisions on the road, he must furnish his passengers with their daily meals. In 1814, the hire of one Mekowem, and the boarding at his table, was one hundred and fifty dollars from Damascus to Medina, and fifty dollars more from Medina to Mekka. Out of these two hundred dollars, sixty were given by the Mekowem to a man who led the camel by the halter during the night-marches; a precaution necessary in so great a caravan, when the rider usually sleeps, and the animal might otherwise easily wander from the path. In addition to the stipulated hire, the Mekowem always receives some presents from his pilgrims. On the return to Syria, the sum is something less, as many camels then go unloaded.
Few travellers choose to perform the journey at their own risk, or upon their own camels; for if they are not particularly protected by the soldiery, or the chief of the caravan, they find it difficult to escape the ill-treatment of the Mekowem at watering-places, as well as on the march; the latter endeavouring to check, by every means in their power, the practice of traveling independent of them, so that it is rarely done except by rich hadjys, who have the means of forming a party of their own amounting to forty or fifty individuals.
At night, torches are lighted, and the daily distance is usually performed between three oclock in the afternoon, and an hour or two after sun-rise on the following day. The Bedouins who carry provisions for the troops, travel by day only, and in advance of the caravan, the encampment of which they pass in the morning, and are overtaken in turn, and passed by the caravan on the following night, at their own resting- place. The journey with these Bedouins is less fatiguing than with the great body of the caravan, as a regular nights rest is obtained; but their bad character deters most pilgrims from joining them.
[p.250] At every watering-place on the route are a small castle and a large tank, at which the camels water. The castles are garrisoned by a few persons, who remain during the whole year to guard the provisions deposited there. It is at these watering-places, which belong to the Bedouins, that the Sheikhs of the tribes meet the caravan, and receive the accustomed tribute. Water is plentiful on the route: the stations are no where more distant than eleven or twelve hours march; and in winter, pools of rain-water are frequently found. Those pilgrims who can travel with a litter, or on commodious camel-saddles, may sleep at night, and perform the journey with little inconvenience; but of those whom poverty, or the desire of soon acquiring a large sum of money, induces to follow the caravan on foot, or to hire themselves as servants, many die on the road from fatigue.
The Egyptian caravan, which starts from Cairo, is under the same regulations as the Syrian, but seldom equals the latter in numbers, being composed of Egyptians only, besides the military escort. Its route is more dangerous and fatiguing than that of the Syrian caravan; the road along the shore of the Red Sea leading through the territories of wild and warlike tribes of Bedouins, who frequently endeavour to cut off a part of the caravan by open force. The watering-places too are much fewer on this route than on the other; three days frequently intervening between the wells, which are, besides, seldom copious, and, with the exception of two or three, are of bad brackish water. In 1814, this caravan was composed of soldiers only with the retinue of the sacred camel, and some public officers; all the Egyptian pilgrims having preferred taking the route by Suez. In 1816, several grandees of Cairo joined the Hadj, one of whom had one hundred and ten camels for the transport of his baggage and retinue, and eight tents: his travelling expenses in going and coming must have amounted to ten thousand pounds. There were also about five hundred peasants, with their women, from upper and lower Egypt, who were less afraid of the fatigues and dangers of the Desert than of the Sea. I saw with them a party of public women and dancing-girls, whose tents and equipage were among the most splendid in the
[p.251] caravan. Female hadjys of a similar class accompany the Syrian caravan also.
The Persian Hadj, which used to set out from Baghdad, and come through Nedjed to Mekka, was discontinued about the time when the Wahabys stopped the Syrian Hadj. After Abdullah ibn Saoud had made peace with Tousoun Pasha in 1815, it ventured to cross the Desert, and passed by Derayeh unmolested; but within four days journey of Mekka, it was attacked by the Beni Shammar, a tribe which had remained neuter during the war between Tousoun and the Wahabys. The caravan then returned to Derayeh; through the intercession of Saoud, the goods of which it had been plundered were restored; and he sent a party of his own people to escort it to the holy city.
The Persian caravan is usually escorted by the Ageyl Arabs, of Baghdad. As its pilgrims are known to be sectaries, they are exposed to great extortions on the road: Saoud exacted a heavy capitation-tax from them, as did Sherif Ghaleb at Mekka, amounting in latter times to thirty sequins per head. Persian hadjys are all persons of property, and no pilgrims suffer so much imposition as they during the whole route. Great numbers of them come by sea: they embark at Bassora for Mokha, and if they fall in with the trade-wind, run straight to Djidda; if not, they form themselves into a caravan, and come by land along the coast of Yemen. In 1814, when I was present at the Hadj, the few Persians who came by land, had passed through Baghdad to Syria, and had followed the Syrian caravan, accompanied by Baghdad camel-drivers.
It deserves notice here, that the Persians were not always permitted to come to the holy city; being notorious heretics, who conceal their doctrines only during the Hadj, that they may not give offence to the Sunnys. In 1634, a few years after the temple of Mekka had been rebuilt, Sultan Murad IV. commanded that no Persian of the sect of Aly should be allowed to perform the pilgrimage, or enter the Beittullah. This prohibition was complied with for several years; but the money expended by the Persians soon re-opened the way to Arafat
[p.252] and the Kaaba. We learn from Asamy, that, in 1625, a sectary of Aly was impaled alive at Mekka, because he would not abjure his creed.