[p.255] at a high price, (it was eighteen dollars a head in 1814), with his governor at Suez, who distributed them on board the Arab ships, and paid to the masters of the vessels only six dollars per head. Formerly hadjys were permitted to carry with them from Suez as great a quantity of provisions as they chose, part of which they afterwards sold in the Hedjaz to some profit; but at present none can embark with more than what is barely sufficient for his own consumption during the pilgrimage. The advantage of carrying along with them their provisions, chiefly butter, flour, biscuits, and dried flesh, purchased at cheap prices in Egypt, for the whole journey, was a principal reason for preferring a sea voyage; for those who go by land must purchase all their provisions at Mekka, where the prices are high.
If the foreign pilgrims, on their arrival at Cairo, cannot hear of any ships lying in the harbour of Suez, they often pursue their way up the Nile as far as Genne, and from thence cross the Desert to Cosseir, from whence it is but a short voyage to Djidda. In returning from the Hedjaz, this Cosseir route is preferred by the greater part of the Turkish hadjys. The natives of Upper Egypt go by Cosseir; likewise many negro pilgrims, after having followed the banks of the Nile from Sennar down to Genne. The usual fare for hadjys from Cosseir to Djidda, is from six to eight dollars.
In the last days of the Mamelouks, when they held possession of Upper Egypt, while the lower was conquered by Mohammed Aly, many Turkish hadjys who repaired to the Hedjaz in small parties, though it was then in the hands of the Wahabys, suffered much illtreatment from the Mamelouks, on their return to Egypt; many of them were stripped and slain in their passage down the Nile. The sanguinary Greek, Hassan Beg el Yahoudy, boasted of having himself killed five hundred of them. These massacres of inoffensive pilgrims furnished Mohammed Aly with an excuse for his treachery in putting the Mamelouks to death at the castle of Cairo.
Other pilgrims arrive by sea from Yemen and the East India, namely,
Mohammedan Hindous, and Malays; Cashmerians, and people from Guzerat;
Persians, from the Persian Gulf; Arabians, from Bassora, Maskat, Oman,
Hadramaut; and those from the coasts
[p.256] of Melinda and Mombaza, who are comprised under the generic name of the people of the Sowahel, i.e. the level coast; Abyssinian Moslims, and many negro pilgrims, who come by the same route. All Moslims dwelling on the coasts of the ocean are certain of finding, towards the period of the Hadj, some ship departing from a neighbouring harbour for the Red Sea; but the greater number arrive with the regular Indian fleet in May, and remain at Mekka or Medina till the time of the Hadj; soon after which, they embark on board country ships at Djidda for Yemen, where they wait till the period of the trade-winds to pass the Bab el Mandeb. Multitudes of beggars come to Mekka from the above-mentioned countries; they get a free passage from charitable individuals in their own country, or the cost of it is defrayed by those who employ them as their proxies in performing the Hadj; but when they land, they are thrown entirely upon the charity of other hadjys; and the alms they collect, must serve to carry them back to their homes.
Few pilgrims, except the mendicants, arrive without bringing some productions of their respective countries for sale; and this remark is applicable as well to the merchants, with whom commercial pursuits are the main object, as to those who are actuated by religious zeal for to the latter, the profits derived from selling a few native articles at Mekka, diminish, in some degree, the heavy expenses of the journey. The Moggrebyns, for example, bring their red bonnets and woollen cloaks; the European Turks, shoes and slippers, hardware, embroidered stuffs, sweetmeats, amber, trinkets of European manufacture, knit silk purses, &c.; the Turks of Anatolia bring carpets, silks, and Angora shawls; the Persians, cashmere shawls and large silk handkerchiefs; the Afghans, tooth-brushes, called Mesouak Kattary, made of the spongy boughs of a tree growing in Bokhara, beads of a yellow soap-stone, and plain, coarse shawls, manufactured in their own country; the Indians, the numerous productions of their rich and extensive region; the people of Yemen, snakes for the Persian pipes, sandals, and various other works in leather; and the Africans bring various articles adapted to the slave- trade. The hadjys are, however, often disappointed in their expectations of gain; want of money makes
[p.257] them hastily sell their little adventures at the public auctions, and often obliges them to accept very low prices.
Of all the poor pilgrims who arrive in the Hedjaz, none bear a more respectable character for industry than the Negroes, or Tekrourys, as they are called here. All the poorer class of Indians turn beggars as soon as they are landed at Djidda. Many Syrians and Egyptians follow the same trade; but not so the Negroes. I have already stated in a former journal, that the latter reach the Hedjaz by the three harbours of Massouah, Souakin, and Cosseir. Those who come by Sennar and Abyssinia to Massoua, are all paupers. The small sum of one dollar carries them from Massoua to the opposite coast of Yemen; and they usually land at Hodeyda. Here they wait for the arrival of a sufficient number of their countrymen, to form a small caravan, and then ascend the mountains of Yemen, along the fertile valleys of which, inhabited by hospitable Arabs, they beg their way to Djidda or to Mekka. [In 1813, a party of Tekrourys, about sixty in number, having taken that road, the Arabs of those mountains, who are Wahabys, and who had often seen black slaves among the Turkish soldiers, conceived that the negro hadjys were in the habit of entering into the service of the Turks. To prevent the party then passing from being ever opposed to them, they waylaid the poor Tekrourys on the road, and killed many of them.] If rich enough to spare two dollars, they obtain, perhaps, a passage from Massoua direct to Djidda, where they meet with such of their countrymen as may have landed there from Souakin or Cosseir. Immediately on their arrival at Djidda or Mekka, they apply themselves to labour: some serve as porters, for the transport of goods and corn from the ships to the warehouses; others hire themselves to clean the court-yards, fetch wood from the neighbouring mountains, for the supply of which the inhabitants of Djidda and Mekka are exclusively indebted to them, as none of their own lazy poor will undertake that labour, although four piastres a day may be gained by it. At Mekka, they make small hearths of clay, (kanoun,) which they paint with yellow and red; these are bought by the hadjys, who boil their coffee-pots upon them. Some manufacture small baskets and mats of date-leaves, or prepare the intoxicating drink called bouza; and others serve as water-carriers: in short, when any occasion requires manual
[p.258] labour, a Tekroury from the market is always employed. If any of them is attacked by disease, his companions attend upon him, and defray his expenses. I have seen very few of them ask for charity, except on the first days after their arrival, before they have been able to obtain employment. From Mekka, they either travel by land, or sometimes make a sea voyage by way of Yembo to Medina, where they again supply the town with fire-wood. Indeed, the hadjys would be much at a loss in the Hedjaz, if they could not command the laborious services of these blacks. During the Wahaby conquest, they continued to perform the pilgrimage; and it is said that Saoud expressed a particular esteem for them. [Makrisi states, in his treatise on the Khalifes who performed the Hadj, that in A.H. 724, a negro king called Mousa arrived at Cairo on his way to Mekka, and was splendidly entertained by Kalaoun, then Sultan of Egypt. He had with him, according to Makrisi, fourteen thousand chosen female slaves.]
When these negroes have completed the Hadj, and the visit to Mekka, they repair to Djidda, where they continue to work till an opportunity offers of sailing to Souakin; for very few, if any, return by way of Abyssinia. On leaving the Hedjaz, they all possess a sufficient sum of money, saved from the profits of their industry, to purchase some small adventure, or, at least, to provide, on their reaching Souakin, for a more comfortable passage through the Desert than that which they experienced on their outward journey, and then proceed homewards by Shendy and Cordofan. Many of them, however, instead of returning on the completion of the pilgrimage, disperse over Arabia, visit the mosque at Jerusalem, or Ibrahims (Abraham s) tomb at Hebron, and thus remain absent from their home for many years, subsisting always upon the product of their own labour.