[p.170] received from him open-hearted hospitality and the most friendly attentions.
Whilst these passport difficulties were being solved, the rest of the party was as busy in settling about passage and passage-money. The peculiar rules of the port of Suez require a few words of explanation.[FN#10] "About thirty-five years ago" (i.e. about 1818 A.D.), "the ship-owners proposed to the then government, with the view of keeping up freight, a Farzah, or system of rotation. It might be supposed that the Pasha, whose object notoriously was to retain all monoplies in his own hands, would have refused his sanction to such a measure. But it so happened in those days that all the court had ships at Suez: Ibrahim Pasha alone owned four or five. Consequently, they expected to share profits with the merchants, and thus to be compensated for the want of port-dues. From that time forward all the vessels in the harbour were registered, and ordered to sail in rotation. This arrangement benefits the owner of the craft ‘en depart,' giving him in his turn a temporary monopoly, with the advantage of a full market; and freight is so high that a single trip often clears off the expense of building and the risk of losing the ship-a sensible succedaneum for insurance companies. On the contrary, the public must always be a loser by the ‘Farzah.' Two of a trade do not agree elsewhere; but at Suez even the Christian and the Moslem shipowner are bound by a fraternal tie, in the shape of this rotation system. It injures the general merchant and the Red Sea trader, not only by
[p.171] perpetuating high freight,[FN#11] but also by causing at one period of the year a break in the routine of sales and in the supplies of goods for the great Jeddah market.[FN#12] At this moment (Nov. 1853), the vessel to which the turn belongs happens to be a large one; there is a deficiency of export to Al-Hijaz,-her owner will of course wait any length of time for a full cargo; consequently no vessel with merchandise has left Suez for the last seventy-two days. Those who have bought goods for the Jeddah market at three months' credit will therefore have to meet their acceptances for merchandise still warehoused at the Egyptian port. This strange contrast to free-trade principle is another proof that protection benefits only one party, the protected, while it is detrimental to the interests of the other party, the public." To these remarks of Mr. Levick's, I have only to add that the government supports the Farzah with all the energy of protectionists. A letter from Mr. (now Sir) John Drummond Hay was insufficient to induce the Bey of Suez to break through the rule of rotation in favour of certain princes from Morocco. The recommendations of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe met with no better fate; and all Mr. West's good will could not procure
[p.172]me a vessel out of her turn.[FN#13] We were forced to rely upon our own exertions, and the activity of Sa'ad the Demon. This worthy, after sundry delays and differences, mostly caused by his own determination to travel gratis, and to make us pay too much, finally closed with the owner of the "Golden Thread.[FN#14]" He took places for us upon the poop,-the most eligible part of the vessel at this season of the year; he premised that we should not be very comfortable, as we were to be crowded with Maghrabi pilgrims, but that "Allah makes all things easy!" Though not penetrated with the conviction that this would happen in our case, I paid for two deck passages eighteen Riyals[FN#15] (dollars), and my companions seven each, whilst Sa'ad secretly entered himself as an able seaman. Mohammed Shiklibha we were obliged to leave behind, as he could not, or might not afford the expense, and none of us might afford it for him. Had I known him to be the honest, true-hearted fellow he was-his kindness at Meccah quite won my heart-I should not have grudged the small charity.
[p.173]Nothing more comfortless than our days and nights in the "George" Inn. The ragged walls of our rooms were clammy with dirt, the smoky rafters foul with cobwebs, and the floor, bestrewed with kit, in terrible confusion, was black with hosts of cockroaches, ants, and flies. Pigeons nestled on the shelf, cooing amatory ditties the live-long day, and cats like tigers crawled through a hole in the door, making night hideous with their caterwaulings. Now a curious goat, then an inquisitive jackass, would walk stealthily into the room, remark that it was tenanted, and retreat with dignified demeanour, and the mosquitos sang Io Paeans over our prostrate forms throughout the twenty-four hours. I spare the reader the enumeration of the other Egyptian plagues that infested the place. After the first day's trial, we determined to spend the hours of light in the passages, lying upon our boxes or rugs, smoking, wrangling, and inspecting one another's chests. The latter occupation was a fertile source of disputes, for nothing was more common than for a friend to seize an article belonging to another, and to swear by the Apostle's beard that he admired it, and, therefore, would not return it. The boy Mohammed and Shaykh Nur, who had been intimates the first day, differed in opinion on the second, and on the third came to pushing each other against the wall. Sometimes we went into the Bazar, a shady street flanked with poor little shops, or we sat in the coffee-house,[FN#16] drinking hot saltish water tinged with burnt bean, or we prayed in one of three tumble-down old Mosques, or we squatted upon the pier, lamenting the want of Hammams, and bathing in the tepid sea.[FN#17] I presently came to the conclusion that
[p.174]Suez as a "watering-place" is duller even than Dover. The only society we found, excepting an occasional visitor, was that of a party of Egyptian women, who with their husbands and families occupied some rooms adjoining ours. At first they were fierce, and used bad language, when the boy Mohammed and I,-whilst Omar Effendi was engaged in prayer, and the rest were wandering about the town,-ventured to linger in the cool passage, where they congregated, or to address a facetious phrase to them. But hearing that I was a Hakim-bashi-for fame had promoted me to the rank of a "Physician General" at Suez-all discovered some ailments. They began prudently with requesting me to display the effects of my drugs by dosing myself, but they ended submissively by swallowing the nauseous compounds. To this succeeded a primitive form of flirtation, which mainly consisted of the demand direct. The most charming of the party was one Fattumah[FN#18], a plump-personed dame, fast verging upon her thirtieth year, fond of a little flattery, and possessing, like all her people, a most voluble tongue. The refrain of every conversation was "Marry me, O Fattumah! O daughter! O female pilgrim!" In vain the lady would reply, with a coquettish movement of the sides, a toss of the head, and a flirting manipulation of her head-veil,
[p.175]"I am mated, O young man!"-it was agreed that she, being a person of polyandrous propensities, could support the weight of at least three matrimonial engagements. Sometimes the entrance of the male Fellahs[FN#19] interrupted these little discussions, but people of our respectability and nation were not to be imposed upon by such husbands. In their presence we only varied the style of conversation-inquiring the amount of "Mahr," or marriage settlement, deriding the cheapness of womanhood in Egypt, and requiring to be furnished on the spot with brides at the rate of ten shillings a head.[FN#20] More often the amiable Fattumah-the fair sex in this country, though passing frail, have the best tempers in the world-would laugh at our impertinences. Sometimes vexed by our imitating her Egyptian accent, mimicking her gestures, and depreciating her country-women,[FN#21] she would wax wroth, and order us to be gone, and stretch out her forefinger-a sign that she wished to put out our eyes, or adjure Allah to cut the hearts out of our bosoms. Then
[p.176]the "Marry me, O Fattumah, O daughter, O female pilgrim!" would give way to Y'al Ago-o-oz! (O old woman and decrepit!) "O daughter of sixty sires, and fit only to carry wood to market!"-whereupon would burst a storm of wrath, at the tail of which all of us, like children, starting upon our feet, rushed out of one another's way. But-"qui se dispute, s'adore"-when we again met all would be forgotten, and the old tale be told over de novo. This was the amusement of the day. At night we men, assembling upon the little terrace, drank tea, recited stories, read books, talked of our travels, and indulged in various pleasantries. The great joke was the boy Mohammed's abusing all his companions to their faces in Hindustani, which none but Shaykh Nur and I could understand; the others, however, guessed his intention, and revenged themselves by retorts of the style uncourteous in the purest Hijazi.
I proceed to offer a few more extracts from Mr. Levick's letter about Suez and the Suezians. "It appears that the number of pilgrims who pass through Suez to Meccah has of late been steadily on the decrease. When I first came here (in 1838) the pilgrims who annually embarked at this port amounted to between 10,000 and 12,000, the shipping was more numerous, and the merchants were more affluent.[FN#22] I have ascertained from a special register kept in the government archives that in the Moslem year 1268 (A.D. 1851-52) the exact number that passed through was 4893."
"In 1269 A.H. (A.D. 1852-53) it had shrunk to 3136. The natives assign the falling off to various causes, which [p.177]I attribute chiefly to the indirect effect of European civilisation upon the Moslem powers immediately in contact with it. The heterogeneous mass of pilgrims is composed of people of all classes, colours, and costumes. One sees among them, not only the natives of countries contiguous to Egypt, but also a large proportion of Central Asians from Bokhara, Persia, Circassia, Turkey, and the Crimea, who prefer this route by way of Constantinople to the difficult, expensive and dangerous caravan-line through the Desert from Damascus and Baghdad. The West sends us Moors, Algerines, and Tunisians, and Inner Africa a mass of sable Takrouri,[FN#23] and others from Bornou, the Sudan,[FN#24] Ghadamah near the Niger, and Jabarti from the Habash.[FN#25]"