[58]The Santons, or Mohammedan saints, are still permitted to continue their excesses. I was informed that one of them, very vigorous in transitory amours, met the wife of a rich Mohammedan merchant, newly married. The female attendant who was with her fled, and he accomplished his purpose in the open street. The merchant, complaining to the Pasha, only received this answer, “You ought to esteem yourself very happy, for your wife will probably be brought to bed of a wellî,” that is, a saint.
[59]This sect, represented to me by the Arabs, and others in Syria, as having only at a late period originated, is precisely mentioned by Niebuhr, Description d’Arabie, ed. Paris, p. 208. with a little variation as to the tenets of its founder. He dates its rise in the year 1760, which is very possible, considering that the later accounts all agree that Abd-el-azîz el Wahhâbé is a man of very advanced age.
[60]The machine used in the manufacture is very simple, but the fabric is very complete, and executed with tolerable expedition. To make a cottoni requires one hundred and twenty-five drams of silk. Half that quantity is sufficient for a light alléja. The wages of a manufacturer for making the former are sixty paras. The fabric of white silk is technically called in Arabic craishi; the alléja, darekli; the cottoni, dadâr. The ordinary length of each of these is about ten pikes (draa). The width about a pike.
[61]The manner of making soap here deserves mention. They use oil of olives, putting to an hundred weight twenty-five pounds of kali, and five pounds of pulverized chalk. The latter articles are boiled till the water be sufficiently impregnated; the oil is then poured in, and the whole boils for three days over a fire composed of stones of olives.
[62]Throughout Syria and Anatolia is established a kind of tolls called ghafar, demanded under pretence of keeping up the roads, and freeing them from robbers. A fixed sum is exacted from all Christians; and even an European, though furnished with a travelling firman, often finds it difficult to avoid paying them. Mohammedans pay what they please, or even nothing.
In Syria these tolls are of no apparent use; the demand is somewhat considerable, the roads are not repaired, and there is no defence but immemorial custom. In Anatolia, where there are woods, some responsibility is attached to the office of toll-gatherer, in case a traveller is robbed; and the sum paid is more reasonable.
[63]Musket and bayonet.
[64]Ibeit is one of the principal towns of Kordofân; it is also the name of a small district.
[65]The bearing of the road from Rîl to Hellet Allais is reported to be generally E. with very small variation.