Part 4
[p.26] are three different sorts. 1. The Kedra, which is the largest, and rests upon a tripod; it is always neatly worked, and found only in private houses. 2. The Shishe (called in Syria Argyle), of a smaller size, but, like the former, joined to a long serpentine tube (called lieh), through which the smoke is inhaled. 3. The Bury. This consists of an unpolished cocoa-nut shell, which contains water; a thick reed answers the purpose of the serpentine tube: this pipe is the constant companion of the lower classes, and of all the sailors of the Red Sea, who indulge most inordinately in using it. The tobacco smoked in the two former of these pipes comes from the Persian gulf; the best is from Shiraz. An inferior sort (called tombak) comes from Basra and Baghdad; the leaf is of a light yellow colour, and much stronger in taste than common tobacco; it is, therefore, previously washed to render it milder. The tombak used in the Bury comes from Yemen, and is of the same species as the other, but of an inferior quality. The trade in this article is very considerable, its consumption in the Hedjaz being almost incredibly great; large quantities are also shipped for Egypt. The common pipe is little used in the Hedjaz, except by Turkish soldiers and Bedouins. The tobacco is of Egyptian growth, or from Sennar, whence it is carried to Sowakin. Very little good Syrian tobacco finds its way across the Red Sea.
The coffee-houses are filled with people during the whole day; and in front a shed is generally erected, under which persons also sit. The rooms, benches, and small low chairs, are very filthy, and form a contrast to the neatness and elegance observable in the coffee-houses of Damascus. Respectable merchants are never seen in a coffee-house; but those of the third class, and sea-faring people, make it their constant resort. Every person has his particular house, where he meets those who have business with him. An Arab, who cannot afford to ask his friend to dine, invites him from the coffee-house, when he sees him pass, to enter and take
[p.27] a cup, and is highly offended if the invitation be rejected. When his friend enters, he orders the waiter to bring him a cup, and the waiter, in presenting it, exclaims aloud, so that every one in the place may hear him, djebba! (gratis). An Arab may cheat his creditors, or be guilty of bad faith in his dealings, and yet escape public censure; but he would be covered with infamy, if it were known that he had attempted to cheat the coffee-house waiter of his due. The Turkish soldiers have done their utmost in this respect to increase the contempt in which they are held by the Arabs. I never saw in the coffee-houses of the Hedjaz any of those story-tellers who are so common in Egypt, and still more in Syria. The Mangal [See Niebuhrs Travels.] is generally played in all of them, and the Dama, a kind of draughts, differing somewhat from the European game; but I never happened to see chess played in the Hedjaz, though I heard that it is not uncommon, and that the sherifs in particular are fond of it.
Near to almost every coffee-shop a person takes his stand, who sells cooled water in small perfumed jars. [The Orientals often drink water before coffee, but never immediately after. I was once recognised in Syria as a foreigner or European, in consequence of having called for water just after I had taken coffee. If you were of this country , said the waiter, you would not spoil the taste of the coffee in your mouth by washing it away with water.]
Twenty-one butter-sellers, who likewise retail honey, oil, and vinegar. Butter forms the chief article in Arab cookery, which is more greasy than even that of Italy. Fresh butter, called by the Arabs zebde, is very rarely seen in the Hedjaz. It is a common practice amongst all classes to drink every morning a coffee-cup full of melted butter or ghee, after which coffee is taken. They regard it as a powerful tonic, and are so much accustomed to it from their earliest youth, that they would feel great inconvenience in discontinuing the use of it. The higher classes content themselves
[p.28] with drinking the quantity of butter, but the lower orders add a half-cup more, which they snuff up their nostrils, conceiving that they prevent foul air from entering the body by that channel. The practice is universal as well with the inhabitants of the town as with the Bedouins. The lower classes are likewise in the habit of rubbing their breasts, shoulders, arms, and legs, with butter, as the negroes do, to refresh the skin. During the war, the import of this article from the interior had almost entirely ceased; but even in time of peace, it is not sufficient for the consumption of Djidda; some is, therefore, brought also from Sowakin; but the best sort, and that which is in greatest plenty, comes from Massowah, and is called here Dahlak butter: whole ships cargoes arrive from thence, the greater part of which is again carried to Mekka. Butter is likewise imported from Cosseir; this comes from Upper Egypt, and is made from buffaloes milk; the Sowakin and Dahlak ghee is from sheeps milk.
The Hedjaz abounds with honey in every part of the mountains. The best comes from those which are inhabited by the Nowaszera Bedouins, to the south of Tayf. Among the lower classes, a common breakfast is a mixture of ghee and honey poured over crumbs of bread as they come quite hot from the oven. The Arabs, who are very fond of paste, never eat it without honey.
The oil used for lamps is that of Sesamum (Seeredj, brought from Egypt). The Arabs do not use oil for culinary purposes, except in frying fish, or with broken paste to be given to the poor. Salad, of which the northern Turks are so fond, is never seen on an Arabian table.
Eighteen vegetable or fruit-stands. The number of these has now greatly increased, on account of the Turkish troops, who are great devourers of vegetables. All the fruits come from Tayf, behind Mekka, which is rich in gardens. I found here in July grapes of the best kind, with which the mountains behind Mekka
[p.29] abound; pomegranates of middling quality; quinces, which have not the harsh taste of those in Europe, and may be eaten raw; peaches; lemons of the smallest size only, like those of Cairo; bitter oranges; bananas--these do not grow at Tayf, but are brought by the Medina road principally from Safra, Djedeyda, and Kholeys. These fruits last till November. In March, water melons are brought from Wady Fatmé, which are said to be small, but of a good flavour. The Arabs eat little fruit except grapes; they say it produces bile, and occasions flatulency, in which they are probably not mistaken. The fruit sold at Djidda is particularly unwholesome; for having been packed up at Tayf in an unripe state, it acquires a factitious maturity by fermentation during the journey. The Turks quarrel and fight every morning before the shops, in striving to get the fruits, which are in small quantities and very dear. Vegetables are brought to Djidda from Wady Fatmé, six or eight miles distant to the north, which also supplies Mekka. The usual kinds are Meloukhye, Bamye, Portulaca egg-plants, or Badingans, cucumbers, and very small turnips, of which the leaves are eaten, and the root is thrown away as useless. Radishes and leeks are the only vegetables regularly and daily used in Arab cookery; they are very small, and the common people eat them raw with bread. In general, the Arabs consume very few vegetables, their dishes being made of meat, rice, flour, and butter. In these fruit-shops, tamarind (called here Homar) is also sold; it comes from the East Indies, not in cakes, like that from the negro countries, but in its natural form, though much decomposed. When boiled in water, it constitutes a refreshing beverage, and is given to sick people boiled with meat into a stew.
Eight date-sellers. Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite; and they have many traditions from their prophet, showing the pre-eminence of dates above all other kinds of food. The importation of dates is uninterrupted during the whole year. At the end of June, the new fruit (called ruteb) comes in: this lasts for two months, after which, for the remainder of the
[p.30] year, the date-paste, called adjoue, is sold. This is formed by pressing the dates, when fully ripe, into large baskets so forcibly as to reduce them to a hard solid paste or cake, each basket weighing generally about two hundred weight; in this state the Bedouins export the adjoue; in the market it is cut out of the basket and sold by the pound. This adjoue forms a part of the daily food among all classes of people. In travelling, it is dissolved in water, and thus affords a sweet and refreshing drink. There are upwards of twelve different sorts of adjoue; the best comes from Taraba, behind Tayf (now occupied by the Wahabis.) The most common kind at present in the market is that from Fatmé; and the better sort, that from Kheleys, and Djedeyde, on the road to Medina. During the monsoon, the ships from the Persian gulf bring adjoue from Basra for sale, in small baskets, weighing about ten pounds each; this kind is preferred to every other. The East-India ships, on their return, take off a considerable quantity of the paste, which is sold to great profit among the muselmans of Hindostan.
Four pancake-makers, who sell, early in the morning, pancakes fried in butter; a favourite breakfast.
Five bean-sellers. These sell for breakfast also, at an early hour, Egyptian horse-beans boiled in water, which are eaten with ghee and pepper. The boiled beans are called mudammes; they form a favourite dish with the people of Egypt, from whom the Arabs have adopted it.
Five sellers of sweetmeats, sugar-plums, and different sorts of confectionary, of which the Hedjaz people are much fonder than any Orientals I have seen; they eat them after supper, and in the evening the confectioners stands are surrounded by multitudes of buyers. The Indians are the best makers of them. I saw no articles of this kind here that I had not already found in Egypt; the Baktawa, Gnafe, and Ghereybe, are as common here as at Aleppo and Cairo.
Two kebab shops, where roasted meat is sold; these are kept by Turks, the kebab not being an Arab dish.
[p.31] Two soup-sellers, who also sell boiled sheeps heads and feet, and are much visited at mid-day.
One seller of fish fried in oil, frequented by all the Turkish and Greek sailors.
Ten or twelve stands where bread is sold, generally by women; the bread has an unpleasant flavour, the meal not having been properly cleansed, and the leaven being bad. A loaf of the same size as that which at Cairo is sold for two paras, costs here, though of a much worse quality, eight paras.
Two sellers of leben, or sour milk, which is extremely scarce and dear all over the Hedjaz. It may appear strange that, among the shepherds of Arabia, there should be a scarcity of milk, yet this was the case at Djidda and Mekka; but, in fact, the immediate vicinity of these towns is extremely barren, little suited to the pasturage of cattle, and very few people are at the expense of feeding them for their milk only. When I was at Djidda, the rotolo or pound of milk (for it is sold by weight) cost one piastre and a half, and could only be obtained by favour. What the northern Turks called yoghort, and the Syrians and Egyptians leben- hamed, [Very thick milk, rendered sour by boiling and the addition of a strong acid.] does not appear to be a native Arab dish; the Bedouins of Arabia, at least, never prepare it.
Two shops, kept by Turks, where Greek cheese, dried meat, dried apples, figs, raisins, apricots, called kammareddin, &c. are sold at three times the price paid in Cairo. The cheese comes from Candia, and is much in request among all the Turkish troops. An indifferent sort of cheese is made in the Hedjaz; it is extremely white, although salted, does not keep long, and is not by any means very nutritive. The Bedouins themselves care little for cheese; they either drink their milk, or make it into butter. The dried meat sold in these shops is the salted and smoked beef of Asia Minor, known all over Turkey by the name of bastorma, and
[p.32] much relished by travellers. The Turkish soldiers and the Hadjis are particularly fond of it, but the Arabs never can be induced to taste it; many of them, observing that it differs in appearance from all other meat with which they are acquainted, persist in regarding it as pork, and the estimation in which they hold the Turkish soldiery and their religious principles is not likely to remove their prejudices on this head. All the dried fruits above mentioned, except the apricots, come from the Archipelago; the latter are sent from Damascus all over Arabia, where they are considered a luxury, particularly among the Bedouins. The stone is extracted and the fruit reduced to a paste, and spread out upon its leaves to dry in the sun. It makes a very pleasant sauce when dissolved in water. On all their marches through the Hedjaz, the Turkish troops live almost entirely upon biscuit and this fruit.
Eleven large shops of corn-dealers, where Egyptian wheat, barley, beans, lentils, dhourra, [Or durra, from Sowakin, which comes from Taka, in the interior of Nubia, and a small-grained sort from Yemen, are also sold here.] Indian and Egyptian rice, biscuits, &c. may be purchased. The only wheat now sold in the Hedjaz comes from Egypt. In time of peace, there is a considerable importation from Yemen into Mekka and Djidda, and from Nedjed to Medina; but the imports from Egypt are by far the most considerable, and the Hedjaz may truly be said to depend upon Egypt for corn. The corn-trade was formerly in the hands of individuals, and the Sherif Ghaleb also speculated in it; but at the present, Mohammed Aly Pasha has taken it entirely into his own hands, and none is sold either at Suez or Cosseir to private persons, every grain being shipped on account of the Pasha. This is likewise the case with all other provisions, as rice, butter, biscuits, onions, of which latter great quantities are imported. At the time of my residence in the Hedjaz, this country not producing a sufficiency, the Pasha sold the grain at Djidda for the price of
[p.33] from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty piastres per erdeb, and every other kind of provision in proportion; the corn cost him twelve piastres by the erdeb in Upper Egypt, and including the expense of carriage from Genne to Cosseir, and freight thence to Djidda, twenty-five or thirty piastres. This enormous profit was alone sufficient to defray his expenses in carrying on the Wahaby war; but it was little calculated to conciliate the good-will of the people. His partisans, however, excused him, by alleging that, in keeping grain at high prices, he secured the Bedouins of the Hedjaz in his interest, as they depend upon Mekka and Djidda for provisions, and they were thus compelled to enter into his service, and receive his pay, to escape starvation. The common people of the Hedjaz use very little wheat; their bread is made either of durra or barley-flour, both of which are one- third cheaper than wheat; or they live entirely upon rice and butter. This is the case also with most of the Bedouins of Tehama, on the coast. The Yemen people in Djidda eat nothing but durra. Most of the rice used at Djidda is brought as ballast by the ships from India. The best sort comes from Guzerat and Cutch: it forms the chief article of food among the people of the Hedjaz, who prefer it to the rice from Egypt, because they think it more wholesome than the former, which is used exclusively by the Turks and other strangers from the north-ward. The grain of the Indian rice is larger and longer than the common sort of Egypt, and is of a yellowish colour; whereas the latter has a reddish tint; but the best sorts of both are snow-white. The Indian rice swells more in boiling than the Egyptian, and is for this reason preferred by the Arabs, as a smaller quantity of it will fill a dish; but the Egyptian rice is more nutritive. The Indian rice is rather cheaper, and is transported from Djidda to Mekka, Tayf, Medina, and thence as far as Nedjed. A mixture of equal portions of rice and lentils, over which butter is poured,
[p.34] forms a favourite preparation with the middle class, and generally their only dish at supper. [This dish is known in Syria, and called there medjeddereh, because the lentils in the rice look like a persons face marked with the small-pox, or djedreh.] I found, in every part of the Hedjaz, that the Bedouins, when travelling, carried no other provision than rice, lentils, butter, and dates. The importation of biscuits from Egypt has of late been very considerable, for the use of the Turkish army. The Arabians do not like and seldom eat them even on board their ships, where they bake their unleavened cake every morning in those small ovens which are found in all the ships of every size that navigate the Red Sea.
Salt is sold by the corn-dealers. Sea-salt is collected near Djidda, and is a monopoly in the hands of the sherif. The inhabitants of Mekka prefer rock-salt, which is brought thither by the Bedouins from some mountains in the neighbourhood of Tayf.
Thirty-one tobacco-shops, in which are sold Syrian and Egyptian tobacco, tombac, or tobacco for the Persian pipe, pipe-heads and pipe-snakes, cocoa-nuts, coffee-beans, keshre, soap, almonds, Hedjaz raisins, and some other articles of grocery. The Egyptian tobacco, sometimes mixed with that of Sennar, is the cheapest, and in great demand throughout the Hedjaz. There are two sorts of it: the leaf of one is green, even when dry; this is called ribbé, and comes from Upper Egypt: the other is brown-leaved, the best sort of which grows about Tahta, to the south of Siout. During the power of the Wahabys, tobacco could not be sold publicly; but as all the Bedouins of the Hedjaz are passionately fond of it, persons sold it clandestinely in their shops, not as tobacco or dokhan, but under the name of the wants of a man. Long snakes for the Persian pipe, very prettily worked, are imported from Yemen. Cocoa-nuts are brought from the East Indies, as well as from the south-eastern coast of Africa and the Somawly country, and may
[p.35] be had quite fresh, at low prices, during the monsoon. The people of Djidda and Mekka appear to be very fond of them. The larger nuts, as already mentioned, are used for the boury, or common Persian pipe, and the smallest for snuff-boxes.
Soap comes from Suez, whither it is carried from Syria, which supplies the whole coast of the Red Sea with it. The soap-trade is considerable, and, for the greater part, in the hands of the merchants from Hebron, (called in Arabic el Khalyl or the Khalylis,) who bring it to Djidda, where some of them are always to be found. The almonds and raisins come from Tayf and the Hedjaz mountains; large quantities of both are exported, even to the East Indies. The almonds are of most excellent quality; the raisins are small and quite black, but very sweet. An intoxicating liquor is prepared from them.
Eighteen druggists. These are all natives of the East Indies, and mostly from Surat. In addition to all kinds of drugs, they sell wax candles, paper, sugar, perfumery, and incense; the latter is much used by the inhabitants of the towns, where all the respectable families perfume their best rooms every morning. Mastic and sandal-wood, burnt upon charcoal, are most commonly used for this purpose. Spices of all sorts, and heating drugs, are universally used in the Hedjaz. Coffee is rarely drunk in private houses without a mixture of cardamoms or cloves; and red pepper, from India or Egypt, enters into every dish. A considerable article of trade among the druggists of Djidda and Mekka consists in rose-buds, brought from the gardens of Tayf. The people of the Hedjaz, especially the ladies, steep them in water, which they afterwards use for their ablutions; they also boil these roses with sugar, and make a conserve of them. The sugar sold in the drug-gists shops is brought from India; it is of a yellowish white colour, and well refined, but in powder. A small quantity of Egyptian sugar is imported, but the people here do not like it; in general, they prefer every thing that comes from India, which they conceive
[p.36] to be of a superior quality; in the same manner as English produce and manufactures are preferred on the continent of Europe. The Indian druggists are all men of good property; their trade is very lucrative, and no Arabs can rival them in it. At Mekka, also, and at Tayf, Medina, and Yembo, all the druggists are of Indian descent; and although they have been established in the country for several generations, and completely naturalized, yet they continue to speak the Hindu language, and distinguish themselves in many trifling customs from the Arabs, by whom they are in general greatly disliked, and accused of avarice and fraud.
Eleven shops where small articles of Indian manufacture are sold, such as china-ware, pipe-heads, wooden spoons, glass heads, knives, rosaries, mirrors, cards, &c. These shops are kept by Indians, mostly from Bombay. Very little European hardware finds its way hither, except needles, scissors, thimbles, and files; almost every thing else of this kind comes from India. The earthenware of China is greatly prized in the Hedjaz. The rich inhabitants display very costly collections of it, disposed upon shelves in their sitting-rooms, as may be remarked also in Syria. I have seen, both at Mekka and Djidda, china dishes brought to table, measuring at least two feet and a half in diameter, carried by two persons, and containing a sheep roasted entire. The glass beads exported from Djidda are chiefly for the Souakin and Abyssinian market; they are partly of Venetian and partly of Hebron manufacture. The Bedouin women of the Hedjaz likewise wear them; though bracelets, made of black horn, and amber necklaces, seem to be more in fashion among them. It is in these shops that the agate beads, called reysh, [See Travels in Nubia, article Shendy.] are sold, which come from Bombay, and are used in the very heart of Africa. A kind of red beads, made of wax, are seen here in great quantities; they come from India, and are
[p.37] mostly destined for Abyssinia. Of rosaries, a great variety is sold: those made of yoser [From this, the principal lane of Djidda is called Hosh Yosser.] are the most costly; it is a species of coral which grows in the Red Sea. The best sort is found between Djidda and Gonfode, is of a deep black colour, and takes a fine polish. Strings of one hundred beads each are sold at from one to four dollars, according to their size. They are made by the turners of Djidda, and are much in demand for the Malays. Other rosaries, (also brought from India,) made of the odoriferous kalambac, and of the sandal-wood, are in great demand throughout Egypt and Syria. Few pilgrims leave the Hedjaz without taking from the holy cities same of these rosaries, as presents to their friends at home.