United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
My practice in travelling has been to live as retired as possible; and, except during my short visit to Tayf, where circumstances forced me to appear somewhat conspicuously, I was known only in the Hedjaz as a hadjy, or pilgrim, a private gentleman from Egypt, one with whom no person was acquainted but the few officers of the Pasha whom I had seen at Tayf.
When the Wahabys began to make inroads into the Hedjaz, and to direct their forces against Medina, the conduct of Hassan became still more violent.
You owe me a real adventure now, and I won't give up the letter till you've paid!" We had one first-class scare when the train drew up in the squalid station, where the branch line to Haifa meets the main Hedjaz railway and the two together touch a mean town at a tangent; for a French officer in uniform boarded the train and stalked down the corridors staring hard at everyone.
The want of hands, and the high price of manual labour, but still more the indolence and want of industry inherent in the natives of the Hedjaz, have hitherto prevented them from establishing any kind of manufactory, except of the most indispensable articles.
Kayd Beg, then king of Egypt, to whom that country and the Hedjaz owe a number of public works, completely rebuilt the mosque, as it now stands, in A.H. 892. He sent three hundred workmen from Cairo for that purpose.
The late Khedive Abbas Hilmi, deposed by the British in 1914, is supposed to have encouraged this movement. The Great War undoubtedly stimulated Pan-Arabism, especially by its creation of an independent Arab kingdom in the Hedjaz with claims on Syria and Mesopotamia.
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 ribbe, and comes from Upper Egypt: the other is brown-leaved, the best sort of which grows about Tahta, to the south of Siout.
The Indians labour under great difficulties in learning Arabic; I never heard any of them, however long resident in the Hedjaz, speak it with a tolerable accent: in this respect they are inferior to the Turks, whose pronunciation of Arabic so often affords subject of ridicule to the Arabian mob. The children of Indians, born at Mekka, of course speak Arabic as their native language.
The dead were buried in the Musulman cemetery with military honours, such comrades as were well enough attending the ceremony. This camp occupies the curious Jewel-Palace, one of the monuments of the citadel, and contains only women and children coming from Hedjaz, who were captured near Mecca. The dates of arrival are as follows: Numbers. The Head Matron is Miss Lewis.
A few of them keep horses; the Djeheyne established at Yembo el Nakhel have good breeds of Nedjed horses, though in small numbers. Asses are kept by every family, to bring water to the town. The want of servants and day- labourers is felt here still more than in the other towns of the Hedjaz.
Word Of The Day