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Khaibar is well known in Arabian history, as the scene of early Muselman wars under Mohammed, Aly, and their successors. The Arabs of Khaibar, in time of They are said to be of a darker complexion than the surrounding Bedouins: this may be caused by the great heat in the low situation of that place.
"Miny-el-ity yarluke an-ambe what is it road me for Aly-..el-..arr' yerk-in yangaiak-ar! here are they standing up hill . . . What a fine road is this for me winding between the hills! "The above words compose one of the native songs. It refers to the road between Encounter Bay and Willunga.
Few persons pass a whole year without a slight attack of these disorders; and no stranger settles at Mekka or Djidda, without being obliged to submit, during the first months of his residence, to one of these distempers; a fact, of which ample proof was afforded in the Turkish army, under Mohammed Aly Pacha.
The Pasha sent for him, threatened, and, seeing him obstinate, ordered him to be beaten: after receiving five hundred strokes with the stick, and being nearly half dead, be swore that he could pay no more than two hundred purses. Mohammed Aly thought he was telling the truth; but his son, Ibrahim Pasha, who happened to be present, said that he was sure the man had more money.
Mekka: at present, few merchants trust their property to the hazards of a passage across the Desert; they rather forego the advantage of importing them into Mekka duty-free, the great privilege possessed by the caravans, and carry them by sea to Djidda, on which road all the hadjys of Africa and Turkey pay a double duty; once in Egypt, and again at Djidda both duties are received by Mohammed Aly.
Mohammed Aly having demanded 15,000 purses from the Copts employed in the finances of Egypt, they divided the sum among themselves; and Moallem Felteos, an old man, who had been in former times a chief financier, was assessed at twelve hundred purses, or about 18,000l. sterling: this he refused to pay, alleging his poverty; but, after long parleys, at last offered to give two hundred purses.
A hadjy had been robbed, on the preceding night, of three hundred dollars; and at Arafat several dozen of camels were stolen by the Bedouins: two of the thieves had been pursued and seized, and carried before Mohammed Aly at Muna, who ordered them to be beheaded. Their mutilated bodies lay before his tent the whole of the three days, with a guard, to prevent their friends from taking them away.
To Mohammed Aly it was of more consequence not to be thought a fool than a bad muselman. Notwithstanding these declarations of the Pasha to the English gentlemen, which were made in private, and certainly were not occasioned by any imprudent speeches of mine, I continued to live, after my return to Cairo, without molestation, as a Moslem, in the Turkish quarter.
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.
One of them was a Bedouin of the Shilouh nation, whose encampment, when he left it, was at twenty days' journey from Tombuctou. In the Moggrebyn caravan also are generally found some natives of the island of Djerba, or Girba, who are strongly suspected of being sectaries of Aly; and some of whom are often stationary at Cairo, But the far greater part of the caravan is from the kingdom of Marocco.
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