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I once saw the brother of Djeylany quarrelling with a Yembo pedlar about the price of a mellaye, worth about fifteen shillings; but this is the case also in Egypt and Syria, where the most wealthy native merchants sell in retail, and enter into all the minute details of business, and yet without keeping any large establishment of clerks or accomptants, which their mode of conducting business renders little necessary.
An Indian of this quarter, originally from Surat, called El Shamsy, was esteemed the wealthiest man in the Hedjaz; yet his mercantile concerns were much less extensive than those of Djeylany, and several others. Though possessing
In other parts of the East, a merchant would as soon think of buying a rope for his own neck, as of displaying his wealth in the presence of a Pasha; but Djeylany has not yet laid aside the customs which the Mekkawys learned under their old government, particularly that of Sherif Ghaleb, who seldom exercised extortion upon single individuals; and they now rely on the promises of Mohammed Aly, that he will respect their property.
The governments of Mekka and Djidda seem to have had little share in the enterprise, though they threw no obstacles in its way. Sheikh Djeylany was killed, and very few of his followers returned. I believe their number is rather over-rated by Denon; for I never heard it stated at more than fifteen hundred.
Among the rich equipages of the other hadjys, or of the Mekka people, none were so conspicuous as that belonging to the family of Djeylany, the merchant, whose tents, pitched
When the French invaded Egypt, a Moggrebyn saint at Mekka, called Sheikh el Djeylany, a distant relation of a wealthy merchant at Mekka, and who had for some time been in the habit of delivering lectures in the great mosque, mounted the pulpit, and preached a crusade against the infidels, who had seized upon the gate of the Kaaba, as Egypt is styled.
The great merchants of Mekka live very splendidly: in the houses of Djeylany, Sakkat, Ageyl, and El Nour, are establishments of fifty or sixty persons. These merchants obtained their riches principally during the reign of Ghaleb, to whom Djeylany and Sakkat served as spies upon the other merchants.
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