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Updated: May 23, 2025
Sherif Ghaleb had no authority here whatever; but I believe, though I am not quite sure, that he still assumed the nominal superiority, or the title of Chief of Medina; and that Medina was supposed by the Porte to form part of the Hedjaz, under the command of the Sherif of Mekka.
The former master of Djidda, Sherif Ghaleb, was actively engaged in the Indian trade; he had two ships, of four hundred tons each, employed in it, besides many smaller vessels in the coffee trade to Yemen; indeed, he was a shrewd speculator in all branches of the Red Sea trade.
When Bosari delivered his message, the Pasha smiled, and answered that I was welcome, whether Turk or not. About eight o'clock in the evening I repaired to the castle, a miserable, half-ruined habitation of Sherif Ghaleb, dressed in the new suit which I had received at Djidda by the Pasha's command.
At Beishe many battles were fought between Sherif Ghaleb and Saoud the Wahaby general, who being victorious erected two castles in the neighbourhood, and gave them in charge to Ibn Shokban, whom he also made chief of the Beni Salem tribe, the inhabitants of Beishe, who could furnish from eight to ten thousand matchlocks. Ibn Shokban afterwards gallantly opposed the Turkish army.
At Yembo, Tayf, Mekka, and Djidda, Ghaleb kept his vizier, who was called El Hakem at Mekka and Tayf. He had, besides, his khasnadar, or treasurer; his selahdar, or sword-bearer; moherdar, or keeper of the seal; and a few other officers, who, however, were far from keeping up so strict an etiquette, or being persons of as much consequence, as those officers are in the Turkish court.
He established himself at Taïf, the summer residence of the Meccans; deposed the Grand Sherif Ghaleb, and appointed in his stead another member of the Sherifal family; declaring the Sultan sovereign of the country acts which the Meccans acquiesced in through dread of the Wahhabis, from whom Mehemet Ali promised to deliver them.
Jews were formerly the brokers of this town; but they were driven out, about thirty or forty years since, by Serour, the predecessor of Ghaleb, some of them having offended by their misconduct. They all retired to Yemen or to Sanaa. During the monsoons some Banians visit Djidda in the Indian ships; but they always return with them, and none are settled here.
The people of Mekka, in general, have very few horses; I believe that there are not more than sixty kept by private individuals. The Sherif has about twenty or thirty in his stables; but Sherif Ghaleb had a larger stud. The military Sherifs keep mares, but the greater part of these were absent with the army.
Sherif Ghaleb always showed himself extremely attentive to his Bedouin foster-parents; whenever they visited him, he used to rise from his seat, and embrace them, though in no way distinguished from any meanly- dressed inhabitant of the Desert.
If Ghaleb could not immediately sell the coffee or India goods imported on his account, he distributed the cargoes of his ships among the native merchants of the place at the current market-price, in quantities proportioned to the supposed property of each merchant, who was thus forced to become a purchaser for ready money.
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