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They agreed that it would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting merely to their hadjis, who are often as ignorant as themselves. A respectable old Bruni man, speaking of different races of men of various colours, said he had visited a tribe of white people, who lived on a high hill in the interior of the country; they were very white, and the women beautiful, with light hair.
The quietism of the Mohammedan creed was regarded as better adapted to supply their religious needs than the doctrines of the missionaries. Of late years, however, a more generous policy has prevailed. As the mass of the Javanese regard the native princes as traitors and apostates, the Arab priests and hadjis have come to be recognized as the popular leaders.
The present Resident thinks highly both of his character and his abilities, and he is very popular among his countrymen. He walked with us as far as the mosque, and I heard him ask questions about me. The Mussulmen of the village, several of them being Hadjis, were assembling for worship, lounging outside the mosque till the call to prayer came.
As the invitation was very pressing, I left Djidda in the evening of the same day on which the messenger arrived, after supping with Seyd Aly, in company with a great number of Hadjis from all parts of the world; for the fast of Ramadhan had already commenced, and during this month everybody displays as much hospitality and splendour as he possibly can, particularly in the supper after sun-set.
However, I reflected that it would be a just and righteous thing to go down and write a kind word for the Hadjis Hadjis are people who have made the pilgrimage because parties not interested could not do it so feelingly as I, a fellow-Hadji, and so I penned the valedictory.
These Arab pilgrims are hadjis almost to a man, coming, as they do, from much nearer Mecca than the Persians; but their holiness does not prevent them bearing the unenviable reputation of being the most persistent thieves. Abdul knows them well, and when any of them are about, keeps a sharp lookout to see that none of them approach our things.
He was a tall, haughty-looking man, with an orange-coloured turban, worn only by Hadjis, and the people seemed to stand in great awe of him and addressed him as "Tuan" or "Tuan Hadji," the word "Tuan" being usually used only when addressing Europeans like ourselves; still, his house in which we spent the night was little better than a pigsty, although he was a very wealthy man.
"What a wonderful individual I am seated by," thought he, "to whom Arabic seems a vulgar speech, and a question about the Hegira not worthy of an answer!" not reflecting that as lions come from the Sahara, they have quite enough of Arabic at home, and that the question about the Hegira was rather mal a propos to one used to prey on the flesh of hadjis.
Whence such strangely incorrect opinions could have arisen it is difficult to understand, unless they are derived from Arab priests, or hadjis returned from Mecca, who may have heard of the ancient prowess of the Turkish armies when they made all Europe tremble, and suppose that their character and warlike capacity must be the same at the present time.
He read of the swallows that fly in and out of the little cafe at Smyrna where the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of granite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot, lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes that crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those verses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "monstre charmant" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.
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