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I therefore used to console myself by returning from our expeditions in the desert through the Mecca Gate of Jeddah, and then riding through the bazars, half dark and half lit, to see the pilgrims' camels. The bazars literally swarmed with a picturesque and variegated mob, hailing from all lands, and of every race and tongue.
"The entrance to the town, upon the side nearest the sea," says Burckhardt, "is protected by a battery which overlooks the entire fort, and is surmounted by one enormous piece of artillery capable of discharging a five-hundred pound shot, which is so renowned throughout the Arabian Gulf, that its reputation alone is enough to protect Jeddah."
He told Shere Ali of the journey down the Red Sea, and the crowded deck at the last sunset before Jeddah was reached, when every one of the pilgrims robed himself in spotless white and stood facing the east and uttering his prayers in his own tongue. He described the journey across the desert, the great shrine of the Prophet in Mecca, the great gathering for prayer upon the plain two miles away.
While I was at Jeddah, the Medina garrison of 2000 regulars, having been long unpaid and unrationed, was said to be living on public charity. On the other hand the Hejazi Bedouins do not acknowledge any sovereignty but that of the Sherif, nor could the Sultan pretend to keep order outside the towns except through the Sherif's interposition.
Troops of slaves are sent down from the Nile valley to the Dervish country at certain seasons of the year, and the petty sheikhs along the coast, owing a doubtful allegiance to the Egyptian Government, connive at this transport; and the pearl-fishing craft which ply their trade amongst the coral reefs are always ready to carry the slaves across to the opposite coast, where the markets of Yembo, Jeddah, and Hodeida are open to them.
The fifty-five other wonders of the city having been visited, Burton sent on Nur with his heavy boxed to Jeddah, the port of Mecca, and he himself followed soon after with Mohammed. At Jeddah he saw its one sight, the tomb of Eve, and then bade adieu to Mohammed, who returned to Mecca.
Since I left Jeddah I heard that the natives had poisoned all these dogs, which I really think served the boys right, but not the dogs. I remember too, on one or two occasions, when we were riding out Meccawards, my horse was so thin and the girths so large that my saddle came round with me, and I had a spill on the sand, which greatly delighted the boys, but did not hurt me.
And to the left, between the railway and the dark mass of the low hill beyond, dominating the whole view, colossal, inky-black, and crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood the great cylinders of the Jeddah Company Blast Furnaces, the central edifices of the big ironworks of which Horrocks was the manager.
Jeddah, I argued, the seaport of Mecca and only forty miles distant from that famous centre of the Moslem universe, would be the most convenient spot from which I could obtain such a bird's-eye view of Islam as I was in search of; and I imagined rightly that I should there find myself in an atmosphere less provincial than that of Cairo, or Bagdad, or Constantinople.
Thus there is constantly found at Jeddah a free mart of intelligence for all that is happening in the world; and the common gossip of the bazaar retails news from every corner of the Mussulman earth.
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