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Updated: May 22, 2025
A few swinging machines were placed in the streets to amuse children, and some Egyptian jugglers exhibited their feats to multitudes assembled in the streets; but little else occurred to mark the feast, except a display of gaudy dresses, in which the Arabians surpass both Syrians and Egyptians. On my way to the coast, I was nearly made prisoner at Bahra by a flying corps of Wahabys.
Between these tribes an inveterate hatred subsisted, which every spring was the cause of much bloodshed, and checked the commercial intercourse with the Hedjaz; and both parties levied contributions on the settled inhabitants of Nedjed: but this custom has been abolished by the Wahabys, whose chief, instead, receives a regular tribute, and has reconciled the hostile parties, and opened the pastures of Nedjed to any tribes of Wahabys who may choose to frequent them.
Although the road from Mekka to Medina was considered safe even for caravans unarmed like ours, yet stragglers are always exposed; and had it not been for the terror with which, a few days before, Mohammed Aly's victory over the Wahabys had inspired all the neighbouring Bedouins, I should probably have been punished for my imprudence in walking on alone.
The Hodheyl told me, that before the Wahabys came, and obliged them to pay tribute for their fields, they knew no land-tax, but, on the contrary, received yearly presents from the sherifs, and from all the Mekkawys who passed this way to Tayf. Ras el Kora extends from east to west about two and a half or three miles, and is about a mile in breadth.
As they were obliged entirely to renounce the former, and were curtailed in the profits from the latter; and as the Wahabys showed much less respect for their venerated tomb than they did for the Beitullah at Mekka, we cannot wonder that their name is execrated by the people of Medina, and loaded with the most opprobrious epithets. Barley is Its harvest is in the middle of March.
Of several buildings, surmounted with domes, in which men celebrated for their learning had been interred, the domes were invariably broken down by the Wahabys: these fanatics, however, never touched the tombs themselves, and every where respected the remains of the dead. Among the tombs are those of several Pashas of Syria and of Egypt, constructed with little ornament.
The Wahabys did not place a garrison in the town; the Sherif continued to keep his governor there: but the Wahaby tax-gatherers came; and the inhabitants, who, except customhouse duties, had never before been subject to any imposts, found the government of the Wahabys press very heavily upon them.
In 1811, Mohammed Aly Pasha commenced his operations against the Wahabys, by sending a body of troops under the command of his son Tousoun Bey, who was defeated in the passes between Yembo and Medina.
When the Wahabys were in possession of Mekka, hosts of these sectaries came to Arafat, as much, perhaps, for the purpose of paying their court to the chief, who, it was known, liked to see his Arabs collected there, as from religious motives.
No instance of the plague had ever before been witnessed in the Hedjaz, at least none within the memory of man; and the inhabitants could with difficulty persuade themselves that such an event had occurred, especially at a time when the holy cities had been reconquered from the Wahabys.
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