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The people of Yembo are less civil, and of more rude and sometimes wild behaviour, than those of Djidda or Mekka, but, on the other hand, their manners are much more orderly, and they are less addicted to vice than the latter, and enjoy, generally, over the Hedjaz, all the advantages of a respectable name.
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.
No vessels of any kind are now constructed at Djidda, so scarce has timber become; indeed, it is with difficulty that means are found to repair a ship. Yembo is subject to the same inconvenience. Suez, Hadeyda, and Mokha, are the only harbours in the Red Sea where ships are built.
The poorer Mohammedans of Egypt make their pilgrimage to Mecca this way, journeying across the Arabian Desert on foot or by camel, and by steamers or dhows to Yembo.
Some of them, who were Egyptians, intended to go to Yembo; others, who were Syrians, had formed the plan of returning home through the Desert by the Hedjaz route, and of begging their way along the Bedouin encampments, not having money enough to pay for their passage by sea to Suez.
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.
The principal occupation of the Yembawys is trade and navigation. The town possesses about forty or fifty ships, engaged in all branches of the Red Sea trade, and navigated by natives of the town, or slaves. The intercourse between Yembo and Egypt is very frequent.
The ship-owners are not, as at Djidda, merchants, but merely carriers; yet they always invest their profits in some little mercantile speculation. The transport trade to Medina occupies many people, and all the merchants of that town have their agents among the Arabs of Yembo.
The Syrian caravan coming from Medina, and the Egyptian from Yembo el Nakhel, prosecute their route from Beder to Mekka, at a short distance from each other.
Here we found every thing in a great bustle. The lady of Mohammed Aly Pasha, whom I had met with at almost every station on this journey, had arrived here from Yembo a few days before, and, as it blew strong from the north, had come on shore, that she might proceed by land to Suez.
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