Travels In Arabia

J >> John Lewis Burckhardt >> Travels In Arabia

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[p.17] peace between England and America, and the expectation that West-
India coffee would be again imported in large quantities at Smyrna and
Constantinople. From the hazardous nature of this trade, there are many
merchants who will not engage in it, except as agents; others send the
coffee on their own account to Cairo, where the chief part of the trade
is in the hands of the Hedjaz merchants residing there. Within the last
six years, the coffee trade between Arabia and the Mediterranean has
suffered greatly by the importation of West-India coffee into the ports
of Turkey. These were formerly supplied exclusively with Mocha coffee;
the use of which has been almost entirely superseded in European Turkey,
Asia Minor, and Syria, by that of the West Indies. The Pasha of Egypt,
however, has hitherto strictly prohibited the importation of West-India
coffee into his dominions.

The trade in India goods is much safer, and equally profitable. The
fleets, principally from Calcutta, Surat, and Bombay, reach Djidda in
the beginning of May, when they find the merchants already prepared for
them, having collected as many dollars and sequins as their
circumstances admit, that they may effect bargains in wholesale at the
very first arrival of the ships. Large sums are also sent hither by the
Cairo merchants to purchase goods on their account; but the cargoes for
the greater part are bought up by the merchants of Djidda, who
afterwards send them to Cairo to be sold for their own advantage. The
India fleets return in June or July, when the prices of every article
brought by them immediately rise; [The ships from Bengal leave Djidda in
June, those from Surat and Bombay in July or the beginning of August.
The Maskat and Bassora shipping, and the slave vessels from the
Mozambique coast, arrive at the same time.] and it commonly occurs that,
on the very day when the last ships sail, ten per cent. profit may be
obtained upon the first price. The merchants, however, unless pressed
for money, do not sell at this time, but keep their goods in warehouses
for four or five

[p.18] months, during which the price continues to rise; so that if they
choose to wait till the January or February following, they may
calculate with great security upon a gain of from thirty to forty per
cent; and if they transport a part of their goods to Mekka for sale to
the Hadj, their profits are still greater. It is the nature of this
commerce that renders Djidda so crowded during the stay of the fleet.
People repair hither from every port on the Red Sea, to purchase at the
first hand; and the merchants of Mekka, Yembo, and Djidda, scrape
together every dollar they possess, to lay them out in these
purchases. [Some time after the Indian fleet had sailed from Djidda, I
was present when a merchant of great property and respectability called
upon an acquaintance of mine to borrow one hundred dollars, saying, he
had laid out every farthing of his money in India goods which he did not
wish yet to sell, and had, in the mean while, no money left for his
daily expenses. This occurs, I understood, very frequently among them.]
Another cause of the India trade with Djidda being more safe and
profitable is, the arrival of the merchant-ships but once in the year,
at a stated period, and all within a few weeks: there is, therefore,
nothing to spoil the market; the price of goods is settled according to
the known demand and quantity of imports; and it is never known to fall
till the return of the next fleet. In the coffee trade it was the
reverse.

In Syria and Egypt it is the work of several days, and the business of
three or four brokers, to conclude a bargain between two merchants to
the amount of a thousand dollars. At Djidda sales and purchases are made
of entire ships' cargoes in the course of half an hour, and the next day
the money is paid down. The greater part of the merchandize thus bought
is shipped for Suez, and sold at Cairo, whence it finds its way into the
Mediterranean. The returns are made either in goods, which are disposed
of chiefly in the Hedjaz, or in dollars and sequins, large quantities of
which are carried off annually by the Indian fleet: this principally
causes the scarcity of silver in Egypt. The coffee ships

[p.19] from Yemen take a few articles of Egyptian manufacture in return,
as Mellayes, (blue-striped cotton cloths,) linen stuff's for shirts, and
glass beads; but their chief sales are mostly for cash.

If Suez were to participate in the direct Indian trade, the present
flourishing state of Djidda would, no doubt, be greatly diminished, and
the town would become merely what its position renders it, the harbour
of the Hedjaz, instead of being, as it now is, the port of Egypt. It was
natural that the sherifs of Mekka, who had the customs in their own
hands, should endeavour, by every means in their power, to make Djidda
an emporium for the Indian trade, the custom-duties on which formed the
principle source of their income. Suez, however, is not a place where
large capitals are always found ready to make purchases; even Cairo
could not, at least immediately, engage in this trade with advantage,
were it transferred to Suez; for, according to old customs, from which
Orientals seldom like to depart, ready money is almost unknown in the
commercial transactions of that city; India goods are in consequence
never sold there except at very long credit. Undoubtedly cash might in
time have found its way to Suez, as it now does to Djidda; but the
channel of trade was such, that a fleet of ships coming direct from
India to Suez, would hardly have been able to dispose of their cargoes
either with profit or within due time. Another cause also contributed to
favour the harbour of Djidda: the India ships, although most of them
sail under the English flag, are entirely manned and commanded by the
people of the country, Arabs and Lascars; [No English captain had been at
Djidda for five years, when, in 1814, the Resoul, Captain Boag, from
Bombay, arrived laden with rice. The ships are not navigated by
Englishmen, and very few English merchants resident in India have ever
speculated in the trade of the Red Sea, which is carried on almost
exclusively with the capitals of Muselman merchants of Djidda, Maskat,
Bombay, Surat, and Calcutta. The Americans seldom visit any other
harbour in this sea than that of Mekka.] and they have adopted the same
coasting navigation that is followed in every part of the Red

[p.20] Sea. They never venture out to sea, and must, therefore,
necessarily pass Djidda and Yembo, both harbours of the Sherif, who
could easily oblige them to anchor in his ports and pay duties, as he is
known to have done with many coffee ships bound direct for Suez from
Yemen. These causes, however, no longer exist; for Mohammed Aly, Pasha
of Egypt, having possession of the harbours and custom-houses of the
Hedjaz, might transfer the customs of Djidda to Suez, and thence open a
direct communication with India. The chief obstacles to such a change
which have hitherto presented themselves, are the jealousy and false
representations of the merchants of Djidda, and the Pasha's ignorance of
his own real interests, added perhaps to the fear of displeasing his
sovereign; he has it, notwithstanding, in contemplation to change the
system, after the example of a very respectable English house at
Alexandria, which had, in concert with its correspondents at Bombay, in
1812, when the Hedjaz was not yet in the Pasha's hands, concluded a
treaty with him for allowing English ships to come direct to Suez, and
for insuring the protection of merchandize across the Desert to Cairo.
The reports of the Wahabi war, and of hostile cruisers in the Red Sea,
prevented the merchants from taking advantage of the treaty till 1815,
when a large ship was despatched from Bombay to Suez. The Pasha,
however, who was at Mekka when she touched at Djidda, in direct
violation of his engagements, stopped the ship, prohibited her
proceeding to Suez, compelled the captain to sell the cargo at a loss,
while the plague was raging in the town, and exacted the same duties as
are taken on country ships, in contravention of the stipulations
existing between Great Britain and the Porte. This affair, which created
great disgust amongst the Europeans in Egypt, might easily have been
remedied by retaliation upon the Pasha's ships trading to Malta, which
would have taught him to respect the British flag wherever he might meet
it. The British officers, however, from an erroneous conception perhaps
of his power and

[p.21] importance, and from a wish to remain upon a friendly footing
with him, instead of evincing any displeasure, preferred submitting
silently to the outrage; forgetting that the favour of a Turkish ruler
can never be bought by conciliation, but can only be obtained by an
attitude of defiance. In consequence of all this, the merchants were
obliged to make a second treaty with the Pasha, which was formally
ratified. His first demand was, that the ships should pay at Suez the
joint customs of that port and Djidda, which would have been equivalent
to about 12 per cent.; but he contented himself, at last, with a promise
of 9 per cent. upon all imports into Suez from India, which was six per
cent. more than the usual duty paid by European merchants in the ports
of the Grand Signior. This arrangement, it is supposed, will lead to the
opening of an active trade. The Pasha himself is disposed to speculate
on his own account; and the first adventure he sent to Bombay, in the
spring of 1816, was to bring him, in return, a richly caparisoned
elephant, destined as a present to his sovereign at Constantinople.
Still, however, I am afraid he will as little respect the second treaty
as he did the first; for his avarice, if not effectually checked, knows
no bounds, and he can at any time exact additional imposts, as far as
the profits of this new commercial route can bear them, by threatening
the security of the road from Suez to Cairo, the Bedouins of the
neighbouring Desert being completely at his command.

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. He
oppressed the merchants of Djidda by heavy duties and his own powerful
competition; but he was never known to practise extortion upon them. If
he borrowed money, he repaid it at the stipulated time, and never
ventured to levy extraordinary contributions from individuals, although
he did [p.22] it from the whole community, by increasing the duties in
an arbitrary manner. It was the well-known security which property
enjoyed under his government that induced foreign merchants to visit the
port of Djidda, even when Ghaleb was reduced to great distress by the
Wahabis. His conduct, however, in this respect, was not caused by any
love of justice, for he governed most despotically; but he well knew
that, if the merchants should be frightened away, his town would sink
into insignificance. Towards the close of his government, the duty upon
coffee was increased by him from two and a half to five dollars per
quintal, or to about fifteen per cent. The duty upon India goods was
from six to ten per cent., according to their quality. 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. In this respect Ghaleb was not singular; for
in Egypt the present Pasha frequently distributes his coffee among the
merchants; with this difference, however, from the practice of Ghaleb,
that the price which he exacts is always above the real market-price.

Business in Djidda is conducted through the intervention of brokers, who
are for the most part Indians of small property and bad reputations.

The number of ships belonging to Djidda is very great. Taking into
account all the small vessels employed in the Red Sea trade, two hundred
and fifty perhaps may be calculated as belonging either to merchants of
the town, or to owners, who navigate them, and who consider the port as
their principal home. The different names given to these ships, as Say,
Seume, Merkeb, Sambouk, Dow, denote their size; the latter only, being
the largest, perform the voyage to India. The ships are navigated
chiefly by people from Yemen, from the Somawly coast (opposite to Aden,

[p.23] between Abyssinia and Cape Guardafui,) and by slaves, of which
latter three or four are generally found in every ship. The crew receive
a certain sum for the voyage, and every sailor is, at the same time, a
petty trader on his own account; this is another cause of the resort of
foreigners to Djidda during the trade winds, for persons with the
smallest capitals can purchase goods in retail, at the first hand, from
the crews of these ships. 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 timber used at Suez is transported
thither overland from Cairo, and comes originally from the coast of Asia
Minor: The canvas used all over the Red Sea is of Egyptian manufacture.
The cordage is of the date-tree. Ships coming from the East Indies have
cordage made of the cocoa-nut tree, of which a quantity is also brought
for sale. That employed at Hadeyda and Mokha comes partly from Yemen,
and partly from the African coast. Many ships are purchased at Bombay
and Maskat; but those built at Suez are most common in the sea north of
Yemen. There has been a great want of shipping at Djidda during the last
three years, as the Pasha had seized a great number of ships, and
obliged their owners to transport provisions, ammunition, and baggage,
from Egypt to the Hedjaz, for which he pays a very low freight. During
my stay at Djidda, scarcely a day passed without some arrival by sea,
chiefly from Yembo and Cosseir; and there were constantly forty or fifty
ships in the harbour. An officer, entitled Emir al Bahhr, acts as
harbour-master, and takes from each ship a certain sum for anchorage.
This was an office of considerable dignity in the time of the sherif,
but it has now sunk into insignificance. I was somewhat surprised to
find that, in so well-frequented a port as Djidda, there were no
pleasure-boats of any kind in the harbour, nor even any regular public
boatmen; but I learned that this proceeded from the jealousy

[p.24] of the custom-house officers, who forbid all craft of this
description, and even insist that the ships' boats should return to the
ships after sunset.

Djidda carries on no trade by land, except with Medina and Mekka. A
caravan departs for Medina once in forty or fifty days, principally with
India goods and drugs, and is always augmented by a crowd of pilgrims
who wish to visit Mohammed's tomb. These caravans consist of from sixty
to one hundred camels, and are conducted by the Harb Bedouins. The
intercourse, however, between Djidda and Medina is more commonly carried
on by the intermediate route of Yembo, whither merchandize is sent by
sea. Besides the caravans above mentioned, others depart for Mekka
almost every evening, and at least twice a week, with goods and
provisions; and during the four months preceding the Hadj, when every
ship that arrives brings pilgrims to Djidda, this intercourse farther
increases, and caravans then set out regularly from the gate called Bab
Mekka every evening after sunset. The loaded camels take two nights to
perform the journey, resting midway at Hadda during the day; but, in
addition to these, a small caravan of asses, lightly laden, starts also
every evening, and performs the journey of fifteen or sixteen hours in
one night, arriving regularly at Mekka early in the morning. [When camels
abound, the hire of one from Djidda to Mekka is from twenty to twenty-
five piastres. In time of scarcity, or at the approach of the Hadj, from
sixty to seventy piastres are paid. During my stay, the hire of an ass
from Djidda to Mekka was twenty piastres. These prices would be
considered enormous in any other part of the Levant. Only fifteen
piastres are paid for a camel from Cairo to Suez, which is double the
distance between Djidda and Mekka.] It is by the ass-caravan that
letters are conveyed between the two towns. In time of peace, caravans
are occasionally met with on the sea-coast, towards Yemen, and the
interior of Tehama, to Mokhowa, whence corn is imported. (V. Appendix on
the Geography of the Hedjaz.)

The following enumeration of the different shops in the principal
commercial street of Djidda, may throw some light on the

[p.25] trade of the town, as well as on the mode of living of its
inhabitants.

The shops (as in all parts of Turkey) are raised several feet above
ground, and have before them, projecting into the street, a stone bench,
on which purchasers seat themselves; this is sheltered from the sun by
an awning usually made of mats fastened to high poles. Many of the shops
are only six or seven feet wide in front; the depth is generally from
ten to twelve feet, with a small private room or magazine behind.

There are twenty-seven coffee-shops. Coffee is drunk to excess in the
Hedjaz; it is not uncommon for persons to drink twenty or thirty cups in
one day, and the poorest labourer never takes less than three or four
cups. In a few of the shops may be had keshre, made from the skin of the
bean, which is scarcely inferior in flavour to that made from the bean
itself. One of the shops is frequented by those who smoke the hashysh,
or a preparation of hemp-flowers mixed with tobacco, which produces a
kind of intoxication. Hashysh is still more used in Egypt, especially
among the peasants. [Of the hemp-flowers, they use for this purpose the
small leaves standing round the seed, (called sheranek.) The common
people put a small quantity of them upon the top of the tobacco with
which their pipes are filled. The higher classes eat it in a jelly or
paste (maadjoun) made in the following manner:--a quantity of the
leaves is boiled with butter for several hours, and then put under a
press; the juice so expressed is mixed with honey and other sweet drugs,
and publicly sold in Egypt, where shops are kept for that purpose. The
Hashysh paste is politely termed bast, and those who sell it basty (i.e.
cheerfulness). On the occasion of a festival to celebrate the marriage
of a son of one of the principal grandees at Cairo, when all the
different crafts of the town were represented in a showy procession, the
basty, although exercising a business prohibited and condemned by the
law, was among the most gaudy. Many persons of the first rank use the
bast in some shape or other; it exhilarates the spirits, and raises the
imagination as violently as opium. Some persons also mix the paste with
seeds of the Bendj, which comes from Syria.]

In all these shops the Persian pipe is smoked, of which there

[p.26] are three different sorts. 1. The Kedra, which is the largest,
and rests upon a tripod; it is always neatly worked, and found only in
private houses. 2. The Shishe (called in Syria Argyle), of a smaller
size, but, like the former, joined to a long serpentine tube (called
lieh), through which the smoke is inhaled. 3. The Bury. This consists of
an unpolished cocoa-nut shell, which contains water; a thick reed
answers the purpose of the serpentine tube: this pipe is the constant
companion of the lower classes, and of all the sailors of the Red Sea,
who indulge most inordinately in using it. The tobacco smoked in the two
former of these pipes comes from the Persian gulf; the best is from
Shiraz. An inferior sort (called tombak) comes from Basra and Baghdad;
the leaf is of a light yellow colour, and much stronger in taste than
common tobacco; it is, therefore, previously washed to render it milder.
The tombak used in the Bury comes from Yemen, and is of the same species
as the other, but of an inferior quality. The trade in this article is
very considerable, its consumption in the Hedjaz being almost incredibly
great; large quantities are also shipped for Egypt. The common pipe is
little used in the Hedjaz, except by Turkish soldiers and Bedouins. The
tobacco is of Egyptian growth, or from Sennar, whence it is carried to
Sowakin. Very little good Syrian tobacco finds its way across the Red
Sea.

The coffee-houses are filled with people during the whole day; and in
front a shed is generally erected, under which persons also sit. The
rooms, benches, and small low chairs, are very filthy, and form a
contrast to the neatness and elegance observable in the coffee-houses of
Damascus. Respectable merchants are never seen in a coffee-house; but
those of the third class, and sea-faring people, make it their constant
resort. Every person has his particular house, where he meets those who
have business with him. An Arab, who cannot afford to ask his friend to
dine, invites him from the coffee-house, when he sees him pass, to enter
and take

[p.27] a cup, and is highly offended if the invitation be rejected. When
his friend enters, he orders the waiter to bring him a cup, and the
waiter, in presenting it, exclaims aloud, so that every one in the place
may hear him, djebba! (gratis). An Arab may cheat his creditors, or be
guilty of bad faith in his dealings, and yet escape public censure; but
he would be covered with infamy, if it were known that he had attempted
to cheat the coffee-house waiter of his due. The Turkish soldiers have
done their utmost in this respect to increase the contempt in which they
are held by the Arabs. I never saw in the coffee-houses of the Hedjaz
any of those story-tellers who are so common in Egypt, and still more in
Syria. The Mangal [See Niebuhr's Travels.] is generally played in all of
them, and the Dama, "a kind of draughts," differing somewhat from the
European game; but I never happened to see chess played in the Hedjaz,
though I heard that it is not uncommon, and that the sherifs in
particular are fond of it.

Near to almost every coffee-shop a person takes his stand, who sells
cooled water in small perfumed jars. [The Orientals often drink water
before coffee, but never immediately after. I was once recognised in
Syria as a foreigner or European, in consequence of having called for
water just after I had taken coffee. "If you were of this country ,"
said the waiter, "you would not spoil the taste of the coffee in your
mouth by washing it away with water."]

Twenty-one butter-sellers, who likewise retail honey, oil, and vinegar.
Butter forms the chief article in Arab cookery, which is more greasy
than even that of Italy. Fresh butter, called by the Arabs zebde, is
very rarely seen in the Hedjaz. It is a common practice amongst all
classes to drink every morning a coffee-cup full of melted butter or
ghee, after which coffee is taken. They regard it as a powerful tonic,
and are so much accustomed to it from their earliest youth, that they
would feel great inconvenience in discontinuing the use of it. The
higher classes content themselves

[p.28] with drinking the quantity of butter, but the lower orders add a
half-cup more, which they snuff up their nostrils, conceiving that they
prevent foul air from entering the body by that channel. The practice is
universal as well with the inhabitants of the town as with the Bedouins.
The lower classes are likewise in the habit of rubbing their breasts,
shoulders, arms, and legs, with butter, as the negroes do, to refresh
the skin. During the war, the import of this article from the interior
had almost entirely ceased; but even in time of peace, it is not
sufficient for the consumption of Djidda; some is, therefore, brought
also from Sowakin; but the best sort, and that which is in greatest
plenty, comes from Massowah, and is called here Dahlak butter: whole
ships' cargoes arrive from thence, the greater part of which is again
carried to Mekka. Butter is likewise imported from Cosseir; this comes
from Upper Egypt, and is made from buffaloes' milk; the Sowakin and
Dahlak ghee is from sheep's milk.

The Hedjaz abounds with honey in every part of the mountains. The best
comes from those which are inhabited by the Nowaszera Bedouins, to the
south of Tayf. Among the lower classes, a common breakfast is a mixture
of ghee and honey poured over crumbs of bread as they come quite hot
from the oven. The Arabs, who are very fond of paste, never eat it
without honey.

The oil used for lamps is that of Sesamum (Seeredj, brought from Egypt).
The Arabs do not use oil for culinary purposes, except in frying fish,
or with broken paste to be given to the poor. Salad, of which the
northern Turks are so fond, is never seen on an Arabian table.