This Was Much More
Profitable Formerly Than It Is At Present; For Mohammed Aly Having Made
These Articles A Monopoly, The People Are Now Obliged To Purchase The
Grain In Djidda, At The Pasha's Own Price, And To Be Contented With A
Moderate Gain On Re-Selling It At Mekka.
After paying freight, however,
it still leaves a profit of fifteen or twenty per cent.; and it is a
species of traffic peculiarly attractive to the smaller capitals, as,
the prices being very variable, it is a lottery by which money may
sometimes be doubled in a short time.
At the approach of the pilgrimage, every kind of provision rises in
value; and, in a smaller proportion, every other article of trade. Those
who have warehouses filled with corn, rice, and biscuits, are sure to
obtain considerable profits. To provide food, during their stay, for an
influx of population amounting to sixty thousand human beings, and for
twenty thousand camels, together with provisions for their return
homewards, is a matter of no small moment, and Mohammed Aly has not yet
ventured to take the whole of it into his hands. Every Mekkawy
possessing a few dollars, lays them out in the purchase of some kind of
provision, which, when the Hadj approaches, he transports upon his ass
from Djidda to Mekka.
Whenever the interior of Arabia is open to caravans, Bedouins from all
the surrounding parts purchase their yearly provision of corn at Mekka;
which itself also, in time of peace, receives a considerable quantity of
corn from Yemen, especially Mokhowa, a town which is ten days' journey
distant, at the western foot of the great chain, and the mart of the
Arabs who cultivate those mountains. I heard that
[p.190] the imports from Mokhowa amounted to half the demand of Mekka;
but this seems doubtful, though I have no means of forming a correct
estimate, as the route is at present unfrequented, and Mekka receives
its provisions wholly from Djidda. The consumption of grain, it may be
observed, is much greater in Arabia than in any of the surrounding
countries; the great mass of the population living almost entirely upon
wheat, barley, lentils, or rice; using no vegetables, but a great deal
of butter.
Unless a person is himself engaged in commercial concerns, or has an
intelligent friend among the wholesale merchants, it is difficult, if
not impossible, for him to obtain any accurate details of so extensive a
trade as that carried on by Mekka. I shall, therefore, abstain from
making any partial, and, on that account, probably erroneous remarks, on
its different branches, with which I am not well acquainted, and which I
could find no one at Mekka to explain to me.
It will naturally be supposed that Mekka is a rich town: it would be
still more so, if the lower classes did not so rapidly spend their gains
in personal indulgences. The wholesale merchants are rich; and as the
whole of their business is carried on with ready money, they are less
exposed to losses than other Eastern merchants.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 138 of 350
Words from 71589 to 72104
of 182297
