[Makrisi States, In His Treatise On The Khalifes Who Performed The Hadj, That In A.H. 724, A Negro King Called Mousa Arrived At Cairo On His Way To Mekka, And Was Splendidly Entertained By Kalaoun, Then Sultan Of Egypt.

He had with him, according to Makrisi, fourteen thousand chosen female slaves.]

When these negroes have completed the Hadj, and the visit to Mekka, they repair to Djidda, where they continue to work till an opportunity offers of sailing to Souakin; for very few, if any, return by way of Abyssinia. On leaving the Hedjaz, they all possess a sufficient sum of money, saved from the profits of their industry, to purchase some small adventure, or, at least, to provide, on their reaching Souakin, for a more comfortable passage through the Desert than that which they experienced on their outward journey, and then proceed homewards by Shendy and Cordofan. Many of them, however, instead of returning on the completion of the pilgrimage, disperse over Arabia, visit the mosque at Jerusalem, or Ibrahim's (Abraham' s) tomb at Hebron, and thus remain absent from their home for many years, subsisting always upon the product of their own labour.

The benefactors to the Kaaba have enriched the temple of Mekka, and the idle persons employed in it; but no one has thought of forming any establishment for facilitating the pilgrimage of the poor negroes and Indians, or of procuring for them a free passage across the gulf to the Hedjaz; the expense of which, amounting to a dollar or two, is that which they feel most heavily. They often arrive in the harbours of the African side of the gulf, after having spent the

[p.259] little they had taken with them from home, or having been robbed of it on the journey; and finding, perhaps, no means there of earning as much as will pay their passage across the Red Sea, are obliged to wait till the return of their richer companions from the Hedjaz, who charitably pay for their passage.

The poor Indians afford a complete contrast, both in appearance and character, to the negroes: more wretched countenances can hardly be imagined; they seem to have lost not only all energy, but even hope. With bodies which appear scarcely capable of withstanding a gust of wind, and voices equally feeble, they would be worthy objects of commiseration, did not daily experience prove that they delight to appear in this plight, because it secures to them the alms of the charitable, and exempts them from labour. The streets of Mekka are crowded with them; the most decrepid make their doleful appeals to the passenger, lying at full length on their backs in the middle of the street; the gates of the mosque are always beset with them; every coffee-house and water-stand is a station for some of them; and no hadjy can purchase provisions in the markets, without being importuned by Indians soliciting a portion of them. I saw among them one of those devotees who are so common in the north of India and in Persia:

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 189 of 350
Words from 98211 to 98727 of 182297