The Same Practice Is Adopted By Many Foreigners, Who Reside
In The Hedjaz For A Short Time.
Upon their arrival, they buy a female
companion, with the design of selling her at their departure; but
sometimes their stay is protracted; the slave bears a child; they marry
her, and become stationary in the town.
There are very few men
unmarried, or without a slave. This, indeed, is general in the East, and
no where more so than at Mekka. The
[p.187] mixture of Abyssinian blood has, no doubt, given to the Mekkawys
that yellow tinge of the skin which distinguishes them from the natives
of the Desert.
Among the richer classes, it is considered shameful to sell a concubine
slave. If she bears a child, and the master has not already four legally
married wives, he takes her in matrimony; if not, she remains in his
house for life; and in some instances the number of concubines is
increased to several dozen, old and young. The middling and lower
classes in Mekka are not so scrupulous as their superiors: they buy up
young Abyssinians on speculation; educate them in the family; teach them
cooking, sewing, &c.; and then sell them at a profit to foreigners, at
least such as prove barren. I have been informed by physicians, barbers,
and druggists, that the practice of causing abortion is frequent here.
The seed of the tree which produces the balsam of Mekka, is the drug
commonly used for this purpose. The Mekkawys make no distinction
whatever between sons born of Abyssinian slaves and those of free
Arabian women.
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