The exterior demeanour of the women of Djidda and Mekka is
very decorous: few of them are ever seen walking or riding in the
street; a practice so common at Cairo, though contrary to Oriental ideas
of propriety: and I lived in three different houses at Mekka without
having seen the unveiled faces of the female inmates.
The great merchants of Mekka live very splendidly: in the houses of
Djeylany, Sakkat, Ageyl, and El Nour, are establishments of fifty or
sixty persons. These merchants obtained their riches principally during
the reign of Ghaleb, to whom Djeylany and Sakkat served as spies upon
the other merchants. Their tables are furnished daily in abundance with
every native delicacy, as well as with those which India and Egypt
afford. About twenty persons sit down to dinner with them; the favourite
Abyssinian slaves, who serve often as writers or
[p.199] cashiers, are admitted to the table of their master; but the
inferior slaves and the servants are fed only upon flour and butter. The
china and glass ware, in which the dishes are served up, is of the best
quality; rose-water is sprinkled on the beards of the guests after
dinner, and the room is filled with the odours of aloe-wood, burnt upon
the nargiles.
