This is the city of God!" they
exclaim, when any surprise is expressed at the greater part of them
having remained in the town during the stagnation of trade and the
absence of pilgrims:
"None ever wants his daily bread [h]ere; none fears
here the incursion of enemies." That Saoud saved the town from pillage;
that no plundering took place when the Turkish cavalry, under Mostafa
Bey, recaptured it from the Wahabys; that the capture of Sherif Ghaleb
led to no massacres within the precincts of Mekka, are to them so many
visible miracles of the Almighty, to prove the truth of that passage of
the Koran, (chap. 106.) in which it is said, "Let them adore the God of
the house (the Kaaba), who feeds them in hunger, and secures them from
all fear." But they forget to look back to their own history, which
mentions many terrible famines and sanguinary battles, that have
happened in this sacred asylum. Indeed, the Hedjaz has suffered more
from famine than, perhaps, any other Eastern country. The historians
abound with descriptions of such lamentable events: I shall only mention
one that happened in 1664, when, as Asamy relates, many people sold
their own children at Mekka for a single measure of corn; and when, at
Djidda, the populace fed publicly on human flesh.
A Mekkawy related to me, that having once resolved to abandon the city,
in consequence of the non-arrival of Turkish hadjys, who supplied
[p.204] his means of subsistence, an angel appeared to him in his sleep
on the night previous to his intended departure.
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