A Few Families Pass The Whole Year At Their Gardens; Among These Was The Large Family Of A Saint, Established In A Delightful Little Garden To The South Of The Town.

This man is greatly renowned for his sanctity, so much so, that Tousoun Pasha himself once kissed his hands.

I paid him a visit, like many other pilgrims, in the first days of my arrival, and found him seated in an arched recess or large niche adjoining the house, from whence he never moved. He was more polite than any saint I had ever seen, and was not averse to talk of worldly matters. I had heard that he possessed some historical books, which he would perhaps sell; but upon inquiry, I learnt from him that he did not trouble himself with any learning except that of the Law, the Koran, and his language. He gave me a nargyle to smoke, and treated me with a dish of dates, the produce of his own garden; and after I had put, on taking leave, a dollar under the carpet upon which I sat, (an act usual, as it was said, on such an occasion,) he accompanied me to the garden-gate, and begged me to repeat my visit.

Smoking nargyles, or the Persian pipe, is as general here as at Mekka; common pipes are more in use here than in other parts of the Hedjaz, the climate being colder. The use of coffee is immoderate. In the gardens fruit can be bought with coffee-beans as well as with

[p.386] money; and the fondness for tea in England and Holland is not equal to that of the Arabians for coffee.

The people of Medina keep no horses. Except those of the Sheikh el Haram, and a few of his suite, I believe there is not one horse kept in this town. In general, these parts of Arabia are poor in horses, because there is no fine pasture for them: the Bedouins to the N. and E. of the town, in the Desert, have, on the contrary, large breeds. The gardens of Medina might afford pasturage; and formerly, when there were warlike individuals in the town, horses were kept by them, and expeditions planned against Bedouins with whom they happened to be at war. At present the spirit of the Medinans is more pacific; and the few horses yet kept when the Wahabys captured the town, were immediately sold by their owners, to escape the military conscription to which principally the horsemen in the Wahaby dominions were subjected. Some of the richer families kept mules, and also dromedaries. Asses are very common, especially among the cultivators, who bring to town upon them the produce of their fields. They are of a smaller breed than those of Mekka and the Hedjaz. The wants of the Turkish army had caused a great diminution in the number of camels formerly kept by the cultivators, who sold them, under the apprehension of their being placed in requisition. The Bedouins of the eastern Desert, at three or four days' journey from the town, are rich in camels; a strolling party of the horsemen of Tousoun Pasha sent in, during my stay, seven hundred of them, which they had taken from a single encampment of the Beni Hetym tribe.

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