The Sherif Has A Band Of Martial Music, Similar To That Kept By Pashas,
Composed Of Kettle-Drums, Trumpets, Fifes, &C.:
It plays twice a day
before his door, and for about an hour on every evening of the new moon.
Weddings are attended by professional females, who sing and dance: they
have, it is said, good voices, and are not of that dissolute class to
which the public singers and dancers belong in Syria and Egypt. The
Mekkawys say, that before the Wahaby invasion, singers might be heard
during the evening in every street, but that the austerity of the
Wahabys, who, though passionately fond of their own Bedouin songs,
disapproved of the public singing of females, occasioned the ruin of all
musical pursuits: - this, however, may be only an idle notion, to be
ranked with that which is as prevalent in the East as it is in Europe,
that old times were always better in every respect than the present.
[p.217] The sakas or water-carriers of Mekka, many of whom are
foreigners, having a song which is very affecting from its simplicity
and the purpose for which it is used, the wealthier pilgrims frequently
purchase the whole contents of a saka's water-skin, on quitting the
mosque, especially at night, and order him to distribute it gratis among
the poor. While pouring out the water into the wooden bowls, with which
every beggar is provided, they exclaim "Sebyl Allah, ya atshan, Sebyl!"
"hasten, O thirsty, to the ways of God!" and then break out in the
following short song of three notes only, which I never heard without
emotion.
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