During The Period Of The Hadj, These Shops Are Principally Frequented For The Purchase Of The Hiram Or Ihram, That Mantle In Which The Pilgrimage Is Performed, And Which Consists Generally Of Two Long Pieces Of White Indian Cambric.

Here, too, the Hedjaz Bedouins come to buy the woollen abbas, or Bedouin cloaks, brought from Egypt, on which

Country they entirely depend for this article; and thus they seem to possess the same indolent character as most people of the Hedjaz; for it is customary with the wives of other Bedouins to fabricate their own abbas. Here, also, they bring Turkish carpets of an inferior quality, which form an indispensable article of furniture for the tent of a Sheikh. In these shops are likewise retailed all other imports from Egypt necessary for dress, as mellayes, cotton quilts, linen for shirts, shirts dyed blue, worn by the peasants, red and yellow slippers,

[p.38] used by the more opulent merchants, and by all the ladies, red caps, all kinds of cloth dresses, second-hand cashmere shawls, muslin shawls, &c. &c.

Six large shops of Indian piece-goods: French cloth, cashmere shawls, &c. belonging to respectable merchants, whose clerks here sell by retail. Almost all the principal merchants carry on also a retail business in their own houses, except the great Indian merchants established here, who deal in nothing but Indian piece-goods. The other merchants of Djidda engage in every branch of commerce. I once saw the brother of Djeylany quarrelling with a Yembo pedlar about the price of a mellaye, worth about fifteen shillings; but this is the case also in Egypt and Syria, where the most wealthy native merchants sell in retail, and enter into all the minute details of business, and yet without keeping any large establishment of clerks or accomptants, which their mode of conducting business renders little necessary. A Turkish merchant never keeps more than one accompt-book; into this he copies from a pocket-book his weekly sales and purchases. They have not that extensive correspondence which European merchants are obliged to keep up; and they write much less, though perhaps more to the purpose, than the latter. In every town with which they traffic, they have one friend, with whom they annually balance accounts. Turkish merchants, with the exception of those living in sea-ports, generally pursue but one branch of trade; maintaining a correspondence with the town only from whence they obtain their merchandize, and with that to which they transport it. Thus, for instance, the great Baghdad merchants of Aleppo, men with from thirty to forty thousand pounds in capital, receive goods from their friends at Baghdad, and then send them from Aleppo to Constantinople. I have known many of them who kept no clerk, but transacted the whole of their business themselves. At Cairo, the Syrian merchants trade in the stuffs of Damascus and Aleppo, and

[p.39] are altogether unconnected with the Maggrebin, Syria, and Djidda merchants.

Mercantile transactions are farther simplified by the traders employing chiefly their own capital, commission business being much less extensive than it is in Europe.

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Words from 16329 to 16849 of 182297