Their Tent, Coffee, Water, Breakfast,
And Dinner Are Prepared For Them, And They Need Not Take The Slightest
Trouble About Packing And Loading.
If a camel should die, the Mekowem
must find another; and, however great may be the want of provisions on
the road, he must furnish his passengers with their daily meals.
In
1814, the hire of one Mekowem, and the boarding at his table, was one
hundred and fifty dollars from Damascus to Medina, and fifty dollars
more from Medina to Mekka. Out of these two hundred dollars, sixty were
given by the Mekowem to a man who led the camel by the halter during the
night-marches; a precaution necessary in so great a caravan, when the
rider usually sleeps, and the animal might otherwise easily wander from
the path. In addition to the stipulated hire, the Mekowem always
receives some presents from his pilgrims. On the return to Syria, the
sum is something less, as many camels then go unloaded.
Few travellers choose to perform the journey at their own risk, or upon
their own camels; for if they are not particularly protected by the
soldiery, or the chief of the caravan, they find it difficult to escape
the ill-treatment of the Mekowem at watering-places, as well as on the
march; the latter endeavouring to check, by every means in their power,
the practice of traveling independent of them, so that it is rarely done
except by rich hadjys, who have the means of forming a party of their
own amounting to forty or fifty individuals.
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