As It Often Happens That The Turkish Pilgrims Want Money In The Hedjaz, They Are Sometimes Compelled To Dispose Of Their Most Valuable Articles; The Watch Is Always The First, Then The Pistols And Sabre, And Lastly The Fine Pipe, And Best Copy Of The Koran:

All these articles are consequently very common in the auction-markets of Djidda and Mekka.

One seller of Turkish and Persian tobacco-pipes. The latter come principally from Baghdad. The wealthy often display in their sitting- rooms a whole range of the finest nargils: these cost as much as one hundred dollars a piece.

Seven money-dealers, or serafs. They sit upon benches in the open street, with a large box before them containing the money. Formerly, these serafs were all Jews, as is still the case, with few exceptions, at Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo; but since the Sherif-Serour drove the Jews out of the Hedjaz, the Djiddawys themselves have taken up the profession, to which their natural disposition and habits incline them. There is usually at each stand a partnership of them, comprising half a dozen individuals. A large amount of cash is required to carry on the business; but it is very profitable. The value of money changes here more rapidly than in any part of the East with which I am acquainted. The price of dollars and sequins fluctuates almost daily, and the serafs are always sure to be gainers. During the stay of the Indian fleet, the value of a dollar becomes very high. While I was at Djidda, it rose

[p.43] to eleven and twelve piastres. After the departure of the fleet, when there is no immediate demand for dollars, the price falls; in January, 1815, it was at nine piastres. The gold coins vary in proportion.

Formerly the old current coins of the Hedjaz were Venetian and Hungarian sequins, Spanish dollars, and money coined at Constantinople. Egyptian coins were wholly excluded; [According to the historians of Mekka, it appears that the sherifs there assumed the privilege of coining their own money, in the name of the Sultan of Constantinople, as late as the seventeenth century; but this is now abandoned.] but since the arrival of the troops of Mohammed Ali Pasha, all the Cairo coins have been forcibly put into circulation, and the Cairo silver money is now next in estimation to the Spanish dollar. The Pasha of Egypt, who enjoys the right of coining money in the name of the Sultan, has lately much abused this privilege. In 1815, he farmed out the mint for a yearly sum of seven millions of piastres, which is, at the present rate of exchange, about two hundred thousand pounds sterling, obliging the people to take the dollar at eight of his piastres, although it is well known to be now worth twenty-two or twenty-three. In the Hedjaz he has not the same means of enforcing his despotic measures to their full extent; and thus it happens that in the interior of the country, where the Turkish troops are placed, the value of the dollar is eighteen or nineteen piastres. The Bedouins, however, refuse to take the Egyptian piastres, even at a depreciation, and will receive nothing but dollars; a determination to which the Pasha himself has been frequently obliged to yield.

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Words from 17907 to 18461 of 182297