[Makrisi States, In His Treatise On The Khalifes Who Performed The
Hadj, That In A.H. 724, A Negro King Called Mousa Arrived At Cairo On
His Way To Mekka, And Was Splendidly Entertained By Kalaoun, Then Sultan
Of Egypt.
He had with him, according to Makrisi, fourteen thousand
chosen female slaves.]
When these negroes have completed the Hadj, and the visit to Mekka, they
repair to Djidda, where they continue to work till an opportunity offers
of sailing to Souakin; for very few, if any, return by way of Abyssinia.
On leaving the Hedjaz, they all possess a sufficient sum of money, saved
from the profits of their industry, to purchase some small adventure,
or, at least, to provide, on their reaching Souakin, for a more
comfortable passage through the Desert than that which they experienced
on their outward journey, and then proceed homewards by Shendy and
Cordofan. Many of them, however, instead of returning on the completion
of the pilgrimage, disperse over Arabia, visit the mosque at Jerusalem,
or Ibrahim's (Abraham' s) tomb at Hebron, and thus remain absent from
their home for many years, subsisting always upon the product of their
own labour.
The benefactors to the Kaaba have enriched the temple of Mekka, and the
idle persons employed in it; but no one has thought of forming any
establishment for facilitating the pilgrimage of the poor negroes and
Indians, or of procuring for them a free passage across the gulf to the
Hedjaz; the expense of which, amounting to a dollar or two, is that
which they feel most heavily.
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