Mohammed Aly, Who Had Heard His Own
Women Praise Her Beauty And Accomplishments, Obliged The Kadhy, Much
Against His Will, To Part With Her For The Sum Of Fifty Thousand
Piastres, And Soon After Presented Her With The Marriage Contract.
I can say little of any customs peculiar to the Medinans, having had so
few opportunities of mixing with them.
I may, however, mention, that in
the honours they pay to the dead, they do not comply with the general
rules observed in the Fast. I believe this to be the only town where
women do not howl and cry on the death of a member of the family. The
contrary practice is too generally known to need repetition here; or
that, in other parts of the Levant, a particular class of women is
called in, on that occasion, whose sole profession is that of howling,
in the most heart-rending accents, for a small sum paid to them by the
hour. There is no such practice here, (though it is known in other parts
of the Hedjaz) and it is even considered disgraceful. The father of a
family died in a house next to that where I lived, and which
communicated with it. His death happened at midnight, and his only boy,
moved by natural feelings, burst into loud lamentations. I then heard
his mother exclaiming, "For God's sake,
[p.389] do not cry: what a shame to cry! You will expose us before the
whole neighbourhood;" and after some time she contrived to quiet her
child.
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