Most Of The Rice Used
At Djidda Is Brought As Ballast By The Ships From India.
The best sort
comes from Guzerat and Cutch:
It forms the chief article of food among
the people of the Hedjaz, who prefer it to the rice from Egypt, because
they think it more wholesome than the former, which is used exclusively
by the Turks and other strangers from the north-ward. The grain of the
Indian rice is larger and longer than the common sort of Egypt, and is
of a yellowish colour; whereas the latter has a reddish tint; but the
best sorts of both are snow-white. The Indian rice swells more in
boiling than the Egyptian, and is for this reason preferred by the
Arabs, as a smaller quantity of it will fill a dish; but the Egyptian
rice is more nutritive. The Indian rice is rather cheaper, and is
transported from Djidda to Mekka, Tayf, Medina, and thence as far as
Nedjed. A mixture of equal portions of rice and lentils, over which
butter is poured,
[p.34] forms a favourite preparation with the middle class, and
generally their only dish at supper. [This dish is known in Syria, and
called there medjeddereh, because the lentils in the rice look like a
person's face marked with the small-pox, or djedreh.] I found, in every
part of the Hedjaz, that the Bedouins, when travelling, carried no other
provision than rice, lentils, butter, and dates. The importation of
biscuits from Egypt has of late been very considerable, for the use of
the Turkish army.
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