The Arabians Do Not Like And Seldom Eat Them Even On
Board Their Ships, Where They Bake Their Unleavened Cake Every Morning
In Those Small Ovens Which Are Found In All The Ships Of Every Size That
Navigate The Red Sea.
Salt is sold by the corn-dealers.
Sea-salt is collected near Djidda, and
is a monopoly in the hands of the sherif. The inhabitants of Mekka
prefer rock-salt, which is brought thither by the Bedouins from some
mountains in the neighbourhood of Tayf.
Thirty-one tobacco-shops, in which are sold Syrian and Egyptian tobacco,
tombac, or tobacco for the Persian pipe, pipe-heads and pipe-snakes,
cocoa-nuts, coffee-beans, keshre, soap, almonds, Hedjaz raisins, and
some other articles of grocery. The Egyptian tobacco, sometimes mixed
with that of Sennar, is the cheapest, and in great demand throughout the
Hedjaz. There are two sorts of it: the leaf of one is green, even when
dry; this is called ribbe, and comes from Upper Egypt: the other is
brown-leaved, the best sort of which grows about Tahta, to the south of
Siout. During the power of the Wahabys, tobacco could not be sold
publicly; but as all the Bedouins of the Hedjaz are passionately fond of
it, persons sold it clandestinely in their shops, not as tobacco or
dokhan, but under the name of "the wants of a man." Long snakes for the
Persian pipe, very prettily worked, are imported from Yemen. Cocoa-nuts
are brought from the East Indies, as well as from the south-eastern
coast of Africa and the Somawly country, and may
[p.35] be had quite fresh, at low prices, during the monsoon.
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