[P.38] Used By The More Opulent Merchants, And By All The Ladies, Red Caps, All Kinds Of Cloth Dresses, Second-Hand Cashmere Shawls, Muslin Shawls, &C. &C.

Six large shops of Indian piece-goods:

French cloth, cashmere shawls, &c. belonging to respectable merchants, whose clerks here sell by retail. Almost all the principal merchants carry on also a retail business in their own houses, except the great Indian merchants established here, who deal in nothing but Indian piece-goods. The other merchants of Djidda engage in every branch of commerce. I once saw the brother of Djeylany quarrelling with a Yembo pedlar about the price of a mellaye, worth about fifteen shillings; but this is the case also in Egypt and Syria, where the most wealthy native merchants sell in retail, and enter into all the minute details of business, and yet without keeping any large establishment of clerks or accomptants, which their mode of conducting business renders little necessary. A Turkish merchant never keeps more than one accompt-book; into this he copies from a pocket-book his weekly sales and purchases. They have not that extensive correspondence which European merchants are obliged to keep up; and they write much less, though perhaps more to the purpose, than the latter. In every town with which they traffic, they have one friend, with whom they annually balance accounts. Turkish merchants, with the exception of those living in sea-ports, generally pursue but one branch of trade; maintaining a correspondence with the town only from whence they obtain their merchandize, and with that to which they transport it.

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Words from 16480 to 16747 of 182297