In The Hedjaz He Has Not The Same
Means Of Enforcing His Despotic Measures To Their Full Extent; And Thus
It happens that in the interior of the country, where the Turkish troops
are placed, the value of the dollar
Is eighteen or nineteen piastres.
The Bedouins, however, refuse to take the Egyptian piastres, even at a
depreciation, and will receive nothing but dollars; a determination to
which the Pasha himself has been frequently obliged to yield.
The para, or smallest Turkish coin, (here called diwany,) is current all
over the Hedjaz, and in great request, from its being of more intrinsic
value than the piastre, though coined like them at Cairo. Forty paras
make a piastre; but in the time of the Hadj, when small change is
necessary for the immense daily traffic of the pilgrims, the serafs gave
twenty-five paras only in
[p.44] change for the piastre. A few Indian rupees are seen in the
Djidda market, but they have no currency. I never met with any money
coined by the Imam of Yemen.
In the same great street of shops are ten large okales, always full of
strangers and goods. Most of them were formerly the property of the
sherif; they now belong to the Pasha, who levies an annual rent on the
merchants. In Syria these buildings are called khans; in the Hedjaz
hosh, which, in the dialect of Egypt, means a court-yard.
In a street adjoining the great market-place live a few artisans,
blacksmiths, silversmiths, carpenters, some butchers, &c. most of them
natives of Egypt.
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