When We Went To Him
On Ordinary Business, We Spoke To Him As I Now Speak To You; But The
Pasha Keeps Us Standing Before Him In An Humble Attitude, Like So Many
Habesh (Abyssinian) Slaves, And Looks Down Upon Us As If We Were Beings
Of An Inferior Creation.
I would rather," he concluded, "pay a fine to
the sherif than receive a favour from the Pasha."
The little knowledge which the Turks possess of the Arabic language,
their bad pronunciation of it even in reciting prayers from the Koran,
the ignorance of Arabia and its peculiarities which they betray in every
act, are so many additional causes to render them hateful or despicable
in the eyes of the Arabs. The Turks return an equal share of contempt
and dislike. Whoever does not speak the language of the Turkish soldier,
or does not dress like one, is considered as a fellah, or boor, a term
which they have been in the habit of applying to the Egyptian peasants,
as beings in the lowest
[p.52] state of servitude and oppression. Their hatred of the Arabian
race is greater, because they cannot indulge their tyrannical
disposition with impunity, as they are accustomed to do in Egypt, being
convinced by experience that an Arabian, when struck, will strike again.
The Arabians particularly accuse the Turks of treachery, in seizing the
sherif and sending him to Turkey after he had declared for the Pasha,
and permitted Djidda and Mekka to be occupied by the Turkish troops,
who, they assert, would never, without the assistance of the sherif,
have been able to make any progress in Arabia, much less to acquire a
firm footing therein.
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