During My Stay At Damascus, Which Is The Richest Book-Market In The East, And The Cheapest, From Being Very Little Frequented By Europeans, I Heard That Several Arabs Of Baghdad, Secretly Commissioned For That Purpose By Saoud, The Wahaby Chief, Had Purchased There Many Historical Works.

When Abou Nokta plundered the harbours of Yemen, he carried off a great number of books, and sent them to Derayeh.

The scarcity of valuable books at Mekka may, perhaps, be ascribed to the continual purchases made by pilgrims; for there are no copyists at Mekka to replace the books which have been exported. [At Cairo, I saw many books in the Hedjaz character, some of which I purchased.] The want of copyists is, indeed, a general complaint also in Syria and Egypt, and must, in the end, lead to a total deficiency of books in those countries, if the exportation to Europe continues. There are at Cairo, at this time, not more than three professed copyists, who write a good hand, or who possess sufficient knowledge to enable them to avoid the grossest

[p.214] errors. At Mekka, there was a man of Lahor, who wrote Arabic most beautifully, though he spoke it very indifferently. He sat in a shop near Bab-es'-Salam, and copied for the hadjys such prayers as it was necessary to recite during the pilgrimage. The hand-writing of the Hedjaz is different from that used in Egypt or Syria; but a little practice makes it easily read. In general, not only every country, but every province, even, of the East, has its peculiar mode of writing, which practice alone can enable one to distinguish. There are shades of difference in the writing of the Aleppines, of the people of Damascus, and of Acre; and, in Egypt, the writing of a Cahirein is easily distinguished from that of a native of Upper Egypt. That of the Moslims is different every where from that of the Christians, who are taught to write by their priests, and not by Turkish schoolmasters. The Copts of Egypt have also a character differing from that of the other Christians established in the country. An experienced person knows, from the address of a letter, the province and the race to which the writer belongs. The dialects, and the style of letter-writing are not less distinguishable than the hand-writing; and this remark is particularly applicable to the complimentary expressions with which the letters always abound. The style of Syria is the most flowery; yet even in letters of mere business we find it used. That of Egypt is less complimentary; that of the Hedjaz is simple and manly, and approaches to Bedouin frankness, containing, before the immediate purport of the letter, only a few words of inquiry after the health and welfare of the person addressed. Each country has also its peculiar manner of folding a letter. In the Hedjaz, letters are sealed with gum-Aabic; and a small vessel full of the diluted gum is suspended near the gate of every large house or khan.

Whatever may be the indifference of the Mekkawys for learning, [I may mention, as a strong proof of the neglect of learning at Mekka, that of a dozen persons, respectable from their situations in life, of whom I inquired respecting the place Okath, not one of them knew where it was, or if it still existed. The Okath was the place where the ancient Arabian poets, as late even as the time of Mohammed, used to recite their works to crowds assembled there at a great fair. The prize poems were afterwards suspended at the Kaaba. It is to this custom that we owe the celebrated poems called the Seba Moallakat. A Bedouin of Hodheyl told me that the Okath was now a ruined place in the country of Beni Naszera, between two and three days' journey south of Tayf. But in El Fasy's history, I find it stated to be one day's journey from Tayf; and that it ceased to be frequented as a fair in A.H. 1229. El Azraky says that it was at that distance from Tayf, on the road to Szanaa in Yemen, and belonged to the tribe of Beni Kanane.]

[p.215] the language of their city is still more pure and elegant, both in phraseology and pronunciation, than that of any other town where Arabic is spoken. It approaches more nearly than any other dialect to the old written Arabic, and is free from those affectations and perversions of the original sense, which abound in other provinces. I do not consider the Arabic language as on the decline: it is true, there are no longer any poets who write like Motanebbi, Abol' Ola, or Ibn el Faredh; and a fine flowing prose the Arabs never possessed. The modern poets content themselves with imitating their ancient masters, humbly borrowing the sublime metaphors and exalted sentiments produced from nobler and freer breasts than those of the olemas of the present day. But even now, the language is deeply studied by all the learned men; it is the only science with which the orthodox Moslim can beguile his leisure hours, after he has explored the labyrinth of the law; and every where in the East it is thought an indispensable requisite of a good education, not only to write the language with purity, but to have read and studied the classic poets, and to know their finest passages by heart. The admiration with which Arabic scholars regard their best writers, is the same as that esteem in which Europeans hold their own classics. The far greater part of the Eastern population, it is true, neither write nor read; but of those who have been instructed in letters, a much larger proportion write elegantly, and are well read in the native authors, than among the same class in Europe.

The Mekkawys study little besides the language and the law. Some boys learn at least as much Turkish as will enable them to cheat the Osmanly pilgrims to whom their knowledge of that tongue may recommend them as guides.

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