[In 1813, A Party Of
Tekrourys, About Sixty In Number, Having Taken That Road, The Arabs Of
Those Mountains, Who Are Wahabys, And Who Had Often Seen Black Slaves
Among The Turkish Soldiers, Conceived That The Negro Hadjys Were In The
Habit Of Entering Into The Service Of The Turks.
To prevent the party
then passing from being ever opposed to them, they waylaid the poor
Tekrourys on the
Road, and killed many of them.] If rich enough to spare
two dollars, they obtain, perhaps, a passage from Massoua direct to
Djidda, where they meet with such of their countrymen as may have landed
there from Souakin or Cosseir. Immediately on their arrival at Djidda or
Mekka, they apply themselves to labour: some serve as porters, for the
transport of goods and corn from the ships to the warehouses; others
hire themselves to clean the court-yards, fetch wood from the
neighbouring mountains, for the supply of which the inhabitants of
Djidda and Mekka are exclusively indebted to them, as none of their own
lazy poor will undertake that labour, although four piastres a day may
be gained by it. At Mekka, they make small hearths of clay, (kanoun,)
which they paint with yellow and red; these are bought by the hadjys,
who boil their coffee-pots upon them. Some manufacture small baskets and
mats of date-leaves, or prepare the intoxicating drink called bouza; and
others serve as water-carriers: in short, when any occasion requires
manual
[p.258] labour, a Tekroury from the market is always employed. If any of
them is attacked by disease, his companions attend upon him, and defray
his expenses. I have seen very few of them ask for charity, except on
the first days after their arrival, before they have been able to obtain
employment. From Mekka, they either travel by land, or sometimes make a
sea voyage by way of Yembo to Medina, where they again supply the town
with fire-wood. Indeed, the hadjys would be much at a loss in the
Hedjaz, if they could not command the laborious services of these
blacks. During the Wahaby conquest, they continued to perform the
pilgrimage; and it is said that Saoud expressed a particular esteem for
them. [Makrisi states, in his treatise on the Khalifes who performed the
Hadj, that in A.H. 724, a negro king called Mousa arrived at Cairo on
his way to Mekka, and was splendidly entertained by Kalaoun, then Sultan
of Egypt. He had with him, according to Makrisi, fourteen thousand
chosen female slaves.]
When these negroes have completed the Hadj, and the visit to Mekka, they
repair to Djidda, where they continue to work till an opportunity offers
of sailing to Souakin; for very few, if any, return by way of Abyssinia.
On leaving the Hedjaz, they all possess a sufficient sum of money, saved
from the profits of their industry, to purchase some small adventure,
or, at least, to provide, on their reaching Souakin, for a more
comfortable passage through the Desert than that which they experienced
on their outward journey, and then proceed homewards by Shendy and
Cordofan. Many of them, however, instead of returning on the completion
of the pilgrimage, disperse over Arabia, visit the mosque at Jerusalem,
or Ibrahim's (Abraham' s) tomb at Hebron, and thus remain absent from
their home for many years, subsisting always upon the product of their
own labour.
The benefactors to the Kaaba have enriched the temple of Mekka, and the
idle persons employed in it; but no one has thought of forming any
establishment for facilitating the pilgrimage of the poor negroes and
Indians, or of procuring for them a free passage across the gulf to the
Hedjaz; the expense of which, amounting to a dollar or two, is that
which they feel most heavily. They often arrive in the harbours of the
African side of the gulf, after having spent the
[p.259] little they had taken with them from home, or having been robbed
of it on the journey; and finding, perhaps, no means there of earning as
much as will pay their passage across the Red Sea, are obliged to wait
till the return of their richer companions from the Hedjaz, who
charitably pay for their passage.
The poor Indians afford a complete contrast, both in appearance and
character, to the negroes: more wretched countenances can hardly be
imagined; they seem to have lost not only all energy, but even hope.
With bodies which appear scarcely capable of withstanding a gust of
wind, and voices equally feeble, they would be worthy objects of
commiseration, did not daily experience prove that they delight to
appear in this plight, because it secures to them the alms of the
charitable, and exempts them from labour. The streets of Mekka are
crowded with them; the most decrepid make their doleful appeals to the
passenger, lying at full length on their backs in the middle of the
street; the gates of the mosque are always beset with them; every
coffee-house and water-stand is a station for some of them; and no hadjy
can purchase provisions in the markets, without being importuned by
Indians soliciting a portion of them. I saw among them one of those
devotees who are so common in the north of India and in Persia: one of
his arms was held up straight over his head, and so fixed by long habit,
that it could not be placed in any other situation. From the curiosity
which he excited, I was led to suppose that such characters seldom find
their way to the Hedjaz.
Dervishes of every sect and order in the Turkish empire are found among
the pilgrims; many of them madmen, or at least assuming the appearance
of insanity, which causes them to be much respected by the hadjys, and
fills their pockets with money. The behaviour of some of them is so
violent, and at the same time so cunning, that even the least charitably
disposed hadjys give willingly something to escape from them.
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