The
Warehouses Of The Castle Are Annually Well Stocked With Wheat, Barley,
Biscuit, Rice, Tobacco, Tent And Horse Equipage, Camel Saddles, Ropes,
Ammunition, &C. Each Of Which Has Its Particular Warehouse.
These stores
are exclusively for the Pasha's suite, and for the army which
accompanies the Hadj; and are chiefly consumed on their return.
It is
only in cases of great abundance, and by particular favour, that the
Pasha permits any articles to be sold to the pilgrims. At every station,
as far as Medina, is a castle, but generally smaller than this, filled
with similar stores.
[p.243]The Haouran alone is required to deliver every year into the
store houses of the Mezareib, two thousand Gharara of barley, or about
twenty or twenty-five thousand cwt. English. The town of Damascus has
been fed for the last three months with the biscuit stored in the
Mezareib for the Hadj.
As far as the Pasha was concerned, the affairs of the great Caravan were
generally well managed; but there still reigned a great want of economy,
and the expenses of the Hadjis increased every year. Of late years, the
hire of a single camel from Damascus to Mekka has been seven hundred and
fifty piastres; as much, and often more, was to be paid on coming back;
and the expenses on the road, and at Mekka, amounted at least to one
thousand piastres, so that in the most humble way, the journey could not
be performed at less than two thousand five hundred piastres, or £125.
sterling.
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