He Waited In Person With An Apology Upon Mr. Cole.
Though Established At Jeddah Since 1838, The French And English
Consuls, Contented With A Proxy, Never Required A Return Of Visit From
The Governor.
If the Turks be frequently reduced to such expedients for
the payment of their troops, they will soon be swept from the land.
On
the other hand, the Sharif approaches a crisis. His salary, paid by the
Sultan, may be roughly estimated at £15,000 per annum. If the Turks
maintain their footing in Arabia, it will probably be found that an
honourable retreat at Stambul is better for the thirty-first descendant
of the Prophet than the turbulent life of Meccah; or that a reduced
allowance of £500 per annum would place him in a higher spiritual, though
in a lower temporal position. Since the above was written the Sharif
Abd al-Muttalib has been deposed. The Arabs of Al-Hijaz united in
revolt against the Sultan, but after a few skirmishes they were reduced
to subjection by their old ruler the Sharif bin Aun.
[FN#31] Saniyat means a “winding path,” and Kuda’a, “the cut.” Formerly Meccah
had three gates: 1. Bab al-Ma’ala, North-East; 2. Bab al-Umrah, or Bab
al-Zahir, on the Jeddah road, West; and 3[.] Bab al-Masfal on the Yaman
road. These were still standing in the twelfth century, but the walls
were destroyed. It is better to enter Meccah by day and on foot; but
this is not a matter of vital consequence in pilgrimage.
[FN#32] It is a large whitewashed building, with extensive wooden
balconied windows, but no pretensions to architectural splendour.
Around it trees grow, and amongst them I remarked a young cocoa.
Al-Idrisi (A.D. 1154) calls the palace Al-Marba’ah. This may be a
clerical error, for to the present day all know it as Al-Ma’abidah
(pronounced Al-Mab’da). The Nubian describes it as a “stone castle, three
miles from the town, in a palm garden.” The word “Ma’abidah,” says Kutb al-Din,
means a “body of servants,” and is applied generally to this suburb because
here was a body of Badawin in charge of the Masjid al-Ijabah, a Mosque
not now existing.
[FN#33] I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the
strange error that “apparitions are unknown in Arabia.” Arabs fear to sleep
alone, to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during dark,
and to sit amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions. And Arabia,
together with Persia, has supplied half the Western world with its
ghost stories and tales of angels, demons, and fairies. To quote
Milton, the land is struck “with superstition as with a planet.”
[FN#34] This is a synopsis of our marches, which, protracted on
Burckhardt’s map, gives an error of ten miles.
1. From Al-Madinah to Ja al-Sharifah, S.E. 50° - 22 Miles
2. From Ja al-Sharifah to Ghurab, S.W. 10° - 24 Miles
3.
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