Galinier And Ferret,
Published Tables Of The Commerce In Its Present State, Quoting As
Authority The Celebrated Arabicist M. Fresnel.[FN#9] These
[P.269] have been translated by the author of “Life in Abyssinia.” Abd
al-Karim, writing in 1742, informs
Us that the French had a factory at
Jeddah; and in 1760, when Bruce revisited the port, he found the East
India Company in possession of a post whence they dispersed their
merchandise over the adjoining regions. But though the English were at
an early epoch of their appearance in the East received here with
especial favour, I failed to procure a single ancient document.
Jeddah, when I visited it, was in a state of commotion, owing to the
perpetual passage of pilgrims, and provisions were for the same reason
scarce and dear. The two large Wakalahs, of which the place boasts,
were crowded with travellers, and many were reduced to encamping upon
the squares. Another subject of confusion was the state of the
soldiery. The Nizam, or Regulars, had not been paid for seven months,
and the Arnauts could scarcely sum up what was owing to them. Easterns
are wonderfully amenable to discipline; a European army, under the
circumstances, would probably have helped itself. But the Pasha knew
that there is a limit to a man’s endurance, and he was anxiously casting
about for some contrivance that would replenish the empty pouches of
his troops. The worried dignitary must have sighed for those beaux
jours when privily firing the town and allowing the soldiers to
plunder, was the Oriental style of settling arrears of pay.[FN#10]
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