He
Delighted To Wander About In A Primitive State Of Toilette, As All Such
Wretches Do; But The People Of Jeddah, Far Too Civilised To Retain
Moslem Respect For Madness, Forced Him, Despite Shrieks And Struggles,
Into A Shirt, And When He Tore It Off They Beat Him.
At other times the
open space before us was diversified by the arrival and the departure
of pilgrims, but it was a mere rechauffe of the feast, and had lost all
power to please.
Whilst the boy Mohammed remained, he used to pass the
time in wrangling with some Indians, who were living next door to us,
men, women, and children, in a promiscuous way. After his departure I
used to spend my days at the Vice-Consulate; the proceeding was not
perhaps of the safest, but the temptation of meeting a
fellow-countryman, and of chatting “shop” about the service was too great
to be resisted. I met there the principal merchants of Jeddah; Khwajah
Sower, a Greek; M. Anton, a Christian from Baghdad, and
others.[FN#11]And I was introduced to Khalid Bey, brother of Abdullah
bin Sa’ud, the Wahhabi. This noble Arab once held the
[p.273] official position of Mukayyid al-Jawabat, or Secretary, at
Cairo, where he was brought up by Mohammed Ali. He is brave, frank, and
unprejudiced, fond of Europeans, and a lover of pleasure. Should it be
his fate to become chief of the tribe, a journey to Riyaz, and a visit
to Central Arabia, will offer no difficulties to our travellers.
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