sent a yearly subsidy of 7500 ardebs of corn for the townspeople.  Other princes, however, contributed their offerings too, and received titles of honour connected with the Holy Land, the Shahs of Persia, the Moguls, and the Ottomans.  The first connection of the latter with Mecca that I can find was in 1413, when the Padishah Mohammed Khan I., having sent a surrah, or bag of gold, to the Sherif to be distributed in alms, received from him the title of Khaddam el Harameyn, servant of the two shrines; and the gift being continued annually by the Ottoman Padishahs may very likely have paved the way to their recognition later as Caliphs.

It would seem singular at first sight that the Sherifs, being themselves of the sacred family whose special inheritance the Caliphate was, should ever thus have recognized a stranger as its legal heir.  But the political weakness of the Meccan Government in the sixteenth century must be taken into account as the all-sufficient reason.  The Grand Sherif could hardly have stood alone as an independent sovereign, for he was continually menaced on the one side by the dissenting Omani, and on the other by the unbelieving tribes of Nejd, against whom his frontier was defenceless.  He could not, with his own resources, protect the pilgrim routes from plunder—­and on the pilgrimage all the prosperity of Hejaz depended.  It therefore was a necessity with the Meccans to have a protector of some sort; and Sultan Kansaw having fallen, they accepted Sultan Selim.

The Ottoman Sultans then became protectors of the Holy Places, and were acknowledged Caliphs without any appeal to arms at Mecca and Medina.  Their weapons were, in fact, the gold and silver pieces with which they subsidized the Sherifs.  Sultan Selim at once, on being acknowledged, ordered an additional annuity of 5000 ardebs to be paid to Mecca, and he and his immediate successors carried out at their own expense such public works as the shrines required in the way of repairs or improvements.  Subsequently the seaport of Jeddah, formerly occupied by the Egyptians, received a Turkish contingent, but the interior of Hejaz was never subjugated, nor was any tax at any time levied.  Only once a year an Ottoman army appeared before the walls of Medina, conducting the pilgrims from Damascus and convoying the surrah.  The state of things at Mecca in the last century has been clearly sketched by Niebuhr.  The Sherifs were in reality independent princes, but they “gratified the vanity of the Grand Signior” by calling him their suzerain, he on his side occasionally exercising the right of power by deposing the reigning Sherif and appointing another of the same family.  No kind of administration had then been attempted by the Turks in Hejaz.

Mehemet Ali’s occupation of Hejaz in 1812 first brought foreign troops inland.  He established himself at Taif, the summer residence of the Meccans; deposed the Grand Sherif Ghaleb, and appointed in his stead another member of the Sherifal family; declaring the Sultan sovereign of the country—­acts which the Meccans acquiesced in through dread of the Wahhabis, from whom Mehemet Ali promised to deliver them.  The Egyptian and Turkish Governments have thus, during the present century, exercised some of the functions of sovereignty in Hejaz.