Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 552 pages of information about Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1.

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 552 pages of information about Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1.
In the first place, we should have paid less for the whole of a privileged vessel, than we did for our wretched quarters on the deck of the pilgrim-ship; and, secondly, we might have touched at any port we pleased, so as to do a little business in the way of commerce. [FN#14] Afterwards called by Sir R. F. Burton the “Golden Wire."-Ed. [FN#15] For the “Sath,” or poop, the sum paid by each was seven Riyals.  I was, therefore, notably cheated by Sa’ad the Demon.  The unhappy women in the “Kamrah,” or cabin, bought suffocation at the rate of 6 dollars each, as I was afterwards informed, and the third class, in the “Taht,” or amidships and forward, contributed from 3 to 5 Riyals.  But, as usua1 on these occasions, there was no prix fixe; every man was either overcharged or undercharged, according to his means or his necessities.  We had to purchase our own water, but the ship was to supply us with fuel for cooking.  We paid nothing extra for luggage, and we carried an old Maghrabi woman gratis for good luck. [FN#16] We were still at Suez, where we could do as we pleased.  But respectable Arabs in their own country, unlike Egyptians, are seldom to be seen in the places of public resort.  “Go to the coffee-house and sing there!” is a reproach sometimes addressed to those who have a habit of humming in decent society. [FN#17] It was only my prestige as physician that persuaded my friend to join me in these bathings.  As a general rule, the Western Arabs avoid cold water, from a belief that it causes fever.  When Mr. C. Cole, H.B.M.’s Vice-Consul, arrived at Jeddah, the people of the place, seeing that he kept up his Indian habits, advised him strongly to drop them.  He refused; but unhappily he soon caught a fever, which confirmed them all in their belief.  When Arabs wish to cool the skin after a journey, they wash with a kind of fuller’s earth called “Tafl,” or with a thin paste of henna, and then anoint the body with oil or butter. [FN#18] An incrementative form of the name “Fatimah,” very common in Egypt.  Fatimah would mean a “weaner"-Fattumah, a “great weaner.”  By the same barbarism Khadijah becomes “Khaddugah”; Aminah, “Ammunah”; and Nafisah, “Naffusah,” on the banks of the Nile. [FN#19] The palmy days of the Egyptian husband, when he might use the stick, the sword, or the sack with impunity, are, in civilised places at least, now gone by.  The wife has only to complain to the Kazi, or to the governor, and she is certain of redress.  This is right in the abstract, but in practice it acts badly.  The fair sex is so unruly in this country, that strong measures are necessary to coerce it, and in the arts of deceit men have here little or no chance against women. [FN#20] The amount of settlement being, among Moslems as among Christians, the test of a bride’s value,-moral and physical,-it will readily be understood that our demand was more facetious than complimentary. [FN#21] The term Misriyah (an Egyptian woman) means in Al-Hijaz and the countries
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Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.