[p.241]Wady Aar [Arabic], coming from the east. Half an hour to the left
of the road is Daal [Arabic], a considerable village; and between Daal
and Mezareib, but more to the eastward, lies the village of Draa
[Arabic], the ancient Edrei. Two hours, Tefas [Arabic], with a well
built mosque.
At the end of three hours, we arrived at El Mezareib [Arabic], El
Mezareib is the first castle on the Hadj road from Damascus, and was
built by the great Sultan Selym, three hundred and eight years ago. It
is the usual residence of the Aga of the Haouran; but that office is now
vacant, the late Aga having been deposed, and no one has yet been
appointed to succeed him. The garrison of the castle consisted of a
dozen Moggrebyns, whose chief, a young black, was extremely civil to me.
The castle is of a square form, each side being, as well as I can
recollect, about one hundred and twenty paces in length. The entrance is
through an iron gate, which is regularly shut after sunset. The interior
presents nothing but an empty yard enclosed by the castle wall, within
which are ranges of warehouses, where the provisions for the Hadj are
deposited; their flat roofs form a platform behind the parapet of the
castle wall, where sixteen or eighteen mud huts have been built on the
top of the warehouses, as habitations for the peasants who cultivate the
neighbouring grounds. On the east side two miserable guns are planted.
Within the castle is a small mosque. There are no houses, beyond its
precincts. Close by it, on the N. and E. sides, are a great number of
springs, whose waters collect, at a short distance, into a large pond or
lake, of nearly half an hour in circumference, in the midst of which is
an island. On an elevated spot at the extremity of a promontory,
advancing into the lake, stands a chapel, around which are many ruins of
ancient buildings. The water of the lake is as clear as crystal, neither
weeds
[p.242]nor grass growing in it; its depth in the middle is much more
than the heighth of a man; the bottom is sand, and gravel of the black
Haouran stone. It abounds with fish, particularly carp, and a species
called Emshatt [Arabic]. In summer time, after the harvests of the
Haouran have been gathered in, when the Aeneze approach the more
populous parts of the country, the borders of the lake are crowded every
evening with thousands of camels, belonging to these Arabs, who prefer
filling their water skins here, as they say that the water keeps better
than any other. The water of the springs is slightly tepid, and nearly
of the same temperature as that of the springs near Kalaat el Medyk, in
the valley of the Orontes. According to the Arabs the springs emit a
copious steam in the winter mornings. An ancient mill stands near one of
them, with a few broken stones around it; but it does not appear that
any village or city of note stood here, though the quantity of water
seems inviting to settlers. The springs as well as the lake are known by
the name of El Budje [Arabic].
The pilgrim caravan to Mekka collects at the Mezareib, where the Pasha,
or Emir el Hadj, remains encamped for ten days, in order to collect the
stragglers, and to pay to the different Arab tribes the accustomed
tribute for the passage of the caravan through the desert. The
warehouses of the castle are annually well stocked with wheat, barley,
biscuit, rice, tobacco, tent and horse equipage, camel saddles, ropes,
ammunition, &c. each of which has its particular warehouse. These stores
are exclusively for the Pasha's suite, and for the army which
accompanies the Hadj; and are chiefly consumed on their return. It is
only in cases of great abundance, and by particular favour, that the
Pasha permits any articles to be sold to the pilgrims. At every station,
as far as Medina, is a castle, but generally smaller than this, filled
with similar stores.
[p.243]The Haouran alone is required to deliver every year into the
store houses of the Mezareib, two thousand Gharara of barley, or about
twenty or twenty-five thousand cwt. English. The town of Damascus has
been fed for the last three months with the biscuit stored in the
Mezareib for the Hadj.
As far as the Pasha was concerned, the affairs of the great Caravan were
generally well managed; but there still reigned a great want of economy,
and the expenses of the Hadjis increased every year. Of late years, the
hire of a single camel from Damascus to Mekka has been seven hundred and
fifty piastres; as much, and often more, was to be paid on coming back;
and the expenses on the road, and at Mekka, amounted at least to one
thousand piastres, so that in the most humble way, the journey could not
be performed at less than two thousand five hundred piastres, or £125.
sterling. A camel with a litter cost fifteen hundred in going, and as
much in coming back. Of the whole caravan not above one-tenth part were
real pilgrims, the rest consisted of soldiers, the servants of soldiers,
people attached to the Pasha's suite, merchants, pedlars, camel-drivers,
coffee and pipe waiters, a swarm of Bedouins, together with several
tents of public women from Damascus, who were so far encouraged, that,
whenever they were unable to obtain from their lovers the daily food for
their horses or mules, they obtained a supply from the Pasha's stores.
The greater part of the pilgrims usually contract for the journey with
one of the great undertakers, or Mekouam [Arabic], as they are called;
this agreement is only for a beast of transport and for water; as to
eating, the pilgrims generally mess together at their own expense, in
bodies of about half a dozen. The Mekouam, on agreeing to furnish a
beast of burthen, are bound to replace whatever may die on the road, and
are therefore obliged to carry with them at least one unloaded camel for
every loaded one. It is a general
[p.244]practice with the Mekouam to obtain as large sums as possible on
account from the pilgrims who engage with them for the journey; they
generally agree among each other upon the sum to be demanded, as well as
the moment at which it is to be called for: so that if the pilgrims
resist the imposition, the Hadj sometimes remains encamped on the same
spot for several days, the Mekouam all refusing to proceed, and feeing
the Pasha for his connivance at their injustice. On their return to
Damascus, if they have already extorted from the pilgrims in the course
of the journey more than the amount of their contract, as often happens,
they generally declare themselves to be bankrupts, and then the value of
a few camels is all that remains to pay their debts to the pilgrims.
Those pilgrims who do not engage with the Mekouam, as is generally the
case with those who come from Armenia and the borders of the Black sea,
perform the journey somewhat cheaper upon their own beasts; but they are
ill-treated on the road by the Mekouam, are obliged to march the last in
the caravan, to encamp on the worst ground, to fill their water skins
the last, and are often even avanized by the Pasha. It is difficult to
conceive the wretched condition of the greater part of the Hadjis, and
the bad conduct of the troops and Arabs. Thieving and robbery have
become general among them, and it is more the want of sleep from fear of
being plundered, which causes the death of so many pilgrims, than the
fatigues of the journey. The Pasha's troops, particularly those called
Howara, which bring up the rear of the caravan, are frequently known to
kill the stragglers during the night, in order to strip them of their
property. The Pasha, it is true, often punishes such delinquents, and
scarcely a day passes without some one being empaled alive; the caravan
moves on, and the malefactor is left to be devoured by the birds of
prey. The Bedouins are particularly dexterous in pilfering; at night
they sometimes assume the
[p.245]dress of the Pasha's infantry, and thus introduce themselves
unnoticed amongst the camels of the rich Hadjis, when they throw the
sleeping owner from his mule or camel, and in the confusion occasioned
by the cries of the fallen rider, drive off the beast.
The caravan marches daily from Asser, or about three hours after mid-
day, during the whole of the night, and till the followingmorning, when
the tents are pitched. It never stops but during prayers. The Arabs of
Sokhne, Tedmor, and Haouran, together with the Bedouins who let out
their camels, precede or follow the caravan at the distance of one day's
march. They transport the provisions for the Pasha's troops, of which
they steal, and publicly sell at least two-thirds. They march during the
day, and encamp in the evening. Their caravan is called El Selma
[Arabic]. It passes the great caravan once every two or three days, and
then encamps till the latter comes up, when they supply the Pasha's
suite with provisions. The cheapest mode of performing the pilgrimage is
to agree for a camel with one of those Arabs; but the fatigue is much
greater in following the Selma.
The last year in which the Hadj quitted Damascus, the pilgrims reached
the gates of Medina, but they were not permitted to enter the town, nor
to proceed to Mekka; and after an unsuccessful negotiation of seven
days, they were obliged to return to Damascus. About two hundred Persian
Hadjis only, who were with the caravan, were allowed to pass on paying a
large sum of money. Ibn Saoud, the Wahabi chief, had one interview with
Abdullah Pasha, accompanied by the whole of his retinue, at Djebel
Arafat, near Mekka; they exchanged presents, and parted as friends.
Of the seven different pilgrim caravans which unite at Mekka, two only
bear the Mahmal, the Egyptian and Syrian; the latter is the first in
rank.