[p.403] heavy rain set in, accompanied with tremendous peals of thunder
and flashes of lightning. The whole Wady was flooded in a moment, and we
expected that it would be necessary to pass the whole day here. I found
shelter in the tent of the merchant of Maskat. In the afternoon the
storm ceased. At two P.M. we started, and at the end of an hour passed
the tombs of the Martyrs or Shohada, the followers of Mohammed, forty of
whom, it was said, lie buried there. We continued slowly descending in
the Wady, mostly in the direction S.S.W. At the top of Wady Shohada, the
granite rocks begin, the upper ranges of that chain being calcareous. At
the end of five hours we issued from the Wady. In the night we passed
the plains of Shab el Hal and Nazye; and, after a march of thirteen
hours and a half, encamped in the mountains, in the wide valley called
Wady Medyk, which lies in the road from Nazye to Djedeyde, two hours
distant from the former, and which we had passed at night in my former
journey. I heard that in these mountains between Medina and the sea, all
the way northward, mountain-goats are met with, and that leopards are
not uncommon.
April 24th. A few Arabs of Beni Salem here sow some fields with durra,
which they irrigate by means of a fine spring of running water issuing
from a cleft in the mountains, where it forms several small basins and
pretty cascades--the best water I had drank since leaving the mountains
of Tayf. We started from hence in the afternoon, and encountered more
heavy rain from mid-day to sun-set. In the caravan were several sick and
convalescents, especially women, who were all complaining. I had had a
strong attack of fever during the night, which returned to-day, and
lasted till I reached Yembo. It was particularly distressing to me,
being accompanied by profuse perspiration during the night, followed by
shivering fits towards day-break; and as the caravan could not halt on
my account, I had no opportunity to change my linen. We were, moreover,
obliged to encamp upon wet ground; and as the number of camel-drivers
was very small, considering the quantity of baggage, I could not avoid
assisting to load, my own Bedouin being one of the most ill-natured and
lazy fellows I ever met with among people of his nation.
[p.404] We rode in the winding valley for two hours and a half, to El
Kheyf, the beginning of Wady Djedeyde, where the chief of the Turkish
post stationed there inquired for news from head-quarters: he had been a
whole fortnight without hearing what was done at Medina. During the
whole Turkish campaign in the Hedjaz, no regular couriers had been any
where established. Tousoun Pasha was often left for months at Medina,
ignorant of the state of the army under his father; and even the latter
usually received his intelligence from Mekka and Djidda by ordinary
conveyances of caravans; expresses were seldom despatched, and still
less any regular communication established over land between Cairo and
Mekka. Not merely in this respect, but in many other details of warfare,
the best Turkish commanders show an incredible want of activity or
foresight, which causes the surprise even of Bedouins, and must expose
their operations to certain failure whenever they encounter a more
vigilant enemy with no disparity of force.
The camp of the soldiers at Kheyf was completely inundated, and the
whole breadth of the wady covered with a rapid stream of water. Without
stopping any where we passed Djedeyde at the end of three hours and a
half, and further on Dar el Hamra, where the inhabitants had cultivated
several new plantations, since I passed this way in January. The copious
rains were a sure prognostic of a plentiful year, and the ever-recurring
questions put to our guides by the people they passed on the road were,
whether such and such a spot in the upper country was well drenched with
rain. In seven hours we came to Szafra. The party from Mekka that was
with us, separated here, having hired their camels only thus far, from
whence they intended to take others for the journey to Mekka; and those
which had carried them thus far, followed our party to Yembo. All those
camels which are engaged in the transport and carriage between the coast
and Medina, belong to the Beni Harb tribe.
We remained a few minutes only, about midnight, at Szafra, to drink some
coffee in one of the shops, and then continued our road to the westward
of the route by which I reached Szafra in coming from Mekka. Thick date-
plantations form an uninterrupted line on both
[p.405] sides of the narrow valley in which we slowly descended. After
nine hours and a half we passed a village called El Waset, built among
the date-groves, and having extensive gardens of fruit-trees in its
vicinity. At every step water is found in wells or fountains. A little
beyond this village we left the valley to the right, and took our way up
a steep mountain, this being a nearer road than that through the valley.
The route over the mountain was rocky and steep; our guides obliged us
to walk, and it was with difficulty that I mustered strength sufficient
to reach the summit; from thence we descended by a less rough declivity,
and, after twelve hours march, again fell into the road in the valley,
near a small village called Djedyd. The mountain we had crossed has the
name of Thenyet Waset. The valley we had left to our right takes a
western circuitous tour, and includes several other villages, of which I
heard the following mentioned: Hosseynye, (nearest to Waset); then,
lower down, Fara and Barake, in the vicinity of Djedyd. Below Waset the
the valley is considered as belonging to Wady Beder, and above it to
Szafra. Djedyd has very few date-trees and fields; it stands upon a
plain, through which the torrent passes, after having irrigated the
upper plantations of the wady. We continued on this plain for one hour,
direction S. 50 W. After a thirteen hours march we entered a chain of
mountains, extending westward, the same which I have mentioned in my
journey to Medina, as branching out westward from the great chain near
Bir-es-Sheikh. Our road lay in a broad sandy valley, with little
windings, which brought us, after a very fatiguing march of fourteen
hours and a half, to Beder.
April 25th. Beder, or as it is also called, Beder Honeyn, is a small
town, the houses of which are built either of stone or mud, and of
better appearance, although less numerous, than those of Szafra. It is
surrounded by a miserable mud wall, ruined in many places. A copious
rivulet flows through the town, which rises in the ridge of mountains we
had just passed, and is conducted in a stone channel: it waters
extensive date-groves, with gardens and fields on the south-west side of
the place; and, although at a distance from its source,
[p.406] is still somewhat tepid. El Assamy, the historian of Mekka, says
that El Ghoury, Sultan of Egypt, built a fine reservoir at Beder, for
the Hadj; but I did not see it, and am ignorant whether it be yet in
existence.
Beder is situated in a plain bounded towards the N. and E. by steep
mountains; to the S. by rocky hills, and to the W. by hills of moving
sand. The Hadj caravans usually make this a station; and we found the
place where they had encamped just by the gate of the town, four months
ago, still covered with carcases of camels, rags of clothes, and remains
of broken utensils, &c. Beder is famous in Arabian history for the
battle fought here by Mohammed, in the second year of the Hedjra, with a
superior force of the Koreysh Arabs, who had come in aid of a rich
caravan expected from Syria, which Mohammed intended to waylay on this
spot. Although very ill, I walked out with the Maskat hadjys, to inspect
the field of battle, to which we were guided by a man from Beder. To the
south of the town, about one mile distant, at the foot of the hills, are
the tombs of the thirteen followers and friends of the Prophet, who fell
by his side. They are mere heaps of earth, enclosed by a row of loose
stones, and are all close together. The Koreysh, as our guide explained
to us, were posted upon the hill behind the tombs, while Mohammed had
divided his small force into two parts, with one of which he himself
advanced in the plain against the enemy, and the reserve was entrusted
to Aly ibn Aby Taleb, with orders to take his post upon the sand-hill on
the western side. The battle could not be won without the interposition
of heaven; and three thousand angels, with Gabriel at their head, were
sent to Mohammeds assistance. The above-mentioned thirteen persons were
slain in the first onset. The Prophet, hard pressed, hid himself behind
a large rock, which opened miraculously to admit him, and enabled him to
reach his reserve; he then made a second attack, and with the heavenly
auxiliaries was victorious, not losing another man, although seventy of
his adversaries were killed on the spot. A handful of stones, or dust,
which he (or according to the Koran, which God) threw towards his
enemies, caused them to fly. After he had forced their position, he
rested a little upon
[p.407] a stone, which, sensible of the honour, forthwith assumed the
form of a seat. The rock and the stone are shown; and, at all events
answer one good purpose, which is to excite the visiters charity
towards the poor of Beder, who assemble at it whenever a caravan
arrives. The position of Alys troop upon the distant hill, that of the
party of Mohammed close to the enemy, and the plain beyond that hill,
where the caravan from Syria pursued its route during the battle, are
made to explain the passage of the Koran, which alludes to it thus; You
were on the nearer side of the valley, and they on the further side, and
the caravan was below, (Sur. 8.): but I could not well understand that
passage, according to the usual interpretation; and rather believe that
by the word rukb, which is taken here as synonymous with caravan, the
party of horsemen under Aly must be understood, whose position, although
upon a hill, was, with relation to Beder, a low one, the ground
descending slightly. Several small domes, which had been erected here,
were ruined by the Wahabys. In returning to the village, we walked, on
its south side, into the mosque called Mesdjed el Ghemáme, built on the
spot where Mohammed once sat exposed to the suns rays, and prayed to
God for a cloud which might overshadow him; this was immediately
granted; and the mosque derives its name from the cloud. It is better
built and more spacious than might be expected in such a poor place.
The market of Beder is furnished with the same articles as that of
Szafra. Some water-melons, the produce of the gardens, were offered for
sale. The Maskat merchant purchased, without my knowledge, five pounds
of Mekka balsam, all that remained in the market, which he intended for
a present to the Imám of Maskat. It was in the same adulterated state as
that I had formerly seen at Szafra. The inhabitants of Beder are chiefly
Bedouins of the tribe of Sobh, belonging to Harb, some of whom have
become settlers here. Others only have their shops here, and return
every evening to the tents of their family in the neighbouring
mountains. Beder being a place much frequented by Bedouins and
travellers, the houses are in great request, and a small shop in the
market pays as much as twenty
[p.408] dollars a year rent. Some Sherif families are also established
here, to whom the Hadj pays at passing considerable stipends.
In the evening several hundred camels belonging to Bedouins came to be
watered at the rivulet, escorted principally by women, who freely
entered into conversation with us. The Beni Harb established at
Djedeyde, Szafra, and Beder, give their daughters in marriage to
strangers, and even to settlers; and a few Turkish soldiers, attracted
by the beauty of some Bedouin girls, had fixed themselves here, and
married them: one of them, an Arnaut, who spoke good Arabic, and had
been accustomed from his youth to the wild life of warlike mountaineers,
intended to follow his young wife to the mountain. In the neighbouring
mountains are immense numbers of the eagle (rakham); hundreds of them
were constantly hovering about us; and some actually pounced down, and
carried off the meat from our dishes.
April 26th. We had remained here the whole of yesterday. Some people of
Beder kept watch at night over our caravan, for which they received a
small compliment. This place abounds with robbers, and we were encamped
outside the gate of the town. We left Beder in the evening, and took a
direction N. 45 W. After proceeding for three quarters of an hour, we
came to the ridge of sand-hills above mentioned, the highest summit of
which is called Goz Aly, in memory of the position occupied there by
Aly, during the battle of Beder. We crossed these hills for half an hour
with difficulty, the sands being very deep, and then descended into the
great western plain, extending as far as the sea, which is reached from
Beder in one nights march, at a small harbour, south of Yembo, called
Bereyke, much frequented by shipping. The plain, which we entered in the
direction W. 1 N. is overgrown with shrubs. During our night-march we
saw the fires of different Bedouin encampments. We met two negro
pilgrims, who had started from Yembo by themselves, and were in great
distress for water: we gave them both meat and drink, and directed them
towards the Bedouin encampments. Without a compass, these enterprising
travellers find their route across deserts: the direction of the road is
shown to them at starting, and they pursue it in a straight line by
[p.409] night and by day, until they arrive at the destined spot. After
a ride of ten hours from Beder, we encamped at the break of day in a
part of the plain, where low acacia-trees grow, called adheyba.
April 27. I found myself in a very low state this morning. Violent
vomiting and profuse sweats had rendered the last night one of the most
disagreeable nights I passed in my travels. A quarrel with my guide,
about victuals, further increased my fever to-day, to which perhaps the
late relaxation of my nerves through illness contributed. To our right,
northwards, about six hours distant, a chain of high mountains extends
towards the sea. Nearer to us a lower ridge takes the same direction.
The plain upon which we encamped is sandy, covered with small pebbles
and petrosilex. We set out after mid-day. Four hours and a half,
direction N.W. by N., trees and shrubs are no longer seen; a few saline
shrubs only indicate the proximity of the sea; and a little further on,
the ground becomes covered with a salt crust, while the air is strongly
impregnated with sea-vapours. At the end of seven hours and a half, we
again found some trees in the plain, interspersed with salt-increased
spots. At fourteen hours, having travelled the whole night over bad
ground, we saw Yembo at sun-rise; and after a ride of fifteen hours and
a half, at a very slow pace, we reached the gate of the town: just
before it we crossed an inlet of the harbour, it being then low water,
but which extends to a considerable distance inland at high tide.
[p.410] YEMBO.
IT was with some difficulty that I could find a room in one of the
okales or khans of the town, which were filled with soldiers, who had
received permission to return to Cairo, after their last expedition
against the southern Wahabys, and had come here from Djidda and Mekka;
and, besides them, there were many hadjys, who, after their return from
Medina, intended to embark for Suez or Cosseir. Among the latter was the
lady of Mohammed Aly Pasha, who had arrived from Medina; for the
transport of whose escort, suite, and baggage, four ships were in a
state of preparation. After having deposited my baggage in an airy room,
on the terrace of an okale, I walked towards the harbour, to inquire
about a passage to Egypt. This, I soon understood, it was impossible to
obtain at present. Positive orders had been given, that none should
embark but soldiers, who had already engaged three or four ships, then
ready to sail; and of whom upwards of fifteen hundred, including many
Turkish hadjys, who passed for soldiers, being armed and dressed like
them, were still waiting for conveyances.
While I was sitting in a coffee-house near the harbour, three funerals
passed at short intervals; and upon expressing my surprise at this, I
learned that many people had died within these few days of feverish
complaints. I had heard, when at Beder, that a bad fever prevailed at
Yembo, but then paid little attention to the report. During the rest of
the day I saw several other funerals, but had not the slightest
[p.411] idea to what so many deaths were to be attributed, till night,
when I had retired to my room up-stairs, which overlooked a considerable
part of the town; I then heard, in every direction, innumerable voices
breaking out in those heart-rending cries which all over the Levant,
accompany the parting breath of a friend or relative. At that moment the
thought flashed upon my mind, that it might be the plague: I attempted,
in vain, to dispel my apprehensions, or at least to drown them in sleep;
but the dreadful cries kept me awake the whole night. When I descended
early in the morning into the okale, where many Arabs were drinking
their coffee, I communicated to them my apprehensions; but had no sooner
mentioned the word plague, than they called me to order, asking me if I
was ignorant that the Almighty had for ever excluded that disorder from
the holy territory of the Hedjaz? Such an argument admits of no reply
among Moslims; I therefore walked out, in search of some Greek
Christians, several of whom I had seen the day before, in the street,
and from them I received a full confirmation of my fears. The plague had
broken out ten days ago: it had been raging at Cairo with the greatest
fury for several months; and at Suez a large part of the population had
died: from that port two ships laden with cotton stuffs had carried it
to Djidda, and from thence it was communicated to Yembo. No instance of
the plague had ever before been witnessed in the Hedjaz, at least none
within the memory of man; and the inhabitants could with difficulty
persuade themselves that such an event had occurred, especially at a
time when the holy cities had been reconquered from the Wahabys. The
intercourse with Egypt had not at any time been greater than now, and it
was, therefore, no wonder that this scourge should be carried to the
Hedjaz. While ten or fifteen people only died per day, the Arabs of the
town could not believe that the disease was the plague, although the
usual appearance of the biles upon the bodies of the infected, and the
rapid progress of the disorder, which seldom lasted more than three or
four days, might have been convincing proofs. In five or six days after
my arrival the mortality increased; forty or fifty persons died in a
day, which, in a population of five or six thousand, was a terrible
mortality. The inhabitants now felt a panic: little disposed to submit
[p.412] as patiently to the danger as the Turks do in every other part
of the East, the greater part of them fled into the open country, and
the town became deserted; but the disease followed the fugitives, who
had encamped close together; and thus finding no remedy to the evil,
many of them returned. They excused their flight by saying, God in his
mercy sends this disease, to call us to his presence; but we are
conscious of our unworthiness, and feel that we do not deserve his
grace; therefore, we think it better to decline it, for the present, and
to fly from it: an argument which I heard frequently repeated. Had I
been myself in full strength, I should, no doubt, have followed their
example and gone into the Desert; but I felt extremely weak, and
incapable of any exertions. I thought also that I might escape the
disease, shut up in my insulated room, and indulged moreover the hope of
a speedy passage to Egypt; in the latter, however, I was deceived. By
making a few presents, and a little bribery, I might perhaps have found
means to embark forthwith; but the vessels now ready to sail were
crowded to excess, and full of diseased soldiers, so that a stay in the
infected town was to be preferred to a departure by such a conveyance.
Some days after, I learnt that a small open boat, free from troops, was
ready to sail for Cosseir, and I immediately agreed for a passage on
board it; but its sailing was delayed from day to day, until the
fifteenth of May, when I finally left Yembo, after a stay of eighteen
days in the midst of the plague.
It was, perhaps, my own bad state of health, and the almost
uninterrupted low fever under which I laboured, that preserved me; for,
notwithstanding all my care, I was many times exposed to infection. The
great street of Yembo was lined with sick, in the very agonies of death,
asking for charity; in the yard of the okale where I lived, an Arab was
dying; the master of the okale lost a sister and a son in his own
family, and related to me, as he sat on my carpet, how his son died the
preceding night in his arms. The imprudence of my slave likewise
counteracted all my measures of precaution. Having missed him for
several days early in the morning, I inquired the cause of his absence,
when he told me that he had gone to assist in washing the dead bodies.
The poor who died during
[p.413] the night were exposed in the morning upon biers, on the sea-
shore, to be washed before the ceremony of praying over them in the
mosque; and my slave thought it meritorious to join in this office,
which had devolved upon several negro pilgrims, who happened to be at
Yembo. I desired him to remain at home, for the future, at that hour, to
prepare my breakfast; but I was as little able to prevent his walking
out at other times, as I could myself dispense with that duty; and one
could scarcely pass the bazar without touching infected people, or at
least those who had been in close contact with them.
The sense of the danger which then threatened me is much greater, now
that I find myself far removed from it, than I felt it at the time.
After the first four or five days, I became tolerably familiarized with
the idea of the plague, and compared the small numbers who died every
day with the mass of the remaining inhabitants. The great many cases of
persons remaining in full health, notwithstanding the closest connexion
with the deceased, considerably removed the apprehensions of the malady
being communicated by infection; and example works so powerfully on the
mind, that when I saw the number of foreigners then in the town quite
unconcerned, I began to be almost ashamed of myself for possessing less
courage than they displayed. The disease seemed, however, to be of the
most malignant kind; very few of those who were attacked, escaped, and
the same was observed at Djidda. The Arabs used no kind of medicine; I
heard of a few people having been bled, and of others having been cured
by applying a drawing-plaster to the neck; but these were rare
instances, which were not imitated by the great mass. As it is the
custom to bury the dead in a very few hours after decease, two instances
occurred during my stay at Yembo, of persons supposed dead being buried
alive: the stupor into which they fell when the disorder was at a
crisis, had been mistaken for death. One of them gave signs of life at
the moment they were depositing him in the grave, and was saved: the
body of the other, when his tomb was re-opened several days after his
burial, to admit the corpse of a near relation, was found with bloody
hands and face, and the winding-sheet torn, by the unavailing
[p.414] efforts he had made to rise. On seeing this, the people said,
that the devil, being unable to hurt his soul, had thus disfigured his
body.
The governor of Yembo took great care that the exact amount of the
mortality in the town should not be known; but the solemn exclamations
of La illaha ill Allah, which indicate a Moslim funeral, struck the
ear from every side and quarter of the town, and I counted myself forty-
two in one day. To the poor the plague becomes a real feast; every
family that can afford it, kills a sheep on the death of any of its
members, and the day after, the men and women of the whole neighbourhood
are entertained at the house. The women enter the apartments, embrace
and console all the females of the family, and expose themselves every
moment to infection. It is to this custom, more than any other cause,
that the rapid dissemination of the plague in Mohammedan towns must be
ascribed; for when the disease once breaks out in a family, it never
fails of being transmitted to the whole neighbourhood.
It is a common belief among Europeans, and even eastern Christians, that
the Mohammedan religion forbids any precautionary measures against the
plague; but this is erroneous. That religion forbids its followers from
avoiding the disease if it has once entered a town or country; but it
warns them at the same time, not to enter any place where the plague
rages: and it accordingly forbids individuals to shut themselves up in a
house, and to cut off all communication with the rest of the infected
town, because this is the same as flying from the plague; but it favours
measures of quarantine, to prevent the importation of the disease, or
its communication to strangers upon their arrival. The belief in
predestination, however, is so deeply and universally rooted in the
minds of the eastern nations, that not the slightest measures of safety
are any where adopted. The numberless extraordinary instances of the
disease sparing those who have come into closest contact with it,
confirm them in their opinion that it is not epidemic; and their prophet
Mohammed has declared to them, that the plague is caused by the demons
hostile attack upon mankind, and that those who die of it are
martyrs. The universal opinion
[p.415] prevails among Moslims, that an invisible angel of death, armed
with a lance, touches the victims he destines for the plague, whom he
finds out in the most hidden recesses. The trunk of a palm-tree lay in
one of the streets of Yembo, and it had been observed that many people
who had stepped over it, had soon after been seized with the plague; it
was therefore believed that the demon had there taken his favourite
stand, to wound the passer-by; and therefore the Arabs took a circuitous
road, to avoid their foe, although they were persuaded that he was
light-footed and could overtake them wherever they went.
That the Christians and Franks escape the disease by shutting themselves
up in their houses, affords but a feeble proof to the contrary.
Imprudence, and the tardy adoption of these measures, always cause a
slight mortality even among them; and such cases are afterwards adduced
in proof of the folly of attempting to oppose the decrees of Providence.
Besides, there are many Christians in the East, who follow Turkish
maxims, and, impressed with the same notions of predestination, think it
superfluous to take any steps for their safety. Turks trifle with so
many of the prescribed duties of their religion, that it might not,
perhaps, be difficult, in this instance, to make them adopt rational
opinions; and the more so, as the Koran is silent upon this head: but no
private measures can be adopted, and rigidly observed, as long as every
individual, almost, is convinced in his own mind of their folly and
inefficacy. If this were not universally the case, the Turks themselves
would, long ago, have found means of resorting to prophylactics, in
spite of their religious doctrines; as the Arabs now did in the Hedjaz;
and their olemas would have furnished them with fetwas, and quotations
from the law, in favour of what their good sense might have led them to
adopt. In the Hadyth, or sacred traditions, a saying of Mohammed is
recorded: Fly from the leprous, as thou flyest from the lion.
The case is different, respecting the means of preventing the plague
from being imported, or to establish regular quarantines. This is a
measure depending entirely upon the government. The most fanatic and
orthodox Muselmans, those of the Barbary states, have adopted this
system; and the laws of quarantine are as strictly enforced in their
[p.416] harbours, as they are in the European ports on the northern
shores of the Mediterranean. That a similar system has not been
introduced into Turkey is matter of deep concern, and may be attributed
rather to motives of interest, than to bigotry. Constantinople, and the
ports of the Archipelago, I have not visited myself; but I know that it
would be easy for the governors of Syria, and still more for the
governor of Egypt, to use their authority in introducing a system of
quarantine on the coast, without any dread of opposition from their
subjects. The governments of Syria, however, must be guided in such
matters by the Porte, and would hardly attempt to establish quarantine,
without the authority of their sovereign: but Mohammed Aly has often
acted directly contrary to the orders of the Porte, even in matters
affecting his sovereigns pecuniary interest; and we may believe that it
is not solely the fear of displeasing his master, which has prevented
him from listening to the frequent friendly advice and representations
made to him on this subject by European powers; and, at the same time,
his loose religious principles are too well known, to suppose that
bigotry restrains him from yielding to their solicitations.
While for four succeeding years, from 1812 to 1816, the plague has every
spring made ravages in Egypt, Mohammed Aly himself, with his family and
principal officers, have been shut up in their palaces with scrupulous
care; thus offering infinitely more scandal to the people than they
would have done by the establishment of quarantine regulations. Wishing,
however, to be considered by Europeans as a liberally-thinking man,
devoid of any prejudices, he had really given orders, in 1813 and 1814,
to establish a quarantine at Alexandria; but the shameful manner in
which it was conducted, clearly proved that he had no sincere wish to
guard his subjects from the horrors of infection; and the whole scheme
was soon after abandoned. My own inquiries, and the opinion of many
Turks themselves, who judge of the measures of their own government much
better than is generally supposed, have led me to believe, that the
Grand Signior, as well as his Pashas, tolerate the plague in their
dominions, because the numerous deaths fill their purses: with respect
to Egypt, I hold this to be indisputably the secret cause. The
commercial towns of Cairo, Alexandria,
[p.417] and Damietta, are crowded with foreign merchants, and other
strangers from all quarters of the East are established there: according
to the law, the property of all persons who have no near heirs to claim
it, falls to the Beit el Mál; a treasury, formerly destined for purposes
beneficial to the subjects, but now entirely at the private disposal of
the governors. The increased mortality thus causes great sums to fall
into their hands. The prefect of every quarter of the town must, under
the heaviest penalties, inform the government of any stranger or
individual without heirs who dies within his district; and not only is
the property of such people seized, but even that of those persons whose
heirs, although known, are absent in foreign countries, and to whom no
other privilege is granted, in return, than that of addressing their
unavailing claims to the same governor, who converts the income of the
Beit el Mál to his own use. The most flagrant injustice is committed
with respect to the property of deceased persons, as well during the
plague as at other times; and the Kadhy, with a whole train of olemas,
officers, and people in inferior employments, share in the illegal
spoil. In the same manner the property of military officers, and of many
soldiers, is sequestrated at their death. Upon a moderate calculation,
the plague this year in Egypt, which carried off in the city of Cairo
alone from thirty to forty thousand, added twenty thousand purses, or
ten millions of piastres, to the coffers of the Pasha, a sum large
enough to stifle any feelings of humanity in the breast of a Turk. That
the population has diminished, and consequently the regular revenues
suffered, is a reflection which a Turkish governor never makes, who
calculates merely the immediate consequences of an event; and, provided
he be safe himself, and his wealth increasing, cares little for the fate
of his subjects. As the plague seldom visits the open country, and
therefore does not deprive the soil of its labourers, its effects are
less dreaded by the Pasha. He will never be convinced that policy, as
well as humanity, dictates a removal of the causes of plague, until he
has seen a whole province depopulated, and the fields which yield him
his revenues deserted. [The little care taken by the government in Egypt
for preserving the lives of the subject is evinced in an equally strange
manner, by the neglect with which the small-pox is treated; a disease
that makes as great ravages in Upper Egypt as ever the plague could do,
which, itself seldom visits those southern provinces. The numerous
representations made to Mohammed Aly for the introduction of vaccination
have been of no avail, though, if he had chosen to inquire, he might
have known that in 1813, in the small town of Esne alone, upwards of two
hundred and fifty persons, adults and children, fell victims to the
small-pox, the violence of which is much greater in these climates than
in Europe.]
[p.418] It should seem as if Constantinople and Cairo were the great
receptacles of plague in the East, communicating it mutually to each
other, and to the neighbouring countries. How far the joint and
energetic representations of European powers might induce the Grand
Signior to adopt measures of safety for his capital, and to insure by
that means the safety of the population of European Turkey and Anatolia,
I am unable to decide; but I have little doubt, that a firm remonstrance
from the English government would induce the Pasha of Egypt to obey the
call of humanity, and thus benefit Egypt, as well as Syria and the
English possessions in the Mediterranean.
The ravages of the plague were still more deplorable at Djidda than at
Yembo; as many as two hundred and fifty persons died there per day.
Great numbers of the inhabitants fled to Mekka, thinking to be safe in
that sacred asylum; but they carried the disease with them, and a number
of Mekkans died, although much less in proportion than at Djidda. Even
the Kadhy of Djidda, an Arab, made his escape to Mekka, with all his
olemas; but Hassan Pasha, then governor of the holy city, ordered him,
under pain of death, to return immediately to his post; and he died on
the road. The principal marketstreet of Djidda was quite deserted, and
numbers of families were entirely destroyed. As a great many foreign
merchants were then in Djidda, their property considerably increased
Mohammed Alys treasure; and I heard from eye-witnesses, that the only
business then done in the town was the transport of corpses to the
burial-ground, and that of the deceaseds valuable property to the house
of the commandant. Medina remained free from the plague, as did the open
country between Yembo and Djidda.