I rather believe it to be caused by the
number of female slaves that find their way into the market. Gallas,
Sawahilis, a few Somalis, and Abyssinians are embarked at Suakin,
Zayla, Tajurrah, and Berberah, carried in thousands to Jeddah, and the
Holy City has the pick of every batch. Thence the stream sets
Northwards, a small current towards Al-Madinah, and the main line to
Egypt and Turkey.[FN#9]
Most Meccans have black concubines, and, as has been said, the
appearance of the Sharif is almost that of a negro. I did not see one
handsome man in the Holy City, although some of the women appeared to
me beautiful. The male profile is high and bony, the forehead recedes,
and the head rises unpleasantly towards the region of firmness. In most
families male children, when forty days old, are taken to the Ka’abah,
prayed over, and carried home, where the barber draws with a razor
three parallel gashes
[p.234] down the fleshy portion of each cheek, from the exterior angles
of the eyes almost to the corners of the mouth. These Mashali, as they
are called,[FN#10] may be of modern date: the citizens declare that the
custom was unknown to their ancestors. I am tempted to assign to it a
high antiquity, and cannot but attribute a pagan origin to a custom
still prevailing, despite all the interdictions of the Olema. In point
of figure the Meccan is somewhat coarse and lymphatic. The ludicrous
leanness of the outward man, as described by Ali Bey, survives only in
the remnants of themselves belonging to a bygone century. The young men
are rather stout and athletic, but in middle age—when man “swills and
swells”—they are apt to degenerate into corpulence.
The Meccan is a covetous spendthrift. His wealth, lightly won, is
lightly prized. Pay, pension, stipends, presents, and the Ikram, here,
as at Al-Madinah, supply the citizen with the means of idleness. With
him everything is on the most expensive scale, his marriage, his
religious ceremonies, and his household expenses. His
[p.235] house is luxuriously furnished; entertainments are frequent,
and the junketings of his women make up a heavy bill at the end of the
year. It is a common practice for the citizen to anticipate the
pilgrimage season by falling into the hands of the usurer. If he be in
luck, he catches and “skins” one or more of the richest Hajis. On the other
hand, should fortune fail him, he will feel for life the effect of
interest running on at the rate of at least fifty per cent., the simple
and the compound forms of which are equally familiar to the wily
Sarraf.[FN#11]
The most unpleasant peculiarities of the Meccan[s][FN#12] are their
pride and coarseness of language. Looking upon themselves as the cream
of earth’s sons, they resent with extreme asperity the least slighting
word concerning the Holy City and its denizens.
