I Heard Of Only Four Respectable Houses,
Al-Isawi, Al-Sha’Ab, Abd Al-Jawwad, And A Family From Al-Shark (The
Eastern Region).[FN#16] They All Deal In Grain, Cloth, And Provisions,
And Perhaps The Richest Have A Capital Of Twenty Thousand Dollars.
Caravans In
[P.9]the cold weather are constantly passing between Al-Madinah and
Egypt, but they are rather bodies of visitors to Constantinople than
traders travelling for gain.
Corn is brought from Jeddah by land, and
imported into Yambu’ or via Al-Rais, a port on the Red Sea, one day and a
half’s journey from Safra. There is an active provision trade with the
neighbouring Badawin, and the Syrian Hajj supplies the citizens with
apparel and articles of luxury—tobacco, dried fruits, sweetmeats, knives,
and all that is included under the word “notions.” There are few
store-keepers, and their dealings are petty, because articles of every
kind are brought from Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople. As a general
rule, labour is exceedingly expensive,[FN#17] and at the Visitation
time a man will demand fifteen or twenty piastres from a stranger for
such a trifling job as mending an umbrella. Handicraftsmen and
artisans—carpenters, masons, locksmiths, potters, and others—are either
slaves or foreigners, mostly Egyptians.[FN#18] This proceeds partly
from the pride of the people. They are taught from their childhood that
the Madani is a favoured being, to be respected however vile or
schismatic; and that the vengeance of Allah will fall upon any one who
ventures to abuse, much more to strike him.[FN#19] They receive a
stranger at the shop window with the haughtiness of Pashas, and take
pains to show him, by words as well as by looks, that they consider
themselves as
[p.10]“good gentlemen as the king, only not so rich.” Added to this pride
are indolence, and the true Arab prejudice, which, even in the present
day, prevents a Badawi from marrying the daughter of an artisan. Like
Castilians, they consider labour humiliating to any but a slave; nor is
this, as a clever French author remarks, by any means an unreasonable
idea, since Heaven, to punish man for disobedience, caused him to eat
daily bread by the sweat of his brow. Besides, there is degradation,
moral and physical, in handiwork compared with the freedom of the
Desert. The loom and the file do not conserve courtesy and chivalry
like the sword and spear; man “extends his tongue,” to use an Arab phrase,
when a cuff and not a stab is to be the consequence of an injurious
expression. Even the ruffian becomes polite in California, where his
brother-ruffian carries his revolver, and those European nations who
were most polished when every gentleman wore a rapier, have become the
rudest since Civilisation disarmed them.
By the tariff quoted below it will be evident that Al-Madinah is not a
cheap place.[FN#20] Yet the citizens,
[p.11]despite their being generally in debt, manage to live well.
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