Proceedings in Egypt and Nubia. 40 



tide to be sold, that it may be seen by every one, parading to 

 and fro the small space before his magazine, and offering it for 

 inspection to the bidders, whose prices he repeats with a loud 

 voice, and transfers it to the possession of him who has offered 

 the last and highest, as in England. Such is the manner in 

 which goods on the spot are disposed of, but cargoes lying at 

 Jedda, unlanded, are sometimes sold there by sample and pat- 

 tern, although it is always more advantageous to the seller to 

 have his property transported to the city, and exposed in the 

 bazars, because as all goods sold at public auction are paid for 

 by cash on delivery, and those disposed of by private barter are 

 immediately replaced by the articles bargained for on the spot, 

 the seller is certain of effecting his sale ; while articles treated 

 for by sample, if lying at Jedda, leave the purchaser too long an 

 interval to alter his intention, and as deposits are never made in 

 such cases from a mutual suspicion of each other's integrity, the 

 proprietor of the goods has very often to seek a vent for his 

 commodities in another quarter, with the additional mortifica- 

 tion of losing the only season for profitable sales. 



In this manner, the East Indian from Bengal and Hindostan 

 exchanges his rice, spices, and manufactured goods, for articles 

 suited to the markets of his own country ; the Persian barters 

 his productions for others in demand at Isfahaun ; the Syrian 

 sells his rich stuffs for the coffee of Yemen, and the gums of 

 Africa and Arabia ; and the Egyptian obtains in return for his 

 coarser manufactures the productions also of these countries, 

 to meet a ready sale at Cairo ; while the gold of Abyssinia fur- 

 nishes a medium of exchange, by which the differences of value 

 in all transfers effected is easily made up, and the most intri- 

 cate accounts between men of separate nations and of separate 

 languages, easily and satisfactorily adjusted. 



Some merchants, indeed, find this trade so extremely pro- 

 fitable, that they are to be found here among the pilgrims every 

 year, notwithstanding the humiliation they are obliged to un- 

 dergo in always entering the holy city in that character, encir- 

 cled only by the Haram, bare-headed, and on foot, as it is for- 



VoL. VII. E 



