92 MEMOIR OF BURCKHARDT. 



fellow- passenger with him from Souakin. His ne- 

 cessities even compelled him to part with his only 

 slave, whom he had purchased at Shendey for six- 

 teen dollars, and now sold for forty- eight. 



In these circumstances, he had no resource but to 

 apply to Ali Pasha, who was then at Tayf, a town 

 eastward of Mecca, distant five days' journey. The 

 Pasha knew him well in Egypt, and had always 

 professed to be his friend. Meantime, however, his 

 situation became known to Yahya Effendi, the phy- 

 sician of Toussoun Pasha at Jiddah, whom he had 

 also met at Cairo, and with him he negociated his 

 bill to the amount of 3,000 piastres (about 100), 

 which was sufficient for his wants until he received 

 fresh supplies from Egypt. Nor was this the whole 

 extent of his good luck, for the Pasha returned a 

 favourable answer to his letter, and despatched a 

 messenger with two dromedaries, with an order to 

 furnish him a new suit of clothes, and a purse of 

 500 piastres as travelling-money ; requesting, at the 

 same time, that he would immediately accompany 

 the messenger to Tayf. The invitation of a Turkish 

 Pasha is equivalent to a command ; and therefore 

 he had no alternative but to comply, although it 

 interfered with the more material objects of his 

 journey. 



The month which he spent at Jiddah enabled 

 him to furnish a very minute description of the 

 town and its inhabitants, who are almost exclusively 

 foreigners. Their chief occupation is commerce, as 

 this place is not only the port of Mecca, and conse- 



