180 HEJAZ. 



merly it was a flourishing commercial town, to- 

 which the Arabs from a great distance resorted to 

 dispose of their caravans of wheat and barley, and 

 to purchase articles of dress. Under the Pasha of 

 Egypt it may perhaps recover from its present de- 

 cay.* The indigenous inhabitants of the place are 

 Arabs of the ancient tribe of Thakif, so famous m 

 the wars of Mohammed ; and in their possession are 

 all the neighbouring gardens, and most of the pro- 

 vision-shops in the town. A few Meccawees are 

 settled here ; but the far greater part of the foreign- 

 ers are Indians by extraction. 



Mecca, the holy city of the Moslems, so long for- 

 bidden to the profane eyes of Christians, is now 

 familiar to every reader of Arabian travels ; and 

 notwithstanding the growing indifference of the 

 Mohammedans to their religion, it is still visited 

 and revered by all orthodox followers ot the Pro- 

 phet. Among the natives it is dignified with many 

 high-sounding titles, — The Mother of Towns, — The 

 Noble,— The Region of the Faithful. The city hes 

 in a narrow winding valley, the main direction of 

 which is from north to south, and its breadth vary- 



* Here Ali Pasha had his head-quarters in 1814 when visited 

 by Burckhardt, with whom he held a long and interesting con- 

 versation respecting the atfairs of Europe, of which he appeared' 

 to have a tolerable knowledge. He had already heard of the 

 treaty of peace concluded at Paris, and the captivity of Bona- 

 parte in Elba ; and made some curious comments on the new 

 arrangements, both colonial and contmental, of the Allied Pow- 

 ers. That the Enghsh should be guided in their policy by the 

 laws of honour, or a sense of the general good of Europe, he 

 could not comprehend. "A great king," he exclaimed with 

 much warmth, " knows nothing but his sword and his purse ;. 

 he draws the one to fill the other ; there is no honour among con- 

 querors !" Of the British parliament he had some notion ; and 

 the name of Wellington was familiar to him. He admitted he 

 was a great general ; but doubted whether if his grace had 

 commanded such bad soldiers as the Turkish troops, he would 

 have been able to do what he himself had done in conquering 

 Egypt and Hejaz. 



