200 HEJAZ. 



fastened to high poles. The pipe is the constant 

 companion of the lower classes, and of all the sailors 

 on the Red Sea. The head or bowl consists of an 

 unpolished cocoa-nut shell which contains water, 

 and the smoke is inhaled through a thick reed, or a 

 long serpentine tube. The coffeehouses are generally 

 filthy, and never frequented by the better class of 

 merchants. The dealers in other commodities are 

 very numerous ; sellers of butter, honey, oil, and 

 sugar ; of vegetables, fruits, and confectionary of all 

 descriptions. There are pancake-makers and bean- 

 sellers, who furnish these articles for breakfast ; 

 soup-sellers, shops for roasted meat or fried fish, 

 stands for bread and leben or sour- milk (which is 

 sold by the pound, and extremely dear), for Greek 

 cheese, and salted or smoked beef from Asia Minor, 

 to accommodate visiters at mid-day. Corn-dealers 

 have their shops, where Egyptian wheat, barley, 

 beans, lentils, dhourra, rice, and biscuits, may be 

 purchased. The druggists, who are mostly natives 

 of India, have their laboratories ; where, besides me- 

 dical compounds, they retail wax, candles, pepper, 

 perfumery, sugar, and spices of all sorts. A con- 

 siderable article of their trade consists in rosebuds 

 brought from the gardens of Ta'if : these the inhabi- 

 tants of Hejaz, especially the ladies, infuse in water, 

 which they afterwards use for their ablutions. Tailors, 

 clothiers, and barbers, are not numerous ; the latter 

 act here as surgeons and physicians, as they formerly 

 did in England. There are a good many shops 

 where small articles of Indian manufacture are sold. 

 Very little European hardware finds its way to these 

 markets, except needles, scissors, thimbles, and files ; 

 copper- vessels, water-skins, and other domestic uteri- 



