204 



HEJAZ. 



dens, which are situated at the foot of the hills. 

 In some of them are neat pavilions, where the in- 

 habitants pass their festive hours, and to which the 

 great merchants of Mecca occasionally retire in 

 summer. Here the fruits of Syria bloom in the 

 centre of the Arabian desert ; and from this circum- 

 stance tradition has assigned to it the fabulous ori- 

 gin of having been detached from that country, either 

 at the general deluge, or by virtue of the prayers of 

 Abraham, who in this miraculous way obtained for 

 the natives and pilgrims at Mecca that subsistence 

 which their own barren hills refused them. 



Taif suffered much in the Wahabee war, and 

 since that period it has remained in a state of com- 

 parative ruin. Every thing has the aspect of mi- 

 sery ; the principal streets swarm with beggars ; 

 and the trade, which consists chiefly in drugs and 

 perfumes, cannot support above fifty shops. For- 

 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 



* Here Ali Pasha had his headquarters in 1814 when visited 

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

 tion respecting the affairs 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 Bonaparte in Elba ; 

 and made some curious comments on the new arrangements, both 

 colonial and continental, of the Allied Powers. That the English 

 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 conquerors !" 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 



