JIDDA. 
32,9 
Sovereign reduces every person to the same level of insignificance 
and implicit obedience. 
The soldiers of the Vizier are in number about one thousand, 
who are all richly cloathed, and their matchlocks and jambeas 
highly ornamented with silver. If this be so in the time of the 
present Sherilfe, is it possible to believe that it was otherwise in 
the time of his more splendid and more powerful father? Yet Mr. 
Bruce calls the Vizier's soldiers a parcel of naked blackguards, in 
his account of his procedings at Jidda, to which I gave but little 
credit, knowing that a very different story is told by Captain 
Thornhill, who, with the other merchants, was obliged to purchase 
secretly a valuable present for the Vizier, to put an end to the dis- 
putes between him and Mr. Bruce respecting the duties on his bag-^ 
gage, which the latter refused to pay. 
The Wahabee, who are chiefly cavalry, never wait for the Vizier's 
infantry, but retire on their approach, and after fatiguing them by 
a fruitless chase, follow them again to the walls, whence they are 
obliged to retrace their steps. They seem to choose the night for 
their attacks, and to place their hopes of success on either setting 
fire to the town, or starving it into a surrender. The horses feel the 
blockade most severely, and are the pictures of famine. The Vizer 
has procured a few from Cosseir, and says, that he expects shortly 
one hundred and fifty, which, if they arrive, will mount his most 
active slaves, and enable him to keep the enemy at a distance, till 
a want of fresh food renders them incapable of service. 
The harbour of Jidda is formed by innumerable reefs of madra- 
pore, which extend to about four mile^ from the shore, leaving 
many narrow channels between, in which there is a good bottom 
