113 
honey, sugar, and other fruits. The vinegar is of a very 
bad quality. I was told they made it from raisins. 
I believe there is no Mussulman city where the arts 
are so little known as at Mecca. There is not a man 
to be found that is capable of making a lock or forging 
a key. All the doors are locked with large wooden 
keys, and the trunks and cases with padlocks brought 
from Europe: I therefore was unable to replace the 
key of a trunk, and that of my telescope box, which 
were stolen at Mina. 
The slippers and sandals are brought from Constan- 
tinople and Egypt; for they know not how to make 
them at Mecca, except indeed those of wood or un- 
tanned leather, which are very bad. 
There is not a single man to be found who knows 
how to engrave an inscription, or any kind of design 
upon a hewn stone, as formerly; nor a single gun-smith 
or cutler able to make a screw, or to replace a piece 
of the lock of an European gun; those of the country 
being only able to manufacture their rude matchlocks, 
their bent knives, lances,^ anol halberds. Wherever 
they go, their shop is fitted up in a moment: all that 
is wanted for this purpose is a hole made in the ground, 
which serves as a furnace: one or two goat skins, 
which one of them waves before the fire, serve them 
for bellows: two or three palm leaves, and four sticks, 
form the walls and the roof of the work-shop, the 
situation of which they change whenever occasion 
requires. • « 
There is no want of braziers for vessels in copper; 
but the original article comes from foreign manufac- 
tories. There are also tinmen, who make a kind of 
vase, which the pilgrims use to carry away some of 
Vol. II. P 
