Welcome everyone. Today we're going to talk about the new approach to contributor growth in Africa. And my name is Dumisan Indubani. I'll be presenting with Asaf Batoff that you probably all know here. So welcome. So what is this? Well, this is an experiment. We are trying to get to a new approach on how do we actually activate and onboard new editors onto Wikipedia. Our aim is to, is to a new approach of course, not to evolve or refine existing practices. So this is, that's the big catch. This is new. We believe that we can transform editor attention in the sub Saharan Africa and potentially elsewhere. So this is not going to be, if we prove successful in this approach, this is easily transferable to other regions as well. We're about to test this. In fact, we closed off the call for applications two days ago. And we have already 300 applicants who will be vetted and selected to go into the, into the pilot. If we are successful, we would like to see this being adopted by other communities as well and translated into other languages. And we would really welcome your feedback. So we'll have, we'll leave a little bit of time to engage with you and get questions from you. So what do we know? We know that the next billion users will be coming, billion users into the internet are coming from the African region. We know there's good activity and there's good energy within the region in terms of the Wikimedia projects. We know we've been, we as Wikimedia Foundation have been investing on the, on the region in terms of resources grants and including stuff availability. But unfortunately, the region has hovered around that less than 2% of the global totals, both in terms of active editors and as well as viewership. So something is not working, even with despite the investments that we are making into the region. So we also know as well that too much programmatic activity and outreach in the region is ineffectively carried out by volunteers who do not have a similar familiarity with the platform, the policies and the culture as in other regions and particularly the European and North American region. And this leads to frustration. Organizers, newbies alike and up at loggerheads on the projects because of these problems that we have. And so we need more basic training for instance on wiki skills and the culture so that yes, people can have those discussions on the AFDs, can support their claims on the, on the projects and the, and the articles they are working on confidently. So what's the goal for this project? We are aiming to get 5000 active editors by 2030. Currently, we are sitting at around 2500 give or take of active editors. So we would like to double it when we get to 2030. Now that's active editors. Normal editors is hovering around 15,000. And we think that would also benefit from these interventions as well. How are we going to do this?  Our, our, our suggestion or new approach is what we call the big funnel. And this can be sort of divided into four stages. And the big, the big hypothesis with this is that we need to be able to know when to invest on new editors that are coming in. We're currently spending a lot of time in awareness. We're currently spending a lot of time in supervised training and not getting the output that we need there. So in this new approach, we would be putting significant investments in creating well resourced induction funnel for editors. We would not spend a lot of time on stage one. So zero cost for the first stage of awareness, getting people to know there's this program, there's this training materials that are available for people to know how to edit, know how to, you know, hold their own when it comes to Wikimedia projects, but that there is a funnel. There is a way for people to identify where to get the resources they need to teach themselves to get themselves familiar with the project with the platform with the cultures with the community. And we do that in stage two. They get filtered into an unsupervised structured on learning platform with high quality audio visual materials in terms of training on all the courses that are available on all the issues that we know about editing on any of our media Wiki. Once they get through that stage two, that's where we start doing the investments. We are looking for people who have really taken the time to familiarize themselves with the core policies on the media on our media Wiki platform and our projects on our culture. And then we start investing on those people. We would look at stage two in terms of supervised plus human mentorship. We can start networking and putting people together. So imagine if you are running a Wikipedia train the trainer project, you wouldn't have to go to look for people who have not even had of Wikipedia. You would benefit from this funnel that says here are the people that have taken the course over the last six months. They've shown they're interested in this and if they're available, they are now have the basic core policies. And then you take those through the train the trainer program, which you have always been running over the past but now with the people who have been prepared for that participation. That then means that we can infect as we as you do that training as you do, you take them through the normal projects that we have. We can then start looking at stage four where we channel people through a leadership program. For example, administration. How do we get people into an administrative course? How do we get people into community organizing? How do we help them form affiliates if that's what they're interested in? How do we help them to become mentors to other people that are coming into the course? So that's the idea low to zero cost in terms of the beginning of the funnel, get people into self and structured but unsupervised learning high quality material that's available for them. Once they go through that, then you start heavily investing on the successful people and then we get to that 5000 active editors goal or even more depending on how successful it is. So that's the big funnel. But why this approach? And this is where I leave it to Asaf to convince you that this is a good approach. Thank you. I want to jump back to this slide and focus your attention on the left end edge of the funnel. This is this is the revolutionary change here. This is the the big experiment here is that we no longer appeal to just anyone, a general audience. We leave the general audience, given mass awareness, given some campaigns, we direct them to a self service, self paced online learning system, which will have excellent materials that I'm about to describe. But we begin focusing on investing and inviting people to events only those who have made it themselves without the promise of a t-shirt or a laptop through this learning material. Are we missing potential people who could become editors as well but for whatever reason couldn't find the time or motivation to go through that funnel. Yes, we are. We're leaving those aside in this experiment. We're trying to surface the really self motivated people who are motivated enough to make it through four modules of self paced learning and to at least those people bring into touch with the existing community, give them learning opportunities and development opportunities. That's the key part of the experiment. All the later investments are more along the lines where we're already doing with with volunteers. So why this approach. So the fact we don't have a really great structured up to date multimedia induction materials courseware is no secret right we have a whole bunch of outreach material. Kind of acknowledged excellent up to date course something that takes you by the hand and leads you to a place where you can contribute on your own. This we do not have or have not had until now and in Africa. In Africa. This is especially obstructive more than in other places right in Africa. The learning culture is such this is a generalization of course, but we are told this routinely by the community. We want you to talk to us. We want verbal instruction. We want people explaining things to us not to be pointed to long documents. This is not about illiteracy. This is about an approach and a cultural stance towards learning. And so in person face to face instruction of course would be ideal but the next best thing is high quality video materials. So that's what we propose to give. And as I mentioned the status quo is that we don't have this things are either out of date difficult to discover overwhelming poor quality. There are for example some existing videos by African Wikimedians about outreach basic things like notability. And some of those videos are still misleading misstating points of policy not good instructional material. So the goal is to really standardize on something that is excellent. And reflecting a little on what the foundation has done historically our great eagerness that has been in action since at least 2010 with the time of the first strategy program for the old timers who may remember. Our eagerness to fund as much work as possible in Africa has actually led us to fund a lot of ineffective programs on the kind of hope that yes maybe it'll start something etc. But that has had an effect of of making the situation sort of permanently struggling permanently mediocre. And we have been investing in those who showed up whoever was there willing to do a program and take our money. That's who we invested in. Rather than in rather than the approach which we are now advocating for to proactively look for the kinds of people we want to invest in rather than whoever walked in the door. So that's the I hope you see the connection to that final approach right that's this this challenge of going through those self-paced learning modules which are audio visual will help surface for us people who are less random than whoever walked in the door. And we hope that this would lead to the creation of a carter of a group of potential organizers and potential leaders who will be better equipped to do outreach themselves in person outreach. Because as Dume Sani mentioned the outreach that has been going on on the continent so far generalizing has been less than very effective. And so we hope that this approach proved successful our hypothesis is that it should work better than current practice and if it does we hope that can model an approach for the rest of the movement the materials of course would be translatable etc. So to validate our hypothesis we have created our creating high quality audio visual tutorials taught by yours truly and Dume Sani. And we will invite have invited an existing cohort of African Wikimedians from Sub-Saharan Africa in English to sign up and undergo this training not just newbies also existing editors who feel they could use better grounding in the core policies I'll cover the topics in a second. And through these live trainings which will later be adapted and cut up into digestible video segments for self study. But through these live trainings we will try to create this test cohort and observe their editing and their retention right how how many of them do stay on and edit and how much how many of their edits are reverted etc. And we'll compare these results to a baseline of what we know from today we hope that would validate our hypothesis that the materials and the approach where one big obstacle. So the contents of the training are four modules the first is preparing to participate in Wikimedia projects not even talking about actual contribution and this is focused largely on the attitudes that are necessary. What does it mean to contribute on a peer peer production knowledge website what can you expect the fact that people are pseudonymous you will not be able to just get on the phone with a person disagreeing with you right that sort of preparation is what we mean. Prepare to back up what you say prepare to be questioned prepare for setbacks some things will not go your way and you need to not rage quit when that happens. The second module will be about the diversity of ways to contribute to Wikimedia beyond writing encyclopedic articles which I hope you all know by now is not a universal hobby it's not for everyone right. And so highlighting the other ways to contribute upload a photo upload a video record pronunciations in your mother tongue fix a typo right on the talk page get an expert involved. There are so many ways literally more than 100 ways to contribute to Wikimedia and this module will try and surface them to convince people that there's lots of ways they could help if writing encyclopedic articles is not their thing with each such way. Not giving a detailed tutorial about each one of them but at least giving them kind of the next step so if this appeals to you here's a tutorial on how to record pronunciations and that's it go in good luck right. But the other the the last two modules are about Wikipedia as you see right neutrality and verifiability so that module to is also kind of the exit point for people who don't find them so don't see themselves writing encyclopedic articles and that's okay. Which means the people who will stick around for module three and four by definition have sort of self selected into know I do want to learn this I do want to write encyclopedic articles. And they would cover you know these core policies the importance of which I assume you don't need convincing of. Are we doing this just for Sub-Saharan Africa we're piloting this in Sub-Saharan Africa we believe this approach is a good generally a good approach to outreach that could work everywhere. But since our task what we what we were tasked with when we designed this was how do we double the editor base in Sub-Saharan Africa that's what we came up with. But it's there's nothing that makes it not useful outside Sub-Saharan Africa and is it just in English the pilot is just in English just targeting not even all Sub-Saharan Africa but Anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa. But if this works we fully expect it to be useful in Francophone Africa and elsewhere we deliberately did not want to just encourage translation into French because French Wikipedia has different notability rules etc it's not just oh yeah let's also make it in French. We wanted to respect it enough to do its own thing so this is it and let's take questions. Oh microphone yes please run the microphone. If you could run the microphone or you got it thank you. Okay so this is really really positive a really positive way of thank you engaging with a an area that we know has been as a region has been fairly left up to its own devices. But I do want to understand like so I think that one of the benefits of the community of Wikimedia is that there are multiple ways as you said to you know there are 101 and maybe a thousand and 250 ways of contributing to and getting yourself involved and the idea of a final means that that's the only way in. So I just wanted to understand like a for the people who are already at various levels within the movement what happens to them. And do you then only get further on if you are accredited on this course or I don't we didn't talk about badging and certification really. Thank you for that question. The idea is that this sort of treatment with high quality audio visual materials is necessary and welcome for all these other 101 ways as well. But that's just outside this pilot we were instructed to make a very lean pilot. I certainly would want to give detailed high quality audio visual instructions on how to contribute to Wiki Source. That's just not in the contents of the pilot but after the pilot if this approach proves that yes it does generate informed and and motivated volunteers. I hope that will prove the need to create it for Wiki Source as well. So no it will not be the only gate to contributing on Wikimedia nor could it be it may be the only or at least the main gate to getting funded work programmatic work through Wikimedia. I fully expect that if we can show that editors who go through the funnel are far more effective at doing outreach at doing other programs.  Yes but but it would never be the only way that you could also yeah yeah I do want to allow a few more questions so. Okay thing once so the ones. Yeah we specifically invited existing editors yeah yeah there was a question by Mike and then in the back. Okay and please try to be brief we really have very little time left. Was just reminded that five minutes left. Yeah so Mike yes over there. Go ahead go ahead ask a question yeah. I just want to know why is only in English. I just said the pilot is in English because we all speak English and we know the English Wikipedia rules which we need to convey in this course and we don't want to just translate what we do into French because French works differently. After the pilot assuming it works in English we have every reason to expect it could also work in French we will also be doing it in French for sure yes Mike. So I wanted to ask I mean this looks really good I wanted to ask about the resources needed for people to join into this. If you're creating rich AV material does that mean people have to have a certain quality of internet access to be able to participate or are you thinking of otherwise like USB sticks to be able to distribute this. So I can imagine editing on the poor interface I can't imagine so editing on a poor connection but I can't imagine streaming on it. Yeah that that will definitely be an issue for some people those people will not be able to benefit from live instruction but each such session will be recorded and downloadable so that they could download it very very slowly and then watch it. Yeah yeah yes just the question where can I follow like the outcome of your pilot where will I find the. So this lives on meta in a page called Africa growth pilot we will also be sending the link on the Wikimania chat telegram channel shortly that would be a page to follow and we will also be publishing the results of this experiment. Once we have results on Wikimedia L on the Wikimedia general telegram chat you know we'll try to broadcast these results in general but if you want to make sure you should follow that page on meta. That's it right and we're available for other questions during the break. Yeah one last thing to say the community had a chance to also give us feedback on the four modules that we we created so it's not been created in vacuum and we've had tons of feedback that we've incorporated into the final material. Thank you.


8 of personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Almadina and Mecca by Richard Francis Burton from Cairo to Suez Shake Nasser, a Bedouin of Tur, Mount Sinai, being on his way homeward, agreed to let me have two dromedaries for the sum of 50 piastres, or about 10 shillings each. Footnote, the proper hire of a returned dromedary from Cairo to Suez is 40 piastres, but every man is charged in proportion to his rank, and Europeans generally pay about double. End of footnote, Being desirous to set out with a certain display of respectability, I accepted these terms. A man of humble pretensions would have travelled with a single animal, and a camel man running behind him. But besides ostentation, I wanted my attendant to be mounted, that we might make a forced march in order to ascertain how much a four years life of European effeminacy had impaired my powers of endurance. The reader may believe the assertion that there are few better tests than an 84 mile ride in mid-summer on a bad wooden saddle born by a worst dromedary across the Suez desert. Even the squire famed for being copper-sheeted might not have disdained a trial of the kind. I started my Indian boy and heavy luggage for Suez two days before the end of the Id. Layden camels generally taking 55 or 60 hours to do the journey, and I spent the intermediate time with Haji Wali. He advised me to mount about 3 pm, so that I might arrive at Suez on the evening of the next day, and assisted me in making due preparations of water, tobacco, and provisions. Early on the morning of departure, the Afghans' shake came to the caravan's eye, and breakfasted with us, because Allah willed it. After a copious meal, he bestowed upon me a stately benediction, and would have embraced me, but I humbly bent over his hand. Sad to relate immediately that his back was turned, Haji Wali raised his forefinger to a right angle with the palm, chaff, and burst into a shout of a reverent laughter. At three o'clock, Nassar the Bedouin came to announce that the dromedaries were saddled. I dressed myself, sticking a pistol in my belt, and passing the crimson silk cord of the Hamayel, or pocket Quran, over my shoulder, in token of being a pilgrim. Then, distributing a few trifling presents to friends and servants, and accompanied by the Sheikh Mohammed and Haji Wali, I descended the stairs with an important gate. In the courtyard squatted the camels, dromedaries they could not be called, and I found that a second driver was going to accompany us. I objected to this, as the extra bedouin would, of course, expect to be fed by me. But Nassar swore that the man was his brother, and, as you rarely gain by small disputes with these people, he was allowed to have his own way. Then came the preparatory leave takings. Haji Wali embraced me heartily, and so did my poor old Sheikh, who, despite his decrepitude and my objections, insisted upon accompanying me to the city gate. I mounted the camel, crossed my legs before the pommel, stirrups are not used in Egypt. The tender traveller had better provide himself with a pair of stirrups, but he will often find, when on camelback, that his legs are more numbed by hanging down than by the Arab way of crossing them before and beneath the pommel. He must, however, be careful to inspect his saddle, and should bars of wood not suit him, to have them covered with stuffed leather. And again, for my part, I would prefer riding a camel with a nose-ring, Mongol and Sindian fashion, to holding him, as the Egyptians do, with a halter, or to guiding him, were happy wise, with a stick. And, preceding my friend, descended the street leading towards the desert. As we emerged from the huge gateway of the caravanserai, all the bystanders, except only the porter, who believed me to be a Persian, and had seen me, with the drunken captain, exclaimed, Allah bless thee, Yal hajj. Footnote. O pilgrim, the Egyptians write the word hajj, and pronounce hajj. In Persia, India, and Turkey, it becomes hajj. These are mere varieties of form, derived from one and the same Arabic root. End of footnote. And restore thee to thy country and thy friends. And, passing through the Bab al-Nasser, where I addressed the salutation of peace to the sentry, and to the officer commanding the guard, both gave me godspeed, with great cordiality. Footnote. The Egyptians and Arabs will not address salam to an infidel. The Muslims of India have no such objection. This, on the banks of the Nile, is the revival of an old prejudice. Alexander of Alexandria, in his circular letter, describes the Aryan heretics, as men whom it is not lawful to salute, or to bid godspeed. End of footnote. The pilgrims' blessing in Asia, like the old women's in Europe, being supposed to possess peculiar efficacy. Outside the gate, my friends took a final leave of me, and I will not deny having felt a titanine of heart, as their honest faces and forms faded in the distance. But Sheikh Nasser switches his camel's shoulder and appears inclined to take the lead. This is a trial of manliness. There is no time for emotion, not a moment can be spared, even for a retrospect. I kick my dromedary, who steps out into a jog trot. The Bedouin, with a loud ringing laugh, attempt to give me the go-by. I resist, and we continue like children, till the camels are at their speed, though we have eighty-four miles before us, and above us an atmosphere like a furnace blast. The road is deserted at this hour, otherwise grave Muslim travellers would have believed the police to be nearer than convenient to us. Presently we drew rain and exchanged our pace for one more seasonable, whilst the sun began to tell on man and beast. High raised as we were above the ground, the reflected heat struck us sensibly, and the glare of a macadamized road added a few extra degrees of caloric. Foot's note, it is Prince Puckler-Maxkow, if I recollect rightly, who mentions that in his case a pair of dark spectacles produced a marked difference of apparent temperature whilst travelling over the sultry sand of the desert. I have often remarked the same phenomenon. The Arabs, doubtless for some reason of the kind, always draw their head to kerchiefs, like hoods, far over their brows, and cover up their mouths, even when the sun and wind are behind them. Inhabitants of the desert are to be recognised by the network of wrinkles traced in the skin round the orbits, the result of half-closing their eyelids, but this is done to temper the intensity of the light. End of Foot's note. The Bedouin, to refresh themselves, prepare to smoke. They fill my chibook, light it with a flint and steel, and cotton dipped in a solution of gunpowder, and pass it over to me. Foot's note, their own pipe tubes were of course wood, in shape somewhat resembling the German porcelain pipe. The bowl was of soft stone, apparently steatite, which, when fresh, is easily fashioned with a knife. In Arabia, the Bedouin, and even the townspeople, use onjourneys and earthen tube from five to six inches shorter than the English clay, thicker in the tube, with a large bowl and coloured yellowish red. It contains a handful of tobacco, and the smoker emits puffs like a chimney. In some of these articles the bowl forms a rectangle with the tube. In others, the hole is an unbroken curve, like the old Turkish Mirsham. End of Foot's note. After a few puffs, I return it to them, and they use it turn by turn. Then they begin to wire away the tedium of the road by asking questions, which past stamps is not easily exhausted. For they are never satisfied till they know as much of you as you do of yourself. The next resort to talking about victuals, for with this hungry race, food, as a topic of conversation, takes the place of money in happier lands. And lastly, even this engrossing subject being exhausted for the moment, they take refuge in singing, and monotonous and droning as it is, their Medina has yet an artless plaintiveness, which admirably suits the singer and the scenery. If you listen to the words, you will surely hear allusions to bright verger, cold shades, bubbling rills, or something which hear about its man hath not, and yet which is soul desires. And now, while Nasser and his brother are chanting a duet, the refrain being Wala's Mablul Bil Matar, and the earth wet with rain. I must crave leave to say a few words, despite the triteness of the subject, about the modern Sinaiatic race of Arabs. Besides the tribes occupying the northern parts of the peninsula, five chief clans are enumerated by Burkhardt. Footnote. See Wala's papers. Published in the journals of the Royal Geographical Society. End of footnote. Nasser and the other authorities at Suez divided them into six, namely, one, Karashai, who, like the Gara in eastern Arabia, claim an apocryphal origin from the great Koryash tribe. Two, Salihi, the principal family of the Sinaiatic Bedouin. Three, Arimi. According to Burkhardt, this clan is merely a sub-family of the Suwala Haas. Four, Saidi. Burkhardt calls them Walaad Said, and derives them also from the Suwala Haas. Five, Aliki. And lastly, the six, Muzaina, generally pronounced umzaina. This clan claims to be an offshoot from the great Juhaina tribe, inhabiting the coasts and inner barons about Jambu. According to oral tradition, five persons, the ancestors of the present umzaina race, were forced by a blood feud to fly their native country. They landed at the Charum. Footnote. Charum, plural of Charm, a creek, a word prefixed to the proper names of three small ports in the Sinaiatic Peninsula. End of footnote. Or creek ports, and have now spread themselves over the eastern parts of the so-called Sinaiatic Peninsula. In al-Hijaz, the Muzaina is an old and noble tribe. It produced Qab al-Abar, the celebrated poet to whom Muhammad gave the cloak, which the Ottomans believed to have been taken by Sultan Salim from Egypt, and who have been converted, under the name of the Kirqaf Sharif, into the national aura flame. There are some interesting ethnographical points about these Sinaiatic clans, interesting at least to those who would trace the genealogy of the great Arabian family. Anyone who knows the Bedouin can see that the umzaina are pure blood.  Whereas the other Tawara, footnote, Tawara, plural of Turi, an inhabitant of Tur or Sinai. End of footnote. Sinaiatic clans are as palpably Egyptian. They have preserved that roundness of face which may still be seen in the Sphinx as in the modern Copt, and their eyes have that peculiar size, shape, and look, which the old Egyptian painters attempted to express by giving to the profile the form of the full organ. Upon this feature so characteristic of the Nelotic race, I would lay great stress. No traveller familiar with the true Egyptian eye long, almond shaped, deeply fringed, slightly raised at the outer corner, and dipping in front like the Chinese. Footnote. This feature did not escape the practised eye of Denon. Eyes long, almond shaped, half shut, and languishing, and turned up at the outer corner as if habitually fatigued by the light and heat of the sun, cheeks round, etc. Voyage on Egypt. The learned Frenchman's description of the ancient Egyptians applies in both points to the Turi Bedouin. End of footnote. Can ever mistake it. It is to be seen in half-castes and, as I have before remarked, families originally from the banks of the Nile, but settled for generations in the Holy Land of Al-Hijaz retain the peculiarity. I therefore believe the Turi Bedouin to be an impure race, Syro-Egyptian. Footnote. And he, Ishmael, dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, Wadi Faran, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, Genesis 2121. I wonder that some geographers have attempted to identify Masa, the son of Ishmael, Genesis 2514, with Mecca, when in verse 18 of the same chapter we read, and they, the twelve princes, sons of Ishmael, dwelt from Havela unto Shur. This asserts as clearly as language can that the posterity of, or the race typified by Ishmael, the Syro-Egyptian, occupied only the northern parts of the peninsula. Their habitat is not even included in Arabia by those writers who bound the country on the north by an imaginary line drawn from Ras Mohammed to the mouths of the Euphrates. The late Dr. J. Wilson, lands of the Bible, repeated by Eliot Warburton, Crescent and Cross, lays stress upon the Tawara tradition that they are Benno-Israel, converted to Al-Islam, considering it a fulfillment of the prophecy that a remnant of Ishmael shall dwell in Edom. With due deference to so illustrious Norientalist and Biblical scholar as was Dr. Wilson, I believe that most modern Muslims, being ignorant that Jacob was first called Prince with God, apply the term Benno-Israel to all the posterity of Abraham, not to Jews only. End of Foot's Note Whereas their neighbour, the Hijazi, is the pure Syrian or Mesopotamian. A wonderful change has taken place in the Tawara tribes. While alone portrayed by Sir John Mandeville as folkful of all evil conditions, Niebuhr notes the trouble they gave him and their perpetual hankering for both murder and pillage. Even in the late Muhammad Ali's early reign, no governor of Suez dared to flog or to lay hands upon a Tawari, whatever offence he might have committed within the walls of the town. Now the wild man's sword is taken from him before he is allowed to enter the gates. Foot's Note In 1879 the gates of Suez are a thing of the past and it is not easy to find where they formally stood. End of Foot's Note And my old acquaintance, Jafar Bey, would think no more of belaboring a beddory than a flogging a fella.  The Osmanlis have, as usual, a semi-religious tradition to account for the superiority of their nation over the Egyptians. When the learned doctor Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Israiz al-Shafei returned from Mecca to the banks of the Nile, he mounted, it is said, a donkey belonging to one of the Asinari of Bulak. Arriving at the caravan Sarai, he gave the man ample fare whereupon the Egyptian, putting forth his hand, and saying hat, give, called for more. The doctor doubled the fee, still the double was demanded. At last the divine's purse was exhausted, and the proprietor of the donkey waxed insolent.  End of foot's note Such is the result of Muhammad Ali's vigorous policy, and such the effects of even semi-civilization when its influence is brought to bear direct upon barbarism. To conclude this subject, the Tawara still retain many characteristics of the Bedouin race. The most good-humoured and sociable of men, they delight in a jest, and may be readily managed by kindness and courtesy. Yet they are passionate, nice upon points of honour, revengeful, and easily offended, where their peculiar prejudices are misunderstood. I have always found them pleasant companions, and deserving of respect, for their hearts are good, and their courage is beyond a doubt.  In the desert man meets man, or physically unfitted to acquire their esteem. We journeyed on till near sunset through the wilderness without an we. It is strange how the mind can be amused by scenery that presents so few objects to occupy it. But in such a country every slight modification of form or colour rivets observation. The senses are sharpened, and the perceptive faculties, prone to sleep over a confused mass of natural objects, act vigorously when excited by the capability of embracing each detail. Moreover, desert views are eminently suggestive. They appeal to the future, not to the past. They arouse, because they are by no means memorial. To the solitary waferer there is an interest in the wilderness, unknown to Cape Seas and Alpine glaciers, and even to the rolling prairie. The effect of continued excitement on the mind stimulates its powers to their pitch. Above there was sky terrible in its stainless beauty, and the splendours of a pitiless blinding glare, the Samoon. Footnote from Sam, the poison wind, vulgar and most erroneously called the Samoon. End of footnote. Caresses you like a lion with flaming breath. Around lie drifted sand heaps, upon which each puff of wind leaves its trace in solid waves, flayed rocks, the very skeletons of mountains, and hard unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a water-skin or the pricking of a camel's hoof would be a certain death of torture. A haggard land infested with wild beasts and wilder men, a region whose very fountains murmur the warning words, drink and away. What can be more exciting? What more sublime? Man's heart bounds in his breast at the thought of measuring his puny force with nature's might, and of emerging triumphant from the trial. This explains the Arab's proverb, voyaging is victory. In the desert even more than upon the ocean there is present death. Hardship is there, and piracies and shipwreck, solitary not in crowds, where, as the Persians say, death is a festival. And this sense of danger, never absent, invests the scene of travel with an interest not its own. Let the traveller who suspects exaggeration leave the Suez road for an hour or two and gallop northwards over the sands. In the drear silence, the solitude, and the fantastic desolation of the place, he will feel what the desert may be. And then the OACs. Footnote. Hugh Murray derives this word from the Egyptian, and quoting Strabu and Abul Fader makes it synonymous with the Oasis and Hyasis. I believe it to be a mere corruption of the Arabic Wadi, Arabic text or Wa. Nothing can be more incorrect than the vulgar idea of an Arabian Oasis, except it be the popular conception of an Arabian desert. One reads of Isles of the sandy sea, but one never sees them. The real Wadi is, generally speaking, a rocky valley bisected by the bed of a mountain torrent dry during the hot season. In such places the Bedouin love to encamp, because they find food and drink, water being always procurable by digging. When the supply is perennial, the Wadi becomes the site of a village. The desert is as unabsolutely compared to a sandy sea. Most of the wilds of Arabia resemble the tract between Suez and Cairo. Only the former are a primary formation, whereas the others are of a later date. Sand heaps are found in every desert, but sand plains are a local feature, not the general face of the country. The wilderness east of the Nile is mostly a hard dry earth which requires only a monsoon to become highly productive. Even when silica sand covers the plain, the waters of a torrent, deposited in hummus or vegetable mould, bind the particles together and fit it for the reception of seed. End of footnote. And little lines of fertility, how soft and how beautiful, even though the Wadi al ward, the veil of flowers, be the name of some stern flat upon which a handful of wild shrubs blossom while struggling through a cold season's ephemeral existence.     The hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilisation are left behind you in the city. Your senses are quickened, they require no stimulants but air and exercise. In the desert, spiritous liquours excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in mere animal existence. The sharp appetite disposes of the most indigestible food, the sound is softer than a bed of down, and the purity of the air suddenly puts to flight a dire cohort of diseases. Hence it is that both sexes and every age, the most material as well as the most imaginative of minds, the tamest citizen, the parson, the old maid, the peaceful student, the spoiled child of civilisation, all feel their hearts dilate, and their pulses beat strong as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert. Where do we hear of a traveller being disappointed by it? It is another illustration of the ancient truth that nature returns to man, however unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilisation. You will anticipate the bustle and the confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false pleasures, with repugnance. Depressed in spirits, you will for a time after your return feel incapable of mental or bodily exertion. The air of cities will suffocate you, and the care-worn and cadaverous countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgement. Foot's note The intelligent reader will easily understand the time speaking of the desert in the temperate season, not during the summer heats, when the whole is one vast furnace, nor in winter, when the sighs are wind cuts like an Italian tramontana. End of foot's note As the black shadow mounted in the eastern sky. Foot's note This, as a general rule in Al-Islam, is a sign that the Maghrib, or even in prayer, must not be delayed. The Shafayi school performs its devotions immediately after the sun has disappeared. End of foot's note I turned off the road and was suddenly saluted by a figure rising from a little hollow with an az salamu alaikum of truly Arab sound. Foot's note This salutation of peace is so differently pronounced by every eastern nation that the observing traveller will easily make of it a shibboleth. End of foot's note I looked at the speaker for a moment without recognising him. He then advanced with voluble expressions of joy, invited me to sup, seized my camel's halter without waiting for an answer. Nacked it. Foot's note To knack, in vulgar, as in classical Arabic, is to gurgle in the bottom of one's throat till the camel kneels down. We have no English word for this proceeding, but Anglo-Oriental travellers are rapidly naturalising the knack. End of foot's note I forced it to kneel, led me hurriedly to a carpet spread in the sandy hollow, pulled off my slippers, gave me cold water for ablution, told me that he had mistaken me at a distance for a sheriff or prince of the Arabs, but was delighted to find himself in error, and urged me to hurry over ablution, otherwise that night would come on before we could say our prayers. It was Mohammed al-Bas'uni, the meccan boy of whom I had bought my pilgrim garb at Cairo. There I had refused his companionship, but here, for reasons of his own, one of them was an utter want of money, he would take no excuse. When he prayed, he stood behind me. Foot's note There are many qualifications necessary for an Imam, a leader of prayer. The first condition, of course, is orthodoxy. End of foot's note Thereby proving pliancy of conscience, for he suspected me from the first of being at least a heretic. After prayer he lighted a pipe, and immediately placed the snake-like tube in my hand. This is an argument which the tired traveller can rarely resist. He then began to rummage my saddle-bags. He drew forth stores of provisions, rolls, watermelons, boiled eggs and dates, and whilst lighting the fire and boiling the coffee, he managed to distribute his own stock, which was neither plentiful nor first rate, to the camel-men. Sheikh Nasser and his brother looked aghast at this movement, but the boy was inexorable. They tried a few rough hints, which he noticed by singing a Hindustani couplet that asserts the impropriety of anointing rat's heads with jasmine oil. They suspected abuse and waxed cross. He acknowledged this by deriding them. I have heard of Nasser's and Nasser's and Mansur's, but may Allah spare me the mortification of a Nasser, said the boy, relying upon my support, and I urged him on wanting to see how the city Arab treats the countrymen. He then took my tobacco-pouch from the angry Bedouin, and in a stage whisper, reproved me for entrusting it to such thieves. Insisting at the same time upon drinking all the coffee, so that the poor Guides had to prepare some for themselves, he improved every opportunity of making mischief. We have eaten watermelon, cried Nasser, patting its receptacle in token of repletion. Does thou hear, my lord, how they grumble, the impudent Ruffians, remarked Mohammed. We have eaten watermelon. That is to say, we ought to have eaten meat. The Bedouin, completely out of temper, told him not to trust himself among their hills. He seized a sword and began capering about after the fashion of the East Indian School of Arms, and boasted that he would attack single-handed the whole clan, which elicited an ironical Allah, Allah, from the hearers. After an hour most amusingly spent in this way, I arose and insisted upon mounting, much to the dissatisfaction of my Guides, who wished to sleep there. Sheikh Nasser and his brother had reckoned upon living gratis for at least three days, judging it improbable that a soft offendi would hurry himself. When they saw the fair vision dissolve, they began to finesse. They induced the camel-man, who ran by the side of Mohammed's dromedary, to proceed the animal, a favourite manoeuvre to prevent overspeed. Ordered to fall back, the man pleaded fatigue and inability to walk. The boy Mohammed immediately asked if I had any objection to dismount one of my Guides, and to let his weary attendant ride for an hour or so. I at once assented, and the Bedouin obeyed me with ominous grumblings. When we resumed our march, the melancholy Arabs had no song left in them, whereas Mohammed chanted vociferously and quoted bad Hindustani and worse Persian, till silence was forcibly imposed on him. The camel-men lagged behind in order to prevent my dromedary advancing too fast, and the boy's guide, after dismounting, would stride along in front of us under pretext of showing the way, and so we jogged on, now walking, then trotting, till the dromedary began to grunt with fatigue, and the Arabs clamoured for a halt. At midnight we reached the central station and laid down under its walls to take a little rest. The Jews fell heavily, wetting the sheets that covered us, but who cares for such trifles in the desert? The moon shone bright. Footnote. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night. Psalm 121.6. Eastern still believed firmly in the evil effects of moonlight upon the human frame, from sin to abyssinia the traveller were heard tales of wonder concerning it. End of footnote. The breeze blew coolly, and the jackal sang a lullaby, which lost no time in inducing the sound to sleep. As the wolf's tail. Footnote. The dummy gurg, or wolf's tail, is the Persian name for the first brushes of gray light which appear as forerunners of dawn. End of footnote. Showed in the heavens we arose. Gray mists floating over the hills northward gave the Dar al-Baeda. Footnote. Dar al-Baeda is a palace belonging to H. H. Abbas Pasha. This white house was formerly called the Red House, I believe from the colour of its windows, but the name was changed as being not particularly good omen'd. End of footnote. The Pasha's Palace, the look of some old feudal castle. There was a haze in the atmosphere, which beautified even the face of desolation. The swift-flying Cata. Footnote. The tetra-cata, or sand-grouse, Tereclease Melana Jaster, in Sindh called the Rock Pigeon, is a fast-flying bird, not unlike a grey partridge whilst upon the wing. When, therefore, Shanfara boasts, the ash-coloured catas can only drink my leavings after hastening all night to slake their thirst in the morning, it is a hyperbole to express exceeding swiftness. End of footnote. Sprang in noisy covers from the road, and a stray gazelle paced daintily over the stony plain. As we passed by the pilgrim's tree I added another rag to its coat of tatters. Footnote. I have already, when writing upon the subject of Sindh, alluded to this system as prevalent throughout our Islam, and professed, like Mr. Lane, ignorance of its origin and object. In Hook's travels we are told that the Tatars worship mountain spirits by raising an oboe. Dry branches hung with bones and strips of cloth and planted in enormous heaps of stones. Park, also in West Africa, conformed to the example of his companions in adding a charm or shred of cloth on a tree at the entrance of the wilderness, which was completely covered with these garden symbols. And finally the Tariq Tabari mentions it as a practice of the pagan Arabs and talks of evil spirits residing in the date tree. May not, then, the practice in our Islam be one of the many debris of fetish worship which entered into the heterogeneous formation of the saving faith? Some believe that the Prophet permitted the practice and explained the peculiar name of the expedition called Zat al-Rikah, place of shreds of cloth, by supposing it to be a term for a tree to which the Muslims hung their ex-voto rags. End of footnote We then invoke the aid of the Holy Saint al-Dakruri. Footnote The saint lies under a little whitewashed dome, springing from a square of low walls, a form of sepulchre now common to al-Hijjahs, Egypt, and the shores and islands of the Red Sea. As regards his name, my informants told me it was that of a hijaji's shake. The subject is by no means interesting, but the exact traveller will find the word written Takruri and otherwise explained by Sir Gardner Wilkinson. End of footnote From his cream-coloured abode, mounted our camels and resumed the march in real earnest. The dawn passed away in its delicious coolness, and the sultry morning came on. Then day-glared in its fierceness, and the noontide sun made the plain glow with terrible heat. Still we pressed onwards. At three p.m. we turned off the road into a dry water-course, which is not far from number thirteen station. The sand was dotted with the dried-up leaves of the Datura, and strongly perfumed by she, a kind of absinthe, Artemisia. Footnote Called by the Arabs she, which the dictionaries translate Wormwood of Pontus, we find Walin, in his work, speaks of ferrishat al-shi, or Wormwood carpets. End of footnote The sweetest herb of the desert. A mimosa was there, and although its shade at this season is little better than the cocoa trees, footnote, we are told in verse of a cocoa's feathery shade, and Soulombre d'Encocotier. But to realise the prose picture, let the home reader, choosing some sultry August day, fasten a large fan to a long pole, and enjoy himself under it. End of footnote The Bedouin would not neglect it. We lay down upon the sand to rest among a part of my grabby pilgrims travelling to Suez. These wretches, who were about a dozen in number, appeared to be of the lowest class, their garments consisted of a burnous cloak and a pair of sandals, their sole weapon a long knife, and their only stock a bag of dry provisions. Each had his large wooden bowl, but none carried water with him. It was impossible to help pitting their state, nor could I eat, seeing them hungry, thirsty, and way-worn. So Nassar served out about a pint of water and a little bread to each man. Then they asked for more. None was to be had, so they cried out that money would do as well. I had determined upon being generous to the extent of a few pence, custom as well as inclination was in favour of the act. But when the arms became a demand, and the demand was backed by fierce looks and a derisive sneer, and a kind of reference to their knives, gentle charity took the alarm and fled. My pistols kept them at bay, for they were only making an attempt to intimidate, and though I took the precaution of sitting apart from them, there was no real danger. The Suez Road, by the wise regulations of Mohammed Ali, has become as safe to European travellers as that between Hampstead and Highgate, and even Easterns have little to fear but what their fears create. My Indian servant was full of the dangers he had run, but I did not believe in them. I afterwards heard that the place where the Maghrab is attempted to frighten what they thought a timid Turk was notorious for plunder and murder. Here the spurs of two opposite hills almost meet upon the plain, a favourable ground for Bedouin and Biscayde. Of the Maghrabis I shall have more to say when relating my voyage in the pilgrimship. They were the only travellers from whom we experienced the least annoyance. Numerous parties of Turks, Arabs and Afghans, and a few East Indians. Foot's Note On a subsequent occasion I met a part of Punjabis who had walked from Mecca to Cairo in search of Abu Tabilah, General Avitabali, whom reports had led to the banks of the Nile. Some were young, others had white beards, all were weary and way-worn. But the saddest sight was an old woman so decrepit that she could scarcely walk. The poor fellows were travelling on foot, carrying their wallets with a few pence in their pockets, utterly ignorant of route and road and actually determined in this plight to make Lahore by Baghdad, Bushir and Karachi. Such, so incredible, is Indian improvidence. End of Foot's Note We're on the same errand as ourselves. All as we passed them welcomed us with the friendly salutation that becomes men engaged in a labour of religion. About half an hour before sunset I turned off the road leftwards, and under pretext of watering the dromedaries, rode up to inspect the fort al-Ajrudi. Foot's Note Upon this word, Cacography has done her worst. Haji Rood may serve for a specimen. My informants told me that al-Ajrudi is the name of a hijazi sheikh whose mortal remains repose under a little dome near the fort. This, if it be true, completely nullifies the efforts of etymology to discern in it a distinct allusion to the overthrow of Pharaoh's chariots, whose Hebrew appellation, Ajalut, bears some resemblance to this modern name. End of Foot's Note It is a quadrangle, with round towers at the gateway and at the corners, newly built of stone and mortar. The material is already full of crevices and would not stand before a twelve-pounder. Without guns or gunners it is occupied by about a dozen phallus who act as hereditary gaffiers, guardians. They were expecting at that time to be reinforced by a party of bashy berserks, irregulars from Cairo. The people of the country were determined that an English fleet would soon appear in the Red Sea, and that this fort is by them ridiculously considered the key of Suez. As usual in these Vauban lacking lands, the well supplying the stronghold is in a detached and distant building, which can be approached by an enemy with the greatest security. Over the gateway was an ancient inscription reversed. The water was brackish and of bad quality. Foot's Note The only sweet water in Suez is brought on camelback from the Nile, across the desert. The beer Suez is fit for beasts only. The Oyon Muzah, Moses Wells, on the eastern side, and that below Abu Daraj on the western shore of the Suez Gulf, are but little better. The want of sweet water is the reason why no Hamam is found at Suez. End of Foot's Note We resumed our way. Suez now stood near. In the blue distance rose the castellator peaks of Jabal Raha, and the wide sand tracks over which lies the land route to Al-Hijaz. Before us the site ever dear to English eyes, a strip of sea, gloriously azure, with a gallant steamer walking the waters. On the right hand side, the broad slopes of Jabal Makatam, a range of hills, which flanks the road all the way from Cairo. It was at this hour a spectacle not easily to be forgotten. The near range of chalk and sandstone wore a russet suit, gilt where the last rays of the sun seemed it with light, and the deep folds were shaded with the richest purple, whilst the background of the higher hills, Jabal Tawari, generally known as Abu Daraj, the father of the steppes, was sky-blue streaked with the lightest plum colour. We drew up at a small building called Beersa Ways, the well of Suez, and under pretext of watering the cattle I sat for half an hour admiring the charms of the desert. The eye never tires of such loveliness of hue, and the memory of the hideousness of this range, when a sun in front exposed each gaunt and barren feature, supplied the evening view with another element of attraction. It was already night when we passed through the tumbling six-windowed gateway of Suez, and still remained the task of finding my servant and effect. After wandering in and out of every wakala in the village, during which peregrination the boy Mohammed proved himself so useful that I determined at all risks to make him my companion. We accidentally heard that a Hindi had taken lodgings at a hostelry, bearing the name of Jirji's al-Zar. Footnote The George, so-called after its owner, a copped consular agent for Belgium. There are thirty-six caravanserai at Suez, thirty-three small ones for merchandise, and three for travellers. Of these the best is that of Said Hashim. The pilgrim, however, must not expect much comfort or convenience, even at Said Hashim's. End of Footnote On arriving there our satisfaction was diminished by the intelligence that the same Hindi, after locking the door, had gone out with his friends to a ship in the harbour. In fact, he had made all preparations for running away. I dismounted and tried to persuade the porter to break open the wooden bolt, but he absolutely refused and threatened the police. Meanwhile, Mohammed had found a party of friends, men of Almadina, returning to the pilgrimage after a begging tour through Egypt and Turkey. The meeting was characterised by vociferous inquiries, loud gaffaws and warm embraces. I was invited to share their supper and their dormitory, an uncovered platform projecting from the gallery over the square court below. But I had neither appetite nor spirits enough to be sociable. The porter, after much persuasion, showed me an empty room in which I spread my carpet. That was a sad night. My eighty-four mile ride had made every bone ache. I had lost epidermis and the sun had seared every portion of skin exposed to it. So lamenting my degeneracy and the ill effects of four years domicile in Europe, and equally disquieted in mind about the fate of my goods and chattels, I fell into an uncomfortable sleep. Chapter 9 Suiz Early on the morning of my arrival, I arose and consulted my new acquaintances about the means of recovering the missing property. They unanimously advised a visit to the governor, whom, however, they described to be a kalb ibn kalb, dog, son of a dog, who never returned Muslim salutations, and who thought all men dirt to be trodden underfoot by the Turks. The boy, Muhammad, showed his Savoile fear by extracting from his huge Sahara box a fine embroidered cap and a grand peach-coloured coat, with which I was instantly invested. He dressed himself with similar magnificence, and we then set out to the palace. Jafar Bey, he has since been deposed, then occupied the position of judge, officer commanding, collector of customs, and magistrate of Suiz. He was a mere liwa, or brigadier general, and had some reputation as a soldier, together with a slight teacher of European science and language.  I stated that one sheikh noor, my Hindi servant, had played me false, therefore I required permission to break into the room supposed to contain my effects. He asked my profession, I replied, the medical. This led him to inquire if I had any medicine for the eyes. And being answered in the affirmative, he sent a messenger with me to enforce obedience on the part of the porter. The obnoxious measure was, however, unnecessary. As we entered the caravan Sarai, there appeared at the door the black face of Shaikh Noor, looking, though accompanied by sundry fellow countrymen, uncommonly as if he merited and expected the bamboo. He had, by his own account, been seduced into the festivities of a coal-hulk, manned by laskars, and the vehemence of his self-accusation saved him from the chastisement which I had determined to administer. I must now briefly describe the party of Mecca and Medina men into which fate threw me. Their names will so frequently appear in the following pages that a few words about their natures will not be misplaced. First of all comes Omar Effendi, so-called in honour, a Dali-Stani or East Circassian, the grandson of a Hanafi Mufti at Almadina, and the son of a Shaikh Rakhab, an officer whose duty it is to lead dromedary caravans. He sits upon his cot, a small, short, plump body of yellow complexion and bilious temperament, gray-eyed, soft-featured, and utterly beardless, which affects his feelings. He looks fifteen and he owns to twenty-eight. His manners are those of a student. He dresses respectably, prays regularly, hates the fair sex, like an Arab whose affections and aversions are always in extremes. He's serious, has a mild demeanour, a humble gait, and a soft, slow voice. When roused he becomes furious as a Bengal tiger. His parents have urged him to marry, and he, like Kamala Zaman, has informed his father that he is a person of great age, but little sense. Urged moreover by a melancholy turn of mind and the want of leisure for study at Almadina, he fled the paternal domicile and entered himself a Popatali Ilm student in the Ajara Mosque. His disconsolate friends and afflicted relations sent a confidential man to fetch him home. By force, should it be necessary, he has yielded, and is now awaiting the first opportunity of travelling gratis, if possible, to Almadina. That confidential man is a negro servant called Saad, notorious in his native city as Aljinni, the demon. Born and bred a slave in Omar Effendi's family, he obtained manumission, became a soldier in Al Hijaz, was dissatisfied with pay perpetually in arrears, turned merchant, and wandered far and wide, to Russia, to Gibraltar, and to Baghdad. He is the pure African, noisily merry at one moment, at another silently selky, affectionate and abusive, brave and boastful, reckless and crafty, exceedingly quarrelsome, and unscrupulous to the last degree. The bright side of his character is his love and respect for the young master, Omar Effendi, yet even him he will scold in a paroxysm of fury, and steal from him whatever he can lay his hands on. He is generous with his goods, but he is ever borrowing and never paying money.  He knows no fear but for those boxes. Frequently during our search for a vessel, he forced himself into Jafar Bey's presence, and there he demeaned himself so impudently that we expected to see him lame by the bastinado. His forwardness, however, only amused the dignitary. He wonders all day about the bazaar, talking about freight and passage, for he has resolved, cost what it will, to travel free, and with dogginess like his, he must succeed. Sheikh Hamid al-Saman derives his cognomen, the clarified butter-seller, from a celebrated saint and Sufi of the Qadiriya order, who left a long line of holy descendants at Almadina. This Sheikh squats upon a box full of presents for the daughter of his paternal uncle, his wife, a perfect specimen of the town Arab.  His feet are bare, and his only garment is an exceedingly unclean, ochre-coloured blouse, tucked into a leaven girdle beneath it. He will not pray, because he is unwilling to take pure clothes out of his box, but he smokes when he can get other people's tobacco and groans between the whiffs, conjugating the verb all day, for he is of active mind.  This he will draw forth at times, peep into for a moment, devoutly kiss, and restore to its proper place with the veneration of the vulgar for a book. He can sing all manner of songs, slaughter a sheet with dexterity, deliver a grand call to prayer, shave, cook, fight, and he excels in the science of bit-tuporation. Like saad, he never performs his devotions, except when necessary to keep up appearances, and though he is sworn to perish before he forgets his vow to the daughter of his uncle, I shrewdly suspect he is no better than he should be. His brow crumples at the word wine, but there is quite another expression about the region of the mouth. Stambul, where he has lived some months without learning ten words of Turkish, is a notable place for displacing prejudice. And finally, he has not more than a piaster or two in his pocket, for he has squandered the large presents given to him at Cairo and Constantinople by noble ladies, to whom he acted as master of the ceremonies at the tomb of the apostle.  This lanky youth may be sixteen years old, but he has the ideas of forty-six. He is thoroughly greedy, selfish, and ungenerous, coldly supercilious as a Turk, and energetically avaricious as an Arab. He prays more often, and dresses more respectively, than the descendant of the clarified butter-seller. He affects the Constantinople style of toilette, and his light yellow complexion makes people consider him a superior person. We were intimate enough on the road, when he borrowed from me a little money, but at Almadina he cut me pitilessly, as a town man does, a continental acquaintance accidentally met in Hyde Park. And of course he tried, though in vain, to evade repaying his debt. He had a tincture of letters, and a pietaf studied critically the subject of largesse. The generous is Allah's friend, I, though he be a sinner, and the miser is Allah's foe, I, though he be a saint, with a venerable saying always in his mouth. He also informed me that Pharaoh, although the quintessence of impiety, is mentioned by name in the Quran by reason of his liberality, whereas Nimrod, another monster of iniquity, is only alluded to because he was a stingy tyrant. It is almost needless to declare that Salih Shakar was, as the East Indians say, a very fly-sucker. There were two other men of Almadina in the Wakala Jirgis, but I omit description, as we left them, they being penniless, at Suiz. One of them, Muhammad Shiklib Ha, I afterwards met at Mecca, and seldom have I seen a more honest and warm-hearted fellow. When we were in parking at Suiz, he fell upon Hamid's bosom, and both of them wept bitterly, at the prospect of parting even for a few days. All the individuals above mentioned lost no time in opening the question of alone. It was a lesson in Oriental metaphysics to see their condition. They had a 12-days voyage and a four-days journey before them, boxes to carry, custom houses to face, and stomachs to fill. Yet the whole party could scarcely, I believe, muster two dollars of ready money. Their boxes were full of valuables, arms, clothes, pipes, slippers, sweetmeats, and other notions, but nothing short of starvation would have induced them to pledge the smallest article. For seeing that their company would be an advantage, I harkened favourably to the honeyed request for a few crowns. The boy Muhammad obtained six dollars. I made about five pounds, as I intended to make his house at El-Madinah, my home. Omar Effendi, three dollars. Sa'ad the demon, two. I gave the money to him at Yambu, and Salishakar, fifty piasters. But since in these lands, as a rule no one ever lends coins or borrowing ever returns them, I took care to extract service from the first, to take two rich coats from the second, a handsome pipe from the third, a baller, or yatagan from the fourth, and from the fifth, an imitation cashmere shawl. After which we sat down and drew out the agreement. It was favourable to me. I lent them Egyptian money and bargained for repayment in the currency of al-Hijjahs, thereby gaining the exchange, which is sometimes sixteen percent. This was done not so much for the sake of profit, as with the view of becoming a ha-teem by a never-mind-onsettling day. My companions, having received these small sums, became affectionate and eloquent in my praise. They asked me to make one of their number at meals for the future, overwhelmed me with questions, insisted upon a present of sweetmeats, detected in me a great man under a cloud. Perhaps my claims to being a Dara-waish assisted them to this discovery, and declared that I should perforce be their guest at Mecca and Al-Madinah. On all occasions precedence was forced upon me. My opinion was the first consulted, and no project was settled without my concurrence. Briefly, Abdullah the Dara-waish suddenly found himself a person of consequence. This elevation led me into an imprudence, which might have cost me dear, aroused the only suspicion about me ever expressed during the summer's tour. My friends had looked at my clothes, overhauled my medicine-chest, and criticised my pistols. They sneered at my copper-cased watch, and remembered having seen a compass at Constantinople. Therefore I imagined that they would think little about a sextant. This was a mistake. The boy Muhammad, I afterwards learned, waited only my leaving the room to declare that the would-be Hajji was one of the infidels from India, and a council sat to discuss the case. Fortunately for me Omar Effendi had looked over a letter which I had written to Hajji Wali that morning, and he had at various times received categorical replies to certain questions in high theology. He felt himself justified in declaring ex-Kathedra the boy Muhammad's position perfectly untenable. And Sheikh Hamid, who looked forward to being my host, guide, and debtor in general, then probably cared scantily for catechism or creed, swore that the light of al-Islam was upon my countenance, and consequently that the boy Muhammad was a pauper, a fakir, an owl, a cut-off one, a stranger, and a wahabi heretic for daring to impune the faith of a brother believer. The scene ended with a general abuse of the acute youth, who was told on all sides that he had no shame and was directed to fear Allah. I was struck with the expression of my friend's countenances when they saw the sextant and determining with a sigh to leave it behind. I prayed five times a day for nearly a week. We all agreed not to lose an hour in securing places on board some vessel bound for Yambu. My companions, hearing that my passport as a British Indian was scarcely on the vague, earnestly advised me to have it signed by the governor without delay, whilst they occupied themselves about the harbour. They warned me that if I displayed the Turkish tasgira given me at the citadel of Cairo, I should infallibly be ordered to await the caravan and lose their society and friendship. Pilgrims arriving at Alexandria, being known to the reader, are divided into bodies and distributed by means of passports to the three great roads, namely Suez, Qusayr, Qusayr, and the Harj route by land round the Gulf of Al-Aqaba. After the division has once been made, government turns a deaf ear to the representations of individuals. The Bay of Suez has an order to obstruct pilgrims as much as possible to the end of the season, when they are hurried down that way lest they should arrive at Mecca too late. As most of the Egyptian high officials have boats which sail up the Nile Lagoon with pilgrims and return freighted with corn, the government naturally does its utmost to force the delays and discomforts of this line upon strangers. And as those who travel by the Harj route must spend money in the Egyptian territories at least 15 days longer than they would if allowed to embark at once from Suez, the Bay very properly assists them in the former and obstructs them in the latter case. Knowing these facts, I felt that a difficulty was at hand. The first thing was to take Sheikh Nur's passport, which was on Reg, and my own, which was not, to the Bay for signature. He turned the papers over and over, as if unable to read them, and raised false hopes high by referring me to his clerk. The under-official at once saw the irregularity of the document and asked me why it had not been Visay at Cairo. It swore that under such circumstances nothing would induce the Bay to let me proceed, and when I tried persuasion, waxed insolent. I feared that it would be necessary to travel via Kossayer, for which there was scarcity time, or to transfer myself on camel-back to the harbour of Tuur, and there to await the chance of finding a place in some half-filled vessel to Al-Hijaz, which would have been relying upon an accident. My last hope at Suez was to obtain assistance from Mr West, then her British Majesty's vice consul, and since made consul. I therefore took the boy Mohammed with me, choosing him on purpose and excusing the step to my companions by concocting an artful fable about my having been, in Afghanistan, a benefactor to the British nation. We proceeded to the consulate. Mr West, who had been told by imprudent Augustus Bernal to expect me, saw through the disguise. Despite jargon, assumed to satisfy official scruples, and nothing could be kinder than the part he took. His clerk was directed to place himself in communication with the Bay's factotum, and when objections to signing the Alexandrian Taskeera were offered, the vice consul said that he would, at his own risk, give me a fresh passport as a British subject from Suez to Arabia. His firmness prevailed. On the second day the documents were returned to me in a satisfactory state. I take pleasure in owning this obligation to Mr West. In the course of my wanderings, I have often received from him open-hearted hospitality and the most friendly attentions. Whilst these passport difficulties were being solved, the rest of the party were as busy in settling about passage and passage money. The peculiar rules of the port of Suez require a few words of explanation. About thirty-five years ago, i.e., about 1818 AD, the shipowners proposed to the then government with the view of keeping up freight, a faraza, or system of rotation.  But it so happened in those days that all the court had ships at Suez. Ibrahim Pasha alone owned four or five. Consequently they expected to share profits with the merchants, and thus to be compensated for the want of port dues. From that time forward, all the vessels in the harbor were registered and ordered to sail in rotation. This arrangement benefits the owner of the craft, Andi Par, giving him, in his turn, a temporary monopoly with the advantage of a full market, and freight is so high that a single trip often clears off the expense of building and the risk of losing the ship. The sensible sukhedaneum for insurance companies. On the contrary, the public must always be a loser by the faraza. Two of a tray do not agree elsewhere, but at Suez even the Christian and the Muslim shipowner are bound by a fraternal tie in the shape of this rotation system. It injures the general merchant and the Red Sea trader, not only by perpetuating high freight, but also by causing at one period of the year a break in the routine of sales and in the supplies of goods for the great jet and market. At this moment, November 1853, the vessel to which the turn belongs happens to be a large one. There is a deficiency of export to Al Hijaz. Her owner will of course wait any length of time for a full cargo. Consequently, no vessel with merchandise has left Suez for the last 72 days. Those who have bought goods for the jet and market at three months credit will therefore have to meet their acceptances for merchandise still warehoused at the Egyptian port. This strange contrast to free trade principle is another proof that protection benefits only one party, the protected, while it is detrimental to the interests of the other party, the public. To these remarks of Mr Levix, I have only to add that the government supports the faraza with all the energy of protectionists. A letter from Mr, now Sir, John Drummond Hay, was insufficient to induce the Bay of Suez to break through the rule of rotation in favour of certain princes from Morocco. The recommendations of Lord Stratford the Redcliffe met with no better fate, and all Mr West's goodwill could not procure me a vessel out of her turn. We were forced to rely upon our own exertions and the activity of Saad the Demon. This worthy of the sundry delays and differences mostly caused by his own determination to travel gratis and to make us pay too much, finally closed with the owner of the golden thread. He took place his forests upon the poop, the most eligible part of the vessel at this season of the year. He premised that we should not be very comfortable, as we were to be crowded with Magrabi pilgrims, but that Allah makes all things easy. Though not penetrated with the conviction that this would happen in our case, I paid for two debt passages, 18 riyals, dollars, and my companions seven each, whilst Saad secretly entered himself as an able seaman. Mohammed Shiklipa, we were obliged to leave behind, as he could not or might not afford the expense, and none of us might afford it for him. Had I known him to be the honest, true-hearted fellow he was, his kindness at Mecca quite won my heart. I should not have grudged the small charity. Nothing more comfortless than our days and nights in the George Inn. The ragged walls of our rooms were clammy with dirt, the smoky rafters foul with cobwebs, and the floor bestrewed with kit. In terrible confusion was black with hosts of cockroaches, ants, and flies. Pigeons nestled on the shelf, cooing amatory ditties the live-long day, and cats like tigers crawled through a hole in the door, making the night hideous with their catawallings. Now a curious goat, then an inquisitive jackass, would walk stealthily into the room, remarked that it was tenanted and retreated with dignified demeanor, and the Mosquito sang Eopians over our prostrate forms throughout the twenty-four hours. I spare the reader the enumeration of the other Egyptian plagues that infested the place. After the first day's trial we determined to spend the hours of light in the passages, lying upon our boxes or rugs, smoking, wrangling, and inspecting one another's chests. The latter occupation was a fertile source of disputes, but nothing was more common than for a friend to seize an article belonging to another, and to swear by the apostle's beard that he admired it, and therefore would not return it. The boy Muhammad and Shaykh Noor, who had been intimates the first day, differed in opinion on the second, and on the third came to pushing each other against the wall. Sometimes we went into the bazaar, a shady street flanked with poor little shots, or we sat in the coffee-house, drinking hot, saltish water tinged with burnt bean, or we prayed in one of the three tumbledown old mosques, or we squatted upon the pier, lamenting the want of her arms, and bathing in the tepid sea. I presently came to the conclusion that Suiz, as a watering-place, is duller even than Dover. The only society we found accepting an occasional visitor was that of a party of Egyptian women, who, with their husbands and families, occupied some rooms adjoining hours. At first they were fierce and used bad language when the boy Muhammad and I, whilst Omar Effendi was engaged in prayer, and the rest were wondering about the town, ventured to linger in the cool passage where they congregated, or to address a facetious phrase to them. But hearing that I was a hakimbashi, for fame had promoted me to the rank of physician general at Suiz, all discovered some ailments. They began prudently with requesting me to display the effects of my drugs by dosing myself, but they ended submissively by swallowing the nauseous compounds. To this succeeded a primitive form of flirtation, which mainly consisted of the demand direct. The most charming of the party was one Fatuma of Plump Person Dame, fast verging upon her thirtieth year, fond of a little flattery, and possessing, like all her people, a most valuable tongue. The refrain of every conversation was, Marry me, O Fatuma, O daughter, O female pilgrim. In vain the lady would reply with a cocketish movement of the sides, a toss of the head, and a flirting manipulation of her head veil. I am mated, O young man. It was agreed that she, being a person of polyandrous propensities, could support the weight of at least three matrimonial engagements.  In their presence we only varied the style of conversation, inquiring the amount of mutt or married settlement, deriding the cheapness of womanhood in Egypt, and requiring to be furnished on the spot with brides at the rate of ten shillings ahead. More often the amiable Fatuma, the fair sacks in this country, though passing frail, have the best tempers in the world, would laugh at our impertinences. Sometimes vexed by our imitating her Egyptian accent, mimicking her gestures, and depreciating her countrywomen, she would wax rough, and order us to be gone, and stretch out her forefinger, a sign that she wished to put out our eyes, or a jaw alar to cut the hearts out of our bosoms. Then the marry me of Fatuma, O daughter of female pilgrim, would give way to Yaguz, O old woman and decrepit, O daughter of sixty sires, and fit only to carry wood to the market, whereupon would burst a storm of wrath, at the tail of which all of us, like children, starting upon our feet, rushed out of one another's way. But Kisa disputes Ador, when we again met, all would be forgotten, and the old tail be told over Day Novo. This was the amusement of the day. At night we men, assembling upon the little terrace, drank tea, recited stories, read books, talked of our travels, and indulged in various presentries. The great joke was the boy Mohammed's abusing all his companions to their faces in Hindustani, which none but Shaykh Noor and I could understand. The others, however, guessed his intention and revenged themselves by retorts of the style Uncurtius in the purist hijazi. I proceed to offer a few more extracts from Mr. Levick's letter about Suiz and the Suizians. It appears that the number of pilgrims who pass through Suiz to Mecca has, of late, been steadily on the decrease. When I first came here, in 1838, the pilgrims who annually embarked at this port amounted to between 10,000 and 12,000, the shipping was more numerous, and the merchants were more affluent. I have ascertained from a special register kept in the Government Archives that in the Muslim year 1268, AD 1851-52, the exact number that passed through was 4,893. In 1269, Anoha Jairai, AD 1852-53, it had shrunk to 3,136. The natives assigned the falling off to various causes, which I attribute chiefly to the indirect effect of European civilisation upon the Muslim powers immediately in contact with it. The heterogeneous mass of pilgrims is composed of people of all classes, colours and costumes. One sees among them not only the natives of countries contiguous to Egypt, but also a large proportion of Central Asians from Bohara, Persia, Circassia, Turkey and the Crimea, who prefer this route by way of Constantinople to the difficult, expensive and dangerous caravan line through the desert from Damascus and Baghdad. The West sends us Moors, Algerians and Tunisians, and in Africa a mass of Sable, Taqruri and others from Bornau, the Sudan, Ghadamah near the Niger and Jabati from the Habash. The Suez shipbuilders are an influential body of men, originally Candiots and Alexandrians. When Muhammad Ali fitted out his fleet for the Hijaz War, he transported a number of Greeks to Suez and the children now exercise their father's craft. There are at present three great builders at this place. Their principal difficulty is want of material. Taq comes from India via Jeddah and Venetian boards owing to the expense of camel transport are a hundred percent dearer here than at Alexandria. Trieste and Turkey supply spars and Jeddah canvas. The sailmakers are Suez men and the crews are mongrel mixture of Arabs and Egyptians. The race or captain being almost invariably, if the vessel be a large one, a Yanbuk man. There are two kinds of craft distinguished from each other by tonnage, not by build. The Bagla, Bagalo, is a vessel above 50 tons burden, the Sambuk, a classical term from 15 to 50. The ship owner bribes the Almir al-Bahr or port captain and the Nazir al-Saffine, or the captain commanding the government vessels, to rate his ship as high as possible. If he pay the price, he will be allowed nine Ardebs to the town. The number of ships belonging to the port of Suez amounts to 92. They vary from 25 to 250 tons. The departures in A.H. 1269, 1852 and 1853 were 38. So that each vessel, after returning from a trip, is laid up for about two years. Throughout the passage of the pilgrims, that is to say during four months, the departures average twice a week. During the remainder of the year, from six to ten vessels may leave the port. The homeward trade is carried on principally in Jeddah bottoms, which are allowed to convey goods to Suez, but not to take in return cargo there. They must not interfere with, nor may they partake in any way of the benefits of the rotation system. During the present year, the imports were contained in 41,395 packages, the exports in 15,988. Speci makes up in some manner for this preponderance of imports. A sum of from 30,000 to 40,000 pounds in crown or Maria Theresa dollars annually leaves Egypt for Arabia, Abyssinia and other parts of Africa. I value the imports at about 350,000 pounds, the export traded Jeddah at 300,000 pounds per annum. The former consists principally of coffee and gum Arabic. Of these there were respectively 17,460 and 15,132 bales, the aggregate value of each article being from 75,000 to 80,000 pounds and the total amount 160,000 pounds. In the previous year the imports were contained in 36,840 packages, the exports in 13,498. Of the staple articles, coffee and gum Arabic, they were respectively 15,499 and 14,129 bales, each bail being valued at about five pounds. Next in importance comes wax from Ayaman and the Hijaz, mother of pearl from the Red Sea, sent to England in rough. Pepper from Malabar, cloves brought by Muslim pilgrims from Java, Borneo and Singapore, cherry pipe sticks from Persia and Basura and Persian or Surat Timbuk, tobacco. These I value at 20,000 pounds per annum. There were also AD 1853 of cloves, 708 packages and of Malabar pepper, 948. The cost of these two might be 7,000 pounds. Minor articles of exportation are general spiseries, ginger, cardamoms, etc. Eastern perfumes such as aloe's wood, atar of rose, atar of pink and others, tamarins from India and Ayaman, bankatin, hides supplied by the nomad Bedawin, senileves from Ayaman and the Hijaz, and blue-jacket cotton malayas, women's mantillas, manufactured in southern Arabia. The total value of these smaller imports may be 20,000 per annum. The exports chiefly consist of English and native grey domestics, bleach mandi pillums, paisley lapets and muslins for turbans, the remainder being Manchester Prince and Timony, Syrian soap, iron in bars and common ironmongery, Venetian or Trieste beads used as ornaments in Arabia and Abyssinia, writing paper, tabushes, papushes, slippers, and other minor articles of dress and ornament. The average annual temperature of the year at Suez is 67 degrees Fahrenheit. The extremes of heat and cold are found in January and August. During the former month, the thermometer ranges from a minimum of 38 degrees to a maximum of 68. During the latter, the variation extends from 68 to 102 degrees or even to 104 when the heat becomes oppressive. Departures from these extremes are rare. I never remember to have seen the thermometer rise above 180 degrees during the Severist Khamsin or to have sunk below 34 degrees in the rawest wintry wind. Violent storms come up from the south in March. Rain is very variable. Sometimes three years have passed without a shower whereas in 1841 torrents poured for nine successive days, deluging the town and causing many buildings to fall. The population of Suez now numbers about 4,800. As usual in Mohammedan countries, no census is taken here. Some therefore estimate the population at 6,000. Sixteen years ago it was supposed to be under 3,000. After that time it rapidly increased to 1850 when a fatal attack of cholera reduced it to about half its previous number. The average mortality is about 12 a month. The endemic diseases are fevers of typhoid and intermittent types in spring when strong northerly winds cause the waters of the bay to recede and leave a miasma breeding swamp exposed to the rays of the sun. In the months of October and November, febrile attacks are violent, ophthalmia more so. The eye disease is not so general here as at Cairo but the symptoms are more acute. In some years it becomes a virulent epidemic which ends either in total blindness or in the partial opacity of the cornea inducing dimness of vision and a permanent weakness of the eyes. In one month three of my acquaintances lost their sight. Dessentries are also common and so are bad boils or rather ulcers. The cold season is not unwholesome and at this period the pure air of the desert restores and invigorates the heat-wasted frame. The walls, gates and defences of Suez are in a ruinous state, being no longer wanted to keep out the Sinaitic Bedouin. The houses are about five hundred in number but many of the natives prefer occupying the upper stories of the Wakalaz, the rooms on the ground floor, serving for stores to certain merchandise, wood, dates, cotton, etc. The Suezians live well and their bazaar is abundantly stocked with meat and clarified butter brought from Sinai and fowls, corn and vegetables from the Sharkia province. Fruit is supplied by Cairo as well as by the Sharkia and wheat conveyed down the Nile in flood to the capital is carried on camelback across the desert. At sunrise they eat the fatur or breakfast which in summer consists of a fatira, a kind of muffin or of bread and treacle. In winter it is more substantial being generally a mixture of lentils and rice with clarified butter poured over it and the kitchen of pickled lime or stewed onions. At this season they greatly enjoy the full Mudanmus, boiled horse beans, eaten with an abundance of linseed oil into which they steep bits of bread. The beans form, with carbon-generating matter, a highly nutritive diet which, if the stomach can digest it, the pulses never shelled, gives great strength. About the middle of the day comes Al-Adha, a light dinner of wheat and bread with dates, onions or cheese. In the hot season melons and cooling fruits are preferred, especially by those who have to face the sun. Asha or Sapa is served about half an hour after sunset. At this meal all but the poorest classes eat meat. Their favourite flesh, as usual in this part of the world, is mutton. Beef and goat are little-priced. The people of Suiz are a finer and fairer race than the Kairines. The former have more the appearance of Arabs, their dresses more picturesque, their eyes are carefully darkened with coal, and they wear sandals, not slippers. They are, according to all accounts, a turbulent and somewhat fanatic set, fond of quarrels and slightly addicted to pronunciamentus. The general programme of one of these latter diversions is said to be as follows. The boys will first be sent by their fathers about the town in a disorderly mob and ordered to cry out, Long live the Sultan, with its usual sequel, Death to the Infidels. The Infidels, Christians or others, must hear and may happen to resent this, or possibly the Governor, foreseeing a disturbance, or as an ingenuous youth or two, to be imprisoned or to be caned by the police, whereupon some person, rendered influential by wealth or religious reputation, publicly complains that the Christians are all in all, and that in these evil days Alislam is going to destruction. On this occasion the Speaker conducts himself with such insolence that the Governor, perforce, consigns him to confinement, which exasperates the popular still more. Secret meetings are now convened, and in them the Chiefs of Corporations assume a prominent position. If the disturbance be intended by its mainspring to subside quietly, the conspirators are allowed to take their own way. They will drink copiously, become lions about midnight, and recover their hair-hearts before noon next day. But if mischief be intended, a case of bloodshed is brought about, and then nothing can arrest the torrent of popular age. The Egyptian, with all his good humour, merriment and nonchalance, is notorious for doggedness when, as the popular phrase is, his blood is up, and this indeed is his chief merit as a soldier. He has a certain mechanical dexterity in the use of arms, and an Egyptian regiment will fire a volley as correctly as a battalion at Chobham. But when the head and not the hands is required, he notably fails. The reason of his superiority in the field is his peculiar stubbornness, and this, together with his powers of digestion, and of enduring hardship on the line of march, is the quality that makes him terrible to his old conqueror, the Turk.