to his Consul, the Wakil al-Haramayn. This “Agent of the two Holy Places”
applies to the Nazir al-Aukaf, or “Intendant of Bequests”; the latter,

[p.8]after transmitting the demand to the different officers of the
treasury, sends the money to the Wakil, who delivers it to the
applicant. This gift is sometimes squandered in pleasure, more often
profitably invested either in merchandise or in articles of home-use,
presents of dress and jewellery for the women, handsome arms,
especially pistols and Balas[FN#13] (yataghans), silk tassels, amber
pipe-pieces, slippers, and embroidered purses. They are packed up in
one or two large Sahharahs, and then commences the labour of returning
home gratis. Besides the Ikram, most of the Madani, when upon these
begging trips, are received as guests by great men at Constantinople.
The citizens whose turn it is not to travel, await the Aukaf and
Sadakat (bequests and alms),[FN#14] forwarded every year by the
Damascus Caravan; besides which, as has been before explained, the
Harim supplies even those not officially employed in it with many
perquisites.

Without these advantages Al-Madinah would soon be abandoned to
cultivators and Badawin. Though commerce is here honourable, as
everywhere in the East, business is “slack,[FN#15]” because the higher
classes prefer the idleness of administering their landed estates, and
being servants to the Mosque. I heard of only four respectable houses,
Al-Isawi, Al-Sha’ab, Abd al-Jawwad, and a family from Al-Shark (the
Eastern Region).[FN#16] They all deal in grain, cloth, and provisions,
and perhaps the richest have a capital of twenty thousand dollars.
Caravans in

[p.9]the cold weather are constantly passing between Al-Madinah and