I paid the visit, customary on occasion of this feast, to the Kadhy, and
at the expiration of the third day, (on the 15th of September,) set out
for Djidda, to complete my travelling equipments, which are more easily
procured there than at Mekka. On my way to the coast, I was nearly made
prisoner at Bahra by a flying corps of Wahabys. My stay at Djidda was
prolonged to three weeks, chiefly in consequence of sore legs; a disease
very prevalent on this unhealthy coast, where every bite of a gnat, if
neglected, becomes a serious wound.

About the middle of October I returned to Mekka, accompanied by a slave
whom I had purchased. This boy had been in the caravan with which I went
from the Black Country to Sowakin, and was

[p.101] quite astonished at seeing me in a condition so superior to that
in which he had before known me. I took with me a camel-load of
provisions, mostly flour, biscuit, and butter, procured in Djidda at one
third of the price demanded at Mekka, where, immediately on my arrival,
I hired decent apartments in a quarter of the town not much frequented,
called Haret el Mesfale. I had here the advantage of several large trees
growing before my windows, the verdure of which, among the barren and
sun-burnt rocks of Mekka, was to me more exhilarating than the finest
landscape could have been under different circumstances. At this place I
enjoyed an enviable freedom and independence, known only to the Kadhy
and his followers, who soon after took their departure. The Pasha and
his court remained at Tayf till the days of the Hadj. I frequented only
such society as pleased me, and, mixing with a crowd of foreign pilgrims
from all parts of the world, I was not liable to impertinent remarks or
disagreeable inquiries. If any question arose about my origin (a
circum-stance that rarely happened in a place which always abounds with