To these amiable qualities the Mekkawys add another, for which they must also be commended: they are a proud race, and though their pride is not founded upon innate worth, it is infinitely preferable to the cringing servility of the other Levantines, who redeem their slavish deference to superiors by the most overbearing haughtiness towards those below them. The Mekkawys are proud of being [p.202] natives of the holy city, of being the countrymen of their prophet; of having preserved, in some degree, his manners; of speaking his pure language; of enjoying, in expectation, all the honours in the next world, which are promised to the neighbours of the Kaaba; and of being much freer men than any of the foreigners whom they see crowding to their city. They exhibit this pride to their own superiors, whom they have taught to treat them with great forbearance and circumspection; and they look upon all other Mohammedan nations as people of an inferior order, to whom their kindness and politeness are the effect of their condescension. Many good consequences might result from this pride, without which a people cannot expect to sustain its rank among nations. It has prevented the people of Mekka from sinking so deep into slavery as some of their neighbours; but it excites them to nothing laudable, while its more immediate effects are seen in the contempt which they entertain for foreigners. This contempt, as I have already remarked, in speaking of Djidda, is chiefly displayed towards the Turks, whose ignorance of the Arabic language, whose dress and manners, the meanness of their conduct whenever they cannot talk as masters; their cowardice exhibited whenever the Hadj has been assailed in its route across the Desert, and the little respect that was shown to them by the Governors of Mekka, as long as the Sherif’s power was unbroken, have lowered them so much in the estimation of the Arabians, that they are held in the Hedjaz as little better than infidels; and although many of the Mekkawys are of Turkish origin, they heartily join the rest of their townsmen in vilifying the stock from which they sprang. The word Turky has become a term of insult towards each other among the children. Noszrany (Christians), or Yahoudy (Jews), are often applied to the Turks by the people of Mekka; and their manners and language afford a perpetual source of ridicule or reproach. The Syrians and Egyptians experience similar effects from the pride of the people of the Hedjaz, but especially the former, as the Egyptians, of all foreigners, approach nearest to the people of Arabia in customs and language, and keep up the most intimate intercourse with them. But the haughty Syrian Moslim, who calls Aleppo or Damascus “Om el Donia,” (the mother of the