The poor Indians afford a complete contrast, both in appearance and character, to the negroes: more wretched countenances can hardly be imagined; they seem to have lost not only all energy, but even hope. With bodies which appear scarcely capable of withstanding a gust of wind, and voices equally feeble, they would be worthy objects of commiseration, did not daily experience prove that they delight to appear in this plight, because it secures to them the alms of the charitable, and exempts them from labour. The streets of Mekka are crowded with them; the most decrepid make their doleful appeals to the passenger, lying at full length on their backs in the middle of the street; the gates of the mosque are always beset with them; every coffee-house and water-stand is a station for some of them; and no hadjy can purchase provisions in the markets, without being importuned by Indians soliciting a portion of them. I saw among them one of those devotees who are so common in the north of India and in Persia: one of his arms was held up straight over his head, and so fixed by long habit, that it could not be placed in any other situation. From the curiosity which he excited, I was led to suppose that such characters seldom find their way to the Hedjaz. Dervishes of every sect and order in the Turkish empire are found among the pilgrims; many of them madmen, or at least assuming the appearance of insanity, which causes them to be much respected by the hadjys, and fills their pockets with money. The behaviour of some of them is so violent, and at the same time so cunning, that even the least charitably disposed hadjys give willingly something to escape from them. They mostly come from other countries; for among the Arabians themselves there are fewer crazy of these people than in other parts of the east. Egypt chiefly abounds with them; and almost every village in the valley of the Nile furnishes some Masloub, or [p.260] reputed madman, whom the inhabitants regard as an inspired being, and a blessing sent to them from heaven. [In 1813, the Christian community of Gous, in Upper Egypt, had the honour of possessing an insane youth, who walked about the bazars quite naked. But the Moslims of the place growing jealous, seized him one night, and converted him by circumcision into a Mohammedan saint.]