The Indian rice is rather cheaper, and is transported from Djidda to Mekka, Tayf, Medina, and thence as far as Nedjed. A mixture of equal portions of rice and lentils, over which butter is poured, [p.34] forms a favourite preparation with the middle class, and generally their only dish at supper. [This dish is known in Syria, and called there medjeddereh, because the lentils in the rice look like a person’s face marked with the small-pox, or djedreh.] I found, in every part of the Hedjaz, that the Bedouins, when travelling, carried no other provision than rice, lentils, butter, and dates. The importation of biscuits from Egypt has of late been very considerable, for the use of the Turkish army. The Arabians do not like and seldom eat them even on board their ships, where they bake their unleavened cake every morning in those small ovens which are found in all the ships of every size that navigate the Red Sea. Salt is sold by the corn-dealers. Sea-salt is collected near Djidda, and is a monopoly in the hands of the sherif. The inhabitants of Mekka prefer rock-salt, which is brought thither by the Bedouins from some mountains in the neighbourhood of Tayf. Thirty-one tobacco-shops, in which are sold Syrian and Egyptian tobacco, tombac, or tobacco for the Persian pipe, pipe-heads and pipe-snakes, cocoa-nuts, coffee-beans, keshre, soap, almonds, Hedjaz raisins, and some other articles of grocery. The Egyptian tobacco, sometimes mixed with that of Sennar, is the cheapest, and in great demand throughout the Hedjaz. There are two sorts of it: the leaf of one is green, even when dry; this is called ribbé, and comes from Upper Egypt: the other is brown-leaved, the best sort of which grows about Tahta, to the south of Siout. During the power of the Wahabys, tobacco could not be sold publicly; but as all the Bedouins of the Hedjaz are passionately fond of it, persons sold it clandestinely in their shops, not as tobacco or dokhan, but under the name of “the wants of a man.” Long snakes for the Persian pipe, very prettily worked, are imported from Yemen. Cocoa-nuts are brought from the East Indies, as well as from the south-eastern coast of Africa and the Somawly country, and may [p.35] be had quite fresh, at low prices, during the monsoon. The people of Djidda and Mekka appear to be very fond of them. The larger nuts, as already mentioned, are used for the boury, or common Persian pipe, and the smallest for snuff-boxes.