File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎21r] (50/834)

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HEJAZ AND EGYPT.
history of Hejaz, since the expansion of Islam
established it in the world’s eye, has been governed by the fact
that it can neither finance nor feed itself. The primitive
economic difficulties of the towns, Mecca, Medina, Jiddah,
Yambo, etc., as well as of the rural districts, settled and un
settled, were aggravated as Hejaz gradually developed into a
goal of pilgrimage from all parts of the'East, the pilgrims
including a large proportion of persons whose demands were on
a higher plane of civilization. Though the Hajj brought money
into the country, at the same time it compelled expenditure on
the safeguarding and watering of routes, on accommodation, on
entertainment, on upkeep and embellishment of holy places and
on many other accounts, which taken together went beyond native
means: and, although food caravans usually accompanied the
pilgrims, these did not bring nearly enough for the whole
sojourn, which often extended to months. Taif can supply
Mecca, in a certain measure, with vegetables, fruit and meat, but
the Holy City itself has no grazing anywhere near it for a
considerable head of livestock, and none but isolated patches of
lean corn-land. Medina is the only district in Hejaz, which
produces any surplus of dates, and its crop is uncertain. Roundly
it may be said that Hejaz, as a whole, has never been able to
supply its local needs with either cereals or pastoral products ;
that its chief cities, since they became places of pilgrimage, have
depended on external subsidies for their municipal expenditure,
and have not contributed to general revenue ; that nothing to
speak of can be raised from the rural Hejaz population without
causing it forthwith to cease producing its own food ; and that the
indirect revenue to be derived from customs duties has never proved
enough to offset the extraordinary administrative expenses involved
by the pilgrimage. Nor have the resources of the contiguous
and neighbouring districts of Arabia ever been of a kind or a
measure to make good the deficiencies of Hejaz. In the way of
food, Qasim sends it butter, and the Ateibah steppe, mutton ;
but their moderate supplies are subject to much fluctuation
through droughts and insecurity of transit. The Asir Tihamah
has, in a good year, a little wheat, maize and millet to spare.
More than one attempt has been made by Emirs of Mecca in
the past to exploit the resources of the Yemen on behalf of
Hejaz. These efforts have never come to anything, not so much
because the caravan roads are very long, arduous and perilous, as
because Yemen has next to no foodstuffs to spare. With coffee
and kat cultivation to maintain, its comparatively dense popula
tion grows no more cereals, and keeps no more livestock, than
suffice to feed itself. Yemen exports neither corn nor cattle
worth reckoning in consular trade reports.
Hejaz, therefore, for the last ten centuries at any rate, has
had to depend on external purveyors, who, inevitably have