Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah

Every one wore something new; most people were in the fresh suits of finery intended to last through the year; and so strong is personal vanity in the breasts of Orientals, men and women, young and old, that from Cairo to Calcutta it would be difficult to find a sad heart under a handsome coat.

Quoted on February 9, 2011

On the indignity of paying for a passport:

For this I disbursed a dollar. And here let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty Britain — the mistress of the seas — the ruler of one-sixth of mankind — should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernised “civis sum Romanus” without putting my hand into my pocket, in order that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously from a revenue of seventy millions! O the meanness of our magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!

Quoted on February 9, 2011

My leisure hours were employed in visiting the baths and coffee-houses, in attending the bazars, and in shopping, — an operation which hereabouts consists of sitting upon a chapman’s counter, smoking, sipping coffee, and telling your beads the while, to show that you are not of the slaves for whom time is made; in fact, in pitting your patience against that of your adversary, the vendor.

Quoted on February 9, 2011