The term khayn, treacherous, is universally applied to every Turk in
Arabia, with that proud self-confidence of superiority, in this respect,
for which the Arabs are deservedly renowned. The lower classes of the
Arabs have discovered a fanciful confirmation of their charge against
the Turks in one of the Grand Signors titles, Khán, an ancient Tatar
word, which in Arabic signifies he betrayed, being the preterite of
the verb ykhoun, to betray. They pretend that an ancestor of the
Sultan having betrayed a fugitive, received the opprobrious appellation
of el Sultan Khán, (the Sultan has been treacherous;) and that the
title is merely retained by his successors from their ignorance of the
Arabic language.
Whenever the power of the Turks in the Hedjaz declines, which it will
when the resources of Egypt are no longer directed to that point by so
able and so undisturbed a possessor of Egypt as Mohammed Ali, the Arabs
will avenge themselves for the submission, light as it is, which they
now reluctantly yield to their conquerors; and the reign of the Osmanlis
in the Hedjaz will probably terminate in many a scene of bloodshed.
[p.53] ROUTE FROM DJIDDA TO TAYF. [I was unable to take any bearings
during this excursion, as the only compass which I possessed, and which
had served me throughout my Nubian journey, had become useless, and no
opportunity offered of replacing it till December in this year, when I
obtained one from a Bombay ship which arrived at Djidda.]