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On Tuesday, October 23d, 1855, a Turkish steamer from Constantinople
entered the port of Haifa, bringing a new Pasha for Akka with his
entourage thirty. The European Consuls, including the British, and
he notables of Akka gathered to receive him. The new Pasha called at
the British Consulate accompanied by 12 attendants.
Newly appointed Pashas may sometimes be persuaded into doing some
good in their Pashalics; and, at the commencement of their tenure in
office would see to have fountains choked-up, broken cisterns are
repaired, and aqueducts are kept in order. On the “new broom”
principle, the new Consuls earnestly urged the new Pasha to give
orders for the cleansing of the streets of Haifa; the appeal was
favourably heard, and Haifa underwent sweeping and scrapping.
Men and boys ran back and forth with baskets of rubbish; Beks
(notables) and consuls bustled about giving orders.
Every one was glad about with the new Pasha.
The population of HAIFA was, in 1854 about 2,012 people, only 32
were Jews.
On the 1st of October, the Ottoman victories in the Crimea were
announced and celebrated in Akka; five times during the day,
twenty-one guns were fired by the Turkish garrison, and at night the
town was illuminated, and bonfires were made on the hills which
encircles the bay. In Haifa a great portion of the lately acquired
supplies of ammunition was used in feux de joie, the minaret and the
consulates were lighted up and lamps were borrowed to deck the
English flagstaff.
At night the place was very animated. The European Consuls went out
with Saleh Sakhali, an Orthodox Christian intellectual, and Mohammed
Bek, a distinguished looking handsome Moslem, both Palestinian
citizens from Haifa, and two or three of the latter’s friends. Yusef,
a citizen of Haifa, led the way with a “ lantern for [the English
Consul’s] feet. They made their way to the well-supplied bazaar,
which generally deserted at night, but that night [ of celebration
on the occasion of Turkish victories in Crimea] the shops were all
open; pipes, red and yellow shoes and boots, embroidered slippers,
Manlamps and cooking utensils, fruit, sweatmeats, and samples of
grains, were exposed by the light of hundreds of samples and groups
of [Palestinian] Arabs in their fete day dresses were on all the
counters; and in the open cafes and barbers’ shops, story-tellers
and singers attracted earnest listeners. Showers of Sugar-plums were
thrown from one side of the place to the other, and boys were busy
scrambling for them.
* Adapted from Mary Eliza Rogers’ Domestic Life In Palestine: First
published in 1862.
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