Chapter I: ARRIVED at Tayf about mid-day, and alighted at the house of Bosari, (13)

[p.352] town, the mosque caught fire, and was burnt to the ground; but the Korans deposited in the Hedjra were saved. This accident was ascribed to the Persian sectaries of Beni Hosseyn, who were then the guardians of the tomb. In the following year its restoration was undertaken at the expense of the Khalife Mostasem Billah, Ibn el Montaser Billah, and the lord of Yemen, El Mothaffer Shams eddyn Yousef, and completed by El Dhaher Bybars, Sultan of Egypt, in A.H. 657. The dome over the tomb was erected in 678. Several kings of Egypt successively improved and enlarged the building, till A.H. 886, when it was again destroyed by fire occasioned by lightning. The destruction was complete; all the walls of the mosque, and part of those of the Hedjra, the roof, and one hundred and twenty columns fell: all the books in the mosque were destroyed; but the fire appears to have spared the interior of the tomb in the Hedjra. Kayd Beg, then king of Egypt, to whom that country and the Hedjaz owe a number of public works, completely rebuilt the mosque, as it now stands, in A.H. 892. He sent three hundred workmen from Cairo for that purpose. The interior of the Hedjra was cleared, and three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish; but the author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs. The original place of Mohammeds tomb was ascertained with great difficulty. The walls of the Hedjra were then rebuilt, and the iron railing placed round it which is now there. The dome was again raised over it; the gates were distributed as they now are; a new mambar, or pulpit, was sent as a present from Cairo, and the whole mosque assumed its present form. Since the above period, a few immaterial improvements have been made by the Othman Emperors of Constantinople.

[p.353]GARDENS and plantations, as I have already said, surround the town of Medina, with its suburbs, on three sides, and to the eastward and southward extend to the distance of six or eight miles. They consist principally of date-groves and wheat and barley fields; the latter usually enclosed with mud walls, and containing small habitations for the cultivators. Their houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the town are well built, often with a vestibule supported by columns, and a vaulted sitting-room adjoining, and a tank cased with stone in front of them. They are the summer residence of many families of the town, who make it a custom to pass there a couple of months in the hottest season. Few of the date-groves, unless those dispersed over the fields, are at all enclosed; and most of them are irrigated only by the torrents and winter rains. The gardens themselves are very low, the earth being taken from the middle parts of them, and heaped up round the walls, so as to leave the space destined for agriculture, like a pit, ten or twelve feet below the surface of the plain: this is done to get at a better soil, experience having shown that the upper stratum is much more impregnated with salt, and less fit for cultivation, than the lower. No great industry is any where applied; much ground continues waste; and even where the fields are laid out, no economy whatever is shown in the culture of them. Many spots are wholly barren; and the saline nature of the soil prevents the seed from growing. The ground towards the village of Koba, and beyond it, in a south and east direction, is said to consist of good earth, without any saline mixture; and in value it is consequently much higher than that near the town, which, after rains, I have seen completely covered for several days with a saline crust, partly deposited from the waters, and partly evaporated from the soil itself, in the more elevated spots which the waters do not reach.

Most of the gardens and plantations belong to the people of the

[p.354] town; and the Arabs who cultivate them (called nowakhele) are mostly farmers. The property of the gardens is either mulk or wakf; the former, if they belong to an individual; the latter, if they belong to the mosque, or any of the medreses or pious foundations, from which they are farmed, at very long leases, by the people of Medina themselves, who re-let them on shorter terms to the cultivators. They pay no duties whatever. Not the smallest land-tax, or miri, is levied; an immunity which, I believe, all the fertile oases of the Hedjaz enjoyed previous to the invasion by the Wahabys: these, however, had no sooner taken possession of the town, than they taxed the soil, according to their established rule. The fields were assessed, not by their produce in corn, but in dates, the number of date-trees in every field being usually proportionate to the fertility of the soil, and also to its crop of grain. From every erdeb of dates the Wahaby tax-gatherers took their quota either in kind or in money, according to the market-price they then bore. These regulations caused the Wahabys to be disliked here much more than they were at Mekka, where the inhabitants had no fields to be taxed; and where the tax which the Wahabys had imposed was dispensed with, or rather given up to the Sherif, the ancient governor of the town, as I have already remarked. The Mekkans, besides, carried on commerce, from which they could at all times derive some profit, independent of the advantages accruing to them from the foreign hadjys. The people of Medina, on the contrary, are very petty merchants; and their main support depends upon the pilgrims, the yearly stipends from Turkey, or their landed property. As they were obliged entirely to renounce the former, and were curtailed in the profits from the latter; and as the Wahabys showed much less respect for their venerated tomb than they did for the Beitullah at Mekka, we cannot wonder that their name is execrated by the people of Medina, and loaded with the most opprobrious epithets.

The principal produce of the fields [They are here called Beled, (plur. Boldan): the beled of such a one.] about Medina, is wheat and barley, some clover, and garden-fruits, but chiefly dates. Barley is

[p.355] grown in much larger quantity than wheat; and barley-bread forms a principal article of food with the lower classes. Its harvest is in the middle of March. The crops are very thin; but the produce is of a good quality, and sells in the market of Medina at about fifteen per cent higher than the Egyptian. After harvest, the fields are left fallow till the next year; for though there is sufficient water in the wells [Every garden or field has its well, from whence the water is drawn up by asses, cows, or camels, in large leathern buckets. I believe there are no fields that are not regularly watered, and the seed of none is left merely to the chance of the winter-rains.] to produce a second irrigation, the soil is too poor to suffer it, without becoming entirely exhausted. No oats are sown here, nor any where else in the Hedjaz. The fruit-trees are found principally on the side of the village of Koba. Pomegranates and grapes are said to be excellent, especially the former: there are likewise some peaches, bananas, and, in the gardens of Koba, a few water-melons, and vegetables, as spinach, turnips, leeks, onions, carrots, and beans, but in very small quantities. The nebek-tree, producing the lotus, is extremely common in the plain of Medina, as well as in the neighbouring mountains; and incredible quantities of its fruit are brought to market in March, when the lower classes make it a prime article of food. But the staple produce of Medina is dates, for the excellence of which fruit this neighbourhood is celebrated throughout Arabia. The date-trees stand either in the enclosed fields, where they are irrigated together with the seeds in the ground, or in the open plain, where they are watered by the rains only: the fruit of the latter, though less abundant, is more esteemed. Numbers of them grow wild on the plain, but every tree has its owner. Their size is, in general, inferior to that of the Egyptian palm-tree, fed by the rich soil of the country, and the waters of the Nile; but their fruit is much sweeter, and has a more fragrant smell.

The many different uses to which almost every part of the date-tree is applied, have already been mentioned by several travellers; they render it as dear to the settled Arab, as the camel is to the Bedouin.

[p.356] Mohammed, in one of the sayings recorded of him, compares the virtuous and generous man to this noble tree. He stands erect before his Lord; in his every action he follows the impulse received from above, and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow- creatures. [See also the 1st Psalm, v. 3.--And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, &c.] The people of the Hedjaz, like the Egyptians, make use of the leaves, the outer and inner bark of the trunk, and the fleshy substance at the root of the leaves where they spring from the trunk; and, besides this, they use the kernels of the fruit, as food for their cattle: they soak them for two days in water, when they become softened, and then give them to camels, cows, and sheep, instead of barley; and they are said to be much more nutritive than that grain. There are shops at Medina in which nothing else is sold but date-kernels; and the beggars are continually employed, in all the main streets, in picking up those that are thrown away. In the province of Nedjed the Arabs grind the kernels for the same purpose; but this is not done in the Hedjaz.

Various kinds of dates are found at Medina, as well as in all other fruitful vallies of this country; and every place, almost, has its own species, which grows no where else. I have heard that upwards of one hundred different sorts of dates grow in the immediate neighbourhood of the town; the author of the description of Medina mentions one hundred and thirty. Of the most common sorts are the Djebely, the cheapest, and I believe the most universally spread in the Hedjaz; the Heloua; the Heleya, a very small date, not larger than a mulberry; it has its name from its extraordinary sweetness, in which it does not yield to the finest figs from Smyrna, and like them is covered, when dried, by a saccharine crust. The inhabitants relate, that Mohammed performed a great miracle with this date: he put a stone of it into the earth, which immediately took root, grew up, and within five minutes a full-grown tree, covered with fruit, stood before him. Another miracle is related of the species called El Syhány, a tree of

[p.357] which addressed a loud Salam Aleykum to the Prophet, as he passed under it. The Birny is esteemed the most wholesome, as it is certainly the easiest of digestion: it was the favourite of Mohammed, who advised the Arabs to eat seven of its fruit every morning before breakfast. The Djeleby is the scarcest of them all: it is about three inches in length, and one in breadth, and has a peculiarly agreeable taste, although not so sweet as the Heleya. It seems that it grows with great difficulty; for there are, at most, not more than one hundred trees of this species, and they are less fertile than any of the other. They grow in no part of the Hedjaz, but here and in the groves of Yembo el Nakhel. The price of the Birny is twenty paras per keile, a measure, containing at least one hundred and twenty dates, while the Djeleby is sold at eight dates for twenty paras: they are in great request with the hadjys, who usually carry some of these dates home, to present to their friends, as coming from the city of the Prophet; and small boxes, holding about one hundred of them, are made at Medina, for their conveyance.

Dates form an article of food by far the most essential to the lower classes of Medina: their harvest is expected with as much anxiety, and attended with as much general rejoicings, as the vintage in the south of Europe; and if the crop fails, which often happens, as these trees are seldom known to produce abundantly for three or four successive years, or is eaten up by the locusts, universal gloom overspreads the population, as if a famine were apprehended.

One species of the Medina dates, the name of which I have forgotten, remains perfectly green although ripe, and dried; another retains a bright saffron colour: these dates are threaded on strings, and sold all over the Hedjaz, where they go by the name of Kalayd es Sham, or necklaces of the North; and the young children frequently wear them round the neck. The first dates are eaten in the begining of June, and at that period of their growth are called Rotab; but the general date- harvest is at the end of that month. In Egypt it is a month later. Dates are dressed in many different ways by the Arabs; boiled in milk, broiled with butter; or reduced to a thick pulp

[p.358] by boiling in water, over which honey is poured; and the Arabs say that a good housewife will daily furnish her lord, for a month, a dish of dates differently dressed.

In these gardens a very common tree is the Ithel, a species of tamarisk, cultivated for its hard wood, of which the Arabs make their camels saddles, and every utensil that requires strong handles.

In the gardens we seldom find the ground perfectly level, and the cultivation is often interrupted by heaps of rocks. On the N.W. and W. sides of the town, the whole plain is so rocky as to defeat all attempts at improvement. The cultivable soil is clay, mixed with a good deal of chalk and sand, and is of a grayish white colour: in other parts it consists of a yellow loam, and also of a substance very similar to bole- earth; small conical pieces of the latter, about an inch and a half long, and dried in the sun, are sold, suspended on a piece of riband, to the visiters of Medina. It is related that Mohammed cured a Bedouin of Beni Hareth, and several others, of a fever by washing their bodies with water in which this earth had been dissolved; and the pilgrims are eager to carry home a memorial of this miracle. The earth is taken from a ditch at a place called El Medshounye, in the neighbourhood of the town.

All the rocky places, as well as the lower ridge of the northern mountainous chain, are covered by a layer of volcanic rock: it is of a bluish black colour, very porous, yet heavy, and, hard, not glazed, like schlacken, and contains frequently small white substances in its pores of the size of a pins head, which I never found crystallised. The plain has a completely black colour from this rock, and the small pieces with which it is overspread. I met with no lava, although the nature of the ground seemed strongly to indicate the neighbourhood of a volcano. Had I enjoyed better health, I should have made some excursions to the more distant parts of the gardens of Medina, to look for specimens of minerals; but the first days of my stay were taken up in making out a plan of the town, and gaining information on its inhabitants; and I was not afterwards capable of the slightest bodily exertion. It was not till my return to Cairo, that, in reading the description of Medina, which I had purchased at the former place, (and of

[p.259] which, and of the descriptions of Mekka, I could never find copies in the Hedjaz, notwithstanding all my endeavours,) I met with the account of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption which took place in the immediate neighbourhood of Medina about the middle of the thirteenth century; and upon inquiry I learnt from a man of Medina, established at Cairo, that the place of the stream of lava is still shown, at about one hour E. of the town. During my stay, I remember to have once made the observation to my cicerone, in going with him to Djebel Ohod, that the country appeared as if all burnt by fire; but I received an unmeaning reply; no hint or information afterwards in the town which could lead me to suppose that I was near so interesting, a phenomenon of nature.

Some extracts from the work to which I have alluded, describing this eruption, may be thought worthy of the readers attention, and are given in the subjoined note. [On the first of the month Djomad el Akhyr, in A.H. 654, a slight earthquake was felt in the town; on the third, another stronger shock took place, during the day; about two oclock in the ensuing morning, repeated violent shocks awakened the inhabitants, increasing in force during the rest of the morning, and continuing at intervals till Friday the sixth of the month. Many houses and walls tumbled down. On Friday morning a thundering noise was heard, and at mid-day the fire burst forth. On the spot where it issued from the earth a smoke first arose, which completely darkened the sky. To the eastward of the town, towards the close of day, the flames were visible, a fiery mass of immense size, which bore the appearance of a large town, with walls, battlements, and minarets, ascending to heaven. Out of this flame issued a river of red and blue fire, accompanied with the noise of thunder. The burning waves carried whole rocks before them, and farther on heaped them up like high mounds. The river was approaching nearer to the town, when Providence sent a cool breeze, which arrested its further progress on this side. All the inhabitants of Medina passed that night in the great mosque; and the reflection of the fire changed that night into day-light. The fiery river took a northern direction, and terminated at the mountain called Djebel Wayra, standing in the valley called Wady el Shathat, which is a little to the eastward of Djebel Ohod [two miles and a half from Medina]. For five days the flame was seen ascending, and the river remained burning for three months. Nobody could approach it on account of its heat. It destroyed all rocks; but, (says the historian,) this being the sacred territory of Medina, where Mohammed had ordained that no trees should be cut within a certain space, it spared all the trees it met with in its course. The entire length of the river was four farsakh, or twelve miles; the breadth of it four miles; and its depth, eight or nine feet. The valley of Shathat was quite choked up; and the place where it is thus choked, called from this circumstance El Sedd, is still to be seen. The flame was seen at Yembo and at Mekka. An Arab of Teyma (a small town in the N.E. Desert from six to eight days journey from Medina) wrote a letter during night by the light reflected from it to that distance. In the same year, a great inundation of the Tigris happened, by which half the town of Baghdad was destroyed; and at the close of this same year the temple of Medina itself was burnt to the ground. The Arabs were prepared to witness such a conflagration; for they remembered the saying of Mohammed, that the day of judgment will not happen until a fire shall appear in the Hedjaz, which shall cause the necks of the camels at Basra to shine.]

From this account the stream of lava must be sought at about one

[p.360] hour distant to the E. of the town. The volcanic productions which cover the immediate neighbourhood of the town and the plain to the west of it, are probably owing to former eruptions of the same volcano; for nothing is said, in the relation, of stones having been cast out of the crater to any considerable distance, and the whole plain to the westward, as far as Wady Akyk, three miles distant, is covered with the above-described volcanic productions. I have little doubt that on many other points of that great chain of mountains, similar volcanoes have existed. The great number of warm springs found at almost every station of the road to Mekka, authorises such a conjecture.

I am here induced, by a passage in the extract contained in the last note, to offer the following remark. According to the strict precept of Mohammed, that part of the territory of Medina which encompassed the town in a circle of twelve miles, having on the S. side Djebel Ayre, and on the N. side Djebel Thor, (a small mountain just behind Djebel Ohod,) as the boundary, should be considered sacred; no person should be slain therein, except aggressors, and enemies, in self-defence, or infidels who polluted it; and neither game should be killed nor trees cut in such a holy territory. This interdiction, however, is at present completely set aside; trees are cut, game is killed, bloody affrays happen in the town itself and

[p.361] in its immediate vicinity ; and though an avowed follower of any other religion than the Mohammedan is not permitted to enter the gates of the town, yet several instances occurred, during my stay there, (and while I resided at Yembo,) of Greek Christians employed in the commissariat of the army of Tousoun Pasha encamping within gun-shot of Medina, previous to their departure for the head-quarters of the Pasha, then in the province of Kasym.

[p.362] ACCOUNT OF SOME PLACES OF ZYARA,

OR OBJECTS OF PIOUS VISITATION IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MEDINA.

ON the day after the pilgrim has performed his first duties at the mosque and the tomb, he usually visits the burial-ground of the town, in memory of the many saints who lie buried there. It is just beyond the town-walls, near the gate of Bab Djoma, and bears the name of El Bekya. A square of several hundred paces is enclosed by a wall which, on the southern side, joins the suburb, and on the others is surrounded with date-groves. Considering the sanctity of the persons whose bodies it contains, it is a very mean place; and perhaps the most dirty and miserable burial-ground in any eastern town of the size of Medina. It does not contain a single good tomb, nor even any large inscribed blocks of stone covering tombs; but instead, mere rude heaps of earth, with low borders of loose stones placed about them. The Wahabys are accused of having defaced the tombs; and in proof of this, the ruins of small domes and buildings are pointed out, which formerly covered the tombs of Othman, Abbas, Setna Fatme, and the aunts of Mohammed, which owed their destruction to those sectaries: but they would certainly not have annihilated every other simple tomb built of stone here, which they did neither at Mekka nor any other place. The miserable state of this cemetery must have existed prior to the Wahaby conquest, and is to be ascribed to the niggardly minds of the towns-people, who are little disposed to

[p.363] incur any expense in honouring the remains of their celebrated countrymen. The whole place is a confused accumulation of heaps of earth, wide pits, rubbish, without a single regular tomb-stone. The pilgrim is made to visit a number of graves, and, while standing before them, to repeat prayers for the dead. Many persons make it their exclusive profession to watch the whole day near each of the principal tombs, with a handkerchief spread out, in expectation of the pilgrims who come to visit them; and this is the exclusive privilege of certain Ferráshyns and their families, who have divided the tombs among themselves, where each takes his post, or sends his servant in his stead.

The most conspicuous personages that lie buried here are Ibrahim, the son of Mohammed, who died in his youth; Fatme, his daughter, according to the opinion of many, who say that she was buried here and not in the mosque; several of the wives of Mohammed; some of his daughters; his foster-mother; Fatme, the daughter of Asad, and mother of Aly; Abbas ibn Abd el Motalleb; Othman ibn Affan, one of the immediate successors of Mohammed, who collected the scattered leaves of the Koran into one volume; the Martyrs, or Shohada, as they are called, who were slain here by the army of the heretics under Yezyd ibn Mawya, whose commander, Moslim, in A.H. 60, (others say 62,) came from Syria and sacked the town, the inhabitants of which had acknowledged the rebel Abdallah ibn Hantala as their chief; Hassan ibn Aly, whose trunk only lies buried here, his head having been sent to Cairo, where it is preserved in the fine mosque called El Hassamya; the Imam Malek ibn Anes, the founder of the sect of the Malekites. Indeed so rich is Medina in the remains of great saints that they have almost lost their individual importance, while the relics of one of the persons just mentioned would be sufficient to render celebrated any other Moslim town. As a formula of the invocation addressed here to the manes of the saint, I shall transcribe that which is said with uplifted hands, after having performed a short prayer of two rikats, over the tomb of Othman ibn Affan: Peace be with thee, O Othman! Peace be with thee, O friend of the chosen! Peace be with

[p.364] thee, O collector of the Koran! Mayest thou deserve the contentment of God! May God ordain Paradise as thy dwelling, thy resting-place, thy habitation, and thy abode! I deposit on this spot, and near thee, O Othman, the profession everlasting, from this day to the day of judgment, that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is his servant and his prophet.

The inhabitants of Medina bury all their dead on this ground, in the same homely tombs as those of the saints. Branches of palm-trees are stuck upon the graves, and changed once a year, at the feast of Ramadhan, when the family visits the grave of its relations, where it sometimes remains for several days.

VISIT TO DJEBEL OHOD.--One of the principal Zyara or places of sacred visitation of Medina, is Ohod, with the tomb of Hamze, the uncle of Mohammed. The mountain of Ohod forms part of the great chain, branching out from it into the eastern plain, so as to stand almost insulated. It is three quarters of an hours walk from the town. In the fourth year of the Hedjra, when Mohammed had fixed his residence at Medina, the idolatrous Koreysh, headed by Abou Sofyan, invaded these parts, and took post at this mountain. Mohammed issued from the town, and there fought, with great disparity of force, the most arduous battle in which he was ever engaged. His uncle Hamze was killed, together with seventy-five of his followers: he himself was wounded, but he killed with his own lance one of the bravest men of the opposite party, and gained at last a complete victory. The tomb of Hamze and of the seventy-five martyrs, as they are called, form the object of the visit to Djebel Ohod.

I started on foot, with my cicerone, by the Syrian gate, in the company of several other visiters; for it was thought unsafe to go there alone, from fear of Bedouin robbers. The visit is generally performed on Thursdays. We passed the place where the Syrian Hadj encamp, and where several wells and half-ruined tanks, cased with stone, supply the pilgrims with water during their three days stay at this place, in their way to and from Mekka. A little further on is a pretty kiosk, with a dome, now likewise half-ruined, called El Goreyn, where

[p.365] the chief of that caravan usually takes up his temporary abode. The road further on is completely level; date-trees stand here and there, and several spots are seen which the people only cultivate when the rains are copious. About one mile from the town stands a ruined edifice of stones and bricks, where a short prayer is recited in remembrance of Mohammed having here put on his coat of mail, when he went to engage the enemy. Farther on is a large stone, upon which it is said that Mohammed leaned for a few minutes on his way to Ohod; the visiter is enjoined to press his back against this stone, and to recite the Fateha, or opening chapter of the Koran.

In approaching the mountain, we passed a torrent, coming from E. or S.E. with water to the depth of two feet, the remains of the rain that had fallen five days ago. It swells sometimes so high as to become impassable, and inundates the whole surrounding country. To the east of this torrent, the ground leading towards the mountain is barren, stony, with a slight ascent, on the slope of which stands a mosque, surrounded by about a dozen ruined houses, once the pleasure villas of wealthy towns-people; near them is a cistern, filled by the torrent-water. The mosque is a square solid-built edifice of small dimensions. Its dome was thrown down by the Wahabys, but they spared the tomb. The mosque encloses the tomb of Hamze, and those of his principal men who were slain in the battle; namely, Mesab ibn Omeyr, Djafar ibn Shemmas, and Abdallah ibn Djahsh. The tombs are in a small open yard, and, like those of the Bekya, mere heaps of earth, with a few loose stones placed around them. Beside them is a small portico, which serves as a mosque: a short prayer is said here, and the pilgrims then advance to the tombs, where they recite the chapter of Yasein (from the Koran), or the short chapter of El Khalas forty times; after which Hamze and his friends are invoked to intercede with the Almighty, and obtain for the pilgrim and all his family, faith, health, wealth, and the utter destruction of all their enemies. Money is given, as usual, at every corner, to the guardians of the mosque, of the tombs, to the Mueddin, Imám, &c. &c.

A little further on, towards the mountain, which is only at a gun-shot distance, a small cupola marks the place where Mohammed was

[p.366] struck in battle by a stone, which knocked out four of his front teeth, and felled him to the ground. [This story is related here, though the historians of the Prophet do not agree on the subject.] His party thought he was killed; but the angel Gabriel immediately appeared, and exclaimed that he was still alive. At a short distance from this cupola, which like all the rest has been demolished, are the tombs of twelve other partisans of the Prophet, who were killed in the battle. They form together several mounds of rubbish and stones, in which their respective tombs can no longer be distinguished. Prayers are again recited, with that passage of the Koran which says, in speaking of the slain: Do not think that those who were killed in war with the infidels are dead; no, they are living, and their reward is with their Lord: a sentence still used to encourage, even in our days, the Turkish soldiers in their battles with Europeans.

The mountain of Ohod consists of different coloured granite; on its sides I likewise found flint, but no lava. The entire mountain is almost four miles in length, from west to east. Having been the scene of the famous battle, which so much contributed to strengthen the party of Mohammed and his new religion, it is not surprising that Djebel Ohod should be the object of peculiar veneration. The people of Medina believe that on the day of resurrection it will be transported into Paradise; and that when mankind shall appear before the Almighty for judgment, they will be assembled upon it, as the most favoured station. The mountain of Ayra, mentioned above as situated to the S.W. of the town, (about the same distance from it as Ohod is, on the other side,) will on that day experience a much less enviable fate. Having denied water to the Prophet, who once lost his way in its valleys, and became thirsty, it will be punished for inhospitality, by being cast at once into hell.

The people of Medina frequently visit Ohod, pitching their tents in the ruined houses, where they remain a few days, especially convalescents, who during their illness had made a vow to slaughter a sheep in honour of Hamze, if they recovered. Once a year, (in July, I

[p.367] believe,) the inhabitants flock thither in crowds, and remain for three days, as if it were during the feast days of the saint. Regular markets are then kept there: and this visit forms one of the principal public amusements of the town.

KOBA.--In this neighbouring village all the pilgrims visit the spot where Mohammed first alighted on coming from Mekka: it lies to the south of the town, distant about three quarters of an hour. The road to it passes through a plain, overgrown with date-trees, and covered in many spots with white sand. At half an hour from the town begin gardens, which spread over a space of four or five miles in circuit, and form, perhaps, the most fertile and agreeable spot in the Northern Hedjaz. All kinds of fruit-trees (with the exception of apple and pear, none of which I believe grow in Arabia,) are seen in the gardens, which are all enclosed by walls, and irrigated by numerous wells. It is from hence that Medina is supplied with fruits: lemon and orange trees, pomegranates, bananas, vines, peach, apricot, and fig trees, are planted amidst the date and nebek trees, and form as thick groves as in Syria and Egypt, while their shade renders Koba a delightful residence. The kheroa (Ricinus, or Palma Christi,) is likewise very common here. The village is frequently visited by the people of Medina; parties are continually made to spend the day, and many sick people are carried to enjoy the benefits of a cooler atmosphere.

In the midst of these groves stands the Mesdjed of Koba, with about thirty or forty houses. It is a mean building, and much decayed. In the interior of it several holy spots are visited, at each of which a short prayer of two rikats is performed, and some additional invocations recited in honour of the place. We first see here the Mobrak el Naka, the very spot on the floor of the mosque where the she-camel which Mohammed rode, in his flight from Mekka, crouched down, and would not rise again, thus advising her master to stop here, which he did for a few days, previous to his entering Medina. It was to consecrate this spot, that the mosque was founded by Mohammed himself with loose stones, which were changed into a regular building the year after, by Benou Ammer ibn Owf; but the present building is of modern construction. Further on is shown the spot

[p.368] upon which Mohammed once stood, after his prayers, and distinctly saw from thence Mekka, and all that the Koreysh were doing there; and, thirdly, the spot where the Koranic passage relating to the inhabitants of Koba was revealed to Mohammed: A temple, from its first day founded in piety; there thou best standest up to prayers. There men live who like to be purified: and God loves the clean. In this passage an allusion is discovered to the extraordinary personal cleanliness of those who inhabited Koba, more especially in certain acts of ablution.

I saw no inscriptions in this mosque, except those of hadjys who had written their names on the white-washed walls; a practice in which Eastern travellers indulge as frequently as European tourists, adding often to the names some verses of favourite poets, or sentences of the Koran. The mosque forms a narrow colonnade round a small open courtyard, in which the Mobrak el Naka stands, with a small cupola over it, rising to the height of about six feet. On issuing from the mosque, we were assailed by a crowd of beggars. At a short distance from it, among the cluster of houses, stands a small chapel, called Mesdjed Aly, in honour of Aly, the cousin of Mohammed. Close to it, in a garden, a deep well is shown, called Ayn Ezzerka, with a small chapel, built at its mouth. This was a favourite spot with Mohammed, who used often to sit among the trees with his disciples, enjoying the pleasure of seeing the water issuing in a limpid stream; an object which at the present day powerfully attracts the natives of the East, and, with the addition of a shady tree, is perhaps the only feature of landscape which they admire. When he once was sitting here, the Prophets seal-ring dropped into the well, and could never be again found; and the supposition that the ring is still there, renders the well famous. The water is tepid at its source, with a slight sulphureous taste, which it loses in its course. It is collected together with that of several other springs into the canal which supplies Medina, and which is kept constantly flowing by the supply of various channels of well-water. Omar el Khatab first carried the spring to Medina; but the present canal was built at the expense of the Sultan Soleyman, son of Selim I., about A.H. 973: it is a very solid subterranean work.

[p.369] This canal, and that of Mekka, are the greatest architectural curiosities in the Hedjaz. Near to the mosque of Koba stands a building erected by Sultan Morad, for dervishes. A little beyond the village, on the road towards the town, stands a small chapel, called Mesdjed Djoma, in remembrance of the spot where the people of Medina met Mohammed upon his arrival.

EL KEBLETYN.--Towards the N.W. of the town, about one hour distant, a place is visited bearing this name. It is said to consist of two rude pillars (for I did not see it myself,) and was the spot where Mohammed first changed the Kebly, or the direction in which prayers are said, in the seventeenth month after the Hedjra, or his flight to Medina. Together with the Jewish Bedouins, his own adherents had till then Jerusalem as their Kebly; but Mohammed now turned it towards the Kaaba, to which that fine passage of the Koran alludes: Say, to God belong the east and the west; he directs whomsoever he pleases in the road of piety:--a sentence written to convince the Moslims, that wherever they turned, in their prayers, God stood before them. Near this spot stands a small ruined chapel.

The above are the only places visited by pilgrims. The country round Koba, and towards the S.E. of the town, presents many spots of nearly equal beauty with Koba, which in summer are places of recreation to the people of Medina; but I believe there are no villages any where to be seen, only insulated houses, or small groupes of buildings, scattered amongst the date-trees.

[p.370]ON THE INHABITANTS OF MEDINA.

LIKE the Mekkans, the people of Medina are for the greater part strangers, whom the Prophets tomb, and the gains which it insures to its neighbours, have drawn to this place. But few original Arabs, descendants of those families who lived at Medina when Mohammed came from Mekka, now remain in the town; on the contrary, we find in it colonies from almost every quarter of the Muselman empire, east and west. I was informed, that of the original Arab residents, to whom the Mohammedan writers apply the name of El Ansar, and who at Mohammeds entrance were principally composed of the tribes of Ows and Khezredj, only about ten families remain who can prove their descent by pedigrees, or well-ascertained traditions: they are poor people, and live as peasants in the suburbs and gardens. The number of Sherifs descended of Hassan, the grandson of Mohammed, is considerable; but most of them are not originally from this place, their ancestors having come hither from Mekka, during the wars waged by the Sherifs for the possession of that town. They almost all belong to the class of olemas, very few military sherifs, like those of Mekka, being found here. Among them is a small tribe of Beni Hosseyn, descended from Hosseyn, the brother of Hassan. They are said to have been formerly very powerful at Medina, and had appropriated to themselves the chief part of the income of the mosque: in the thirteenth century, (according to Samhoudy,) they were the privileged

[p.371] guardians of the Prophets tomb; but at present they are reduced to about a dozen families, who still rank among the grandees of the town and its most wealthy inhabitants. They occupy a quarter by themselves, and obtain very large profits, particularly from the Persian pilgrims who pass here. They are universally stated to be heretics, of the Persian sect of Aly, and to perform secretly the rites of that creed, although they publicly profess the doctrines of the Sunnys. This report is too general, and confirmed by too many people of respectability, to be doubted: but the Beni Hosseyn have powerful influence in the town, in appearance strictly comply with the orthodox principles, and are therefore not molested.

It is publicly said that the remnants of the Ansars, and great numbers of the peasant Arabs who cultivate the gardens and fields in the neighbourhood of the town, are addicted to the same heresy. The latter, called Nowakhele, (a name implying that they live among date-trees,) are numerous, and very warlike. They had offered determined resistance to the Wahabys, and in civil contests have proved always superior to the towns-people. They are said to be descendants of the partisans of Yezid, the son of Mawya, who took and sacked the town sixty years after the Hedjra. They marry only among themselves; and exhibit on all occasions a great esprit de corps. Many of them publicly profess the creed of Aly when in their date-groves, but are Sunnys whenever they come to town. Some of them are established in the suburbs, and they have monopolised the occupation of butchers. In quarrels I have heard individuals among them publicly called sectaries and rowafedh, without their ever denying it. In the Eastern Desert, at three or four days journey from Medina, lives a whole Bedouin tribe, called Beni Aly, who are all of this Persian creed; and it is matter of astonishment to find the two most holy spots of the orthodox Muselman religion surrounded, one by the sectaries of Zeyd, and the other by those of Aly, without an attempt having been made to dislodge them.

Among the ancient families of Medina are likewise reckoned a few descendants of the Abassides, now reduced to great poverty: they

[p.372] go by the name of Khalifye, implying that they are descended from the Khalifes.

Most of the inhabitants are of foreign origin, and present as motley a race as those of Mekka. No year passes without some new settlers being added to their number; and no pilgrim caravan crosses the town without leaving here a few of its travellers, who stop at first with the intention of remaining for a year or two only, but generally continue to reside here permanently. Descendants of people from northern Turkey are very numerous; but the greater part trace their origin to settlers of the southern countries of Arabia, Yemen and Hadramaut, and from Syria, and Egypt, and many also from Barbary. My cicerone was called Sheikh Sad-eddyn el Kurdy, because his grandfather was a Kurd who had settled here: the proprietor of the house in which I lived was Seyd Omar, a Sherif of the Yafáÿ tribe of Yemen, whose ancestors had come hither several hundred years since. Indians are likewise found, but in less number than at Mekka. As there, they are druggists, and petty shopkeepers; but I believe that no Indian wholesale dealers in their native products are to be found at Medina. They adhere to their national dress and manners, forming a small colony, and rarely intermarry or mix with the other inhabitants.

The individuals of different nations settled here have in their second and third generations all become Arabs as to features and character; but are, nevertheless, distinguishable from the Mekkans; they are not nearly so brown as the latter, thus forming an intermediate link between the Hedjaz people and the northern Syrians. Their features are somewhat broader, their beards thicker, and their body stouter, than those of the Mekkans; but the Arab face, the expression, and cast of features are in both places the same.

The Medinans in their dress resemble more the Turkish than their southern neighbours: very few of them wear the beden, or the national Arab cloak without sleeves; but even the poorer people dress in long gowns, with a cloth djobbe, or upper cloak, or, instead of it, an abba, of the same brown and white stripe as is common in Syria and all over the Desert. Red Tunis bonnets and Turkish shoes are

[p.373] more used here than at Mekka, where the lower classes wear white bonnets, and sandals. People in easy circumstances dress well, wearing good cloth cloaks, fine gowns, and, in winter, good pelisses, brought from Constantinople by way of Cairo; which I found a very common article of dress in January and February, a season when it is much colder here than Europeans would expect it to be in Arabian deserts. Generally speaking, we may say that the Medinans dress better than the Mekkans, though with much less cleanliness: but no national costume is observed here; and, particularly in the cold of winter, the lower classes cover themselves with whatever articles of dress they can obtain at low prices in the public auctions; so that it is not uncommon to see a man fitted out in the dress of three or four different countries-like an Arab as high as his waist, and like a Turkish soldier over his breast and shoulders. The richer people make a great display of dress, and vie with each other in finery. I saw more new suits of clothes here, even when the yearly feasts were terminated, than I had seen before in any other part of the East. As at Mekka, the Sherifs wear no green, but simple white muslin turbans, excepting those from the northern part of Turkey, who have recently settled here, and who continue to wear the badge of their noble extraction.

Prior to the Wahaby conquest, when the inhabitants were often exposed to bloody affrays among themselves, they always went armed with the djombye, or crooked Arabian knife: at present few of these are seen; but every body, from the highest to the lowest, carries in his hand a long heavy stick. The rich have their sticks headed with silver; others fix iron spikes to them; and thus make a formidable weapon, which the Arabs handle with much dexterity. The women dress like those of Mekka; blue gowns being worn by the lower classes, and silk mellayes by the higher.

The Bedouins settled in and near the suburbs, use exactly the same costume as those of the Syrian Desert: a shirt, abba, a kessye on the head, a leathern girdle in which the knife is stuck, and sandals on the feet. Even those who have become settlers, form a distinct race, and do not intermix with the rest of the towns-people. They preserve their national dress, language, and customs, and live in their

[p.374] houses as they would under tents in the Desert. Of all Eastern nations, the Arabian Bedouins perhaps are those who abandon their national habits with most reluctance. In Syria, in Egypt, and in the Hedjaz, settlements are seen, the members of which have become cultivators for several centuries back; yet they have adopted only few of the habits of peasants, and still pride themselves on their Bedouin origin and manners.

The Medinans have not the same means of gaining a living, as the Mekkans. Although this town is never free from foreign pilgrims, there is never that immense influx of hadjys which renders Mekka so populous for several months in the year, and which makes it a market for all parts of the East. The hadjys who come to Medina are seldom merchants, or at least do not go there for mercantile pursuits, and therefore leave on the coast their heavy baggage. Even the Syrian merchants who pass with the great caravan seldom engage in trade, unless it be for some camel-loads of tobacco and dried fruits. The Medina trade is therefore merely for home consumption, and to supply the neighbouring Bedouins with articles of dress and provisions. These are received by way of Yembo, and come almost exclusively from Egypt. No great merchants are settled in Medina: the trade is merely retail; and those who possess capital, generally invest it in goods, as usual throughout Syria and Egypt, there not being any public institution like banks, or trading societies, or national funds, from which the capitalist might derive interest for his money. The Turkish law rigorously forbids the taking of interest; and even if it were otherwise, there is not any government nor any class of men to which the people would intrust considerable sums. The investment of capital in landed property is also liable to great risk. [By a decree of Mohammed Aly in 1813, the purchase of land in Egypt is rendered impracticable; for it orders all the Moltezims (or landed proprietors who shared in the possession of villages and grounds, and who formed a class living on their rents in the country towns,) to receive their yearly revenue from the Pashas treasury, where they suffered every kind of humiliation and injustice; and the whole of the soil was declared to be the property of government, or in other words of Mohammed Aly himself, who leaves the cultivation of it to the fellahs on his own terms. It happened lately that the Fellahs, who farmed five thousand acres belonging to the village of Damkour near Cairo, were deprived of their leases on the land being declared public property, because the Pasha wished to sow clover for his cavalry upon the soil that the Fellahs had possessed. Landed property in Syria also subjects the owner to great inconveniences: he is oppressed by every governor of a district, and by every soldier who passes; he suffers in his receipts from the extortions of the Pashas, which generally fall more heavily upon the cultivator than upon the monied man: and if he do not constantly watch his peasants, he is most probably cheated out of all his profits.] The usual

[p.375] method is to enter into partnership with different petty merchants or retail dealers, and obtain a share of their profits; but it is subject to almost as much anxiety as an active trade, from the necessity of keeping a constant account with the partners, and incessantly watching them. Usury is practised, and an annual interest from thirty to fifty per cent is paid at Cairo for money: but few of the Turkish merchants descend to this practice, which is reckoned dishonorable. Usury is wholly in the hands of Jews, and Christians the outcasts of Europe. There is, perhaps, nothing in the present deplorable state of eastern society that has a more baneful effect upon the minds and happiness of the people, than the necessity of continuing during their whole lives in business full of intrigues and chances. The cheering hopes which animate an European, the prospect of enjoying in old age the profits of early exertions, are unknown to the native of the East, whose retirement would bring nothing but danger, by marking him as wealthy in the eyes of his rapacious governor. The double influence of the Turkish government and Muselman religion have produced such an universal hypocrisy, that there is scarcely a Mohammedan (whose tranquil air, as he smokes his pipe reclining on the sofa, gives one an idea of the most perfect contentment and apathy,) that does not suffer under all the agonies of envy, unsatisfied avarice, ambition, or the fear of losing his ill-gotten property.

Travellers who pass rapidly through the East, without a knowledge of the language, and rarely mixing with any but persons interested in misrepresenting their true character, are continually deceived by the dignified deportment of the Turks, their patriarchal manners and solemn speeches,--although they would ridicule a Frenchman who,