 CHAPTER 18 OF PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF PILGREMAGE TO EL MADINAH AND MECCA It is equally difficult to define, politically and geographically, the limits of al-Hijaz, while some authors, as Abu al-Fidah, fix its northern frontier at A'ila or Fort of Aqaba and the desert, making Al-Yaman its southern limit. Others include in it only the tract of land lying between Mecca and Al-Madinah. A'bul-Fidah limits al-Hijaz to the east by Al-Yamama, Najd and the Syrian desert, and to the west by the Red Sea. The Greeks, not without reason, include in it their Arabia Petria. Nibur places the southern boundary at Ha'il, a little town south of Pun-Fidah. Captain Head makes the village Al-Kasir opposite the island of Khutambul, the limit of al-Hijaz, to the south, and the Ft-Nuq. The country has no natural boundaries, and its political limits change with every generation. Perhaps, therefore, the best distribution of its frontier would be that, which includes all the property called the Holy Land, making Yambua the northern and Jidda the southern extremes. While a line drawn through Al-Madinah, Sweriqiyah and Jab-Al-Qura, the mountain of Taif might represent its eastern boundary. Thus, al-Hijaz would be an irregular parallelogram, about 250 miles in length, with a maximum breadth of 150 miles. Two meanings are assigned to the name of this venerated region. Most authorities make it mean the separator, or the barrier, between Najd and Tahama, or between Al-Yaman and Syria. Ft-Nuq, or according to others between Al-Yaman and Syria, and Al-Ft-Nuq. According to others, it signifies the colligated, i.e. by the mountains. It is to be observed that the people of the country, especially the Bedouin, distinguish the lowlands from the high region by different names. The former are called Tahama al-Hijaz, the sea coast of al-Hijaz, as we should say in India below the gout. The latter is known peculiarly as al-Hijaz. Ft-Nuq, if you ask a Bedouin near Mecca when his fruit comes, he will reply min al-Hijaz, from the Hijaz, meaning from the mountainous part of the country, about Taif. This would be an argument in favor of those who make the word signify a place tied together by the mountains. It is notorious that the Bedouin are the people who best preserve the use of old and disputed words, for which reason they were constantly referred to by the learned in the Pami days of Muslim philology. Al-Hijaz, also in this signification, well describes the country a succession of ridges and mountain chains, whereas such name as the barrier would appear to be the work of some geographer in his study. Thus a nijdu is so called from its high and open lands, and, briefly in this part of the world, names are most frequently derived from physical and material peculiarity of soil or climate, and a footnote. Madinat-Nibi, or the Prophet's city, or as it is usually called for brevity, Al-Madinah, or the city, is situated on the borders of nijd, upon a vast plateau of high land which forms central Arabia, footnote. Amongst the people who, like the Arabs or the Spaniards, hold a plurality of names to be a sign of dignity, so illustrious a spot as Al-Madinah could not fail to be rich in some nomenclature, a hadith declares to Al-Madinah belong ten names, books, however, enumerate nearly a hundred, of which a few will suffice as specimen, from the root tib, or good, sweet, or lawful, allude to the physical excellencies of Al-Madinah as regard to the climate, the perfume of the Prophet's tomb, and of the red rose which was the thorn before it blossomed by the sweat of his brow, and to its being free from all moral impurity such as the presence of infidels or worshippers of idols. Muhammad declares that he was ordered by God to change the name of the place to Taba from Yathrib or Asrib. The latter, according to some, was a proper name of the son of Noah. Others applied originally to a place west of Mount Ahud, not to Al-Madinah itself, and quote the plural form of the word Atharib, or spots abounding in palms and fountains, as proved that it does not belong exclusively to a person. However, this may be in auspicious signification of Yathrib whose root is Sarab or destruction, and the notorious use of the name by the pagan Arabs have combined to make it like the other heathen designation Al-Ghalaba or the Obsolete, and a pious Muslim who pronounces the word is careful to purify his mouth by repeating ten times the name Al-Madinah, Al-Madinah, Al-Madinah. Barah and Barah allude to its obedience and purity, hassuna to its beauty, khairah and khayyara to its goodness, mahabah, habibah, and mahabuba to the favor it found in the eyes of the Prophet, whilst Jabra, Jabbara, and Jabbara, from the root Jabr joining or breaking, at once denote its good influence upon the fortunes of the faithful and its evil effects upon the infidel. Al-Iman, or the faith, is the name under which it is hinted at in the Quran. It is called Shafia, the healer, on account of the curative effects of earth found in its neighborhood, Nasirah, the saving, and Asimah, the preserving, because Muhammad and his companions were secure from fury of their foes there. Faziha, the detector, from its exposing the infidel and the hypocrite, Muslimah and Mu'mina, the faithful city, Mubarakah, the blessed, Mahbura, the happy, Mahtura, the gifted, Mahroosa, the guarded, and Mahfooza, the preserved, allude to the belief that an angel sits in each of its ten main streets to watch over the town and to prevent antichrists entering the rain. At the jail, as this personage is called, will arise in the east, and will peregrinate the earth, but he will be unable to penetrate into Makkah, and on approaching Jabal Uhud, inside of Al-Madinah, he will turn off towards his death place, Asham, or Damascus. In the Taurat, or the Pantatok, the town is called Muqaddisa, the holy, or Marhumah, the pitid, an allusion to the mission of Muhammad. Marzouqah, the fed, is a favorable augury of plenty to it, and Miskina, the poor, hence that it is independent of treasure, of gold, or store, of silver, to keep up its dignity. Al-Maqar, means the residence, or the place of quiet. Makkina, the firmly fixed, in the right faith. The Haram, the sacred, or inviolable, and finally Al-Balad, the town, and Al-Madinah, the city, by excellence. So an inhabitant calls himself Al-Madini, whilst the natives of other and less-favored Madinahs affix Madini to their names. As titles are Ardallah, Allah's land, Ard al-Hijrah, the land of exile, Akkaalat al-Buldaan, the eater of towns, Akkaalat al-Qura, the eater of villages, on account of its superiority, even as Mecca is entitled as Umm Al-Qura, the mother of villages, Bait Rasulullah, house of Allah's prophet, Jazeeraat al-Arab, idol of the Arab, and Haram Rasulullah, the sanctuary of Allah's prophet. In books and letters it has sometimes the title Al-Madinah al-Musharrafah, the exalted, more often than that of Madinah al-Munawwara, the enlightened by the lamp of faith and the column of light supposed to be based upon the prophet's tomb. The Muslims are not the only people who lay claim to Al-Madinah. According to some authors, and the legend is more credible than at first sight it would appear, the old Qwerbers had in Arabia and Persia seven large fire temples, each dedicated to a planet. Al-Madinah, as they pervert the word, was an image of the moon, therefore the place was originally called the religion of the moon. These Qwerbers amongst other sacred spots claim Mecca, where they say Saturn and the moon were conjointly venerated, Jerusalem, the tomb of Ali at Niger, that of Al-Hussein at Karbala and others. These pretensions, of course, the Muslims deny with insistence, which does not prevent certain symptoms of old and decayed faith, peeping out in localities where their presence, if duly understood, would be considered an abomination. This curious fact is abundantly evident in Sindh, and I have alluded to it in the history of Sindh, and a footnote. The limits of the sanctuary is called Hudud-Al-Haram, as defined by the Apostle, may still serve to mark the city's plain. Northwards, at a distance of about three miles, is Jabal-Uhud, or according to others, Jabal-Thor, a hill somewhat beyond Uhud. These are the last ribs of the vast territory and primitive China, which extending from Taurus to near Aden, and from Aden again to Muscat, fringes of the Arabian Trapezium. To the south-west, the plain is bounded by ridges of scouracious basalt, and by a buttress of rock called Jabal-Air, like a hood about three miles distant from the town. Westward, according to some authors, is the mosque of Al-Halifa. On the east, there are no natural boundaries, landmarks, nor even artificial, like the Isle-Main at Mecca. An imaginary line, therefore, is drawn forming an irregular circle of which the town is the center, with a diameter from ten to twelve miles. Such is the sanctuary. Footnote. Within the sanctuary, al-Mahramad, or sins, are forbidden, but the several schools advocate different degrees of strictness. The Imam Malik, for instance, allows no letter in a nearer to Al-Madinah than Jabal-Air, a distance of about three miles. He also forbid slaying wild animals, but at the same time he specifies as no punishment for the offense. Some do not allow the felling of trees, alleging that the Prophet enjoined their preservation as an ornament to the city and a pleasure to the visitors. Al-Khattabi, on the contrary, permits people to cut wood, and this is certainly the general practice. All authors strenuously forbid within the boundaries slaying man, except invaders, infidels, and the sacrilegious, drinking spirits, and leading an immoral life. As regards to the dignity of the sanctuary, there is but one opinion. A number of hadiths testify to its honor, praise its people, and threaten dreadful things to those who injure it or them. It is certainly that, on the last day, the Prophet will intercede for and aid all those who die and are buried at Al-Madinah. Therefore the Imam Malik made but one pilgrimage to Mecca, fearing to leave his bones in any other cemetery but Al-Baqiyah. There is, however, much debate concerning the comparative sanctity of Al-Madinah in Mecca. Some say Muhammad preferred the former, blessing it as Abraham did Mecca. Moreover, as tradition declares that every man's body is drawn from the dust of the ground in which he is buried, Al-Madinah, it is evident, had the honor of supplying materials for the Prophet's person. Others, like Omar, were uncertain in favor of which city to decide. Others openly assert the preeminence of Mecca. The general consensus of Al-Islam, preferring Al-Madinah to Mecca, save only the bite of law in the latter city. This loss is a just milieu-view, by no means in favor with the inhabitants of either place. In the meanwhile, the Meccans claim unlimited superiority over the Medeney and the Medeney over the Meccans. End of a Knoop. Geographically considered, the plain is bounded on the east with a thin line of low, dark hills, traversed by the Derbysherqi or the eastern road, through Enneged Mecca. Southwards, the plateau is open and almost perfectly level as far as the eye can see. Al-Madinah dates its origin doubtless from ancient times, and the cause of its prosperity is evident in the abundant supply of water, a necessity generally scarce in Arabia. The formation of the plateau is in some places salt sand, but usually a white chalk and a lomy clay, which, even by the roughest manipulation, makes tolerable bricks. Lime also abounds. The town is situated upon a gently shelving part of the plain, the lowest portion of which, to judge from the versant, is the southern base of Mount Ahud, hence called Asafila, and the highest Adawali or the plains about Quba and the east. The southern and southern east walls of the suburb are sometimes carried away by violent sail or torrents, which after rain sweep down from the western as well as from the eastern highlands. The water flow is towards Al-Qabba, lowlands in the northern and western hills, little beyond Mount Ahud. This basin receives the drainage of the mountains and the plain according to some absorbing it, according to others collecting it, till of sufficient volume to flow off to the sea. Water, though abundant, is rarely of good quality. In the days of the Prophet the Madani consumed the produce of wells, seven of which are still celebrated by the people. Fiknu. These seven wells will be noticed in Chapter 19. End of Fiknu. Historians relate that Umar II Caliph provided the town with drinking water from the northern parts of the plains by means of an aqueduct. The modern city supplied by a source called Aina Zerqa or Azure Spring, which arises, some says, at the foot of Mount Air, others with great probability in the date groves of Quba. Fiknu. I translate as Zerqa although Sir G. Wilkinson remarks a propose to the Bahrel Azraq, generally translated by us the blue Nile, that when the Arabs wished to say dark or jet black, they use the word Azraq. It is true that Azraq is often applied to indeterminate dark hues, but as what not Azraq is the opposite to a white. Moreover, Azraqa in the feminine is applied to women with light blue eyes. This would be no distinctive appellation if it signifies black eyes, the most universal color. Zerqa Al Yamama is the name given of a celebrated heroine in Arab history and a curious reader who wishes to see how much the West is indebted to the East, even for the materials of legend, will do well to peruse her short story in major prices essay, OMC Depecheval's essay etc., volume 1 page 101. Both these authors, however, assert that Zerqa's eyes, when cut out, were found to contain fibers blackened by the use of coal, and they attribute to her the invention of this pigment. I have often heard the legend from the Arabs who declare that she painted her eyes with ismid, a yellow metal of what kind I have never been able to determine, although its name is everywhere known, in the Fitnu. Its waters were first brought to Al-Madinah by Marwan, governor in Mawiyah's day. It now flows down a subterranean canal about 30 feet below the surface. In places the water is exposed to the air, the steps lead to it for the convenience of the inhabitants. This was the work of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. After passing through the town in turns to the Northwest, its course being marked by a line of circular walls breast high like the caries of Afghanistan placed at unequal distances and resembling wells, it then loses itself in the Nakhil or the palm groves. During my stay at Al-Madinah I always drank this water which appeared to me as the citizen declared it to be sweet and wholesome. Fitnu. Burkhard confounds the Ain-ez-Zaqa with a Beir el-Khatim or the Quba well, of whose produce the surplus only mixes with it and he complains loudly of the detestable water of Madinah, but he was ill at the time otherwise he would not have condemned it so strongly after eulogizing the salt bitter produce of the Macken Zem Zem and the Fitnu. There are many wells in the town as water is found at about 20 feet below the surface of the soil. Few produce anything fit for drinking, some being salt and others bitter, as usual in the hilly countries of the east. The wide beds and fumaras, even in the dry season, will supply travelers for a day or two with an abundance of water filtered through and in some cases flowing beneath the sand. The climate of the plain is celebrated for a long and comparatively speaking a rigorous winter, a popular saying records the opinion of the apostle that he who patiently endures the cold of al-Madinah and the heat of Makkah merits a reward in paradise. Ice is not seen in the town but may frequently be met with, it is said, on Jabal Uhud. Fires are lighted in houses during winter, and policies attack those who at this season imprudently bathe in unwarmed water. The fair complexion of the people prove that this account of the Brumel rigors is not exaggerated. Chilean violent winds from the eastern desert are much dreaded, and though Uhud screens the town on the north and the northeast, a gap in the mountains to the northwest fills the air at times with raw and comfortless blasts. The rain begins in October and lasts with considerable intervals through six months, the clouds gathered by the hilltops and the trees near the town discharge themselves with a balance, and about the equinoxes thunderstorms are common. At such times the Berrel Menachah, or the open space between the town and the suburbs, is a sheet of water, and the land near the southern and the southeastern wall of the fall-borg becomes a pool. Rain, however, is not considered unhealthy here, and the people, unlike the Mackans and the Cairns, expect it with pleasure, because it improves their date trees and fruit plantations. Footnote. The people of Nijd, Eswalin, informs us, believe that the more the palms are watered the more syrup will the fruit produce. They therefore inundate the ground as often as possible, at El Jov, where the date is peculiarly good, the trees are watered regularly every third or fourth day, and the footnote. In winter it usually rains at night, in spring during the morning, and in summer about every evening. This is the case throughout the Hijaz, as explained by the poet Labid in these lines which describe the desolate site of an old encampment. The place had been fertilized by the first spring showers of the constellations, and had been swept by the incessant torrents of the thunder clouds, falling in heavy and in gentle rains. From each night cloud and heavily dropping morning cloud, and the even cloud whose crashings are re-echoed from around, and the European reader will observe that the Arabs generally reckon three seasons, including our autumn, in their summer. The hot weather at El Medina appeared to me as extreme as the high-burnal cold as described to me, but the air was dry and open plain prevented the faint and stagnant solterness which distinguishes Mecca. Moreover, though the afternoons were close, the nights and mornings were cool and dewy. At this season the citizens sleep on the housetops or on the ground outside their doors. Strangers must follow this example with considerable circumspection. The open air is safe in the desert, but in cities it causes valent cataras and febrile affections to the unaccustomed. I collect the following notes upon the disease and medical treatment of the northern Hijaz. El Medina has been visited four times by the Riha al-Asfar or the Yellow Wind or the Asiatic cholera, which is said to have committed great ravages, sometimes carrying off whole households. Fitnoot, properly meaning the yellow wind or air, the antiquity of the word and its origin are still disputed. End of Fitnoot. In the rahmat el-Kabira or the great mercy as the worst attack is piously called, whenever a man vomited, he was abounded to his fate. Before that he was treated with mint, lime juice, and copious drops of coffee. It is still the boast of El Medina that the Taur nor Plague has never passed her frontier. Fitnoot, work-heart's travels in Arabia volume 2 informs us that in A.D. 1815 when Makkah Yambu'a and Jeddah suffered severely from the plague, El Medina and the open country between the two seaports escaped. End of Fitnoot. The Judari or the smallpox appears to be indigenous to the country's bordering upon the Red Sea. We read of it there in the earliest works of the Arabs, and even to the present time it sometimes sweeps through Arabia and the Somali country with desolating violence. Fitnoot. Conjecture, however, goes a little too far when it discovers smallpox in Tair el-Ababil, the swallow-birds, which according to the Qur'an destroyed the host of Abrahat el-Ashram. Major price in his essay may be right in making Ababil the plural of Abillah, a vesicle. But it appears to me that the former is an Arabian and the latter is a Persian word, which have no connection whatsoever. M. C. Perseval, quoting the Seerat al-Rasool, which says that at the time of the smallpox first appeared in Arabia, ascribes the destruction of the host of al-Yaman to an epidemic and violent tempest. The strangest part of the story is that although it occurred at Makkah about two months before Muhammad's birth and, therefore, within the memory of many living at the time, the Prophet alludes to it in the Qur'an as a miracle, and a Fitnoot. In the town of Al-Madinah it is fatal to children, many of whom, however, are in these days inoculated. Fitnoot. In al-Yaman we are told by Nebhar a rude form of inoculation. The mother, pricking the child's arm with a thorn, has been known from time immemorial. My Madinah friend assured me that only during the last generation this practice has been introduced amongst the Bedouin of Al-Hijaz and of Fitnoot. Amongst the Bedouin, old men die of it, but adults are rarely victims either in the city or in the desert. The nurse closes up the room whilst the sun is up and carefully excludes the night air, believing that, as the disease is hot, a breath of wind will kill the patient. Fitnoot. Orientals divide their diseases as they do remedies and articles of diet into cold, hot, and temperate. End of Fitnoot. During the hours of darkness a lighted candle or lamp is always placed by the side of the bed, or the sufferer would die of madness brought on by evil spirits or fright. Sheep's wool is burnt in the sick room as death would follow the inhaling of any perfume. The only remedy I have heard of is pounded kahal, antimony drunk in water, and the same is drawn along the breath of the eyelid to prevent blindness. The diet is ades, or lentils, and a peculiar kind of date called a tamrel berni, Fitnoot. Ades is a grain cheaper than rice on the banks of the Nile. A fact which enlightened England, now paying a hundred times its value for ravellanta arabica apparently ignores, end of Fitnoot. On the twenty-first day the patient is washed with salt and tepid water. Ophthalmia is rare. Fitnoot. Herodotus, uterpe, has two illusions to eye disease, which seems to have afflicted the Egyptians from the most ancient times. Sosostris the Great died stone blind. His successor lost his sight for ten years, and her mic books had reason to devote a whole volume to ophthalmic disease. But in the old days of idolatry the hygienic and prophylactic practices alluded to by Herodotus the greater cleanliness of the people, and the attention paid to the canals and drainage, probably prevented this malaria's disease becoming the scourge which it is now. The similarity of the soil and the climate of Egypt to those upper sinned, and the prevalence of the complaint in both countries assist us in investigating the predisposing causes. These are the nitrous and pungent nature of the soil, what the old great calls acrid matter executing from the earth, and the sudden transition from extreme dryness to excessive damp, checking the invisible perspiration of the circumorbital part, and flying to an organ which is already weakened by the fairest glare of the sun and the fine dust raised with the Khamsin or the Chaliho. Glare and dust alone seldom cause eye disease. Everyone knows that ophthalmia is unknown in the desert, and the people of Al-Hijaz who live in an atmosphere of blaze and sand seldom lose their sight. The Egyptian usually catches ophthalmia in his childhood. It begins with simple conjuctivitis caused by constitutional predisposition, exposure, diet, and allowing the eye to be covered with swarms of lies. He neglects the early symptoms and cares the less for being a cyclops as the infirmity will most probably exempt him from military service. Presently the sane organ becomes affected sympathetically. As before, simple disease of the conjuctiva passes into proland ophthalmia. The man after waiting a while will go to the doctor and show a large sysatrix in each eye the result of an ulcerated cornea. Physics can do nothing for him, he remains blind for life. He is now provided for either by living with his friends who seldom refuse him a loaf of bread, or if industriously inclined by begging, by acting as in, or by engaging himself as a mania, or shunter at funerals. His children are thus predisposed to the paternal complaint, and gradually the race becomes tender-eyed. Most travelers have observed that imported African slaves seldom become blind either in Egypt or in Sind. Few Englishmen settled in Egypt lose their sight, except for the medical men, who cannot afford time to nurse the early symptoms. The use of coffee and of water as beverage has much to do with this. In the days of hard drinking our Egyptian army suffered severely, and the Austrian army in Tuscany showed how often blindness is caused by imported northern habits into southern countries. Many Europeans in Egypt wash their eyes with cold water, especially after walking, and some use once a day a mildly astringent or cooling wash as Gulard's lotion or vinegar and water. They avoid letting flies settle upon their eyes and are of opinion that the evening dews are prejudicial, and that sleeping with open windows lays the foundation of disease. Generally when leaving a hot room, especially a nile coat cabin for the coat damp night air, the more prudent are careful to bathe and to wipe the eyes and forehead as a preparation for change of atmosphere. During my short practice in Egypt I found the greatest advantage from the employment of counter irritants. Blisters and pomade emit teeth apply to the temples and behind the ears. Native practitioners greatly err by confining their patients in the dark rooms, thereby injuring the general health and laying the foundation of chronic disease. They are ignorant that unless the optic nerve be affected, the stimulus of light is beneficial to the eye, and people, by their dress, favor the effects of glare and dust. The tarbouj, no longer surrounded as of old by huge turbines, is the least efficient of protectors, and the comparative reality of ophthalmic disease among the women who wear veils proves that the exposure is one of its coefficient causes, and a footnote. In the summer, quotidian and tertian fevers, humma thalith, are not uncommon, and if accompanied by emetism they are frequently fatal. The attack generally begins with a nafaza or a cold fit, and is followed by al-humma, the hot stage. The principal remedies are cooling drinks such as sikand jabeen, oxymel, and syrups. After the fever the face and body frequently swell, and in dirt lumps appear on the legs and stomach. There are also low fevers, called simpli humma, they are usually treated by burning charms in the patient's room. Jaundice and bilious complaints are common, and the former is popularly cured in a peculiar way. The sick man looks into a pot full of water, whilst the exerciser reciting a certain spell draws the heads of two needles from the patient's ears along his eyes, down his face, lastly dipping them into water, which at once becomes yellow. Others have mirayat or magic mirrors, on which the patient looks and loses the complaint. Footnote. This invention dates from the ancient times, and both in the East and the West has been used by the weird brotherhood to produce the appearance of the absent and the dead, to discover treasure, to detect thieves, to cure disease, and to learn the secrets of unknown world. The Hindus called it anjan, and formed it by applying lamp-black made of a certain root, and mixed with oil to the palm of a footling child, male or female. The Greeks used oil purred into a boy's hand. Cornelius Agrippa had a crystal mirror, which material also served accounts de Saint-Germain and Cagliostro. Dr. D's showstone was a bit of a candle-cold. The modern Sindians know the art, by the name of Ganyo or Vinyano. There, as in southern Persia, ink is rubbed upon the seer's thumbnail. The people of North and Africa are considered skillful in this science, and I have a Maghribi magic formula for inking the hand of a boy, a black slave, girl, a virgin, or a pregnant woman, which differs materially from those generally known. The modern Egyptians call it Zerbel-Mendal, and there is scarcely a man in Cairo who does not know something about it. In selecting subjects to hold the ink, they observe the right hand, and reject all who have not what is called, in palmistry, the linea media naturalis, straight and deeply cut. Even the barbarous Finns look into a glass of brandy, and the natives of Australia gaze at a kind of shining stone. Lady Blessington's crystal ball is fresh in the memory of the present generation, and most men have heard of electrobiology and the Cairo magician. Upon this latter subject, a vexed one, I must venture a few remarks. In the first account of the magician by Mr. Lane, we have a fair and dispassionate recital of certain magical, mystical, or mesmeric phenomena which excited considerable curiosity and interest throughout the civilized world. As usual, in such matters, the civilized world was wholly ignorant of what was going on at home, otherwise in London, Paris, and New York they might have found dozens studying the science. But a few years before, Dr. Herr Klotz had described the same practice in India, filling three goodly pages, but he called his work Kanun al-Islam, and consequently, despite its excellencies, it fell stillborn from the press. Lady H. Stanhope frequently declared the spell by which the face of an absent person is thrown upon a mirror to be within the reach of the humblest and most contemptible of magicians. But the civilized world did not care to believe a prophetess. All, however, were aroused by Mr. Lane's discovery, and determined to decide the question by the ordeal of reason. Accordingly, in A.D. 1844, Mr. Lane, aided by Lord Nugent and others, discovered that a coarse and stupid fraud had been perpetrated upon him by Earthman Effendi, the Scotchman. In 1845, Sir G. Wilkinson remarked of this rationalism. The explanation lately offered that Earthman Effendi was in collusion with the magician is neither fair on him nor satisfactory, as he was not present when those cases occurred which were made so much of in Europe. And he proposed leading questions and accidents as the word of the riddle. Ethan attributed the whole affair to shots, as cool boys call them, and ranked success under the head of Paley's tentative miracles. A writer in the quarterly explained them by suggesting the probability of diverse, impossible, optical combinations, and less the part of belief should have been left unrepresented. Ms. Martino was enabled to see clear signs of atmospheric action, and by the decisive experiment of self discovered the magic to be an affair of mesmerism. Melancholy to relate, after all this philosophy, the herd of travelers at Cairo is still divided in opinion about the magician, some holding his performance to be all humbug, others darkly hinting that there may be something in it. End of it note. Decentries frequently occurred in the fruit season, when the greedy Arabs devour all manner of unright peaches, grapes, and pomegranates. The popular treatment is by the actual coterie, the scientific effect they use of drastic and astringent symbols. The Bezra al-Qutun, cut in seed, toasted, pounded, and drunk in warm water. Almost everyone here, as in Egypt, suffers more or less from hemorrhoids. They are treated by Dethytics X, and leaks, and by a variety of drugs, Marobellans, Lisan al-Hamal, Arnoglossum, etc. But the patient looks with horror at the scissors and the knife, so that they seldom succeed in obtaining a radical cure. The Filaria Medinensis, locally called Farantyt, is no longer common at the place which gave its European name. At Yambor, however, the people suffer much from the venna appearing in the legs. The complaint is treated here as in India and Abyssinia. When the tumor bursts and the worm shows, it is extracted by being gradually wound, drowned, a splinter of wood. Hydrophobia is rare, and the people have many superstitions about it. They suppose that a bit of meat falls from the sky and that a dog eating it becomes mad. I was assured by respectable persons that when a man is bitten, they shut him up with food, in a solitary chamber, for four days, and that if at the end of the time he still howls like a dog, they expel the ghoul, or the demon from him by pouring over him boiling water, mixed with ashes of a certain cure. I can easily believe. The only description of leprosy known in Al-Hijaz is that called al-baras. It appears in white patches on the skin, seldom attacks any but the poorer classes, and is considered incurable. Wounds are treated by marham or ointments, especially by the Balisan or Balm of Mecca. A cloth is tied around a limb and not removed till the wound heals, which amongst these people of simple life generally takes place by first intention. Aulsars are common in Al-Hijaz as indeed all over Arabia. We read of them in ancient times. In A.D. 504 the poet and warrior Amr al-Qais died of this dreadful disease, and it is related that when Muhammed Abou Seeh Muhammed, in A.H. 132, conquered Al-Yaman with an army from Al-Hijaz, he found the people suffering from slowing and mortifying sores so terrible to look upon that he ordered the sufferers to be burned alive. Fortunately for the patients, the conqueror died suddenly before his inhuman mandate was executed. These sores here, as in Al-Yaman, are worst when upon the shin bones, they eat deep into the leg, and the patient dies of fever and gangrene. Footnote. They distinguish, however, between the Al-Hijaz Nassour and Jor-Hal-Yamani or the Yemeni Al-Sir, and a footnote. They are treated on first appearance by the actual cuttery, and when practicable by cutting off the joint, the drugs popularly applied are tutia, or tutti, and vertigress. There is no cure but rest, a generous diet, and a change of air. By the above short account it will be seen that the Arabs are no longer the most skillful physicians in the world. They have, however, one great advantage in their practice, and they are sensible enough to make free use of it. As the children of almost all the respectable citizens are brought up in the desert, the camp becomes, to them, a native village. In cases of severe wounds or chronic diseases, the patient is ordered off to the Black Tense, where he lives as a Bedouin, drinking camel's milk, a diet for the first three or four days highly cathartic, and doing nothing. This has been the practice from time in memorial in Arabia, whereas in Europe is only beginning to systemize the adhibition of air, exercise, and simple living. And even now we are obliged to veil it under the garb of charlatanry, to call a milk cure in Switzerland, a water cure in Silesia, a grape cure in France, and hunger cure in Germany, and other sensible names which act as dust in the public eyes. El Medina consists of three parts, a town, a fort, and a suburb little smaller than the body of the place. The town itself is about one-third larger than Suez, or nearly half the size of Mecca. It is a walled enclosure forming an irregular oval with four gates. The Baba Shammi, or the Syrian gate, in the northwest side of Ensente leads towards Jabal-e-Hud, Hamza's burial place, and the mountains. In the eastern wall, Baba Juma, or the Friday Gate, opens upon Mej Drude and the cemetery Al-Baqir. Between the Shammi and the Juma gates towards the north is the Baba Tiyafa, or of hospitality, and the westward is the Bab al-Masri, or the Egyptian, opens upon the plain called Bar Al-Manakhah. The eastern and Egyptian gates are fine massive buildings with double towers, closed together, painted with broad bands of red, yellow, and other colors, not unlike that old entrance of the Cairo Citadel, which opens upon the Ramliye plain. It may be compared with the gateway towers of the old Norman Castle Ock, for instance. In their shady and well-watered interiors, soldiers keep guard, camelmen, dispute, and numerous idolars congregate to enjoy the luxuries of coolness and of companionship. Beyond this gate in the street leading to the mosque is the Great Bazaar. Outside it lie the Souq al-Khudaria, or Green Grocer's Market, and the Souq al-Habbabah, or the Green Bazaar, with a fair sprinkling of coffee houses. These markets are long masses of palm leaf huts, blackened in the sun and wind, of a mean and squalid appearance, detracting greatly from the appearance of the gates. Amongst them there is a little domed and white washed building, which I was told is a sabil, or a public fountain. In the days of the Prophet the town was not walled, even in Elydris's time of the 12th century, and as late as Bartima, 18th century, the fortification were mounds of earth made by order of Qasim-Adola-Talghouri, who repopulated the town and provided for its inhabitants. Now the enciente is in excellent condition. The walls are well built of granite and lava blocks in regular layers, cemented with lime. They are provided with mazgal, or mattress, long loop holes and charerif, or trefoil-shaped granels. In order to secure a flanking fire, semicircular towers, also loop-hold and granulated, are disposed in the curtain at short and irregular intervals. Inside the streets are what they always should be in these torrid lands, deep, dark, and narrow, in few places paved a thing to be deprecated and generally covered with black earth well watered and trodden to hardness. The most considerable lines radiate towards the mosque. There are few public buildings. The principal wakalas are four in number. One is the wakalat Bab-i-Salaam near the Heram, another is wakalat Jabarti, and two are inside the Misr-i-Gay. They all belong to Arab citizens. These caravanserais are used principally as stores, rarely for dwelling places like those of Cairo. Travelers therefore must hire houses at a considerable expense, or pitch tents to the deterrent of health and to their extreme discomfort. The other public buildings are a few mean coffee-houses and an excellent bath in Harat Sarawan, inside the town. Far superior to the unclean establishments of Cairo, it borrows something from the luxury of Stambul. The houses are, for the east, well built, flat-roofed, and double storied. The materials generally used are basaltic scoria, burnt brick, and palm wood. The best-enclosed spacious courtyards and small gardens with wells, where water basins and date trees gladden the owner's eyes. The latest balconies, first seen by the overland European traveller at Malta, are here common and the windows are mere apertures in the wall, garnished as usual in Arab cities, with a shutter of planking. Al-Madinah fell rapidly under the Wahhabis, but after their retreat it soon rose again, and now it is probably as comfortable and flourishing as a little city as any to be found in the east. It contains between fifty and sixty streets, including the alleys and cul-de-sac. There is about the same number of Harat or quarters, but I have nothing to relate of them save their names. Within the town few houses are in dilapidated condition. The best authorities estimate the number of habitation at about fifteen hundred within the enciente, and those in the suburb at a thousand. I consider both accounts exaggerated. The former might contain eight hundred, and the Manah perhaps five hundred. At the same time I must confess not to have counted them, and Captain Sadlier in A.D. 1819 declares that the Turks who had just made a kind of census reckoned six thousand houses and a population of eighteen thousand souls. Assuming the population to be sixteen thousand, Burkhart raises it as high as twenty thousand, of which nine thousand occupy the city, and seven thousand the suburbs and the fort, this would give a little more than twelve inhabitants in each house a fair estimate for an Arab town. There were the abodes of large and slaves abound. Footnote. I afterwards receive the following information from Mr. Charles Cole, H.B.M. Vice Consul at Jeddah, a gentleman well acquainted with western Arabia, and have access to official information. The population of Al-Medina is from sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and an Islam troops in garrison four hundred. Mecca contains about forty five inhabitants, Yemba, from six thousand to seven thousand. Jeddah about two thousand five hundred. This, I think, is too low, and life eight thousand. Most of the troops are stationed at Mecca in Jeddah. In Al-Hijjaz there is a total force of five battalions, each of which contain eight hundred men. They amount to three thousand with five hundred artillery and four thousand five hundred irregulars. Though the master rules bear six thousand, the government pays in paper for all supplies, even for water for the troops, and the paper sells at a rate of forty piasters percent. End of footnote. The castle joins to the northwest angle of the city Anciente, and the wall of its eastern artwork is pierced of a communication through a course, through with guns, and in war-like apparatus between the Manacha suburb and the Babashami or the Syrian gate. Having been refused entrance from the fort, I can describe only its exterior. The outer wall resembles that of the city. Only its owners are more solid, and the curtain appears better calculated for work. Inside, a donjon built upon a rock bears proudly enough the banner of the crescent and the star. It's what washed walls make it a conspicuous object. The guns pointed in all directions, especially upon the town, project from their embrasures. The castle is said to contain wells. Bomb proves provisions and munitions of war, if so it must be a kind of Gibraltar to the Bedouin and the Wahhabis. The garrison consisted of Nus-Urta, or half-battalion, four hundred men of Mitham infantry, commanded by El-Pasha. His authority also extends to Asanjak, or five hundred Kurdish and Albanian Bush-Buzuks, whose duty it is to escort caravans to convey treasures and to be shot at in the passes. Footnote. The Urta or battalion here varies from eight hundred to a thousand men. Of these, four form one ally or regiment, and thirty-six ally and Urdu or camp. This word, Urdu, is the origin of our word, Horde, and a footnote. The Medeni, who as usual with Orientals take a personal pride in their castle, speak of it with much exaggeration. Commanded by a high line of rocks on the northwest and built as it is in most places without moat, glassies, earthwork, or outworks, a few shells, and a single battery of siege guns, would soon render it untenable. In ancient times it has more than once been held by a party at feud with the town, for whose mimic paddles the Barra-al-Manakh was a fitting field. Northward, from the fort, on the road to Ahud, but still within fire, is a long and many-windowed building, formerly Dawoud Pasha's palace. In my time it had been bought by Abbas Pasha of Egypt. The suburbs lie to the south and west of the town. Southwards they are separated from the Enciente by a wide road, called Darbel Janaza, or the Road of the Biers, so called because the corpses of certain schismatics who may not pass through the city are carried this way to their own cemetery near Babel Juma, or the eastern gate. Westwards between El Medina, its far-burg, lies a plain of Al-Manakh, about three-quarters of a mile long by three hundred yards broad. The struggling suburbs occupy more ground than the city, fronting the Enciente there without walls, towards the west where open country lies, there enclosed by mud, or raw brick ramparts, with little round towers, all falling to decay. A number of small gates lead from the suburb into the country, the only large one, a poor copy of Baban Nassaret Cairo, is the Ambari, or the western entrance, through which we pass into El Medina. The suburb contains no buildings of any consequence except the Qashqiya, or official residence of the muhafid, or the governor, a plain building near Bar Al-Manakh, and the Khamasat Masajid, or the five mosques, which every za'ir is expected to visit. They are the Prophet's Mosque and Al-Manakh, Abu Bakr is near the Aina Zerqa, Haliz Mosque in Zuqaq Al-Tayyar, of the Manakh. Some authors call this the Musallah Al-Aid because the Prophet here prayed the festival prayer. Amar's Mosque, near the Bab Quba of the Manakh, enclosed in a little torrent called the Seh, Bilal's Mosque, celebrated in books. I did not see it, and some Madinah assured me that it no longer exists. A description of these buildings will suffice for they are all similar. Muhammad's Mosque and the Manakh stands upon a spot formally occupied, some say, by the Jam'a Al-Gamama. Others believe it to be founded upon the Musallan Nabi, a place where the apostle recited the first festival prayers after his arrival at Al-Madinah and used frequently to pray, and to address those of his followers who lived far from the Haram or the sanctuary. One of the traditions between my house and my place of prayers is the Garden of the Gardens of Paradise, has led devines to measure the distance. It is said to be a thousand qubits from the Bab-e-Salam of the Haram to this Musallah and the Fitna. It is a trim modern building of cut stone and lime in regular layers, of parallelogramic shape surmounted by one large and four small cupulas. These are all whitewashed, and the principle is capped with a large crescent, or rather a trident, rising from a series of gilt globes, the other domes crowned several corners. The menoret is of the usual Turkish shape, with a conical roof and a single gallery for the Mu'addin, and a case of tree or two on the eastern side and behind it, a wall-like line of mud houses, finish the coup d'oeil. The interior of this building is as simple as is the exterior, and here I remark that the Arabs have little idea of splendor, either in their public or in their private architecture. Whatever strikes a traveller's eye in Al-Hijaz is always either an important or the work of foreign artists. This arises from the simple tastes of the people combined doubtless with their notable thriftiness. If strangers will build for them, they argue why should they build for themselves. Moreover, they have a scant inducement to lavish money upon grand edifices. Whenever a disturbance takes place domestic or from without, the principle buildings are to suffer, and the climate is inimical to their enduring. Both ground and air at Al-Madinah as well as at Mecca are damp and nitrous in winter, in summer dry and torrid. The lime is poor, palm timber soon decays, even foreign woodwork suffers, and a few years of neglect suffice to level the proudest pile with the dust. The suburbs of Al-Madinah are a collection of walled villages with plantations and gardens between. They are laid out in the form called here as in Egypt Hosh or courtyards with single-story tournaments opening into them. These enclosures contain the cattle of the inhabitants. They have strong wooden doors shut at night to prevent lifting, and they are capable of being stoutly defended. The inhabitants of the suburb are for the most part Bedouin settlers, and a race of schismatics who will be noticed in another chapter. Beyond these suburbs to the south as well as to the north and northeast lie gardens and extensive plantations of palm trees. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 19 of Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca by Richard Francis Burton. A Ride to the Mosque of Cuba The principal basis of Pious visitation in the vicinity of Al-Madinah are the Mosques of Cuba, the cemetery al-Bakia, and the Mat Hamshah tomb at the foot of Mount Ahod. This desire is directed by all Uleime to visit, and on the holy ground to pray Allah for a blessing upon himself and upon his brethren of the faith. Early one Sunday morning I started for Cuba with a motley crowd of devotees. Sheikh Hamid my Muzawir was by my side mounted upon an ass more miserable than I had yet seen. The boy Muhammad had procured for me a mecca and dromedary with splendid trappings, a saddle with burnished metal peaks before and behind covered with the huge sheepskin dyed crimson and girthied over fine saddlebags whose enormous tassels hung almost to the ground. The youth himself being too grand to ride a donkey and unable to borrow a horse preferred walking. He was proud as a peacock being happy to be in a style somewhat resembling the plume of that gorgeous bird in the coat of many colors yellow red and golden flowers apparently suit on a field of bright green silk which cost me so dear in the harem. He was armed as indeed all of us were in readiness for the Badoen and he anxiously awaited opportunities of discharging his pistol. Our course lay from Sheikh Hamid's house in the Manakha along and up the Fumera Alsai and through Babkuba a little gate in the suburb wall where by the by my mounted company was nearly trampled down by a rush of half wild camels. Outside the town in this direction southward is a plain of clay mixed with chalk and here and there with sand winds protrude blocks and ridges of basalt. As far as Kuba and the Harah rides to the west the earth is sweet and makes excellent gugglets. Footnote. The Baradiya or gugglets of Almidiana are large and heavy of a reddish gray color and celebrated for cooling water a property not possessed by those of Meccan fabric. End footnote. Immediately outside the gate I saw a kiln where they were burning tolerable bricks. Shortly after leaving the suburb an Indian who joined our party upon the road pointed out on the left of the way what he declared was the place of the celebrated Handak or Moat the Torres Verdes of Arabian history. Footnote. I afterwards found reason to doubt this location. In Yubayar 12th century places it an arrow shot from the westward wall of Almidiana and seems to have seen it. M.C.D. Persever states I know not upon whose authority that it was dug to protect the northwest the north and the north eastern sides of the town. This is rendered highly improbable by the features of the ground. The learned are generally agreed that old traces of the moat had disappeared before our 15th century. End footnote. Presently the Nahil or palm plantations began. Nothing lovelier to the eye were with hot red glare than the rich green waving crops and the cool shade the foot of vision as the Arabs call it and pure water to the parched throat. For hours I could have sat and looked at it. The air was soft and bore me. A perfumed breeze strange luxury in Alhija wandered amongst the date fronts. There were fresh flowers and spring foliage. In fact at Midsama every beautiful feature of spring. Nothing more delightful to the ear than the wobbling of the small birds that sweet familiar sound. The splashing of tiny cascades from the wells into the wooden throes and the musical song of the water wheels. Travelers, young travelers in the east talk of the dismal grating, the mournful monotony and the melancholy creaking of these dismal machines. To the veteran wanderer their sound is delightful from association reminding him of fields and water courses and hospitable villages and pentiful crops. The expatriated Nubian for instance listens to the water wheel with as deep emotion as the rants de vaches ever excited in the hearts of Swiss mercenary at Naples or Lobacherno Moe among a regiment of highlanders in the west Indies. The date trees of Almedinach merit their celebrity. The stately columnar stems here seems higher than in other lands and their lower fronts are allowed to tremble in the breeze without mutilation. Footnote. In Egypt the lower branches of the date are lopped off about Christmas time to increase the flavor of the fruit and the people believe that without this taklim as it's caught the tree would die. In Upper Egypt however as at Almedinach the fronts are left untouched. End footnote. These enormous palms were loaded with ripening fruits and the clusters carefully tied up must often have weighted upwards of 80 pounds. They hung down between the lower branches by a bright yellow stem as thick as a man's ankle. Books enumerate 139 varieties of trees. Of these between 60 and 70 are well known and each is distinguished as usual among Arabs by its peculiar name. The best kind is El Shalebi. It is packed in skins or in flat round boxes covered with paper somewhat in the manner of French prunes and sent as presents to the remotest parts of the Muslim world. Footnote. The visitor from Almedinach would be badly received by the women of his family if he did not present them on his return with a few boxes of dates, some strings of the same fruit and skins full of henna powder. Even the ulema allow such articles to be carried away although they strictly forbid keepsakes of earth or stone. End footnote. The fruit is about two inches long with a small stone and has a peculiar aromatic flavor and smell. It is seldom eaten by the citizens on account of the price which varies from two to ten piastres to the pound. The tree, moreover, is rare and is said to be not so productive as the other species. The Ajwa date. Footnote. This fruit must not be confounded with the enucleated conserved of dates which in Arabia as in Egypt is known by the name of Ajwa. The Arabs infinitely despise the stuff sold at Alexandria and Cairo declaring that it is fit only for cows. The Ajwa of Oasis, particularly of Siwa, is of excellent quality. End footnote. The Ajwa date is eaten but not sold because a tradition of the Prophet declares that whoso breaks his fast every day with six or seven of these fruits need fear neither poison nor magic. The third kind Al-Hilwa is also a large date derives a name from its exceeding sweetness. Of this poem the Muslims relate that the Prophet planted a stone which in a few minutes grew up and bore fruit. Next comes al-Birni of which was said it caused sickness to depart and there is no sickness in it. The washi on one occasion bent its head and salamed to Muhammad as he ate its fruit for which reason even now its lofty tuft turns earthwards. The Sa'ihani Cryer is so cold because when the founder of al-Islam holding Ali's hand happened to pass beneath it cried. This is Muhammad the Prince of Prophets and this is Ali the Prince of the Payos and the progenitor of the Immaculate Imams. Footnote. So in AD 1272 the crucifix spoke to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Superstitions are of no age or country. End footnote. Of course the dissentants of so intelligent a vegetable hold high rank in the kingdom of palms and the vulgar way in the habit of eating the Sa'ihani and of throwing the stones about the ha'im. The Couseria is thus named because it preserves its green color even when ripe. It is dried and preserved as a curiosity. The Jabali is the common fruit. The poorest kinds are the Laun and the Hilaia costing from four to seven piestes per mood. Footnote. At Al-Medina 12 dirhams, drhams make one wakaya ounce. 20 wakaya make one rattle pound. 33 wakaya and three drhams make one wakaa less than two pounds. 34 wakaa make one mud. 24 mud make one ardeb. This rattle or pound is the larger one applied to particular articles of commerce such as meat, vegetables and clarified butter. Coffee, rice, soap etc are sold by the smaller rattle of Mecca equal to 140 dirhams. In Egypt the rattle is 144 dirhams or 12 wakaya about one pound, two ounces and eight penny weight droi. End footnote. I cannot say that the dates of Al-Medina are finer than those of Mecca although it is highly heretical to hold such tenet. The produce of the former city was the favorite food of the Prophet who invariably broke his fast with it. A circumstance which invests it with a certain degree of religianctity. The citizens delight in speaking of dates as an Irishman does of potatoes with a manner of familiar fondness. They eat them for medicine as well as for food. Rutab or wet dates being held to be the most saving as it is doubtless the most savory of remedies. The fruit is prepared in a great variety of ways. The favorite dish is a broil with clarified butter extremely distasteful to the European palate. The date is also left upon the tree to dry and then called Bala. This is eaten at dessert as the Nukliya, the Ketremendikon of Persia. Among specular preparations must be mentioned to Kulledet Alsham. Footnote. Necklace of Syria. I was told they derive this name from the place where they are made al-Safra on the Mecca road being also called Altham Damascus. End footnote. Kulledet Alsham, necklace of Sham. The unripe fruit is dipped in boiling water to preserve its gambolish color strung upon a thick thread and hung out in the air to dry. These strings are worn all over Al-Hiyyaj as necklaces by its children who seldom fail to munch the ornament when not in fear of slappings and they are sent as presents to distant countries. January and February are the time for the Masculation of the Palm. Footnote. This Masculation is a translation of the Arab word Dasgir which is certainly more appropriate than our Caprification applied to dates. End footnote. The Nochvali as he is called opens the female flower and having inserted the inverted male blossom binds them together. This operation is performed as in Egypt upon each cluster. Footnote. The male tree is known by its sterility. In some countries only the fecundating pollen is scattered over the female flower and this doubtless must have been nature's matter of impregnating the date. End footnote. The fruit is ripe about the middle of May and the gathering of it forms the Arab's vendemia. The people make merry the more readily because their favorite diet is liable to a variety of accidents. Droughts injure the tree, locusts destroy the produce and the date crop like most productions which men are imprudent enough to adopt singly as the staff of life is often subject to complete failure. One of the reasons for the excellence of Madina dates is the quantity of water they obtain. Each garden or field has its well and even in the hottest weather the Persian wheel floods the soil every third day. It has been observed that the date tree can live in dry and barren spots but it loves the beds of streams and places where moisture is procurable. The palms scattered over the other parts of the plain and depending solely upon rainwater produce less fruit and that too of an inferior quality. Verdure is not usually wholesome in Arabia yet invalids live the close atmosphere of Almedina to seek health under the cool shades of Cuba. The gardens are divided by what might almost be called lanes, long narrow lines with tall red fences on both sides. The graceful branches of the tamarisk paired with manna and cottoned over with dew and the broad leaves of the castor plant listening in the sun protected us from the morning rays. The ground on both sides of the wave was sunken, the earth being disposed in heaps at the foot of the fences, an arrangement with facilities irrigation by giving a fall to the water and in some cases affords a richer soil than the surface. This part of the Madina plain however being higher than the rest is less subject to the disease of salt and neater. On the way here and there the earth crumbles and looks dark under the dew of the morning but nowhere has it broken out into that glittering efflorescence which denotes the last stage of the attack. The fields and gardens are divided in the small oblongs separated from one another by little ridges of mold which form diminutive water courses. Of the cereals there are luxuriant mace with and barley but the latter two are in small quantities. Here and there batches of berthim or Egyptian clover glitter brightly in the sunbeams. The principal vegetables are badanjan, eggplant, the bamiya, a kind of exculent hibiscus called wendi in india and muluhia, kohoris, olitorius, or mucilagian spinach common throughout this part of the east. These three are eaten by citizens of every rank. They are in fact the potatoes and the greens of Arabia. I remarked also onions and reeks in fair quantities, a few beds of carrots and beans, some figs, radishes, leaf, turnips, gorge, cucumbers and similar plants. Fruit trees abound. There are five descriptions of vines. The best of figs is Allah Sharifi, a long white grape of a flavor somewhat resembling the produce of Tuscany. Footnote. The resemblance is probably produced by the similarity of treatment. At Almadina, as in Italy, the wine is married to some tall tree which selfish as a husband appropriates to itself the best of everything, sun, breeze and rain. End footnote. Next to it and very similar is alberni. The hijashi is a round fruit, sweet but insipid, which is also the reproach of the savadi or black grape. And lastly, the rasiki is a small white fruit with a diminutive stone. The nebek, lotte or jojubi is here a fine large tree with a dark green leaf, roundish and polished like the olive. It is armed with short curved and sharp thorn. Footnote. This thorn, the ramnus nabica or zisofospinacristii, is supposed to be that which crowned the saviour's head. There are mimosas in Syria, but no tree saved the fabled tsakum could produce the terrible apparatus with which certain French painters of the modern school have attempted to heighten the terrors of the scene. End footnote. And bears a pale straw-colored peri about the size of the gooseberry with red streaks on the side next to the sun. Little can be said in favour of the fruit, which have been compared successfully by disappointed lotus-eaters. Footnote. For what reason I am entirely unable to guess, our dictionary translates the word seeder, the literary name of the tree that bears the nebek, lotte tree. No wonder that believers in Homeric writ feel the anger aroused by so poor realization of the beautiful maith. End footnote. By disappointed lotus-eaters, to a bad plum, an unripe cherry, and an insipid apple. It is, however, a favourite with the people of Almadina, who have reclaimed many varieties of the fruit, Hindi, Indian, Velladi, Native, Tamiri, Datelike, and others. There are a few peaches, hard like the Egyptian, and almost tasteless, fit only for stewing, but greedily eaten in a half-ripe state. Large coarse bananas, lime trees, a few watermelons, figs, and apples, but neither apricots, nor pears. Footnote. The only pears in al-hayyaj, I believe, are to be found at Taif, to which place they were transplanted from Egypt. End footnote. There are three kinds of pomegranates. The best is the shami, Syrian. It is red outside, very sweet, and costs one piesta. The turkey is large and of white colour. The misery has a greenest rind, and a somewhat sub-asid and harsh flavour. The latter are sold at one-fourth the price of the best. I never saw in the east, except at Mecca finer fruits than the shami. Almost stoneless like those of Mascar, they are delicately perfumed, and as large as an infant's head. Al-Madinah is celebrated like Taif for his rubriman, a thick pomegranate syrup, drunk with water during the hot weather, and estimated cooling and wholesome. After threading our way through the gardens, an operation requiring less time than to describe them, we saw peeping through the groves, Cuba's simple minaret. Then we came inside of a confused heap of huts and dwelling houses, chapels and towers with trees between, and foul lanes, heaps of rubbish and barking dogs, the usual material of a Hayyaji village. Having dismounted, we gave our animals in charge of a dozen infant by ween, the produce of the peasant gardeners who shone it back sheaths the moments they saw us. To this they were urged by their mothers, and I willingly parted with a few paras for the purpose of establishing an intercourse with fellow creatures so fearfully and wonderfully resembling the tailless baboon. Their bodies, unlike those of Egyptian children, were slim. Footnote. Travelers always remark the curious potbellied children on the banks of the Nile. This confirmation is admired by the Egyptians, who consider it a sign of strength and the promise of fine growth. End footnote. Slim and straight, but the ribs stood out with curious distinctness. The color of the skin was that oily lamp-black seen upon the face of an European sweep, and the elf-locks, touching the coconut heads, had been stained by the sun, wind and rain to that reddish-brown hue, which Hindu romances have appropriated to their rakshash or demons. Each anatomic hered in his arms a stark-nate miniature of himself, fierce-looking babies with faces all eyes, and the strong little wretches were still able to extend the right hand and exert their lungs with die-full clamor. Their mothers were fit progenitors for such progeny, long-gaunt with emaciated limbs, wall-sided high-shouldered and straight-backed with bed-niless bosoms, spider-like arms and splay-feet. Their long elf-locks, wrinkle faces and high cheekbones, their lips darker than the epidermis, hollow-staring eyes, sparkling as if to light up the extreme ugliness around, and voices screaming as though in a perennial rage invested them with all the charm of sycorax. These hoaries of Jannaham were habited in long-night gowns dyed blue to conceal warmth of washing, and the squalid children had about a yard of the same material wrapped around their waist for all toilette. This is not an overdrawn portrait of the farmer race of Arabs, the most despised by their fellow countrymen, and the most hard-favored morally as well as physically of all the breed. Before entering the Mosque of Al-Kuba, footnote, I believe Kuba to be about three miles south-southeast of Al-Medina, but Allah Idrisi, even Hawkay and even Jubayr all agree in saying two miles. Before entering the Mosque of Al-Kuba, it will be necessary to call to mind some passages of its post-history. When the Apostle Sheikh Amal Al-Kathwa, as she was approaching Al-Medina after the flight from Mecca, knelt down here. He desired his companions to mount the animal. Abu Bakr and Omar did so. Footnote. Osman, the fourth companion, was absent at this time, not having returned from the first little flight to Abyssinia. End footnote. Still she sat upon the ground, but when Ali obeyed the order, she arose. The Apostle made him lose her halter, for she was directed by Allah, and the Mosque walls were built upon the line over which she trod. It was the first place of public prayer in Al-Islam. Muhammad laid the first brick, and with an Anza or iron-shirt javelin, marked out the direction of prayer. Footnote. Some believe that in this Mosque the direction of prayer was altered from Jerusalem to Mecca, and they declare, as will presently be seen, that the archangel Gabriel himself pointed out a new line. M.C. the Percival forgets his usual accuracy when he asserts, In the first place, the Mirab is the invention of a later date, about 90 years. And secondly, the title of Al-Kiblatin is never now given to Mosque of Al-Medina. End footnote. Marked out the direction of prayer, each of his successor followed his example. According to most historians, the land belonged to Abu Ayyub the Ansari, the Apostle's host, for which reason the bait Ayyub, his descendants, still performed the service of the Mosque, kept the key, and shared with the Bauwabs, or potters, the ooms and feasts here offered by the faithful. Others declared that the ground was the property of one line, a woman who was in the habit of tethering her ass there. Footnote. This degrading report caused certain hypocrites to build a kind of rival chapel, caused the Mosque Zarar. It was burnt to the ground, shortly after its erection, and all known of it is that it stood near Cuba. End footnote. The Apostle used to visit it every Saturday, footnote. Some say on Monday, probably because on that day Mohammed alighted at Cuba. But the present practice of al-Islam handed down from generation to generation is to visit it on the Saturday. End footnote. Every Saturday on foot, and always made a point of praying at the dawn prayer there on the seventh year Ramazan. Footnote. There is, on this day at Cuba, a regular ziyarat or visitation. The people pray in the harem of al-Madinah, after which they repair to the Cuba Mosque and go through the ceremonies which in religious efficacy equal an umrah or lesser pilgrimage. In books I have read that the 15th of Ramazan is the proper day. End footnote. A number of traditions testify to its dignity. Of these two are especially significant. The first assures all Muslims that a prayer at Cuba is equal to a lesser pilgrimage at Mecca in religious efficacy. And the second declares that such devotion is more acceptable to the deity than prostrations at the Bait al-Mukkudas Jerusalem. Moreover, sundry miracles took place here, and a version of the Quran descended from heaven. For which reasons the Mosque was much respected by Omar, who once finding it empty, swept it himself with a broom of thorns and expressed his wonder at the lukewarmness of Muslim piety. It was originally a square building of a very small size. Osman enlarged it in the direction of the minaret, making it 66 cupids each way. It is no more mean and decayed as in Burkhalt's time. The Sultan Abdul Hamid, father of the Sultan Mahmud, erected a minaret of Turkish shape and a neat structure of cut stone, whose cranels make it look more like a place of defense than of prayer. It has, however, no pretensions to grandeur. To the south a small and narrow rewak, porch, with unpretending columns, looks out northwards upon a little open area simply sanded over, and this is the whole building. The large mastaba, or stone bench, at the entrance of the Mosque, was crowded with sitting people. We therefore lost no time after ablution and the nijat, the intention peculiar to this visitation, in ascending the steps, in pulling off our slippers, and in entering the sacred building. We stood upon the Musalla Al-Nabi, the prophet's place of prayer, footnote. This is believed to be the spot where the prophet performed his first rukka, or prayer bow, end footnote. After Sheikh Nur and Hamid had forcibly declared that O specific spot of a devout Indian, and had spread rug upon the dirty matting, we performed a two bow prayer, in front of a pillar into which a diminutive marble mirhub or niche had been inserted by way of memento. Then came the du'a, or supplication, which was as follows. O Allah, bless and preserve and increase, and perpetuate and benefit, and be propitious to our Lord Muhammad and to his family, and to his companions, and be though their preserver. O Allah, this is the Mosque Cuba and the place of the prophet's prayers. O Allah, pardon our sins, and veil our faults, and place not over us one who fears not thee, and who pitheth not us, and pardon us, and the true believers, men and women, the quick of them, and the dead, for verily though, O Lord, art here, the near to us the answer to our supplications. After which we recited the testification and the fatihah, and we drew our palms as usual down on our faces. We then moved away to the south-eastern corner of the edifice, and stood before a mirhab in the southern wall. It is called Takat Al-Kashf, or niche of disclosure, by those who believe that as the prophet was standing undecided about the direction of Mecca, the archangel Gabriel removed all obstructions to his vision. There again we went through the tubau prayer, the supplication, the testification, and the fatihah, under difficulties for people mobbed us excessively. During our devotions I vainly attempted to decipher a kufik inscription fixed in the wall above and on the right of the mirhab. My regret, however, as this failure was transitory, the character not being of an ancient date. Then we left the revoc, and despite the morning sun, which shone fiercely with a sickly heat, we went to the open area where stands the Mabrak Al-Nakkah, or the place of kneeling of the sheed dromedary. Footnote. Mabrak is the locative noun from the three literal root baraka he blessed, or he, the camel, knelt upon the ground. Perhaps this philological connection may have determined Muhammad to consider the kneeling of the dromedary a sign that Allah had blessed the spot. End footnote. This, the Ikset spot where Al-Kaswa sat down, is covered with a diminutive dome of cut stone, supported by four stone pillars. The building is about eight feet high, and a little less in length and in breadth. It has the appearance of being modern. On the floor, which was raised by steps above the level of the ground, lay as usual a bit of dirty matting, upon which we again went through the ceremonies above detailed. Then, issuing from the canopy into the sun, a little outside the revoc and close to the Mabrak, we prayed upon the Mak'an al-Ayat. Footnote. Ayat here means a verset of the Koran. Some authors apply the above-quoted lines to the Prophet's Mosque at Al-Medina exclusively, others to both buildings. End footnote. We prayed upon the Mak'an al-Ayat, or the place of signs. Here was revealed to Muhammad a passage in the Koran, especially alluding to the purity of the place and the people of Cuba, a temple founded in purity from its first day. And again, there live men who love to be cleansed and verily Allah delights in the clean. The Prophet exclaimed in admiration, O ye sons of Amr, what have you done to deserve all this place and beneficence, when the people offered him an explanation of their personal cleanliness, which I do not care to repeat. The temple of Cuba from that day took a fresh title Majid al-Takwa or the Mosque of Piety. Having finished our prayers and ceremonies at the Mosque of Piety, we fought our way through a crowd of important beggars, and turning a few paces to the left, halted near a small chapel at joining the southwest angle of the larger temple. We there stood at a grated window in the western wall and recited a supplication, looking the while reverently at a dark dwarf archway under which the Lady Fatima used to sit grinding grain in the handmill. The Mosque in consequence bears the name of Sitna Fatima. A surely-looking hadim or guardian stood at the door demanding a dollar in the most authoritative Arab town. We therefore did not enter. At Almadina and at Mecca, the traveller's hand must be perpetually in his pouch. No stranger in Paris or in London is more surely or more severely taken in. Already I began to fear that my 80 pounds would not suffice for all the expenses of sightseeing, and the apprehension was justified by the sequel. My only friend was the boy Mohammed, who displayed a fiery economy that brought him into considerable dispute with his countrymen. They saw with emotion that he was preaching parsimony to me solely that I might have more money to spend at Mecca under his auspices. This being palvably the case, I threw all the blame of penuriosness upon the young Machiavelle's shoulders, and resolved, as he had taken charge of my finances at Almadina, served Mecca to administer them myself. After praying at the window to the great disgust of the hadim, who openly asserted that we were low fellows, we passed through some lanes lined with beggars and bad-wish children, till we came to a third little mosque situated two south of the large one. This is called the Masjid Arafat, and is erected upon a mound also called Tael Arafat, because on one occasion the prophet being unable to visit the holy mountain at the pilgrimage season stood there, saw through the intervening space and in spirit performed the ceremony. Here also we looked into a window instead of opening the door with a silver key, and the mesquine appearance of all within prevented my regretting the necessity of economy. In India or in Sindh, every village would have a better mosque. Our last visit was to a fourth chapel, the Masjid Ali, so termed because the Apostle's son-in-law had a house upon this spot, footnote. Even Jobayar informs us that Abu Bakr, Aisha, and Omar had habitations at Cuba. End footnote. After praying there, and terribly hot the little hole was, we repaired to the last place of visitation at Cuba, a large deep well called the Bil Al-Arith, in a garden to the west of the mosque of Piety, with a little oratory adjoining it. A Persian wheel was going drowsily round, and the cool water fell into a tiny pool whence it furled and bubbled away in a childish mimicry of a river. The music sounded sweet in my ears. I stubbornly refused to do any more praying, though Sheikh Hamid, for form's sake, reiterated with parental emphasis how very wrong it was. And I sat down, as the Prophet himself did not disdain to do, with the resolution of enjoying on the brink of the well a few moments of unwanted kaif. The heat was overpowering, though it was only nine o'clock. The sound of the stream was soothing, that water-wheel was creaking a lullaby, and the limes and pomegranate gently rustling shed voluptuous fragrance through the morning air. I fell asleep, and wondrous the contrast dream, that I was once more standing by the wall whereon hangs the crucified wine, looking upon the valley of the Lian with its gloco seas and grey skies, and banks here and there white with snow. The Bil Al-Arith, footnote, some authors mention a second Bil Al-Arith, belonging in part to the Caliph Osman. According to Yakut, Arith is the Hebrew or Syriac for peasant. He quotes the plural form Arithun and Ararisa. The Bil Al-Arith, so called after a Jew of Al-Medina, is one which the Apostle delighted to visit. He would sit upon its brink with his bare legs hanging over the side, and his companions used to imitate his example. This practice caused a sad disaster. In the sixth year of his Caliphate, Osman, according to Abu Felda at Yakut, dropped from his finger the prophetic ring, which ingrained into free lines with Muhammad, Apostle of Allah, had served to seal the letters sent to neighboring kings and had descended to the first three successors. Footnote. Others assert, with less probability, that the article in question was lost by one Ma'aqah, a favorite of Osman. As that ill-fated Caliph's troubles began at the time of this accident, the ring is generally compared to Solomon's. Our popular authors who assert that Muhammad himself lost the ring are greatly in error. Footnote. The previous article was not recovered after three days' search, and the well was, thanks forward, called Bir al-Hatim of the Seal Ring. It is also called the Bir al-Tat Flat of Selayva. Footnote. According to some authors, Muhammad drew a bucket of water, drank part of the contents, spat into the rest, and poured it back into the well, which instantly became sweet. Even Juhi Bayar applies the affidavit Bir al-Tat Flat peculiarly to the Aris well. Many other authors are not so exact. Footnote. It is also called the Bir al-Tat Flat of Selayva, because the prophet honored it by expectation as, by the by, he seems to have done to almost all the wells in Almadina. The effect of the operation upon the Bir al-Aris, says the historians, was to sweeten the water, which before was sore. Their testimony, however, did not prevent my detecting a pronounced medicinal taste in the lukewarm drought drawn for me by Sheikh Hamid. In Muhammad's days, the total number of wells is recorded to have been 20. Most of them have long since disappeared, but there still remain seven, whose waters were drunk by the prophet, and which, in consequence, the there is directed to visit. Footnote. The pious perform the lesser ablution upon the brink of the seven wells, and drink of the remnant of the water in Tarabuk, or to secure the placings of Ghar. In footnote. They are known by the classical title of Saba Abara, or the seven wells, and their names are included in this couplet. Aris and Gars, and Ruma and Buzad, and Buzat with Bayruha and Iin. Footnote. Some alter the third, the fifth, and the seventh names to Bir al-Nabi, a well in the Kuba gardens, Bir al-Korbal, and Bir al-Fukayir, where the prophet, together with Salman the Persian and others of his companions, planted date trees. The Bir al-Aris has already been described. The Bir al-Kharas, or Gurs, so called, it is said from the place where it was sunk, about half mile northeast of the Kuba Mosque, is a large well with an abundance of water. Muhammad used to perform evolution on its brink, and directed Ali to wash his corpse with seven skins full of the water. The Bir Ruma is a large well with a spring at the bottom, dug in the Vadi al-Aqik, to the north of the Mosque al-Qiblatain. It is called Kalliv Mazni, the old well of Mazni, in this tradition. The best of old wells is the old well of Mazni. And ancient it must be if the legends say true, that when Abu Karib besieged Al Medina, A.D. 495, he was relieved of sickness by drinking its produce. Some assert that it afforded the only sweet water in Al Medina when the prophet arrived there. The town becoming crowded by an influx of visitors, this water was sold by its owner, a man of the Benu HaFar tribe, or according to others, by one Mazni, a Jew. Osman at last bought it by paying upwards of 100 camels. The Bir Bouzaat, or Bizaat, or Bizaat, is in the Nahil or Palm plantations, outside the Bab al-Shami or northwestern gate of Al Medina on the right of the road leading to Ahad. Whoever washes in its waters three times shall be healed. The Bir Bouzaat is near the Bakiya cemetery, on the left of the road leading to Cuba. The prophet used to bathe in the water, and he declared it healthy to the skin. The Bir Bayruha, under whose trees the prophet was fond of sitting, lies outside the Bab Dar al-Ziyafah, leading to Mount Ahad. The Camus gives the word Bayruha upon the measure of Failuha. Some authorities upon the subject of Chiyarat write Bayruha Bir Ha, the well of Ha, and variously suppose Ha to be the name of a man, a woman, or a place. Yahut mentions other pronunciations, Bariha, Bariha, Bariha, etc. The Bir'in is in a large garden east of Cuba. Little is said in books about this well, and the people of Al Medina do not know the name. End footnote. After my sleep, which was allowed to last until a pipe or two of Latakia had gone round the party, we remounted our animals. Returning towards Al Medina, my companions pointed out to me on the left of the village, a garden called Al Mansunia. It contains a quarry of the yellow loam, or bow-earth, called by the Arabs Tafl, by the Persians Gil Il Sar Shui, and by the Sindians Me Tu. It is used as soap in many parts of the east, and mixed with oil it is supposed to cool the body and to render the skin fresh and supple. It is related that the Prophet cured a bodyway of the Benu Haris tribe of Fiv, by washing him with a pot of Tafl dissolved in water, and hence the earth of Al Medina derived his healing fame. As far as I could learn from the Madani, this clay is no longer valued by them, either medicinally or cosmetically. The only use they could mention was its being eaten by the fair sex, when in the peculiar state described by Clorosis.