[p.398] CLIMATE AND DISEASES OF MEDINA.
I FOUND the climate at Medina, during the winter months, much colder than that of Mekka. Snow is unknown here, though I heard that some old people remembered to have seen it in the neighbouring mountains. The rains have no fixed period in winter, but fall at intervals, and usually in violent storms, which last for one day, or perhaps two days, only: sometimes a whole winter passes without more than one fall of rain, excepting a few light showers; the consequence of which is a general dearth. The Medinans say, that three or four gushes of rain are necessary to irrigate their soil; the water of the torrents then inundating many parts of the country, especially the pasturing grounds of the Bedouins. Uninterrupted rains for a week, or longer, such as often occur in Syria, are quite unknown here; and after every gush of rain, which lasts for twenty-four hours, the sky clears up, and the finest spring weather prevails for several weeks. The last storms are usually in April, but occasional showers are not unfrequent even in the middle of summer.
The Medinans, and many foreigners, assert, that the summer-heat is greater here than in any other part of the Hedjaz: I was not able to judge myself. I have already stated that the saline nature of the soil and water, the stagnant pools of rain-water round the town, and perhaps the exhalation and vapours produced by the thick date-groves
[p.399] in its neighbourhood, render the air of Medina little favourable to health.
Fevers are the most common disease, to which many of the inhabitants themselves are subject, and from which strangers who remain here any time seldom escape, especially in spring. Yahya Effendi, the physician of Tousoun Pasha, assured me, when I was sick, that he had eighty persons ill of fever under his care; and it appeared that he was more fortunate in their cure than in mine. The fevers are almost all intermittent, and attended after their cure by great languor: relapses are much dreaded. When I went out after my recovery, I found the streets filled with convalescents, whose appearance but too clearly showed how numerous were my fellow-sufferers in the town. If not cured within a certain time, these fevers often occasion hard swellings in the stomach and legs, which are not removed without great difficulty. The Medinans care little about this intermittent fever, to which they are accustomed, and with them it seldom proves fatal; but the case is otherwise with strangers. In some seasons it assumes an epidemic character, when as many as eighty persons are known to have died in one week; instances of this kind, however, seldom happen.
Dysenteries are said to be rare here. Bilious complaints, and jaundice, are very common. There appears to be in general a much greater mortality here than in any other part of the East that I have visited. My lodgings were very near to one of the principal gates of the mosque, through which the corpses were carried when prayers were to be said over them; and I could hear, from my sick bed, the exclamations of La illah il Allah, with which that ceremony was accompanied. During my three months confinement one funeral at least, and often two, passed every day under my window. If we reckon on the average three bodies per day carried into the mosque through this gate, as well as the others, besides the poor Arabs who die in the suburbs, and over whose bodies prayers are said in the mosque situated in the Monakh, we shall have about twelve hundred deaths annually, in this small town, the whole population of which, I believe
[p.400] to be at most from sixteen to twenty thousand; a mortality which cannot be repaired by births, and would long ago have depopulated the place, did not the arrival of foreigners continually supply the loss. Of this population I reckon about ten or twelve thousand for the town itself, and the rest for the suburbs.
[p.401] JOURNEY FROM MEDINA TO YEMBO.
April 21st. 1815. OUR small caravan assembled in the afternoon near the outer gate of the town, and at five oclock P.M. we passed through the same gate by which I entered, on my arrival, three months ago. Then I was in full health and spirits, and indulging the fond hopes of exploring unknown and interesting parts of the Desert on my return to Egypt; but now, worn down by lingering disease, dejected, and desponding, with no more anxious wish than to reach a friendly and salubrious spot, where I might regain my health. The ground leading to the town on this side is rocky. About three quarters of an hour distant, the road has a steep short descent, hemmed in by rocks, and is paved, to facilitate the passage of caravans. Our direction was S.W. by S. In one hour we came to the bed of a torrent called Wady el Akyk, which during the late rains had received so copious a supply from the neighbouring mountains, that it had become like a deep and broad river, which our camels could not attempt to pass. As the day was fine, we expected to see it considerably diminished the next morning, and therefore encamped on its banks, at a place called El Madderidje. Here is a small ruined village, the houses of which were well built of stone, with a small birket or reservoir, and a ruined well close by. Its inhabitants cultivate some fields on the bank of Wady Akyk, but the incursions of the Bedouins had obliged them to retire.
[p.402] Wady Akyk is celebrated by the Arabian poets. [Samhoudy says, that this torrent empties itself into the same low ground called El Ghaba, or Zaghaba, to the west of Medina, in the mountains where all the torrents in this neighbourhood discharge themselves. He says also, that on the banks of this torrent, eastward, stood the small Arab fortification called Kasr el Meradjel; and from thence towards Ghaba the torrent crosses a district called El Nakya. About five miles distant from Medina was a station of the Hadj, called Zyl Haleyfe, situated on the banks of Wady Akyk, with a small castle and a birket, which was rebuilt in A.H. 861. Perhaps this Madderidje is meant by it.] On its banks stand a number of ashour trees, which were now in full flower. We were accompanied thus far by a number of people from Medina, in compliment to one of the Muftis of Mekka, who had been on a visit to the town, and was now returning to his home, intending to leave our caravan at Szafra. He had several tents and women with him. My other fellow- travellers were petty merchants of Medina going to await at Djidda the arrival of the Indian ships, and a rich merchant from Maskat, whom I had seen at Mekka, where he was on the pilgrimage: he had ten camels to carry his women, his infant children, his servants, and his baggage; and he spent, at every station, considerable sums in charity. He appeared, in every respect, a liberal and worthy Arab.