[p.390]not removed till the wound heals, which amongst this people of simple life, generally takes place by first intention. Ulcers 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-Kays, died of this dreadful disease, and it is related that when Mohammed Abu Si Mohammed, in A.H. 132, conquered Al-Yaman with an army from Al-Hijaz, he found the people suffering from sloughing and mortifying sores, so terrible to look upon that he ordered the sufferers to be burnt alive. Fortunately for the patients, the conqueror died suddenly before his inhuman mandate was executed. These sores here, as in Al-Yaman,[FN#19] are worst when upon the shin bones; they eat deep into the leg, and the patient dies of fever and gangrene. They are treated on first appearance by the actual cautery, and, when practicable, by cutting off the joint; the drugs popularly applied are Tutiya (tutty) and verdigris. There is no cure but rest, a generous diet, and change of air.
By the above short account it will be seen that the Arabs are no longer the most skilful 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 Tents, where he lives as a Badawi, drinking camels' milk (a diet for the first three or four days highly cathartic), and doing nothing. This has been the practice from time immemorial in Arabia, whereas Europe is only beginning to systematise the adhibition of air, exercise, and simple living. And even now we are obliged to veil it under the garb of charlatanry-to call it a "milk-cure" in Switzerland,
[p.391]a "water-cure" in Silesia, a "grape-cure" in France, a "hunger-cure" in Germany, and other sensible names which act as dust in the public eyes.
Al-Madinah 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 Meccah. It is a walled enclosure forming an irregular oval with four gates. The Bab al-Shami, or " Syrian Gate," in the North-West side of the enceinte, leads towards Jabal Ohod, Hamzah's burial-place, and the mountains. In the Eastern wall, the Bab al-Jum'ah, or Friday Gate, opens upon the Nijd road and the cemetery, Al-Bakia. Between the Shami and the Jum'ah gates, towards the North, is the Bab al-Ziyafah (of Hospitality); and Westwards the Bab al-Misri (Egyptian) opens upon the plain called the Barr al-Manakhah. The Eastern and the Egyptian gates are fine massive buildings, with double towers close together, painted with broad bands of red, yellow, and other colors, not unlike that old entrance of the Cairo citadel which opens upon the Ramayliyah plain. They may be compared with the gateway towers of the old Norman castles-Arques, for instance. In their shady and well-watered interiors, soldiers keep guard, camel-men dispute, and numerous idlers congregate, to enjoy the luxuries of coolness and of companionship. Beyond this gate, in the street leading to the Mosque, is the great bazar. Outside it lie the Suk al-Khuzayriyah, or greengrocers' market, and the Suk al-Habbabah, or the grain bazar, 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 whitewashed building, which I was told is a Sabil or public fountain. In the days of the Prophet the town
[p.392] was not walled. Even in Al-Idrisi's time (twelfth century), and as late as Bartema's (eighteenth century), the fortifications were mounds of earth, made by order of Kasim al-Daulat al-Ghori, who re-populated the town and provided for its inhabitants. Now, the enceinte is in excellent condition. The walls are well built of granite and lava blocks, in regular layers, cemented with lime; they are provided with "Mazghal" (or "Matras") long loopholes, and "Shararif" or trefoil-shaped crenelles: in order to secure a flanking fire, semicircular towers, also loopholed and crenellated, 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 Wakalahs are four in number; one is the Wakalat Bab Salam near the Harim, another the Wakalat Jabarti, and two are inside the Misri gate; they all belong to Arab citizens. These Caravanserais are used principally as stores, rarely for dwelling-places like those of Cairo; travellers, therefore, must hire houses at a considerable expense, or pitch tents to the detriment of health and to their extreme discomfort. The other public buildings are a few mean coffee-houses and an excellent bath in the Harat Zarawan, 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 a basaltic scoria, burnt brick, and palm wood. The best enclose spacious courtyards and small gardens with wells, where water basins and date trees gladden the owners' eyes. The latticed balconies, first seen by the overland European traveller at Malta, are here common, and the windows are
[p.393]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 a little city as any to be found in the East. It contains between fifty and sixty streets, including the alleys and culs-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 a dilapidated condition. The best authorities estimate the number of habitations at about 1500 within the enceinte, and those in the suburb at 1000. I consider both accounts exaggerated; the former might contain 800, and the Manakhah perhaps 500; 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 6000 houses and a population of 18,000 souls. Assuming the population to be 16,000 (Burckhardt raises it as high as 20,000), of which 9000 occupy the city, and 7000 the suburbs and the fort, this would give a little more than twelve inhabitants to each house, a fair estimate for an Arab town, where the abodes are large and slaves abound.[FN#20]
The castle joins on to the North-West angle of the city enceinte, and the wall of its Eastern outwork is pierced for
[p.394]a communication through a court strewed with guns and warlike apparatus, between the Manakhah Suburb and the Bab al-Shami, or the Syrian Gate. Having been refused entrance into the fort, I can describe only its exterior. The outer wall resembles that of the city, only its towers 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; its whitewashed walls make it a conspicuous object, and guns pointed in all directions, especially upon the town, project from their embrasures. The castle is said to contain wells, bomb-proofs, provisions, and munitions of war; if so, it must be a kind of Gibraltar to the Badawin and the Wahhabis. The garrison consisted of a Nisf Urtah,[FN#21] or half battalion (four hundred men) of Nizam infantry, commanded by a Pasha; his authority also extends to a Sanjak, or about five hundred Kurdish and Albanian Bash-Buzuks, whose duty it is to escort caravans, to convey treasures, and to be shot at in the Passes. The Madani, 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 North-West, and built as it is in most places without moat, glacis, 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 battles the Barr al-Manakhah was a fitting field. Northward from the fort, on the road to Ohod, but still within fire, is a long many-windowed building, formerly Da'ud Pasha's palace. In my time it had been bought by Abbas Pasha of Egypt.
[p.395]The suburbs lie to the South and West of the town. Southwards they are separated from the enceinte by a wide road, called the Darb al-Janazah, the Road of 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 the Bab al-Jumah, or Eastern Gate. Westwards, between Al-Madinah and its faubourg, lies the plain of Al-Manakhah, about three-quarters of a mile long, by three hundred yards broad. The straggling suburbs occupy more ground than the city: fronting the enceinte they are without walls; towards the West, where open country lies, they are 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 the Bab al-Nasr at Cairo, is the Ambari or Western entrance, through which we passed into Al-Madinah. The suburb contains no buildings of any consequence, except the Khaskiyah, or official residence of the Muhafiz (governor), a plain building near the Barr al-Manakhah, and the Khamsah Masajid, or the Five Mosques, which every Zair is expected to visit. They are
The Prophet's Mosque in the Manakhah. Abu Bakr's near the Ayn al-Zarka. Ali's Mosque in the Zukak al-Tayyar of the Manakhah. Some authors call this the "Musalla al-Id," because the Prophet here prayed the Festival Prayer. Omar's Mosque, near the Bab Kuba of the Manakhah, and close to the little torrent called Al-Sayh. Belal's Mosque, celebrated in books; I did not see it, and some Madani assured me that it no longer exists.