El Medinah consists of three parts—a town, a castle, and a large suburb. The population, when I visited it, ranged from sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand souls, whereas Meccah numbered forty-five thousand, and the garrison consisted of a half-battalion, or four hundred men. Mohammed’s last resting-place has some fifteen hundred hearths enclosed by a wall of granite and basalt in irregular layers cemented with lime. It is pierced with four gates: the Syrian, the Gate of Hospitality, the Friday, and the Egyptian. The two latter are fine massive buildings, with double towers like the old Norman portals, but painted with broad bands of red pillars and other flaring colours. Except the Prophet’s mosque, there are few public buildings. There are only four caravanserais, and the markets are long lines of sheds, thatched with scorched and blackened palm-leaves. The streets are what they should always be in torrid lands, dark, deep, narrow, and rarely paved; they are generally of black earth, well watered
and trodden to harden. The houses appear well built for the East, of square stone, flat roofed, double storied, and enclosing spacious courtyards and small gardens, where water basins and trees and sheds “cool the eye,” as Arabs say. Latticed balconies are here universal, and the windows are mere holes in the walls provided with broad shutters. The castle has stronger defences than the town, and inside it a tall donjon tower bears, proudly enough, the banner of the Crescent and the Star. Its whitewashed lines of wall render this fortalice a conspicuous object, and guns pointing in all directions, especially upon the town, make it appear a kind of Gibraltar to the Bedouins.
For many reasons strangers become very much attached to El Medinah and there end their lives. My servant, Shaykh Nur, opined it to be a very “heavenly city.” Therefore the mass of the population is of foreign extraction.
On August 28th arrived the great Damascus caravan, which sets out from Constantinople bringing the presents of the Sublime Porte. It is the main stream which absorbs all the small currents flowing at this season of general movement from Central Asia towards the great centre of the Islamitic world, and in 1853 it numbered about seven thousand souls. It was anxiously expected at El Medinah for several reasons. In the first place, it brought with it a new curtain for the Prophet’s chamber, the old one being in a tattered condition; secondly, it had charge of the annual stipends and pensions for the citizens; and thirdly,
many families had members returning under its escort to their homes. The popular anxiety was greatly increased by the disordered state of the country round about, and moreover the great caravan was a day late. The Russian war had extended its excitement even into the bowels of Arabia, and to travel eastward according to my original intention was impossible.
For a day or two we were doubtful about which road the caravan would take—the easy coast line or the difficult and dangerous eastern, or desert, route. Presently Saad the robber shut his doors against us, and we were driven perforce to choose the worse. The distance between El Medinah and Meccah by the frontier way would be in round numbers two hundred and fifty (two hundred and forty-eight) miles, and in the month of September water promised to be exceedingly scarce and bad.
I lost no time in patching up my water-skins, in laying in a store of provisions, and in hiring camels. Masad El Harbi, an old Bedouin, agreed to let me have two animals for the sum of twenty dollars. My host warned me against the treachery of the wild men, with whom it is necessary to eat salt once a day. Otherwise they may rob the traveller and plead that the salt is not in their stomachs.
Towards evening time on August 30th, El Medinah became a scene of exceeding confusion in consequence of the departure of the pilgrims. About an hour after sunset all our preparations were concluded. The
evening was sultry; we therefore dined outside the house. I was told to repair to the shrine for the ziyarat el widoa, or the farewell visitation. My decided objection to this step was that we were all to part, and where to meet again we knew not. I therefore prayed a two-prostration prayer, and facing towards the haram recited the usual supplication. We sat up till 2 p.m. when, having heard no signal gun, we lay down to sleep through the hot remnant of the hours of darkness. Thus was spent my last night at the City of the Prophet.
[1] “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chap. i.