JIBITOS, a tribe of South American Indians, first met with by the Franciscans in 1676 in the forest near the Huallaga river, in the Peruvian province of Loreto. After their conversion they settled in villages on the western bank of the river.
JIBUTI (Djibouti), the chief port and capital of French Somaliland, in 11° 35′ N., 43° 10′ E. Jibuti is situated at the entrance to and on the southern shore of the Gulf of Tajura about 150 m. S.W. of Aden. The town is built on a horseshoe-shaped peninsula partly consisting of mud flats, which are spanned by causeways. The chief buildings are the governor’s palace, customs-house, post office, and the terminal station of the railway to Abyssinia. The houses in the European quarter are built of stone, are flat-roofed and provided with verandas. There is a good water supply, drawn from a reservoir about 2½ m. distant. The harbour is land-locked and capacious. Ocean steamers are able to enter it at all states of wind and tide. Adjoining the mainland is the native town, consisting mostly of roughly made wooden houses with well thatched roofs. In it is held a large market, chiefly for the disposal of live stock, camels, cattle, &c. The port is a regular calling-place and also a coaling station for the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes, and there is a local service to Aden. Trade is confined to coaling passing ships and to importing goods for and exporting goods from southern Abyssinia via Harrar, there being no local industries. (For statistics see [Somaliland, French].) The inhabitants are of many races—Somali, Danakil, Gallas, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Indians, besides Greeks, Italians, French and other Europeans. The population, which in 1900 when the railway was building was about 15,000, had fallen in 1907 to some 5000 or 6000, including 300 Europeans.
Jibuti was founded by the French in 1888 in consequence of its superiority to Obok both in respect to harbour accommodation and in nearness to Harrar. It has been the seat of the governor of the colony since May 1896. Order is maintained by a purely native police force. The port is not fortified.
JICARILLA, a tribe of North American Indians of Athapascan stock. Their former range was in New Mexico, about the headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos, and they are now settled in a reservation on the northern border of New Mexico. Originally a scourge of the district, they are now subdued, but remain uncivilized. They number some 800 and are steadily decreasing. The name is said to be from the Spanish jicara, a basket tray, in reference to their excellent basket-work.
JIDDA (also written Jeddah, Djiddah, Djeddeh), a town in Arabia on the Red Sea coast in 21° 28′ N. and 39° 10′ E. It is of importance mainly as the principal landing place of pilgrims to Mecca, from which it is about 46 m. distant. It is situated in a low sandy plain backed by a range of hills 10 m. to the east, with higher mountains behind. The town extends along the beach for about a mile, and is enclosed by a wall with towers at intervals, the seaward angles being commanded by two forts, in the northern of which are the prison and other public buildings. There are three gates, the Medina gate on the north, the Mecca gate on the east, and the Yemen gate (rarely opened) on the south; there are also three small posterns on the west side, the centre one leading to the quay. In front of the Mecca gate is a rambling suburb with shops, coffee houses, and an open market place; before the Medina gate are the Turkish barracks, and beyond them the holy place of Jidda, the tomb of “our mother Eve,” surrounded by the principal cemetery.
The tomb is a walled enclosure said to represent the dimensions of the body, about 200 paces long and 15 ft. broad. At the head is a small erection where gifts are deposited, and rather more than half-way down a whitewashed dome encloses a small dark chapel within which is the black stone known as El Surrah, the navel. The grave of Eve is mentioned by Edrisi, but except the black stone nothing bears any aspect of antiquity (see Burton’s Pilgrimage, vol. ii.).