Travels in Arabia Part 23

The person of the Sheikh el Haram was respected by the Wahabys: when Saoud took Medina, he permitted the Sheikh, with several other eunuchs, to retire to Yembo, with his wives, and all his baggage and valuables; but would not receive another into the town; and the eunuchs themselves then appointed one of their number to preside over them, till after an interval of eight years, when the present chief was sent from Constantinople; but his influence over the affairs of the town is reduced to a mere shadow of what it was.

A eunuch of the mosque would be highly affronted if he were so termed by any person. Their usual t.i.tle is Aga. Their chief takes the t.i.tle of Highness, or Sadetkom, like a Pasha, or the Sherif of Mekka.

Besides those eunuchs, the mosque reckons among its servants a number of the inhabitants of the town; these are called Ferrashyn, a name implying that their duty consists in keeping the mosque clean, and spreading the carpets. Some of them attend at the mosque to light the lamps, and to clean the floor, together with the eunuchs; with others it is a mere sinecure, and some of the first people of the town belong to this body.

I am unacquainted how the office is obtained, but believe that it is purchased from the Sheikh el Haram. The name of each Ferrash is put down in the lists which are yearly sent to Constantinople, and they all share in the stipends which the town receives from that capital, and the whole Turkish empire, in which there is always a considerable portion for the Ferrashyn. It would appear that the office is hereditary; at least often transmitted from father to son. The number is fixed at five hundred; but to

[p.345] increase it, an expedient has, according to D'Ohhson, been adopted, of dividing each number into half, and third, and eighth shares; and any fractional part may be bestowed upon an individual, who thus becomes an inferior member of the corps. Many of these Ferrashyn are in partibus, the t.i.tle having been given to great foreign hadjys, dispersed over the whole empire, who think themselves honoured in possessing it.

Many of these Ferrashyn are, at the same time ciceroni, or Mezowars, and exercise also, the very lucrative profession of saying prayers for the absent. Most hadjys of any consequence who pa.s.s here, form an acquaintance with some of these men, their guides over the holy places.

On their return home, they often make it a pious rule to send annually some money, one or two zecchins, to their ancient cicerone, who is thus bound in honour to recite some prayers, in the name of the donor, before the window of the Hedjra. These remittances, wrapped up in small sealed papers, with the address upon them, are collected in every province or princ.i.p.al town of Anatolia, or Turkey in Europe, from whence they are princ.i.p.ally sent, and brought to Medina by the Surra writer of Constantinople, who accompanies the pilgrim caravan, and is at the head of its financial department. Some of the princ.i.p.al Ferrashyns have monopolized whole towns and provinces; the natives of those parts, who pa.s.s through Medina, being introduced to them by their countrymen. The correspondents of others are dispersed over the whole empire. The profits which they derive from this profession, which resemble those accruing to Roman Catholic priests for the reading of ma.s.ses, are very considerable: I have heard that some of the princ.i.p.al Ferrashyn have from four to five hundred correspondents dispersed over Turkey, from each of whom they receive yearly stipends, the smallest of which is one Venetian zecchin.

The number of Ferrashyn, as well as of Mezowars, is very great. The duties of their office can be so easily performed, that they are for the greater part a very idle cla.s.s. During the time of the Wahabys, however, their perquisites ceased; and, as few pilgrims then arrived, they were reduced to great extremities, from which they are now beginning slowly to recover. They complain, that the long cessation of the yearly stipends has accustomed so many original correspondents

[p.346] to withhold their gifts, that, although the caravan intercourse is re-established, little inclination appears to renew them.

The Wahabys are forbidden by their law to visit the tomb of the Prophet, or to stand before the Hedjra and pray for his intercession in heaven.

As Mohammed is considered by them a mere mortal, his tomb is thought unworthy of any particular notice. It was as much a strict religious principle, as a love of plunder, that induced Saoud to carry off the treasures of the Hedjra, which were thought little adapted in decency and humility to adorn a grave. The tomb itself he left untouched; and, for once, gave way to the national feelings of the Arabians, and perhaps to the compunctions of his own conscience, which could not entirely divest itself of earlier impressions; he neither removed the brocade from the tomb, nor the curtain which encloses it. Dreams, it is said, terrified him, or withheld his sacrilegious hand; and he in like manner respected that of Fatme: but, on the other hand, he ruined, without exception, all the buildings of the public burial-ground, where many great saints repose, and destroyed even the sculptured and ornamented stones of those tombs, a simple block being thought by him quite sufficient to cover the remains of the dead.

In prohibiting any visit to the tomb, the Wahabys never entertained the idea of discontinuing the visit to the mosque. That edifice having been built by the Prophet, at the remarkable epoch of his flight from Mekka, which laid the first foundations of Islam, it is considered by them as the most holy spot upon earth, next to the Beitullah of Mekka. Saoud had indeed once given orders, that none of these Turkish pilgrims, who still flocked from Yembo to this tomb, even after the interruption of the regular pilgrim-caravans, should any more be permitted to enter Medina: and this he did to prevent what he called their idolatrous praying; a practice which it was impossible to abolish without excluding them at once from the mosque; this prohibition Saoud did not think proper to enforce: he therefore preferred keeping them from the city, under pretence that their improper behaviour rendered such a proceeding necessary. He himself, with all his adherents, often paid a devout visit to the holy mosque; and in the treaty of peace which his son Abdallah, concluded with

[p.347] Tousoun Pasha in 1815, it is expressly stipulated that the Wahabys should be permitted to visit the Mesdjed-e'-Neby, or the mosque of the Prophet, (not his tomb,) without molestation.

Even with the orthodox Moslims, the visit to this tomb and mosque is merely a meritorious action, which has nothing to do with the obligations to perform the Hadj, inc.u.mbent upon the faithful; but which, like the visit to the mosque at Jerusalem, and the tomb of Abraham at Hebron, is thought to be an act highly acceptable to the Deity, and to expiate many sins, while it ent.i.tles the visiter, at the same time, to the pratronage of the Prophet and the Patriarch in heaven: and it is said, that he who recites forty prayers in this mosque, will be delivered from h.e.l.l-fire and torments after death. As saints, however, are often more venerated than the Deity himself, who it is well known accepts of no other offerings than a pure conscience or sincere repentance, and is therefore not so easily appeased; so the visit to Medina is nearly as much esteemed as that to the house of G.o.d, the Beitullah at Mekka; and the visiters crowd with more zeal and eagerness to this shrine, than they do even to the Kaaba. Throughout the year, swarms of pilgrims arrive from all parts of the Mohammedan world, usually by the way of Yembo. The Moggrebyns especially seem the most fervent in their visits: they are, however, brought here by another object, for in this town is situated the tomb of the Imam Malek ibn Anes, the founder of the orthodox sect of the Malekites, to which belong the Moggrebyns.

The mosque at Mekka is visited daily by female hadjys, who have their own station a.s.signed to them. At Medina, on the contrary, it is thought very indecorous in women to enter the mosque. Those who come here from foreign parts, visit the tomb during the night, after the last prayers, while the women resident in the town hardly ever venture to pa.s.s the threshold: my old landlady, who had lived close to it for fifty years, a.s.sured me that she had been only once in her life within its precincts, and that females of a loose character only are daring enough to perform their prayers there. In general, women are seldom seen in the mosques in the East, although free access is not forbidden. A few are sometimes met in the most holy temples, as that

[p.348] of the Azhar at Cairo, where they offer up their thanks to Providence, for any favour which they may have taken a vow thus to acknowledge. Even in their houses the women seldom pray, except devout old ladies; and it is remarked as an extraordinary accomplishment in a woman, if she knows her prayers well, and has got by heart some chapters of the Koran. Women being considered in the East as inferior creatures, to whom some learned commentators on the Koran deny even the entrance into Paradise, their husbands care little about their strict observance of religious rites, and many of them even dislike it, because it raises them to a nearer level with themselves; and it is remarked, that the woman makes a bad wife, who can once claim the respect to which she is ent.i.tled by the regular reading of prayers.

There are no sacred pigeons in this mosque, as in that at Mekka; but the quant.i.ty of woollen carpets spread in it, where the most dirty Arabs sit down by the side of the best dressed hadjys, have rendered it the favourite abode of millions of other animals less harmless than pigeons, and a great plague to all visiters, who transfer them to their private lodgings, which thus swarm with vermin.

This mosque being much smaller than that of Mekka, and a strict police kept up in it by the eunuchs, it is less infested with beggars and idle characters than the former. It should seem also, that the tomb of Mohammed inspires the people of Medina with much greater awe, and religious respect, than the Kaaba does those of Mekka; which sentiment deters them from approaching it with idle thoughts, or as a mere pastime: much more decorum is therefore observed within its precincts than within those of the Beitullah.

As at Mekka, a number of Khatybs, Imams, Mueddins, and other persons belonging to the body of Olemas, are attached to the mosque. The olemas here are said to be more learned than their brethren of Mekka; and those of former days have produced many valuable writings. At present, however, there is less appearance of learning here than at Mekka. During my visits to the mosque I never saw a native Arab teaching knowledge of any kind, and only a few Turkish hadjys explaining some religious books in their own language, to a very few auditors, from whom they collected trifling sums, to defray

[p.349] the expenses of their journey home. Tousoun Pasha, the only one of his family who is not an avowed atheist, frequently attended those lectures, and sat in the same circle with the other persons present. I was told, that in the medrese called El Hamdye some public lectures are delivered; but I had no opportunity of ascertaining the fact. I believe that there is not in the whole Mohammedan empire a town so large as Medina where lectures are not held in the mosques; that this was formerly the case also in this town, is proved by the many pious foundations established exclusively for this purpose, the emoluments of which many olemas still enjoy without performing the duties.

The haram or mosque of Medina, like that at Mekka, possesses considerable property and annuities in every part of the empire. Its yearly income is divided among the eunuchs, the olemas, and the Ferrashyn. The daily expenses of lighting and repairing the building are made to account for the expenditure of the whole. As, excepting the precious articles contained in the Hedjra, no money-treasure has ever been kept in the mosque, a double advantage accrues to the inhabitants of the town, numbers of whom gain a comfortable livelihood, while all are exempted from the danger and the internal broils which would, no doubt, occur, were it known that a large sum of money might be obtained by seizing the mosque. The days are past, in the East, when a public treasure can be deposited in a place sufficiently sacred to guard it from the hands of plunderers. The smallest part of the income of all public foundations is spent in the relief of the poor, or the pious purpose to which it was destined: it serves merely to pamper a swarm of idle hypocrites, who have no other motives for acquiring a smattering of learning, than the hope of sharing in the illegal profits that accrue to the guardians or agents of these inst.i.tutions.

Like most of the public buildings in the East, the approach to the mosque is choked on all sides by private habitations, so as to leave, in some parts, only an open street between them and the walls of the mosque; while in others the houses are built against the walls, and conceal them. Either three or five minarets (I forget

[p.350] which) are erected on different sides of the building; and one of them is said to stand on the spot where Bellal, the Abyssinian, the Mueddin of Mohammed, and one of his great favourites, used to call the faithful to prayers.

The following brief history of the mosque is taken from Samhoudy, the historian of Medina:

"The mosque of Medina was founded by Mohammed himself, and is therefore called his mosque, or Mesdjed-e'-Neby. When he reached the city, at that time an open settlement of Arabs, called Yathreb, (subsequently Medina) after his flight from Mekka, and was sure of being now among friends, he erected a small chapel on the spot where his camel had first rested in the town, having bought the ground from the Arabs; and he enclosed it with mud walls, upon which he placed a roof of palm-leaves, supported by the stems of palm-trees for pillars: this edifice he soon after enlarged, having laid the foundations with stone. Instead of the Mahrab, or niche, which is placed in mosques to show the direction in which the faithful ought to turn in their prayers, Mohammed placed a large stone, which was at first turned to the north, towards Jerusalem, and placed in the direction of the Kaaba of Mekka, in the second year of the Hedjra, when the ancient Kebly was changed.

"Omar ibn el Khatab widened the mosque with mud walls and palm-branches, and, instead of the stems of palms, he made pillars of mud. He first carried a wall round the Hedjra, or the place where the body of Mohammed had been deposited at his death, and which was at first enclosed only by palm-branches. The square enclosed by the walls of the mosque was increased to one hundred and forty pikes in length, and one hundred and twenty in breadth, A.H. 17.

"Othman built the walls of hewn stone: in A.H. 29, he renewed the earthen pillars, strengthening the new ones with hoops of iron, and made the roof of the precious Indian wood called Sadj. The square was enlarged to one hundred and sixty pikes by one hundred and fifty; and six gates were opened into it.

"Wolyd, he to whom Damascus owes its beautiful mosque, called Djama el Ammouy, further enlarged the Mesdjed-e'-Neby in A.H. 91.

[p.351] Till then, the houses where the wives and daughter and female relations of Mohammed had resided, stood close to the Hedjra, beyond the precincts of the mosque, into which they had private gates.

Notwithstanding the great opposition he encountered, Wolyd compelled the women to leave their houses, and to accept a fair price for them; he then razed them, and extended the wall of the mosque on that side. The Greek Emperor, with whom he happened to be at peace, sent him workmen from Constantinople, who a.s.sisted in the new building; [Makrisi, in his account of various sovereigns who performed the pilgrimage, says that the Greek Emperor (whom he does not name) sent one hundred workmen to Wolyd, and a present of a hundred thousand methkal of gold, together with forty loads of small cut stones, for a mosaic pavement.] several of whom, being Christians, behaved, as it is related, with great indecency; one of them, in particular, when in the act of defiling the very tomb of the Prophet, was killed by a stone which fell from the roof. New stone pillars were now placed in the mosque, with gilt capitals. The walls were cased with marble variously adorned, and parts of them likewise gilt, and the whole building thus completely renewed.

"About A.H. 160, the Khalife El Mohdy still further enlarged the enclosure, and made it two hundred and forty pikes in length; and in this state the mosque remained for several centuries.

"Hakem b'amr Illah, the mad King of Egypt, who sent one of his emissaries to destroy the black stone of the Kaaba, also made an unsuccessful attempt to take from the mosque of Medina Mohammed's tomb, and transport it to Cairo. In A.H. 557, in the time of El Melek el Adel Noureddyn, king of Egypt, two Christians in disguise were discovered at Medina, who had made a subterraneous pa.s.sage from a neighbouring house into the Hedjra, and stolen from thence articles of great value. Being put to the torture, they confessed having been sent by the King of Spain for that purpose; and they paid for their temerity with their lives.

Sultan Noureddyn, after this, carried a trench round the Hedjra, and filled it with lead, to prevent similar attempts.

"In A.H. 654, a few months after the eruption of a volcano near the

[p.352] town, the mosque caught fire, and was burnt to the ground; but the Korans deposited in the Hedjra were saved. This accident was ascribed to the Persian sectaries of Beni Hosseyn, who were then the guardians of the tomb. In the following year its restoration was undertaken at the expense of the Khalife Mostasem Billah, Ibn el Montaser Billah, and the lord of Yemen, El Mothaffer Shams eddyn Yousef, and completed by El Dhaher Bybars, Sultan of Egypt, in A.H. 657. The dome over the tomb was erected in 678. Several kings of Egypt successively improved and enlarged the building, till A.H. 886, when it was again destroyed by fire occasioned by lightning. The destruction was complete; all the walls of the mosque, and part of those of the Hedjra, the roof, and one hundred and twenty columns fell: all the books in the mosque were destroyed; but the fire appears to have spared the interior of the tomb in the Hedjra. Kayd Beg, then king of Egypt, to whom that country and the Hedjaz owe a number of public works, completely rebuilt the mosque, as it now stands, in A.H. 892. He sent three hundred workmen from Cairo for that purpose. The interior of the Hedjra was cleared, and three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish; but the author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs.

The original place of Mohammed's tomb was ascertained with great difficulty. The walls of the Hedjra were then rebuilt, and the iron railing placed round it which is now there. The dome was again raised over it; the gates were distributed as they now are; a new mambar, or pulpit, was sent as a present from Cairo, and the whole mosque a.s.sumed its present form. Since the above period, a few immaterial improvements have been made by the Othman Emperors of Constantinople."

[p.353]GARDENS and plantations, as I have already said, surround the town of Medina, with its suburbs, on three sides, and to the eastward and southward extend to the distance of six or eight miles. They consist princ.i.p.ally of date-groves and wheat and barley fields; the latter usually enclosed with mud walls, and containing small habitations for the cultivators. Their houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the town are well built, often with a vestibule supported by columns, and a vaulted sitting-room adjoining, and a tank cased with stone in front of them. They are the summer residence of many families of the town, who make it a custom to pa.s.s there a couple of months in the hottest season.

Few of the date-groves, unless those dispersed over the fields, are at all enclosed; and most of them are irrigated only by the torrents and winter rains. The gardens themselves are very low, the earth being taken from the middle parts of them, and heaped up round the walls, so as to leave the s.p.a.ce destined for agriculture, like a pit, ten or twelve feet below the surface of the plain: this is done to get at a better soil, experience having shown that the upper stratum is much more impregnated with salt, and less fit for cultivation, than the lower. No great industry is any where applied; much ground continues waste; and even where the fields are laid out, no economy whatever is shown in the culture of them. Many spots are wholly barren; and the saline nature of the soil prevents the seed from growing. The ground towards the village of Koba, and beyond it, in a south and east direction, is said to consist of good earth, without any saline mixture; and in value it is consequently much higher than that near the town, which, after rains, I have seen completely covered for several days with a saline crust, partly deposited from the waters, and partly evaporated from the soil itself, in the more elevated spots which the waters do not reach.

Most of the gardens and plantations belong to the people of the

[p.354] town; and the Arabs who cultivate them (called nowakhele) are mostly farmers. The property of the gardens is either mulk or wakf; the former, if they belong to an individual; the latter, if they belong to the mosque, or any of the medreses or pious foundations, from which they are farmed, at very long leases, by the people of Medina themselves, who re-let them on shorter terms to the cultivators. They pay no duties whatever. Not the smallest land-tax, or miri, is levied; an immunity which, I believe, all the fertile oases of the Hedjaz enjoyed previous to the invasion by the Wahabys: these, however, had no sooner taken possession of the town, than they taxed the soil, according to their established rule. The fields were a.s.sessed, not by their produce in corn, but in dates, the number of date-trees in every field being usually proportionate to the fertility of the soil, and also to its crop of grain. From every erdeb of dates the Wahaby tax-gatherers took their quota either in kind or in money, according to the market-price they then bore. These regulations caused the Wahabys to be disliked here much more than they were at Mekka, where the inhabitants had no fields to be taxed; and where the tax which the Wahabys had imposed was dispensed with, or rather given up to the Sherif, the ancient governor of the town, as I have already remarked. The Mekkans, besides, carried on commerce, from which they could at all times derive some profit, independent of the advantages accruing to them from the foreign hadjys.

The people of Medina, on the contrary, are very petty merchants; and their main support depends upon the pilgrims, the yearly stipends from Turkey, or their landed property. As they were obliged entirely to renounce the former, and were curtailed in the profits from the latter; and as the Wahabys showed much less respect for their venerated tomb than they did for the Beitullah at Mekka, we cannot wonder that their name is execrated by the people of Medina, and loaded with the most opprobrious epithets.

The princ.i.p.al produce of the fields [They are here called Beled, (plur.

Boldan): the beled of such a one.] about Medina, is wheat and barley, some clover, and garden-fruits, but chiefly dates. Barley is

[p.355] grown in much larger quant.i.ty than wheat; and barley-bread forms a princ.i.p.al article of food with the lower cla.s.ses. Its harvest is in the middle of March. The crops are very thin; but the produce is of a good quality, and sells in the market of Medina at about fifteen per cent higher than the Egyptian. After harvest, the fields are left fallow till the next year; for though there is sufficient water in the wells [Every garden or field has its well, from whence the water is drawn up by a.s.ses, cows, or camels, in large leathern buckets. I believe there are no fields that are not regularly watered, and the seed of none is left merely to the chance of the winter-rains.] to produce a second irrigation, the soil is too poor to suffer it, without becoming entirely exhausted. No oats are sown here, nor any where else in the Hedjaz. The fruit-trees are found princ.i.p.ally on the side of the village of Koba.

Pomegranates and grapes are said to be excellent, especially the former: there are likewise some peaches, bananas, and, in the gardens of Koba, a few water-melons, and vegetables, as spinach, turnips, leeks, onions, carrots, and beans, but in very small quant.i.ties. The nebek-tree, producing the lotus, is extremely common in the plain of Medina, as well as in the neighbouring mountains; and incredible quant.i.ties of its fruit are brought to market in March, when the lower cla.s.ses make it a prime article of food. But the staple produce of Medina is dates, for the excellence of which fruit this neighbourhood is celebrated throughout Arabia. The date-trees stand either in the enclosed fields, where they are irrigated together with the seeds in the ground, or in the open plain, where they are watered by the rains only: the fruit of the latter, though less abundant, is more esteemed. Numbers of them grow wild on the plain, but every tree has its owner. Their size is, in general, inferior to that of the Egyptian palm-tree, fed by the rich soil of the country, and the waters of the Nile; but their fruit is much sweeter, and has a more fragrant smell.

The many different uses to which almost every part of the date-tree is applied, have already been mentioned by several travellers; they render it as dear to the settled Arab, as the camel is to the Bedouin.

[p.356] Mohammed, in one of the sayings recorded of him, compares the virtuous and generous man to this n.o.ble tree. "He stands erect before his Lord; in his every action he follows the impulse received from above, and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow- creatures." [See also the 1st Psalm, v. 3.--"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water," &c.] The people of the Hedjaz, like the Egyptians, make use of the leaves, the outer and inner bark of the trunk, and the fleshy substance at the root of the leaves where they spring from the trunk; and, besides this, they use the kernels of the fruit, as food for their cattle: they soak them for two days in water, when they become softened, and then give them to camels, cows, and sheep, instead of barley; and they are said to be much more nutritive than that grain. There are shops at Medina in which nothing else is sold but date-kernels; and the beggars are continually employed, in all the main streets, in picking up those that are thrown away. In the province of Nedjed the Arabs grind the kernels for the same purpose; but this is not done in the Hedjaz.

Various kinds of dates are found at Medina, as well as in all other fruitful vallies of this country; and every place, almost, has its own species, which grows no where else. I have heard that upwards of one hundred different sorts of dates grow in the immediate neighbourhood of the town; the author of the description of Medina mentions one hundred and thirty. Of the most common sorts are the Djebely, the cheapest, and I believe the most universally spread in the Hedjaz; the Heloua; the Heleya, a very small date, not larger than a mulberry; it has its name from its extraordinary sweetness, in which it does not yield to the finest figs from Smyrna, and like them is covered, when dried, by a saccharine crust. The inhabitants relate, that Mohammed performed a great miracle with this date: he put a stone of it into the earth, which immediately took root, grew up, and within five minutes a full-grown tree, covered with fruit, stood before him. Another miracle is related of the species called El Syhany, a tree of

[p.357] which addressed a loud "Salam Aleyk.u.m" to the Prophet, as he pa.s.sed under it. The Birny is esteemed the most wholesome, as it is certainly the easiest of digestion: it was the favourite of Mohammed, who advised the Arabs to eat seven of its fruit every morning before breakfast. The Djeleby is the scarcest of them all: it is about three inches in length, and one in breadth, and has a peculiarly agreeable taste, although not so sweet as the Heleya. It seems that it grows with great difficulty; for there are, at most, not more than one hundred trees of this species, and they are less fertile than any of the other.

They grow in no part of the Hedjaz, but here and in the groves of Yembo el Nakhel. The price of the Birny is twenty paras per keile, a measure, containing at least one hundred and twenty dates, while the Djeleby is sold at eight dates for twenty paras: they are in great request with the hadjys, who usually carry some of these dates home, to present to their friends, as coming from the city of the Prophet; and small boxes, holding about one hundred of them, are made at Medina, for their conveyance.

Dates form an article of food by far the most essential to the lower cla.s.ses of Medina: their harvest is expected with as much anxiety, and attended with as much general rejoicings, as the vintage in the south of Europe; and if the crop fails, which often happens, as these trees are seldom known to produce abundantly for three or four successive years, or is eaten up by the locusts, universal gloom overspreads the population, as if a famine were apprehended.

One species of the Medina dates, the name of which I have forgotten, remains perfectly green although ripe, and dried; another retains a bright saffron colour: these dates are threaded on strings, and sold all over the Hedjaz, where they go by the name of Kalayd es' Sham, or necklaces of the North; and the young children frequently wear them round the neck. The first dates are eaten in the begining of June, and at that period of their growth are called Rotab; but the general date- harvest is at the end of that month. In Egypt it is a month later. Dates are dressed in many different ways by the Arabs; boiled in milk, broiled with b.u.t.ter; or reduced to a thick pulp

[p.358] by boiling in water, over which honey is poured; and the Arabs say that a good housewife will daily furnish her lord, for a month, a dish of dates differently dressed.

In these gardens a very common tree is the Ithel, a species of tamarisk, cultivated for its hard wood, of which the Arabs make their camels'

saddles, and every utensil that requires strong handles.

In the gardens we seldom find the ground perfectly level, and the cultivation is often interrupted by heaps of rocks. On the N.W. and W.

sides of the town, the whole plain is so rocky as to defeat all attempts at improvement. The cultivable soil is clay, mixed with a good deal of chalk and sand, and is of a grayish white colour: in other parts it consists of a yellow loam, and also of a substance very similar to bole- earth; small conical pieces of the latter, about an inch and a half long, and dried in the sun, are sold, suspended on a piece of riband, to the visiters of Medina. It is related that Mohammed cured a Bedouin of Beni Hareth, and several others, of a fever by was.h.i.+ng their bodies with water in which this earth had been dissolved; and the pilgrims are eager to carry home a memorial of this miracle. The earth is taken from a ditch at a place called El Medshounye, in the neighbourhood of the town.