[p.386]tertian fevers (Hummah Salis) are not uncommon, and if
accompanied by emetism, they are frequently fatal.
[p.387]The attack generally begins with the Naffazah, or cold fit, and
is followed by Al-Hummah, the hot stage. The principal remedies are
cooling drinks, such as Sikanjabin (oxymel) and syrups. After the fever
the face and body frequently swell, and indurated lumps appear on the
legs and stomach. There are also low fevers, called simply Hummah; they
are usually treated by burning charms in the patient's room. Jaundice
and bilious complaints are common, and the former is popularly cured in
a peculiar way. The sick man looks into a pot full of water, whilst the
exorciser, reciting a certain spell, draws the heads of two needles
from the patient's ears along his eyes, down his face, lastly dipping
them into water, which at once becomes yellow. Others have "Mirayat,"
magic mirrors,[FN#18] on which the patient looks, and looses the
complaint.
[p.388] Dysenteries frequently occur in the fruit season, when the
greedy Arabs devour all manner of unripe
[p.389]peaches, grapes, and pomegranates. The popular treatment is by
the actual cautery; the scientific affect the use of drastics and
astringent simples, and the Bizr al-Kutn (cotton-seed), toasted,
pounded, and drunk in warm water. Almost every one here, as in Egypt,
suffers more or less from haemorrhoids; they are treated by
dietetics-eggs and leeks-and by a variety of drugs, Myrobalans,
Lisan-al-Hamal (Arnoglossum), etc. But the patient looks with horror at
the scissors and the knife, so that they seldom succeed in obtaining a
radical cure. The Filaria Medinensis, locally called "Farantit," is no
longer common at the place which gave it its European name. At Yambu',
however, the people suffer much from the Vena appearing in the legs.
The complaint is treated here as in India and in Abyssinia: when the
tumour bursts, and the worm shows, it is extracted by being gradually
wound round a splinter of wood. Hydrophobia is rare, and the people
have many superstitions about it. They suppose that a bit of meat falls
from the sky, and that a dog eating it becomes mad. I was assured by
respectable persons, that when a man is bitten, they shut him up with
food, in a solitary chamber, for four days, and that if at the end of
that time he still howls like a dog, they expel the Ghul (demon) from
him, by pouring over him boiling water mixed with ashes-a certain cure
I can easily believe. The only description of leprosy known in Al-Hijaz
is that called "Al-Baras": it appears in white patches on the skin,
seldom attacks any but the poorer classes, and is considered incurable.
Wounds are treated by Marham, or ointments, especially by the
"Balesan," or Balm of Meccah; a cloth is tied round the limb, and
[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.
A description of one of these buildings will suffice, for they are all
similar. Mohammed's Mosque in the Manakhah stands upon a spot formerly
occupied, some say, by the Jami Ghamamah. Others believe it to be
founded upon the Musalla al-Nabi, a place where the
[p.396]Apostle recited the first Festival prayers after his arrival at
Al-Madinah, and used frequently to pray, and to address those of his
followers who lived far from the Harim,[FN#22] or Sanctuary. It is a
trim modern building of cut stone and lime in regular layers, of
parallelogramic shape, surmounted by one large and four small cupolas.
These are all whitewashed; and the principal is capped with a large
crescent, or rather a trident, rising from a series of gilt globes: the
other domes crown the several corners. The minaret is of the usual
Turkish shape, with a conical roof, and a single gallery for the
Mu'ezzin. An Acacia-tree or two on the Eastern side, and behind it a
wall-like line of mud houses, finish the coup-d'oeil; the interior of
this building is as simple as is the exterior. And here I may remark
that the Arabs have little idea of splendour, either in their public or
in their private architecture. Whatever strikes the traveller's eye in
Al-Hijaz is always either an importation or the work of foreign
artists. This arises from the simple tastes of the people, combined,
doubtless, with their notable thriftiness. If strangers will build for
them, they argue, why should they build for themselves? Moreover, they
have scant inducement to lavish money upon grand edifices. Whenever a
disturbance takes place, domestic or from without, the principal
buildings are sure to suffer. And the climate is inimical to their
enduring. Both ground and air at Al-Madinah, as well as at Meccah, are
damp and nitrous in winter, in summer dry and torrid: the lime is poor;
palm-timber soon decays: even foreign wood-work suffers, and a few
years of neglect suffice to level the proudest pile with the dust.