Similar Towers Are Seen At The Other Entrances Of The Town, And
They Are Sufficiently Spacious To Contain About Twenty Men.
As the hills
approach very closely at the en-trance of the city, these towers command
the passage.
Here, it appears, was formerly a gate, the threshold of
which only is now remaining, close to a small building, where the
officers of the Sherif collected the duties on merchandize, &c. carried
into the town. Here, also, is a row of shops, and low, ruined dwelling-
houses, known by the appellation of Hareh, or the quarter El Djerouel.
It comprises an encampment to the right, in which the Bedouins live who
carry on the transport trade between Mekka and Djidda; they belong to
the tribes of Harb, Metrefy, and Lahawy.
Beyond the Djerouel, the name of the street changes to that of Haret el
Bab. This is a broad street, with several good houses, and leads into
the quarter of El Shebeyka, which extends principally to the right, and
is so called because the followers of Mohammed, in their wars with the
Koreysh, were here attacked and closely pressed by their enemies. There
are many good houses in Shebeyka, which is one of the cleanest and
airiest quarters in the town. Many of the people of Djidda reside in it;
and here also the Sherif Ghaleb has a good house, where his family,
consisting of several young children
[p.110] and a grown-up daughter, continued to dwell after his
deposition. The main street is lined with coffee-shops, from which the
post sets out every evening, on asses, with the letters for Djidda. This
is the only post for letters that I have seen in the East, besides that
esta-blished among the Europeans at Cairo, between that city and
Alex-andria; but the delivery of letters is there much less regular than
it is at Mekka, where it is duly performed, and at the trifling expense
of two paras upon each letter, and as much more for the person who
distributes the letters received from Djidda.
In the coffee-shops just mentioned, live also the caravan-brokers,
through whose agency the Bedouins let out their camels for the journey
to Djidda and Medina.
On the western side of the Shebeyka, towards the mountain, is a large
burying-ground, in which are dispersed huts and tents of Bedouins, and
some miserable dwellings of the lowest class of public women: this is
called El Khandaryse. Although tradition says that great numbers of the
friends and adherents of Mohammed lie buried here, yet it has become
unfashionable to deposit the dead in it; and all of the first and second
classes of Mekkawys use the extensive cemeteries lying on the north of
the town. There are few shops in the Shebeyka; and it does not contain
many foreign inmates during the Hadj, being inhabited by persons in easy
circumstances, who consider it disgraceful to let out apartments.
In proceeding from the Shebeyka along the broad street, nor-therly, we
come to a bath, which, though by far the best of the three in Mekka, is
inferior to those of other Asiatic cities, from the scarcity of water;
it was built in A.H. 980, by Mohammed Pasha, the vizier of Sultan
Soleyman II., and is one of the best structures in the town.
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