They waited till the wild men flocked about the place,
crying, “Come, and let us look at the labours of the infidel,” they then
let fly, and raked them with matchlock balls and old nails acting
grape.
The Wahhabi host at last departed, unable to take a place which
a single battery of our smallest siege-guns would breach in an hour.
And since that day the Meccans have never ceased to boast of their
Gibraltar, and to taunt the Madinites with their wall-less port, Yambu’.
[FN#7] Al-Idrisi places Meccah forty (Arab) miles from Jeddah.
Burckhardt gives fifty-five miles, and Ali Bey has not computed the
total distance.
[FN#8] Abulfeda writes the word “Juddah,” and Mr. Lane, as well as MM. Mari
and Chedufau, adopt this form, which signifies a “plain wanting water.” The
water of Jeddah is still very scarce and bad; all who can afford it
drink the produce of hill springs brought in skins by the Badawin. Ibn
Jubayr mentions that outside the town were 360 old wells(?), dug, it is
supposed by the Persians. “Jeddah,” or “Jiddah,” is the vulgar pronounciation;
and not a few of the learned call it “Jaddah” (the grandmother), in
allusion to the legend of Eve’s tomb.
[FN#9] In Chapters iii. and vi. of this work I have ventured some
remarks upon the advisability of our being represented in Al-Hijaz by a
Consul, and at Meccah by a native agent, till the day shall come when
the tide of events forces us to occupy the mother-city of Al-Islam.
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