Page 40 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

DISTRICTS AND TOWNS 115

• Uv in the Pilgrimage season, double or treble it temporarily.
'.Xrims 'vho arrive by sea store here their goods which are too
, ' VV to be transported. Non-Moslems are allowed to reside within
ho town provided they do not go outside the walls. Water is
hrought on camel-back from wells at Aseliyah, 3 miles E., and from
n't |1C°S (brackish) in the town; also from rain-cisterns. It is nowhere
.rood. A condensing plant has recently been put up. The'Vali of
Tlcjaz is here represented by a Kaimmaka;m. Telegraph to Medina.
The place is in Juheinah territory.
Yambo‘ en-NakJd is a palm-oasis and village some miles away to
(he ENE., head-quarters of the Juheinah Arabs.
7. El-‘Ala is a large oasis-village of about 3,000 inhabitants, many
of them of servile descent, on the Hejaz Railway at the N. limit of
religious Hejaz. It lies on the SW. side of the Wadi el-Qura, which
here runs NW. and SE. under the steep cliff of the Harrat el-
'Aweixidh. The railway follows the pilgrim route to the E. of the
wadi, and the station is at a place called Monstreyah nearly 2 m.
S. of the town. The town itself is narrow and about a third of a
mile in length, but the oasis extends above and below it to S, total
length of more than three miles. It is walled on the SW. side,
where it adjoins the desert, and there are two main gates besides
smaller doors ; it is open on the side of the oasis. The houses are
well constructed of stone, but the streets are narrow and darkened
by the upper storeys, which are built high to gain some freshness in
the stagnant air of the wadi, shut off as it is by the harrah from the
western sea-winds. There is no bazaar, but provisions are sold
after sunrise at the street-corners, and mutton and goat-flesh outside
the walls.

The date plantations and fields are irrigated by a lukewarm
’rook and by some smaller springs which rise in the oasis. All the
"a eris tepid and sulphurous, the temperature of the main stream
jeing 92° R. ; in it the villagers wash themselves, and there are
:
?, °sed bathing-places for the women. The women go closely
(i 1 j Where the valley begins to shelve the fields are dug out
i
the ^ below the level of the public paths, for direct irrigation;
frm 0utv*ng palms, beyond the level of the springs, are watered
js Wed-pits dug to a depth of 27 ft. The ground-water, which
E1°‘ a^ brackish, is drawn by small humped cattle,
there • a *S a 8reat source of date-supply for the NW. nomads, and
*he n1S a Ce.rta*n amount of traffic in corn and imported rice. Of
kinds of dates, the helw variety is chiefly exported to
tfle ‘ JSeeP-103). There are groves of sweet and sour lemons, but
1 um is the only stone-fruit. There are not many vines, and

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