Page 42 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 4,5

116 HEJAZ

these elimb on trees and trellises. Besides the humped cattle
etn ployed for field labour, there are a few asses and goats and
some poultry.
8. Medina is a walled town in a large oasis, 130 miles inland
from Yambo‘, and is the present terminus of the Hejaz Railway.

It lies in a hollow of an elevated plain, at an altitude of 2,300 ft.
Hills surround the plain on three sides, at a distance of 5 to
10 miles from the town, but the country is more open towards
the S. The convergence of wadis in the neighbourhood of Medina
has made it one of the best-watered districts in Hejaz. .
The city, which is about half the size of Mecca, forms an irregular
oval, and is about a mile in length. It consists of two parts. The
older town, in the NE. quarter, is surrounded by its own wall, and
is separated by a broad open space, the Barr el-Munakhah, and
on the S. side by the narrower Darb el-Jenazah, from the modern
town and suburbs, which are protected by a rampart of mud and i
crude brick joining the wall of the older town at its NW. and SE. j
extremities. Through the modern town runs the Wadi Buthan,
a tribu tary of ■■the Wadi Qanat, which the road from Yambo‘ crosses.
A fort or small citadel shuts in the head of the Barr el-Munakhah i
on the N. side. There are five outer gates, the Bab esh-Shami j
and the Bab ez-Ziyafah on the N., the former leading to Jebel j
Ohod and the tomb and mosque of the Prophet’s uncle Hamzah !
(about 4 miles from the town) ; in the E. wall is the Bab el-Jumah,
which opens on the Nejd road, and Baqi‘ el-Gharqad, the cemetery
in which are the tombs of many of the companions of the Prophet ;
on the S. is the Bab Kubah, opening on to the Kubah road, and on
the W. is the Bab el-‘Ambari, through which runs the road to Yambo*.
The E. and W. gates are massive buildings with double towers.
The railway station lies about a quarter of a mile to the W. of the
town, and includes some substantial, bullet-proof buildings.,
Pilgrims arriving by rail or from Yambo‘ enter the town by the
W. gate and cross the suburbs to the Barr el-Munakhah, the great
open space, already referred to, where caravans assemble on arrival
and before starting ; here those who cannot afford to hire houses
encamp in the open. The older town is entered from the Barr
el-Munakhah by the Bab el-Misr, from which the principal street
i
runs eastward to the Haram or Prophet’s Mosque, which is entered
at the principal gate (Bab es-Salam) in the SW. corner, richly
'
decorated with marbles, tiles, and gilded inscriptions ; but the
spacious court of the mosque, with its minarets and lofty dome,
is hemmed in on all sides by narrow lanes and houses. Within
the principal gate a portico leads along the S. wall to the chamber,

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