THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 27^ 



ed one of the bags, and, in India, it is current for the value 

 marked upon it, as long as the bag lafls. 



Jidda is very unwholefome, as is, indeed, all the eaft 

 coaft of the Red Sea. Immediately without the gate of that 

 town, to the eaftward, is a defert plain filled with the huts 

 of the Bedoweens, or country Arabs, built of long bundles 

 of fpartum, or bent grafs, put together like fafcines. Thefe 

 Bedoweens fupply Jidda with milk and butter. There is 

 no ftirring out of town, even for a walk, unlefs for about 

 half a mile, in the fouth fide by the fea, where there is a 

 number of ftinking pools of ftagnant water, which contri- 

 butes to make the town very unwholefome. 



Jidda, befides being in the moil unwholefome part of 

 Arabia, is, at the fame time, in the mofl barren and defert 

 lituation. This, and many other inconveniencies, under 

 which it labours, would, probably, have occafioned its being 

 abandoned altogether, were it not for its vicinity to Mecca, 

 and the great and fudden influx of wealth from the India 

 trade, which, once a-year, arrives in this part, but does not 

 continue, paffing on, as through a turnpike, to Mecca; 

 whence it is difperfed all over the eaft. Very little advan- 

 tage however accrues to Jidda. The cuftoms are all-imme-- 

 diately fent to a needy fovereign, and a hungry fet of re- 

 lations, dependents and miniflers at Mecca. The gold is re- 

 turned in bags and boxes, and pafTes on as rapidly to the 

 fhips as the goods do to the market, and leaves as little 

 profit behind. In the mean time, provifions rife to a prodi- 

 gious price, and this falls upon the townfmen, while all 

 the profit of the traffic is in the hands of ftrangers ; mofl of 

 whom, after the market is over, (which does not lafl fix 



weeks) 



