182 HEJAZ. 



the water does not run off, are converted into pools, 

 and allowed to remain till they dry. 



The police of the city is badly regulated : as there 

 are no lamps, the streets are totally dark, and en- 

 cumbered with the rubbish and sweepings cast from 

 the houses. The inhabitants are but poorly sup- 

 phed with water ; the best is conveyed from the 

 vicinity of Arafat, six or seven hours distant, by an 

 aqueduct of vast labour and magnitude, first erected, 

 according to the Arabian historians, by Zobeide, the 

 wife of Haroun al Raschid, and frequently repaired 

 at great expense by the Turkish sultans. In some 

 quarters of the town there are handsome shops, for 

 the sale of all sorts of provisions. The baths, three 

 in number, are of an inferior order, and chiefly fre- 

 quented by foreigners. 



The only pubhc edifice worthy of note is the 

 Great Mosque or Temple, which the Moslem call 

 Beitullah (the House of God), or El Haram (the 

 Temple of Excellence). This celebrated structure 

 has been so often ruined and repaired, that no traces 

 of remote antiquity are to be found al30ut it. From 

 the days of Omar, who laid its first foundations, to 

 the present century, various caliphs, emperors, sul- 

 tans, and imams have signalized their piety by 

 renewing, altering, or adding to its buildings. Al- 

 mansor enlarged the north and south side to twice 

 its former extent; IMahadi, INIotassem, Motaded, 

 and others of the Abbassides, expended immense 

 sums in the erection of columns, new gates, and 

 marble pavements. After its restoration from the 

 disasters it experienced at the hands of the hereti- 

 cal Karmathians, no changes or additions were 

 made for several centuries. The Sultan Solyman 

 caused all the domes to be raised which cover the 

 roof of the colonnades, and laid the pavement that 

 is now round the Kaaba. From the year 1627, 

 when it was rebuilt, after being partly destroyed by 



