260 THE MOHAMMEDAN PILGRIMAGE. 



the outcasts of Europe. The produce of the lands 

 around the town is said to be barely sufficient for 

 four months' consumption, which is estimated at the 

 rate of twenty-five or thirty-five camel- loads per day. 

 The rents of fields and gardens, if the crop be good, is 

 very considerable ; the proprietor in ordinary years 

 being able to sell at such a rate as to leave a profit 

 of from twelve to sixteen, and sometimes even forty, 

 per cent, upon his capital, after giving up, as is ge- 

 nerally done, half the produce to the actual culti- 

 vators. The middling classes, who have small funds, 

 require exorbitant returns, none of them are con- 

 tent with less than fifty per cent, annually; and in 

 general they contrive, by cheating foreigners, to double 

 their fortune in the course of a single pilgrimage. 

 Most of the merchants have trifling capitals of 400 

 or 500 : there are only two or three families that 

 can be considered wealthy, and these are reported 

 to be worth 10,000 or 12,000 sterling, half of 

 which perhaps is vested in land and the rest in trade. 

 . The principal support of the place is drawn from 

 the mosque and the hajjis. The former, from con- 

 taining the tomb of Mohammed, is reckoned the 

 precious jewel of Medina ; which on this account is 

 esteemed equal, and even preferred by some writers 

 and sects of the Arabs, to Mecca itself. This vene- 

 rated edifice is situated towards the eastern extre- 

 mity of the town. It is built much on the same plan 

 with the Temple at Mecca, forming an open square, 

 which is divided by a partition into two separate com- 

 partments, and surrounded on all sides by covered 

 arcades ; but its dimensions are much smaller, be- 

 ing 165 paces in length and 130 in breadth. The 

 colonnades are less regular, being composed of ten 

 rows of pillars behind each other on the south sid 



