One Of These Was Built By Sherif Serour, Predecessor
Of The Last Reigning Sherif Ghaleb.
The Governor's habitation, in which
the Sherif himself frequently resided, is a paltry building; such,
likewise, is that in which dwells the collector of the customs.
There
are some well-built public khans in the town, with good accommodation,
where the foreign merchants reside during their short stay here. In
these khans are large open squares with arched passages, which afford a
cool shade to the merchants for the greater part of the day. Except
during the monsoon, when Djidda is extremely crowded with people,
private lodgings may easily be procured in the most distant quarters of
the town. The best private dwellings of Djidda belong to the great
mercantile establishment of Djeylani, who, with his family, occupies a
small square behind the principal street. This square is composed of
three large buildings, the most commodious and costly private houses in
all the Hedjaz. Every house of moderate size has its cistern; but as the
rains are not sufficiently regular or abundant to fill the cisterns from
the tops of the houses, (as
[p.12] throughout Syria,) they are often supplied with water from pools
formed outside of the town in rainy seasons.
Of these cisterns, the water is very inadequate to the consumption of
Djidda, and is reckoned a delicacy. Much of the drinking water is drawn
from some wells a mile and a half distant on the southern side; water,
indeed, may be found every where at a depth of fifteen feet, but it is
generally of a bad taste, and in some places scarcely drinkable.
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