Similar Hills, At The Same Distance, Are
To The S.E. The Country To The South Extends On A Perfect Level As Far
As Can Be Seen.
On the S.W., about an hour, or an hour and a half
distant, a branch called Djebel Ayra projects, like Djebel Ohod, from
the main chain, into the plain.
The town itself is built on the lowest part of the plain; for it
receives the torrents from the western mountains, as well as the
currents from the S. and S.E. quarters; and they produce in the rainy
season numerous pools of stagnant water, which is left to evaporate
gradually; the gardens, trees, and walls, with which the plain abounds,
interrupting the free current of air. These gardens, and date-
plantations, interspersed with fields, enclose the town on three sides,
leaving
[p.323] only that part of the plain open to the view, which is on the
side of the road towards Mekka, where the rocky nature of the ground
renders cultivation impossible.
Medina is divided into the interior town, and the suburbs; the interior
forms an oval, of about two thousand eight hundred paces in total
circuit, ending in a point. The castle is built at the point, upon a
small rocky elevation; and the whole is enclosed by a thick stone wall,
between thirty-five and forty feet high, flanked by about thirty towers,
and surrounded by a ditch, (the work of the Wahabys,) which is in many
places nearly filled up.
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