The Mosque Forms A Narrow Colonnade Round A Small Open Courtyard,
In Which The Mobrak El Naka Stands, With A Small Cupola Over It, Rising
To The Height Of About Six Feet.
On issuing from the mosque, we were
assailed by a crowd of beggars.
At a short distance from it, among the
cluster of houses, stands a small chapel, called Mesdjed Aly, in honour
of Aly, the cousin of Mohammed. Close to it, in a garden, a deep well is
shown, called Ayn Ezzerka, with a small chapel, built at its mouth. This
was a favourite spot with Mohammed, who used often to sit among the
trees with his disciples, enjoying the pleasure of seeing the water
issuing in a limpid stream; an object which at the present day
powerfully attracts the natives of the East, and, with the addition of a
shady tree, is perhaps the only feature of landscape which they admire.
When he once was sitting here, the Prophet's seal-ring dropped into the
well, and could never be again found; and the supposition that the ring
is still there, renders the well famous. The water is tepid at its
source, with a slight sulphureous taste, which it loses in its course.
It is collected together with that of several other springs into the
canal which supplies Medina, and which is kept constantly flowing by the
supply of various channels of well-water. Omar el Khatab first carried
the spring to Medina; but the present canal was built at the expense of
the Sultan Soleyman, son of Selim I., about A.H. 973:
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