It Is Flanked By Many Towers And Was Erected
By The Joint Labour Of The Inhabitants Themselves, As A Defence Against
The Wahabys, The Ancient Wall Being Ruined, And Enclosing Only A Part Of
The Town.
The new wall comprises an area almost double the space
occupied by habitations, leaving between it and the latter, large open
squares, which are either used as burial-grounds, encamping-places for
caravans, for the exercising of troops, or are abandoned as waste
ground.
The extent of the wall would require a large garrison to defend
it at all points; the whole armed population of Yembo is inadequate to
it: but Eastern engineers always estimate the strength of a
fortification by its size; and with the same view a thick wall and deep
ditch have been lately carried along the outskirts of the old town of
Alexandria, which it would require at least twenty-five thousand men to
defend.
Yembo has two gates towards the east and north; Bab el Medina, and Bab
el Masry. The houses of the town are worse built than those
[p.420] of any other town in the Hedjaz. Their structure is so coarse,
that few of the stones with which they are built have their surfaces
hewn smooth. The stone is calcareous, full of fossils, and of a glaring
white colour, which renders the view of the town particularly
distressing to the eyes. Most of the houses have only a ground-floor.
Except three or four badly-built mosques, a few half-ruined public
khans, and the house of the governor on the sea-side, (also a mean
building), there is no large edifice in the place.
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