This Is The Lowest Part Of The Town; And Whenever Great Floods,
During The Rainy Season, Inundate The Valley, The Water Rushes Through
This Street, In Its Way To The Open Country.
Some remains of the
aqueduct are visible here; for when it was kept in good repair, its
water, after supplying the town, was conducted this way into the
southern valley, where it served to irrigate some fields.
The Souk-es'-Sogheyr is sometimes comprehended in the Mesfale, or "low
place," the name of the quarter on the east and south sides of the Souk;
but that name is more commonly applied exclusively to the latter
district. The Mesfale is tolerably well built, and, like the Shebeyka,
contains a few new houses; but that part of it which lies towards the
great castle-hill is now almost entirely in ruins. It is inhabited by
Arab and Bedouin merchants, who travel in time of peace to Yemen,
principally to Mokhowa, from whence they import grain, coffee-beans, and
dried grapes. It is also the residence of many poor Indians, established
at Mekka; these let out their houses to their countrymen, who visit this
city in the time of the Hadj. In the ruined dwellings, Negro pilgrims
take up their temporary abode; some of these are settled in Mekka, and
their wives prepare the intoxicating liquor made from durra, and called
bouza, of which the meaner inhabitants are very fond. It was in the
Mesfale, as I have already mentioned, that I took up my lodging on
returning from Djidda, at first in the house of a Maggrebyn settler,
from which I soon afterwards removed into that of a Yemen merchant close
by. The person, whose apartment I hired, was from Szana in Yemen, a
Metowef or guide by profession, and who occupied the first floor of the
house, from which he removed, during my stay, into a corner on the
ground-floor; the other parts of the dwelling were inhabited by the
Maggrebyn landlord and his family, by a village sheikh from
[p.113] Egypt, who had come to the Hadj, accompanied by several fellahs,
by a poor man from the Afghan country, or territory El Soleymanye, as it
is now usually called; and by a hadjy or pilgrim from one of the Greek
islands. In the house of the Yemen merchant, I found myself among a
party of Maggrebyn pilgrims belonging to the Berber nation, or the
Shilhy, who had come by sea to Egypt. There are few houses in this part
of the town, where the same strange mixture of nations is not to be met
with.
On the southern extremity of the Mesfale is a large ruined khan, which,
even when new, must have been a mean building. It was destined for the
accommodation of the pilgrim-caravan, which formerly arrived by land
from Yemen, along the coast. Another Yemen pilgrim-caravan came along
the mountains.
In issuing from the town on this side, we discover a watch-tower
standing in the plain, similar in construction to those at the Djerouel
entrance.
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