The City Is So “Compacted
Together” By Hills, That Even The Samum Can Scarcely Sweep It; The Heat
Reverberated By The Bare Rocks Is Intense, And The Normal Atmosphere Of
An Eastern Town Communicates A Faint Lassitude To The Body And
Irritability To The Mind.
The houses being unusually strong and
well-built, might by some art of thermantidote be rendered cool enough
in the hottest weather:
[P.229] they are now ovens.[FN#3] It was my habit to retire immediately
after the late breakfast to the little room upstairs, to sprinkle it
with water, and to lie down on a mat. In the few precious moments of
privacy notes were committed to paper, but one eye was ever fixed on
the door. Sometimes a patient would interrupt me, but a doctor is far
less popular in Al-Hijaz than in Egypt. The people, being more healthy,
have less faith in physic: Shaykh Mas’ud and his son had never tasted in
their lives aught more medicinal than green dates and camel’s milk.
Occasionally the black slave-girls came into the room, asking if the
pilgrim wanted a pipe or a cup of coffee: they generally retired in a
state of delight, attempting vainly to conceal with a corner of
tattered veil a grand display of ivory consequent upon some small and
innocent facetiousness. The most frequent of my visitors was Abdullah,
the Kabirah’s eldest son. This melancholy Jacques had joined our caravan
at Al-Hamra, on the
[p.230] Yambu’ road, accompanied us to Al-Madinah, lived there, and
journeyed to Meccah with the Syrian pilgrimage; yet he had not once
come to visit me or to see his brother, the boy Mohammed.
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