Celebrated Travels and Travellers / Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century by Jules Verne Read Free Book Online

bring upon them; but while each individually exclaims against the corruption of manners, none reform themselves."
    Upon the 15th of January, 1815, Burckhardt left Mecca with a caravan of pilgrims on their way to visit the tomb of the prophet. The journey to Medina, like that between Mecca and Jeddah, was accomplished at night, and afforded little opportunity for observation. In the winter night-travelling is less comfortable than travelling by day. A valley called Wady-Fatme, but generally known as El-Wadi, was crossed; it abounded in shrubs and date-trees, and was well cultivated in the eastern portion. A little beyond it lies the valley of Es-Ssafra, the market of the neighbouring tribes and celebrated for its plantations of dates.
    The traveller relates that "The groves of date-trees extend for nearly four miles, and belong to the natives of Ssafra as well as to the Bedouins of the neighbourhood, who employ labourers to water the ground, and come themselves to reap the harvest. The date-trees pass from one person to another in the course of trade; they are sold separately. A father often receives three date-trees as the price of the daughter he gives in marriage. They are all planted in deep sand brought from the middle of the valley, and piled up over their roots; they ought to be renewed every year, and they are generally swept away by the torrents. Each little plot is surrounded by a wall of mud or stone, and the cultivators live in hamlets or isolated cabins among the trees. The principal stream flows through a grove near the market; beside it rises a little mosque, shaded by large chestnuts. I had seen none before in the Hedjaz."
    Burckhardt was thirteen days in reaching Medina. But this rather long journey was not lost time to him; he collected much information about the Arabs and the Wahabees. At Medina, as at Mecca, the pilgrim's first duty is to visit the tomb and mosque of Mahomet; but the ceremonies attending the visit are much easier and shorter, and the traveller performed them in a quarter of an hour.
    Burckhardt's stay at Mecca had already been prejudicial to him. At Medina he was attacked by intermittent fever, which increased in violence, and was accompanied by violent sickness. This soon so reduced him, that he could no longer rise from his carpet without the assistance of his slave, "a poor fellow who by nature and habit was more fit to tend camels than to take care of his worn-out and enfeebled master."
    Burckhardt being detained at Medina for more than three months by a fever, due to bad climate, the detestable quality of the water, and the prevalence of infectious illnesses, was forced to relinquish his project of crossing the desert to Akabah, in order to reach Yanibo as quickly as possible, and from thence embark for Egypt.
    "Next to Aleppo," he says, "Medina is the best-built town I have seen in the East. It is entirely of stone, the houses being generally three stories high, with flat tops. As they are not whitewashed, and the stone is brown in colour, the streets, which are very narrow, have usually a sombre appearance. They are often only two or three paces wide. At the present time Medina looks desolate enough; the houses are falling into ruins. Their owners, who formerly derived a considerable profit from the inroad of pilgrims, find their revenues diminishing, as the Wahabees forbid visitors to the tomb of the prophet, alleging that he was but a mere mortal. The possession which places Medina on a par with Mecca is the Grand Mosque, containing the tomb of Mahomet. This is smaller than that at Mecca, but is built upon the same plan, in a large square courtyard, surrounded on all sides by covered galleries, and having a small building in the centre. The famous tomb, surrounded by an iron railing painted green, is near the eastern corner. It is of good workmanship, in imitation of filagree, and interlaced with inscriptions in copper. Four doors, of which three lead into this enclosure, are kept