in this respect also from most Eastern towns, where each quarter is
regularly shut up after the last evening prayers. The town may therefore
be crossed at any time of the night, and the same attention is not paid
here to the security of merchants, as well as of husbands, (on whose
account principally, the quarters are closed,) as in Syrian or Egyptian
towns of equal magnitude. The dirt and sweepings of the houses are cast
into the streets, where they soon become dust or mud according to the
season. The same custom seems to have prevailed equally in ancient times;
for I did not perceive in the skirts of the town any of those heaps of
rubbish which are usually found near the large towns of Turkey.

With respect to water, the most important of all supplies, and that which
always forms the first object of inquiry among Asiatics, Mekka is not
much better provided than Djidda; there are but few cisterns for
collecting rain, and the well-water is so brackish that it is used only
for culinary purposes, except during the time of the pilgrimage, when the
lowest class of hadjys drink it. The famous well of Zemzem, in the great
mosque, is indeed sufficiently copious to supply the whole town; but,
however holy, its water is heavy to the taste and impedes digestion; the
poorer classes besides have not permission to fill their water-skins with
it at pleasure. The best water in Mekka is brought by a conduit from the
vicinity of Arafat, six or seven hours distant. The present government,
instead of constructing similar works, neglects even the repairs and
requisite cleansing of this aqueduct. It is wholly built of stone; and
all those parts of it which appear above ground, are covered with a thick
layer of stone and cement. I heard that it had not been cleaned during
the last fifty years; the consequence of this negligence is, that the
most of the water is lost in its passage to the city through apertures,
or slowly forces its way through the obstructing sediment, though it
flows in a full stream into the head of the aqueduct at Arafat. The