re 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
supply which it affords in ordinary times is barely sufficient for the
use of the inhabitants, and during the pilgrimage sweet water becomes an
absolute scarcity; a small skin of water (two of which skins a person may
carry) being then often sold for one shilling--a very high price among
Arabs.

There are two places in the interior of Mekka where the aqueduct runs
above ground; there the water is let off into small channels or
fountains, at which some slaves of the Sherif are stationed, to exact a
toll from persons filling their water-skins. In the time of the Hadj,
these fountains are surrounded day and night by crowds of people
quarrelling and fighting for access to the water. During the late siege,
the Wahabys cut off the supply of water from the aqueduct; and it was not
till some time after, that the inju