Jiddah, the harbor of Mecca, is distant from the sacred city about sixty-five miles, and is in consequence the chief port of debarkation and embarkation for pilgrims. It has a rather pretty and imposing appearance from the sea, the houses being white and three or four stories high, surrounded by a wall and flanked by a half dozen lazy windmills of Dutch pattern! Its streets are narrow, however, and indescribably dirty, so that the illusion of an Oriental picture is dispelled as soon as you set foot on shore. The sanitary condition of this port is the worst possible; evil odors abound, the water supply is precarious and bad, and a shower of rain is always followed by an outbreak of fever. The population is not over 20,000 of every Moslem nation under heaven, Galilee of “the believers.” Its commercial importance, which once was considerable, has altogether declined. The opening of the Suez canal and the direct carrying of trade by ocean steamers dealt the deathblow to the extensive coast-trade of both Jiddah and the other Red Sea ports. The people of Jiddah, like those of Mecca, live by fleecing pilgrims, and when the traffic is brisk and pilgrims affluent they grow rich enough to go to Mecca and set up a larger establishment of the same sort. There are hotel-keepers, drummers, guides, money-changers, money-lenders, slave-dealers and even worse characters connected with the annual transfer of the caravans of _hajees_ (pilgrims) from the coast inland. The number of pilgrims arriving at Jiddah by sea in 1893 was 92,625. In 1880 Mr. Blunt collected some interesting statistics of the total numbers attending the pilgrimage at Mecca,[8] and his investigations prove that the overland caravans are steadily becoming smaller. Before any pilgrims are allowed to enter Jiddah harbor they are compelled to undergo ten days’ quarantine at Kamaran, an island on the west coast of Arabia; this is the first woe. At Jiddah they remain only a few days and then having secured their _Mutawwaf_ or official guide they proceed to Mecca. The road is barren and uninteresting in the extreme. Halfway to Mecca is El Had where the road divides; one branch leads to Taif, the only fertile spot in this wilderness province, and the other proceeds to Mecca, the ancient name of which was Bakkah.