[FN#1] This second plan was defeated by bad health, which detained me in Egypt till a return to India became imperative. [FN#2] The usual hire is thirty piastres, but in the pilgrimage season a dollar is often paid. The hire of an ass varies from one to three riyals. [FN#3] Besides the remains of those in ruins, there are on this road eight coffee-houses and stations for travellers, private buildings, belonging to men who supply water and other necessaries. [FN#4] In Ibn Jubayr’s time the Ihram was assumed at Al-Furayn, now a decayed station, about two hours’ journey from Al-Haddah, towards Jeddah. [FN#5] The favourite Egyptian “kitchen”; held to be contemptible food by the Arabs. [FN#6] In 1817 Abdullah bin Sa’ud attacked Jeddah with 50,000 men, determining to overthrow its “Kafir-works”; namely, its walls and towers. The assault is described as ludicrous. All the inhabitants aided to garrison: they waited till the wild men flocked about the place, crying, “Come, and let us look at the labours of the infidel,” they then let fly, and raked them with matchlock balls and old nails acting grape. The Wahhabi host at last departed, unable to take a place which a single battery of our smallest siege-guns would breach in an hour. And since that day the Meccans have never ceased to boast of their Gibraltar, and to taunt the Madinites with their wall-less port, Yambu’. [FN#7] Al-Idrisi places Meccah forty (Arab) miles from Jeddah. Burckhardt gives fifty-five miles, and Ali Bey has not computed the total distance. [FN#8] Abulfeda writes the word “Juddah,” and Mr. Lane, as well as MM. Mari and Chedufau, adopt this form, which signifies a “plain wanting water.” The water of Jeddah is still very scarce and bad; all who can afford it drink the produce of hill springs brought in skins by the Badawin. Ibn Jubayr mentions that outside the town were 360 old wells(?), dug, it is supposed by the Persians. “Jeddah,” or “Jiddah,” is the vulgar pronounciation; and not a few of the learned call it “Jaddah” (the grandmother), in allusion to the legend of Eve’s tomb. [FN#9] In Chapters iii. and vi. of this work I have ventured some remarks upon the advisability of our being represented in Al-Hijaz by a Consul, and at Meccah by a native agent, till the day shall come when the tide of events forces us to occupy the mother-city of Al-Islam. My apology for reverting to these points must be the nature of an Englishman, who would everywhere see his nation “second to none,” even at Jeddah. Yet, when we consider that from twenty-five to thirty vessels here arrive annually from India, and that the value of the trade is about twenty-five lacs of rupees, the matter may be thought worth attending to. The following extracts from a letter written to me by Mr. Cole shall conclude this part of my task:— “You must know, that in 1838 a commercial treaty was concluded between Great Britain and the Porte, specifying (amongst many other clauses here omitted),— “1.