The last undulations of these mountains touch the town on the north side; on its other side, the country is flat, though not always a completely even plain. A branch of the chain, called Djebel Ohod, projects a little into the plain, at one hour’s distance from the town, bearing from the latter N.N.E. to N.E. [In these bearings the variation of the needle is not computed.] At eight or ten hours’ distance, (E. 6 N.-E. 6 S.) a chain of low hills rises in an eastern direction, across which lies the road to Nedjed. Similar hills, at the same distance, are to the S.E. The country to the south extends on a perfect level as far as can be seen. On the S.W., about an hour, or an hour and a half distant, a branch called Djebel Ayra projects, like Djebel Ohod, from the main chain, into the plain. The town itself is built on the lowest part of the plain; for it receives the torrents from the western mountains, as well as the currents from the S. and S.E. quarters; and they produce in the rainy season numerous pools of stagnant water, which is left to evaporate gradually; the gardens, trees, and walls, with which the plain abounds, interrupting the free current of air. These gardens, and date- plantations, interspersed with fields, enclose the town on three sides, leaving [p.323] only that part of the plain open to the view, which is on the side of the road towards Mekka, where the rocky nature of the ground renders cultivation impossible. Medina is divided into the interior town, and the suburbs; the interior forms an oval, of about two thousand eight hundred paces in total circuit, ending in a point. The castle is built at the point, upon a small rocky elevation; and the whole is enclosed by a thick stone wall, between thirty-five and forty feet high, flanked by about thirty towers, and surrounded by a ditch, (the work of the Wahabys,) which is in many places nearly filled up. The wall is in complete repair, forming, in Arabia, a very respectable defence; so that Medina has always been considered as the principal fortress of the Hedjaz. The wall was built A.H. 860; and till that time the town was quite open, and daily exposed to the incursions of the neighbouring Bedouins. It was subsequently rebuilt at different times, but principally in A.H. 900, a ditch having been previously carried round it in 751 (v. S.) According to Asamy, it was built as it now stands, with its gates, by order of Solyman ibn Selym, at the close of the sixteenth century of our era. Three fine gates lead into the town: Bab el Masry, on the south side, (which, next to Bab el Fatouh, at Cairo, is the finest town-gate I have seen in the East); Bab es’ Shámy, on the north side; and Bab el Ujoma, on the east side: a smaller by-gate, called Bab es’ Soghyr, in the south wall, had been closed up by the Wahabys. Near the Bab es’ Shámy, close to the castle, is a niche in the town-wall, where, it is related, a small chapel once stood, called Mesdjed es’ Sabak, from whence the warlike