The principal quarters of the suburbs are Háret el Ambarye, Háret el Wádjeha, Háret es’ Sahh, Háret Abou Aysa, Háret Masr, Háret el Teyar, Háret Nefýse, Háret el Hamdye, Háret el Shahrye, Háret el Kheybarye, Háret el Djafar. Many people of the interior town have their summer houses in these quarters, where they pass a month in the date-harvest. Every garden is enclosed by mud walls, and several narrow by-lanes, just broad enough for a loaded camel to cross the suburbs in every direction. There are two mosques in the Monákh: the one, called Mesdjed Aly, or the mosque of the Prophet’s cousin, is said to be as old as the time of Mohammed; but the building, as it stands, was rebuilt in A.H. 876. Mohammed is said to have often prayed here; and, for the convenience of the inhabitants of the suburbs who are at a distance from the great mosque, the Khotbe, or Friday’s prayer, is likewise performed in it. The other mosque, called Mesdjed Omar, to which a public medrese, or school, was attached, serves at present as a magazine, and quarters for many soldiers. To both these mosques the historian of Mekka applies the name of Mesdjed el Fath: he calls the one Mesdjed el Aala, from standing on the highest part of the town. Two other mosques, the one called Mesdjed Aly Beker, and the other Mesdjed Zobáb, stood in this neighbourhood in the sixteenth century; and the Monákh at that time bore the name of Djebel Sola, the Arabians applying the name of Djebel (or mountain) to any slightly elevated spot of ground. In the same author’s time there were fifteen mosques in this town and its neighbourhood, all now ruined; and he gives the names and history of thirty-seven that were erected in the former ages of Islam. I was told, that in the quarter El Ambarye the house where Mohammed lived is still shown; but many doubt this tradition, and the spot is not visited as one of the holy places. Here, as in Mekka, no [p.328] ancient buildings are found. The winter rains, the nitrous, damp atmosphere during the rainy season, and the intense heat which follows it, are destructive to buildings; and the cement employed in their construction being of a very indifferent quality, the stones soon become loosened and the walls decay.