ABSTRACT
For the mass of pilgrims who arrived each year at the ports of the Hejaz – 120,000 at Jiddah alone in some years – the coastal towns were merely the gateway to Mecca, the Mother of Mercy. For non-Muslims, forbidden the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Jiddah was their foothold in Arabia. Many of those who came by sea were illiterate, but the first impressions of one foreigner are worth recording here:
We had the accustomed calm run to Jiddah.… By day we lay in shadow; and for great part of the glorious nights … under the stars in the steaming breath of the southern wind. But when at last we anchored in the outer harbour, off the white town hung between the blazing sky and its reflection in the mirage which swept and rolled over the wide lagoon, when the heat of Arabia came out like a drawn sword and struck us speechless.… There were only lights and shadows, the white houses and the black gaps of streets.…
We walked past the white masonry of the still-building watergate and through the oppressive alley of the food market.… In the air, from the men to the dates and back to the meat, squadrons of flies like particles of dust danced up and down the sunshafts which stabbed into the darkest corners of the booths through torn places in the wood and sackcloth awnings overhead. The atmosphere was like a bath.
T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.