The tomb is a walled enclosure said to represent the dimensions of the body, about two hundred paces long and 15 feet broad. At the head is a small erection where gifts are deposited, and rather more than half-way down a whitewashed dome encloses a small dark chapel within which is the black stone known as Bl-surrah, the navel. The grave of Eve is mentioned by Edrisi, but except the black stone nothing bears any aspect of antiquity. Further details in Burton’s Pilgrimage i vol. ii. p. 298, and a view in Mrs Burton’s A. E. I.

Beyond the immediate suburbs the country as far as the foot of the hill is desert, with scanty pasturage and a few villages of Arab huts. The inhabitants (Harb, Huteym, Zobeid) are engaged in camel transport, slave running, and mother of pearl fishery.

The town itself, which consists of four quarters, is well built, with a good bazaar and many lofty and spacious houses, built of the madrepore rock of the district. The best dwellings are near the Medina gate; the mosques are not remarkable, and the streets are narrow and in part very filthy.. The wretched huts which formerly occupied part of the enceinte have been almost entirely removed since the frightful outbreak of cholera among the pilgrims in 1864-65, and the lowest strata of the population now occupy a village without the walls. The sanitary condition of Jiddah still, however, leaves much to be desired, especially in the pilgrim season. The chief defect is the scanty water supply derived from cisterns and wells outside the town. A conduit from the hills has been projected, and would yield a copious stream of excellent water, but the scheme is opposed by the owners of the cisterns, who drive a lucrative trade, a camel-load of water (16 skins of about 7 pints each) costing as much as sixteenpence, or after protracted drought much more. The permanent population of Jiddah is very variously estimated. Mr Beyts (Consular Reports, 1875) places it at 30,000, including 2000 Indian settlers, 100 Greeks, Syrians, and Maltese, and 25 Franks; but the Dutch consul in 1879 allows a total of 15,000 only. The native population is of very mixed blood.

Jiddah is said to have been founded by Persian merchants in the caliphate of Othman, but its great commercial prosperity dates from the beginning of the 15th century, when it became the centre of trade between Egypt and India. Down to the time of Burckhardt the Suez ships went no farther than Jiddah, where they were met by Indian vessels. The introduction of steamers in the Red Sea has deprived Jiddah of its place as an emporium not only for Indian goods but for the products of the Red Sea, which formerly were collected here, but are now largely exported direct by steamer from Hodeida, Suâkin, and other ports, though coffee from Yemen and gums from the African coast still pass in considerable quantities through the hands of the Jiddah merchants. The chief exports apart from these are mother of pearl (fished by slave divers) and hides. The chief local manufactures are a coarse cotton fabric, embroideries in gold and silver, lacquer work, beads in black coral, and the like. Boat-building is carried on with great skill. The baggalas of from 50 to 60 tons are built of East Indian wood, and are excellent sailers. The imports of Jiddah are considerable, as the town supplies the interior not only with manufactured goods but with grain and other provisions. See full details of the' trade in a valuable paper by the Dutch consul, Mr Kruyt, in Tijdsch. v. h. Aardr. Genootschap (Amsterdam, 1880, No. 5). The total exports and imports for 1879 are valued at £2,201,030. In the same year the port was visited by 241 steamships (213,295 tons) and 1156 sailing vessels (55,932 tons). The harbour is not convenient of «access, but the roadstead when entered is well protected by coral reefs.

The introduction of steam traffic, while fatal to other local interests, has given a great impulse to the pilgrim trade, which is now regarded as the annual harvest of Jiddah. The pilgrim steamers are usually chartered by European merchants in conjunction with native capitalists and persons of religious influence. The average number of pilgrims annually landed at the port is not much short of 40,000. For 1879 Mr Kruyt enumerates 7995 Turks, 2286 from the Barbary states, 3459 Egyptians, 8787 Malayans and Javanese, 10,894 Indians, 3506 Persians, 3300 Arabs from Yemen, the Sùdân, and other places.

In the early years of the present century Jiddah resisted with success repeated attacks of the Wahhâbites, and remained in the hands of the grand sherif when he had lost the rest of the Hijâz. It was governed by Egypt during the Arabian wars of Mehemet Ali, but since 1840 has been again occupied by the Turks. There is a Turkish caim-macam under the wâly of the Hij<4z and a Turkish cadi, but the sherif through his resident agent exercises an authority practically superior to that of these officials. In 1858 the attempts of England to suppress the slave trade and a supposed insult to the Ottoman flag led to a plot to murder all the Christians in town, which was executed with fatal success (15th June), the English consul Page and the French consul Éveillard being among the victims. This outrage was followed by the bombardment of the town by the English man-of-war “Cyclops,” and the authorities were compelled publicly to execute the Turkish governor and two leading citizens involved in the plot.

For further details see, in addition to the works already cited, Niebuhr’s Voyage·, Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia, vol. i., London, 1829; Von Maltzan’s Reise nach Südarabien, Brunswick, 1873. See also Ritter, Erdkunde von Arabien, 1847; Zehme, Arabien und die Araber, Halle, 1875.