The climate of the plain is celebrated for a long, and, comparatively speaking, a rigorous winter; a popular saying records the opinion of the Apostle “that he who patiently endures the cold of Al-Madinah and the heat of Meccah, merits a reward in Paradise.”  Ice is not seen in the town, but may frequently be met with, it is said, on Jabal Ohod; fires are lighted in the houses during winter, and palsies attack those who at this season imprudently bathe in unwarmed water.  The fair complexions of the people prove that this account of the brumal rigours is not exaggerated.  Chilly and violent winds from the Eastern Desert are much dreaded, and though Ohod screens the town on the North and North-East, a gap in the mountains to the North-West fills the

[p.383]air at times with raw and comfortless blasts.  The rains begin in October, and last with considerable intervals through six months; the clouds, gathered by the hill-tops and the trees near the town, discharge themselves with violence, and about the equinoxes, thunder-storms are common.  At such times the Barr al-Manakhah, or the open space between the town and the suburbs, is a sheet of water, and the land near the Southern and the South-Eastern wall of the faubourg becomes a pool.  Rain, however, is not considered unhealthy here; and the people, unlike the Meccans and the Cairenes, expect it with pleasure, because it improves their date-trees and fruit plantations.[FN#10] In winter it usually rains at night, in spring during the morning, and in summer about evening time.  This is the case throughout Al-Hijaz, as explained by the poet Labid in these lines, which describe the desolate site of an old encampment:-

“It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the constellations, and hath been swept by The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and in gentle rains, >From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud, And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around.”  “It (the place) hath been fertilised by the first spring showers of the constellations, and hath been swept by The incessant torrents of the thunder-clouds, falling in heavy and in gentle rains, >From each night-cloud, and heavily dropping morning-cloud, And the even-cloud, whose crashings are re-echoed from around.”

And the European reader will observe that the Arabs generally reckon three seasons, including our autumn, in their summer.  The hot weather at Al-Madinah appeared to me as extreme as the hibernal cold is described to be, but the air was dry, and the open plain prevented the faint and stagnant sultriness which distinguishes Meccah.  Moreover, though the afternoons were close, the nights and the mornings were cool and dewy.  At this season the citizens sleep on the house-tops, or on the ground

[p.384]outside their doors.  Strangers must follow this example with considerable circumspection; the open air is safe in the Desert, but in cities it causes, to the unaccustomed, violent catarrhs and febrile affections.