"كتيّب الجزيرة العربية. المجلد I. ١٩١٧" [‎٩‎٩] (٧٤٨/١٠٨)

CLIMATE
99
andti nearer 90° than 80°, and the air damp. Mecca, owing to its
enti low elevation (700 to 850 ft.) and its background of naked slopes,
Haul is worst off, and is an undesirable summer residence, being like
Aai a furnace on a still day; but Medina, with a mean temperature
tkt of little over 70°, is healthy throughout the year. Ta'if is the most
dmtf salubrious of the Hejaz towns ; it shares the keen dry air which
n-gim purifies all the central steppe-lands, except in spots where water is
IM: over-abundant near the surface, as at Kheibar. The latter oasis,
itingt like Mecca and the coastal settlements, suffers from intermittent
3ast ;■ fevers ; Mecca itself has a bad name also for dysenteric and other
tiMei epidemic diseases. The highlands behind Mecca and about Ta'if
aim know occasional frost even during summer nights,
ritai
m *i
we Population
the# mi
tatedt J hc population, settled and unsettled (most of the latter being
iomi one seaso n in the province, at another out of it on the E.), may
bet® be guessed at well under a million. Only about one-sixth is either
i'if. u rban or ' on the land ', five-sixths being Bedouins, wholly or partly
ilbaw noma dic, who, generally speaking, are poverty-stricken and there-
ses I fore predatory. The principal tribal groups, which range Hejaz,
jj^jj are from N. to S. as follows :
'■vd extreme north are the Huweitat and the Beni 'Atiyah,
wfflii' closel y a ^ e( l' sharing each other's and ranging all Midian,
Jj , properly so-called, as well as ' Petraea' from Ma'an down to Dar
tj. Jj- el-Hamra on the Hejaz Railway. Their southern limit is the upland
: Jau plain through which runs the Wejh-Tebuk track. Some small
Sinai tic clans come also into Midian from the NW. ; the Sherarat
infringe on it slightly from NE. ; and small groups of Huteim camp
in it. But properly it is Huweitat and 'Atiyah country.
Immediately south of Midian and in the region north of ' Hejaz '
(in the strictly religious limitation of that term to the provincial
pitati precinct of the ' Haramein ') range the Mawahib (Moahib) and the
ret a® ' the former inland, in the southern 'Aweiridh harrdh country
little ^ no rth of Meda in Salih and El-'Ala, the latter on the coast north of,
)utli,i an u a ^ 0ut ' where their paramount chief resides. Neither
ecipitf tri' 36 i® numerous, and the Mawahib are very few.
and* 1^!^ 0 rder on the coast come the Juheinah, a Tihamah tribe
veil" ^hich includes more settled and half-settled elements, and therefore
rt# ' s own mo re subservience to Ottoman authority than most
than 1 ' *Ju Z Its cilief lives inland ' nea r Yambo'. As in the case
ture^ ' the ri S hts of the Juheinah extend up to the Hejaz
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