Sketch of the City of Jedda in the Red Sea and the position of the Internment of Captain John Doling Esquire, Commander of His Majesty's Ship Swift who died on the 24th of June 1795 - On his return from Mekka

Jedda, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea, was of importance mainly as the principal landing place of pilgrims to Mecca. Since Mohammed's decrees of AD 629 Mecca was forbidden to all infidels. The risk of execution failed to dissuade a number of adventurous Europeans who visited, in Muslim disguise, from the sixteenth century on, the most celebrated such Hajis including Johann Burkhardt (1814) and Richard Burton (1853).