Volume 2 / Part 2 — CHAPTER XX.Of diuers thynges which chaunced to me in Mecha; and of Zida, a port of Mecha. (continued 2)

[p.398] pilgrim takes his clothes again, and has finished that act of devotion.[FN#14]

There is also near the holy city an eminence called the hill of light,[FN#15] as I imagine from its remarkable whiteness. Upon this the pilgrims have a custom of leaping while they repeat at the same time prayers and verses of the Koran. Many also resort to a lesser hill, about a mile distant from the city, on which there is a small Mosque, which is reputed as a place of great sanctity.

An annual ceremony takes place in the great temple itself which is worth mentioning before I quit the subject altogether.

I have already spoken of the little square building whose walls are covered with hangings of black and gold, and which is called the Caaba. Once in the year,[FN#16] and once only, this holy of holies is opened, and as there is nothing to prevent admission it appears surprising at first to see so few who are willing to go into the interior, and especially since this act is supposed to have great efficacy in the remission of all past sins. But the reason must be sought for in the conditions which are annexed, since he who enters is, in the first place, bound to exercise no gainful pursuit, or trade, or to work for his livelihood

[p.399] in any way whatever; and, next, he must submit patiently to all offences and injuries, and must never again touch anything that is impure or unholy.[FN#17]

One more remark with reference to the great scene of sacrifice at Arafat. Though the Pashas power in Arabia had been now for some time established, yet it was not complete or universal by any meansthe Wahhabees still retaining upon many sides a very considerable footing, so that open and unprotected places, even within half a days journey of Meccah, might be liable to surprise and violence.

For these reasons, our author informs us, a sufficient force was disposed round Arafat, and the prodigious multitude went and returned without molestation or insult.[FN#18]

[p.400] After the pilgrimage Haji Mahomet repaired to Taif. On the road he remarked a phenomenon observable in Al-Hijazthe lightness of the nights there. Finati attributes it to the southern position of the place. But, observing a perceptible twilight there, I was forced to seek further cause. May not the absence of vegetation, and the heat-absorbing nature of the soil,granite, quartz, and basalt,account for the phenomenon[FN#19]? The natives as usual, observing it, have invested its origin with the garb of fable.

It is not my intention to accompany Mahomet to the shameful defeat of Taraba, where Tussun Pasha lost three quarters of his army, or to the glorious victory of Bissel, where Mohammed Ali on the 10th January, 1815, broke 24,000 Wahhabis commanded by Faysal bin Saud. His account of this interesting campaign is not full or accurate like Mengins; still, being the tale of an eye-witness, it attracts attention. Nothing can be more graphic than his picture of the old conqueror sitting with exulting countenance upon the carpet where he had vowed to await death or victory, and surrounded by heaps of enemies heads.[FN#20]

Still less would it be to the purpose to describe the latter details of Haji Mahomets career, his return to Cairo, his accompanying Mr. Bankes to upper Egypt and Syria, and his various trips to Aleppo, Kurdistan, the

[p.401] Said, the great Oasis, Nabathaea, Sennaar, and Dongola. We concede to him the praise claimed by his translator, that he was a traveller to no ordinary extent; but beyond this we cannot go. He was so ignorant that he had forgotten to write[FN#21]; his curiosity and his powers of observation keep pace with his knowledge[FN#22]; his moral character as it appears in print is of that description which knows no sense of shame: it is not candour but sheer insensibility which makes him relate circumstantially his repeated desertions, his betrayal of Fatimah, and his various plunderings.

[FN#1] He describes the Harim as containing the females of different countries, all of them young, and all more or less attractive, and the merriest creatures I ever saw. His narration proves that affection and fidelity were not wanting there. [FN#2] Mr. Bankes, Finatis employer and translator, here comments upon Ali Beys assertion, Even to travellers in Mahometan countries, I look upon the safety of their journey as almost impossible, unless they have previously submitted to the rite. Ali Bey is correct; the danger is doubled by non-compliance with the custom. Mr. Bankes apprehends that very few renegadoes do submit to it. In bigoted Moslem countries, it is considered a sine qua non. [FN#3] See Chap. xiii. of this work. [FN#4] Black cloth, according to Ali Bey; and I believe he is correct. So Mr. Bankes. If Ali Bey meant broad-cloth, both are in error, as the specimen in my possessiona mixture of silk and cottonproves. [FN#5] Ali Bey showed by his measurements that no two sides correspond exactly. To all appearance the sides are equal, though it is certain they are not; the height exceeds the length and the breadth. [FN#6] Ali Bey (A.D. 1807) computes 80,000 men, 2,000 women, and 1,000 children at Arafat. Burckhardt (A.D. 1814) calculated it at 70,000. I do not think that in all there were more than 50,000 souls assembled together in 1853. [FN#7] Rich pilgrims always secure lodgings; the poorer class cannot afford them; therefore, the great Caravans from Egypt, Damascus, Baghdad, and other places, pitch on certain spots outside the city. [FN#8] An incorrect expression; the stone is fixed in a massive gold or silver gilt circle to the S.E. angle, but it is not part of the building. [FN#9] Ali Bey is correct in stating that the running is on the return from Arafat, directly after sunset. [FN#10] This sentence abounds in blunders. Sale, Ali Bey, and Burckhardt, all give correct accounts of the little pillar of masonryit has nothing to do with the wellwhich denotes the place where Satan appeared to Abraham. The pilgrims do not throw one stone, but many. The pebbles are partly brought from Muzdalifah, partly from the valley of Muna, in which stands the pillar. [FN#11] Mr. Bankes confounds this column with the Devils Pillar at Muna. Finati alludes to the landmarks of the Arafat plain, now called Al-Alamayn (the two marks). The pilgrims must stand within these boundaries on a certain day (the 9th of Zul Hijjah), otherwise he has failed to observe a rital ordinance. [FN#12] He appears to confound the proper place with Arafat. The sacrifice is performed in the valley of Muna, after leaving the mountain. But Finati, we are told by his translator, wrote from memorya pernicious practice for a traveller. [FN#13] This custom is now obsolete, as regards the grand body of pilgrims. Anciently, a certificate from the Sharif was given to all who could afford money for a proof of having performed the pilgrimage, but no such practice at present exists. My friends have frequently asked me, what proof there is of a Moslems having become a Haji. None whatever; consequently impostors abound. Saadi, in the Gulistan, notices a case. But the ceremonies of the Hajj are so complicated and unintelligible by mere description, that a little cross-questioning applied to the false Haji would easily detect him. [FN#14] No wonder Mr. Bankes is somewhat puzzled by this passage. Certainly none but a pilgrim could guess that the author refers to the rites called Al-Umrah and Al-Sai, or the running between Mounts Safa and Marwah. The curious reader may compare the above with Burckhardts correct description of the ceremonies. As regards the shaving, Finati possibly was right in his day; in Ali Beys, as in my time, the head was only shaved once, and a few strokes of the razor sufficed for the purpose of religious tonsure. [FN#15] Jabal Nur, anciently Hira, is a dull grey as of granite; it derives its modern name from the spiritual light of religion. Circumstances prevented my ascending it, so I cannot comment upon Finatis custom of leaping. [FN#16] Open three days in the year, according to Ali Bey, the same in Burckhardts, and in my time. Besides these public occasions, private largesses can always turn the key. [FN#17] I heard from good authority, that the Kaabah is never opened without several pilgrims being crushed to death. Ali Bey (remarks Mr. Bankes) says nothing of the supposed conditions annexed. In my next volume [Part iii. (Meccah) of this work] I shall give them, as I received them from the lips of learned and respectable Moslems. They differ considerably from Finatis, and no wonder; his account is completely opposed to the strong good sense which pervades the customs of Al-Islam. As regards his sneer at the monastic orders in Italythat the conditions of entering are stricter and more binding than those of the Kaabah, yet that numbers are ready to profess in themit must not be imagined that Arab human nature differs very materially from Italian. Many unworthy feet pass the threshold of the Kaabah; but there are many Moslems, my friend, Omar Effendi, for instance, who have performed the pilgrimage a dozen times, and would never, from conscientious motives, enter the holy edifice. [FN#18] In 1807, according to Ali Bey, the Wahhabis took the same precaution, says Mr. Bankes. The fact is, some such precautions must always be taken. The pilgrims are forbidden to quarrel, to fight, or to destroy life, except under circumstances duly provided for. Moreover, as I shall explain in another part of this work, it was of old, and still is, the custom of the fiercer kind of Badawin to flock to Arafatwhere the victim is sure to be foundfor the purpose of revenging their blood-losses. As our authorities at Aden well know, there cannot be a congregation of different Arab tribes without a little murder. After fighting with the common foe, or if unable to fight with him, the wild men invariably turn their swords against their private enemies. [FN#19] So, on the wild and tree-clad heights of the Neilgherry hills, despite the brilliance of the stars, every traveller remarks the darkness of the atmosphere at night. [FN#20] Mohammed Ali gave six dollars for every Arab head, which fact accounts for the heaps that surrounded him. One would suppose that when acting against an ene[m]y, so quick and agile as the Arabs, such an order would be an unwise one. Experience, however, proves the contrary. [FN#21] Finatis long disuse of European writing, says Mr. Bankes, made him very slow with his pen. Fortunately, he found in London some person who took down the story in easy, unaffected, and not inelegant Italian. In 1828, Mr. Bankes translated it into English, securing accuracy by consulting the author, when necessary. [FN#22] His translator and editor is obliged to explain that he means Cufic, by characters that are not now in use, and the statue of Memnon by one of two enormous sitting figures in the plain, from which, according to an old story or superstition, a sound proceeds when the sun rises. When the crew of his Nile-boat form in circle upon the bank, and perform a sort of religious mummery, shaking their heads and shoulders violently, and uttering a hoarse sobbing or barking noise, till some of them would drop or fall into convulsions,a sight likely to excite the curiosity of most menhe takes his gun in pursuit of wild geese. He allowed Mr. Bankes mare to eat Oleander leaves, and thus to die of the commonest poison. Briefly, he seems to have been a man who, under favourable circumstances, learned as little as possible.

[p.402]APPENDIX VII.

NOTES ON MY JOURNEY.

BY A. SPRENGER.

IN the map to a former edition of the Pilgrimage, Captain Burtons route from Madina to Meccah is wrongly laid down, owing to a typographical error of the text, From Wady Laymun to Meccah S.E. 45°; (see vol. ii. p. 155, ante), whereas the road runs S.W. 45°, or, as Hamdany expresses himself in the commentary on the Qacyda Rod., Between west and south; and therefore the setting sun shines at the evening prayer (your face being turned towards Meccah) on your right temple. The account of the eastern route from Madina to Meccah by so experienced a traveller as Captain Burton is an important contribution to our geographical knowledge of Arabia. It leads over the lower terrace of Nejd, the country which Muslim writers consider as the home of the genuine Arabs and the scene of Arabic chivalry. As by this mistake the results of my friends pilgrimage, which, though pious as he unquestionably is, he did not undertake from purely religious motives, have been in a great measure marred, I called in 1871 his attention to it. At the same time I submitted to him a sketch of a map in which his own and Burckhardts routes are protracted, and a few notes culled from Arabic geographers, with the intention of showing how much light his investigations throw on early

[p.403] geography if illustrated by a corrected map; and how they fail to fulfil this object if the mistake is not cleared up. The enterprising traveller approved of both the notes and the map, and expressed it as his opinion that it might be useful to append them to the new edition. I therefore thought proper to recast them, and to present them herewith to the reader.

At Sufayna, Burton found the Baghdad Caravan. The regular Baghdad-Meccah Road, of which we have two itineraries, the one reproduced by Hamdany and the other by Ibn Khordadbeh, Qodama, and others, keeps to the left of Sufayna, and runs parallel with the Eastern Madina-Meccah Road to within one stage of Meccah. We find only one passage in Arabic geographers from which we learn that the Baghdadlies, as long as a thousand years ago, used under certain circumstances to take the way of Sufayna. Yacut, vol. iii. p. 403, says Sufayna ([Arabic] Cufayna), a place in the caliya (Highland) within the territory of the Solaymites, lies on the road of Zobayda. The pilgrims make a roundabout, and take this road, if they suffer from want of water. The pass of Sufayna, by which they have to descend, is very difficult. The ridges over which the road leads are called al-Sitar, and are described by Yacut, vol. iii. p. 38, as a range of red hills, flanking Sufayna, with defiles which serve as passes. Burton, vol. ii. p. 128, describes them as low hills of red sandstone and bright porphyry. Zobayda, whose name the partly improved, partly newly opened Hajj-Road from Baghdad to Meccah bore, was the wife of Caliph Harun, and it appears from Burton, pp. 134 and 136, that the improvements made by this spirited womanas the wells near Ghadir, and the Birkat (Tank)are now ascribed to her weak, fantastical, and contemptible husband. Burtons description of the plain covered with huge boulders and detached rocks (p. 131) puts us in mind of

[p.404] the Felsenmeer in the Odenwald. Yacut, vol. iii. p. 370, describes the two most gigantic of these rock-pillars, which are too far to the left of Burtons road than that he could have seen them: Below Sufayna in a desert plain there rise two pillars so high that nobody, unless he be a bird, can mount them; the one is called cAmud (column) of al-Ban, after the place al-Ban, and the other cAmud of al-Safh. They are both on the right-hand side of the (regular) road from Baghdad to Meccah, one mile from Ofayciya (a station on the regular road which answers to Sufayna). Such desolate, fantastic scenery is not rare in Arabia nor close to the western coast of the Red Sea. The Fiumara, from which Burton (p. 138) emerged at six A.M., Sept. 9, was crossed by Burckhardt at Kholayc, and is a more important feature of the country than the two travellers were aware of. There are only five or six Wadies which break through the chain of mountains that runs parallel with the Red Sea, and of these, proceeding from south to north, Wady Nakhla (Wady Laymun) is the first, and this Fiumara the second. Early geographers call it Wady Amaj, or after a place of some importance situated in its lower course, Wady Saya. Hamdany, p. 294, says: Amaj and Ghoran are two Wadies which commence in the Harra (volcanic region) of the Beni Solaym, and reach the sea. The descriptions of this Wady compiled by Yacut, vol. iii. pp. 26 and 839, are more ample. According to one, it contains seventy springs: according to another, it is a Wady which you overlook if you stand on the Sharat (the mountain now called Jebel Cobh). In its upper course it runs between the two Hamiya, which is the name of two black volcanic regions. It contains several villages of note, and there lead roads to it from various parts of the country. In its uppermost part lies the village of Faric with date-groves, cultivated fields and gardens, producing plantains, pomegranates, and grapes, and in its lower

[p.405] course, close to Saya, the rich and populous village Mahaya. The whole Wady is one of the Acradh (oasis-like districts) of Madina, and is administered by a Lieutenant of the Governor of that city. Yacut makes the remark to this description: I do not know whether this valley is still in the same condition, or whether it has altered. Though we know much less of it than Yacut, we may safely assert that the cultivation has vanished and the condition has altered.

At Zariba ([Arabic], Dhariba) Burton and his party put on the Ihram (pilgrim-garb). If the Baghdadlies follow the regular road they perform this ceremony at Dzat-Irq, which lies somewhat lower down than Dhariba, to the South-east of it, and therefore the rain-water which falls in Dhariba flows in the shape of a torrent to Dzat-Irq, and is thence carried off by the Northern Nakhla. Above the station of Dzat-Irq there rise ridges called Irq; up these ridges the regular Baghdad Road ascends to the high-plateau, and they are therefore considered by early geographers as the western limit of Nejd. Omara apud Yacut, vol. iv. p. 746, says: All the country in which the water flows in an Easterly (North-easterly) direction, beginning from Dzat-Irq as far as Babylonia, is called Nejd; and the country which slopes Westwards, from Dzat-Irq to Tihama (the coast), is called Hijaz. The remarks of Arabic geographers on the Western watershed, and those of Burton, vol. ii. pp. 142 and 154, illustrate and complete each other most satisfactorily. It appears from Yacut that the Fiumara in which Burtons party was attacked by robbers takes its rise at Ghomayr close to Dzat-Irq, that there were numerous date-groves in it, and that it falls at Bostan Ibn camir into the Nakhla, wherefore it is called the Northern Nakhla. The Southern Nakhla, also called simply Nakhla, a term which is sometimes reserved for the trunk formed by the junction of the Southern and Northern

[p.406] Nakhla from Bostan Ibn camir downwards, is on account of its history one of the most interesting spots in all Arabia; I therefore make no apology for entering on its geography. In our days it is called Wady Laymun, and Burckhardt, vol. i. p. 158, says of it: Zeyme is a half-ruined castle, at the eastern extremity of Wady Lymoun, with copious springs of running water. Wady Lymoun is a fertile valley, which extends for several hours (towards West) in the direction of Wady Fatme (anciently called Batn Marr, or Marr-Tzahran, which is, in fact, a continuation of Wady Nakhla). It has many date-plantations, and formerly the ground was cultivated; but this, I believe, has ceased since the Wahabi invasion: its fruit-gardens, too, have been ruined. This (he means the village Laymun, compare Burton, vol. ii. p. 147) is the last stage of the Eastern-Syrian Hadj route. To the South-east or East-south-east of Wady Lymoun is another fertile valley, called Wady Medyk, where some sherifs are settled, and where Sherif Ghaleb possessed landed property.[FN#1] In the commentary on the Qacyda Rod.,

[p.407] Wady Nakhla, as far as the road to Meccah runs through it, is described as follows: From the ridges with whose declivity the Western watershed begins, you descend into Wady Baubat; it is flanked on the left side by the Sarat mountains, on which Tayif stands, and contains Qarn-almanazil (once the capital of the Minaeans, the great trading nation of antiquity). Three or four miles below Qarn is Masjid Ibrahym, and here the valley assumes the name of Wady Nakhla. At no great distance from the Masjid there rise on the left-hand side of the Wady two high peaks called Jebel Yasum and Jebel Kafw. Both were the refuge of numerous monkeys, who used to invade the neighbouring vineyards. As you go down Wady Nakhla the first place of importance you meet is al-Zayma. Close to it was a garden which, during the reign of Moqtadir, belonged to the Hashimite Prince Abd Allah, and was in a most flourishing condition. It produced an abundance of henna, plantains, and vegetables of every description, and yielded a revenue of five thousand Dinar-mithqals (about £2,860) annually. A canal from Wady (the river) Nakhla feeds a fountain which jets forth in the midst of the garden, and lower down a tank. In the garden stood a fort (which in a dilapidated condition is extant to this day, and spoken of by Burckhardt). It was built of huge stones, guarded for the defence of the property by the Banu Sad, and tenanted by the servants and followers of the proprietor. Below al-Zayma is Sabuha, a post-station where a relay of horses was kept for the transport of Government Despatches. To give an idea of the distances, I may mention that the post-stages were twelve Arabic miles asunder, which on this road are rather larger than an English geographical mile. The first station from Meccah was Moshash, the second Sabuha, and the third was at the foot of the hill Yasum. The author of the commentary from which I derive this information leaves Wady Nakhla soon after Sabuha, and

[p.408] turns his steps towards the holy city. He mentions the steep rocky Pass up which Burton toiled with difficulty, and calls it Orayk. Though he enters into many details, he takes no notice of the hill-girt plain called Sola. This name occurs however in an Arabic verse, apud Yacut, vol. ii. p. 968: In summer our pasture-grounds are in the country of Nakhla, within the districts of al-Zayma and Sola.

In W[a]dy Fatima, Burckhardt found a perennial rivulet, coming from the Eastward, about three feet broad and two feet deep. It is certain that Wady Fat?ima, formerly called Wady Marr, is a continuation of Wady Nakhla, and Yacut considers in one passage Nakhla as a subdivision of Marr, and in another Marr as part of Wady Nakhla; but we do not know whether the rivulet, which at al-Zayma seems to be of considerable size, disappears under the sand in order to come forth again in W[a]dy Marr, or whether it forms an uninterrupted stream. In ancient times the regular Baghdad-Meccah Road did not run down from Dzat-Irq by the Northern Nakhla which Burton followed, but it crossed this Wady near its Northern end and struck over to the Southern Nakhla as far as Qarn almarazil, which for a long time was the second station from Meccah, instead of Dzat-cIrq.

[FN#1] Medyq is Burtons El-Mazik, the spelling in Arabic being [Arabic] Madhyq. Burckhardts account leads us to think that the village now called Madhyq, or Wady Laymun, lies on the left bank of the Fiumara, and is identical with Bostan Ibn Amir, which is described by Yacut as situated in the fork between the Northern and Southern Nakhlas, and which in ancient times had, like the village Wady Laymun, the name of the valley of which it was the chief place, viz., Batn Nakhla. Burton gives no information of the position of the village, but he says: On the right bank of the Fiumara stood the Meccan Sharifs state pavilion. Unless the pavilion is separated from the village by the Fiumara there is a discrepancy between the two accounts, which leads me to suspect that right is an oversight for left. Anciently [Arabic] was pronounced Nakhlat, and, if we suppress the guttural, as the Greeks and Romans sometimes did, Nalat. Strabo, p. 782, in his narrative of the retreat of Aelius Gallus, mentions a place which he calls Mal?tha, and of which he says it stood on the bank of a rivera position which few towns in Arabia have. The context leaves no doubt that he means Batn Nakhla, and that Maltha is a mistake for Naltha.

[p.409]APPENDIX VIII.

THE MECCAH PILGRIMAGE.

HAVING resolved to perform the Meccah pilgrimage, I spent a few months at Cairo, and on the 22nd of May embarked in a small steamer at Suez with the mahmil or litter, and its military escort, conveying the kiswah or covering for the kabah. On the 25th the man at the wheel informed us that we were about to pass the village of Rabikh, on the Arabian coast, and that the time had consequently arrived for changing our usual habiliments for the ihram, or pilgrim-costume of two towels, and for taking the various interdictory vows involved in its assumption: such as not to tie knots in any portion of our dress, not to oil the body, and not to cut our nails or hair, nor to improve the tints of the latter with the coppery red of henna. Transgression of these and other ceremonial enactments is expiated either by animal sacrifice, or gifts of fruit or cereals to the poor.

After a complete ablution and assuming the ihram, we performed two prayer-flections, and recited the meritorious sentences beginning with the words Labbaik Allah huma labbaik! Here I am, O God, here I am! Here I am, O Unassociated One, here I am, for unto Thee belong praise, grace, and empire, O Unassociated One!

This prayer was repeated so often, people not unfrequently rushing up to their friends and shrieking the sacred sentence into their ears, that at last it became a signal for merriment rather than an indication of piety.

[p.410]On the 26th we reached Jeddah, where the utter sterility of Arabia, with its dunes and rocky hills, becomes apparent. The town, however, viewed from the sea, is not unpicturesque. Many European vessels were at anchor off the coast: and as we entered the port, innumerable small fishing-boats darting in all directions, their sails no longer white, but emerald green from the intense lustre of the water, crowded around us on all sides, and reminded one by their dazzling colours and rapidity of motion of the shoals of porpoises so often seen on a voyage round the Cape.

On disembarking we were accosted by several mut?awwafs, or circuit-men, so termed in Arabic, because, besides serving as religious guides in general, their special duty is to lead the pilgrim in his seven obligatory circuits around the Kabah. We encamped outside the town, and, having visited the tomb of our Mother Eve, mounted our camels for Meccah.

After a journey of twenty hours across the Desert, we passed the barriers which mark the outermost limits of the sacred city, and, ascending some giant steps, pitched our tents on a plain, or rather plateau, surrounded by barren rock, some of which, distant but a few yards, mask from view the birthplace of the Prophet. It was midnight; a few drops of rain were falling, and lightning played around us. Day after day we had watched its brightness from the sea, and many a faithful haji had pointed out to his companions those fires which were Heavens witness to the sanctity of the spot. Al hamdu Lillah! Thanks be to God! we were now at length to gaze upon the Kiblah, to which every Mussulman has turned in prayer since the days of Muhammad, and which for long ages before the birth of Christianity was reverenced by the Patriarchs of the East. Soon after dawn arose from our midst the shout of Labbaik! Labbaik! and passing

[p.411] between the rocks, we found ourselves in the main street of Meccah, and approached the Gateway of Salvation, one of the thirty-nine portals of the Temple of Al-Haram.

On crossing the threshold we entered a vast unroofed quadrangle, a mighty amplification of the Palais Royal, having on each of its four sides a broad colonnade, divided into three aisles by a multitude of slender columns, and rising to the height of about thirty feet. Surmounting each arch of the colonnade is a small dome: in all there are a hundred and twenty, and at different points arise seven minarets, dating from various epochs, and of somewhat varying altitudes and architecture. The numerous pigeons which have their home within the temple have been believed never to alight upon any portion of its roof, thus miraculously testifying to the holiness of the building. This marvel having, however, of late years been suspended, many discern another omen of the approach of the long-predicted period when unbelievers shall desecrate the hallowed soil.

In the centre of the square area rises the far-famed Kabah, the funereal shade of which contrasts vividly with the sunlit walls and precipices of the town. It is a cubical structure of massive stone, the upper two-thirds of which are mantled by a black cloth embroidered with silver, and the lower portion hung with white linen. At a distance of several yards it is surrounded by a balustrade provided with lamps, which are lighted in the evening, and the space thus enclosed is the circuit-ground along which, day and night, crowds of pilgrims, performing the circular ceremony of Tawaf, realize the idea of perpetual motion. We at once advanced to the black stone imbedded in an angle of the Kabah, kissed it, and exclaimed, Bismillah wa Allahu Akbar,In Gods name, and God is greatest. Then we commenced the usual seven rounds, three at a walking pace, and four at a brisk trot. Next

p.412] followed two prayer-flections at the tomb of Abraham, after which we drank of the water of Zamzam, said to be the same which quenched the thirst of Hagars exhausted son.

Besides the Kabah, eight minor structures adorn the quadrangle, the well of Zamzam, the library, the clock-room, the triangular staircase, and four ornamental resting-places for the orthodox sects of Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki, and Hanbali.

We terminated our morning duties by walking and running seven times along the streets of Safa and Marwa, so named from the flight of seven steps at each of its extremities.

After a few days spent in visiting various places of interest, such as the slave-market and forts, and the houses of the Prophet and the Caliphs Ali and Abubakr, we started on our six hours journey to the mountain of Arifat, an hours sojourn at which, even in a state of insensibility, confers the rank of haji. It is a mountain spur of about a hundred and fifty feet in height, presenting an artificial appearance from the wall encircling it and the terrace on its slope, from which the iman delivers a sermon before the departure of his congregation for Meccah. His auditors were, indeed, numerous, their tents being scattered over two or three miles of the country. A great number of their inmates were fellow-subjects of ours from India. I surprised some of my Meccah friends by informing them that Queen Victoria numbers nearly twenty millions of Mohammedans among her subjects.

On the 5th of June, at sunset, commencing our return, we slept at the village of Muzdalifah, and there gathered and washed seven pebbles of the size of peas, to be flung at three piles of whitewashed masonry known as the Shaitans (Satans) of Mun?. We acquitted ourselves satisfactorily of this duty on the festival of the 6th of [p.413] June, the 10th day of the Arabian month Zulhijah. Each of us then sacrificed a sheep, had his hair and nails cut, exchanged the ihram for his best apparel, and, embracing his friends, paid them the compliments of the season. The two following days the Great, the Middle, and the Little Satan were again pelted, and, bequeathing to the unfortunate inhabitants of Muna the unburied and odorous remains of nearly a hundred thousand animals, we returned, eighty thousand strong, to Meccah. A week later, having helped to insult the tumulus of stones which marks, according to popular belief, the burial-place of Abulah?ab, the unbeliever, who, we learn from the Koran, has descended into hell with his wife, gatherer of sticks, I was not sorry to relinquish a shade temperature of 120°, and wend my way to Jeddah en route for England, after delegating to my brethren the recital of a prayer in my behalf at the Tomb of the Prophet at Medina.

In penning these lines I am anxious to encourage other Englishmen, especially those from India, to perform the pilgrimage, without being deterred by exaggerated reports concerning the perils of the enterprise. It must, however, be understood that it is absolutely indispensable to be a Mussulman (at least externally) and to have an Arabic name. Neither the Koran nor the Sultan enjoins the killing of intrusive Jews or Christians; nevertheless, two years ago, an incognito Jew, who refused to repeat the creed, was crucified by the Meccah populace, and in the event of a pilgrim again declaring himself to be an unbeliever the authorities would be almost powerless to protect his life.

An Englishman who is sufficiently conversant with the prayers, formulas, and customs of the Mussulmans, and possess a sufficient guarantee of orthodoxy, need, however, apprehend no danger if he applies through the British Consulate at Cairo for an introduction to the Amirul Haj, the Prince of the Caravan.

[p.414]Finally, I am most anxious to recommend as Mutawwaf at Meccah Shaikh Muhammed Umr Fanair-jizadah. He is extremely courteous and obliging, and has promised me to show to other Englishmen the same politeness which I experienced from him myself. 1862 A.D. 1278 A.H. [Arabic] (EL HAJ ABD EL WAHID.)