With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902

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Title: With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902
Author: Khan, Hadji, Sparroy, Wilfrid
Language: English
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MECCA ***

[Illustration: THE HAREM, SHOWING THE KA’BAH, AND THE OTHER SANCTUARIES
WITHIN THE HAREM.

(_From an old Indian Illustration._)]

WITH THE
PILGRIMS
TO MECCA

THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE
OF A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902
BY HADJI KHAN, M.R.A.S.
(_Special Correspondent of the “Morning Post”_)
AND WILFRID SPARROY
(_Author of “Persian Children of the Royal Family”_)
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY PROFESSOR A. VAMBÉRY

LONDON AND NEW YORK
JOHN LANE, MDCCCCV

PRINTED BY W. H. WHITE AND SON
THE ABBEY PRESS, EDINBURGH

THE HONOURABLE OLIVER A. BORTHWICK

... OH, NEVER STAR
WAS LOST HERE BUT IT ROSE AFAR!
LOOK EAST, WHERE WHOLE NEW THOUSANDS ARE!

The Authors take this opportunity of renewing their acknowledgments of
all they owe to the Editor of _The Morning Post_, to whose friendly
interest and encouragement the success of the serial publication, under
the title of the “Great Pilgrimage,” was in a considerable measure due.
In tendering to him their hearty thanks, they feel it would be scarcely
fair to themselves were they to allow the reader to take this, the
present fruit of their respective labours, to be a mere republication.
It is something far more than that, one-fifth of the book, and that the
most interesting part of all, being absolutely new; while the whole of
the remainder has been not only carefully revised, but also recast,
and, to some extent, rewritten. But the reader owes the new material to
Mr. Dunn’s kindness in relinquishing his right to it in order that it
might appear for the first time in the pages of “With the Pilgrims to
Mecca.”

_28th April 1904._

MY OWN EAST!
HOW NEARER GOD WE WERE! HE GLOWS ABOVE
WITH SCARCE AN INTERVENTION, PRESSES CLOSE
AND PALPITATINGLY, HIS SOUL O’ER OURS;
WE FEEL HIM, NOR BY PAINFUL REASON KNOW!
THE EVERLASTING MINUTE OF CREATION
IS FELT THERE.

ROBERT BROWNING.

INTRODUCTION

Amongst the varied and manifold impressions of my long and intimate
connection with the Mohammedan world none is more lively and more
interesting than my experiences with the Hajees, the dear, pious and
good-natured companions on many of my wanderings in Moslem Asia. We in
Europe can hardly have an idea of the zeal and delight which animate
the pilgrim to the holy places of Arabia, not only during his sojourn
in Mekka and Medina, not only whilst making the Tawaf (procession
round the Kaaba), not only during the excursion to the valley of Mina,
where the exclamation of “Lebeitk yá Allah” rends the air round the
Arafat--but long before he has started on his arduous and formerly
very dangerous journey to the birthplace of Islam. The Hadj, being one
of the four fundamental commands of Islam, is looked upon by every
true believer as a religious duty the fulfilment of which is always
before his eyes, and if prevented by want of means or by infirmity he
will strive to find a Wekil (representative), whom he provides with
necessary funds to undertake the journey and to pray in his name at
the Kaaba, and when the Wekil has returned he hands over the Ihram (a
shirt-like dress in which the pilgrimage is performed) to his sender
who will use it as his shroud, and appear before the Almighty in
the garb used on the Hadj. The further the Moslem lives from Arabia
the greater becomes the passion to visit the holy places of his
religion, and if there was a country in which the desire to fulfil
this holy command was most fervently cultivated and executed, it was
decidedly Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan, where nearly two-thirds
of the pilgrims formerly perished, partly in consequence of epidemics
and inclemency of weather, partly also at the hands of robbers or
through thirst in the desert. And yet these Turk or Tartar Hadjees
often disregard all dangers and perils of a long journey, and begin
to economise the money necessary for travelling expenses many years
before they have set out, for a man destitute of means is not allowed
to undertake the Hadj, the same prohibition exists also for a man who
is not bodily strong enough, or who has to provide for a family left
back at home. It is true, in accordance with the saying “Hem ziaret hem
tidjaret” (Pilgrimage and Business together), there are people, who
connect trade with religion, but their devotion is often criticised,
whereas the pure religious intention meets everywhere with the greatest
praise and veneration, and a successfully accomplished visit to the
holy places of Arabia makes a Mohammedan respected not only in his
community but also in the outlying districts of his country. On his
return journey from Mekka and Medina the Hajee gets an official
reception all along his route. He is met by young and old, by rich and
poor, everybody tries to rub his eyes or his cheeks to the dress of the
man, in order to catch an atom of the dust coming from the Kaaba or
from the grave of the Prophet, and if the Hajee is the bearer of some
_Khaki-Mubarak_ (_i.e._, blessed earth from the grave of Mohammed), or
if he is in possession of a small bottle of “Zemzem” (the holy fountain
in the precinct of the Kaaba), there is no end and limit to the
pressing throng around him. I have seen people kissing the footsteps
of such a pilgrim, embracing and petting him, and what struck me most
was the scene where Kirghis or Turkoman nomads cried like children on
seeing one of these Hajees, and when they began to quarrel, nay, to
fight, for the opportunity to bestow hospitality on a returning Hajee,
be he even an Uzbeg or a Tajik, whom they otherwise dislike.

Yes, the Haj is a most wonderful institution in the interest of the
strength, unity and spiritual power of Islam; it is a kind of religious
Parliament and a gathering place for the followers of the prophet,
where the sacred Hermandad is fostered despite all differences of race
and colour, and whereas the temple in Jerusalem does often become the
cockpit of different Christian sects, and the arena of bloody fights,
which would fatally end without the intercession of the Moslem soldiers
of the Padishah, we meet with perfect peace and concord in the court of
the Kaaba, where the four sects have got their separate places without
interfering with each other, and where Hanefites, Shafaites, Malekites
and Hanbalites pay simultaneously their veneration to the founder of
their religion. Even the Shiite Persian is not molested as long as he
does not offend the believers by an ostentatious exhibition of his
schismatic views, what he rarely does, for _dissimulation_ is not
prohibited according to the tenets of the Shiites.

The foregoing remarks about the Haj have been quoted here with the
intention to realise the importance of this religious custom of Islam,
and particularly to show how necessary it is to know and to appreciate
duly the political, social and ethical qualities of this precept
ordained by the prophet.

Well, in order to gain full information on this subject, we have been
in need of an account of the Haj written by a Mohammedan who is not
attracted by curiosity, but by religious piety, who had free access
to every place, who is not hampered by fear of being discovered as
a Christian, and who is besides a shrewd observer. These essential
qualities I find in Mr. Haji Khan, M.R.A.S., the pilgrim, who calls
himself also “Haji Raz” (the mystery Haji). It may be well said that
Christian travellers like Burkhard, Burton, Maltzan, and others, have
exhausted the subject relating to the holy places of Islam, but a
Mohammedan sees more and better than any foreigner, and I do not go too
far when I say that Mr. Haji Khan, with his thorough English education,
would have been more fitted to describe, unaided, the life and the
manners of the Haj, than was his Turkish fellow-believer, Emin Effemdi,
author of a Turkish account of the same topic.

I daresay it will be the case with many other subjects relating to
the actual and past features of the Eastern life, if natives will be
only educated to describe the peculiarities of their own nations and
creeds, and for this reason it is desirable that the number of scholars
like Mr. Haji Khan should increase, and that this present book,
written in collaboration with Mr. Wilfrid Sparroy, should meet with a
well-deserved reception.

Great credit is due to Mr. Wilfrid Sparroy, to whose high qualities as
a writer, this joint production owes so much. Both Mr. Haji Khan and
Mr. Wilfrid Sparroy are to be congratulated on the results of their
labours: they have succeeded in bringing the East nearer to the West.

A. VAMBÉRY.

CONTENTS

PART I

A PERSIAN PILGRIM IN THE MAKING--

PAGE

1. THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHET 21

2. CONDITIONS OF PILGRIMAGE 31

3. FORBIDDEN VIANDS 32

4. THE WORK OF PURIFICATION 33

5. PRAYERS 35

6. ASPECTS OF SOCIAL ISLÁM 37

7. STORIES OF THE MUSLIM MOONS 47

8. PERSIAN SÚFÍISM--PERSIAN SHIAHISM IN ITS
RELATION TO THE PERSIAN PASSION-DRAMA 62

PART II

THE STORY OF THE PILGRIMAGE--

CHAP. I. LONDON TO JIDDAH 81

CHAP. II. FROM JIDDAH TO MECCA 102

CHAP. III. WITHIN THE HAREM--SOME REMARKS
ON THE ORTHODOX SECTS OF ISLÁM 111

CHAP. IV. COMPASSING OF THE KA’BAH 126

CHAP. V. THE COURSE OF PERSEVERANCE 140

CHAP. VI. SCENE IN AN EATING-HOUSE--VISIT
TO THE KA’BAH 153

CHAP. VII. ON THE ROAD TO ARAFAT 173

CHAP. VIII. ON THE ROAD TO ARAFAT (_concluded_) 193

CHAP. IX. ARAFAT DAY: NIGHT 212

CHAP. X. ARAFAT DAY: DAYBREAK 223

CHAP. XI. ARAFAT DAY: FORENOON AND
AFTERNOON 234

CHAP. XII. THE DAY OF VICTIMS: FROM SUNDOWN
TO SUNSET. THE DAYS OF DRYING FLESH 245

PART III

MECCAN SCENES AND SKETCHES--

CHAP. I. THE MECCAN BAZAARS 255

CHAP. II. THE TALISMAN-MONGER 266

CHAP. III. SEYYID ’ALÍ’S STORY OF HIS REDEMPTION 280

CHAP. IV. HEALING BY FAITH 289

APPENDIX. SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EXISTENCE
OF A SLAVE MARKET IN MECCA 299

INDEX. 309

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

THE HAREM, SHOWING THE KA’BAH, AND THE OTHER
SANCTUARIES WITHIN THE HAREM _Frontispiece_

COPIES OF THE KURÁN WORN _en bandoulière_ BY
MUSLIMS WHEN TRAVELLING OR ON PILGRIMAGE 39

A PERSIAN SUFÍ OF THE ORDER OF THE LATE
SEPHI ’ALÍ SHÁH 65

A GROUP OF MIXED PILGRIMS 85

A PILGRIM “AT SEA”--SUEZ RAILWAY STATION 85

PREPARING TO EMBARK AT SUEZ 91

PILGRIMS EMBARKING AT SUEZ 99

BEFORE WEIGHING ANCHOR AT SUEZ 99

A MOORISH GENTLEMAN IN MOORISH DRESS 121

THE POORER SIDE OF EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS 143

PUTTING ON IHRÁM AT JIDDAH 155

MUSSAH STREET AT MECCA 155

AN EGYPTIAN COFFEE-HOUSE FREQUENTED BY THE POOR 161

AN EGYPTIAN DONKEY AND ITS DRIVER 183

THE MUSICIAN CAMEL CAVALCADE 201

WATER-CARRIERS OF MECCA 207

(_a_) THE PASHA OF HEJAZ; (_b_) THE AMINUS-SURREH 207

THE SHERÍF OF MECCA IN HIS UNIFORM 215

A LEARNED MUSSULMAN OF INDIA 229

PERSIAN PILGRIMS FROM TABRIZ, HAVING TEA ON
BOARD THE STEAMER 239

DISEMBARKING AT JIDDAH 249

PILGRIMS AT JIDDAH 249

AN EGYPTIAN GROCER 267

A PERSIAN PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY 291

AN ARAB SHEYKH OF THE TOWN 297

PART I

ERRATA

Page 22, line 34, _For_ Jellalu’d-dín’s “Al Beidáwí,” _read_
Al-Beidáwí’s commentary.
Page 31, line 10, _For_ “Hájí Ráz,” _read_ Hadji Khan.
Page 31, line 11, _For_ Chapter V., Part III., _read_ Appendix.
Page 32, line 12, _For_ formerly, _read_ formally.
{Page 57, line 1, _For_ 1320, _read_ 1319.
{Page 245, line 19, _For_ 1320, _read_ 1319.
Page 69, line 7, _For_ uncle, _read_ father-in-law.
Page 69, lines 29-30, _For_ too rash and too indiscreet, _read_
too forbearing and too magnanimous.
{Page 72, line 12, _For_ daughter Fatima, _read_ sister Zainab.
{Page 76, line 13, _For_ daughter Fatima, _read_ sister Zainab.
Page 93, line 21, _For_ Yásuf, _read_ Yûsuf.
Page 93, lines 22-23, _For_ Al Beyyid, _read_ Al Beidáwí.
{Page 115, line 1, _For_ Tomb of Abraham, _read_ Station of
Abraham.
{Page 130, line 28, _For_ Tomb of Abraham, _read_ Station of
Abraham.
Page 117, line 9, _For_ Merú, _read_ Merve.
Page 134, line 8, _For_ ordnance, _read_ ordinance.
Page 166, line 32, _For_ mosque, _read_ temple.
Page 199, line 19, _For_ Tabbál, _read_ Tabl.
Page 237, line 12, _For_ Kharnum, _read_ Khanum.
Page 237, line 12, _For_ Mrs. Zobeideh, _read_ Lady Zobeideh.
Page 251, line 4, _Omit_ the Merciful and Compassionate.
Page 266, line 20, _For_ God is just, _read_ God is Great.

WITH THE PILGRIMS TO MECCA

PART I

A PERSIAN PILGRIM IN THE MAKING

I.--MESSAGE OF THE PROPHET.

The day before I left England for Persia some seven years ago, I went
to see my uncle, the author of the “Siege of Metz.” On saying good-bye
he made me a present of the Kurán. “Here,” said he, “is the thing to
be read. It will be the best introduction to the new life awaiting you
in the East. If you can lay hold of the spirit of this book you will
not be alone out there, but among men and brothers, for the Kurán is a
sincere revelation of much that is eternally true.” I never saw George
Robinson again: in less than a week--before I had left Paris--his
spirit had passed to the bourne whence all revelations come, and where
truth, in its completeness, will be revealed.

Now, it should be the critic’s aim, in dealing with all true books, to
place himself on the same plane as the author, and to look in the same
direction, fixing the same end. This is more especially true of what
his attitude should be towards a message that has been held sacred by
countless millions for more than thirteen hundred years. The merits
of the Kurán and the far-reaching reforms of the Prophet of Islám can
be appreciated worthily only by such men as have taken the trouble to
acquaint themselves with the idolatrous superstitions of the Arabians
in the time of Ignorance, and with the empty logical jangling of the
rival Syrian Christian sects at the close of the Sixth Century. And the
critic having grasped the lifelessness of religious practice before
the coming of Muhammad, would be wise to reveal, first of all, what
there is of truth, and to spread what light there is in the written
word of the great reformer, abandoning to the bigot and the purblind
the less fruitful occupation of stirring in the cauldron of religious
controversy. To that end, indeed, it were not amiss that he should
cultivate his imagination, for the imaginative have turned the corner
of their narrower selves, and theirs is an ever-widening vision. To
those who, living by the word of Christ, diffuse darkness, Muhammad
will ever be either a charlatan or an unscrupulous man of the sword.
Well, the Prophet’s followers must take heart of grace. History itself
as well as the Kurán has proclaimed the charges to be false.

The keynote to Muhammad’s character is sincerity. Sincerity rings
out clear enough in every word of his book. He was a man in whom
the fire-thought of the desert burned so fiercely that he could not
help being sincere. He was so truly sincere, indeed, as to be wholly
unconscious of his sincerity. Now, of all the stories related of him
none affords a more convincing proof of his thorough honesty than
the one which shows him to have been, at least once in practice, a
backslider from the high ideal of conduct that he preached. This story,
from Al-Beidáwí’s commentary, is thus related by Sale:

“A certain blind man named Abdallah Ebn Omm Mactúm came and interrupted
Muhammad while he was engaged in earnest discourse with some of the
principal Kuraish, of whose conversion he had hopes; but, the Prophet
taking no notice of him, the blind man, not knowing that Muhammad was
otherwise busied, raised his voice, and said, ‘O apostle of God, teach
me some part of what God hath taught thee’; but Muhammad, vexed at this
interruption, frowned, and turned away from him,” for which he was
reprehended afterwards by his conscience. This episode was the source
of the revelation entitled “He Frowned.” “The Prophet frowned, and
turned aside,” so runs Chapter lxxx. of the Kurán, “because the blind
man came unto him; and how dost thou know whether he shall peradventure
be cleansed from his sins; or whether he shall be admonished, and the
admonition shall profit him? The man who is wealthy thou receivest with
respect; but him who cometh unto thee earnestly seeking his salvation,
and who fearest God, dost thou neglect. By no means shouldst thou act
thus.” We are also told that the Prophet, whenever he saw Ebn Omm
Mactúm after this, showed him marked respect, saying, “The man is
welcome on whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me,” and that he made
him twice Governor of Medina. And yet many still persist in calling
Muhammad a charlatan. Surely a prophet who, in reproving others, spared
not himself, has won the right to be respected as an honest man. For my
part I believe him to have been one whose word was his bond, and whose
hand it had been good to grasp.

As for his having been a mere victorious soldier, he was in the
beginning “precisely in a minority of one.” Your Napoleon finds in
patriotism his most successful recruiting sergeant. But the call
of patriotism had summoned to Muhammad’s standard not a single
recruit, because he was despised by the patriotic (if the Kuraish, the
predominant tribe in Arabia, and the keepers of the Ka’bah, deserved
to be so called) and was rejected by them. Assuredly Muhammad drew the
sword; he was driven to draw it in the end. But how did he get the
sword, and to what purpose did he put it when he had it? Muhammad’s
sword was forged in the furnace of that passionate, human soul of his,
was tempered in the flame of divine compassion, and gave to every
Arab an Empire and a creed. Islám was the sword! The blade of steel
achieved no miracle, it merely drew blood--sufficiently corrupt. It
was the sword of Muhammad’s word which freed the Arab heart from its
vices and fired it with a wider patriotism and a purer faith. His
battle-cry was the declaration of God’s unity; his sword was the faith;
his battlefield the human heart and soul; and his enemy idolatry and
corruption. “Yá Alláh!” and “Yá Muhammad!” carried the Arabian conquest
from Mecca to Granada, and from Arabia to Delhi. The conquering hosts
fought rather with their hearts and with their souls than with their
swords and their strong right hands; inculcating in the conquered no
earthly vanities, as do modern Muhammadan rulers, but the principles of
liberty, solidarity, unity, equality, and compassion.

Forty thousand Arabs, under their famous leader, Sád Vaghás, having
defeated five hundred thousand Persians and overthrown the mighty
Persian Empire, in the battle of Khadasieh, on the plain of Nahavend,
deeply rooted their faith in the heart of the alien race, and then left
her to be ruled by her own people, in accordance with the precepts
of the new revelation. Omar, perhaps the greatest Caliph, is said to
have lived throughout his life on a loaf of barley bread and a cup of
sour milk a day. And Alí’ the Prophet’s son-in-law, whom the Persians
revere as his true successor, lived for no other purpose than to help
the poor and to succour the weak. He was, as Carlyle assures us, a man
worthy of Christian knighthood. So also was his son, Huseyn, whose
glorious martyrdom has endeared him to the hearts of the Persian people.

In the East men are ruled and guided by religious laws and not by
positive ones, so Muhammad’s aim was to make the Arabians free and
united by lessening the sufferings of the poor and by establishing
equality among the people. That these aims and aspirations cannot be
consummated through positive laws alone must be abundantly clear to
every man in the civilised West who has watched the gradual rise among
us of Socialism and the deadly growth of Anarchy. We Western peoples
merely pray that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Whereas Muhammad, being, as he was, a practical reformer, made it
incumbent on his followers to contribute to the consummation of the
Divine Law by bestowing on the poor a fair share of the things that
they loved.

The very core of the Muhammadan faith lies, as I conceive, in three
broad principles. First, in the declaration of God’s unity. “Say,
God is one God; the eternal God: He begetteth not, neither is He
begotten: and there is not one like unto Him.” This short chapter, as
is well known, is held in particular veneration by the Muhammadans,
and declared, by a tradition of the Prophet, to be equal in value to
a third part of the whole Kurán. It is said to have been revealed
in answer to the Kuraish, who had asked Muhammad concerning the
distinguishing attributes of the God he invited them to worship. For
Muhammad held that all the prophets from the creation of the world have
been Unitarians; that as Moses was a Unitarian so also was Christ; that
Christianity, as practised in Syria, was a break in God’s revelation
of Himself as One, and that he, Muhammad, had been specially chosen by
God to re-admonish mankind of this fundamental truth.

As this ground idea satisfies the Oriental’s reason, so the second,
Islám, that is, resignation from man to God, responds to the inner
voice of his soul, and seems to lead his heart warmly to embrace
the third principle of the Muhammadan faith, which, in the golden
age of the Muhammadan Era, was the means of establishing equality
among the people--I mean the principle of charity, of alms-giving,
of compassion from man to man. Unswerving obedience to the spirit
and the letter of these three laws carried with it the obligation of
unswerving loyalty to the Prophet. When we pray, we Christians, we say
“Give us this day our daily bread.” The Muhammadans, under penalty of
everlasting torment, are obliged to sacrifice, to the poor and needy,
a due proportion of the things that they love--not merely of their
superfluity--with the result that each man among them, by that fact
alone, constitutes himself, as it were, a willing instrument of God’s
will that His Kingdom of Heaven shall reign on earth. Another fact that
proves Muhammad to have been something far more than a man of the sword
is that to this day Muhammadans hail one another on meeting with the
word “Salám” (have peace). Indeed, peace being an essential condition
of undertaking the sacramental Pilgrimage to Mecca, it is unlawful to
wage war during the three months’ journeying of the Muslim lunar year,
namely, in Shavvál, Zú-’l-ka’dah, and Zú-’l-hijjah.

“Contribute out of your subsistence towards the defence of the religion
of God,” says Muhammad, “and throw not yourself with your own hands
into perdition [that is, be not accessory to your own destruction
by neglecting your contributions towards the wars against infidels,
and thereby suffering them to gather strength], and do good, for God
loveth those who do good. Perform the Pilgrimage of Mecca, and the
visitation of God; and if ye be besieged send that offering which shall
be the easiest, and shave not your heads until your offering reacheth
the place of sacrifice. But whoever among you is sick, or is troubled
with any distemper of the head, must redeem the shaving of the head by
fasting, by alms, or by some offering [either by fasting three days, by
feeding six poor people, or by sacrificing a sheep]. But he who findeth
not anything to offer shall fast three days in the Pilgrimage, and
seven when he be returned: these shall be ten days complete. This is
incumbent on him whose family shall not be present at the Holy Temple.”

“The Pilgrimage must be performed in the known months (_i.e._, Shavvál,
Zú-’l-ka’dah, and Zú-’l-hijjah); whosoever therefore purposeth to go
on Pilgrimage therein, let him not know a woman, nor transgress, nor
quarrel in the Pilgrimage. The good which ye do, God knoweth it. Make
provision for your journey, but the best provision is piety, and fear
me, O ye of understanding. It shall be no crime in you if ye seek an
increase from your Lord by trading during the Pilgrimage. And when
ye go in procession from Arafat [a mountain near Mecca] remember God
near the holy monument, and remember Him for that He hath directed
you, though ye were before this of the number of those who go astray.
Therefore go in procession from whence the people go in procession, and
ask pardon of God, for God is gracious and merciful. And when ye have
finished your holy ceremonies, remember God, according as ye remember
your fathers, or with a more reverend commemoration. Yea, remember
God the appointed number of days [three days after slaying the
sacrifices], but if any haste to depart from the Valley of Mina in two
days it shall be no crime in him. And if any tarry longer it shall be
no crime in him--in him who feareth God. Therefore, fear God and know
that unto Him ye shall be gathered.... They who shall disbelieve and
obstruct the way of God, and hinder men from visiting the Holy Temple
of Mecca, which we have appointed for a place of worship unto all men:
the inhabitant thereof and the stranger have an equal right to visit
it: and whosoever shall seek impiously to profane it, we will cause
him to taste a grievous torment. And proclaim unto the people a solemn
Pilgrimage; let them come unto thee on foot, and on every lean camel,
arriving from every distant road, that they may be witnesses of the
advantages which accrue to them from visiting this holy place, and may
commemorate the name of God on the appointed days [namely, the first
ten days of Zú-’l-hijjah, or the tenth day of the same month, on which
they slay the sacrifices, and the three following days] in gratitude
for the brute cattle which he hath bestowed on them. Wherefore eat
thereof, and feed the needy and the poor. Afterwards let them put an
end to the neglect of their persons [by shaving their heads, and the
body from below the neck, and cutting their beards and nails in the
valley of Mina, which the pilgrims are not allowed to do from the time
they become Muhrims, and have solemnly dedicated themselves to the
performance of the Pilgrimage, till they have finished the ceremonies,
and slain their victims]; and let them pay their vows [by doing the
good works which they have vowed to do in their Pilgrimage], and
compass the ancient house [_i.e._, the Ka’bah, which the Muhammadans
pretend was the first edifice built and appointed for the worship of
God]. This let them do. And whoever shall regard the sacred ordinances
of God: this will be better for him in the sight of his Lord. All
sorts of cattle are allowed you to eat, except what hath been read
unto you, in former passages of the Kurán, to be forbidden. But depart
from the abomination of idols, and avoid speaking that which is false:
being orthodox in respect to God, associating no other god with him;
for whosoever associateth any other with God is like that which falleth
from heaven, and which the birds snatch away, or the wind bloweth to a
far distant place. This is so....”

One of the benefits of this Pilgrimage, and, perhaps, the greatest of
all, if we regard the sacrament either from the political and social
or from the religious standpoint, was, and is, the gathering together
in Mecca of Muhammadans of every race and of every sect. There, and in
the city of Medina, they first saw the dawn of their religious faith
and their political power; there their hearts were drawn together
in unity and strength; and there, in the early days of the Caliphs,
they discussed their latest achievements, the glory of their future
conquests, and studied the wants and needs of their co-religionists.
Within the walls of the Holy of Holies they wept and prayed that God
might renew within them a cleaner spirit through faith; and there,
too, they strove with all earnestness to raise themselves to the full
height of the Prophet’s conception of manhood, which encouraged such
virtues as hospitality, generosity, compassion, heroism, courage,
parental love, filial respect, and passive obedience to the will of
God. Thus Mecca, in the days of Pilgrimage, might be looked upon as an
immense club or a university where Muhammadans, from every quarter of
the globe, meet and discuss their political and social problems, and
prostrate themselves in prayer to the one and only Divinity.

Another effect of this Pilgrimage--an effect which has grown less
marked with the increased facility and comfort of travelling--is that
it kindled energy and courage in such people as would never have left
the safe seclusion of their harems had it not been for the rewards
which the undertaking is said to gain for them hereafter. For the
Oriental nations, be it remembered, are not as a rule of a roving
spirit; they are far more inclined by nature to a life of ease and
security than to one of danger and privation. “Travel,” says an Arab
proverb, “is a portion of hell-fire,” and so, perhaps, nothing save the
hope of paradise or the dread of perdition would ever have induced the
meditative Oriental to brave the trials and the hardships of the long
road to Mecca.

In our hearts we believe the proof of the Divine Spirit using any
religion is that it does not deteriorate. The chief objection to
Welsh Calvinism, which, like Muhammadanism, is based on the theory
of Predestination, is that it grows worse. It was once simply
and sincerely religious: it is now mainly political spite. Has
Muhammadanism deteriorated beyond recognition--say, in the eyes of the
student of the Kurán, or does it still hold tight by “the cord of God”?
Do the Sunnís hold themselves aloof from the Shi’ahs, or do they dwell
together, within the Holy Temple, in brotherly love and concord? Their
daily salutation of “Salám,” is it sunk to a mere empty form, or is
it still the expression, as it once undoubtedly was, of a hearty wish
to bring about the Prophet’s single aim? And of all the nationalities
congregated yearly in the city of concourse--the Arabians, the
Persians, the Afghans, the Egyptians, the Muhammadans of India and
China--which among them all is the most worthy to be commended for
its enlightenment and progress? All these questions, and many more
on the social and religious life of the East, will be answered in
the course of the second and third parts of this volume. And in the
meanwhile, I cannot do better than gather into focus the preliminary
notes of my literary partner, beginning with the customs incidental
to the pilgrimage; for the main thing now is to leave nothing unsaid
which would enable the reader to enter into the spirit and the form of
the sacred journey. And henceforward, though I shall always express
myself in my own words, the personal pronoun, whenever used, will
apply, throughout this work, to my collaborator, Hadji Khan, with the
exception of the contents of the Appendix.

II.--CONDITIONS OF PILGRIMAGE.

That being understood, the conditions must be mentioned which, in
theory, though not necessarily in practice, limit the number of
Muhammadans that go on the pilgrimage. First, the Muhammadan must
be of age--that is, he must have completed his fifteenth year when,
according to the Muhammadan Law, a boy becomes a man. Secondly, he
must be of a sound constitution in order to endure the fatigue of the
journey. Thirdly, he should have no debts whatever, but should be
sufficiently well-to-do to defray his own travelling expenses, after
having distributed one-fifth of his property among the Seyyids, given
one-tenth of the remainder in alms, and made provision during his
absence for the support of the family and the servants he leaves behind
him. Fourthly, he should support both the mosque in which he prays
and the fund of the saint he adores the most by making his religious
adviser a present in proportion to his means. Fifthly, he must be
either a virtuous or a sincerely penitent man, for he cannot legally
undertake the pilgrimage unless his wealth has been gained in a lawful
manner. Strictly speaking, a thief, for example, cannot be a pilgrim,
nor can the money earned by accepting bribes be used to cover the
expenses of the journey. The best money to use for the purpose is that
which has been gained from the produce of the soil, or else that which
has been bequeathed by a virtuous father. Sixthly, the Muhammadan who
would be a Hájí must start with an absolutely clean conscience: he must
look to it that the friends he leaves behind him shall have no just
cause to be offended with him. Though he need not heed the slander of
the malignant, he must formally repent of his sins, bidding his friends
and acquaintances good-bye with the words, “Halálám kuníd.” Seventhly,
a woman should be accompanied by one of her Meharem, that is by one of
the men who are privileged to see her unveiled--namely, by her father,
her husband, her brother, her uncle, her born slave, or her eunuch.
In short, the pilgrims should be really good Muslims, adhering firmly
to all the laws laid down in the Kurán, and following religiously the
special teaching of their chosen directors, whose prescriptive right to
regulate the minor details of the rites and observances of the Faith,
has resulted in their wielding a tremendous power over their flocks
even in political matters.

III.--FORBIDDEN VIANDS.

From the little that has been said of the influence of the Persian
clergy you will understand that the priests require their pilgrims
to adhere strictly to the letter of the laws appertaining to the
prohibition and recommendation of certain articles of food. They must
reckon as prohibited and, therefore, impure, twelve things, among
which may be counted pork, underdone meat, the blood of animals, and
wines. Though a digression, it will not be out of place to mention here
that the wine, of which Omar Khayyám and the Súfís in general sing,
is more likely to be the juice of the grape than the interpretation
put on it by such commentators as see in it a symbol of God’s love.
For the effect produced on the brain by the forbidden drink is in
itself something of a mystery, as it were, a divine afflatus, more
particularly is it so considered by a people of such a temperate habit
as the Persians. Some of the higher classes, no doubt, drink hard,
and even drink to get drunk, but upon the whole the Muhammadans, and
especially the Persians, are, in comparison with the majority of
European peoples, extremely sober, bearing their griefs without seeking
the consolation of the bottle.

IV.--THE WORK OF PURIFICATION.

Now, purifications must be made either in flowing water, or in about
half a ton of stagnant pure water. When the nose bleeds it must be
dipped three times, after being well washed. Strange to say, the sweat
of the camel--the animal that bears the pilgrim to Mecca--is said to
be unclean to the touch and its pollution must, like the handling of
dogs, pigs, and rats, be cleansed away by the customary purifications.
Ablutions, called _wuzú’h_ should precede every prayer that is _farz_
or incumbent, and _wuzú’h_ consists first in washing the hands three
times by pouring water from the right hand over the left hand and
rubbing them together, next in washing the face three times with the
right hand, then in pouring the water with the right hand over the
left elbow and rubbing down the forearm, and last of all in repeating
the process with the left hand over the right forearm. After this
_maseh_ must be performed by dipping the right hand in water and
rubbing it over the front portion of the head, and also by rubbing over
the right foot with the wet right hand, and the left foot with the wet
left hand. If the hands or the feet be sore or wounded then clay takes
the place of water, and this particular kind of purification is called
_tyammom_. The devout before reading the Kurán, or before entering the
shrine of a saint or the court of a mosque, should perform _wuzú’h_ or
_tyammom_, and in doing so they should resolve within themselves to
recite such and such a prayer. This is called _Niyyat_, or Declaration
of Intention.

According to a Shi’ah traditionalist, Imám Huseyn has laid down twelve
rules to be observed at meal times. The first four are essential to the
salvation of all true Muslims. They should remember to say “Bismillah”
before tasting each dish, and refrain from eating of the forbidden
viands; they should also assure themselves that the food laid before
them has been bought with money obtained from a legal source, and
should end by returning thanks to God. The second four, though not
universally obeyed, are admitted by all to be “good form,” and consist
in washing the hands before meat, in sitting down inclined to the left,
in eating with the thumb and the first two fingers of the right hand,
which hand must be kept especially clean for the purpose. The last
four rules deal with matters of social etiquette. They are kept by
most Muhammadans in polite society, and are as follows: One should not
stretch across the tablecloth, but should partake only of such dishes
as are within one’s reach; one should not stuff the mouth too full, nor
forget to masticate the food thoroughly; and one should keep the eyes
downcast and the tongue as silent as possible.

It is a tradition that the washing of hands before meals will
materially help the true Muslim to grow rich, and be the means of
delivering him from all diseases. If he rub his eyes immediately after
the ablution they will never be sore. The left hand must not be used in
eating unless the right be disabled.

All true Muslims when eating are advised to begin with salt and finish
with vinegar. If they begin with salt they will escape the contagion of
seventy diseases. If they finish with vinegar their worldly prosperity
will continue to increase. The host is in etiquette bound to be the
first to start eating and the last to leave off. Tooth-picking is
considered an act of grace, for Gabriel is reported to have brought a
tooth-pick from heaven for the use of the Prophet after every meal. The
priests recite certain passages of the Kurán before and after lunch and
dinner, and also before drinking water at any hour of the day.

V.--PRAYERS.

All Muslims must say five prayers every day, and the following six
things should be observed before the prayers are acceptable to God:
(1) _wuzú’h_ or _tyammom_, (2) putting off dirty clothes, (3) covering
one’s body and head and doffing the shoes, (4) keeping the appointed
time, (5) determining the exact position of Mecca, and (6) assuring
one’s self as to the purity of the place in which the prayers are said.
Before beginning one must say within one’s self what prayers one is
about to recite, and for what purpose one is going to recite them, and
at the end one must raise the hands to Heaven, saying, “May peace
be with Muhammad and with his disciples.” For prayer was by Muhammad
deemed so urgent an act of reverence that he used to call it the pillar
of religion and the key of paradise, declaring “that there could be no
good in that religion wherein was no prayer.” It behoves every pilgrim,
therefore, in his sacred habit, to pray at least five times every
twenty-four hours; (1) in the morning before sunrise, (2) when noon
is past and the sun begins to decline from the meridian, (3) in the
afternoon before sunset, (4) in the evening after sunset and before day
be shut in, and (5) after the day is shut in and before the first watch
of the night. Besides these, there are certain other prayers which,
though not expressly enjoined, are commended as a special act of grace,
more particularly perhaps to the pilgrims in ihrám. Among these may be
mentioned the separate prayers generally said at night (_i.e._, the
namáz-i-tahajjud and the vitr), and the extra prayers not prescribed
by law, the naváfil and the namáz-i-mustahabb. The positions of the
body are as follows: (1) kiyám, that is, standing erect, with the hands
down by the sides; (2) takbírguftán, declaring God’s greatness, on
raising the hands on either side of the face, with the thumbs under
the lobes of the ears, and the fingers extended; (3) rukú, inclining
the body from the waist and placing the hands on the knees; (4) kunút,
standing with the head inclined forward and the hands on either side of
the face; (5) dú zánúnishastán, kneeling, the hands lying flat on the
thighs; and (6) sijdah, prostration, in which the forehead must touch
the ground, or the lump of unbaked clay that is known by the name of
“mohre.” A full prayer is made up of five “rakats” or prostrations,
during which not a word save the prayer as prescribed should be
uttered. Part of the prayer is said aloud and part in a whispering
tone. The greatest care should be taken to pronounce each word with
the correct Arabic accent, since ill-pronounced words, unless the
result of a natural defect, are said to be unacceptable to the Creator.
The pilgrim should say special prayers on Friday, and every time he
has recourse to the Kurán before deciding on any course of action
whatsoever. A special prayer is said by the devout about one hour after
midnight. This is called the midnight prayer, and is, of course, a
tedious task. Hence it is sometimes said sarcastically of a man with a
loose belief in the Faith: “He says midnight prayers!” The prayers most
readily answered are the prayers said in Mecca. Thus when a pilgrim
sets out on his journey he is requested by his friends to pray for them
at the House of God. The name of the person for whom one prays should
be uttered, otherwise the prayer will have no effect. Every pilgrim
must take with him a rosary, the square piece of unbaked clay called
“mohre,” and a copy of the Kurán, for a passage of the Kurán must be
read after every prayer.

VI.--ASPECTS OF SOCIAL ISLÁM.

It is now time to give the reader, in as terse and as condensed a
form as possible, a general idea of the part played by religion in
the workaday lives of the children of the Faith, beginning with their
toilet, that is, with their dressing and bathing, with the combing of
their hair and the cutting of their nails.

A pious Persian Muslim, before wearing any new article of clothing,
performs his ablutions and prostrates himself twice in prayer. A man
of a less devout, but a more superstitious, trend of mind contents
himself with consulting the _taghvím_ or the _estakhhareh_[1] muttering
to himself, ere he dons the garment, “In the name of God the Merciful
and Clement!” His friends on seeing the new apparel cry out, “May it be
auspicious!” The rewards of a man who says his prayers before putting
on a new suit of clothes will be in proportion to the number of threads
in the cloth. Hence it has come to be a practice to preserve the
material from the blight of the Evil Eye by besprinkling it with pure
water over which a prescribed passage of the Kurán has been read.

[1] For fuller particulars of the _taghvím_ and the _estakhhareh_, see
page 289 “Healing by Faith.”

It is unlucky for a Muslim to sit down before taking off his shoes.
When drawing them on it is equally unlucky for him to stand up. The
custom, in the first instance, is to rise, doffing first the left
shoe and then the right one. The procedure must be reversed in every
particular when putting them on. The universal belief in omens is
traditional, and extends, among other things, to precious stones. By
far the luckiest of these is the flesh-coloured cornelian, which is
a great favourite with the men. It owes its popularity to the fact
that the Prophet himself is said to have worn a cornelian ring set in
silver on the little finger of his right hand. It grew still more in
favour at a later period, because Jafar, the famous Imám, declared
that the desires of every man who wore it would be gratified. And
thenceforward its property to bless has been regarded as axiomatic by
the superstitious to whom I am referring.

[Illustration: COPIES OF THE KURÁN WORN _EN BANDOULIÈRE_ BY MUSLIMS
WHEN TRAVELLING OR ON PILGRIMAGE.]

The Shiahs have the name of one of the twelve Imáms engraved on the
stone; others make use of it as a seal bearing their own names. Hardly
less lucky are the turquoise and the ruby, which are believed to have
the effect of warding off poverty from those who are fortunate
enough to possess them. This is why they are treasured by the fair sex,
the ruby being, perhaps, the more dearly loved of the two.

Every bath has generally three courts. On entering each one of these
the devout say the prayers prescribed for the occasion, but the
generality of Muslims, unless they intend to perform the religious
purifications, consider it sufficient to greet the people who are
present with the word “Salám!” It is considered inauspicious to brush
the teeth in the baths, but certain portions of hair must be removed by
a composition of quicklime and arsenic, called nureh, and the nureh,
though efficacious enough, no matter when it may be used, is said to
add immeasurably to a man’s chance of salvation by being laid on either
on a Wednesday or on a Friday.

The application of the juice of the marsh-mallow as an emollient
for the hair is strongly recommended by the saints. Their object in
bequeathing this advice to the consideration of their flock was not to
inculcate vanity. They had a higher aim than that. Their desire was to
stave off starvation from the fold, for that, in their opinion, would
be the result of using the lotion on an ordinary day of the week; while
rubbing the head vigorously with the precious juice on the Muslim
Sabbath would be certain to preserve the skin from leprosy and the mind
from madness. To the use of a decoction of the leaves of the lote-tree
a divine relief is attributed, for the mere smell of it on the hair of
the most unregenerate has on Satan an effect so disheartening that he
will cease from leading them into temptation for no less than seventy
days.

The pressure of the grave will be mitigated by a skilful and untiring
application of the comb in this life. The blessing of the comb is
said to have been revealed to Imám Jafar. Women are not excluded from
the spiritual benefits derived from the comb. But, remember, the hair
must not be done in a frivolous, much less in a perfunctory fashion.
Far from it. On no account whatever must the hair be neglected, for
Satan is attracted by dishevelled locks. They are, as it were, a net in
which he catches the human soul. Therefore, since the priests and the
merchants of Islám shave their heads in most parts of the Muslim world,
special attention should be paid by them to their beards and eyebrows.
A pocket-comb made of sandal-wood is often carried by the true
Believers, who, it may be hoped, turn it to good account in moments of
spiritual unwillingness on the part of the natural man.

A Mullá’s beard is an object of veneration to his flock. He may trim
it lest it should grow as wild as a Jew’s, but he is forbidden by
tradition to shave it. Even the scissors must be plied sparingly and to
the accompaniment of prayer. Perhaps the orthodox length of this almost
divine appendage of the true Muslim is the length of the wearer’s hand
from the point of the chin downwards. This is known as a ghabzeh or
handful. A priest may be allowed to add the length of the first joint
of his little finger, otherwise his power to awe might grow lax. The
soul is in danger every time he forgets to cut his sharib, that is, the
tip of his moustache, which should be reduced to bristles once a week.
Once on a time a faithful follower of the Prophet asked one of the
Imáms what he should do to increase his livelihood. The Imám answered
unhesitatingly: “Cut your nails and your sharib on a Friday as long as
you live!”

Again, according to a Shi’ah traditionist, if a Muslim gaze into
a looking-glass, before saying his prayers, he will be guilty of
worshipping his own likeness, however unsightly it may appear in his
eyes. The hand must be drawn across the forehead, ere the hair or the
beard be adjusted, or else the mirror will reflect a mind given over
to vanity, which is a grievous, if universal sin. The new moon must
be seen “on the face” of a friend, on a copy of the Kurán, or on a
turquoise stone. Unless one of these conditions be observed, there is
no telling what evil might not happen.

The devout who are most anxious to vindicate tradition perform two
prostrations on beholding the new moon, and sacrifice a sheep for the
poor as an additional safeguard against her baneful rays. The Evil
Eye more often than not has its seat in the socket of an unbeliever.
Therefore, the Muslim who, on being brought face to face with a
heretic, should not say the prayer by law ordained must look to his
charms or suffer the inevitable blight. A cat may look at a king; a
king may shoot a ferocious animal; and a thief may run away with the
spoil. But a true Believer must guard his faith against aggression
every time he sees a thief, a ferocious animal, or a king. For very
different reasons, he must recite a prescribed formula of prayer
on the passing of a funeral procession, and also on his seeing the
first-fruits of the season and its flowers. The dead, it is said, will
hear his voice if, on crossing a cemetery, he cry aloud: “O ye people
of the grave, may peace be with you, of both sexes of the Faithful!”

As the sense of sight gives rise to devotional exercises, so also does
the sense of hearing. The holy Muslim should lend a prayerful ear to
the cries of the muezzin during the first two sentences of the summons,
and when the call to prayer is over he should rub his eyes with his
fingers, in order to produce the signs of weeping--a mark of contrition
and of emotional recrudescence in the matter of piety. The true
Believer, whenever he hears the Sureh Sújdeh read in the Kurán, should
prostrate himself and repeat the words after the reader. If he hear
a Muslim sneeze he should say, “May peace be with thee!” and if the
sneeze be repeated, “Mayest thou be cured!” But, if a Kafir sneeze, the
response must be expressed in the wish to see him tread “the straight
path.”

Every child of Islám, before going to bed, should perform his ablutions
and say his prayers. If he wish to be delivered from nightmare and
all its terrors let him say to Allah: “I take refuge in Thee from the
evil of Satan,” and if he is afraid of being bitten by a scorpion let
him appeal to Noah, saying, “May peace be with thee, O Noah!” One
day Eshagh-ben-Ammar asked Imám Jafar how he could protect himself
against the attack of that malignant arachnidan. The Imám replied:
“Look at the constellation of the Bear; therein you will find a small
star, the lowest of all, which the Arabs call Sohail. Fix your eyes in
the direction of that star, and say three times, ‘May peace be with
Muhammad and with his people: O Sohail, protect me from scorpions,’ and
you will be protected from them.” Eshagh-ben-Ammar goes on to relate
that he read the formula every evening before going to bed, and that it
proved successful; but one evening he forgot to repeat it, and, as a
consequence, was bitten by a black scorpion.

Prayers are also said against mosquitoes and other insects. This
cleanses the conscience of the irate Muslim, if it fail in preserving
his skin. The Eastern peoples in general and the Muhammadans in
particular are early risers. Sleep after morning prayers, which are
said before sunrise, is sure to cause folly; sleep in the middle of
the day is believed to be necessary and suitable to work; while sleep
before evening prayers has precisely the same effect as after the
devotions of the early morning. A traditionist says that the prophets
slept on their backs, so as to be able to converse with the angels at
any hour of the night; that the faithful must sleep on their right
sides, and the Kafirs on their left; and that the deves take their rest
on their stomachs.

Usury, though interest on money was strictly prohibited by the Prophet,
is among the Muslims of the present day a common practice. They evade
the letter of the law by putting what the Persians call “a legal cap
over the head” of the usurious transaction. The money-lender picks up
a handful of barley and says to the borrower, “Give me the rate of
interest as the cost of this grain, which I now offer to sell to you
at that price;” and the borrower replies that he accepts the bargain.
Also, a merchant must know all the laws appertaining to buying and
selling. Imám ’Ali is said to have made a daily round of the bazaars of
Kufa crying out the while, “O ye merchants and traders, deal honestly
and in accordance with the laws of your Prophet. Swear not, neither
tell lies, and cheat not your customers. Beware of using false weights,
and walk ye in the paths of righteousness.”

A high priest in Mecca assured me that to enjoy a derham of interest is
as bad as taking the blood of seventy virgins. The admonitions of ’Alí
the Just, though sometimes read, are less often followed. On leaving
his house a merchant must say “Bismillah,” and then blow to his left
and his right and also in front of him, so as to clear the way to good
business.

The pious recite, on entering the bazaar, a prayer ordained for the
occasion. When the bargain is clinched the seller should cry out, “God
is great! God is great!” But there should be no dishonest bargaining
over the purchasing of these four things: the winding sheets for the
dead, the commodities to be distributed in charity, the expenses on
the journey to Mecca, and the price of a slave’s ransom. In all these
transactions the buyer and seller must act according to the dictates of
fair play. The man who buys a slave should lay hold of him by a hair of
his head and say the prescribed prayer; after which, if guided by Imám
Jafar, he must change the name of his purchase. Slaves are treated with
every consideration, so much so indeed that in the household of Eastern
potentates, whose treatment of their dependents is extremely arbitrary,
the slaves lord it over the servants.

It is said, in the traditions, that a true Muslim should marry
neither for money nor for beauty, but should be guided by the woman’s
moral worth and spiritual endowments. His choice is referred to the
arbitrament of the _estakhhareh_. “A chaste maiden will make a good
wife; for she will be sweet-tempered to her husband, and mild but
firm in the treatment of her children.” This saying is attributed to
the Prophet. “A bad wife, a wicked animal, and a narrow house with
unsociable neighbours, those are the possessions which try a man’s
temper,” cried one of the Imáms, himself a saintly man. “The best woman
is she who bears children frequently, who is beloved by her relatives,
who shows herself obedient to her husband, who pleases him by wearing
her best clothes, and who avoids the eyes of men who cannot lawfully
see her.” These words were uttered by Muhammad, if we are to believe
tradition.

The wedding must not take place when the moon is under an eclipse, nor
when she is in the sign of Scorpio. The best time is between the 26th
and the end of the lunar month. Muhammad recommended festivals to be
celebrated on five occasions: on wedding and nuptial days, on the birth
of a child, on the circumcision of a child, on taking up one’s abode
in a newly-purchased house, and on returning from Mecca. Only persons
of unblemished reputation should be invited to the marriage or the
nuptial feasts.

To the man who brings him news of the birth of a male child the father
should give a present. The nurse should lose no time in singing the
first chapter of the prescribed prayer in the baby’s right ear, and
what is called the standing prayer in its left one, and if the water
of the Euphrates be procurable it should be sprinkled on the baby’s
forehead.

On the seventh day after the child’s birth the ceremony of the Aghigheh
is performed in Persia. This consists in killing a fatted sheep, in
cooking it, and in distributing the flesh among the neighbours or among
the poor who come to the door. In memory of the occasion a cornelian
engraved with a Kurán text, and sometimes surrounded with precious
stones, as in the cover-design to the present volume, is fastened to
the baby’s arm by means of a silk band, and is worn perhaps to the end
of its life. Not a single bone of the Aghigheh sheep should be broken;
certain prayers should be read before the sheep is killed; and the
parents should not take part in the feast.

The baby is not often weaned until it is two years old, Muhammad
believing that the mother’s milk is the best and acts beneficially on
the child’s future character and temperament.

VII.--STORY OF THE MUSLIM MOONS.

The twelve Muhammadan months are lunar, and number twenty-nine and
thirty days alternately. Thus the whole year contains only three
hundred and fifty-four days; but eleven times in the course of thirty
years an intercalary day is added. Accordingly, thirty-two of our
years are, roughly speaking, equal to thirty-three Muhammadan years.
The Muhammadan Era dates from the morning after the Hegira, or the
flight of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina, that is, on the 16th of
July, A.D. 622. Every year begins earlier than the preceding one, so
that a month beginning in summer in the present year will, sixteen
years hence, fall in winter. The following are the names of the months,
which do not correspond in any way with ours: 1, Muharram; 2, Safar; 3,
Rabíu-’l-avval; 4, Rabíu-’s-sání or Rabíu-’l-ákhir; 5, Jumádáu-’l-úlá;
6, Jumádáu-’s-sání or Jumádáu-’l-ákhir; 7, Rajab; 8, Sha’bán; 9,
Ramazán; 10, Shavvál; 11, Zú-’l-ka’dah, or Zí-ka’d; 12, Zú-’l-hijjah,
or Zí-hajj. Many stories of these months were told to me by the priests
and the pilgrims whom I met at Mecca, and it is therefore my intention
to tell over again the stories of the most cherished months of the
Muslim year. These are Rajab, Sha’bán, Ramazán, Shavvál, Zú-’l-ka’dah,
Zú-’l-hijjah, and Muharram.

On the Day of Judgment, the Holy Muezzin, sitting on the Throne, will
cry out, ere he pass judgment on the Faithful, saying: “O moons of
Rajab, Sha’bán, and Ramazán, how stands it with the deeds of this
humble slave of ours?” The three moons will then prostrate themselves
before the Throne, and answer: “O Lord, we bear witness to the good
deeds of this humble slave. When he was with us he kept on loading his
caravans with provisions for the next world, beseeching Thee to grant
him Thy divine favour, and expressing his perfect contentment with the
fate that Thou hadst sent unto him.” After them their guardian-angels,
meekly kneeling on their knees, will raise their voices in praise of
the pious Muslim, crying: “O Lord God Almighty, we also bear witness
to the good deeds of this humble slave of Thine. On earth his eyes,
his ears, his nose, his mouth, and his stomach were all obedient both
to whatsoever Thou hast forbidden and also to whatsoever Thou hast made
lawful. The days he passed in fasting, and the nights in sleepless
supplication. Verily he is a good doer!” Then Allah will command his
slave to be borne into Paradise on a steed of light, accompanied by
angels, and by all the rewards of his piety on camels of light, and
there he will be conducted to a palace whose foundation is laid in
everlasting felicity, and whose inmates never grow old. The moon of
Rajab is the month of Allah. It is said that there is a stream of that
name in Paradise, whose water is white, and more wholesome than milk
and sweeter than honey. The first to welcome the new arrival will be
this stream, which will straightway wend its course round his palace.
To Salim, one of his disciples, Muhammad is reported to have said: “If
you keep fast for one day during the month of Rajab you will be free
from the terror of death, and the agony of death, from the percussion
of the grave, and the loneliness thereof. If you keep fast for two days
the eight doors of Paradise will be opened unto you.”

The authoritative tradition goes that a crier will make himself heard
from between the earth and the sky, summoning the pious who observed
the prayers and the privations of the moon of Rajab: “Oh, ye Rajabians,
come forth and present yourselves before your Creator.” Then the
Rajabians, whose heads will be crowned with pearls and rubies, and
whose faces will be bathed in the universal light, will arise and stand
before the Throne. And each one among them will have a thousand angels
on his right hand and a thousand on his left, and they will shout with
one accord, saying: “O, ye Rajabians, may ye be deserving of all the
holy favours ye are about to receive!” And last of all, Allah, in his
mercy, will say to them: “O my male and female slaves, I swear by my
own magnanimity, that I will give you lodgings in the most delightful
nooks of my Paradise, namely, in the palaces around which flow the most
refreshing streams of purest water.”

A baby is to the Muslim a symbol of purity: and so a man who worships
God in the month of Rajab will become like unto a new-born child,
always provided that he repent of the sins which he has committed, and
follow the law of the Prophet. Not until then will the pious Rajabian
be in a fit state, in his character of new-born babe, to start life
afresh. The Muhammadans, in so far as duty and obedience are concerned,
put on pretty much the same footing the relation of the slave to his
master, of the wife to her husband, of the child to its parent, and of
the guest to his host. The parallel between the last-mentioned and the
preceding is complete because the guest must acquiesce in his host’s
will, which is supreme. In the matter of repentance, that of Nessouh is
exemplary among the Muhammadans.

Now, this man Nessouh was in his face and his voice so like a woman
that his wicked nature persuaded him to wear skirts that he might
add to his experience of the opposite sex by mixing freely among
its members. Soon, his curiosity growing in ratio with his acquired
knowledge, we hear of him as an attendant in the hammam of the royal
seraglio, where he might have pursued his studies in peace and in
rapture had not one of the Royal Princesses, who had lost a ring, cast
suspicion on every servant in turn. The seed of Nessouh’s repentance
was sown when the decree went out that all the attendants of the baths
were to be searched. The fear lest his sex should be discovered yielded
so swiftly to repentance for having veiled it, that Almighty Allah
despatched an angel from Paradise to discover the missing treasure
before the decree took effect; and thenceforward Nessouh, out of
the gratitude of his heart, renounced his studies of human nature in
petticoats, and vied with the most rigid disciplinarians in prayer and
in fasting. His virtues grew so conspicuous in male attire that his
repentance has come to be accepted as worthy of imitation by every true
Believer.

According to tradition it was on the first day of God’s moon that
Noah, having taken his seat in the Ark, commanded all the men and
jinns and beasts that were with him to keep fast from sunrise to
sunset. On the evening of the same day, when the sun was going down,
the Ark, riding over the flood, would have heeled over had not Allah
sent seventy thousand of his angels to the rescue. It is interesting
to note that the number of all the traditional rewards of virtue, as
well as that of such of the heavenly hosts as lend their assistance in
cases of distress, is always a multiple of seven. A Meccan priest added
the following to my collection of “rewards”: God will build seventy
thousand cities in Paradise, each city containing seventy thousand
mansions, each mansion seventy thousand houris, each houri surrounded
by seventy thousand beautiful serving women, for the pilgrim--mark
this--who shall say his prayers with the best accent on the Hájj
Day. The Mullá in question was himself a perfect Arabic scholar; his
enunciation in reciting the forthcoming bliss was faultlessly correct;
each syllable seemed to pay his lips the tribute of a kiss for the
pleasure it had derived from listening to the mellifluous sound of its
predecessors. This learned priest will be in his element on all scores
should the Paradise of his invention be materialised.

As Rajab belongs to Allah so Sha’bán is held sacred to the Prophet.
For we read in the history of Islám that Muhammad, who entered Medina
on the first day of the gracious moon, commanded the muezzins to make
it known to his people that the good actions which they might perform
during the month would help both himself and them to gain salvation;
whereas their evil actions would be committed against his apostleship,
and would on that account be the more severely punished hereafter.

Once a year, on the approach of Ramazán, the precincts of Paradise, and
all its gardens and palaces, are illuminated, festooned, and decorated,
and a most tuneful wind, known in Arabic by the name of Meshireh,
makes music in the trees. Now, no sooner do the houris hear this sound
than they rush out from their seclusion, and cry aloud: “Is there any
one to marry us through the desire to perform a good deed towards the
creatures of God?” Then, turning to Rezvan, the guardian of Paradise,
“What night is this?” they ask; and Rezvan answers, “O ye fair-faced
houris, this is the eve of the holy moon of Ramazán. The gates of
Paradise have I ordered to be opened unto the fast-keepers of the Faith
of the Faithful.” Then Allah, addressing the angel who has the charge
of Hell, says to him: “O Málik, I bid thee to close thy gates against
the fast-keepers of the faith of my Apostle.” And next, summoning the
Archangel of Revelations, He gives command, saying: “O Gabriel, go
forth in the earth and put Satan in chains, and all his followers,
that the path of my chosen people may be safe.” So, on the first day
of Ramazán, Gabriel swoops down on the earth accompanied by hosts of
angels. He has six hundred wings, and opens all of them except two. In
his hands he bears four green banners, emblems of the Muslim creed.
These he plants on the summit of Mount Sinai, and on the Prophet’s tomb
at Medina, and in the Harem of Mecca. His army of angels bivouacs on
the plains round about the Holy City and on the surrounding mountains.
On the eve of the day of reward, which is called Ghadre, the angels
are ordered to disperse throughout the Muslim world, and every true
Believer seen praying during that night is embraced by one of them,
and his prayer meets with an angelic Amen. At the dawn of Ghadre day
a heavenly bugle recalls the angels to Mecca. When Gabriel returns to
Heaven it is to say to Allah, “My Lord, all the true Believers have I
forgiven in Thy name save those who have been constant wine-bibbers, or
incurred the displeasure of their parents, or indulged in abusing their
fellow Muslims.”

The various sects of the Muhammadans disagree a good deal as to the
date of Ghadre day. Some say it is on the 19th, some on the 21st, and
others on the 23rd of the Muslim Lent; but all agree in believing it to
be the day on which the books of deeds, good and evil, are balanced,
and on which the angels make known to Muhammad the predestination of
his followers for whom he intercedes. All Shi’ahs who would win a
reputation for piety must keep Ahia, that is, pass the three nights
above-mentioned in fasting and holy devotions--a penance of untold
severity in that every day of the month must be similarly spent from
sunrise to sundown. Through most ardent prayers on the 21st of Ramazán
the devout Mussulman may win the privilege of becoming a Hájí in the
following year. The 7th is the anniversary of Muhammad’s victory
over the Kuraish in the battle of Badre, and is a great day with
all Islamites. For the rest, the Arabs follow the example of their
Prophet in breaking their fast on dates and water; special angels
are appointed to plant heavenly trees, and to build divine palaces
in readiness for such of the Muslims as should neither neglect their
religious purifications nor forget to behave themselves as “Allah’s
guests.” Many Muslims, unquestionably, adhere strictly to all the rites
and observances of the occasion; not a few, on the other hand, though
they may fast during the day, devote the night to feasting. Indeed, in
every capital of Islám, in Teheran, in Constantinople, and in Cairo,
the darkling hours are given up by certain people to amusements and
sometimes to vicious pursuits.

The heavenly hosts under the Archangel Gabriel, with his five hundred
and ninety-eight wings wide open, and his green banner flying over the
gate of the Ka’bah,--the heavenly hosts, I say, dispersing through the
Muslim world on the eve of Ghadre will prevail on the ghosts of the one
hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets to kiss the Muslims that are
piously engaged at night, delivering them from the danger of drowning,
of being buried under ruins, of choking at meal times, and of being
killed by wild beasts. For them the grave will have no terror, and on
leaving it a substantial cheque on the keeper of Paradise, crossed and
made payable to bearer, will be placed in the hands of each one of them.

On the first day of the moon of Shavvál, the fast of Ramazán being
over, all true Muslims are supposed to give away in charity a measure
of wheat, barley, dates, raisins, or other provisions in common use.
The guests who stay over the preceding night are entitled to receive
a portion of the alms distributed by the master of the house next
morning; and hence only the poor and needy are invited to accept
hospitality on the occasion of the Zikat-é-Fetre--that is, the festival
of alms-giving. The fulfilment of the law is believed not only to
produce an increase of wealth in the forthcoming year, but also to
cleanse the body of all impurities. So much for the rewards as a
stimulus to honesty. Now for the penalty as a deterrent from greed.
In the third Súra of the Kurán it is written: “But let not those who
are covetous of what God of His bounty hath granted them imagine that
their avarice is better for them; nay, rather it is worse for them. For
that which they have covetously reserved shall be bound as a collar
about their necks on the day of the resurrection: and God is well
acquainted with what ye do.” Shiahs are reluctant to get married in the
interval between the first of Shavvál and the tenth of Zú-’l-hijjah,
because the Prophet is said to have married Aishah, the enemy of ’Alí,
about that time. On the other hand the Sunnis, who reverence that
brilliant woman, commemorate her wedding day by solemnising their own
during this season, unless they are performing the pilgrimage of Mecca.

The most sacred day of the following month--the moon of
Zú-’l-ka’dah--is the twenty-fifth. On that day Adam was created;
Abraham, Ishmael, and Jesus were born, and the Shiah Messiah, the
concealed Imám, will come again to judge the world. A Muslim, if he
keep fast on the twenty-fifth of Zú-’l-ka’dah, will earn the rewards
of a man to whom Allah in his mercy should grant the privilege and the
power of praying for nine hundred years. On the first of Zú-’l-hijjah,
which is the month of pilgrimage, Abraham received from God the title
of Al-Khalíl, or the Friend of Allah. It is accounted a good deed
to fast from the first to the tenth day of this the last journeying
month; it is also wise to do so, for it is not every month in the
year that the Mussulman can win, by nine days of fasting, the fruits
of a whole lifetime of self-denial. Another tradition deserving of
mention in connection with this month is that Jesus, in the company
of Gabriel, was sent to earth by God with five prayers, which he was
commanded to repeat on the first five days of the pilgrims’ moon; but
the two holiest days of the moon of Zú-’l-hijjah are the ninth and
the tenth. On the ninth, after morning prayer, the pilgrims, in olden
times, departed from the Valley of Mina, whither they had come on the
previous day, and rushed in a headlong manner to Mount Arafat, where a
sermon is preached, and where they performed the devotions entitling
them to be called Hájís. But nowadays they pass through Mina to Mount
Arafat without stopping on the outward journey; and at sunset, after
the sermon is over, they betake themselves to Muzdalifah, an oratory
between Arafat and Mina, and there the hours of the night are spent in
prayer and in reading the Kurán.

On the tenth, by daybreak, the holy monument, or _al Masher al harám_,
is visited, after which the pilgrims hasten back, on the rising of the
sun, to the Valley of Mina, where, on the 10th and the two following
days, the stoning of the Devil takes place, every pilgrim casting a
certain number of stones at three pillars. This rite is as old as
Abraham, who, being interrupted by Satan when he was about to sacrifice
his son Ishmael, was commanded by God to put the tempter to flight
by throwing stones at him. Next, still on the same day, the tenth of
Zú-’l-hijjah, and in the same place, the Valley of Mina, the pilgrims
slay their victims, and when the sacrifice is over they shave their
heads and trim their nails, and then return to Mecca in order to take
their leave of the Ka’bah. All these ceremonies will be described in
detail in the forthcoming narrative. Meanwhile, by way of further
introduction, a few words must be said as to the animals sacrificed.
The victims should be camels, kine, sheep, or goats. The camels and
kine should be females and the sheep and goats males. In age the camels
should be five years and not less; the cows and goats in their second
year; and the sheep not younger than six months. All should be without
blemish, neither blind nor lame: their ears should not have been cut,
nor their horns have been broken. The males should be complete, and all
be well fed. They were woefully lean, however, in the year 1319 of the
Flight. The camels are sacrificed while standing, the fore and hind
legs being tied together. A single blow is delivered where the head
joins the neck, the name of God being uttered the while. The victim
must face the Kiblah, and the butcher or the pilgrim, as the case may
be, stands on the right of the animal he is going to slay. If the
pilgrim be too tender-hearted to deal the blow, he should catch hold
of the butcher’s wrist, so as to take part in the act of sacrifice.
All the other victims--namely, the kine, the sheep, and the goats--are
made to lie on their sides facing Mecca, all four legs being securely
fastened, then their throats are cut with a sharp knife, without,
however, severing the head from the body.

The custom of sacrificing a camel on the tenth day of Zú-’l-hijjah
prevails among the Shiahs in most of the towns of Persia and of Central
Asia. The ceremony varies with the locality; but the one we witnessed
was so picturesque that we cannot refrain from describing it. For the
first nine days the camel, richly caparisoned, is led through the
streets of the city; half a dozen Dervishes, intoning passages of
the Kurán, swing along at the head of the procession; at every house
the camel is made to halt, and subscriptions are raised towards its
purchase-money and its maintenance. The victim, goaded on from street
to street and from square to square, ends at last by collecting alms
for its tormentors. On the eve of the Day of Sacrifice the camel is
stripped of its gaudy trappings, and its body is, as it were, mapped
out into portions with red ink, one portion being allotted to every
quarter of the city. The place of sacrifice is usually outside the city
walls, and early in the morning each district arms its strongest men to
go and claim its share of the carcase. Each group may contain as many
as twenty men, bristling from head to foot with uncouth weapons, and a
band of drummers adds to the barbaric display the sounds of discordant
music. One man in each group rides on horseback and wears a cashmere
shawl; it is he who receives into his hands the sacrificial share
of the parish he represents. Prayers are said, and then, at a given
signal, the butcher prepares his knife, and the cutters appointed by
the respective quarters make ready to hack the victim in pieces. The
camel, bare of covering, and marked all over with the red lines, turns
its supercilious eyes on the eager cutters, and they, in their turn,
watch the butcher. The wretched victim may or may not be conscious of
its fate. I believe it to be conscious; but, whether it is or not,
there is no sign of terror in its eyes, only the customary look of sly
disdain. No sooner does the butcher plunge the knife into the camel’s
windpipe than the cutters vie with one another as to who shall be the
first to finish carving the still animate body, each allotted part of
which is handed warm and well-nigh throbbing with life, to the horseman
of the quarter to which it belongs. He takes it in procession to the
house of the magistrate, who distributes it among the poor.

The prayer most acceptable to God is that of Nodbeh, which must be
said by the pilgrims on Mount Arafat, with tears pouring from their
eyes. The Prophet rose to a noble conception of the next life. He not
only believed that the pure-hearted will see God, he also proclaimed
that blessing to be the height of heavenly bliss. The Muslim Paradise,
therefore, in its material aspect unalloyed, is the invention of the
tradition-mongers. According to the orthodox among them, it is situated
above the seven heavens, immediately under the Throne of God. Some say
that the soil of it consists of the finest wheat flour, others will
have it to be of the purest musk, and others again of saffron. Its
palaces have walls of solid gold, its stones are pearls and jacinths,
and of its trees, all of which have golden trunks, the most remarkable
is the Tree of Happiness, Túba, as they call it. This tree, which
stands in the Palace of Muhammad, is laden with fruits of every kind,
with grapes and pomegranates, with oranges and dates, and peaches and
nectarines, which are of a growth and a flavour unknown to mortals. In
response to the desire of the blessed, it will yield, in addition to
the luscious fruit, not only birds ready dressed for the table, but
also flowing garments of silk and of velvet, and gaily caparisoned
steeds to ride on, all of which will burst out from its leaves. There
will be no need to reach out the hand to the branches, for the branches
will bend down of their own accord to the hand of the person who
would gather of their products. So large is the Túba tree that a man
“mounted on the fleetest horse would not be able to gallop from one
end of its shade to the other in a hundred years.” All the rivers of
Paradise take their rise from the root of the Tree of Happiness; some
of them flow with water, some with milk, some with wine, and others
with honey. Their beds are of musk, their sides of saffron, their
earth of camphire, and their pebbles are rubies and emeralds. The most
noteworthy among them, after the River of Life, is Al-Káwthar. This
word, Al-Káwthar, which signifies _abundance_, has come to mean the
gift of prophecy, and the water of the river of that name is derived
into Muhammad’s pond. According to a tradition of the Prophet, this
river, wherein his Lord promised him abundance of wisdom, is whiter
than milk, cooler than snow, sweeter than honey, and smoother than
cream; and those who drink of it shall never be thirsty.

The blessed, having quenched their thirst in Muhammad’s pond, are
admitted into Paradise, and there they are entertained to dinner by the
Supreme Host. For meat they will have the ox Balám and the fish Nún,
and for bread--mark this--God will turn the whole earth into one huge
loaf, and hand it to His guests, “holding it like a cake.” When the
repast is over they will be conducted to the palaces prepared for them,
where they will dwell with the houris they have won by their good deeds
on earth. They will fare sumptuously through all eternity, and without
loss of appetite, eat as much as they will: for all superfluities will
be discharged by sweat as fragrant as musk, so that the last morsel of
food will be as comforting as the first.

The imagination of the tradition-mongers is not less extravagant
when it busies itself with the holy festivals of the faith. The
A’yáde-Shadir, perhaps the most important of these feast-days, falls
on the eighteenth of Zú-’l-hijjah. Books might be written--nay,
tomes innumerable have been filled--to do honour to the attributes
of that day. In fact, Oriental exaggeration in general, and the
Shiah superstition in particular, reach the climax of fancy in the
description of the events that are supposed by the devout Shiah to have
happened on the A’yád of Ghadir. For was it not on the eighteenth of
Zú-’l-hijjah that Muhammad mounted a camel, and, raising ’Alí in his
arms, appointed this chivalrous cousin and son-in-law of his to be his
lawful successor? This righteous act on the part of the Prophet is the
corner-stone of the Shiah faith, and so it is not unnatural, perhaps,
that it should have been made the source of unnumbered traditions. We
read, among other inventions, that it was on that day that God chose
to humiliate Satan by ordering an angel to rub his nose in the dirt;
that the Archangel Gabriel, along with a host of angels, came down
from heaven in the evening, bearing a throne of light, which he placed
opposite to the Ka’bah, and from which he preached to his companions a
stirring sermon in praise of Islám and its Prophet; that Moses had made
his will in favour of Aaron and that Jesus had selected Simon Peter to
go and preach to the Jews on the same day in their own lives.

The waters that acknowledged ’Alí to be the Prophet’s successor became
“sweet” or fresh on the eighteenth of Zú-’l-hijjah. The rest either
remained salt or turned brackish. The birds that accepted ’Alí as
Muhammad’s heir were taught to sing like a nightingale or to talk like
a parrot. Those that denied him were stricken deaf and dumb. For the
angels who delighted to honour him a sumptuous palace was built with
slabs of gold and silver in alternate order. Two hundred thousand domes
crowned this edifice, and half of them were made of red rubies, and
half of green emeralds. Through the courtyard flowed four rivers: one
with water, one with milk, another with honey, and a fourth with wine.
Trees of gold, bearing fruits of turquoise, grew along the banks, and
on the branches were perched the most marvellous birds. Their bodies
were made of pearls, their right wings of rubies, and their left wings
of turquoises. All the hosts of heaven gathered together, praising God.
The birds dived, singing, into the streams. The angels clapped their
hands and shouted. The houris joined in the chorus. Then, with one
accord, they all raised their voices in homage of ’Alí and his wife,
the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima. Lovers should remember to strengthen
the bond of affection by exchanging rings. The men should kiss each
other frequently whenever and wherever they meet. The servants should
kiss their master’s hands, and the children those of their parents. If
a Muslim smile on his brother-Muslim on this holy a’yád, God will smile
on him on the day of the resurrection. If he die, he will receive the
rewards of a martyr of the faith. If he call on a true believer, he
will be visited in the grave when he draws his last breath by seventy
thousand angels. If he neglect neither the ordained prayer nor the
prescribed purification, he will be entitled to rank with the man to
whom God has granted the rewards of one hundred thousand pilgrimages
to Mecca. And a week later, on the 25th of Zú-’l-hijjah, the angel of
revelations brought down from heaven to the Prophet the chapter of the
Kurán, entitled Man, and told Muhammad that God congratulated him on
the virtues of his family.

VIII.--PERSIAN SÚFÍISM; AND PERSIAN SHIAHISM IN ITS RELATION TO THE
PERSIAN PASSION-DRAMA.

Since the narrative which follows this introduction is written rather
from the Persian and Shiah than from the Turkish and Sunni point of
view, it is necessary for us to dwell briefly on two more important
subjects in connection with Persian thought:--(_a_) on the love of
metaphysical speculation which vindicates the claim of Aryan thought
to be free, and which has given rise to the doctrines of Súfíism,--our
immediate consideration; and (_b_) on the growth of Shiahism, the State
religion, and more particularly in its relation to the Passion-Drama,
which is the outcome of the Muharram celebrations in honour of Huseyn’s
martyrdom.

(_a_) _Persian Súfíism._

Now the Súfís, who are split up into numerous sects, with slightly
varying doctrines, speak of themselves as travellers, for they regard
life as a journey from their earthly abode to the spiritual world. The
stages between them and their destination are reckoned as seven. Some
call them seven regions, and others seven towns. Unless the traveller
get rid of his animal passions and pass safely through these seven
stages he cannot hope to lose himself in the ocean of Union, nor slake
his thirst for immortality in the unexampled wine of Love. The first
region before the traveller, the region of Aspiration, can only be
traversed on the charger of Patience. Though a thousand temptations
beset him on the road he must not lose heart, but must seek to cleanse
his mind from all selfish desires. Other-worldliness should alone
absorb his thoughts, and to that end the gates of friendship and of
enmity should be closed against the people of the world. Only thus can
he find his way into the heart of the realm, wherein every traveller is
a lover in search of the True Beloved.

One day Majnún, whose love for Laili has inspired many a Persian
poet, was playing in a little sand heap when a friend came to him and
said--“Why are you wasting your time in an occupation so childish?” “I
am seeking Laili in these sands,” replied Majnún: whereat his friend,
all lost in amazement, cried--“Why, Laili is an angel, so what is the
use of seeking her in the common earth?” “I seek her everywhere,” said
Majnún, bowing his head, “that I may find her somewhere.”

And so the traveller, on this stage of his pilgrimage, should regard
no earthly abode as too humble a shrine for the spirit of the True
Beloved. He should eat, but only to live; he should drink, but only
to love; and, though all worldlings should be shunned, he should keep
in touch with the hearts of his fellow-travellers lest, peradventure,
he might lose a guide to his destination. Now, if he find in this
region some sign from the Unsigned, and trace the lost Beloved, he
will pass forthwith into the limitless bourne of Devotion, and see
the setting of the sun of Inspiration, and watch in rapture the dawn
of Love. At this time the crops of Wisdom are burnt in the fire of
Affection, and the traveller loses all consciousness of self; he knows
neither knowledge nor ignorance; he recognises neither certainty nor
doubt; but, turning his back on the dusk of perplexity, he rides breast
forward on the charger of Pain and Endurance, drawing ever nearer to
the light of salvation. In this Kingdom of the Soul, he will know
nothing but tribulation unless he strive strenuously to escape from
himself on the wings of self-renunciation. “Oh, traveller, if thou
wouldst gaze on the Joseph face of thy Beloved turn not away from the
Egypt of Love! And wouldst thou attain to divine truth, oh learn the
way of friendship from the grate, consuming thyself for the sake of the
True Beloved! For the love that thou wouldst find demands the sacrifice
of self to the end that the heart may be filled with the passion to
stand within the Holy of Holies, in which alone the mysteries of the
True Beloved can be revealed unto thee. This is so.”

[Illustration: A PERSIAN SUFÍ OF THE ORDER OF THE LATE SEPHÍ ’ALÍ SHÁH.]

And thenceforward the traveller, his heart aglow with the sacred
fire of Love, tears aside the curtain of earthly passions, and wins
his way into the Kingdom of Knowledge. He has passed by slow degrees
from doubt into certainty and from darkness into light. Seeing with
clearer eyes he is now quick to discern wisdom in ignorance and in
oppression justice. Then, on ascending hopefully the ladder of Wisdom,
he rises higher and higher above the ocean of being, and enters into
closer communion with the spirit of the one he seeks. The arc of truth
becomes an almost perfect round, and he is drawn irresistibly towards
the centre, where dwells the object of his quest. After traversing the
realm of knowledge, which is the last stage of fear, the traveller
enters the first City of Union, and drinks deep from the bowl of its
spirit: and the next thing he does is to enter the chamber of the True
Beloved. As all the shine of the sea and its shade are reflected in the
heart of a single pearl, so now the infinite splendour is manifested
within the traveller’s soul. Looking round him with the eyes of Unity
he recognises his true identity in that of his host, and reads the name
of the Beloved in his own name. The circle of his aspirations will soon
be complete, for the sun of divine grace is seen to rise equally on
all creatures; and he is prepared in spirit to advance one step nearer
the end. And soon, on the breeze of godly independence, which blows
from the spirit’s flame and burns the curtain of poverty, the traveller
is borne into the City of Freedom. There he will know no sorrow, but
will pass through the gates of joy, and, though he be on the earth,
will ride the heaven of power, and quench his thirst in the wine of
love. The sixth stage on the road to immortality is that of Amazement.
Sometimes he will notice perfect poverty in riches, and sometimes
perfect wealth in poverty. His surprise will grow at every step. Each
second will bring a fresh revelation. Now he will dive into the ocean
of divine omniscience, and now be carried to the crest of omnipotence
divine.

The traveller passes swiftly from this stage into the region of
absolute poverty and nothingness, which is the true forgetfulness of
self in the love of the Beloved. He is now as a pearl in the sea of
the infinite splendour: poor in the things created, but rich beyond
counting in the things that are spiritual and pure. And thus, casting
aside the burden of consciousness for ever, he becomes one with the
Beloved and enters the Kingdom of Immortality. The renunciation of
self, therefore, is the Alpha and Omega of the Súfí doctrine: the
lover, in other words, must turn the Beloved, otherwise he can never
hope to gain admittance into the Chamber of Love. “One came to the
Beloved’s door and knocked. And a voice from within whispered, ‘Who
is there?’ And the lover answered, saying, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice
said, ‘There is not room in this house for thee and me,’ and the door
was not opened unto him. So the lover went back into the desert and
fasted and prayed. And at the end of a year he returned once more to
the Beloved’s door and knocked. And the voice from within said again,
‘Who is there?’ And this time the lover, having learned the lesson of
self-renunciation, answered, ‘It is thyself,’ and the door was opened
unto him.”

(_b_) _The Shiah Faith in its Relation to the Persian Passion Play._

The Shiah faith is as old as ’Alí; for, on the feast of Ghadir, he is
said to have been selected by Muhammad as his successor. In the ages
immediately succeeding the Prophet, it spread itself East and West. The
Muslim colonies, in various parts of the Empire, embraced its political
teaching. It took root even in Mecca and Medina; but it was in Persia
alone that it grew, in the Ninth Century, to be the State religion,
waning and waxing in its hold on the people during the dynastic
changes to which the country subsequently submitted itself; until,
in the declining years of the Fifteenth Century, under the Safaví
Kings, it re-established its grip, this time for good, on the national
conscience. The mourning celebration of the month of Muharram, in which
the whole country, with the exception of the Sunnis, takes part to
this day, was founded in the Tenth Century by Ahmad Muizz-u’d-Dawlat.
In order to appreciate the depth of feeling underlying this yearly
commemoration, the reigns of the early Caliphs must be reviewed. For,
in the story of the family of the Tent, lies the _raison d’être_ of the
Muharram celebration.

When Muhammad died he was succeeded by his father-in-law, Abú Bekr, a man
of great prudence and sincere piety. His rule was accepted by all the
Prophet’s companions, if we except the Hashemites, who, under the
leadership of ’Alí, declined at first to take the oath of fidelity. But
the death of Fatima, the wife of ’Alí, so subdued the spirit of her
husband that he made his peace with the aged Caliph, who died after
a reign of two years, bequeathing his sceptre to the iron hand of
the incorruptible Omar. In the twelfth year of a reign of unexampled
glory Omar was assassinated, and his successor was elected by six of
his most trustworthy lieutenants. Othman, the man chosen by them, had
been Muhammad’s secretary: he was not a successful ruler. His helpless
character and resourcelessness of mind succumbed to the burden of his
responsibilities; his subjects rose in arms throughout his Empire, and
the treachery of one of his secretaries hastened his downfall. The
brother of Ayeshah is believed to have led the assassins, and Othman,
with the Kurán on his knees, was pierced with a multitude of wounds.
He died in the year 655 A.D., in the eleventh year of his reign. The
inauguration of ’Alí put an end to the anarchy that ensued; but,
with all his bravery and all the brilliancy of his endowments, ’Alí
was alike too forbearing and too magnanimous to cope successfully with the
difficulties of his position. He was not so much a politician as a
poet turned knight-errant, a religious enthusiast turned soldier. The
first Caliph would have secured the allegiance of Telha and Zobeir,
two of the most powerful of the Arabian chieftains, by gifts. Omar,
the second Caliph, would have insured his authority and checked their
lawlessness by casting them into prison. Whereas ’Alí, from purely
chivalrous motives, left them to their own devices without, however,
in his contempt for what he had condemned in another as self-seeking
generosity, bribing them to keep the peace. And so Telha and Zobeir
escaping from Medina, fled, and raised the standard of revolt in
Assyria. The Prophet’s widow, Ayeshah, the implacable enemy of ’Alí,
accompanied them, and was present at the battle in which the Caliph,
at the head of twenty-nine thousand men, defeated the enemy, and in
which the rebel leaders were slain. This battle was called the Day of
the Camel: for, “in the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the
bridle of Ayeshah’s camel, were successively killed or wounded; and the
cage or litter in which she sat was struck with javelins and darts like
the quills of a porcupine.” Ayeshah was reproached by the victorious
’Alí, and then sent under escort to Medina where she lived to the end
of her days at her husband’s tomb.

Meanwhile, Moawiyah, the son of Abú Sophian, had assumed the title
of Caliph and won the support of the Syrians and the interest of the
house of Ommiyah, and against him ’Alí now marched. Mounted on a
piebald horse, and wielding his two-edged sword with terrific effect,
he literally ploughed his way through the ranks of the Syrians, crying
out at every stroke of the blade, “God is victorious.” In the course
of the night in which the battle raged he was heard to repeat “that
tremendous exclamation” four hundred times. Nothing save flight would
have saved his enemies, had not the crafty Moawiyah exposed on the
foremost lances the sacred books of the Kurán, thus turning the pious
zeal of his opponents against themselves; and ’Alí, in the face of
his followers’ awe, was constrained to submit to a humiliating truce.
In his grief and anger he retreated to Kufa; his party was dejected;
the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen, and of Egypt acclaimed his
stealthy rival; and he himself, in the mosque of his city of refuge,
fell a victim to a fanatic’s knife.

Moawiyah, after the death of ’Alí, brought about the abdication of the
latter’s son Hasan, who, retiring without regret from the Palace of
Kufá, went to live in a hermit’s cell near the tomb of the Prophet, his
grandfather. There he was poisoned, and, as many believe, by his wife.
But Huseyn, his younger brother, was not set aside so easily. In every
way worthy to inherit the regal and sacerdotal office, he added to
Hasan’s benevolence and piety, no insignificant measure of his father’s
indomitable spirit, having served with honour against the Christians
in the siege of Constantinople. So that, when Moawiyah proclaimed
his son Yazid, who was as dissolute as he was weak-minded, to be the
Commander of the Faithful and the successor of the Apostle of God,
Huseyn, who was living in Medina at the time, scorned to acknowledge
the title of the youth, whose vicious habits he despised. One hundred
and forty thousand Muslims of Kufá and thereabouts professed their
attachment to Huseyn’s cause, and a list of these adherents of his was
transmitted to Medina. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he
resolved to traverse the desert of Arabia, and to appear on the banks
of the Euphrates--a river held sacred to this day by every Shiah. He
set out with his family, crossed the barren expanse of desert, and
approached the confines of Assyria, where he was alarmed by the hostile
aspect of the country and “suspected either the ruin or the defection
of his party.” His fears were well founded. Obeidullah, the Governor
of Kufá, had quelled the rising insurrection; and Huseyn, in the
plain of Kerbela, was surrounded by a body of five thousand horse,
who cut off his communication with the city and the river. Rather
than retreat to a fortress in the desert and confide in the fidelity
of the tribe of Tai he proposed to the chief of the enemy the choice
of three honourable courses of action--that he should be allowed to
return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the
Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yazid. He was informed
that he must surrender unconditionally or accept the consequences of
his rebellion. “Do you think to terrify me with death?” he replied, and
to his sister Zainab, who deplored the impending ruin of his house,
he said: “Our trust is in God alone. All things, both in heaven and in
earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother [Hasan], my
father [’Alí], my mother [Fatima], were better than I am; and every
Mussulman has an example in the Prophet.” His little band of followers
consisted only of thirty-two horsemen and forty foot soldiers. He
begged them to make good their own escape by a hasty flight; but they
held firm to their allegiance, refusing to desert him in his straits.
In return he prayed that God might accept his death as a propitiation
for their sins; they vowed they would not survive him, and the family
of the Tent, as Huseyn and his fellow-martyrs are lovingly called by
the Shiahs, passed the night in holy devotions.

The last hours of their lives cannot be more tersely told, and
therefore more suitably to our purpose, than in the words of Gibbon:

“On the morning of the fatal day, Huseyn mounted on horseback, with
his sword in one hand and the Kurán in the other; his generous band
of martyrs were secured in their flanks and rear, by the tent-ropes
and by a deep trench which they had filled with lighted faggots,
according to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with
reluctance, and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers,
to claim the partnership of inevitable death. In a very close onset,
or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but
the surrounding multitude galled them from a distance with a cloud
of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain: a truce
was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the battle at
length expired by the death of the last of the companions of Huseyn.
Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent.
As he tasted a drop of water he was pierced in the mouth with a dart;
and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were killed in his
arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were full of blood, and he
uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. In a transport
of despair his sister issued from the tent, and adjured the general
of the Cufians that he would not suffer Huseyn to be murdered before
his eyes; a tear trickled down his venerable beard; and the boldest of
his soldiers fell back on every side as the dying hero threw himself
among them. The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the Faithful,
reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain
with three and thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they had
trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of Kufá, and
the inhuman Obeidullah struck him on the mouth with a cane. ‘Alas!’
exclaimed an aged Mussulman, ‘on these lips have I seen the lips of
the Prophet of God!’ In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of
the death of Huseyn will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader. On
the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his
sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious
frenzy of sorrow and indignation.”

The date of Huseyn’s death was the tenth of Muharram. The month is
one of mourning throughout the Shiah world, every man and every woman
wearing black, and Passion plays based on the tragedy of the Tent
being performed in all the chief cities and even in the more important
villages of Persia, while the day itself is made the occasion of a
yearly outburst of grief, of rage, and of fanaticism, which is as
unbridled as it is sincere. On this the Day of Cutting, processions
bearing banners draped in black pass weeping through the streets; the
Muslim Friars, or, to give them their true title, the Seyyid Rúsé
Kháns, lead the way, rending their naked breasts with knives or with
needles, and swelling the shouts of “Yá-Huseyn! Yá-Hasan!” with the
refrains of their wildest hymns. The flow of blood drives the populace
beside itself. In every thoroughfare men of the lower classes run to
join the ranks of the mourners, laying bare their right shoulders and
breasts to the weapons they carry. And soon every ward of every city
in the country echoes and re-echoes, not less to the curses showered
on the head of Omar, than to the cries in lamentation of ’Alí’s
assassination, of Hasan’s murder, and of Huseyn’s martyrdom. The
universal mourning animates the collective body of the nation as with
one soul. If it is mixed with a mean hatred for a man of unrivalled
integrity and force of character, it is still, as the expression of the
nation’s love for its chosen hero, a sentiment of loyal devotion and
enduring compassion. The noise of the grief over Huseyn’s remote death
may ring discordant, unphilosophic, and almost barbaric, in these days
of the lukewarm enthusiasms and uninspiring scepticism which sap the
energies of the more cultured of mankind; but it rings all the more
moving to those who can hear and understand. For “it is the noise of
the mourning of a nation” mighty in its grief, as Lionel Tennyson has
it.

So true and so deep is this outburst of sorrow that every Englishman
who believes the Persian people to be corrupt should weigh well his
evidence before he passes a sentence so sweeping and so unjust. The
nobility of a nation is dependent, not so much on ends which consist
in “immediate material possession” of European means and methods of
transport, as “on its capability of being stirred by memories,” on its
faculty to animate an alien creed with the breath of its own spirit,
or on the courage of its conscience to remain incorruptible in the day
of persecution and death. These tests, though they be of the spirit
and as such unworthy of the consideration of a trading nation and a
commercial age, would, if applied to Persia, raise that distressful
country to the rank of the first eminence. The power of steam, though
it rules the waves and devours distance, has its limits as a civilising
influence, among mankind. It cannot fill the hungry heart, though it
may be the means of overloading the belly; much less, if less may be,
can it inspire in the soul by its achievements the passion whereof
the religious drama of Persia is the embodiment. The incorruptibility
of the Persian’s outlook on spiritual truth has been vindicated in
the blood of countless martyrs, and out of his susceptibility to be
inspired by the heroism of the mighty dead, or, to put the proposition
more particularly, out of his unfeigned devotion to the memory of the
family of the Tent, has sprung the Shiah Passion-drama, as from the
depth of a whole Empire’s sorrow. Were it not so, the growth of the
Miracle-play, that passionate outcry of the Aryan spirit in the Persian
Muslim, would be a miracle indeed.

The truth is, the Shiah religious drama makes a most touching appeal
to the best qualities of the heart and the mind. In its pathos, the
episode of the Tent recalls the tragedy of Calvary, and the virtues
of the members of the House of Hashem might have been modelled on
those of the twelve Apostles of Christ. The sublime figure of Huseyn
stands out among them as the redeemer of his people. As the Founder of
Christianity was tempted of the devil in the wilderness to forego His
lofty mission that He might gain a worldly kingdom, so Huseyn, in the
scene on the plain of Kerbela, rejects the assistance offered to him by
the King of the Jinns on purpose to atone for the sins of his people
by death. On the Cross Christ’s heart forsook him--once, and only
once. It was when He cried: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?” In like manner the heroic Huseyn, within sight of Kufá, having
to baffle the attack of Yazíd and his hosts by turning aside from the
direct road leading to his city of refuge, and seeing the exceeding
anguish of his beloved sister Zainab, had felt the sting of his own
destiny: “Ye crooked conducted spheres,” he had cried, “how long will
ye tyrannise over us? How long will ye act thus cruelly to the family
of God’s Prophet?” Then, nerving himself to the trial, he prophesied
his death on the morrow, and said, with his customary fortitude, that
the sacrifice of himself and his companions was not a cause for grief,
since it would work for the salvation of his grandfather’s people; and
thenceforward his resolution to meet the fate he had chosen for himself
never swerved; not even when the very angels of heaven sought to save
his life from sheer love of a soul so dauntless and so incorruptible.

The reward of his martyrdom is won in the last scene of all, which
represents the resurrection. The Prophet, failing to save his followers
from punishment, notwithstanding the united efforts of himself, of
’Alí, and of Hasan, throws away his rod, his cloak, and his turban,
in his disappointment. Nor is he in the least pacified until Gabriel
makes it clear to him that Huseyn, who “has suffered most,” must lend
him the assistance he requires. The compassionate heart of the man is
wrung, so that when Huseyn makes his appearance it is to receive from
his magnanimous grandsire the key of intercession. The Prophet says to
him: “Go thou, and deliver from the flames every one who hath in his
lifetime shed a single tear for thee, every one who hath in any way
helped thee, every one who hath performed a pilgrimage to thy shrine,
or mourned for thee, and every one who hath written tragic verses to
thee. Bear each and all with thee to Paradise.” And this being done,
all the sinners redeemed by their mediator enter into heaven, crying:
“God be praised! by Huseyn’s grace we are made happy, and by his favour
we are delivered from destruction.”

One word more. Among the sinners whom Muhammad commanded Huseyn to
rescue from hell-fire, as the reader will have read, perhaps with a
smile, were those who had written tragic verses in praise of the martyr
of the Tent. His smile may, possibly, ring out in a laugh when we
inform him that the Seyyid Rúzé Kháns, the Shiah friars, are said to
have been the originators of the Passion-drama. The foresight of the
authors in thus securing for themselves an entrance into Paradise and
for their fellow-writers the yearly prayers of the endless generations
of mankind, was it not ingenuously artful?

PART II

THE STORY OF THE PILGRIMAGE

CHAPTER I

LONDON TO JIDDAH

On bidding good-bye to the mighty capital of the world I reminded her
that though her sombre stone mansions and teeming streets--and shall
I say her epic atmosphere?--have for me an unspeakable charm, I was
glad to be on my way to the city of great concourse, towards which
I had so often turned my face in prayer, and in which the hearts of
many millions of people are deeply rooted. Indeed, so certain are the
majority of finding salvation within her sacred walls that it would be
no exaggeration to declare their highest aspiration to be to see Mecca
and die. Ah, well, I for one shall pray to see London again, for how
could I ever forget the least of her gifts to me? Dear Alma Mater, _au
revoir_!

While I was thus meditating the train puffed out of the station, and
the shore of the English Channel was reached. The weather was mild,
the sky was clear; even the worst sailor might feel sure of having a
delightful passage, and I, praise the Powers, am a good sailor. And
so it was: we reached the neighbouring shore without the slightest
qualm, and arrived in Paris at six o’clock in the morning. Many people
were already on the move--unlike London, where hardly anybody is seen
about at that time of the day, except, perhaps, the loitering scum that
begins to rise from the excess of the previous night’s libations. On
the way from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon I noticed signs of
the festivities in connection with the Centenary of Victor Hugo, and I
could not help admiring the new statue raised this year to commemorate
the strenuous genius of that great man. One short hour in Paris, then
our train sped southward in brilliant sunshine, which seemed to draw me
nearer to that burning Arabian land whither I was bound.

On my arrival at Marseilles I booked a berth on board the steamer
_Rewa_, belonging to the British India Steam Navigation Company, as it
proved to be the only one that would enable me to reach Port Said and
to proceed thence to Suez by rail in time to catch the connection by
boat to Jiddah.

I shall neither tax the reader’s patience nor trespass on my space by
relating the trivial incidents of a voyage that presented little of
interest to a travel-worn mind. It will be enough to say that the wind,
which was as fair as one could desire till we reached the Straits of
Messina, was bent afterwards on making another and an angrier sea. The
discomfort of the passengers, most of whom were Britains bound for
India, was betrayed by their seclusion from the open air. The nearer
we approached the East, the more kindly grew the elements, until,
on the seventh day, about seven o’clock in the morning, Port Said
hove in sight. An hour later I had packed my kit and was ready for a
hearty landing. Steaming slowly into the canal we passed the pier,
which was still in course of construction, saluted the statue of de
Lesseps, and raised a shout of surprise on counting not less than five
Russian warships before we had reached our moorings. Those guardians of
Russian prestige had come from Chinese waters, had remained five days
at Suez, and were now coaling at Port Said, where they had arrived on
the previous day. Not one single British man-of-war was to be seen. I
had my breakfast at eight, after which I bade farewell to the captain
and my travelling companions, going ashore in one of the boats that
surrounded our steamer.

Two trains start from Port Said to Suez every day, one in the forenoon
and one in the evening. The line as far as Ismailia is a narrow tramway
having a gauge of 2ft. 8in.; the cars are consequently both narrow
and uncomfortable, and take about three hours to do the journey. On
my bidding good-bye to the dragoman I had engaged, he assured me
that he was far too devout a Muslim to fleece so pious a pilgrim as
myself, and he would not accept a centime more than five francs for
the boat, the carriage, and his special services. It was from him that
I first heard of the outbreak of cholera in Arabia--a report that was
unfortunately confirmed at Suez, whither I journeyed in the discomfort
of a dust-storm and a hot easterly wind. We arrived at Ismailia at one
o’clock, or thereabouts, having left Port Said at a quarter to ten
o’clock. This place, when the canal was being cut, was the headquarters
of the workmen; but now it has sunk in importance, many of the
buildings having actually fallen in ruins. Some of the managers of the
company, however, are still living there, and the best houses in the
town are at their disposal. Employment is provided on the canal for
some hundred and twenty pilots, most of whom are Greeks and Frenchmen,
though a few Englishmen have been recently added to the staff. The
railway from Cairo to Suez, which belongs to the Egyptian Government,
passes through Ismailia and picks up the passengers for Suez who have
travelled so far by the Canal Company’s toy line. Henceforward the
journey was made in comfort, for the line, though a single one, is
a standard British gauge and the train provided with an excellent
waggon-restaurant. Nearly all the passengers on board were Arabs and
low-class Europeans in the third-class compartments. We stopped at
three stations on the way, and every time it happened we were greeted
by a weird chorus of Arab song, of which the burden was the “Wondrous
names of God and the virtues of His Prophet.” I was somewhat amused
to hear the words, “Not I, by God!” in reply to my inquiry as to
whether or not a certain Arab would be good enough to fetch a bottle
of soda water for me. For I, being unused to the climate, had suffered
tortures from thirst in the scorching heat and driving dust-clouds,
the intervals between the stages being extremely long and tedious--in
fact, it took the train seven hours and a quarter to cover the hundred
miles that separate Port Said from Suez. Nor was the prospect of a
sort to slake the thirst of the weary pilgrim. All along the line hugs
the right bank of the canal, and nothing is to be seen except the soft
white sand of the glowing desert, unless it be an occasional patch of
green grass or a cluster of date trees, irrigated by the fresh-water
canal newly cut in order to conduct the much-needed water from a spot
near Cairo to Port Said and Suez, the latter a place which stands in
sore want of the cleansing and refreshing element.

[Illustration: A PILGRIM “AT SEA”--SUEZ RAILWAY STATION.]

[Illustration: A GROUP OF MIXED PILGRIMS.]

On my arrival at the station a dragoman, one of the plagues of Egypt,
joined himself to my suite, informing me with glib mendacity that
he carried both Arabia and the Land of the Pyramids in his pocket,
whereas, as a matter of fact, he had not once left his native town.
However, as I could not shake the fellow off, I made the best of a
bad bargain by taking him out shopping with me. First, I bought a deep
crimson fez with a long black silk tassel and a straw lining. Though
it looked both cool and fanciful, and was therefore pleasing to my
Oriental eye, I am not certain that a turban would not have been more
in keeping with the complete Arab suit which I subsequently purchased.
This consisted of a thin linen shirt, a pair of trousers, and two long
and graceful robes. The shirt was worn as long as a night-shirt, it
had no collar, and the roomy sleeves were left open at the wrists.
The trousers were more interesting, and of a curious shape and an odd
material, being made of thin white calico, and so cut that whereas an
elephant’s thigh could scarcely fill the ample width of the uppermost
part, one had the greatest difficulty in slipping the feet through
the lower ends which clung tightly round the ankles. As for the two
robes, which were long enough to cover the nether garments, the inner
one was made of the finest silk, striped in successive colours of red,
yellow, and green, and was left entirely open in front, but the left
breast overlapped the right, to which it was buttoned from the armpits
downwards. The outer habit of a blueish colour served as a cloak to
the inner one, was made of the same material, and cut in precisely the
same way. No socks were worn, and the shoes were not unlike ordinary
slippers, with this exception, that they were turned up at the toes.

On donning this picturesque attire I returned to the Hôtel d’Orient by
way of the narrow and filthy bazaars, where my attention was attracted
by a band of dancers who were drawing together a crowd of sightseers
of every nationality. While one man was cutting his capers in the
skin of a Polar bear, a second, tambourine in hand, powdered his face
to imitate a European, while a third, got up in guise of a Negro,
played with a lively monkey in chains, and three dancing girls with
huge artificial moles on their faces completed the company. All these,
including the monkey, pranced up and down to the tune vociferated by
the women and accompanied on the tambourine by the man with the white
face, repeating at intervals the shrill cry of “Hullá-hee-há-há.”

As I sat within the courtyard of the Hotel, listening to the voice
of the Greek prima donna who sang nightly to the assembled guests, I
could not refrain from smiling within myself at the transformation
in my appearance and demeanour which recalled to my memory a line of
Obaid Zakani’s satire of “The Mouse and the Cat,” which runs: “Be of
good cheer, comrades, the cat has become pious.” These glad tidings
were spread abroad by a little mouse that, having hidden itself under
the altar of a mosque at Kirmán, overheard the cat reading aloud the
passage of repentance, meekly kneeling on its knees. Unfortunately the
cat, the symbol of vicious cunning, broke its vows a little time after,
and I wondered how far and how long I should succeed in keeping mine.

Next morning I came across a blind Arabian priest patiently waiting on
the landing-stage for the departure of the steamer, and in the evening
he was still in the self-same spot, kneeling on his prayer-rug and
singing aloud the verses of the Kurán in a deep original Arab melody,
rosary in hand. His young son was kneeling by his side, listening with
downcast eyes to the never-ceasing chants of his father, who knew by
heart every word of the sacred book, to say nothing of the saddening
elegies of the Arabian traditionists. Like most of the singers of the
East, who pour out their rhapsodies all day long in an ever-flowing
torrent of melody, he was extremely monotonous, and so I sought to stem
the current of his song by entering into conversation with him. On
hearing from me that he would be obliged to descend into the hell of
the Turkish quarantine and to remain there five days before he could
hope to ascend into the pilgrim’s paradise of Mecca, a look of keen
distress swept like a cloud over his enraptured countenance. Rising
slowly to his feet, he raised his sightless eyes, saying: “God, if
it please Him, will provide me with a swift means of transport to
His city. We shall meet again.” So confident was his tone that my
own misgivings yielded to the hope that I should yet overcome the
difficulty of the quarantine. And soon after I was informed that all
the first-class passengers on board the last pilgrim boat would be
allowed to proceed to their destination without let or hindrance,
but the unfortunate deck passengers would have to conform to the
regulations. Never was the privilege of wealth and the curse of poverty
brought home to the hearts of the weary in a more convincing fashion.
The next best thing to being wealthy, I told myself, is to have the
prerogatives of wealth thrust upon one.

Having had my passport _viséd_, I booked a berth and went on board
the Khedivieh steamer, which completed the distance between Suez and
Jiddah--some six hundred and forty-five nautical miles--in about eighty
hours. At ordinary times these steamers are simply employed on the mail
service, one of them leaving Suez for Jiddah every week--generally on
Thursday--and another leaving Jiddah for Suez on the same day. Though
they practically belong to a British syndicate, they go under the name
of Khedivieh steamers. The captain and the chief officers are English,
whereas the crew are Egyptians and Lascars. During the pilgrimage
steamers run frequently between the two ports, and in the year 1902
not less than two hundred thousand pilgrims, I was told, had landed at
Jiddah, the majority of whom embarked at Suez. Among these numbers
must be reckoned the eighty thousand Russian subjects from the Caucasus
and Central Asia, who, for the first time since they came under the
Russian rule, had been granted the privilege of undertaking the ancient
pilgrimage. Rumour credited them with being the main cause of the
cholera that year. If only the half of what I heard about them were
true their pollution would still beggar description.

The cruise in the Red Sea is not so interesting as that in the
Mediterranean. Save an occasional ragged rock rising from the yellow
waters, or a flight of white birds over the steamer, nothing was to be
seen from hour to hour.

[Illustration: PREPARING TO EMBARK AT SUEZ.]

When we sighted the port of Jiddah, which I shall describe by-and-by,
we were told to put on our ihrám, or sacred habit, before entering
the holy territory on our way to Mecca. As a preliminary, I at once
removed my Arabian costume, washed my hands, up to the elbow, and my
feet, up to the knees; I afterwards shaved the upper lip, leaving the
fresh-grown, unsightly beard to its own fate. Then, having performed
the prescribed ablution of the head, I closed my eyes and expressed,
with the tongue of my heart, the earnest desire to cast off the garb of
unrighteousness and pride and to put on the winding-sheet of humility
and of passive obedience to God’s will. Last of all, that I might be
worthy to visit His house, I prostrated myself on the prayer-rug and
said aloud the following formula of devotion: “O Almighty God, Thou art
without a mate; I praise Thy sovereign grace with all my heart; Thou
art pure and everlasting;” then I repeated three times: “O Lord, Thou
art without a mate,” adding, “I praise, O Lord, Thy apostle Muhammad
and his disciples and his family; in like manner, I also praise our
father Abraham and his house.” The next thing I said was: “Send down
upon me, O Lord, the healthful spirit of Thy satisfaction; open unto
me, I beseech Thee, the gates of Paradise, and shelter me from the fire
of Hell.” And this petition I also repeated three times. I was then
ready to don the sacred habit.

Now, my ihrám, which I had bought at Suez, consisted of two thin
woollen wrappers and a pair of sandals. One wrapper was tied about the
middle and allowed to fall all round to the ankles, while the other
was thrown over the shoulders, leaving my head and the forearms bare.
Both wrappers were spotlessly white, and had neither seam nor hem. The
sandal was a kind of shoe, consisting of a sole fastened to the foot by
means of a tie which passed between the large toe and the first toe of
the foot; it left uncovered both the instep and the heel. This sacred
habit was worn by all pilgrims during the four days preceding the Hájj
Day. While they have it on they must neither hunt nor fowl, though they
are allowed to fish--a doubtful privilege in a dry land. This precept,
according to Ahmad Ebn Yûsuf, is so strictly observed that nothing will
induce pilgrims to kill so much as a flea. We are told by Al Beidáwí,
however, that there are some noxious animals that they have permission
to kill during the pilgrimage, such animals, for instance, as kites,
ravens, scorpions, mice, and dogs given to bite. Pilgrims must keep
a constant watch over their words and their actions so long as they
wear the sacred habit. Not a single abusive word must be uttered; all
obscene discourse and all converse with women must be avoided; and not
a single woman’s face must be seen, save that of a wife, a sister, or a
cousin-german, _i.e._, a sister’s or a brother’s daughter. The men, as
I have said, must now doff their sewn clothes and must keep both their
faces and their heads uncovered; but the woman must be, as it were,
hermetically sealed in their stitched cloaks and veils. The only part
of their bodies that they have the right to expose, if they like, is
the palms of their hands. For the rest, they must not travel alone, but
must be accompanied by a man who may lawfully see them unveiled.

Poor pilgrims! They suffered from right and left. First came the
blood-suckers’ passport picnic. Here the pilgrim was plagued to death
with questions that the most cursory perusal of his safe-conduct had
rendered unnecessary. “Where do you come from? When did you leave? How
did you get here? What are your intentions? Why this? How that? When
the other?” The poorer pilgrims complained that they were positively
fleeced on the most frivolous pretexts. “Your passport is not properly
written; you must pay forty-eight piastres,” and so on.

Then the customs’ authorities emerged. “Will you walk into my parlour?”
these mosquitoes said to the pilgrims. To the imaginative mind the
buzzing which filled the room spelt the word _bakhshísh_. Woe betide
the pilgrim who did not so interpret the sound! All these officials, as
a Persian would say, had arms longer than their legs--in other words,
they reached out an itching palm to every pilgrim, and, casting an
appealing smile on him, seemed as though they would ask him to tickle
it with the counter-irritant of a “tip.” They opened my kit-bags
and turned everything topsy-turvy before I had time to bridle their
official zeal in the customary way. Among the contents were an English
newspaper and a novel, and these were promptly confiscated for no other
reason than that I had read them both. I cannot say that I made them a
present of my purse by way of pouring coals of fire on their heads. It
was otherwise in my case. I tied my purse-strings a little tighter,
and responded to their _bakhshísh_-coveting smiles with a smile equally
_bakhshísh_-coveting. It is wise, when you know the ropes, to husband
your resources till you reach the interior, for there your comfort in
travelling will depend on your having a purse well lined. By following
this rule, I was not so ill-prepared as I might otherwise have been to
meet the claims on my charity of the professional beggars who waylaid
my every step in the quaint old city of Jiddah.

Such a scene! Crowds of Arabs were lying on the filthy ground, which,
despite the heat, seemed strangely damp. Some were praying, some were
snoring, others were smoking, many were wrestling in the mud, but by
far the greater number of them merely dreamed away the passing hours,
too idle even to open their eyes. You might stay from sunrise to sunset
by the side of the more meditative among them without their showing the
least signs of life. How differently constituted are these loafers from
the free-born Arabs of the desert! The women held themselves somewhat
aloof from the men, and sat smoking their pipes, or chatting like
magpies, in groups of three or four. The sight of a new face seemed
to have lost its attraction for them, or perhaps they had grown weary
of criticising the gait and the appearance of the incoming pilgrims.
Having now seen a good many of them, however, as it were by stealth,
I think I may say with confidence that among the Arabs of Hejaz the
men are far better-looking than the women. This is mostly the women’s
own fault, for they ruin the beauty of their faces by tattooing their
chins. Were it not for this unsightly custom, peculiar to the Arabs,
the womenfolk, though corpulent, might be regarded as comely. The men,
on the other hand, are fairly handsome, being tall and lean, and having
high-bridged noses, flashing black eyes, and lofty foreheads. I am
speaking more especially of the wild Arabs of the desert and not of
the townsmen, whose faces, however handsome they may be, are too often
marred by an expression of cupidity and cunning.

Jiddah, though dirty, is a very picturesque city. It has narrow
serpentine streets which are rarely more than seven or eight feet wide,
and is surrounded by five turreted walls of great antiquity rising to
a height of twelve feet or so. Of these walls the northern measures in
length about seven hundred and thirty-one yards, the southern seven
hundred and sixty-nine, the eastern five hundred and eighty-five, the
western six hundred and twenty-four, and the south-eastern some three
hundred and seventy-nine. There are about three thousand houses in the
city, most of which are built of limestone and shut out from the street
by walls which sometimes conceal the roofs of the houses within. Here
and there a small window in the surrounding walls affords ventilation
to the house. It is only a few years since a big well was dug at a
place called Bashtar, some two miles distant from the city, the water
of which is conducted by means of underground passages. This well bears
the name of the reigning Sultan of Turkey. Pure drinking water being
scarce, sakkás or water-carriers are seen about the streets carrying
the precious liquid on their backs in big leathern bags. Of recent
years several mosques and caravanserais and one steam mill have been
erected outside the city walls. The governor’s residence, together
with the post-office and almost all of the more modern buildings, lies
outside the walls, facing the Red Sea. The shops, raised not more than
a foot above the ground, are about two yards and a half in width and
some three yards deep in the interior. Butchers, grocers, fruiterers,
and linen drapers are crowded together much as they are in an English
street. The babble within the bazaar is beyond description. Your first
conjecture is that a free fight is about to begin between the tradesman
and his customer; but, on making ready to intervene in the cause of
peace, you find to your pleasure or your chagrin that the vociferous
couple shake hands, first by touching the right hand and then by
raising both hands to the right eye, after which the shopkeeper makes
tender inquiries as to his customer’s health, and then the bargaining
begins. It took me over an hour to buy a few yards of cloth. The
ancient draper was too lazy to reach out for the stuff himself, so he
ordered his boy to bestir himself in my interests. The cloth being
handed to him, the draper fingered it caressingly, saying: “The cloth
is soft to the touch, its splendour dazzles the eyes! Such an exquisite
material has not been seen in this market for years!” The cloth was
to my liking, and so I made haste to ask the price of it. The draper
shook his head reprovingly. Then he said: “Hurry and haste belong
to Satan: I usually sell this cloth at thirty piastres a yard to my
customers, but to you I will sell it for twenty-five, because you have
found favour in my sight.” I made him a counter-bid of five piastres a
yard in order to cut the barter short. Whereupon the draper, nodding
in admiration of my guile, gazed around him for close on five minutes.
When he opened his mouth at last it was to say in his most winning
voice: “My good sir, since you are looking so well, so handsome, and so
distinguished, I will part with this priceless material at the trifling
cost to yourself of fifteen piastres a yard.” “Not so,” I replied.
“Since you are a bright old man I will increase my favour in your sight
by adding a piastre to my last bid; in other words, I now offer you
six piastres a yard.” The draper raised his hand to Heaven. “That is
impossible! I ask pardon of God.” I now turned on my heel and walked
away. He called me back at once. “Sir,” he said, “I would not have you
leave me in displeasure. Give whatever you like, the cloth is yours. I
am your sacrifice.” I retraced my steps. “Nonsense,” I returned; “how
is it possible for me to give what I like for the stuff, since you
are the tradesman and know its proper value?” The old man smiled, and
said, “Honoured sir, the lowest price I can possibly accept for this
material is ten piastres a yard.” It was now my turn to smile. “Sir,” I
replied, “I have no wish to offend you by leaving your shop, and so I
will buy the cloth from you for seven piastres a yard instead of going
to your rival yonder, who has offered to sell me some at six and a half
piastres.”

The draper then handed me a stool, and said, smiling, “You are not easy
to deal with. Come, sit down, and smoke this hukah, and we shall not
part in anger.” So I sat down in front of the shop, and while I sucked
meditatively at the pipe he handed to me, the stuff was measured, cut,
and folded, the tacit understanding between us being that we would
meet half-way, namely at eight piastres and a half. By the time I had
finished my smoke the material was ready for me, and so I lost no time
in returning to the hotel.

The harvest season of the shopkeepers is during the journeying months.
Their most striking characteristic in the eyes of a Persian pilgrim is
that they all wear white beards. The reason of this probably is that
young shopkeepers would stand not a ghost of a chance of competing
successfully with their elderly rivals. Moreover, all greybeards in the
Muhammadan religion are entitled to receive special veneration from the
young. Another reason is that nearly all the young men are employed by
the pilgrims as guides, as servants, and as drivers.

[Illustration: PILGRIMS EMBARKING AT SUEZ.]

[Illustration: BEFORE WEIGHING ANCHOR AT SUEZ.]

Everything moves slowly in these Arab towns. You will break the laws
of good breeding if you walk fast there. Consider the camel of the
desert, how he walks; he hurries not, neither does he make a sound: so
take this finnikin creature as your model and form your gait on the
camel’s. All Orientals pin implicit faith in the doctrine of “slow but
sure,” and when they give you some work they recommend you to be “slow
over it,” believing that a thing done smartly is not often done well.

CHAPTER II

FROM JIDDAH TO MECCA

The time at my disposal being limited, I went at once in search of a
guide, who should accompany me to Mecca and thence to Arafat, and put
me in the way of performing the rites and mysteries of the Hájj. The
men who officiate in that capacity are called _moghavems_. The pick
of them had fallen to the lot of the early-comers who had flocked to
Jiddah in great numbers; but with my customary luck, I chanced upon
a Persian _moghavem_, whose knowledge of the ceremonies and the holy
places of the Pilgrimage was seasoned with the waggish conceits of
a singularly original mind. His sceptical witticisms were the more
piquant in that he gloried in the name of Seyyid ’Alí. For the rest,
he had travelled far and wide, had sat down and laughed beside the
waters of Babylon, had wandered on foot as far to the East as Benares,
and had undertaken the Pilgrimage of Mecca half a dozen times. I
congratulated him on his globe-trotting habit, whereupon he showed a
gleam of white teeth, raising himself on the tips of his toes, and
stroked his unkempt beard complacently. Then he aired his knowledge of
geography. “Yá-Moulai,” he said with unexpected gravity, “Allah has
had me in His keeping, may He be praised! He has revealed to me the
innermost secrets of the world, and shown to me the whole creation.
I have been everywhere except in Hell, and even that experience will
not be withheld from me, I trust, when I come to die. True it is,
yá-Moulai, that this life is a riddle; we solve it when we give up the
ghost--perhaps. Anyhow, my one desire in this world is to go to Europe
that I may see China and study the philosophy of that wonderful land.”
I had to avert my head lest he should detect the struggle between
amusement and politeness which convulsed every feature of my face.

“Ah,” said he, “your Excellency is fortunate to have met me: the Hájj
Season is far advanced: _moghavems_ are scarce: and I am one of the
most reasonable of men. If you will burst from the bonds of economics
in the matter of salary, you will find in me a pleasant travelling
companion and a lettered guide.”

“Will two dollars a day content you?” I asked. The offer was a liberal
one, and on the spur of a grateful impulse he clinched the bargain
without a moment’s hesitation. This trait of character endeared him to
me, and so I treated him on a footing of social equality so long as he
was my cicerone.

Now, the day was the sixth day of the moon: a distance of some
forty-six miles lay between us and the Holy City: and, furthermore,
since the Pilgrims had to leave Mecca on the 8th for the hill of
Arafat, it followed that we had not a single moment to lose in making
preparations for our journey. With many words Seyyid ’Alí staked his
wages that, by hiring asses and riding alone, we could cover the
road in eleven hours. “Of course,” said he, “we must run the risk of
being attacked by Bedouins who lie in wait for stragglers. Indeed,
only two days ago, so the rumour runs in the bazaars, a caravan of
forty Persian pilgrims was robbed on leaving Heddah for Mecca: and
everybody we meet--depend upon it--will do his utmost to terrify us
with blood-curdling stories of Arab lawlessness and violence. However,
let us pin our faith not in firearms and bravado, but in our cool heads
and our stout hearts. And, in the meanwhile, I will take you to a
caravanserai, where we shall find an acquaintance of mine, who is the
owner of a drove of the fleetest asses in Hejaz. His name is Nassir,
and he owns allegiance to the fighting clan of Harb. From him we will
hire three donkeys: one for your Excellency, one for the effects we
have with us, and a third for myself. Nassir will accompany us on foot,
and be a protector to us in the wilderness. Let us hasten lest his
services be engaged.”

After bartering with Nassir, it was settled that I should pay him
two dollars for the use of each animal (two-thirds to be paid in
advance and one-third on alighting in Mecca), while he himself was to
receive, in return for his services, a _bakhshísh_ in proportion to his
usefulness on the road.

In appearance he was a typical representative of his race, both in
bearing and in dress, as well as in accoutrements and in strength.
Tall and lean, he had the appearance of a man that had been baked in
an oven: his skin was as brown and as wrinkled as a walnut-shell, his
features seemed to leap out of the face, while his eyes declared the
nobility of a virile though savage nature. He wore a long yellow shirt,
reaching below the knees, with a red cotton belt round the waist, in
which was stuck an ugly-looking dagger. Slung crosswise over his back a
Bedouin generally carries an old-fashioned flint rifle, having a barrel
some two yards in length, with a bow-shaped stock covered all over with
small square chips of white shells. For this ungainly weapon Nassir
substituted a stout Arab club, which was a fortunate thing for Seyyid
’Alí, perhaps, inasmuch as wordy wars between the two men came to be of
hourly occurrence.

About five o’clock in the evening, after having smoked a pipe of peace
at a coffee-house in the bazaars, we mounted our asses, Seyyid ’Alí
and myself, while the fleet-footed driver, go as hard as we might,
kept pace with us, without so much as turning a hair. We rode through
the Mecca gate, and then bore off in a north-easterly direction in
order that I might have an opportunity of visiting Eve’s Tomb. This
excursion, because it took us a little out of our way, was not to
the liking of our Harbi warrior, who, in his anxiety to reach Mecca
by sunrise, was bent on sparing both his own breath and his beasts
of burden. But I, having made up my mind to pay my respects to the
resting-place of our common mother, was not to be gainsaid; and I
contrived to convict my opponent of churlishness by making a point of
reaching my destination within half an hour--that is in less than half
the time he had said it would take.

Assuredly, Arabia is the cradle of credulity. In that land of legend
the historian catches his breath. He is ill at ease, alternately
bewildered and sceptical, as might be expected of a man, who, reaching
out for truth, lays hold of a myth at every step. Thus, on gaining
admittance to the enclosure, I was amazed to notice the exceeding
length of the Tomb, and on measuring the low walls believed to define
the outlines of Eve’s body, I found that they were one hundred and
seventy-three yards long, and about twelve feet broad. In the centre
a low dome is conspicuous; it is said to crown Eve’s navel. “What a
monster!” I cried, laughing, “easy lies the head of our common mother.”
The guide corrected me, saying, “The Well of Wisdom is mistaken. The
tomb was not long enough to contain her blessed head. It is well known
that only the trunk and limbs of her lie here.” Rising to my full
height, five feet nine in my sandals, I asked him to account for the
dwindling in the size of man. “The Fountain of Learning must remember,”
he replied, “that Eve, our Mother, fell, and with her fell the stature
of the human race.” The explanation found a crack in the armour of
my credulity, and so, turning back into the direct road, we resumed
our journey, joining a caravan of about thirty pilgrims of mixed
nationalities, Egyptians, Syrians, Caucasians, Indians, and Malays.

Instead of refreshing breezes, which would have come as a positive
godsend, the wind, blowing from the south-west, spread abroad an
abominable vapour, and caused the sand to rise and fall like the bosom
of the ocean. Sand-heaps twelve feet high might be scattered at any
moment in these whirlwinds; but, fortunately, though our asses often
sunk over their fetlocks, we reached in safety the Hill of Gaem (the
first stage for caravans), where, according to a local superstition,
the Messiah will first appear. A small booth here made ample amends for
the scarcity of water, and I could not remember ever having tasted more
fragrant and delicious coffee.

Slowly but surely the ground now began to rise, and the sand to grow
firmer. A caravan of camels glided stealthily by, bells tinkling,
pilgrims reciting the Kurán, and the drivers singing to their camels a
deeply melodious song called _Hodi_, which has on them the effect of a
goad, urging them on to a brisk unchanging pace. To this accompaniment
a camel will cover a great distance without stopping, the general
belief being that the camel gets drunk with the sweet burden of the
_Hodi_ song.

Overnight, long after sunset, my Harbi driver himself began to sing
aloud in the gathering darkness, asking God to protect him from the
goblins of the wilderness, and always in a lugubrious minor key, as if
he was going to weep. But ever and anon we heard an original song set
to the music of the desert, wild as the wastes, elusive as the winds,
as revealing and obscure as the tuneless solitudes from whose heart
it would seem to spring--a song that broke through melody, and added
its tameless burden to the music of the spheres. On cultured Europeans
these untutored outbursts would have an uncanny effect, causing the
centuries to roll back to the days of their barbarian ancestry, and
awakening within them, perhaps, one of those haunting dream-memories of
birth far back in the misty past, of an anterior existence in keeping
with the strains of incoherent minstrelsy when men, labouring under
the burdens of consciousness, sang as the spirit moved them, knowing
nothing of the laws of counterpoint and harmony. Such a song was sung
by Seyyid ’Alí as we left Heddah, a song written by a famous Sufí
writer--

“My sorrow is Sorrow; my companion is Sorrow; my mate is Sorrow;
Where’er I go there’s none to care for me but Sorrow;
My Sorrow does not let me sleep alone at night;
Well done, my mate! bravo, my mate! hurrah, my Sorrow!”

The surrounding hills caught the intonation in their ragged arms
and flung it back into the dim-lit sea of eddying sand, echoing and
re-echoing the word “Sorrow!” Then my own Arab driver, carried beyond
himself, raised his voice in the self-same song, and soon the whole
caravan burst out, crying, “Well done, my mate! bravo, my mate! hurrah,
my Sorrow,” the hills repeating the last word. Wagner, the one master
who has given us the music of the sea and the stars, of the winds and
the streams, and of all the vague yearnings that torment the human
heart, would have understood us, would perhaps have played the part
of echo on his return to civilisation, would certainly have joined in
the chorus of that wild Arabian air attuned to Arabia’s barren though
luminous solitudes.

Here, at Heddah, a more than usually serious quarrel arose between
Seyyid ’Alí and Nassir on the subject of the national virtues of
their respective countries. It would certainly have ended in a free
fight, had not I, awaking from a snooze at the uproar, turned to the
pugnacious Arab, who had accused the Persian of hypocrisy, and said
in a tone of gentle reproof: “Yá Nassir, is it true that a Persian
is double-faced?” For the space of a minute he eyed the supercilious
Seyyid, deliberating; then he turned to me. “I wish he were only
double-faced,” he replied, “for then I should know how to deal with
him. But Satan has given him as many as two thousand faces, and it is
beyond the power of any one man to see them all in his lifetime.” I
pursued the inquiry, saying, “Oh, Nassir, supposing you were asked to
describe the Persian character, how would you sum it up?” This time
he turned his flashing eyes on me. “Character comes from conscience,”
he answered; “but a Persian has none.” My guide spat derisively on
the sand, muttering, “Courtesy is unknown to these people;” then he
addressed me in his own language, saying: “But, yá-Moulai, there’s
truth in what the burnt-father said, the Almighty Mason having put so
many constituents into the clay of a Persian that it is very difficult
to analyse it. Our countryman has as many coils and colours as a
serpent. He is the essence of politeness and native refinement. He is
the personification of jealousy and envy. Conceit and hypocrisy are
embodied in him, and so also are generosity and _amour propre_.”

The mere sound of the mellifluous Persian drove Nassir beside himself.
Raising his stout Arab club, which the Persians call Hájí Yemút or
the Pilgrim Slayer, he vowed that he would teach the guide a lesson
in courtesy; and then, suddenly bethinking himself that any act of
violence on his part would be sure to affect his pocket in the matter
of _bakhshísh_, he turned a contemptuous back upon his adversary,
and said to me, smiling all over his face: “This club of mine has
many qualifications. It is useful in urging my ass to mend its pace,
it gives me support when I am tired, and shelter from the sun when
I am sleepy”--here he stuck it in the sand, and tied at the top a
strip of cloth on a crossbar--“it serves as a line on which to dry my
washed clothes, as an altar when it is the hour for me to pray, as a
leaping-pole when a mountain torrent stems my path; and, may Allah
be praised, it is my surest defence against all my enemies, be they
men or beasts, and so, when I die, God forbid, I will leave it as an
inheritance to my son.”

Midnight saw us again on the way, and, in the course of our ride over
the gravelly ground that rose ever higher the nearer we approached the
mountains, we overtook a big caravan that was preceded by a couple
of heralds, who bore aloft the green banner of the Faith, whereon
was inscribed the Muhammadan watchword. “There is no God but God,
and Muhammad is His Messenger.” Then came the cavalcade of pilgrims,
the rear being brought up by a string of camels, and other beasts of
burden, heavily laden with tents and water-skins, or mashks, with
kitchen utensils and provisions. Like ourselves, these men were
latecomers, but being overburdened they were soon left far in the rear
by us, indeed they could not hope to reach Mecca before noon on the
following day, whereas we were bent on sighting the Holy City ere the
rising of the sun.

At the last resting-house, I struck up acquaintance with a Persian
pilgrim, seated on a coarse mat; he declared the Arabs to be cowards,
while I defied him to justify this charge. “What!” he cried, “anything
will frighten them; they are so superstitious. For instance, if a
rabbit spring up at their feet and run away from them they will
pursue it until it is lost to sight. But if the rabbit comes towards
them, they will lose heart, turn on their heels and scuttle as fast
as they can lay their legs to the ground, the timid creature in hot
pursuit at their heels. However, I will admit that they hold fast
together, that they are staunch and true to one another, that they will
sacrifice their lives to protect their comrades against the strangers
at their gates.” He then began to scratch himself vigorously, giving
voice the while to an impromptu verse. Said he; “From sunset to early
dawn there’s a merry-making in the kingdom of my body. The mosquitoes
are the flutists, the fleas the dancers, and I’m the harpist”--that
is, the scratcher, the same word being used in Persian. I left the
quaint fellow playing the accompaniment to the dance of the frolicsome
fleas and humming mosquitoes, and rode on my way, singing. The ground
rose higher and higher. On passing Mount Shíní the road takes a
north-easterly direction, and leads to the tomb of Sheykh Mahmud, a
priest who is held in special veneration by the Arabs, though the
dilapidated state of his grave would scarcely confirm this attitude
towards him. And then, at last, on pursuing the way a little further,
the minarets of the City of God rise, with the sun, before the
pilgrim’s eyes. “Oh, would that I, having beheld its domes, might fall
and die,” is now the true Muslim’s devoutest wish.

CHAPTER III

WITHIN THE HAREM--SOME REMARKS ON THE ORTHODOX SECTS OF ISLÁM

The first thing I did before entering Mecca was to perform my ablutions
and say my prayers, according to the custom; and then I rode to the
encampment on the outskirts of the city where I hoped to find two
Persian friends of mine who, in accordance with a previous arrangement
between us, had been good enough to take along with them the camp
equipment which they had bought for me at Cairo. When I had discovered
their whereabouts, I dismissed Nassir, giving him a liberal present,
and then sat down to breakfast, my friends congratulating me upon my
safe arrival.

The meal over, Seyyid ’Alí took me under his wing, urging me to
accompany him to the Harem of the House of God without loss of time,
that we might perform the initial ceremony--namely, the compassing of
the Ka’bah--in the cool of the early morning. So bidding my friends
good-bye, I set out with my guide, who was in sore straits to cloak
his native mirthfulness in the folds of his íhram. Do what he would
to conceal his natural character, he could not wholly restrain it
within the limits of decorum incumbent on every pilgrim wearing that
winding-sheet of humility.

The streets were crowded with tents, camels, mules, asses, horses,
pariah dogs, and a motley crowd of pilgrims. The din the dogs made in
the small hours of the day was indescribable. A pack of jackals would
be quiet in comparison. Through even the narrowest lanes must pass the
lordly Sheríf and his suite, the sun-baked Sheykhs on horseback, the
ladies of the harem sitting astride of mules led by their servants, the
peasant pilgrims on foot, and every kind of beast of burden heavily
laden with water-skins and provisions. Accidents were consequently of
hourly occurrence in the press of the throng. On reaching the holy
precincts, my guide turned to me and said, in a cautious undertone,
pointing to the Ka’bah in the middle of the Harem: “What need have I of
the Ka’bah? it is only four walls; the Ka’bah round which I hop is the
face of my Beloved.”

Now, the word Harem which is used to designate the courtyard of every
Muhammadan mosque, means “holy place;” and thus the famous mosque of
Mecca or, more correctly, the open court in the middle of which the
House of God is situated bears the name of Harem. The same expression
is used by the Turks to denote the inner apartments of their houses,
since the women who dwell there are held sacred to the family. The
Harem of the Holy City is an imperfect rhomboid in shape, its opposite
sides being not quite equal. The length extends from east to west and
the breadth from north to south. The northern side is one hundred and
seventy-eight yards long, and the southern one hundred and eighty,
while the western side is one hundred and eighteen yards broad, and the
eastern one hundred and seventeen. Of the twenty-two gates that give
admittance to its precincts, eight are on the northern length, four
on the eastern breadth, seven on the southern length, and three on the
western breadth. The most sacred of these gates are the Gate of Peace
(Salám) and the Gate of Purity (Safá). The Gate of Peace, through which
the pilgrims must enter, taking care to say the prescribed prayer on
its threshold, leads into the extreme north-eastern end of the Harem;
while the Gate of Safá is the one in the centre of the southern length,
through which the pilgrims must pass out in order to say their prayers
on the platform beyond, from which platform, indeed, the gate takes its
name of Purity. There are no doors to these gates, and from every one
a flight of steps conducts the Faithful down to the Harem, the surface
of which lies about twelve feet below that of the streets, dipping
gradually another three feet towards the centre, where the Ka’bah
stands; and on the walls of each gate are inscribed the names of the
four Caliphs, Abú Bekr, ’Omar, ’Othmán, and ’Alí. The Shiahs, having
rubbed their hands on the name of the fourth Caliph, raise them to
their faces, and say: “May peace be with Muhammad and with his people.”

To the best of my reckoning, there are some five hundred and
seventy-five pillars in the colonnade that runs round the four sides
of the Harem. But the Muhammadans, in general, have a prejudice
against counting them, and the Meccans, in particular, declare them
to be “innumerable.” The eastern side of the Harem is enclosed by a
single row of columns, while the other sides have columns three deep.
These columns, roughly speaking, measure about two feet in diameter
and twenty feet in height. Some of them bear Arabic inscriptions that
are scarcely legible now, and others are strengthened by means of
iron bands or by iron shafts running from top to bottom. Every third
column is round, standing between two octagonal pillars, some four
feet apart; every second column supports a pointed arch; and every
fourth column a dome that is whitewashed from without, and painted from
within in stripes of blue, red, and yellow. The front of the arches
are coloured in the same gaudy fashion, as are also the greater number
of the seven beautiful minarets from which the muezzins raise the
voice of the Faith calling the pilgrims to prayers. There are three
of these minarets along the northern length, one at each corner of
the opposite side, a sixth along the eastern breadth, and a seventh
at the thither end of the cloister attached to the northern side of
the Harem. The columns, with the exception of a few on the northern
and eastern sides, said to have been brought from Egypt, reflect no
artistic taste whatever on the part of the sculptors that carved them.
Those that are made of marble or of porphyry are in one piece--huge
blocks rough-hewn by unskilful hands--and the others are made of
granite or of sandstone from the neighbouring mountains, and composed
of three slabs, shaped, dressed, and then cemented together. At least
a dozen raised pavements--called Farsh-ul-Hajar--of varying widths,
lead to and from the gates of the Ka’bah, the broadest being from the
Zaideh gate to the House of God. The floor of the colonnades is paved
all round, but the granite slabs are put together in a very rough and
ready fashion. The inner path immediately round the Ka’bah is a few
inches below the general surface, itself some fifteen feet below that
of the streets without; but beyond the iron pillars, from which are
hung the glass lanterns that light up the precincts of the House of
God by night, rises a second paved way, somewhat higher than the inner
one, about five yards broad, while a third, on a still higher level, is
even wider. Bordering on this pavement from without are the Meghámé
Ibrahím, the Station of Abraham, the Bábé Shaibeh, the Arch of Peace, and
the four Megháms belonging to the four Sunni orthodox sects, behind
which runs the gravelled expanse of the Harem. Dozens of sweepers are
engaged daily in cleaning the floors and pavements, but their efforts,
in face of the crowd all too careless of the laws of cleanliness, are
vain.

Of the four Megháms above-mentioned the Meghámé-Hanefi is the largest,
and is situated to the east of the Ka’bah, some twelve yards from it.
It rests on twelve pillars, is open on all sides, and has a small upper
chamber, whence the muezzins call the Hanefites to prayer. These are
known as “the followers of reason,” and owe their origin to Abú Hanífa
al Nómán Ebn Thábet. He was born at Cufa in the eightieth year of the
Hegira, and died in the hundred and fiftieth in prison at Bagdad, where
he had been confined because he refused to be made a kádi or judge.
The reason he gave for refusing to officiate in that capacity may be
given in his own words. “If I speak the truth, they’ll say I am unfit;
but if I tell a lie a liar is not worthy to be a judge.” He is said
to have read the Kurán no less than seven thousand times during his
imprisonment. His doctrine brought into prominence by Abú Yúsúf, Chief
Justice under the Caliphs al Hádi and Harún ur Rashid, now prevails
generally among the Turks and Tartars. In the time of Ignorance the
Kuraish used to hold their councils where the Meghámé-Hanefi now
stands. The Maleki pulpit, to the south-west of the Ka’bah, is a small
building open on all sides, and resting on four pillars. The learned
doctor who founded the sect of the Malekites was called Malek Ebn Ans.
He was born at Medina in the year ninety of the Hegira, and there he
also died at the age of eighty-seven. His teaching is based on the
traditions of the Prophet. On his death-bed he said to a friend who
found him in tears: “How should I not weep, and who has more reason
to weep than I? Would to God that for every question decided by me
according to my own opinion I had received so many stripes, then would
my accounts be easier. Would to God I had never given any decision of
my own.” His followers are scattered over Africa, mainly in Barbary.
The Sháfeïtes have their Meghám on the top of the cupola-crowned
building which covers the Zem-Zem well, whence the criers call to
worship, but the congregation pray round the Ka’bah itself. The author
of this, the third orthodox sect, went by the name of Muhammad Ebn
Edris al Sháfeí. His birthplace is uncertain. Some say he was born at
Caza, others at Ascalon, in Palestine, on the very day that Abú Hanifa
died in the year one hundred and fifty of the Hegira. At the age of
seven he was taken to Mecca, where he was educated. He is said to have
been the first Muhammadan to reduce the science of jurisprudence into a
systematic method, and he was undoubtedly a man of great learning, of
sincere piety, and of calm, deliberate judgment. Two sayings attributed
to him throw a light on his character: “Whoever pretends to love the
world and its Creator at the same time is a liar;” “I am considering
first whether it be better to speak or to hold my tongue.” This was
said to a man who, having asked his opinion and received no reply,
demanded an explanation of this silence. The doctrine of this sect,
like that of the Malekites, is founded on the traditions of Muhammad,
and is now embraced by a good many people in Arabia and by a few in
Persia as well.

The Meghám of the fourth orthodox sect, that bears the name of
Hanbalí, is situated not far from the Zem-Zem well, opposite the Black
Stone--which is itself embodied in the south-eastern wall of the
Ka’bah--and is of the same structure as that of the Sháfeïtes. It is
there that the Sheríf and many of the other dignitaries perform their
worship. It is divided into two compartments by means of a canvas wall,
the men occupying the front, and the women the back part, at evening
prayers. There are two traditions as to the birthplace of Ahmed Ebn
Hanbal, who founded this school of religious thought. Those who believe
him to have been born at Merve, in Khorasán, the native city of his
parents, assure us that his mother brought him thence to Bagdad when he
was still at the breast; while others declare that he was born after
his mother’s arrival in that city, in the year of the Hegira 164. He
was an intimate friend of al Sháfeí, who was also his master, and was
so well instructed by him in the traditions of the Prophet that it is
said he could repeat over a million of them. On his return from Egypt
he refused to acknowledge the Kurán to be created, and was consequently
scourged and cast into prison by order of the Caliph al Mutasem. On the
day of his death no fewer than twenty thousand Christians, Jews, and
Magians embraced the Mussulman faith, and he was followed to his grave
by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women. This sect soon
became extremely powerful, so much so indeed that in the year 323 H.,
in the Caliphate of al Rádi, they burst from all restraint in their
iconoclastic zeal, breaking into people’s houses in Bagdad, spilling
any wine they found, chastising the singing women they came across,
and smashing their musical instruments in bits. A severe edict had the
effect of bridling their undisciplined fervour, so that the Hanbalites
are not very numerous nowadays outside the boundaries of Arabia. The
followers of these four men worship together in the evening, but at
other times they pray in the order of their seniority. The four pulpits
were erected, in 973 of the Hegira, by Sultán Suleymán, who also
founded, outside the Harem, a school for fifteen students under a head
master and a preacher for each one of the orthodox sects, allotting to
every school a portion of the floor of the Harem as a place of worship.
These schools are said to be still flourishing, and are subsidised from
the funds of the Ka’bah.

Before the time of the Prophet the ground on which the Harem is now
situated belonged to several landlords of the tribe of Kuraish, who
laid great store by the property on account of its proximity to the
House of God. To Omar, the second Caliph, the idea of extending the
Harem first occurred, and it was he who built the walls round it. The
gates were erected by Abdullah Zobair. Thenceforward every Caliph and
every Sultán made a point of beautifying the sacred enclosure until
it came at last to wear its present appearance. However, considering
the enormous sums contributed by the quick and the dead on purpose to
keep it in repair it is being shamefully neglected in this year of the
Flight. How the priests who batten on the fund can find it in their
consciences to watch the decay of their surroundings without loosening
their purse-strings in order to check it is a source of wonder to many
a child of Islám. They are “resigned,” these unrighteous stewards, for
no other reason than because theirs is a bed of roses. “After us the
Deluge” is their motto, and it cannot be denied that of all the sacred
places of the Faith that of the Harem, situated as it is in the gap of
the surrounding cliffs and dipping as it does towards the centre where
the Ka’bah stands, is the best adapted to be a target to the winds and
the rain. For the floods, when they descend, rush down the flights of
steps of the gateways and inundate the open sanctuaries, and that is
why the Ka’bah has been so often destroyed and rebuilt in the course
of the centuries. These priests of the Harem may be as wise as serpents
where their own interests are involved, but they are not so harmless as
doves where those of the Faithful in general clamour for redress.

Talking of the Deluge reminds me of the pigeons that strut about the
floor of the Harem or wing their flight above its sacred buildings.
They are the prettiest birds imaginable, and so tame that they will
come and perch on the pilgrims’ shoulders and feed out of their hands.
In colour they are of a blueish brown, with deeper spots of the same
colour on their breasts and backs. They have grey rings round their
necks, and their wings are streaked with black lines. A traditionist
says that to feed one of these birds is to ensure to one’s self a
sumptuous palace in heaven; whereas to kill one of them is as bad as
committing homicide, and meets with the same punishment hereafter.
The consequence of this belief is that there are crowds of women
whose business it is to sell grain to the pilgrims for the Harem
pigeons, about twenty grains of wheat in a box costing not less than
one piastre. The tradition was that the pigeons never alighted on the
domes and minarets of the Harem, but hovered above them, like guardian
angels. The fact that the sanctuaries now stand in frequent need of
whitewashing is taken to be a proof of the growing wickedness of the
people, and a certain sign that the Day of Judgment is at hand.

[Illustration: A MOORISH GENTLEMAN IN MOORISH DRESS.]

On entering the Harem all men are equal, all privileges of rank must be
waived. The most despotic Oriental ruler has no power over his fellows
there. Even the Hereditary Sheríf of Mecca must be as courteous to his
servants or his slaves as he would be to the Sultan of Turkey were he
present. Everybody is come to worship his Creator, the Ruler Supreme
over empires and republics, and so all distinctions of rank are laid
aside. The Prophet, wise in his generation beyond all men, was the
first to protect the helpless against despotism by ruling the conduct
of human affairs through the principle of religious equality. But for
his laws the lower classes of the East would have been at the mercy of
their co-religionists of the higher castes. If the Prophet alternately
cajoled and coerced the superstitious to be virtuous and meek by the
promise of a material Paradise and by the fear of a material Hell, what
then? He sought merely to achieve his end through the weaknesses of the
natural man, knowing that there is nothing that men covet more than the
permanent pleasures which satiate human passions, and nothing that they
had rather shun than a punishment which endures for ever. The spirit of
his teaching and his laws, however, was anything but material. It made
for unity and fraternity and equality, and the consequence was that in
the early days of the Faith his followers were inspired by the noblest
aspirations of the mind and heart. And as for the corporeal joys of
Paradise they knew that these were not the highest their Prophet had
promised to them, for they hoped to attain to that most blessed degree
of heavenly felicity which is reserved for the Faithful who are found
worthy to behold God’s face from the rising of the sun till the going
down of the same. The case is otherwise with the majority of the
Muhammadans of to-day. For their country and their countrymen they
take too little thought, each one of them beseeching God to shower His
favours on himself or herself alone. The priests of the Golden Age of
the Faith sat on a camel or stood on a high hill and preached, not
on form but on spirit. Their watchword was unity--unity of religion
under the banner of faith and charity. To-day, on the contrary, the
Mullás of Mecca mount a pulpit and air their erudition, that is,
their knowledge of the traditions, as they interpret them according
to their respective schools, and end with a few wandering, lifeless
sentences in condemnation of all heretics, in contempt of this life,
and in praise of the world to come. A philosopher would consider their
sermons ridiculous. The freethinkers of the times of ’Omar and ’Alí had
no sound excuse for raising their voices against the priests, who were
then the guides of the mind as well as those of the conduct. But the
wonder now is that a Faithful can be found to obey the behests of these
tradition-ridden miracle-mongers, who do nothing to lessen the breach
between the sects, but leave the more enlightened laymen to lead the
way to reunion.

Muhammad set these miracle-mongers a good example. For we read that
when Muaz was appointed Governor of Yemen he was asked by the Prophet
by what rule he would be guided in the administration of the province.
“By the law of the Kurán,” said Muaz. “But if you find no direction
therein?” “Then I will act according to the example of the Prophet.”
“But if that fails?” “Then I will exercise my own judgment.” Muhammad
not only approved of the answer of his follower, but also advised his
other representatives to follow the same rule of conduct. That rule
ought to be written over the door of every mosque in Islám. My Meccan
experiences prove this, that the faith of the priest is stagnant
from the want of the breath of reason. In its decadence Islám is
priest-begotten and priest-ridden. In its purity it was full of the
spirit of the Holy Ghost, a religion simple and sincere, whereof such
men as ’Alí and ’Omar were made. The founder would be the first to
cleanse the minds of his present-day disciples of the false traditions
that have been ascribed to him. He would bid them look up, facing the
light, and setting their thoughts free to soar. In his lifetime he,
believing “God to be more loving to His servants than the mother to
her young,” fought strenuously and with a patience almost sublime to
overcome the corrupt and idolatrous practices of his fellow-countrymen
of the time of Ignorance. Not otherwise would he fight to-day in order
to free his co-religionists from the ever-permeating spread of the
priestly misinterpretations of his message. His voice would be raised
to proclaim the right of every man to reject what is unreasonable in
the dictations of the priests. “Knowledge,” said he on one occasion,
“is our friend in the desert, our companion when friendless, our
ornament among friends, our armour against our enemies.... To listen to
the words of the learned and to inculcate the lessons of science is of
more value than religious exercises.”

Now, a religion which is lively to-day chiefly through the appeal
it can make to what is corporeal and comfortable, as is undoubtedly
the case with Islámism at the present time, stands in sore need of a
spiritual reformer, the more so because its spirit is still alive,
in the pages of the Kurán and in the memory of the mighty dead. Many
Muslims still seek the name, and are diligent in seeking it, but they
less often try to find the object, forgetting that the moon is not in
the stream but in the sky. “He, God, is the Enduring, and all else
passeth away”--all except such futile traditions as, heaven knows, are
dead enough to have earned a decent burial, and the arbitrary ruling of
the priests, to whose pernicious influence there would appear to be no
limit. The hearts of these unrighteous stewards deserve to be branded
with the two matchless odes, admirably translated by Professor Browne,
of Cambridge University, which are inscribed on the tomb of Háfiz, in
an orange garden at Shíráz, the two first lines of which run:

“Where is the good tidings of union with Thee? for I will rise up
with my whole heart;
I am a bird of Paradise, and I will soar upwards from the snare of
the world.”

And again:

“O heart, be the slave of the King of the World, and be a king!
Abide continually under the protection of God’s favour!”

CHAPTER IV

COMPASSING OF THE KA’BAH

When we reached the outer gateway of the Bábé Salám, which leads into
the vestibule, it was to bow humbly and then to prostrate ourselves
twice on the threshold, kissing its sacred dust. After this we rose,
saying aloud, with closed eyes and outstretched hands:

“O God, this city is Thy city and this temple Thy temple. I am come
hither in search of Thy compassion, and in perfect obedience to Thy
commands. O Lord, I am submissive to Thy power, I am in passive
contentment with Thy chastisements, I seek the fulfilment of all my
desires from Thee and from none but Thee. Oblige me with Thy divine
compassion, O God, and fling open to me the gates of Paradise.”

We then passed into the vestibule, and, no sooner did our eyes behold
from the inner gateway the surface of the Harem than we stretched out
our hands once more to the sky and closed our eyes in prayer, saying:

“O Lord, this harem is Thy harem and the harem of Thy apostle.
Therefore, since I am here in response to Thy command, preserve
my flesh and blood from the fire of Hell and deliver me from Thy
punishments on the Day of Judgment.”

Then, advancing the left foot, we said:

“O God, grant me Thy protection from the temptations of the devil--may
he be accursed! I praise Thy prophet, O Lord, and also his disciples;
O, forgive me my sins and open on me the gates of Thy mercy.”

Next, when we walked through the inner gateway, and went down the
double flight of steps leading to the colonnades, whence the Ka’bah
twinkled on us its dusky, square face, we bowed reverently to the House
of God and forthwith recited the prayer, which being interpreted, runs:

“In the Name of the great Lord who is alone. There is no god like unto
Him. O God, I visit this Thy temple, praising Thee, and glorifying Thy
name. Nothing can be done save through Thee, for Thine is the power,
and Thine the will alone.”

Then I paused awhile, and my eyes took in the impressive scene.

The open Harem, surrounded on a higher level by the colonnades that
are surmounted by the crescented domes, was packed with pilgrims
from every quarter of Islám. In the middle is the Ka’bah, hemmed in
on three sides of its solid cubic walls by the semi-circular row of
columns already described. Now, facing the gold Spout, on the outer
side of the pillared enclosure, stands the station of the Hanifites.
There, in front of the pulpit, were grouped in the space between the
paved ways and in every attitude of worship the followers of reason.
Some were standing erect, their hands folded on their breasts, others
were kneeling on their prayer rugs, and many were bowed to the lump
of clay. Opposite to them were praying the Hanbalites before the
pavilion-shaped pulpit that forms the extreme limit of the enclosure on
the side nearest to the Black Stone. Priests and peasants, merchants
and princes, all had come from far and near to render unto God their
hearts and minds in accordance with the law of the Prophet. Those
living people clothed in the garments of the dead, there they were,
in the very centre whence had sprung the Faith that flashed forth its
rays over the East, there they were, and why? To do homage to Him whom
Muhammad had made manifest and had delighted to honour thirteen hundred
and twenty years ago. It must be conceded, even by the sceptical and
the scoffer, that the voice of the “illiterate” Prophet has still
the power to work wonders. Hark, his followers are shouting their
allegiance to his watchword. Up go their voices to the burning sky
overhead: “There is no god but God! Muhammad is the Messenger of God!”

Few could remain silent on hearing the cry of Faith within the columned
square of the Harem. It rang out like a trumpet-call, filling the heart
with an emotion never felt before. Sincere and true, it drowned the
rambling eloquence of the priest haranguing the Malekites out there
to the west. It gathered in volume as it passed from lip to lip until
the very pillars of the Harem seemed to shake. And then from time
to time was sung the Talbih, which might be called the song of the
winding-sheet, so frequently was it repeated by the pilgrims in íhrám:

Labbaik, Allahomma, Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, enal-hamda, vanahmeta lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!

It swelled ever higher, my guide and I joining in the chorus of praise
and thanksgiving, since it was our bounden duty so to do on setting
foot inside the sacred precincts. Having fulfilled the law of the
Prophet or of tradition in that particular, we were about to direct
our steps to the Ka’bah through the old gate of Beni-Sheybeh, which is
similar in shape to a triumphal arch, when my guide, standing suddenly
stock-still, turned on me a countenance of such antic self-reproach
that I was more than half afraid he had made up his mind to wring
from me a present ere he would pursue his avocation. Perhaps my
determination to resist his blandishments expressed itself in my face,
for he lost no time in correcting the impression he had made, saying:
“Yá-Moulai, I ask pardon of al Moakkibát, I prostrate myself before
the two guardian angels who, in order to cope with the difficulty of
recording in their respective books the good and the evil actions of
every Muslim, are changed from day to day, and I entreat the ones who
are on duty now not only to overlook the negligence whereof I accuse
myself, but also to allow me to retrieve, to the furtherance of our
eternal welfare, the blunder which I have committed. Know then, that to
him who reads a certain prayer near the Salám Gate, after descending
the steps thereof and passing the colonnades, shall be granted the free
gift of one hundred thousand good deeds, together with this additional
benefit, that an equal number of his sins shall be blotted out. Come,
yá-Moulai, let us lose no time in laying down the burden of our
misdeeds.” So saying, he conducted me to the proper place, and made me
repeat after him the following prayer:

“I begin in the name of God, and by the help of God, from God and
towards God, and through what is ordained by God, and on the faith
of the apostle of God. Praise be to God, peace be with the apostle
of God, peace be with Muhammad, the son of Abdullah. O prophet of
God, may God in His compassion grant thee His peace! And may peace
be with all the prophets of God: with Abraham, the friend of God,
and with the messengers of God. Praise be to the Lord of the two
worlds. May peace be with us, and with all the pious creatures of God.
O Lord, may Muhammad be praised, and may his people be praised. May
Muhammad be glorified, and may his people be glorified. May Muhammad
be redeemed, and may his people be redeemed. May Abraham be praised,
and all his people. O Lord, verily, Thou art magnanimous, and highly
to be praised. O Lord, I praise Muhammad Thy slave and Thy prophet.
O Lord, I praise Abraham Thy friend, and all Thy messengers. O Lord,
open to me the gates of Thy mercy, and bring me into obedience to Thee
and into submission to Thy will. O Lord, protect me under the shelter
of faith. For, verily, I am Thy slave, O Lord, and Thy guest in this
Thy house. O Lord the Compassionate, I remind thee that there is no
Lord but Thee. Thou art alone, and hast no mate. Thou art everlasting.
Thou begettest not, neither art Thou begotten, and there is not any
one like unto Thee. Verily, Muhammad is Thy slave and Thy apostle--may
peace be with him and with his people. O Generous, O Magnanimous, O
Exalted, O Just!”

Then we said three times, “God is Great!” and then, “I seek shelter
in Thee from the snares of the devils of man and jinn, and from the
evils that may betide the Arab and Ajem!” We afterwards put the right
foot foremost on the floor of the Harem, and thence returned with
steady steps to the arch of Beni-Sheybeh, which is hard by the Station of
Abraham, and there we raised our hands again and cried: “O Lord, grant
me admittance into Thy place of righteousness, and likewise a safe
return therefrom, and send down to us by Thy saving power a mighty king
that we may say: ‘Then came Right and destroyed Wrong. Verily, Wrong is
destroyable.’”

Now, the first ceremony of the Tewaff--that is, of the compassing of
the Ka’bah--must be performed in front of the Hajerul-Asvad or Black
Stone--a sacred relic which requires a short description before we
proceed on our way round the Ka’bah: and as an introduction to this
description we must relate the story of the creation of Adam, as told
by the Muhammadans. They tell us that God, having resolved to fashion
a creature in his own likeness, sent the angels, Gabriel, Michael, and
Israfil, one after another, to fetch for that purpose seven handfuls
of earth from seven depths and of seven colours. The earth, however,
foreseeing the revolt of man from the will of his Creator, persuaded
the angels to return without performing God’s command, so sure was she
of drawing down on herself the divine wrath should the inanimate clay
be made to breathe. The angel Azraïl was then despatched by God on the
same errand, and he, closing his heart against the earth’s appeal,
executed his commission remorselessly, on which account the Lord
appointed him to be the angel of death, charging him thenceforward to
separate the souls from the bodies. The earth which Azraïl had taken
was carried to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where it was first
kneaded by the angels, and then moulded by God into a human form. It
was afterwards left to dry for the space of forty years, the angels
visiting it frequently. Among these angels was Edris--who from being of
those that are nearest to God became the devil--and he, not contented
with looking on the work of the Creator, which he knew to have been
designed to be his superior, vowed he would never acknowledge it as
such, and he kicked it till it rang. Then God breathed His own spirit
into the clay, so that it was made man, and God called his name Adam,
and placed him in Paradise, and formed Eve out of his left side.

Now, when Adam fell and was cast out of Paradise there fell with him
a certain Stone, which has since become the most cherished possession
in the Muhammadan world. The legend runs that it was restored to
Paradise at the Deluge, after which it was brought back to the earth
by Gabriel and given to Abraham, who set it in the south-eastern corner
of the Ka’bah, which he is said to have built. There it remained till
the Karmatians--that sect, founded in the year 278 of the Hegira by a
native of Khúzistán called Karmata, which overturned the fundamental
points of Islám--bore it away in triumph to their capital, having first
polluted its sacred precincts by burying there three thousand dead
bodies, by tearing the golden Spout from its place, and by dividing
among themselves the veil of the temple itself. The citizens of Mecca
sought to redeem the Stone by offering no less than five thousand
pieces of gold for it; but the ransom was scornfully rejected by the
impious sectaries, who hoped by keeping it in their possession to draw
the pilgrims from the Holy City to their own capital. Some twenty-two
years later, however, having failed to achieve the purpose they had at
heart, they sent back the Stone of their own free will, covering their
discomfiture by declaring it to be a counterfeit. The dismay of the
Meccans was allayed when they discovered that the stone would swim on
water, that being the peculiar quality of the stone they had lost, and
so they were satisfied that the true one had been returned to them.

At first the Stone was whiter than milk, but it grew to be black,
either by the touch of a certain class of woman, by the sins of
mankind, or by the kisses of the pilgrims. All believers, whatever may
be the cause to which they attribute the change of colour, agree that
the defilement is purely superficial, the inside of the Stone being
still as white as the driven snow. Let us hope that the same thing can
be said of the hearts of the Faithful, whose lips are supposed to have
wrought on this lodestone of theirs a transformation so miraculous.
The silver box wherein it lies is about twenty inches square, and is
raised a little more than five feet from the ground. A round window
having a diameter of some nine inches is kept open on purpose to enable
the pilgrims to kiss or to touch the treasure within, which is known
as “the right hand of God on earth.” This year the act of osculation
was not performed by more than ten pilgrims out of every hundred that
attempted it, the crowd being utterly undisciplined in its zeal. It
must be confessed that I owed my good fortune to main strength, for I
shoved my way through the excited mob and examined the Stone curiously
while kissing it. In colour it is a shining black; in shape, hollow
like a saucer, presumably the result of the pressure of devoted lips.
A pilgrim, if he fail in touching the Stone, must make a reverential
salám before it, and then pass on. Special prayers are also said. My
guide, before leaving, recited for my edification certain lines from
the “Fotúhúl Haremeyn,” which in rhythmic prose would run something
like this:

“Think not that the Ka’bah was made from the earth--in the body of
the world it took the place of the heart. And the stone that you call
the Black Stone was itself a ball of dazzling light. In ages past,
the Prophet said, it shone like the crescent moon, until at last the
shadows, falling from the sinful hearts of those that gazed on it,
turned its surface black. Now, since this amber gem that came to the
earth from Paradise with the Holy Ghost has received such impressions
on itself, what should be the impressions which our hearts receive?
Verily, whosoever shall touch it, being pure of conscience, is like
unto him that has shaken hands with God.”

In front of this Stone, the first rite is performed: it is called
Niyyat or Determination. The various forms and ceremonies at this stage
of the pilgrim’s initiation vary with the sect to which he belongs,
but six points are common to all Muhammadans. First, Niyyat, including
the declaration of passive obedience to God’s will, the belief in His
day of judgment, and the formal repentance of all sins committed;
second, the frequent recitation of the watchword of the Faith which
is called Takbir; third, the reading of Esteghfar, a short chapter of
repentance and of tacit submission to God’s ordinance; fourth, certain
formulæ in praise of Allah and the Prophet, which are known by the
name of Tahleel; fifth, the intoning of Hamde, which is the chapter
of praise; and lastly, the lively repetition of Ghúl-hú-Allah, which
runs: “In the name of the most merciful God. Say, God is one God; the
eternal God: He begetteth not, neither is He begotten: and there is not
any one like unto Him.” The pilgrim, on making his “Determination,”
must raise his hands to his cheeks, putting the thumbs under the lobes
of his ears, and stretch up his shoulders, allowing his chest to droop
inward, and say in a voice toned to a reverent spirit: “O Allah, Thou
art omnipotent, Thou art glorified. I purpose, in Thy excellent name,
to make seven complete circuits round Thy blessed house.” Having
repeated this after the motewaff or guide, I cried out: “In the name of
God, God is great!” Then the stream of Hájís caught me to its bosom,
and I was tossed about as in a whirlpool. Fortunately Seyyid ’Alí stuck
close to my side, and there, in the eddying torrent of human beings
that gave forth a sound as of a swelling sea, we raised our voices, my
motewaff and I, one after the other, and cried: “O Allah, I do perform
this rite out of the fulness of my belief in Thee, in acknowledgment
of Thy book, and in faithfulness to Thy covenant, according to the
example of Thy prophet Muhammad--may he be blessed and glorified!” And
all the while we struggled as hard as we could to get within touch
of the Hajerul-Asvad, which, as we knew well from the pressure of
the throng, was the lodestone that drew the sheeted pilgrims to the
south-eastern corner of the house. Now we were driven forward, and then
we were hurled back; indeed, the bare-footed Faithful, seeing their
hopes alternately rise and fall, grew grimly resolute to kiss the Black
Stone, cost them what it might. The yearning to do so, which had filled
their hearts with piety in the seclusion of their homes, gave place
at close quarters to a determination so fierce and so uncontrollable
as might have offered to a cool-headed spectator a living picture of
Pandemonium. Every now and then a pilgrim would succeed in snatching
a hasty kiss, after which he would be flung aside, and another, less
fortunate than himself, would have to be contented with touching the
Stone with his hand and kissing that; but by far the greater number
had no other choice than to pass on with a salaam expressive of good
intentions. Some said their prayers with the tongue of their hearts,
and with tears in their eyes; others said them aloud, the sweat
streaming down their cheeks. “O Lord, I bring my heart and soul to
Thee, I acknowledge Thy Book faithfully, I give evidence that there is
not any one equal to Thee, and I promise to obey Thy Commandments.”

Opposite to the place called al-Moltezem, between the Black Stone
and the gate of the Ka’bah, we paused and said: “O Allah, Thou who
art omnipotent, I beseech Thee to pardon my sins in violating Thy
commands.” A few steps forward brought us face to face with the gate
itself, whose threshold is raised so high above the ground that the
pilgrims must mount by means of steps moving on wheels which are kept
alongside a wall of the Zem-Zem well when not in use. There we stopped
again, saying:

“O Allah, this house is Thy house, this sanctuary is Thy sanctuary,
this peaceful shelter is Thy shelter, and this place is the place
of all those that flee to Thee from hell-fire. O Allah, Thy house is
great and Thou art magnanimous; verily, Thou art compassionate and
merciful. From fire, O Allah, and from the cursed Satan deliver me:
yea, render my flesh and blood scatheless in the fire of hell, and
pour on me Thy mercy on the day of judgment, and shower on me Thy
blessings in this world and the next.”

We proceeded thence to the north-eastern angle called the Rokné-Araghi,
where we halted in order to ask another blessing, and cried out in a
tone of deepest contrition: “O Allah, I take refuge with Thee from
evil, from doubt, from disobedience, from disunion, from immorality,
from hypocrisy, and from all evil thoughts concerning one’s family and
one’s estate.” And when we went in front of the Mizab, gold Spout, a
few paces farther on, it was to say: “O Allah, grant me refuge under
the canopy of Thy heaven on the day whereon there is no shelter save
Thy shelter. O Allah, make me to drink of the same cup as Muhammad,
on whom be blessings and glory!” Then we proceeded on our way till
we reached the Rokné-Shami or the north-western angle, and there we
said: “O Allah, may it please Thee to accept this pilgrimage, making
it a praiseworthy perseverance and a laudable deed. O Compassionate,
O Beloved, O Lord, O Merciful, and Omnipotent!” Next, on reaching
the south-western angle or Rokné-Yemani, we fell again to praying,
in accordance with the law: “O, Allah, our Lord and Ruler, grant us
prosperity in this world and happiness in the next, and deliver us
from the punishments of fire. O Allah, I seek shelter in Thee from
infidelity and from poverty and from the sorrows of life and from the
pangs of death; I also take refuge in Thee from ignominy in this world
and in the world to come.” The last prayer we said was at the starting
point, facing the Black Stone. Finding it impossible to approach
within arm’s reach, we lifted up our hands from afar, and then bowed,
saying: “O Lord of this sacred relic, I flee to Thee and to ‘Thy right
hand on earth’ from all want and also from all infidelity.”

In this, the first circuit or “shaut,” we used the step called
“harvaleh,” walking briskly and shrugging the shoulders up and down,
and we adopted the same gait on the second and third “ashwat” (plural
form of “shaut”). But, in performing the remaining four circuits, a
more grave and stately tread was assumed according to the custom.
This ordinary eastern walk is called “teamol” and combines dignity
of demeanour with leisure of pace; it is a contemplative fashion of
walking, what the French would call _recueilli_, and is admirably
suited to a pilgrim’s devotional stroll round the House of God. On the
other hand, the reformer who should wish to introduce the go-ahead
civilisation of the West could not begin better than by levying a
prohibitive tax on the “teamol.” Sale records the tradition that this
sevenfold compassing of the Ka’bah was ordered by Muhammad, “that his
followers might show themselves strong and active, to cut off the hopes
of the infidels, who gave out that the immoderate heats of Medina had
rendered them weak.” A second tradition is that the circular motion
represents the orbicular motion of the heavenly bodies; a third, that
it is meant to symbolise the Egyptian wheels, those hieroglyphics
of the instability of human fortune; and a fourth, that it arose
from a custom among the Pagan Arabs, who, if they wished to humble
themselves, were wont to walk seven times round the person or persons
whom they delighted to exalt. Anyhow, the compassing of the Ka’bah,
be its origin what it may, is held by the Muhammadans to be an act of
self-sacrifice from man to God. I was much struck by the fact that
the victims of cholera and of other diseases were borne round the
sacred precincts in rude wooden coffins by their friends, who cried out
in tones of lamentation, “Yá-Allah! Yá-Allah!” It was an impressive
funeral procession, and is said to relieve the pressure of the grave,
and to insure to the corpse a safe and a speedy entrance into Paradise.
The Tewaff is brought to a close by a reverential visit to the tomb
of Abraham, which faces the door of the House. It is an open pavilion
resting on four pillars, and crowned with a crescented cupola.

There my guide and I, taking up our position on the thither side of
the tomb which was thus placed between ourselves and the House of God,
prostrated ourselves twice, saying our morning prayers the while; and
then, sitting on our hips, we raised our hands to the sky and said with
closed eyes:

“We give praise to Thee, O Lord, we glorify Thee in the name of
Muhammad--may peace be with him and with his people! O God, accept
this Hájj from me, and allow it not to be the last one. I praise thee,
O Lord, in all Thy attributes, I praise Thee for all Thy blessings; I
praise Thee for all Thou willest, I praise Thee for all Thy power. O
Lord, accept this worship from me, and cleanse my heart, and sharpen
my sense of duty. Take compassion on me, O God, for my worship’s sake,
and because I accept the words of Thy prophet--on whom be peace! O
Lord, make me to detest those that do not worship Thee, and make me
to love those who love Thee, and those who love Thy prophet and Thy
angels and all Thy pious creatures.”

Then, bowing our foreheads to the ground, we said aloud:

“O Lord, I worship Thee on my face; there is no God but Thee; Thou art
just and merciful; Thou art the beginning of everything, and the end
of everything; for Thine is the management and Thine the power alone.
O Thou that forgivest the sins of Thy people, pardon my offences,
for in Thee do I now confess my sins. Verily, no one can pardon grave
sinners except Thyself. I say, there is not any one to be compared
with Thee.”

The rewards of a correct performance of the Tewaff and of the necessary
prayers--preferably at sundown, the best time for meditation--are of a
sort to render the rite extremely popular among the pilgrims. At every
step they take, in making the seven circuits, no fewer than seventy
thousand sins will be blotted out of their bad books, and an equal
number of virtues be added to the companion volumes containing their
good actions. Nor is this all, for they will be made, at the same rate,
the intercessors of seventy thousand sinners; they will build up to
themselves the same number of palaces in heaven, and will earn the
fulfilment of seven hundred thousand of their desires in this world,
and of seventy thousand in the world to come. And that, no doubt, is
why we took precious care that our steps, even when walking briskly,
as we were obliged to do for the first three circuits, should be, if
smart, extremely short ones.

CHAPTER V

THE COURSE OF PERSEVERANCE

Having encompassed the Ka’bah seven times, we stood hard by the tomb
of Abraham and watched the pilgrims fighting to kiss the Black Stone.
The wonder was that we had emerged from the tight scrimmage with a skin
more or less whole. The perspiration oozed out of the pores in streams:
laying hold of the fag end of my sacred habit I wiped my forehead. “You
must not touch yourself,” said Seyyid ’Alí; “it is a grievous sin.”
“Let your conscience rest in peace,” I replied; “I will do penance by
sacrificing a sheep.”

The guide smiled. “There is no stain, however vile, but money shall
blot it out. Would that I were a rich man!” “Thou fool,” I cried, “how
about the stain of superstition? Will money wipe it out, think you?”
“Yá-Moulai,” he whispered, “speak low.... Listen. It is easier to
dig the heart out of a mountain with the sharp end of a needle than
to remove ignorance from the mind of a mullá. However, the Course
of Perseverance has yet to be trod. Come let us hop and be of good
courage, for to-morrow we must go in procession to Arafat. We must
begin again with Niyyat; that is, with a declaration of intention in
front of the Black Stone, and after that we must proceed to Safá, and
say our prayers there.” “I ask pardon of Allah!” I shrilled. “Look, the
people will be trodden under foot near the Black Stone!” The guide was
silent, his eyes were turned to where the crowd was thickest. “Look,”
he said, “a man is down. They are trampling him to death. That has
often happened. In 581 of the Hegira no less than eighty-four men were
trodden to death inside the Ka’bah. In 972 of the Flight sixty-five
men were suffocated through the pressure of the crowd in the Harem
itself.... Praise Allah, the man is up again.... See, his friends are
bearing him to a place of safety.” ...

God of love, what a sight! “He has achieved merit,” said the guide,
“except, it may be, in the eyes of the ‘mother of his children.’ She
will cease to love him when she sees him. However, he may die, and
thus she may be spared the shock of--did you--but what have I done to
offend you?” My reply was curt. “I find your levity somewhat tedious,”
I said impatiently. The wag was irrepressible. He waxed argumentative
suddenly, affirming that the snares of the heart are beauty of face
and charm of voice. He bade me to look on his own manly countenance. I
might believe it or not, but even he had been deceived more than once.
What chance of keeping love, therefore, had the wretch whose face had
been stamped as flat as the palm of his hand? “Listen, and I will hum
you a song,” he whispered, “but it must be low, since it concerns the
heart, the theme of the poets, and not the soul, which is the concern
of the priests. For my part I am on the side of the poets. Even in
Mecca. The song is old. It was sung by Adam in the Garden of Eden after
the Fall. I have found it true. Therefore, and for no other reason, it
is worth quoting--

“‘Oh, heart of mine, how often canst thou trace
Thy aching wounds to one bright maiden’s Face!
How often must, amid discordant din,
Another’s Voice be toned to take you in!

“‘Yet ah, my heart, among thy darling foes,
Was one that matched both Nightingale and Rose;
A Flow’r, she bloomed a day; a Bird, her flight
She winged ... and turned thy Day to endless Night.’”

“Alas, my poor heart, its disease is incurable, I fear. No matter.
Safá awaits our coming. We will go and ‘declare our intention,’ and
then be off to the hill of Purity. Let us skip and hop, for to-morrow
we die. Yá-Allah! yá-Muhammad!” So, approaching as near as we could to
the Black Stone, we closed our eyes, giving it as our determination
to run seven times between the platforms of Safá and Marveh, and to
recite the prescribed prayers at the appointed places. It is considered
an act of grace in the devout to proceed thence to the Zem-Zem well,
and, drawing a bucket of water by means of the windlass with his own
hands, to besprinkle therewith his head and back and stomach, after
which he should drink a handful of the water, repeating the following
prayer: “O Lord, I beseech Thee to make this draught for me a source
of inexhaustible knowledge, a vast livelihood, and a preventive of all
pains and diseases.”

[Illustration: THE POORER SIDE OF EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS.]

Frequent allusion is made to this spring in Arabian and Persian
literature. Its water ranks second to that of Kúsar, a stream that runs
in the Garden of Paradise, keeping the grass ever green and the flowers
ever blooming. The prettiest ruby wine is compared by the poets to the
water of Zem-Zem; for they believe it to be the spring that “gushed out
for the relief of Ishmael,” when Hagar, his mother, wandered beside
him in the wilderness. The story goes that when she saw the bubbling
water it was to call to her son, in the Egyptian tongue, “Zem, zem!”
(“Stay, stay!”). The taste of the water is difficult to describe, but
it is certainly bitterish. My guide, to whom I had appealed in the
matter, answered, saying, “Allah--may I be His sacrifice--has made
this water sacred, as you know. It is neither sweet nor bitter, neither
fresh nor salt, neither scented nor stinking, but would appear in its
taste to be a mixture of all these qualities. In everything sacred
there must be a mystery, or how could the mullás live?” As to its
attributes, they may be counted by the hundred. There is no disease
that it will not cure provided it be taken with a “pure” conscience. It
is as inspiring to a Muslim poet as that of Helicon to an unbeliever.
It prolongs life and purifies the soul of him that drinks it in
unswerving obedience to God through the mediation of Muhammad. The
rich pilgrims carried gold or silver flasks in which they poured
the precious water, keeping it as a preservative of health, or as a
remedy in case of sickness. An Indian Prince told me that he intended
to keep his in order to restore the eyesight of his brother, who had
been unable to accompany him on the pilgrimage. The Faithful bring
their winding-sheets along with them and wash them in the holy spring.
Some Negroes from Zanzibar have the honour to be the guardians of the
well and the dispensers of its contents, and they exact as much as
twenty piastres from the poor pilgrims for the washing of one of these
winding-sheets, and ten times that amount from the rich.

Now, this practice of washing the grave-clothes stands in need of
explanation. When a Muslim dies and is buried, he is received by a
heavenly host, who gives him notice of the coming of the two examiners,
Nakir and Monker. These are two angels as livid as death and as black
as a putrid corpse, and they proceed to question him concerning his
faith, more especially as to the unity of God and the apostleship of
the Prophet. If he prove himself a true Mussulman, he is suffered to
rest in peace and is refreshed by the air of Paradise. But, if he be
of a loose belief, he is gnawed and stung till the resurrection by
ninety-nine dragons that have seven heads each, the earth pressing
harder and harder on his body without, unfortunately, injuring the
dragons. It is in order to escape from this torture that the pilgrims
wash their winding-sheets, in the life-giving water of Zem-Zem,
some of them taking the precaution to make assurance doubly certain
by inscribing on the sheets, in coloured letters, the most sacred
chapters of the Kurán. One of the pilgrims showed me a winding-sheet
belonging to himself on which had been written in green ink every
single chapter of the Book. The well is covered with a small square
building crowned with a cupola and a crescent, and is paved inside with
marble. There are four Chinese windlasses at the top of the shrine for
drawing the water, and these were working all day long, the keepers
having the greatest difficulty in restraining the ardour of the poor,
tradition-ridden devouts, some of whom were wrought to such a pitch of
blind fanaticism that it was as much as the Negroes could do to prevent
them from flinging themselves into the well.

Since I had not the good fortune to win my way to the windlass, I took
a jug of Zem-Zem water, making the attendant a present of ten piastres
for it. Then, having performed the necessary ablutions, I went out by
the old gate (on the thither side of the Place of Abraham) and ascended
the stairs of Safá. We found the platform alive with pilgrims, and
there, facing the Ka’bah, we had to pass in review all the blessings
we had received from God during our lives, from the days of our birth
upward. That done, we repeated seven times in an audible tone: “God
is great.... I praise thee, O Lord!... There is no god but God....”
Three times: “There is no god but the one God; there is not anyone
like unto Him. For His is the kingdom, and to Him do we lift up our
praise. He is the giver of life and the giver of death. Death and
life He bestoweth on all living creatures, but He dieth not, neither
doth He sleep. He is almighty over everything....” Once: “O Lord, I
praise Muhammad and his people.” Three times: “I praise the Lord who
endureth for ever, I praise the everlasting Lord.” Three times: “I
confess there is no god but God, and I confess likewise that Muhammad
is His slave and His apostle. We worship Him whom we praise, and none
but Him!” Then three times we cried: “O Lord, have mercy on me, and be
compassionate to me, and give me justice in this world and in the world
to come.... O Lord, give us Thy blessing in this life, and grant us Thy
peace in the next, and protect us from the punishment of fire.” Next,
having repeated one hundred times the words “God is great; there is
no god but God, and Him do I praise,” I said aloud: “O Lord, I praise
Thee in death and in what comes after death. In Thee, O God, do I
seek shelter from the darkness of the grave, from the pressure of the
grave, and the disturbance of the grave. Under the canopy of Thy divine
compassion do I take refuge on the day when there is no shelter but Thy
shelter.” Then, in my inmost mind, I gave up to the Lord my faith, my
person, and my people, crying: “I return to Thee, O Lord, Who alone art
compassionate and merciful, my faith, myself, my people, my property,
and my progeny. O Lord, make me to act according to Thy Book and the
dictation of Thy apostle: make me faithful to Thy people, and protect
me from revolution.” As an increase of wealth, so says tradition, this
prayer should also be read: “O Lord, I seek shelter in Thee from the
punishments of the grave: from its troubles, and its separations, and
its awe, and its percussion, and its blackness, and its closeness.”
Then, uncovering the back, one should raise the voice, crying out loud:
“O Lord, pardon! O Thou who hast commanded to pardon, O Thou who art
the first to pardon--pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon! O Generous! O
Compassionate! O Near! O Far! make me to achieve Thy satisfaction by
acting in obedience unto Thee!” Then, descending from the platform,
I said: “I persevere seven times in running between Safá and Marveh,
and this I do in order to fulfil my pilgrimage and in obedience to the
command of the Lord of the Universe.”

The distance between the two hills is four hundred and thirty-eight
yards. The course has to be traversed seven times. It begins at Safá
and ends on the seventh lap at Marveh. Those who are too weak or too
ill “to persevere” on foot must be carried on a horse, a camel, a
mule, or a donkey, like the women, who, if sufficiently wealthy, are
accompanied by three hired servants. The first, the forerunner, who
clears the way, wears an expression of indescribable gravity. You can
tell by his face that you have only to cast an eye behind him to behold
a “Light of the Harem.” The second, leading the beast by the bridle,
looks religiously ahead, and the third brings up the rear, doing all
in his power to protect his precious burden from the shrieking crowd.
If a pilgrim at this stage of initiation allow his thoughts to dwell
on the fair sex he must sacrifice a calf in the Valley of Mina. From
the foot of Safá to the first minaret at the south-eastern end of
the Harem the pilgrim must walk at his ease, and there he must say a
prayer. It is this: “I begin in the name of God, and by God, and God
is great. May peace be with Muhammad and with his household. O Lord,
the compassionate and merciful, who art capable beyond my knowledge, O
Thou who art most exalted and most generous, take this act of worship
of mine, which is not worthy of Thee, and, enriching it with Thy
abundance, make it more deserving of Thy acceptance. I offer up my
‘perseverance’ to Thee, O Lord, and in Thee my hope and my strength
are fixed. O Thou that acceptest the devotion of the pious, reject not
my offering, O God.” Thenceforward, until he reached the Baghleh Gate,
some eighty yards away, the pilgrim had to suit his gait as far as in
him lay to the rolling pace of a camel on the trot. He had now reached
the starting point for hopping. Two big green flags were flying to give
him warning. Up went the left leg of every mother’s son and of many a
father’s daughter--for to every woman who rode there were twenty on
foot--and a great deal of panting confusion and breathless excitement
ensued. Hands were lifted to the sky, voices were raised in praise of
God, asking for strength “to persevere,” mules stampeded, horses lashed
out with their heels, camels pierced their way through the surging mob
as silently and as irresistibly as a ship breasts the sea, men and
women being hurled aside like waves. The endurance displayed by the
bare-footed devout was marvellous. They were buoyed by the assurance
that they were supported by the angels, Gabriel being the captain of
the guard.

Now shoved forward by the pilgrims in the rear, now carried back by
those who were returning from Marveh, I hopped about in a vicious
circle, groaning and perspiring, like a man bereft of his senses.
Should I never reach the blessed Gate of Ali! Who said the distance
was not more than seventy-five yards? Let him hop over the course and
he will multiply its figures by ten at every step. The folly of it all
seemed to crash down on the crown of my bare head, shattering my belief
in human sanity. For, carried away by the obligation of imitating
the “persevering” antics of my fellow-pilgrims, I found myself now
hopping on one leg like a melancholy heron, and now, on reaching Ali’s
Gate, pitching and rolling and labouring along like a spent camel
under a goad. Yá-Allah! yá-Muhammad! I cut a sorry figure in my own
estimation, no matter what merit I earned in the minds of my co-mates
in affliction. So depressed was I that I had forgotten to say the
prescribed prayer at the second minaret before reaching the Baghleh
Gate: “O God, the possessor of praise and knowledge and mercy and
magnanimity, pardon my trespasses, for, verily, there is no forgiver of
sins but Thee alone.” Many were maimed for life, not a few were killed,
accident followed accident, but still the unheeding wave of pilgrims
swept along over the fiery sand, shrieking and gesticulating, till my
senses seemed to swoon. My guide, inured to the Arabian heat and to the
unhallowed confusion of the course, performed his part with a studied
dignity and a nimbleness of resource which added a touch of humour to
an exhibition otherwise saddening. But these pilgrims themselves were
tormented by no such self-accusing thoughts. If their feet were cut
they had the consolation of believing that the streams of Paradise
would wash them whole, for the cool water of Salsabíl and Tasním, if
they succumbed to their devotional exertions, would it not be lifted to
their parched lips by divine peris and everlasting life be theirs?

What might strike the spectator most of all would probably be the
contrast presented by the dignity of the prayers and the occasional
outbursts of religious extravagance on the part of the priest-ridden
and ignorant among the pilgrims. The prayers might be read in any
church in Christendom. The stormy outburst from all reserve could
only be witnessed nowadays in the East, where religion, that ship
of salvation, though seaworthy enough in its undeniable if narrow
sincerity, is in constant danger of being wrecked in the breakers of
fanaticism. Muhammad reverenced science. Several sayings have been
already quoted in which it was rated by him at its true value. The
priests persist in disregarding its lessons from sheer self-interest.
It is not the light of religion which they spread abroad. It is the
fire of fanaticism which they fan--a fire which, by throwing out
abundant heat but no light whatever, burns while diffusing darkness.
“God does not change the condition of a people,” said Muhammad, “until
they change it for themselves.” If these retrograde priests had kept
themselves abreast of the times, as they were in duty bound to do as
followers of a man of progressive genius, the crescent of Islám had
been a well-nigh perfect round long ago. Enlightenment was not wanting
on the part of a great number of laymen, as I shall show later on; but
as to the greater number of the priests I met at Mecca, well, let us
hope that, on ascending the platform of Marveh, they were conscious of
falling short of the responsibilities of their office, and that they
made amends by throwing into the prayer of repentance the burden of a
contrite spirit: “O Lord, Thou that hast commanded to pardon; O Thou
that lovest pardon; O Thou that grantest pardon; O Thou that forgivest
with pardon; O Lord, pardon! pardon! pardon! pardon!” And if they could
then weep out of the fulness of a heart ill at ease in its breast, and
not perfunctorily as by law ordained, there might be some hope of their
redemption. All joined in the concluding prayer, which runs: “O Lord,
verily, I beseech Thee, in all circumstances, to endow me plentifully
with tacit faith in Thee, and also to grant that I may be pure of
intention in my resignation to Thy divine will.”

PLAN OF THE HAREM.

_An Explanation of the Frontispiece._

SM indicates the Salám Gate, through which the pilgrim must enter and
where the course begins; AM, the Tomb of Abraham; BK, the Black Stone;
K, the Ka’bah, or House of God; Z, the Fountain of Zem-Zem; SA, the
Safá Gate, through which the pilgrim passes out on his course; S,
Safá, the platform on which one must walk and pray; BH, the Baghleh
Gate, the starting-point for hopping; AI, the Ali Gate, the finishing
place for hopping, but on the return journey the starting-point,
with BH as its ending. M indicates Marveh, the platform on which the
pilgrim must walk and pray. The distance for hopping--marked by two
pointers at BH and AI--is some seventy-five yards, the dotted lines
showing the Course of Perseverance, and the arrow-heads indicating its
direction.

CHAPTER VI

SCENE IN AN EATING-HOUSE--VISIT TO THE KA’BAH

It was two o’clock by the time we had completed the Course of
Perseverance, and, since we had broken our fast at an early hour in
the morning, we betook ourselves in a mighty hurry to the eating-house
of Stád Mukhtar, the Effendi pastrycook of Mecca. The caravan we had
left behind us at Heddah, swollen beyond recognition on the journey
up, had just arrived, and Mussah-street was in a veritable delirium of
excitement. It was dry and blazing weather, with a glow as of a furnace
in the air, and the passing of the caravan, with its streaming banners,
its jaded camels, and its betousled pilgrims, added to the poignance
of our hunger by delaying the hour that should see it satisfied. Only
one glimpse we took of the medley of men and beasts. As we raised our
eyes we saw, securely strapped on an ambling mule, a man of lofty mien,
albeit distressingly wasted, with streaming white beard and hair, and
the face of a corpse for tense impassivity. His eyes, deep sunk and
expressionless, met mine. He at once raised his voice--and never shall
I forget the eerie exaltation ringing in its tones--and cried aloud:
“Praise be to God on high, who hath brought me alive into His house.
Blessed is he who dieth in the house of the Lord. May He be praised and
glorified!” And from the crowd there arose a shout, that passed from
lip to lip in a fervour of congratulation: “May it be auspicious....
May your eyes be lightened.... May your years be increased.... May
your shadow never grow less.... Yá--Allah!... Yá--Muhammad!” The grim
fortitude of that towering wraith of a man on the nimble-footed mule
stirred in his co-religionists I know not what feelings of awe and
gratification. For pity there was no room in their breasts; envy there
might have been, but of a sort whereof heroism is engendered; not one
among them but had wished to be in the place of him who, supported by
faith and guided by death, had won the crown of self-martyrdom. In a
moment the man was gone past.

“Islám,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “see how brightly it burns in a grate worthy
to contain the sacred fire. That man’s zeal has made me rich in faith.
I tell you that the stars of heaven were a mean decoration for a zealot
so long-suffering and sincere. But come, Yá-Moulai, let us break our
fast in the famous eating-house of Stád Mukhtar. Behold, the entrance
awaits our coming, for the door is open.”

[Illustration: MUSSAH STREET AT MECCA.]

[Illustration: PUTTING ON IHRÁM AT JIDDAH.]

On crossing the threshold we uttered a loud salám, looking up into
the air the while. Then we stepped inside, for, as the Persians say,
if you wish to escape reproof you must assume the same “colour” as
your company. The shop was oblong, measuring some 24ft. by 9ft., at
a guess. Rough stools and low black erections on four legs took the
place of chairs and tables. I counted no less than sixty pilgrims
engaged in eating. It would have been impossible to count the beggars
who came crowding in. These I brushed unceremoniously aside, much to
the annoyance of one of them, who cried out in vulgar Arabic: “May
your meal not sit well on you! How can you eat while we are starving
here?” Compassion laid its hand in mine, and I would have given the
petitioner a present, ungracious though he was, had not Seyyid ’Alí
restrained me, saying: “Yá-Moulai, do not judge our friend by his
looks. His appearance, I grant, is poverty-stricken beyond the power
of repletion, but, you may take my word for it, his wealth underground
surpasses the dreams of this slave of yours.” In this opinion he was
supported by the pilgrims inside, who assured me that the residential
beggars of Mecca are often extremely rich and in the habit of burying
the money they wring from the credulity or the generosity of the
strangers within the gates. The din in the eating-house was beyond
belief. Everybody spoke at once, and at the top of his voice. A pack of
children fresh from school would give you an idea of the uproar. The
first questions the pilgrims asked of one another were their names,
their nationalities, their professions, and their family pedigrees.
Around one of the diminutive tables were seated two men, and, as there
were a couple of vacant stools, I took one of them, my guide, as a mark
of respect, sitting down on my left. Shortly after another pilgrim
came in, and, picking up a stool, wedged himself between Seyyid ’Alí
and myself, muttering a half-reluctant “Bismillah!” The gentleman
directly facing me was a Turkish Effendi, Mahmud Bey by name. Like the
majority of the inmates, he was clad in íhram, but his face singled
itself out by virtue of its stony reserve. On the extreme right was
a Persian Mirza, called Zainul-Abedin, whose countenance prepared me
for the authoritative unction of his speech. A stalwart Afghan sat on
my guide’s left hand, while the intruder, who had separated us, was a
native of Hyderabad, Deccan. His name was Abdul Saleh.

The Persian Mirza was the first to break the silence. Looking at each
of us in turn he said, in his mellowest tones: “Bah! Bah! Khúsh amedid!
You are welcome. You have brought purity into the City of God.”

“And so have you,” was ’Alí’s affable response. “I was the essence of
impurity when I left my native town of Ardebil to perform this holy
pilgrimage; but I trust that God may purify my conscience.” The guide
changed his birthplace with his company. “Do you come from Ardebil, my
friend?” said Abdul Saleh. “Many learned people have come from that
blessed city. The poet calls it the House of Knowledge.”

Seyyid ’Alí smiled a sarcastic smile. “Even the learned, my good
brother of Hindustan,” quoth he, “are prisoners within the limits of
the knowable, so fear not to inform the company wherein the fame of
Ardebil consists.” My guide referred to the fact that the place he had
chosen as his native town is the convict station of Persia.

“God forbid!” replied Abdul Saleh, courteously, “for the tact that
is yours shows the poet to have been right. The abode of learning
must count you among its most honoured citizens.” These amenities put
the whole table in a good temper, and Seyyid ’Alí was not long in
summoning the waiter, Omar, who, having informed us that his master,
Stád Mukhtar, had gone to Mina in order to open a branch establishment
there, awaited our orders in an attitude so free and easy that Mahmud
Bey, frowning ever so slightly, grew a degree more reserved than ever.
The waiter wore a fez with a streaming tassel, a long white robe,
and a bright silk sash, from which hung an apron that had once been
white. The dishes we ordered were a ghormeh of camel’s flesh roasted
in onions; a kúfteh, or mincemeat, served with rice and seasoned with
spices; a lamb kebab on a skewer folded in a sheet of bread fresh from
the oven; and a sweet called mehlabi, which looked like English jelly.
Omar, placing his right hand to his ear, like a muezzin bugling out
the cry of the Faith, shouted out at the top of his voice to the cook
in the adjoining kitchen: “Ghormeh! Kúfteh! Kebab! Melabi! Eikki!”
then, seeing that his cigarette was gone out, he asked me to provide
him with a match, which was given to him by my guide, who did not share
Mahmud Bey’s ill-disguised disapproval of the waiter’s demeanour. The
Turk, raising his eyes to mine, said across the table: “Effendim, the
waiters of Stambul have better manners--however.” A contemptuous shrug
of the shoulders completed the sentence. The speaker addressed me in
his own language, though he was a good Arabic scholar; but a political
discussion which followed a question of mine as to whether Abdul Saleh
approved or disapproved of the British rule in India was held in Arabic.

“The poet says: ‘The essence of human enjoyment is the belly,’” said my
guide, “so let us enjoy ourselves in a human fashion.”

“What will you say,” objected Masoud, “if I assure you that the poet
means the spiritual belly and not the bodily one?”

“This,” replied Seyyid ’Alí, quickly, “that there was once a Dervish
whose mysticism had so clouded his understanding that he interpreted
the writings of Omar Khayyam as you would have me interpret them.
The drinking of wine, according to him, was meant to symbolise the
adoration of God. Now, it chanced that the dervish broke the law, and
was brought before his Governor, who sentenced him ‘to eat five hundred
sticks.’ The farrashes, fortified by the juice of the grape, laid on
with a will. It was heart-rending to hear the shrieks of the sufferer.
His philosophy deserted him, so that he yelled for mercy. The minions
of the law appealed to the Governor, who said to the dervish: ‘Have no
fear, they are merely spiritual sticks. You must eat them every one.
May they go down well with you.’ Are you answered?”

“Blessed be Islám. Long live the Caliphs of the Faith!” cried Abdul
Saleh, as though he had just awoke from sleep.

“And long live the Ameers!” said Masoud, in a frenzy of patriotism.
“May the soul of Abdur Rahman Khan, the conqueror of Kafiristan, the
light of the nation and religion, rest in peace, and may the sword of
Islám grow sharper day by day.”

“The sword of Islám is sharp enough,” cried Seyyid ’Alí, “but it
requires men to use it, as in the age of the blessed Caliphs.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Persian Mirza, in anger. “Do you
think we have no men in Persia? May God keep stiff the neck of Iran.
One man of Iran is worth fifty foreign unbelievers.”

“Particularly if they come from Káshán and Isfahán,” added the guide,
sarcastically, referring to the alleged lack of courage in the
inhabitants of those two towns.

“May your heart be cleansed,” cried the Mirza. “Your sarcasm, I take
it, is aimed at the authorities, that enlist so few soldiers from the
southern provinces, and scarce a single man from the towns you mention.”

The Turk looked surprised. “Do you mean to say that Isfahán and Káshán
do not contribute to the strength of the Persian Nizam?” he asked.
“How, then, can Persia defend herself against aggression?”

“You do not know, my good friend,” replied the Mirza, “what the
Persians can do. We have no cause to fear any foreign invasion.”

“Certainly not,” said the Afghan, with the tongue in his cheek,
dreaming no doubt of the sacking of Isfahán by his countrymen.

[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN COFFEE-HOUSE FREQUENTED BY THE POOR.]

“If you will have patience,” said the guide, “I will tell you the
circumstances that led the authorities, whereon the sun of the Faith
shines, to abandon the practice of enrolling recruits from Káshán
and Isfahán.”

We had now finished our meal and were drinking coffee and smoking
hukkahs, and so we lent a willing ear to the sceptical rogue, who
proceeded thus:

“Early in the reign of the late martyred Shah-in-Shah--may peace be
on his soul--the late Amin-ud-dowleh of Káshán assumed the reins of
government, and when that came to pass his fellow-citizens implored him
to free them from the obligation of serving in the Army. The Minister
laid before them a plan whereby they might achieve the end they had in
view. Now you must know that Teherán is a mighty capital, and if any
one of you doubt the fact let him go there at midday and listen to the
booming of the great gun, which shatters the buildings round about,
laying whole streets in ruins. Well, one day, when the Shah-in-Shah was
driving through the parade square, he saw a squad of Kásháni soldiers
weeping over a dead comrade. His Majesty, having made inquiries, was
informed that the brave Kásháni had died from the fright caused by
the sound of the midday gun. Then the Shah, bursting out laughing,
disbanded the whole regiment, giving strict orders to discontinue the
enlistment of soldiers from Káshán.”

“Why don’t you finish the story, my friend?” asked the Mirza. “The
sting lies in the tail thereof. For when the regiment was disbanded the
soldiers asked for a Cavalry escort to conduct them safely home.” A
roar of laughter followed.

“As for the non-enlistment of soldiers from Isfahán,” resumed the
Mirza, “take this story from me as its true cause. The soldiers of the
Isfahán regiment had not received any pay for a long time, and so they
waylaid his Majesty one day when he was driving to the shrine of Shah
Abdul Azim and asked him to give them relief. The Secretary for War,
fearing revelations and the consequences, approached his Majesty and
told him that the soldiers had rebelled in connection with the cursed
Bábí Rebellion. The late Shah returned to the Palace at once, and had
fourteen of the soldiers executed, and then started on a trip to the
hills. When he came back it was to discover the mistake he had made,
and, as an act of repentance, he absolved the town from the yoke of
soldiery.”

The Turk, Mahmud Bey, rose and made to leave the eating-house. Looking
the Persian Mirza in the eyes, he said: “My friend, it is better to
be seated in a corner, deaf and dumb, than to have a tongue that is
not under one’s control. I have the honour to bid you good-bye.” My
guide and I followed him, leaving the others to digest his admonition
at their leisure, and bent our steps once more in the direction of the
Harem for the purpose of visiting the interior of the House of God.

The gate of the House, except on certain occasions, is kept shut.
It is opened for men on the tenth day of the month of Muharram,
and for women on the following day. During each of the months of
Rabíu-’l-avval, Rajab, and Ramazán (the Muhammadan Lent) admittance is
granted on two occasions to the devout, who are again free to cross
the sacred threshold once in the month of Sha’ban. On the twelfth day
of Rabíu-’l-avval prayers are offered by the high priest of Mecca,
within the Ka’bah, for the health of his Majesty the Sultan. This
ceremony is a private one. The open sesame to the house, in the days of
pilgrimage, is the seductive jingle of gold. An influential Hájí, by
means of _bakhshísh_, can effect an entrance whenever he likes, but his
poverty-stricken fellow-pilgrims are not granted the same privilege.
Twice every year the house is ceremoniously cleaned and washed. When
that happens it is incumbent on the Sheríf, the Governor-General of
Hejaz, the head priest, the keepers, and the priestly officials to
be present, after they have performed the prescribed purifications
and ablutions of the body. The first annual cleaning takes place on
the twentieth day of Rabíu-’l-avval. First the floor of the house is
scrubbed with the water from the Zem-Zem well, then the walls are
besprinkled with ottar of roses and other fragrant scents. Aloe-wood
is kindled in braziers, and spreads its delicious perfume through the
air. The officials prostrate themselves twice in prayer, after which
they withdraw. The second cleaning of the year is effected in the same
fashion on the twentieth day of Zi-ka’d, preparatory to the ceremony
of draping the outer walls of the house with ihrám. For, thirteen days
before the Hájj-day, the Ka’bah itself is clothed in the winding-sheet
of humility, as though it were regarded unworthy to be called the House
of God.

This ihrám of the shrine consists of a soft white material manufactured
in Yemen, and is hung on the outer walls to the height of seven feet
from the ground. One of the most interesting sights is the selling
of this stuff to the richer pilgrims by the keepers of the Ka’bah.
A square inch of it will often fetch as much as £3. The purchaser
considers it his most cherished possession. The mere touch of it is
held to cure every sickness. The sight of it is enough to protect its
owner from the evil eye. So long as he has it about him Satan will
practise his snares on him in vain. Thousands of miracles are believed
to be wrought by its use. “So-and-So is a lucky man,” one devout will
say to another, “he has obtained through God’s grace a strip of the
ihrám of the Blessed Ka’bah.” The chief door-keeper of the present
day goes by the name of Sheykh Shaban. The post is a coveted one, and
has become hereditary of recent years. On the Hájj-day the ihrám is
taken down, and is replaced by the kesveh, which is composed of eight
pieces of black silk, embroidered round the margins with Kurán texts
in letters of gold, and of a curtain of the same design and colour. Two
of these pieces of silk go to cover each one of the outer walls. They
are hung from the corners on long silver loops. The curtain is used to
drape the silver-plated door, and falls to the ground from a rod of
solid silver beautifully chased.

The “Square House,” or Ka’bah, stands almost in the centre of the
Harem, rather nearer to the west than to the east. The ground whereon
it lies is accounted holy, since it was here that Adam, after his
expulsion from the Garden of Eden, first worshipped his Creator, a tent
being sent down from heaven for the purpose. This act of grace on the
part of the heavenly hosts was the compassionate result of a conference
over which the Archangel Gabriel had presided. There was substituted
for the tent by Adam’s son Seth a structure of clay and stone which
was rebuilt at a later period, under the superintendence of Abraham
and Ishmael his son. So much for the legendary history of the house.
The task of restoring the sacred edifice, in the time of Ignorance,
fell to the lot of the four chief tribes of Arabia. It was rebuilt by
the Kuraish, a few years after Muhammad’s birth, and was destroyed by
the torrents thirty-five years after its completion. Then ensued an
intertribal war, each of the clans claiming for itself a complete side
of the house which should face its tents, till the cause of strife
was settled by an agreement among the contending tribes to accept the
arbitration of Abú-Amid, the chief of the Kuraish. The decision of
Abú-Amid was that the tribes should abide by the determination of the
man who, on the following Friday afternoon, should be the first to
leave the temple. So haphazard an arrangement was bound to appeal to
the sportsmanlike instinct of a race that has been ever wont to test
the wisdom of its actions by the arbitrament of chance. The warriors
sheathed their swords, and when the fateful day arrived not a single
murmur was raised against the man who, being the first to reach the
open air, set about planning the building as it now appears. This man,
it is said, was Muhammad. The Ka’bah, which was certainly reconstructed
in the year 1627--the successive Sherífs and Sultans adding to its
interior decoration--is said to have been destroyed and restored twelve
times since the death of the Prophet.

In shape the Ka’bah is an almost solid square, having from outside a
length of fourteen yards, and being eleven yards broad and sixteen
yards high. From afar it has the look of an immense block of
dark-coloured granite. The double roof is supported from within by
pillars of aloe-wood, and is held in so great reverence by the devout
that it is declared by them never to have been polluted by the Harem
pigeons until recently, the present misbehaviour on the part of the
birds being taken as a sign of the approaching end of the world. The
gateway, which fills a considerable portion of the eastern wall, is
raised about six feet from the ground, and measures in height some four
yards, as far as I could gauge. The door itself is made of aloe-wood,
and is covered over with plates of solid silver, and studded with heavy
silver nails. The precious metal was presented to the house, in 959
of the Hegira, by the generous Sultan Suleymán. Inlaid in the eastern
end of the southern wall of the Ka’bah is the famous Black Stone which
might be said to be the centre of the pilgrims’ circling aspirations,
and the pivot of their circumambulations round the sacred precincts.
Another stone, marking the Sepulchre of Ishmael, lies at the base of
the northern wall, and from the roof above there projects a horizontal
semicircular rainspout, which, including the end fixed in the wall, is
five yards long, measures twenty-four inches in width, and is made of
massive gold. The water flows from the lip of the split pipe to the
floor of the Harem below. The tomb of Abraham, the legendary builder of
the temple, is situated close by, to the east, not far from the Gate of
Beni Shaibeh.

The Prophet’s faithful followers, when they say their prayers, must
turn their faces in the direction of the Ka’bah, no matter where they
may be. This ascertaining of the exact position of the House of God,
which is the centre of the Holy City, is called “taking the Kiblah or
Outlook.” Thus the Muhammadans of Syria, and those beyond it to the
north, having fixed the Kiblah, are face to face with the northern
wall, sacred to the Stone of Ishmael and the gold rainspout: their
prayers are therefore sure to be heard. Those of Persia, Turkistan,
Northern India, Sind, and a part of China, look in the direction of
the north-eastern angle, called the Rokné-Araghi, which is an equally
blessed outlook, since the door of the house is on the eastern side
and rather more to the north than the south thereof. The faces of the
Muslims of Aden, of Southern India, of Madagascar, and of Australia,
are turned to the eastern wall or the south-eastern corner of it,
while those of the faithful of Constantinople, as well as those of the
Muhammadans of some parts of Russia, are opposite to the western wall
of the sacred building. The Boers believed themselves to be the “chosen
people.” It is a pity they are not Muhammadans. For, if they were,
they would be considered now the chosen people of Islám for the simple
reason that they would face the southern wall of the Ka’bah, wherein is
laid the Black Stone of immemorial sanctity. But the prayers the most
acceptable to God, when all is said and done, are the prayers raised
from any quarter within the Harem of the House of Allah on earth.

The interior of the Ka’bah is far more impressive than the exterior.
The silver threshold is reached by means of a staircase running on
wheels. There the pilgrim must prostrate himself, asking God to grant
him his heart’s desire. He must be careful to maintain the correct
demeanour, closing his eyes and lifting up his hands, inasmuch as the
angels, who are believed to keep watch over the entrance, are quick to
resent the slightest breach in the prescribed ceremony. The guide who
accompanied me assured me of the fact. He was good enough to see that
I had forgotten neither my rosary of ninety-nine beads corresponding
with the wondrous names of God used in prayer, nor yet the lump of
clay (called mohre) whereon are stamped the selfsame names, together
with those of the twelve Imáms and the Prophet. It was on the clay
that I bowed my head in contrition when I fell on my knees. My guide,
who had also prostrated himself, expressed the conviction, on rising,
that the angels were on his side. I was also about to declare myself
to be on the side of the angels when a couple of sturdy pilgrims, in
their impatience to behold the Light of their eyes, wedged me tight
between their bulky forms and then hustled me to the ground, adding
insult to injury by being obviously unconscious of the presence of my
humble body. They were “absent-minded beggars” with a vengeance. I can
only say that, on regaining my feet, I hoped the silent prayer I said,
on the spur of my annoyance, would be answered ere long; but when I
crossed the doorsill I was overcome by a sense of my own unworthiness,
so that I pardoned the men who had offended me. I raised my eyes. The
ceiling was flat, and supported on three columns of aloe-wood, and from
it hung vases of great beauty on delicate gold chains. The walls were
covered with red velvet, save where, in white squares, were written, in
Arabic characters, the words “Allah-Jal-Jelalah! (Praise to God the
Almighty!)” The velvet is said to have been a gift from Sultan Abdul
Aziz. In the corner formed by the northern and eastern walls there is
a door leading to the roof. This door, which is called the Door of
Repentance, is closed to the public; but a prayer said on the hither
side of the threshold meets with a gracious response, and the pilgrim
is clean-washed of his sins if he but touch the wood with his hand. The
floor is now flagged with marble--the work of some twenty years ago.

While I was admiring the unpretentious grace of the holy shrine,
and meditating from its threshold on the golden age of Islám, my
guide broke in on my thoughts, saying: “You are allowed to make two
prostrations at the base of any one of the pillars. Let me advise you,
in the welfare of your immortal soul, to choose the one facing the
Black Stone outside, which is the most sacred spot under the canopy
of heaven.” The difficulty was to force my way thither. The whole
house was packed with pilgrims. Some were praying, some were weeping,
others were groaning or beating their chests, and all--except the
Bedouins--were clad in their sacred habits. A great awe fell on me.
It was as though the graves had yielded up their dead at the blast of
Israfil’s trumpet. All eyes were blind, all ears deaf. The thought
of home, of country, of wife and child seemed drowned as in a sea of
passionate devotion to the Creator of those human blessings. And from
outside, in the Harem, there arose the chant of the Talbih, which every
pilgrim must sing on sighting Mecca, on donning the Ihrám, on entering
the Harem, on starting for the Valley of Desire and the Mountain of
Compassion, and on performing the little pilgrimage of Omreh. I paused
in the effort to reach the southern pillar, and listened to the singing
from without.

Labbaik, Allahomma, Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, enal-hamda, Vanahmeta lak Labbaik!
Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik!

(Verily, here am I! O Allah, here I am!
Verily, here am I! O Allah, thou hast no mate!
Verily, here am I, O Allah! All praise and glory to thee!
Verily, here am I! O Allah, thou hast no mate!)

On my soul, it was fine! All my senses must have deserted me. I
must have lost all consciousness of self suddenly. The burden of
existence seemed to be lifted. If I did not actually slip off the
slough of the flesh I came to realise in a flash that the soul is
immortal. These introspective thoughts were not mine at the moment of
the transformation. They were retrospective, forced on me, when, on
coming back to a sense of my surroundings, I found myself kneeling
at the Door of Repentance, and heard myself crying “Labbaik, la
Sherika lak Labbaik.” Yes; there was I--“an Agnostic who would like to
know”--rubbing my brow on the marble floor of the Ka’bah, without the
dimmest notion in my mind as to how I came to be there. Only a month
before I had been sipping lemon squash in a London restaurant. Strange.
The first thing I did was to look round in search of my guide, as
sceptical a rascal as ever breathed. He was on his knees, at my side,
his eyes starting out of the sockets. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Come,” I said, “let us go out. I’m suffocating.” He rose to his feet,
looking scared and abashed; but his face assumed its usual expression
of sunny mirth on reaching the Harem. He put his tongue in his cheek
as of yore; then, repenting him of his unregenerate mood, he told the
truth. “Yá-Moulai (Oh, sir),” said he, “within the house so great
reverence fell on me that I did hardly think of the blessed hourís
and perís promised to me in Paradise. The same emotion overmasters
me every year on entering into the Ka’bah of Allah, and yet what does
it all mean? What is the value of this dream which we call life, and
which is my true self? Is it the self that inquires, scoffs, doubts,
but wants to find truth? Or is it the self that you discovered a moment
ago bereft of every sense save one, namely, that which would seem to
have drawn me irresistibly to a power whose will none would seem able
to dispute? Has that power an existence outside my emotions, or is it
merely the fabric of my senses? You are silent, Yá-Moulai. Well, there
are more ways of getting drunk than by drinking of the juice of the
forbidden fruit. I escaped from myself just then on a spiritual rather
than a spirituous fluid. Let us return to our camp.”

CHAPTER VII

ON THE ROAD TO ARAFAT

The most important days of the Pilgrimage are the 8th, 9th, and 10th of
the moon of Zú-’l-hijjah. Now, the 8th of Zú-’l-hijjah is the day of
the Repose of the Soul. In Arabic it is called Youm-ul-Tarvih, and it
sees the exodus of the pilgrims from Mecca on their way to the Hill of
Arafat. The most noteworthy “column” of the Hájj is the sermon which is
preached on the mount on the following day. No pilgrim is qualified to
call himself Hájí unless he is present on that occasion. The preacher
sits on a camel, and the pilgrims gather round him, those who can find
no room on the slopes taking up their positions on the plain. Not ten
pilgrims in a hundred can hear a word, and so the majority while away
the time in praying, in weeping, in chatting, in telling stories, and
even in making love. If they fall asleep or lose consciousness they
are counted as absent. They must arrive before noon and must remain
until after sunset. If they leave before the appointed time they must
pay forfeit either by sacrificing a camel or else by keeping fast for
eighteen days running. This day is named Youm-ul-Arafat in Arabic.

The pilgrims, before reaching the plain of Arafat, must perform their
religious purifications, and, on arriving on the Hill itself, they must
recite the following Niyyat: “O God, I purpose, in obedience to Thy
commands, to abide here until the setting of the sun.” With this they
must say aloud a prayer which runs: “I praise Thee, I glorify Thee,
O Lord; there is no God but Thee. I have burdened my conscience with
wrongdoing, and now acknowledge my sins. O, forgive me my trespasses,
O Lord, for, verily, Thou art the best forgiver.” Nor is this all; for
the pilgrims, having declared their intention and confessed their sins,
must pray for their parents, their relatives, their co-religionists,
their servants, and their slaves. The number of persons thus honoured
in the remembrance should not be less than forty; and for this act
of grace the pilgrims will be rewarded one hundred thousandfold.
Furthermore, in the course of the day what we have called the Song
of the Winding-sheet or Talbih must be repeatedly intoned, as must
also the Tamjid or hymn of praise, and the glorification of God’s
omnipotence, which is styled Takbir. Then, when the sun is setting, the
pilgrims turn their faces in the direction of the Ka’bah and recite
this prayer: “I take refuge in Thee, O Lord, from poverty, and from
the evil that may come out of the day or the night; I repent of all
my wicked deeds, trusting in Thy gracious pardon; and I seek shelter
from fear in Thy protection: O Lord, I repent, I repent, I repent.”
The second “column” of the Hájj takes place immediately after sunset,
when the pilgrims rush forward impetuously from Arafat to Muzdalifah,
in order to remember God near the holy monument (in Arabic, al Masher
al harám), where, on a mountain on the thither side of Muzdalifah, the
Prophet is said to have stood praying until his face shone as one who
had seen his Lord. There the pilgrims pass the night, and at the hour
of morning prayer they say: “O Lord, in obedience to Thy commands, I
break my morning at Thy Masher al harám.” Thence they proceed to Mina,
through which valley they passed on their road to Arafat, and there the
stoning of the devil and the slaying of the sacrifices, two notable
“columns” of the pilgrimage, are performed. This is the Youm-ul-Nahre
or Day of Sacrifice.

On the eve of Youm-ul-Tarvih my friends and I went to stay the night
with a Persian grandee who had taken up his lodgings in a large house
near the Harem. We will call his name Ardashir Morad Khan. His was in
many respects an exceptional character. He had acquired a knowledge
of the French tongue without learning to detest the French nation,
and had studied the Darwinian theory of the origin of species without
aping the European. His conversation was grave and impersonal. He was
communicative without being confidential. He never betrayed a trust,
nor blabbed his personal secrets. From him I learned all I know of the
political situation in Persia; and the Youm-ul-Tarvih was six hours
gone--remember, in the East, the day begins and ends with the setting
of the sun--ere we closed the debate and flung ourselves down to rest.
Morning broke. Ardashir Morad Khan, having performed his ablutions, was
saying his prayers, and I was drinking a cup of tea when there came a
knock at the door, and a Persian friend of ours rushed into the room.
His excitement knew no bounds. He stood bereft of speech from sheer
lack of breath; but his face spoke volumes.

“Well, Sheykh Eissa,” said I, “what is the news?”

Ardashir Morad Khan dropped his rosary and looked up, listening. Sheykh
Eissa coughed as if to clear his gorge, and cried--

“My manuscript on the Bedouins is lost; the precious volume has been
stolen! For the last seventeen years, as I told you yesterday, I have
wandered from tribe to tribe as a talisman-monger in order that I might
study the customs and the character of the Bedouins, and give to the
world a faithful history of my experiences. I had promised to show you
the result of my labour, and now I am constrained by fate to re-shape
my impressions. Youm-ul-Tarvih? Wáh! How can my soul repose?”

I handed the rebellious little man a cup of tea. Having taken a sip,
he reached out for the sugar. “Your tea is as bitter as mortality,”
he said, and straightway converted it into syrup. I recalled a pretty
Persian story. “Perhaps,” I replied, “the clay from which the cup was
made was once man.” The fancy, though borrowed, restored the Sheykh’s
good humour. “It is the burned clay of my thief’s grandfather,” he
declared, with a quaint uplifting of his shaggy eyebrows, “or I am an
infidel. My precious manuscript--how can to-day be Youm-ul-Tarvih?
Assuredly it is the Day of Sacrifice.” Seyyid ’Alí now entered the
room. He said: “I have engaged a _moghavem_, what we Persians call a
_hamlehdar_; he will be here with his mules and camels at midday; and
our tents are even now on their way to the Hill of Arafat, where an
aristocratic position has been reserved for them.”

“Surely you mean the Valley of Mina?” I asked. “No, no,” broke in our
host, Ardashir Morad Khan; “the custom of sleeping at Mina on the
outward journey was abolished long ago on account of the delay its
observance occasioned, and that for no purpose that would warrant----”

Sheykh Eissa leaped to his feet. “I ask pardon of God,” he cried. “Why,
the Prophet himself was accustomed to halt at Mina from six hours after
sunrise on Youm-ul-Tarvih until sunrise next morning, and there he
used to say the five prescribed prayers. Surely that fact alone would
warrant our observance of the law?”

“Well,” I replied, “I must confess that I am delighted to know that we
shall have more roomy quarters for the night. The Valley of Mina is a
mere gully. According to my calculation there must be scarcely less
than three hundred thousand pilgrims in this city.”

“Say four hundred thousand and you will not exaggerate the number,”
interrupted our host. “What is your opinion, Sheykh Eissa?”

“The pilgrims are innumerable this year, your Excellency. It is not
possible to count them. The angels in heaven are not more numerous.
Nine years ago the pilgrims outnumbered the present calculation of our
distinguished friend. This year Youm-ul-Nahre falls on a Friday, and I
am sure there never was before a concourse so great in the City of God.”

“I admire the beauty of your flight, Sheykh Eissa,” I said, dryly.
“But let us deal with facts. I came here by the last pilgrim boat.
Some two hundred thousand passports had then been handed in at Jiddah
by the seafaring pilgrims. Do you mean to say that the number of Hájís
who have crossed the desert are equal to the number of those who have
crossed the seas from every corner of the Muslim world? I will never
believe it. The advantages are all in favour of the oversea route. It
is cheaper, it is quicker, it is safer, and it is perhaps less tedious.
For a fare of a few dollars any starveling can go by steamer from Suez
to Jiddah. The result is that the old caravan routes with the one
exception of the Syrian are, comparatively speaking, deserted. For
instance, the Muslims of Morocco and North Africa are now conveyed to
Mecca by sea. The contingent sent by Persia down the Gulf outnumbers
that which journeys across Arabia. True, the Syrian caravan still
maintains not a little of its ancient glory. This year it is unusually
gigantic, containing as it does, in my opinion, not less than seventeen
thousand camels. The Bedouins are also, I admit, in force; so let us
say there are two hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims in Mecca all
told. We shall have a better opportunity of testing the accuracy of
the figures when we are encamped on the Plain of Arafat. But be the
number what it may, it is, at the lowest estimate, far too great for
me not to congratulate myself that the custom of sleeping overnight in
that death-trap of Mina has been done away with.”

Sheykh Eissa smiled. “It would be impossible to extol its charms as
a camping-ground. But I, for one, remember that, though the halt on
the outward journey has been abolished, there we must stay for three
or at the least for two days after slaying the sacrifices. For the
rest, I am far from sharing your love of the oversea route from the
outlying dominions of the Prophet. In my youth I travelled by caravan
from Morocco to Medina and thence to this holy city. Along the northern
coast of Africa, through Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, to the Land of
Pyramids, we wandered, halting for one day in every six days in order
that our camels might gather strength to sustain the hardships of the
road; and in Cairo we joined the Egyptian caravan, whence we proceeded
together on our way--an endless string of pilgrims, glorying in our
liberty, praising God for His gifts of heaven and earth, burying our
dead where they fell--now in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and now in the
desert to the south, until we reached at last the sepulchre of the
Prophet and the place of his birth. I deny not that God created the sea
as well as the desert. Nay, nay, spare your eloquence. My stomach at
sea is as inconstant as the waters. I am a Bedouin at heart. However,
you must stay at Mina for three or for two days after the Day of
Sacrifice.”

“If the cholera fiend should not drive us hence in search of refuge,” I
interpolated. “The epidemic is on the increase. The sacrifices slain,
we shall be only too glad to make good our escape to the sea.”

“True,” said Seyyid ’Alí, grimly, “if the cholera fiend should not
choose for us an underground route to a city of eternal rest! If it
please God, I shall conduct your Excellency to Jiddah so soon as the
sun shall set on Youm-ul-Nahre. For I have no wish to fall a victim to
the fell disease, Sheykh Eissa.”

With the foregoing words my guide bade us good-bye and went about his
business in my service. He came back, however, almost immediately. “May
it please your Excellency,” he said, addressing Ardashir Morad Khan,
“Khalil is fallen sick of the cholera and is even now at the point of
death.” Now, Khalil was our host’s steward and had set out for the
Hill of Arafat in charge of the tents and baggage. Ardashir Morad Khan
looked extremely grave. “God have mercy on his soul!” he cried. Then,
“Where is he now?” he asked; “and who has taken his place?” Seyyid ’Alí
replied that the man had been brought back on a bier to Mecca, and was
then lying in a cellar attached to the kitchen of the house in which we
were. A panic would have followed this statement had not our host cried
out in a voice of sternest command: “I must request you all to be calm.
We must set the servants an example of courage. Are we not the slaves
of God?... Well, Seyyid ’Alí, who has taken over the control of our
caravan?” “The cook of your Excellency’s household,” replied my guide,
“assumed the direction of affairs. I have done my best to restore the
confidence of your Excellency’s household. The servants need a firm
hand to keep them from running away.”

So Ardashir Morad Khan left the room, and when he came back I requested
permission to see the sick man. The other guests, who were sitting
round the room with their backs to the walls, jumped up at once and
made a low bow to me as I passed by to the servant’s quarters. The
Meccan houses are generally lower than the surface of the street
without, and when this is the case a flight of stone steps leads from
the first floor into the court round which the apartments range. I
found Khalil in the cellar. He was sinking fast. Nobody had dared to
stay with him. His eyes were dried up in the sockets and blackened
all round the rims. Not an ounce of flesh remained on his body. The
stench was unendurable. The bearers, having stretched his legs in the
direction of the Ka’bah and given him a cup of sour milk wherewith
to quench his thirst, had gone away, leaving him a prey to the fell
disease. Compassion rent my heart, but I could do nothing: remedy I
had none. I saw, moreover, that he was too far gone to recover, and,
indeed, scarcely was he aware of my presence than his new-born hope was
strangled by death. “Yá--Allah!” he muttered, and that was the last
time he drew breath. Having rejoined my host, I went with him into the
city.

The streets were packed with camels, brought in thousands by the
Bedouins and by the Syrian and the Egyptian drivers. Round about the
Harem the _moghavems_ tried our endurance to the utmost. These are the
men who conduct the pilgrims by camel caravan to the Hill of Arafat
and back, supplying all their needs on the journey. There is no fixed
price for the hiring of a camel, but by dint of persistent bargaining
it is possible to get one for five shillings, and each _moghavem_ may
have as many as fifty pilgrims under him. We were tormented by these
contractors more than I had ever been tormented by the Indian jugglers
outside the gates of any hotel in Bombay. They were as plentiful as
flies in Egypt and not less irritating. Perhaps that is the fault of
the pilgrims themselves. They begin by feigning indifference, and when
they have reduced the _moghavems_ to a haughty silence they assume
an air of eager business. Thus the _moghavems_ have learned from
experience never to take no for an answer.

Out of the madding crowd the talk was all of the cholera epidemic.
On my way to a coffee-house I happened to meet a Turkish official,
an acquaintance of mine, and he gave it as his conviction that the
death-rate had risen to over five hundred victims a day. He advised
me to leave the Valley of Mina at sunset on the tenth of the moon.
In the coffee-house a Syrian pilgrim entered into conversation with
me. He told many stories of his pilgrimage across the desert: of
the discomforts and the perils of the road, of the cruelties of
the drivers, and the almost inconceivable presumption of his own
_moghavem_. With the immense caravan had come the Syrian Mahmil, in
the charge of a Pasha, and the Surreh, in the care of another Turkish
dignitary. This Surreh is the pension sent from Constantinople to
the officials of the Harem. It was formerly the accumulated hoard of
centuries of legacies. It is now managed by the Imperial Treasury. A
strong force of cavalry accompanied the caravan, which, according to
the pilgrim in question, counted some eighteen thousand camels.

The number stated was, perhaps, an exaggeration, though a pardonable
one, for the string which I saw on reaching the Plain of Sheykh Mahmud,
where the caravan had been encamped, and which was now on the move,
extended for miles and miles. I determined then and there to avoid the
crush on the road by remaining in Mecca until the day was far spent.
It was four hours before sunset ere I could tear myself away from the
Plain of Sheykh Mahmud. The endless string of camels and of pilgrim
wayfarers was an unforgettable sight, and on my return to my host’s
house I met crowds of Syrian and Egyptian stragglers, mounted and on
foot, proceeding up the Moalla to rejoin the immense caravan which was
already threading its way to the mountains.

Seyyid ’Alí gave me a hearty welcome when I entered the house. He had
scoured the city, he said, in search of me, and had given me up for
dead. I found everything in readiness for our journey, and when we
had smoked a kalyán or two and quenched our thirst we got astride our
ambling mules and made for the Hill of Arafat.

Now, when my friends and I left Mecca for the Hill of Arafat it was
about four o’clock in the afternoon of Youm-ul-Tarvih. Late as it was,
the streets were still packed with men and beasts. In the indescribable
confusion steady progress was impossible, and to the universal disorder
was added the danger of a general stampede on the part of our mules.
The uncertain tempers of those animals of ours taxed our patience to
the utmost. We had hired them in the belief that they were tractable
creatures trained to amble. We rode them in terror of our lives,
conscious of our impotence to control their paces. Now they would
charge through a crowd in a panic blind and headlong, and next they
would stand stock-still in a sweat of suspicion at the mere sight of a
straw or a splash of water on the road. Our _moghavem_, having a lively
inkling of our rising indignation, assured us with haughty unconcern
that we had been wiser to have followed his advice and ridden camels.
With one thing and another it took us quite an hour to reach the
outskirts of the city. All the people we had met wore íhram except the
drivers and the servants, who were in their ordinary clothes.

[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN DONKEY AND ITS DRIVER.]

Outside Mecca the road widens, taking an abrupt turn from a northerly
to a north-easterly direction. We passed innumerable huts and Bedouin
tents, we skirted the Jebelé-Nur or Mountain of Light on our left, and
then, swerving back to the north, we kept a sharp look-out for the
pitfalls which beset our every step. In no case were the mountains
many miles away. The colour of them changed gradually from a gloomy
drab to a deep brown. Many camels had knocked up and lay festering
in the sun. Along the route dead pilgrims had been buried so close
to the surface that the odour of putrefaction polluted the air. The
stench of decaying flesh was positively sickening. Again and again I
had to hold my nose and cry aloud, “Astaghferallah Menash-Shaitan: I
seek shelter in God from Satan.” This phrase was used more often than
any other, and in varying moods and with many meanings. Every time an
animal fell down its driver would mutter the expression. If the animal
remained obstinate, refusing to rise, the driver would rub his hands
and repeat the words. An Arab Sheykh who rode behind me took refuge in
God against the devil whenever he failed in his attempt to get past
me. This was merely a sign of impatience. Had he given vent to his
feelings by saying the formula sixty-nine times in quick succession I
might possibly have made way for him for no other reason than because
I should have expected him to strike a blow in defence of his claim to
precede me. For the Prophet has said: “Utter not a word in wroth until
you have repeated seventy Astaghferallahs.” Believe me, it is a word
to conjure with. As a mark of ironic negation it is more convincing
than the strongest affirmative. In a rocky pass I asked Seyyid ’Alí,
whose face had turned copper-red, and whose lips were scorched, if he
was thirsty. “Astaghferallah, yá-Moulai!” he cried, smiling ironically.
Later on, in the neck of the pass, where two men could not ride
abreast, I had proof of the expression being used by way of a courteous
refusal. Riding far ahead of us two mullás in íhram, with shaven heads
and unkempt beards, drew rein simultaneously, each requesting the other
to pass on. This exchange of punctilio was most unseasonable. So long
did the two priests bandy courtesy, crying “Astaghferallah” one after
the other, that the word was soon used in a contrary sense by the
pilgrims in the rear.

We waited about five minutes for the intervening pilgrims to ride on
in single file, and when we reached the spot it was to find that the
road lay between two rocks some four feet apart. One of my friends,
quoting a well-worn proverb, bent towards me and remarked: “Why do they
not remove those stones out of the path of the Faithful?” Seyyid ’Alí
observed a priest in front of him, and replied significantly, “I behold
a bigger stone in my path!” The priest, who was reading the Kurán atop
of his camel, overheard the words, and tugged his camel round that
he might face the sceptical rascal. The camel made a vicious snap at
Seyyid ’Alí’s mule. The mule, finding itself between two fires--the
rock on the one side and the camel on the other--sat down on its
haunches; and my guide, crying out the word, “Astaghferallah,” came a
cropper, striking his head against a stone. The upper portion of his
íhram fell off. “Was it you, Seyyid ’Alí who fell?” cried Sheykh Eissa.
Seyyid ’Alí, all bruised and bleeding, crept from under the mule’s
legs, and picked up his sacred habit. “Astaghferallah!” he replied; “it
was not I who fell. It was my íhram. Unfortunately I happened to be in
it.” A burst of laughter followed and then a shrill scream. “I verily
believe,” said Sheykh Eissa, addressing me, “that your guide would make
a kitten ‘eat a dozen sticks’ if it mispronounced the Arabic letter
‘ain’ in the feline word ‘maou! maou!’”

But I had turned whence the scream had come and made him no reply. My
guide’s mishap, as I saw on looking ahead, had excited the compassion
of a lady in a palanquin. She was a Meccan. No sooner did she see the
blood than she uttered a shriek of deepest commiseration. Then she
recovered herself, and cooed out a couple of orders. Her warmth of
heart was now as evident as had been her emotional susceptibility. In
one breath she summoned her husband and sent him to Seyyid ’Alí with
an offer of a certain famous prescription for wounds and bruises. In
the next she implored her _moghavem_ to ransack on one of the camels a
chest that contained, among other things, a small bottle of scorpion
oil. It was the remedy in question. This is the way it is prepared:
the stings having been extracted, a couple of black scorpions are
dried in the sun, are then put in a bottle holding about half a pint
of castor-oil, and in this they are kept corked up for the space of
a year. The unwilling Arab made demur, pleading that the delay would
inconvenience the pilgrims behind her own caravan; but she reduced
him to obedience with a look. “Be sharp!” she crooned, as he swung
reluctantly on his heel; so sweet was her voice that without another
sign of hesitation he leaped forward to carry out her wishes. The camel
was made to kneel down by the wayside; then the chest was overhauled.
By the time her husband had returned the precious oil was found and
given to him. “Take it,” she said, still gazing in ’Alí’s countenance
over her husband’s shoulder, “and tell him to use it unsparingly lest
the beauty of his face should be ruined.” Meccan gentlewomen allow
themselves a certain freedom of speech and action, otherwise a less
presentable man than this woman’s husband might have been jealous
enough to resent the frank admiration in her voice. Seyyid ’Alí, having
laid on the oil by means of a wooden bodkin used for the purpose,
handed the bottle back to the husband, who pressed him to accept the
rest of its contents, which would be useful, he said, in case of
further accident. My guide, however, refused with many thanks, saying
that he could not find it in his heart to deprive the giver of the
possibility of exercising her compassion on the next unfortunate she
might chance to meet. And with this our respective caravans moved on.

Before reaching the Valley of Mina a serious accident happened, this
time to a Malay pilgrim--an accident that proved fatal to him, for he
was crushed to death in a stampede of mules. I am happy to say that
our own caravan was not concerned in the disaster. Two women swooned
at the sight, and all the other women round about raised their voices
in bitterest lamentation, as though they had lost a near relative.
A quarter of an hour after, when the unfortunate man had been laid
to rest in his shallow grave, the two women who had fainted fell
to prattling merrily as if nothing untoward had occurred. In fact,
the chief characteristics of the Oriental woman are her absolute
helplessness outside the restricted limits of her special sphere of
influence, and the swiftness with which she passes from one emotion
to another. There is no transition in her moods. She passes from the
tearful or the terrible to the mirthful or the ridiculous at a single
bound of her mercurial temperament. She is at once more womanish and
more womanly than her European sisters. Not less marked, on this
journey of ours to the holiest mountain of Islám, were the vanity of
the wealthier classes as it preened itself among the men, and the
unfailing good humour of the mob. A Persian nobleman, to whom my host
had attached himself, had a special chamberlain whose sole duty it was
to hand his lord and master a cigarette whenever he felt disposed to
smoke. Another grandee of the same nationality, if he had occasion to
drop his reins in order to adjust his beard, would cry out at the top
of his voice to his _moghavem_, saying: “Boy, come here! Hand me the
reins!” preserving the while an expression of sphinx-like aloofness
from all human kind.

As for the good temper of the crowd, it was due, I avow, to the
soberness of each and every individual in it. Of drunkenness there
was nothing on the road so far as my experience went, though I am
constrained to admit that a good many pilgrims of my acquaintance had
smuggled along with them a bottle or two of brandy apiece which, as a
safeguard against prying eyes, had been labelled “cholera mixture.”
When I say the mob was sober I only mean that it was not drunk. Its
humour, of course, was individualised. It varied with the character
of the unit. Some of the pilgrims were lively, frivolous, even rowdy
in a playful sort of way, meaning no mischief. These chatted and
chaffed and flirted, killing monotony in many a breach of etiquette.
They being theoretically resigned to the will of Allah, were resolved
in practice to reflect Omnipotence in a merry mood. Others, rapt
and devotional, intoned the holy and instructive Kurán, as they sat
on their camels or limped barefooted over the stony ground. Prayers
were muttered, religious hymns were sung, tears were shed, tales were
told, amid the deafening shouts of the drivers and the lofty orders
of the _moghavems_. Conspicuous in their pastime on the road were the
Bedouins. Either they beguiled the tedium of the march by singing
love-songs that acted like magic on the listeners, or else they showed
that their weariness under restraint was invincible by frequent
salivation. For yawning is almost exclusively a European habit.
Oriental folk rarely yawn in public. If they are bored they give odd
little sham coughs instead, while the Bedouins get rid of their moral
phlegm or call attention to its existence by expectorating. Nor is the
habit regarded even by the most courteous among them as offensive: it
is hallowed by custom. The virtue of politeness is relative. In Great
Britain, for example, the very sound of the word “belch” could only
be described as unspeakable; whereas the act itself in many Eastern
countries breathes grace and gratitude after meat on the part of the
guests. The more often it is repeated by them the better pleased is
their host. Thus it is not in a carping frame of mind that I have
written down whatever in the manners of my co-religionists excited my
quasi-European squeamishness.

Now, the road, before entering the narrow Wadi of Mina, in which a
village stands, narrows into a gap and climbs a flight of stone steps.
There the pilgrims thought it necessary, as, indeed, I suppose it was,
to call a halt, while they performed a two-prostration prayer, and in
the chaos of confusion which arose I was separated from my companions,
or shoved forward by the pressure of the crowd behind me. I was about
to force my way back to them when I caught sight of a young Syrian
girl sitting astride an ass. In the excitement of the moment she had
forgotten to cover her face, and our eyes met. On the instant all
thought of returning left me, for the girl was good to behold. The
caravan she was with numbered about fifty people, and with it I rode
along through the village into the dreary gully beyond. Every now and
then we would glance at each other, the maiden and I. She was shy, and
I was anything but bold, breathing, in her neighbourhood, a spell so
pure. So on we journeyed, side by side, I covertly watching her every
movement, and she playing hide-and-seek with my eyes, until at last I
summoned the courage to smile on her. By chance, or I know not by what
blessing, the smile was returned, and so heartening was its effect on
me that my whole being seemed to throb, “not from one heart, but from a
hundred!” Never was I so near to a complete surrender to love at first
sight. In the meantime the sun was going down behind the mountains in
the west; shopkeepers were busy erecting their booths in readiness for
the return of the Hájj on the Day of Sacrifice; torches were lighted,
casting a lurid glare around; cannons were fired and rockets flung
aloft to announce to the weary pilgrims the hour of evening prayer.
There, in the ruddy light about us and the gathering darkness beyond,
my maiden and I knelt down, obeying the call of the faith, within arm’s
reach of each other. In my heart of hearts I prayed that God would give
me one day a helpmate as sweet as my companion.

Not a word had passed between us, nor did we exchange more than a
glance, when the caravan got under way again. To my dismay there came
along, with furtive tread, an ugly-looking Syrian, barefoot and old,
and entered into conversation with me, placing himself, with an air of
suspicion that nettled, and a look of proprietorship that alarmed me,
between the maiden and myself. I thought that he might be her father,
but he said he was her husband. Instinctively I drew rein, and soon she
was lost to me in the blackness of the night. Caravan after caravan
went by, but there I remained, meditating first on the ways of the
veil-worn sex, and then on my hapless lot, cut off as I was from my
companions, with only a few mejidis in silver in a small bag round my
neck. By and by the moon rose, and I pulled myself together. In truth,
the pangs of a healthy appetite began to clamour for satisfaction,
and so I pressed forward until I reached the top of the valley, which
was simply blocked with pilgrims, all hurrying as fast as they could
go to the Mosque of Khaif. There I alighted, and, leading my mule
by the bridle, made to cross the open space in front, where several
coffee booths offered refreshment; but my obstinate beast would not
budge, pull as I might. Not for nothing do the Easterns call them
“the children of donkeys.” They are certainly more stubborn and more
uncertain than their mothers. Many paupers were hanging about, and any
one of them would have been only too glad to take the mule in tow, but
the danger was that he would run away with it--such cases of theft are
of frequent occurrence on the pilgrimage--and therefore I called to a
booth-keeper asking him to send out his man to take charge of the beast
that I might go and quench my thirst and smoke a pipe at his stall.
Once rid of my stupid burden, I pushed my way into the booth which was
crowded with pilgrims of the poorer classes. My sudden appearance among
them raised not a little astonishment. I fraternised at once with a
needy Bedouin, and together we smoked a pipe of peace. Suddenly a gun
went off outside the booth, the report echoing and re-echoing among the
mountains. “A blood-feud!” cried my companion, leaping to his feet,
then ran out of doors.

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE ROAD TO ARAFAT

_(Concluded)_

More shots followed in quick succession: everybody in the booth made
a rush for the door, except the booth-keeper and myself: and we stood
staring at each other for some moments without uttering a single word.
But my companion did not long remain silent under the questioning look
I turned upon him. “The sons of dogs!” he cried: “they have not paid
me!” and, before I could even smile at the humour of the situation, he
was gone.

Accordingly, I made haste to overtake him, laughing quietly to myself
as I observed, on reaching the open air, that the artful rogues had
made good their escape under cover of the general panic, thus gaining
for themselves, in the estimation of their indignant dupe, a reputation
of cunning aforethought, which nothing I could say succeeded in
shaking. When I assured him that they had merely turned the blood-feud
to their own advantage, seizing the occasion as a source of profit to
themselves, he informed me that there are a thousand and one ways of
levying _bakhshísh_ by night, every one of which is practised during
the Hájj season, by the freebooters of Hejaz. “By Allah!” he cried,
“I say, the shots were fired by the Bedouins as a signal to those
customers of mine. They are in league with one another, and the money
that should be in my possession will soon be divided among those
lawless tribesmen.”

Whilst I was arguing with him, however, about fifty clansmen rode
swiftly by on dromedaries, and disappeared in the direction of Arafat.
Hardly had they passed out of sight than we heard the reports of their
rifles, and after a little while the more distant battle-cries of their
opponents. “You only heard the pursued,” said I, “but the pursuers you
have seen. You would not believe your ears; do you believe your eyes?”

“Perhaps you are right,” he admitted, with surly reluctance. “But is
my loss any the less? Take care lest you yourself become the argument
of your present attitude towards me in my trouble. Those men belonged
to the tribe of Hozail, and they are famous marksmen. To travel
alone to-night might mean death. The wisest thing that you could do,
therefore, would be to await the arrival of the next caravan.--Tell me,
are you rich?”

I untied the little bag I wore around my neck (the sacred habit having
no pockets), and emptied its contents into the palm of my hand. “That
is all the money I have about me,” I replied; “but my present poverty
should be my best protector on the road.”

“No, no!” he cried: “the people believe you to be rich, and therein
lies the danger of your riding by yourself.... Ah, here comes a band of
pilgrims; thank God,” he added, as he pocketed the _bakhshísh_ I gave
him: “Allah be with you!”

The caravan to which I now attached myself was composed of eighteen
lean camels laden with the effects of some eighty Malay wayfarers, and
of three half-starved asses belonging to the _moghavem_, on one of
which was strapped the corpse of an old man. A torch-bearer led the
way on foot. He was a man with such an infamous past that even his
fellow-pilgrims, disreputable as they appeared, held aloof from him, in
terror of their lives. Still, when I came to scrutinise his appearance
at close quarters, I could not find it in my heart to withhold the
compassion that his feeble condition aroused in me. As his weakness
grew more evident at every step, so the strength of will, which alone
kept him from sinking, seemed to point to some concentrated purpose
that he was determined to accomplish. Whilst I was wondering what this
fixed idea of his might be, his companions whispered among themselves,
and then came to me and said that he had run amuck in Penang, doing
to death his wife and family; and they entreated me earnestly not
to enter into conversation with him, lest he should be seized with
another fit of homicidal madness and do me some serious hurt. But
this story, terrible as it was, merely increased the interest I took
in the man. I pitied him the more, because, whatever insane impulses
might have ruled his past life, there could be no doubt of his being
now possessed with a passion to reach the goal that should redeem him
from the consequences of his misdeeds. That goal was the Mountain of
Mercy, as the Muslims love to call the Hill of Arafat, and thus the
pilgrimage was to him an act of penance, a penitential journey: every
breath he drew was a token of his remorse and his every step, a proof
of his yearning to gain salvation. The Malays, if I may judge from my
observations of these specimens of the race, are lacking in the gift
of self-restraint on the spur of their emotions. They never attempt to
assume the virtues which they do not possess. If they are afraid, they
lay bare their souls, and are not ashamed of their cowardice. Their
natures are in keeping with the jungles of their native country--crude,
chaotic, rank as the undergrowth, and as responsive to their tameless
instincts as are the tiger, the bison, and the crocodile. The more
closely I studied the torch-bearer’s demeanour, the more convinced
I became of its sincerity. He bore his sufferings with a stoical
endurance, to which his companions were blind, or at least indifferent,
leaving him to gather what encouragement he might from a word of
sympathy that I gave him. Raising his cadaverous eyes to mine, he
thanked me with a smile more eloquent than words, more moving than
tears. It seemed to say: “Brother, thy loving-kindness has revealed me
to myself, and, behold, I am afraid.” A lump rose in my throat so that
I could scarcely speak. “Be of good courage,” I whispered: “take refuge
in God from thyself, and all will be forgiven thee.” The words renewed
his purpose, and, knitting his brow in a frown of lithe resolution, he
staggered on over the rugged pathway.

The road, winding through several declivities of the valley, dips at
length into the basin-plain of the surrounding mountains. There it
takes a sharp turn to the east, which direction it keeps until on the
limits of Arafat a place called Alemeyn is reached. When we were midway
between the mosque of Khaif and the Hill of Arafat four of the camels
died from exhaustion, and the loads they bore had to be divided among
the freshest of the animals that were left. Whilst this was being done
by the _moghavem_, our torch-bearer, in a state of wild excitement
at the interruption, flung down the guiding light, and then fell to
pacing restlessly to and fro, reeling in his gait like a drunken man,
and muttering incoherently to himself; nor would he consent to pick up
the torch, despite the _moghavem’s_ repeated orders, until the caravan
resumed its march.

Shortly after, another delay was occasioned by the death of a pilgrim
who had walked all the way from Mecca supported on his brother’s arm.
The _moghavem_ refused to set the corpse on one of his asses (that
it might be buried, as the brother wished, on the holier ground of
Arafat), declaring that an additional burden would break the back of
his stoutest donkey. On this the brother burst into a storm of grief,
and my heart so ached for him in his disappointment that I volunteered
to bear the body beside me on my mule. A straggler, overhearing
this offer, cried out in broken Arabic: “If you do not lend me your
assistance, I too shall assuredly fall down and die.” Seeing that the
poor wretch was indeed worn out with sickness and fatigue, I made a
virtue of necessity and dismounted, telling him that the price of
his taking my place was that he should take care of the corpse. His
readiness to comply with this condition, which would carry with it the
necessity of religious purification, proved him to be no malingerer,
and a second glance at him was enough to assure me that he had not many
more hours to live.

All being ready, I laid hold of the mule by the bridle, and led the
dying and the dead to the front of the caravan. To my surprise, I saw
that the torch-bearer, in his anxiety to make the best use of his
remaining strength, was some distance away, and so determined was I to
keep in touch with him, and, if necessary, force him to accept my help,
that I broke into a run, as fast as I could lay my tender bare feet to
the ground. When I came up to him it was to hear a volley of musketry
which seemed to proceed from a distance of not more than two hundred
yards ahead of us; and, not long after, there came, from the rear, the
ever-nearing tramp of a troop of horsemen riding at full speed.

The terror of the Malays, wholly undisguised, drove them into one
another’s arms. Not knowing which way to turn, they all huddled
together like a flock of sheep, while the torch-bearer, whose one
idea was proof against any danger that might beset him, broke silence
for the first time, and derided them unmercifully because of their
cowardice.

Then out stepped the Arab _moghavem_, as shepherd of the
cowering rabble, and cried: “Be not afraid, but keep close
to me!” And on this, he rushed quickly to the fore, shouting
out at the top of his voice, in the Bedouin dialect of Hejaz:
“Yá-Aghadin-ul-ghoum-Nahn-Meskinna-al-Zowarin!”

This sentence, “O tribal chieftains, we are only the poor of the
pilgrims,” he kept on repeating as he strode boldly forward: every now
and then he turned round in order to hearten the cowering wretches that
came trembling after him; but, before he had advanced a hundred paces,
the galloping in the rear grew so loud that he ordered the caravan to
halt and take whatever cover it could devise.

With a swiftness of decision, born of a common fear that the horsemen
were Bedouins on the warpath, the terrified pilgrims made the camels
kneel down at the sides of the road, and entrenched themselves behind
them, scarcely daring to breathe, lest their whereabouts should be
revealed. And no sooner had they flung themselves on the ground than
the troop came rushing past, proving itself to be a squadron of
Sherífian cavalry in pursuit of the freebooters. Much to the joy of
the pilgrims, the firing ceased almost immediately after, and the
skirmishers in front of us were heard to beat a rapid retreat on Arafat.

On the silence that ensued, came the tinkle of an approaching caravan,
to which, on the principle that there is safety in numbers, we resolved
to attach ourselves. The new-comers, forty in number, were Indian
settlers of Mecca, passive-eyed and wheedling of tongue, and with us
they were only too willing to make common cause, bearing themselves
towards us with that spirit of brotherhood which is perhaps the
most humanising characteristic of the Islamic faith. Within half an
hour’s march of Alemeyn, our united party was overtaken by a band of
professional men and women--musicians, singers, and dancers--who,
mounted on gaily-caparisoned camels, presented a vivid contrast to our
poverty-stricken pilgrims on foot. As each one went by, he or she was
greeted by our greybeards with loud derisive cries of “Astaghferallah!
Astaghferallah!” This demonstration on the part of our old men was
meant to imply that theirs was the garb of virtue, however naked
might be their wretchedness. In the same belief, I utter seventy
_Astaghferallahs_ before I venture to describe this entertaining
company.

Altogether they numbered thirteen persons, the musicians being men,
and the singers and dancers being the Flowers of Delight of Mecca.
First came a drummer, beating intermittently, but at regular intervals,
on a curiously shaped double drum, not unlike a huge orange cut in
two, and so joined that each part came under each hand. It is called
_nagghareh_ by the Persians, and gave forth a shrill, discordant noise,
that not even the big egg-shaped drum (Tabl), which was beaten
energetically with two long drum-sticks by the man that followed,
could drown or materially modify. Behind these drummers rode two
women singers, whose voices were as the tinkling of the heavy bangles
with which their arms and ankles were laden. Next in the line of
march was a young man with a withered face, blowing incessantly on an
instrument called _surná_, that bears a resemblance, in form and also
in tone, to a Scotch bagpipe. After him, a couple of dancing girls,
with streaming ringlets, and clad in silk dresses of many colours,
burst into rippling laughter at every second, partly because it was
their business to be merry-hearted, and partly because they found
food for mirth in the members of our caravan. But when they saw the
number of our dead--and our Indian contingent had added not less than
seven to our funeral train--their lively amusement was stilled, and
one of them said to me, on passing by: “Were I in your place, O Haji,
I should bury the corpse, and offer the seat it occupies to yonder
torch-bearer, who seems to stand in sore need of succour.” “The wishes
of the dead must be respected, O Compassionate Heart,” I replied; “and
as for the torch-bearer, nothing would persuade him to renounce his
task of self-sacrifice. He has taken a vow to perform the pilgrimage
on foot, and he comes from a far distant country.” The answer she
returned was lost in the ear-piercing squeak of a _kerná_--a woeful
wind instrument at least four feet in length--and in the scarcely
less strident din of a third tom-tom. The rear was brought up by two
men--the one thumbed a stringed _rubáb_, a Bedouin instrument admirably
adapted to the music of the wastes; while the other, the jester of
the band, had powdered his face with barley flour, and wore a tall
head-gear of white lambskin, and a long cloak of vari-coloured silk.
Casting a quizzical eye on our effects, and one look in particular on
my mule with its dual burden of the dead and the dying, he remarked,
in an audible tone, imitating the Indian accent: “_Wah, wah, wah!
Ahlul-Jehannum!_ Bah, what a hell party!”--an expression that, in face
of the open self-sufficiency of the majority among us, made me roar
with laughter. My companions, refraining from retaliation in kind,
contented themselves with repeating the word _Astaghferallah_ until
their tormentor had passed out of hearing.

[Illustration: THE MUSICIAN CAMEL CAVALCADE.]

The reader will understand that these musicians and dancers were not
proceeding to Arafat that they might be present at the forthcoming
sermon on the mount. Their aim was to collect as much money as they
could wring from the pilgrims, and then be the first to lead the
procession back to Mina. For there, after the Lenten hardships of
the Hájj are ended, several days are spent in holding revels and in
merry-making.

An uninterrupted march of half-an-hour, under a stormy sky, brought us
to where two walls define the boundary of Arafat. There the _moghavem_
halted, and cried out, in a joyful voice, “O blessed pilgrims, here we
are on the exalted soil of Alemeyn! May peace be with Muhammad and with
his family!”

Forthwith there arose on all sides such an outburst of religious
enthusiasm as I had not witnessed even in the Harem of the Ka’bah.
Cries of “Labbaik allahhomá labbaik!” passed from lip to lip. The
torch-bearer fell on his face to the earth, and shed tears of delirious
joy. The dying man on my mule sank to the ground, dragging the corpse
with him, and sang praises to Allah with his last breath. A native
dervish, beside himself with hashshish-bibbing, danced furiously round
and round, beating on his bare breast, and tearing his unkempt locks,
and shrieking excitedly, “Yá-Hú! Hú-yá!” Then, with one accord, we
all prostrated ourselves five times in prayer, rending the air with a
chorus of “Here I am, O Allah, here am I!”

After the excitement had subsided, the _Sahebin-ul-Maiet_, or owners
of the dead, met in conference together, and decided that it would
be best to bury the corpses of their friends before we entered the
encampment on the plain of Arafat. To that end the help of the Bedouin
drivers was solicited. A grave was dug, measuring about ten feet by
twelve, and having a depth of some two-and-a-half feet and into this
the bodies were lowered and placed side by side, some wrapt in their
white _kefans_, and the rest wearing the habits they died in. The pit
was then filled up, and large stones were piled a-top, serving the
double purpose of preventing the corpses from being snatched by beasts
of prey, and of marking the place where they lay buried. This done, an
Indian _mullá_, putting his thumbs behind the lobes of his ears, the
fingers extended, exclaimed with indescribable fervour, “One only is
great--one Allah!” while the pilgrims, taking their stand behind him,
bowed themselves to the ground in prayer.

The funeral rites over, the _mullá_ declared the dead to be “martyrs in
the Faith,” on which the _moghavems_ of our respective caravans, having
made all necessary preparations, ordered us to press forward in the
direction of the city of tents.

I looked round in search of the torch-bearer, but he was nowhere to be
seen, nor could anyone whom I questioned tell me what was become of
him. I never saw him again.

On resuming our journey, the threatening storm-clouds overhead
dissolved in a shower of rain which drenched us to the skin. More
impatient than ever to find Seyyid ’Alí and my Persian friends, I bade
the Malay and Indian wayfarers a hasty farewell, then, urging my mule
into a quick ambling pace, was soon far in advance of their caravan.

The road is very narrow at Alemeyn, but it widens considerably,
as, taking a sudden bend from the east to the north-north-east, it
approaches the central broadway of the encampment. This thoroughfare
was turned into a bustling open-air bazaar. Coffee-booths were erected
at intervals of every twenty or thirty yards, and at these places the
crowd was thickest, and blazing torches impregnated the air with smoke
and the stench of noisome oil. It is customary to keep awake throughout
the hours of this night, praying and reading the Kurán; and maybe the
practice was honoured in the observance by many a pious pilgrim within
the seclusion of his tent; but, in this gadabout centre of uproar and
confusion, the vigil was passed in no such devotional mood. Eating
and drinking took the place of religious exercises. Stories were told
to the bubbling of the water-pipe; love songs were intoned under the
journeying moon; and pilgrims, whose minds were sharpened with long
brooding over metaphysical conundrums, could yet find the keenest zest
in bartering noisily over the purchase of a melon.

It passed through my mind that here, if anywhere, I should be likely
to happen upon Seyyid ’Alí, for his pleasure-loving disposition, as I
shrewdly guessed, would be irresistibly attracted to where it could
be best satisfied and displayed. And in this expectation I gave my
mule in charge of a beggar, and, having ordered a cup of coffee at a
refreshment stall, sat down on a stool to keep watch.

I had not been waiting more than a quarter of an hour when I saw Sheykh
Eissa come riding towards me. The “rose of my heart bloomed,” and I
leaped to my feet with joy, calling him by his name. At last his eyes
met mine, and in another moment he was at my side.

“Sir,” he said, with a deep salaam; “Seyyid ’Alí is looking for you
_dar-beh-dar_--from door to door. He has just gone down the road with
our _moghavem_, and one of our servants, and a Bedouin driver, to see
if he can find you. If you had bought one of my talismans, you would
not have lost yourself in the crowd.”

“My friend,” I replied, “you will remember the story of the Slave in
Sa’adi’s book of the _Rose Garden_. When he was on board ship he cried
night and day from fear of the sea. Then Fate threw him overboard that
he might appreciate the safety of the ship, and be thankful to be
rescued and set on board again. I have learned the same lesson on the
journey from Mina to Arafat. There is no condition in life so miserable
but it may be rendered almost pleasant, in retrospect, by a more
wretched one still.”

Meanwhile, Seyyid ’Alí hastening up with his companions, had overheard
my remarks, and now interrupted me, saying with some heat: “Yá-Moulai,
I am grateful for this--that the company of vagabonds should have had
the effect of making my society less tedious to you now than it was
before you deprived me of the brightness of your presence! Verily, I
have good reason to rejoice that you fell among thieves and rogues!”

“You misinterpret his Excellency’s words,” cried Sheykh Eissa. “Your
vanity lies so close to the skin that----”

“Why should you make it bleed, then?” I broke in. “A truce to your
quarrelling. Show me the way to our camp. My eyes are heavy with sleep.
It is as much as I can do to keep them open. Come, Seyyid ’Alí, unknit
your sullen brow. I have missed you grievously. Let that assurance
suffice to heal your wounds.”

As I spoke a bugle sounded the hour of midnight. Seyyid ’Alí, still
somewhat glum, started off at once, carrying a thick Bedouin club.
After him came the servant, bearing a lighted _fánús_ in his hand,
while Sheykh Eissa and myself followed close at his heels, leaving the
_moghavem_ in the rear to look after our mules.

Our way lay to the east of the central broadway. Before entering
our own quarters, in the north-eastern corner of the plain, where
all the dignitaries of the Hájj had pitched their tents, the Sheykh
pointed out to me the high-pinnacled pavilions of the Sheríf of
Mecca, of the Amin-us-Surreh, of the Pashavat of Turkey, of the
Persian Consul-General, of the High Priest of Teheran, of the military
commanders of Hejaz, and of the Amir-ul-Hájj-ul-Shami and the
Amir-ul-Hájj-ul-Mesri.

[Illustration: WATER-CARRIERS OF MECCA.]

[Illustration: THE PASHA OF HEJAZ AND THE AMINUS-SURREH.]

“His Holiness the Sheríf,” said he, “has more tents than one could
count at one’s ease. Do you see that high pavilion where the green
flag is flying? That is the audience-chamber of his Holiness. Some of
the tents serve as dining-rooms, some as withdrawing-rooms, some
as bath-rooms. Others, again, as sentinel houses, as stables, as
cooking-houses, as servants’ apartments, and so forth.”

Well, the tents of all the grandees, including those of my Persian
hosts, were surrounded by _tejirs_ or canvas walls measuring about
seven feet in height. The extent of the confined space varied of course
with the number of one’s retinue; our enclosure being comparatively
small covered a stretch of ground about fifty paces square. A sentinel
was on guard at the entrance, above which hung a Persian lantern,
and directly in front of us as we passed through was a semi-circular
partition of canvas which concealed from sight the series of tents
beyond.

These tents of ours, five in number, must not be confounded with the
ones we had used at Mecca. They belonged to a Persian _moghavem_
attached to the Syrian caravan, and were made of white canvas lined on
the inside with a particular kind of red cloth that goes by the name of
_shelleh_. Supported on nine poles covered with the same material, they
were so constructed that any one of the sides could be converted at
will into the front entrance, and that doors could be opened wherever
and whenever needed. By this means it was possible to keep the interior
relatively cool.

The floor of our withdrawing-tent was spread with Persian rugs, and
at the further end facing the doorway was a downy _mokhata_ or pillow
divan. To this snug abode I returned, after I had washed my hands and
feet in a tent close by, to find that the servants, following the
hospitable custom of the Bedouins, had already laid the cloth for
supper. My hosts were not present; having dined, they were fast asleep
in their own tents.

It is not considered seemly in the East for inferiors to sit down
in the presence of their superiors, nor do the latter ever so far
forget their superiority as to stand up in welcoming a guest of lower
rank. The act of rising is a recognition of equality, and not a mere
greeting. Thus, when “I fell down to supper” (as the late Shah was
fond of saying in the diary of his European tour) I was in etiquette
bound to accept the homage of Sheykh Eissa and Seyyid ’Alí’, who were
standing up. But their attitude of docile humility so tickled my sense
of the ridiculous that I raised my head after a few minutes, and said:
“Ah, are you there? _Bismillah_, sit down ... _Yá-Allah!_”

The invitation was certainly a breach of social custom on my part,
inasmuch as I was the master--a breach, however, for which the
exclamation of _yá-Allah_, which is an acknowledged substitute for
rising, made ample amends in my humble opinion. With an equal contempt
for formality, or finding the silence oppressive beyond endurance, I
then gave them permission to talk. If I refrained from inviting them to
partake of the savoury dishes of camel’s flesh prepared for me, it was
simply because I knew that they had already broken their fast.

The conversation fell on the subject of the Bedouins. The Sheykh,
having told me a story of a blood-feud between two clans, untied a
little parcel which he was in the habit of carrying about with him,
and took out three steel dice loosely threaded on wire and inscribed
with talismanic characters, together with a brass disk divided into
squares and covered all over with hieroglyphics. “By means of these two
things,” said he (while Seyyid ’Alí tipped me a wink of incredulity),
“I can foretell the future.”

With those words, he shook the dice in both his hands, and threw them
on the magic disk, and then, after making pretence to read the signs
on the face of the dice, as well as those within the squares they
occupied, he sat meditating for several minutes in gloomy silence.
“Blood,” he muttered at length, biting the thumb of his right hand,
“blood, I say, will be shed on this plain before the rising of
the sun. A peaceful caravan will be annihilated by a warrior band.
Terrible! I see some pilgrims: they belong to my native land; I hear
them crying for mercy: but the clansmen--ah, what is this I read?--yes,
the clansmen of Hozail, having plundered them, refuse to give quarter.
Surely this is a warning to me to keep a sharp look-out that I may use
my influence should woe betide my fellow-countrymen! May God protect
them through my timely aid!”

By this time I had finished my meal, and, having drunk a cup of coffee
and smoked a kalyán, I dismissed the fortune-telling Sheykh, who
promised, before he went away, to return at daybreak and accompany me
to a sort of gymkhana, where the Bedouins were to show their skill in
horsemanship. And then, being dead tired, I said good-night to Seyyid
’Alí and flung myself down to rest. Seyyid ’Alí, on leaving the room,
sang a Persian lullaby softly to himself. It ran something like this:--

Hence, begone, thou desert ogre,
Sleep would fain my baby lull:
Baby, hush, thine eyes are drowsy,
And the night is growing dull.
Hush, the night is full of shadows,
Full of phantoms dark and dread;
Soundly sleep, my precious baby,
Morning comes with joyous tread.
Hushaby, Beloved of Allah,
Sleep, and thou shalt go to school,
Pen in hand, shalt learn thy lessons,
Sagely con each word and rule.
Thou shalt read the wondrous sayings,
That in holy Koran stand;
Famous shalt thou be, my baby,
Wealthy, mighty, handsome, grand.
Hushaby, thou breathest smoothly,
And thine eyes like daisies close;
Sleep hath caught thee to her bosom
Rest, my baby, sweet repose.

CHAPTER IX

ARAFAT DAY: NIGHT[2]

[2] In the East the night precedes the day, thus our Sunday night is
their Monday night.

It has always been difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy the
cravings of an inquisitive nature; and when Seyyid ’Alí left the tent,
singing the Persian lullaby, my curiosity was not long in overcoming
my desire to sleep. It was not the prayerful hum of the canvas city
that kept me awake; it was the undevotional uproar, with the appeal
it made to my love of adventure. I lay there for some time thinking,
as men active and alert in body and mind will, of the chances I might
miss of witnessing some deed of heroism or of violence, were I to allow
myself to count the possible cost of the risk, rather than the certain
opportunities of distinction which its dangers would present to a man
of an enterprising spirit.

With these thoughts in my mind, I leaped to my feet and at once
wandered out in the camp. To me it seemed one vast place of sepulture;
for, go where I might, there I happened upon the victims of the cholera
fiend or its terrible ally, fear. I saw them writhing on the ground,
with limbs hideously contorted and faces blackened like charcoal; I
heard the sick groaning from within the tents as I hurried by to the
more convivial surroundings of the market-place; and I stumbled over
the graves in which the dead had been shovelled with unseemly haste by
their terror-stricken friends. The custom was to bury the dead outside
their tents (or wherever they might happen to fall, if away from the
camp), but to this custom the neighbours sometimes objected in a craven
regard for their own safety; for my part, the longing to recreate my
mind amid more companionable scenes, caused me to run all the way to
the meidán. And there, carousing with the ragtag and bobtail of the
loiterers and stragglers of the encampment, I counted private soldiers,
our guardians of the peace, by the score. They filled the front benches
of almost every coffee-booth, making the night merry with their hearty
laughter, while their companions, not behindhand in conviviality, burst
out singing love-songs to the accompaniment of the clapping of hands.

The Bedouin Sheykhs, virile, dignified, and exclusive, did not deign
to take part in these revels, but spent the vigil of the night on the
Mountain of Mercy or in the cafés that they kept for their private use.
They were not dressed in the pilgrim’s garb; they were arrayed in all
the warlike trappings of their tribal splendour; and being impressed
by this silent declaration of their independence, I came at length to
the conclusion that they, regarding themselves as the chosen people of
the Faith and the holy places as their inheritance, deemed it right
that the winding-sheet of humility should be worn not by themselves,
but by those who visited the Holy Land of Islám from beyond the seas.
Another characteristic of theirs, a characteristic that runs on
parallel lines with the first, is the attitude of the Sheykhs to their
clansmen, and _vice versâ_, as it reveals itself in the expression of
their faces. As every one knows who has studied the laws of this free
and irresistible people, despotism, as it exists in the Muhammadan
monarchies, is a thing impossible amongst them; and the consciousness
of this inalienable grace, why, upon my word, their faces positively
shone with it! Every Sheykh’s face is as free as is that of his
clansman from that meek and submissive servility which is the mark of
the Persian or (in a less degree) the Turkish dependent in the company
of his master. A Sheykh, on the other hand, being first amongst equals,
bears himself towards his followers with a dignity and charm commingled
out of paternal pride and childlike modesty, nor does such an one
consider his position to be threatened because his tribesmen never
cringe. They, too, are freeborn men and carry their heads high even
in the presence of the Sheríf of Mecca, who holds his race too dear
to exact an obsequious homage. Indeed, his face never wears a frown;
his voice is never raised in anger; and yet for all who come near him
the consciousness of his power lies not in themselves, but in the man
himself: in a word, it lies in his complete self-forgetfulness and his
freedom from all arrogance and pretence.

[Illustration: THE SHERÍF OF MECCA IN HIS UNIFORM.]

Well, as I walked along in the direction of the Holy Mountain, I found
a great many pilgrims engaged in calling out the names of such of
their absent friends as had begged to be remembered on the night of
Arafat. The Prophet recommended his followers to perform this act of
remembrance, and said that whosoever among them should thus create
seventy pilgrims by proxy would be rewarded with seventy palaces in
the world to come and the praises of seventy thousand angels. Imagine,
then, with what zeal and devotion my fellow-pilgrims lifted up their
voices! After each name, loud cries of “Here I am, O Allah! here am
I!” were raised by one and all, the Maghrebis singling themselves out,
to my amusement, by the number of women’s names that came tripping
off their tongues; it seemed for all the world as though they were
resolved to win the praise of none save female angels!

Tickled not a little by this delicious trait of character, I wandered
on, falling the while into a vein of pleasant memories on the friends I
had left behind me, until I was suddenly recalled to myself by a mighty
hue and cry. And this is what had happened. A Bedouin thief, breaking
through the tent of a pilgrim whom he knew to be engaged in calling out
names on the plain, saw in a corner a round bundle in a white cloth.
With greedy hands he made to possess himself of its contents when, to
his intense amazement, a woman burst from its folds, shrieking! She had
wrapped herself up in the cloth ere she went to sleep, as the custom
is among Orientals of the lower class, so that not even her head was
visible to the nefarious Bedouin, who, on now perceiving his mistake,
threw himself on the floor, with the intention of slipping headforemost
under the tent. He had certainly got away at once, had not the husband
returned, and, in the belief that the thief had it in the mind to take
advantage of his dearest treasure, laid hold of the intruder by the
leg, giving the alarm that had startled me from my day-dream. The woman
swooned away, while the Bedouin tugged himself free and made good his
escape. A few minutes later, a sergeant and his men shouldered their
way through the crowd that had collected round the entrance--too late
for once.

I hesitated a moment before I ventured to put my fate to the test of
further experience. I knew well that I risked robbery, if not death,
in continuing my ramble; for, as I had noticed from the moment of my
setting out, the camp was haunted by paupers with the most evil and
desperate faces I ever beheld. They lay in wait for the unwary pilgrim
wherever the gloom was densest, and at best the lanterns and torches
about each tent shed but a dismal glimmer on its purlieus; but the
desire to scale the Hill of Arafat and to say my prayers on its summit,
at last overcame the whispers of alarm. My only weapon was a stout
cudgel, which I had picked up as a protection against the pariah dogs
that barked at every passer-by; however, as only a couple of dollars
were left in the little bag round my neck, I felt that I could plod
along in the teeth of danger with no load of uneasy wealth on my mind.
And so, with a fresh glow of courage, I sallied forth.

It was by this time about half-past three in the morning, and a lull
seemed to fall on the camp, or perhaps this was merely a fancy of mine,
a testimony to my jangled nerves. Be this as it may, I had not taken
a hundred paces before I had the evidence of my senses to testify to
the fact that my recent misgivings had been something more than the
suggestions of timidity or nervousness. For, on reaching a secluded
and storm-rent tent, I was suddenly surrounded by a gang of paupers,
who sprang out upon me, clamouring for alms in a tone so threatening,
that my pride rebelled and would not allow me to purchase my safety
at its expense. Enough, I thought, if I seek refuge in yonder tent. A
hail of stones about my head increased my determination to gain the
place of shelter, about fifty yards away, and thither I cudgelled me a
path with a desperate expenditure of strength. The surly rascals trod
close upon my heels, stoning “the devil of a Jew” with surly illwill;
but inside the tent they dared not follow me. For all that, if they
had committed the blunder of counting the booty before the battle was
won, I had soon the discomfiture to discover that innocence in distress
may be less fortunate in its destiny than villainy in disguise. To the
injuries I had received at the hands of the robbers were now added the
insults of the inmates of the tent. They stood on the defensive, taking
me to be a thief; I called heaven to witness that I had come near to
being his victim; whereupon they assumed the offensive, and, catching
me by the nape of the neck, dragged me outside and gave me in charge
of a sentinel who, as ill-luck would have it, happened to be on his
beat. Without saying a word, I disbursed myself of half the money I
had about me, which was a proof of the innocence of my intentions so
convincing to the sentinel, that he let me loose and fell to upbraiding
my unwilling hosts for their unjustifiable suspicions. His eloquence
took the sting out of the reception they had given me, and I went on my
way blithely enough.

When I at last reached the Hill of Arafat, it was to find that the
Bedouins and the Sheykhs of the tribe of Kuraish had already taken
possession of the best places around the enclosure whence the sermon
would be preached on the following afternoon; for it was there, about
half-way up the Hill, that Muhammud was wont to address his followers,
sitting on a dromedary. This place, as well as the summit beyond,
is reached by means of a broad flight of steps, which, winding up
the southern slope of the Mount, gets gradually more precipitate and
narrow. No attempt to keep order was made by anybody in authority, with
the result that the pilgrims going up would meet the pilgrims coming
down, and be locked tight in one another’s arms, each party fighting
its hardest to force a passage through. On the crest the pressure of
the crowd was even greater: I mean more especially in the neighbourhood
of the Makam, or prayer-niche of Adam, with its white-washed platform
and central obelisk, where pious wayfarers from every quarter of Islam
were pouring out their thanks to God from the innermost tabernacle of
the heart.

Having said a two-prostration prayer--a duty that I had not neglected
on passing the sermon enclosure below--I turned to the north where,
in the valley separating the Hill from the surrounding mountains, a
band of Bedouin shepherds had lighted huge roaring bonfires, by the
light of which I could see their flocks (so soon to be slaughtered as
a sacrifice to the Omnipotent) peacefully nibbling the sparse green
herbage of the lowlands.

From the north I went to the south, and gazed down on the plain below,
to where, under the ruddy glare of the torches and the yellow light of
the lanterns, the tents of the faithful stood out against the darkness
beyond. The only regularly pitched camps were those of the soldiery,
the Sheríf, and the other dignitaries of the Hájj; all of these
occupied the space on the left-hand side of the observer; while in the
fore-ground, to the right, as well as to the left, the tents of the
Syrian and the Egyptian caravans were conspicuous: and most of these
were either circular or elliptical in shape and of considerable size,
sometimes as many as twenty pilgrims, and never less than ten, sleeping
in a single tent. For the arrangement between a Syrian pilgrim and his
_moghavem_ is this: The pilgrim pays the _moghavem_ a certain sum of
money in return for which the latter guarantees (1) to find him a seat
in a _kejaveh_ when the caravan is on the move, (2) to give him the use
of a camel on which to set his provisions and belongings, and (3) to
reserve for him a sleeping-compartment within one of the tents that are
thus turned into portable caravanserais.

Now, the Syrian caravan, whose commander considers himself the chief
of all the foreign pilgrims and brings with him a strong detachment of
cavalry, claims superiority over that of Egypt; but both caravans glory
in the possession of a Mahmil or Holy Carpet, a treasure, by the bye,
that is not a carpet at all, but a square wooden frame with a top in
the shape of a pyramid. A becrescented ball of gilt silver is set on
the four corners of the square and on the crest of the pyramid, and
the little shrine is covered all over with rich brocade embroidered in
gold and edged with silk tassels. This covering varies in colour and
in material, but, generally speaking, the Syrian Mahmil is draped with
green velvet and the Egyptian with red. The origin of the Mahmil is
said by some to date back to the year 645 of the Hegira, when a Queen
of Egypt, called the Tree of Pearls, made use of a similar kind of
thing as a litter, on the occasion of her pilgrimage to Mecca; and the
tradition goes that she borrowed the design from the chest in which
Muhammad stored the wares that he took with him on his journey from
Medina to Syria, a journey made before he had revealed to the Arabians
his new doctrine. Nowadays the Mahmil is empty. But a copy of the
Kurán is fastened outside below the topmost crescent. In the course of
time the Egyptian Mahmil came to be known by the name of Aishah, the
Prophet’s second wife, who one day questioned him, saying: “Now am I
not better than Kadijah? She was a widow, old, and had lost her looks;
you love me better than you did her?” And Muhammad answered: “No, by
Allah! She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole
world I had but one friend, and she was that.” And it is after this
peerless woman Kadijah that the Syrians have called their Mahmil. Along
with that of Egypt goes what is called the Kesveh, which consists of
eight pieces of black silk and a green curtain. The first is used for
covering the walls of the Ka’bah, and the second for veiling the tomb
of Abraham. This ceremony, which takes place during the pilgrimage, was
first instituted by Kurb, King of Yemen, and in the year of the Hegira
750, a man named Suleyman bought seven villages in Egypt, the produce
of which has since gone to defray the yearly expenses of the Kesveh.
These villages now yield an income of about £7,000 sterling, and all
this money is spent in purchasing the Kesveh and in despatching it with
great pomp to Mecca.

After meditating for about half an hour on the inexhaustible subject
of my sins, I forced my way through the press to the foot of the Hill,
and after several adventures in a place called the “Kitchen of Adam”
(where the Indian and Meccan pilgrims of the poorest classes pitched
their tents and where even the dervishes and beggars had found a
shelter)--adventures too trivial to be related here, I returned at last
to my own pavilion, and “laid me down with a will” to sleep. The whole
encampment was now wrapped in a solemn hush.

CHAPTER X

ARAFAT DAY: DAYBREAK

Pop, pop, pop! I lay between sleeping and waking, and wondered what the
noise could be. Bang, bang, bang! And again, bang, bang! I awoke with
a start--surprised to find myself wide awake; but an hour’s sleep is
not long enough to stupify a man. The reports grew louder, and the dogs
began to bark from every corner of the encampment.

“Come hither to prayers,” sang out the muezzins; “devotion is better
than sleep.” By that time every pilgrim was up and stirring. Wheuf!
the air of the false dawn, how chill it was! I summoned a servant,
telling him to light a fire outside the tent; other pilgrims followed
my example; and soon the hissing samovar gave promise of a cup of tea.

The eastern horizon, in the meantime, was growing redder and still
more red; and the pilgrims, having performed their ablutions and said
their prayers, began to intone the Talbiyah and the Tahlil, pouring out
their supplications to God and their belief in His unity, in a wailing
lilt of entreaty and contrition. Others stood in circles, beating
their breasts and singing the Labbaik. It was a scene of enthusiasm
impossible to describe.

Rap-tap-tap, tap-rap-rap, floated on the air: it was the sentinels
beating their drums to salute the break of day. Guns fired incessantly
on the hills and in the valley and on the plain. And now the hawkers
and the worshippers, the water-carriers and the paupers, the hungry
and the ascetic, all began to shout together. “Sweet water refreshes
the soul,” cried the water-carriers; “drink of the sacred water of
Ainé-Zobeideh.” “Give in the name of Allah,” whined the beggars; “my
living is in the gift of Allah. Are ye not the creatures of Allah?
Yá-Allah, yá-Allah!” “Light the fire and fill the cup,” said a Persian
officer, in his eagerness to break his fast. “And don’t forget to
‘fatten’ the water-pipe,” added his companion. “And you shall ‘dig up
its grandfather’ [that is, be the last to smoke it as it passes from
mouth to mouth], my friend,” said the officer, smiling.

When the sun came up on us, I saw Sheykh Eissa for the first time
that morning; he was standing at a distance of some yards, talking to
Seyyid ’Alí, whose handsome face shone with its usual expression of
light-hearted amusement. The two men bowed to me reverentially, their
hands folded on their breasts.

“Look, yá-Moulai,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “the top of the Mountain of Mercy
is so full of tents and animals and men, that the poor jinns, to say
nothing of the angels,----”

“Now, don’t talk blasphemy, my friend,” interrupted a priest called
Mullá Ahmad. “Do you think there is no room left for the angels?”

“God forbid!” cried Seyyid ’Alí, raising his eyes aloft. “They can
perch on the tent-poles, or on the camel-saddles.”

“Kofre-negueíd (don’t blaspheme)!” yelled the Mullá. “Don’t you
know that the angels are transparent? But for that the sun would be
eclipsed, so dense is the choir of angels in the circumambient air.”

“Is that so?” replied Seyyid ’Alí, with a smile that incensed his
questioner beyond all measure. “Does not the Holy Tradition say that
there must be six hundred thousand souls on this Blessed Plain, and
that the deficiency, if any, will be made up with the necessary number
of heavenly choristers? I had not thought that the deficiency was so
great as to cause so vast a reinvasion of light from above.”

“The Tradition,” shouted the Mullá, “says that there must be _fully_
six hundred thousand souls: there may be more, but there cannot be
less----”

“How many pilgrims are there, do you think?” I asked, interrupting the
Mullá.

“It is human to err,” he replied, sententiously; “but, however many
there may be, and I believe there are 600,000 and more, Allah may
increase them. And as for the angels, Seyyid ’Alí, they will confine
themselves to the regions of the air, immediately above us, and will
say ‘Amen’ to our prayers and supplications.”

“Multiply your estimate by 3 and divide it by 6, and you will not be
so far out of your reckoning, I think,” and so saying, I appealed to
Sheykh Eissa for his opinion.

The Sheykh scanned the encampment with critical eyes. “Let us say,” he
murmured at last, “that this city of tents on the plain and the hills
contains innumerable souls and moving beasts. Am I not right, Mullá
Ahmad?”

“Well said, my friend!” cried the Mullá. “Nobody save Allah--may I be
His sacrifice!--could count the number one by one. And who are we that
we should set a limit to God’s omnipotence and clemency?”

The Turkish authorities were almost as ignorant in the matter as the
rest of the pilgrims. Some of the former said 280,000, others 380,000;
a more daring calculation was twice the first number (560,000);
and the most timid of all was that of a Turkish official of my
acquaintance, who estimated the concourse of pilgrims at 250,000. Now,
in 1807, there were 83,000 pilgrims in Mecca, according to Ali Bey;
in 1814, Burkhardt, the Swiss traveller, who visited the Holy City in
disguise, under the name of Sheykh Ibrahim, calculated that there were
70,000 pilgrims; while Richard Burton (Sheykh Abdullah), in 1850, found
the number reduced to 50,000;--a number which, in 1902, was increased
fivefold, in my humble opinion; indeed, I maintain with the utmost
confidence that this calculation of mine, if somewhat too high, cannot
possibly be reduced below 220,000; for the opinion among the Meccans
was unanimous that the Bedouin and foreign elements, on the occasion of
my pilgrimage, were more than four times as numerous than they had been
within the memory of the oldest inhabitants.

Now, as regards the plan of the encampment, it has always been the
endeavour of the well-to-do to keep as close to the Mountain of Mercy
(the Hill of Arafat) as possible, and the consequence of this is that
the whole expanse of the northern face of the plain is more or less
aristocratic, with an effort to regularity in the arrangement of the
tents, the most distinguished camping-places being in the north-eastern
angle, where the Sheríf’s pavilions are pitched, and all along the
north and north-western ridges, where the tents of the Turkish soldiery
and the foreign grandees spread themselves in unbroken lines to the
point of attraction in the north-east. For to sun themselves in the
light of the Sheríf’s beneficent eye, is the ambition of all pilgrims
who have any claim to regard themselves as gentlefolk. The more the
plain slopes to the south, the more it is covered with the tents of the
vulgar and with the pilgrims that have no tents at all; while midway
between the two extremes are the booths and stalls of the open-air
bazaars: these are also scattered here and there in every encampment.
The Syrian and the Egyptian caravans, with their respective Mahmils,
take up their appointed places, nowadays, without any serious dispute
arising between them; but in olden times the rivalry was so keen and
so bitter, that blood was often shed. The Meccan religious officials,
the Turkish civil and military authorities, and the privileged grandees
of all nations, including, of course, the Persian Consul-General,
follow the precedent of immemorial custom; but for the rest the rule of
“first come, first served” holds good in every quarter of the plain,
I mean within the limits of the broadly defined distinctions of class
which make it expedient, if not compulsory, for the paupers and less
reputable pilgrims to keep to the south, leaving the northern regions
to their brethren of higher castes. In theory, the Mussulmans are all
equal, each to each; but, socially, they are at least as exclusive
as the Christians, and infinitely more exacting where etiquette and
ceremony are concerned; while at Mecca, the Kiblah of the Faith,
there is, with the yearly influx of pilgrims of heterogeneous races,
a growing tendency to assimilate the two most striking effects of
western centralisation as seen in the capitals of Europe--namely, an
inclination to become more and more tolerant in matters of religion,
and a determination to regard wealth as the determinative factor in
separating class from class. To every student of Islám the first of
these is of tremendous importance. He must bear constantly in mind
that the embroilments between the seventy-two sects, so far from being
irreconcilable, show a steady inclination to become less marked in the
holy city of Mecca at the present day, notwithstanding the hostility
of the priests towards a complete reunion. Time was when the Shiahs,
to which sect the Persians and the Nakhowalis of Medina belong, were
precluded from exercising their religious rites in their own way, and
when they were even shut out from the regular encampment on the plain
of Arafat. But to-day they are not only allowed to gain salvation
as the spirit moves them through the performance of their special
ceremonies; they are also accorded the privilege of following the time
laid down in their own almanacks for the due solemnisation of their
sacred rites, and that altogether apart from the Orthodox sects who
follow invariably the instructions of the Kazi of Mecca.

This is an immense gain; let us consider what it means: Does it not
mean that the Prophet’s aim in making Pilgrimage an inseparable part
of the Faith, is getting, year by year, a step nearer to completion?
And if so, can the enthusiast’s belief in the possibility of an united
Islám--an Islám rooted in “one life, one law, one element, the one
far-off divine event,” be dismissed as a dream too spiritual to be
substantiated? I say no; for a dream that is already a spiritual truth,
as it most certainly is among the enlightened at the present time,
may one day become a political fact in the eyes of the whole world.
However, come with me to the Persian encampment, and I will tell you
on the way something more about the city of tents, as well as something
more of the Mussulmans of the Shiah persuasion.

[Illustration: A LEARNED MUSSULMAN OF INDIA.]

The first thing that struck me, by the light of day, was the contrast
presented by the personal cleanliness of such of the pilgrims as had
performed their ablutions, and the inconceivable filthiness of the
surroundings in which they lived. To attempt to describe the causes
that resulted in this insanitary condition of the encampment (a
condition that, in the absence of any medical help worth mentioning,
added considerably to the violence of the cholera and the number of
its victims) would be to enumerate the disgusting habits of every
individual camp-follower in the train of the grandees, not to allude
to those of the poor and destitute, who either lived under tattered
rags over rude crossbars, like the dervishes, or slept with the vermin
on the naked ground. The scene was pleasing to the eye, no doubt; but
the contagion spread by its most picturesque features was none the less
overpowering to the nose. At a distance it was artistic: a glimpse of
gipsy life twinkling with colour; walk into it, and it was only fetid
stench and festering pollution. The tents of the less poverty-stricken
caravans were pitched in rings called _dowars_; the beasts of burden
being hobbled in the centre, or tethered to the tent-pegs outside; and
the shape and colour of the tents, if less various than the facial
types of those who dwelt in them, were sufficiently diversified, in
certain quarters, to relieve the monotony of the general picture.
Red within and white without, the tents of the middle classes were
dome-shaped, while those of the privileged dignitaries were as
sumptuous and varied in colour and form as those of the poorest classes
were ingenious in contrivance. The Sherífian colours were green and
gold and red, and the most beautiful pavilions of all were certainly
his. After these, perhaps, came those belonging to the Persian
Consul-General, who made a not unsuccessful attempt to compete with
the highest in the splendour and completeness of his camp equipment.
Moreover, the thoroughfares of the select corner of the plain were,
upon the whole, well-ordered and creditably policed, more especially
was this the case with those in closest proximity to the Turkish
authorities.

And now with these preliminary remarks on the appearance of the city
of tents by day, I will ask the readers to follow me into the Persian
encampment situated midway between the Syrian and Egyptian caravans;
for it is my present wish to be the means of introducing him to that
interesting Shiah sect that flourishes in the neighbourhood of Medina
and is known by the name of Nakhowalis. I had a long talk with about
a dozen of these men (they had accompanied the Persian pilgrims from
Medina to Mecca as guides) and it is on the information that I gleaned
from them that this short paragraph is based.

Well, when the Prophet fled from Mecca, with a few devoted followers,
he was received by a great number of the people of Medina with every
mark of confidence. Those who fled with him were afterwards called
Mohajer or Immigrants, while those who went out to help him from the
city of refuge came to be known by the name of Anssar or Auxiliaries.
It is from the latter party that the Nakhowalis claim descent. They
now number about two thousand families, and live, in open feud with
the Orthodox inhabitants, outside the city gates. They have their own
mosques and cemetery, as they are not allowed to worship within the
Harem of the Prophet’s Tomb, nor were they permitted, until quite
recently, to cross its threshold. The cause of all their disabilities,
however, is of a political rather than religious nature; for all of
them hold the first two Caliphs in execration, the greater number
forswearing allegiance to Othman as well. The bond of sympathy between
the two groups thus formed is the veneration and love they bear
Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, ’Alí, whom they believe to have been
the lawful successor of the Prophet. However much or little they may
differ in doctrine from the Shiahs of Persia, they are acknowledged by
the latter as belonging to the same communion; indeed, the Persians
contribute, year by year, considerable sums of money to the support of
these distant co-religionists of theirs--sums which are handed over
to them by one of the Persian pilgrims. Moreover, a Nakhowali, if he
chance to visit the country of the Lion and the Sun, will be sure to
return with bags full of money; nor is this charity of a sort that
loses both itself and friend, the recipient being quick in responding
to every act of friendship, as many a Persian pilgrim had good reason
to remember if, as it usually happened, he took up his abode at
the friendly hearth of a Nakhowali. Hospitable and chivalrous, the
Nakhowalis adhere strictly to this unwritten law of the desert-born,
that a guest must be protected even if he be an infidel; none the less
they count both Jew and Christian as unclean, being as scrupulous
in this particular as the Persians, whose rules they follow in the
discharge of their religious purifications.

My informants, who were armed to the teeth, were handsome, swarthy,
and fearless-looking. They bitterly resented the fact that, on certain
points of religious observance, they were constrained to obey the
instructions of the Kazi of Medina, rather than those of their own
clergy. They declared that this obedience had been wrung from them as
a condition of their freedom to have priests of their own; but since
I had not an opportunity of going to Medina to see for myself, it
would be unwise to give further publicity to reports which reached me
either through the Orthodox Madani, who were naturally antagonistic,
or through the Shiah Nakhowalis, who were not less certainly biassed
in their own favour. Their womenfolk (to make an end of this short
discourse) are reputed to be the most beautiful of all at Medina; they
were so closely veiled, however, that they might just as well have been
the ugliest--none save their husbands could tell.

The scene now changes.

CHAPTER XI

ARAFAT DAY: FORENOON AND AFTERNOON

Early in the morning, shortly after my visit to the Persian encampment,
the Turkish cavalry paraded and manœuvred. The troops were composed of
Turks, Kurds, Arabs, and Albanians. To see these men in the pride of
a soldier’s bearing, you must watch them as they rush into life and
motion; for with their ragged uniforms and unlikely-looking mounts,
they are at a disadvantage when standing at attention. But once let
them get in full swing, and they soon prove that they are trained
for use and not for show. To me this sudden change from unsoldierly
slovenliness to skill and daring activity, was a revelation. And
the horses--lean Arabs from Southern Arabia or wiry nags from
Egypt--responded spiritedly to every twist and turn of the bridle
wrist: they too were transformed. The feats of horsemanship performed
by the Albanians were the wonder and delight of every pilgrim. These
manœuvres of theirs, so different from those of European cavalry, are
doubtless aboriginal. They leave their cantonment in fighting array,
riding to the tattoo of a small kettle-drum called _nakus_. On a
sudden, at a beat of the drum, the regiment opens out, scattering in
all directions: each man pricks it in pursuit of the enemy, firing
incessantly into the air. The sound of the drum now changes, and the
men come galloping back, meeting in a dense column: then all is
ordered confusion and breathless expectation. The signal is given,
and then with impetuous fury the whole squadron hurls itself on the
spot chosen to represent the enemy’s position. The men, alternately
dispersing and reforming, advancing and retreating, obey every beat of
the drum, their horses being as intelligently alert as well-trained
polo ponies. So reckless were the Albanians on this occasion, that it
was a miracle that only a rider here and there came to grief. And all
the time this sham fight was raging, horsemen from every corner of
chivalrous Arabia galloped aimlessly about the encampment, waving their
tufted spears. In the hearts of the pilgrim bands watching their every
movement they struck an awe not unmixed with terror: for, as Seyyid
’Alí put it, the horses seemed shod with lightning as they flashed to
and fro; and lightning, may it not spare the guilty and strike the
righteous?...

You must not think that the pilgrims were idle all this while--not
even Seyyid ’Alí and myself. A party of us met about nine o’clock to
visit the holy places on the plain, Seyyid ’Alí acting as guide. My
companions were Sheykh Eissa, Mullá Ahmad, Mirza Yusúf, and Seyyid
Muhsin. The demeanour of these men is worth describing as a touch of
character. The tour being a religious duty, their mien was designed to
give expression to the earnestness of their devotion. The talkative
charm-monger, Sheykh Eissa, strode forward as in a trance; though he
rarely said a word, his lips moved constantly, as if he were whispering
in the ear of a jinn: he was spellbound. His companion, Mullá Ahmad,
looking neither to the right nor the left, tripped along with mincing
steps, reciting prayer after prayer in Arabic (classical style). The
man who walked at my side was Mirza Yusúf, than whom a deaf-mute of
ordinary intelligence had made himself better understood; for the
Mirza, having taken a vow to remain silent till he had repeated
the Verse of the Throne seven thousand times, replied to all my
questions by signs and nods and awkward contortions of the body. As
for the two Seyyids--Muhsin, a friend of mine from Central Persia,
and ’Alí, a man you already know--even they, though drawn together
by the law of affinity, yet felt constrained to conceal their innate
lightheartedness from each other, wearing in its place an expression of
sanctimoniousness more comical than insincere.

Well, the usual course is to proceed at once to a place called
Jammé-Sakhra, where the Prophet used to stand and say his Talbiyah;
but my friends, allowing themselves to be persuaded by me, had set
out instead in the direction of the Mountain of Mercy. There, with
even greater difficulty than on the previous night, I shoved my way
up the first flight of steps, using Seyyid ’Alí sometimes as a buffer
and sometimes as a wedge. The others had remained below, being afraid
to risk the dangers of the ascent; for even on the lowest skirts of
the Mountain the swarms of pilgrims were subjected to pretty rough
handling; while on a somewhat higher ridge the Wahhabis of Nijd were
quarrelling with the Bedouins of Al-Hejaz as to who should have the
best places for listening to the Kazi’s eloquence in the afternoon.
We had skirted the angry disputants and reached the steps not much
the worse for wear; but despite all our efforts we found it quite
impossible to mount higher than the first enclosure whence the sermon
is preached. There we might have stayed till sunset, a prey to the
rapacity of paupers, had not the pilgrims on the plain learned wisdom
from our plight, and stayed where they were. This lessened the pressure
round the platform: and the number of pilgrims coming up being now
less than the number going down, we took advantage of this opportunity
without a moment’s hesitation, and allowed ourselves to be carried
away by the downgoing stream to the foot of the Hill.

On reaching the bottom, we turned to the right and made for the
Ainé-Zobeideh--Zobeideh, wife of Caliph Harun-ur-Rashid. To this spring
has been given the power of working miracles: merely dip a black cloth
in it, and it will be washed as white as milk. No dye can resist its
cleansing property, no stone withstand its charm. I might believe this
or not as I liked, said Seyyid ’Alí; for his part, he would demand
no greater wonder than that it should quench his thirst--a thirst
that was insatiable, he begged Zobeideh Khanum (Lady Zobeideh) to
believe. Throwing himself on his stomach, he wriggled through the
crowd to the water’s brink; I did likewise; and then, having washed
our hands and feet and quenched our thirst, we crawled back and said a
two-prostration prayer out of the gratitude of our hearts.

“God bless Zobeideh! May her fountain never run dry!” cried Seyyid
’Alí; then off we went at last to where the Prophet used to recite
his Supplication before preaching his sermon on the Mount. This
place, as already mentioned, is called Jammé Sakhra: it is a small
enclosure standing within whitewashed walls, and is divided into two
compartments--one for men and one for women--both of which contain
prayer-niches. Here our friends were awaiting our arrival, having said
their prayers--a duty which they discharged a second time (God will
increase His kindness!) by way of returning thanks for our safety.

By this time the sun shone in the zenith, and the whole plain was
covered with worshippers, saying their mid-day prayers: the angels,
as they believed most fervently, lending ear to their entreaties and
responding to such as were sincere with an approving Amen.

Now, a Mussulman believes in earnest; watch him as he bows himself
in praise or supplication, and you will not doubt his sincerity. His
faith is unquestioning, for is it not to him as an elemental force, as
necessary as the air he breathes? Why, it warms him like fire, this
faith of his, and refreshes him like water, nor is the earth than it
more solid and indestructible. The East has many things still to learn
from the West, but faith is not one of them. Surrounded by the dying
and the dead, these terror-struck pilgrims, at the first cry of the
muezzin, regained their presence of mind. They had been stricken with
fear as with an ague, they had fled from death as from a scourge, but
at the first sound of that devotional summons, they stood at attention
before their Creator, like soldiers awaiting the word of command. And
then, as though God had spoken, they bowed their bare heads--then
they sank on their bare knees--and then they prostrated themselves on
the ground. Do you doubt their sincerity still? And if their faith is
unimpeachable, can you deny that the Prophet was less magnificently
sincere?

With these thoughts in my mind, I hurried to our tents to read a few
chapters of the Kurán and to say the prescribed prayers, before setting
out again to witness the Sheríf’s procession and attend the Kazi’s
sermon. This day, the 9th of the moon, was a day of fasting; but a good
many pilgrims found pretexts for breaking their fasts, and I, being
worn out after the long journey of the preceding day and the exciting
vigil of the night, was among the number. Having eaten my fill, I
dropped fast asleep, to be awakened about three o’clock by the firing
of guns. Our party at once left the tents, giving full instructions to
the servants to have everything in readiness for the rush from Arafat
at sundown.

[Illustration: PERSIAN PILGRIMS FROM TABRIZ, HAVING TEA ON BOARD THE
STEAMER.]

Then out once more into the plain, weltering in the sunshine, to
stand, bare-headed and with naked feet, until the sun should sink
behind the horizon....

The Egyptian Mahmil had already passed on to its appointed place on the
mountainside; but, fortunately, we were not too late to see the passing
of its Syrian rival which, draped in its covering of gold and green,
now threaded its way across the plain. The Mahmil headed by a dozen
led horses of the purest Arabian strain, all richly caparisoned with
embroidered cashmere shawls, was surrounded by a squadron of horsemen
and camel-riders; while immediately in front of the prancing Arabs,
came heralds in white headgear and red coats, bearing silver batons in
their hands. And thus the green badge of Syria moved on to its allotted
place on the skirts of the Mountain of Mercy.

Hardly had it reached its destination, than the band of the Sherífian
procession crashed out a march: and soon afterwards the cavalcade
drew near. A score or two of men on foot cleared the course, making
vigorous use of the long staves they carried in their hands. A number
of mace-bearers, who came next, were followed in turn by a regiment
of Sherífian cavalry, barbarously dressed and gallantly mounted, each
man prepossessing the spectator in his favour. Even more popular was
the appearance of the magnificent body of men which next excited our
admiration. It was a staff of Arab chieftains, the pick of the country,
riding on mettlesome thoroughbreds, and combining in their persons
all the chivalry and the dash of their indomitable race. Then a blaze
of crimson-red--the Sherífian state colour: this struck my eye on the
flowing saddle-cloths of the led horses of His Holiness, the Sheríf of
Mecca, who, meekly riding on a white mule, quite alone in the line, was
clad, like the poorest of the poor among the pilgrims, in Ihrám. Behind
him walked his courtiers and the members of his Household, while a
crowd of Bedouin Sheykhs on horseback or on camels brought up the rear.

When the cavalcade was stationed near the Mahmils, guns were fired
again and again to announce that the sermon was about to begin. Then,
amid the sighs and sobs and tears of that vast congregation, the Kazi
of Mecca, sitting on a dromedary, began to preach, or (perhaps more
correctly) to pray. Speaking in Arabic verse, each line being repeated
about a dozen times by the pilgrims, he intoned the rhythmic psalm in a
deep but ringing voice. The opening passages ran as follows:--

Thou, O Lord, no mate possessest:
Thou, in truth, the King of kings!
I am here for Thee--for Thee:
I am here with praise for Thee.
Thou no compeer hast, O Allah!
Nights are darkened at Thy command:
Stars are shining in obedience:
Angels praise Thee round Thy Throne.
Prophets come at Thy beck and call:
The sun goes round to sing Thy praises:
Thou art holy and Thy name is holy:
Thou art merciful, magnanimous, and compassionate!

* * * * *

May the end of our life come with heavenly blessing!
May the angels of punishment pass by from our doors!
We glorify and praise Thee, Lord!
May the angels of mercy show their grace to us!
May our humble supplications be acceptable to Thee!
We glorify and praise Thee, Lord!

At first the pilgrims held their breath, afraid of missing a word; but
as the prayers and psalms and exhortations proceeded, their enthusiasm
grew more and more unrestrained. No longer content with repeating the
Kazi’s words, line by line, they burst into tears, and from tears
into shrieks. They beat their breasts, sobbing from sheer excess of
joy; they could be seen, on the plain, whirling round and round, as
they sang the Labbaik. Some swooned, partly from delirium of religious
emotion, and partly from the effect of the sun’s excessive heat. One
moment--and your blood seemed to boil and your brain to swim in liquid
fire; then came relief: you were drenched in sweat, reduced to liquid
that alternately evaporated and gushed out of every pore. I was wedged
so tight in a compact mass of pilgrims, within a stone’s throw of the
preacher, that there was no chance of my reaching the haven of my one
desire--the cooling spring where I had slaked my thirst at noonday. And
so one hour wore on.

What had happened among the pilgrims out there in the dancing glare of
the sunlit plain, I cannot say; but the least said about the reports
of the behaviour of some of them, the better. No good purpose can be
served by emphasising the exceptional and parading the obscene. Where
I stood, longing for the sound of running water, there, at least, the
solemnity and the fervour of the congregation were of a sort to take
one’s reason captive, overcoming, by sheer repetition of appeal, even
the craving I had to swill my gullet with a draught of water.

Another hour went by: the sun was sinking in the west: the eastern
horizon turned colour, passing from a purple shade to a tone of deepest
crimson. The green flag on the mountain-top still floated high in
air; still the preacher gave out his message, to the ever-increasing
excitement of his people; and then at last, just as the sun dipped in a
pool of red, the signal of Essraf was given. The sermon was over, and
the night of another day begun. We were now entitled to call ourselves
Hájís.

“_Aydákum Ghebúl_ (May your festival be accepted),” cried Seyyid ’Alí,
kissing me three times on the cheeks, in accordance with the practice.

And I returned the kisses, saying--

“_Tebarik-Allah!_ (May God be glorified).”

I now pass on to the Day of Sacrifice and the Days of Drying Flesh.

CHAPTER XII

THE DAY OF VICTIMS: FROM SUNDOWN TO SUNSET. THE DAYS OF DRYING FLESH.

Long before the signal of Essraf was given, the canvas-city had been
in a state of confusion: so that by the time the sermon was over most
of the tents had been folded and stowed away. Thus everything was now
ready for the impetuous rush from Arafat.

The pilgrims’ jubilation was then at its height. The uproar was
deafening: drums were beaten, bugles called us to make haste, and
rocket after rocket exploded as it whirred through the air.... We
waited half an hour or so, exchanging kisses and congratulations, and
then a path was prepared for the cavalcades. The Egyptian Mahmil took
the right-hand side of the road and the Syrian the left: after them
charged the mounted pilgrims, followed by those on foot, all and each
showing the same reckless determination to press forward over every
obstacle, no matter how narrow the road might be.

This headlong stampede after the sermon on the Mount is historic. It
never grows stale with the years. The havoc it wrought in 1319 of the
Flight it would be quite impossible to exaggerate; for the confusion
which has become traditional was increased fivefold by the number
of pilgrims, a number that was vastly greater than any within the
recollection of the authorities. Women and men swooned in the crush
and were trampled to death--litters were overthrown and smashed in
pieces--camels were trodden under foot: but neither disaster nor death
could, in the slightest degree, glut the wild desire by which the crowd
was moved--the desire, namely, of being more completely possessed by
the feeling of a religion-wrought delirium. It was not a triumphant
procession of peaceful pilgrims, therefore, though that is undoubtedly
what it should be; it was a charge of religious madmen running _amok_.
How many were killed or maimed, I can hazard no guess; but of this I am
quite certain,--the casualties had not been so terrible on any previous
occasion within the memory of man.

Thus the dense mass moved on, and about the hour of midnight we reached
Muzdalifah. There we halted for the night, the pious passing the time
in praying and reading the Kurán. Very few pilgrims took the trouble
to pitch tents here, the vast majority of them sleeping on the ground.
Before lying down to rest, Seyyid ’Alí and I collected forty-nine
stones apiece for the Lapidation of the Devil in the valley of Mina.

Now, this ceremony takes place three times: first, between sunrise and
sunset on the 10th of the moon when every pilgrim must fling seven
stones at a buttress, situated at the Meccan entrance to the valley,
and called the Great Devil. These seven stones must be gathered at
Muzdalifah, and have to be washed seven times and each time in fresh
water. On the following day, the 11th, twenty-one stones must be
thrown: seven at the Great Devil as before, seven at the Wusta or
Central Point in the middle of the valley, and, last of all, seven
more at the Ula or First Place lying at that entrance to Mina which
faces Arafat. All these twenty-one stones may be gathered either in
the valley itself or at Muzdalifah on the return journey; but they,
too, must be washed seven times and each time in fresh water. The
same rules apply to the third Lapidation, which is held on the 12th of
Zú-’l-hijjáh: and the three ceremonies aforementioned are performed in
commemoration of the tradition that Abraham was tempted three times of
the Devil, at those very places in the valley, what time he was about
to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Now the first day, which is the 10th of
Zú-’l-hijjah, is called the Day of Victims, while the two following
days are called the Days of Drying Flesh in the Sun.

Awaking early, my party set out, at peep of day, to the sacred monument
hard by, where, amid scenes of indescribable solemnity, the Festival
Prayers were celebrated by the Kazi of Mecca, who also preached a short
sermon. Departing thence at sunrise, we arrived at Mina about nine
o’clock, one of our servants dying of cholera on the road. We buried
him where he fell, each one of us wondering if his own life would be
the next to come to an end. What would happen after the slaying of the
victims we dared not think. The prospect looked gloomy in the extreme.

Having eaten a good meal, we traversed the valley in the direction of
Mecca, in order to be rid, as soon as possible, of the tiresome duty of
stoning the Great Devil. When we reached the entrance to the valley,
it was to find our access to his Satanic Majesty blocked by a vast
concourse of excited pilgrims. The road, about thirteen yards wide,
was packed with horsemen, camel-riders, litters, pilgrims on foot, and
women in _kejavehs_, all struggling and fighting to get within stone’s
throw of the buttress which rests against a wall that is only a little
higher than itself which is--say, three yards high by two yards broad.
Of the Orthodox sects the Shafeis are the most privileged, for they are
allowed to stand at a distance of five cubits from the Devil, whereas
the Hanefis are supposed to make their attack the more formidable by
fighting at close quarters--within arm’s reach of the Arch Foe.

And all the while the great mountains frowned down upon us; very
awe-inspiring I found them: the seven stones I had brought along with
me fell at my feet only to be picked up by Seyyid ’Alí.

“Come, yá-Moulai,” said he: “the devil is not so big after all. See, I
will fling your stones as well as my own at little devils like myself.”

After this “ceremony” was over, we returned to our camp where a barber
was waiting “to bring me out of Ihrám.” When he had trimmed my hair,
shaving it round the nape of the neck, and had cut my nails, I made to
take off the pilgrim’s garb, saying--“In the name of God the Merciful
and Compassionate, I intend to doff my Ihrám of pilgrimage, according
to the usage of it by the Prophet, on whom be blessings and glory! O
Allah, reward me to the number of the hairs of my head with Light,
Purity, and Grace. In the name of God--God is great!” Upon this the
barber helped me to undress and (after I had had a bath) to put on my
gala attire which was Egyptian in make and in material.

[Illustration: DISEMBARKING AT JIDDAH.]

[Illustration: PILGRIMS AT JIDDAH.]

By this time the servants had purchased the victims, and they now came
to tell me that all preparations had been made for the sacrifice. I
deputed Seyyid ’Alí to slay my harmless sheep, from a sudden invasion
of squeamishness. And before the day was over the valley of Desire was
turned into a reeking slaughter-house, and, it may be added, into a
cemetery for the dead pilgrims. These also were victims--the victims
of the misdirected religious zeal which had prompted a slaughter that
served no other purpose than to spread the epidemic. The less said
of it here the better. I have no wish to make the reader sick. It
will be enough to add, to what has been said in a previous chapter,
that the camels were sacrificed by none but grandees, who dispatched
their victims with the words: “In the Name of God! God is great!” the
same words being used by the other pilgrims in sacrificing the sheep!

All beasts of prey are believed by the superstitious to keep away from
the valley during the Day of Sacrifice and the Days of Drying Flesh;
for, had not the victims been brought down from heaven by angels, and
driven by them under the guidance of Bedouin shepherds, to the place
of slaughter? But the truth is that the Takruri negroes were more
blood-thirsty than any of the carnivorous animals or birds of prey:
they laid in wait until the sheep were killed, feasting their eyes on
the creatures’ dying agonies, and then pounced on the carcases like
hungry vultures.

Now, a great many pilgrims, after casting off the Ihrám and putting
on their festival attire, went at once to Mecca, visited the Ka’bah,
repeating the ceremonies already described, and then returned to Mina
to slay their victims. One of our party who had taken this course fell
sick of the cholera on the road, and the news of his grave condition
reached us at mid-day. We therefore determined to take up our quarters
in Mecca, for our comrade’s sake, and to return to Mina, day by day,
in order to complete our stoning of the Devil. Sheykh Eissa, however,
remained behind to take charge of our camp; and when we got back again
next morning, it was to hear from him a flamboyant account of the
fireworks and jollifications of the Great Festival that we had missed.
We listened to his stories of the too-unfettered revelry by night with
heavy hearts, for our friend was dead. Outside, the whole valley stank
like a shambles, hundreds of pilgrims having succumbed overnight to the
cholera epidemic; and so, when we had stoned the Devil for the second
time, we bent our steps again to the Holy City, taking care to remember
our comrade in our prayers as we passed by the mosque of Khaif. There
we saw some poor pilgrims drying the flesh of a dead sheep--a revolting
spectacle. Next day, the 12th of Zú-’l-hijjah, we cast the remaining
twenty-one stones at the three buttresses in the Valley of Desire, and
were ready on the 13th to join the little pilgrimage to Al-Omreh--a
mosque near the pillars of Alemeyn--having to that end performed
ablutions with the water of Zem-Zem, and put on the ihrám once more,
and made our declaration of intention opposite the Black Stone. It
took us about three hours to reach the sacred spot where we said a
two-prostration prayer after having subjected our heads and hands and
feet to a second ablution. Then we rode back to Mecca and again went
through all those ceremonies within the Harem and between Mount Safá
and Mount Marveh which have been described in the earlier pages of this
narrative. This brought the little pilgrimage of Omreh to an end, and
the ihrám was finally removed. Thenceforward the streets of Mecca were
crowded with pilgrims dressed in every costume of the East.

I remained a week in the Holy City after the Day of Victims--indeed,
no pilgrim could bring himself to leave the Kiblah of the Faith before
the 18th of Zú-’l-hijjah--and whiled away the time by frequent visits
to the Harem and the bazaars. By these means I added considerably to my
knowledge of the pilgrims and their ways. The result of my observations
will be found overleaf.

On the 18th I attached myself to a strong caravan bound for Jiddah, and
there I said good-bye to Seyyid ’Alí. The reader will meet him again,
however, in the brief pages of Part III.

PART III

MECCAN SCENES AND SKETCHES

CHAPTER I

THE MECCAN BAZAARS

The European, who prides himself on his practicality, is inclined to
look down on the merchant’s calling, though it is surely one of the
most practical of all. The Oriental, on the other hand, who is supposed
to be the most romantic of mortals, generally holds it in high esteem.
Therefore the Oriental, if he is less practical in that he is slow
to adopt the time-saving methods of his Western brother, is far more
logical in paying every respect to a calling which is one of the chief
factors in the welfare of nations. Moreover, the Oriental’s attitude
towards travelling proves him to be far more practical than he is
generally believed to be. As a general rule he takes to roving, either
to lay up for himself treasures in heaven by visiting holy places, or
to better his condition in life by trading in foreign parts. If he is a
pilgrim he combines the spiritual and the worldly aims above-mentioned,
strong in the Prophet’s assurance that it shall be no crime in him
if he seek an increase from his Lord during his pilgrimage. The
consequence is that Mecca is turned every year into a bustling fair,
an exchange and mart where Eastern commodities of every description
can be purchased in cash or in kind. This being understood, I will ask
the reader to accompany my guide and myself on our shopping tour of
the Meccan bazaars, for I must not forget, as a true pilgrim, to buy a
soughát or present for each of the friends I left behind me.

“Yá-Moulai,” said my guide, “let me advise you to grease your tongue
with honey before we go, that the shopkeepers may respond to the
compliments you must pay them by lowering their prices. I notice that
you have a smile on your lips. Yá-Allah! do you wish to return with
an empty purse? Press your lips together, affect a poverty-stricken
demeanour, otherwise you will be fleeced not only by the traders, but
also by every beggar in Mecca, more particularly by those who lie in
wait for the generous-hearted round about the Harem. On entering each
shop you must cough as hard as you can, though you tear your chest in
pieces: then the shopkeeper will be compassionate in the matter of
charges. Another counsel I would offer you is this. Let us suppose you
want to buy a knife. The first thing you must do is to ask the cutler
for a sword, then for a dagger, then for a pair of scissors, and,
after refusing all of these things with a sneer, you must command him
to show you a knife in a voice toned to insinuate that the purchasing
of that article is an act of generosity on your part, a magnanimous
recompense to him for his trouble. For our merchants, though they are
often crafty and betray a suspicious conscience, are, if you treat them
as they expect to be treated, of a childlike simplicity. So cast off
your sandals that you may acquire the reputation of a saint and thus
be treated fairly in the bazaars. Believe me, Yá-Moulai, if you follow
these instructions, you will drive a better bargain with the Meccan
than you would by trusting to the honesty of a Firangi trader who is
civilisation-proof against these simple wiles.” And so chattering he
led me through the crowded streets, and would have asked for alms, that
I might pass as a beggar, had I not forbidden him sternly to practise
in my service a piece of deceit as unworthy of himself as it would be
humiliating to me; whereon he glanced at me furtively muttering in his
beard: “He is as proud as a Shahzadeh.”

The city of Mecca is divided into two parts. Of these the upper
quarters are called Malá, as opposed to the lower ones, which are known
by the name of Misfál. The shops are very similar to those at Jiddah;
but in the street that bears the name of Mussah, which is the broadest
and most picturesque thoroughfare, they occupy, I may say, the ground
floor of the houses on both sides, presenting to the passers-by such a
wealth of Oriental goods as I for one had not seen before. The familiar
word “bazaar” is Persian, its Arabic equivalent being Súgh, and a
whole quarter is sometimes called after its neighbouring market, as is
the case, for instance, with the quarter called Súghé-Seghir. To the
North of Mussah-street is situated the Soueygha Bazaar, where goods
(especially the belongings of dead pilgrims) are sold by auction twice
a day, in the morning and in the evening, and there also slaves are
exhibited and knocked down to the highest bidder. The Syrian Bazaar,
or Sughé-Shamí, is to be found to the east of this slave market;
the armourers display their weapons in the Súghé-Geshatshi near the
Platform of Purity, whence the Sughé-Lail, or Night bazaar, is within
easy reach; while further to the east, below the skirts of Mount Abú
Ghobais, in a market named Moamil, pottery of any description can
be bought by the pilgrims as receptacles for the curative water of
Zem-Zem. In a square to the east of this bazaar camels and sheep are
sold, and fruit stalls are kept by Bedouins: and from thence one passes
to the blacksmiths’ shops or Sughé-Haddadin.

The pilgrim who would purchase shoes or sandals must seek the upper
quarters of the town, and there, in the north of Malá, he will find
what he wants in abundance, as well as many provision stores which
serve to replenish the supplies of the yearly caravans; for most of
these dealers have agencies at Jiddah, Bombay, and Cairo. In the same
quarter, still to the north, is the meat market, most of the butchers
being Bedouin Arabs who keep special flocks of sheep and camels
for slaughter and for sale. From this bazaar the way lies through
some extremely narrow and dirty lanes to the Zokáké-Seni or Chinese
Market, where gold and silver vessels and jewellery are sold by a few
Muhammadans of the Celestial Empire. Thence to the north-east are
situated the dyers’ shops, which go by the name of Sughé-Sabbaghin.
The manufacture of indigo dye, which is much used in Arabia, is very
interesting. First the small leaves are dried in the sun, then they
are powdered and put into earthenware jars filled with water, where
they remain overnight. Next morning the leaves are stirred thoroughly
until a dark blue froth is produced in the water, after which they are
left to settle. When the indigo is taken from the bottom it is spread
on cloths to drain, and is then mixed with dates and saltpetre. The
method of calendering the garments dyed with indigo consists in beating
them on stones with wooden hammers, which is generally done to the
accompaniment of a song.

“Bismi’lláhi’r-Rahmáni’r-Rahim!” With those words on our lips we
entered the bazaar to the north of the Harem. What first struck my
attention was a man sitting on a rug with a small wooden frame in front
of him, a round blue tile by his side, a reed pen in his right hand,
and a few sheets of paper in his left. He was an Arab scribe, and
around him were gathered a crowd of illiterate pilgrims, all waiting
for him to write their letters. The first to go forward was an Afghan
pilgrim. He had muscular limbs and a fierce, scowling face. Said he:
“Write me a letter to my brother: he is ill and lives at Sakhir.” The
scribe, who was sitting on his hips, cocked up his right leg ever so
slightly so as to form a sort of table, and asked the Afghan what he
was to say. “By God!” exclaimed the native of Sakhir, “I expect you
to provide something more than the paper and the penmanship. You must
supply the words as well. What! you know not what to write? Have I not
said that my brother is sick and like to die? Tell him that I will
bring him a bottle of Zem-Zem water--that will cure him, if it please
Allah--and a winding-sheet that has been dipped therein, which will
be useful if he die--God forbid!” Here my guide stepped to the front,
saying, “From the Percussion of the Grave and from the Interrogation
of the Grave may God the Merciful and Clement deliver him!” A bright
smile flashed over the Afghan’s face. “May your kindness increase!”
said he. Meanwhile, the scribe dipped his pen in the silk threads on
the blue tile which served the purpose of an inkstand. These threads
were soaked in soot and water, and it took about three dips to write a
single word. Every now and then he would raise the paper to the left
side of his face and look at it slantingly out of the corner of his
eye. If a word did not please him he would rub it out by moistening
his forefinger and dabbing it half-a-dozen times on the word, for the
ink left no permanent trace on the paper but came off in layers when
rubbed with the wet finger. The lines of the letter were wide apart,
and an ample margin was left on both sides. When the bottom of the page
was reached the scribe filled the margins lengthwise, and then fell
to writing between the lines. I could not help thinking that the sick
Sakhiri would find it easier to answer the interrogations of Nakír and
Munkar, those dread Inquisitors of the Grave, than to read the letter
from Mecca, which struck me as being almost as difficult to decipher as
a Chinese poem. When the last word was written the Afghan took out his
purse, to the strings of which was tied a round seal of brass whereon
his name was engraved. Having unfastened the seal he handed it to the
scribe. It amused me to see that the purse was withheld by the canny
Afghan, who obviously had no intention of losing over the transaction
more than he had bargained for.

All Orientals, particularly the Persians, lay great store by their
seals. Those of the lower classes are generally round and made of
brass, and are either fastened to their purse strings or left dangling
by their waistbands. The mullás have a preference for square seals
of cornelian set in base silver, as approved by the Prophet; while
the high officials “gratify the pride of irresponsibility,” or the
instincts of taste in the matter, some choosing gold seals ornamented
with diamonds, and others turquoise seals decorated with pearls or
with rubies. Sometimes a line of poetry is engraved on the seal as
well as the owner’s name. I knew a pious Shi’ah whose seal bore this
inscription: “The slave of the King of the country, Imám ’Alí,” only
the last word, of course, being his own name. Later, on our journey
through the bazaars, we chanced to see a Persian hakkák, or seal-maker,
at work. The cornelian he was carving was fixed in tar on the small
board in front of him. The deft way in which he wielded his small
hammer was the result of a steady hand and an unerring eye, gifts
for which the Persians are justly famous. The motto was intended
to commemorate his pilgrimage to the Mother of Cities, and ran as
follows: “Sadik, the least of Hájís and the slave of God, in the city
of God!”

I entered into conversation with this man Sadik, and was lucky to find
in him a very lantern of traditions. The works of Baidáwí, of Abú
Sa’íd al-Khadrí, of al-Farrá of Bagh, of Nu’man Ibu Bashír, of Abú
Hurairah, of ’Abd Allah Ibu Mas’ud, to say nothing of the Persian and
Arabian poets, he seemed to know by heart. When I complimented him on
his learning, he replied, saying: “If I am blessed by God with a good
memory, it is because I have never eaten a quince, or a sour apple,
or fresh coriander, or garlic, or the remainder of a mouse’s meal;
nor have I, to the best of my belief, ever read a book written by the
blind, nor drawn blood from the nape of my neck. For these things
weaken the memory and produce folly. From the unseemly demeanour of
your guide”--the rascal had been more exasperating than usual--“I would
hazard the conjecture that he has tasted of many a mouse’s meal.”

The guide grew exceeding wrath, and would have struck the speaker had I
not prevented him; then he cried, “You lie! the humiliation you would
thrust on me, see, I cast it back in your face!” The seal-maker smiled
good-humouredly. “Friend,” said he, “the humiliation was mine, and not
yours, for have I not spoken to a careless listener? Know, however,
for your future guidance, that a man, if he meet with humiliation,
has sometimes nobody but himself to blame. This will certainly be
his sorry case if he sit down uninvited to another’s table, or if
he respect not his host, or if he hope for kindness from a foe or
for learning from the low-born; so much the more will he suffer the
inevitable consequence if he honour not his Prophet, his country, and
his King. And”--here he turned to the crowd--“to listen inquisitively
to another’s conversation has the same effect as addressing an
inattentive audience. I would not have ye be guilty of the former,
which is the extreme of discourtesy, any more than I would have the
latter, which is the acme of humiliation, thrust on me a second time by
the friend to whom I spoke.”

I watched the guide, who could not contain his spleen. “Thou
sententious ass!” he shrieked, making as if to take off his sandal
wherewith to belabour the seal-maker. Once more he was met by a meek
and smiling countenance. “Verily,” quoth Sadik, “if one show leniency
to the mean, the low, or the servant, one must expect to be imposed
on. I do but light a lamp in broad daylight, or sow seed in the desert
sand, which is as wasteful as eating when one’s stomach is laden, or as
showing consideration to one who is not deserving of it. Three things
tend towards madness: the first is to walk with the blind, the second
is to talk to the deaf, and the third is to sleep alone.”

By this time the sun had risen high in the heavens, and the mat awnings
suspended on poles were already drawn down in order to keep out the
fierce rays of sunlight, so on we went till we came to the tin-makers’
bazaar. There we heard a cry of “Yá Allah! yá Allah!” and, on looking
round, beheld a funeral procession. The corpses, four victims of the
epidemic, were being borne from the Harem to the graveyard on rough
serirs, or wooden biers peculiar to Mecca. When the procession had
passed by, I entered one of the shops and bought a couple of tin
bottles, each of which would hold about two pints of Zem-Zem water. It
is not customary to bargain over the purchasing of these articles since
they are meant to contain the water of the sacred spring.

Across the way, in a shop full of musty manuscripts of questionable
antiquity, I chanced on a veritable treasure. This was an exquisite
copy of the Kurán in the old Kufi writing. It was plain that the
bookseller had no conception of its value, for when I asked him the
price of it he said, “Give whatever you like, and I will be content to
part with it. We must not attempt to make a profit out of the Word of
God, though it were well that we should seek to profit by its lessons.”

The Muhammadans are not supposed “to sell” the Kurán like any other
book: a “hedieh,” or “present” goes to defray the cost of production. I
offered a “hedieh” of a Turkish pound, not so much as dreaming that the
bid would be accepted; but to my intense delight the shopkeeper, having
raised the Book to his lips, and from the lips to his eyes, and from
the eyes to his forehead, handed it to me, saying, “This is the Word of
Allah; I give it to you, earnestly begging you to pray for me when you
read it!”

I certainly prayed for him five times that day out of a grateful heart,
and I made a point of doing so until, just before I embarked on my
homeward voyage, I looked for the precious Book only to find it gone,
along with several other valuable purchases.

Soon after leaving the bookseller’s, being in need of rest and
refreshment, we entered a coffee-house which was literally filled with
a crowd of pilgrims of every nationality in the East. Conspicuous
in flowing abás with white and yellow stripes were two Sheykhs, who
were sitting on stools at a low table, and with them I entered into
conversation, offering them a cup of coffee each. The elder, a man
of about forty-five, belonged to the tribe of Beni Súbh, while his
companion, who was many years younger, owed allegiance to the tribe of
Owf; consequently, both of them were members of the fighting clan of
Harb Bedouins, who either live in tents about two stages from Mecca,
on the road to Medina, or reside, if they are settled Arabs, in the
towns of Rabegh, Safrá, and Fará. Of all the tribes of Harb none is
more dreaded by the pilgrims than that of Owf, more particularly are
they feared by the caravans that travel between the two holy cities.
Their power and bravery are undeniable, as was clearly proved during
the Wahhábí invasion of Hejaz. Closely allied to them are the tribes of
Beni Amere and Zobeid.

The young Sheykh, with whom I now struck up an acquaintance, declared
that the Owf, with all their shortcomings, could teach moral lessons to
the rest of the clan, and he attributed their predatory habits to the
“overboiling spirit that was in them.” He contradicted the report that
his tribe had robbed forty Persian pilgrims of their belongings between
Heddah and Mecca, and had murdered three Syrians between Medina and
the Prophet’s birthplace. He professed strong attachment to the person
of the Sheríf, and expressed the hope that we would live to see the
union of every tribe of Arabia under his sway; in fact, he was a true
patriot, frank of speech, of engaging manners, and showing no signs of
lawless violence.

Not less courteous was his companion. On hearing that he was a Sheykh
of Beni Sobh I asked him if he would tell me something about the famous
balsam of Mecca, for I had read that the amyris-tree, which exudes this
fragrant juice, grows on the mountain of Jébélé-Sobh, between the towns
of Rabegh and Bedre. He was good enough to comply with my request,
being a connoisseur on the subject. The trees, Bishon, as he called
them, have a straight stem, and grow to the height of about twelve
feet. In the middle of summer incisions are made by the women in the
soft bark with a special kind of knife, whereon a white juice oozes
out, and this the women collect with the thumb-nails of their right
hands, and put into a sheepskin or into a vessel of burnished copper.
The balsam, if the incisions are made later in the season, takes on a
yellowish colour, and loses a good deal of its virtue as a tonic.

The Persian pilgrims, I was told, are unwearied in their efforts to
obtain the honey-like balm in its unadulterated form, but they rarely
succeed unless they go to the headquarters of Beni Sobh, for the stuff
sold as balsam in the Meccan bazaars is hardly ever pure. The Arabs
themselves can detect by the smell whether it is adulterated or not.
Fortunately for the pilgrims there are certain other tests which are
said to be infallible. The best balsam sinks in water, has a bright
blue flame when alight, and, if you put a drop on your finger and set
fire to it, it will burn without injuring the skin. The Persian traders
mix turpentine with it, probably because the yellow balsam, even when
it has not been “doctored,” smells of that resinous substance, but the
Arabs adulterate the white balsam with inoffensive oils of several
kinds. Every morning the pilgrims who could afford to buy the precious
tonic would take a drop in their tea or their coffee, and I know from
experience that it has the most invigorating effect on the nervous
system.

The senna of Mecca, which is exported to Persia, to Central Asia, and
to Syria, is also a product of the country of the tribesmen of Beni
Sobh, who may be regarded as the richest and most peaceful of the
tribes of Harb, reaping as they do the produce of their rich valleys
without molesting the caravans in the hope of spoil. The date-tree is
cultivated by them, my friend the Sheykh being the fortunate possessor
of over a thousand trees. It surprised me to hear that these palms are
sold not by the grove but by the tree, and, as it sometimes happens,
the dates of a single tree may belong to two or more owners. When a
tree has to be fructified, the gardener, having laid bare the female
spathe and shaken over it the male pollen, sings in a low voice,
saying: “Please God, you will thrive and be fruitful.”

CHAPTER II

THE TALISMAN-MONGER

On leaving the coffee-house (Kahvé-Kháné) we heard the voice of a
muezzin calling to prayers. It was noon. “Listen,” said Seyyid ’Alí,
“I know the Mullá well; he has the soul of a saint and the voice of an
angel.” Emotional, the tears ran down ’Alí’s cheeks in streams; then,
drying his eyes, his whole face shone as from some sudden light within
him. The scoffer was mute--silenced by the majestic melody of that
far-flung summons; but it must not be supposed that any translation
in English could reflect the dignity of the original Arabic, the most
devotional tongue ever spoken by the lips of man:

Mighty is the Lord! Mighty is the Lord!
Mighty is the Lord! Mighty is the Lord!
I bear witness, there is no god but God!
I bear witness, there is no god but God!
I bear witness, Muhammad is the messenger of God!
I bear witness, Muhammad is the messenger of God!
Come hither to prayers! Come hither to prayers!
Come hither to salvation! Come hither to salvation!
God is Great! There is no other god than God!

[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN GROCER.]

The words swept over the city like a storm cloud, fraught with
darkness, thunder, and lightning--symbols these of the mysteries,
the threats, and the promises of the Faith. The mere sound of the
full-throated syllables, even to one who had no Arabic, would, however
obscure it might be, suggest something alike threatening and revealing.
It was as though some moonless desert had found a tongue to proclaim
to-morrow’s sunrise.

“By my life!” cried Seyyid ’Alí, “why, this human voice, acknowledging
the might of the most Mighty, finds its way to the core of being. I
do repent in that I did make mock of the engraver of seals. He was a
righteous man, and of excellent courtesy and address. I have committed
a fault. I have eaten dirt. I am the humblest of his servants. Come,
yá-Moulai, let us hasten to say the Fátihah within the holy precincts
of the Harem.” This prayer runs:

“Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds, the Compassionate, the
Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and of
Thee do we seek help. Lead us in the right way, the way of those to
whom Thou hast been gracious, not of those with whom thou art angry,
nor of those who go astray.”

This, the opening chapter of the Kurán, is held in special veneration
by the Muhammadans, by whom it is sometimes called the chapter of
prayer, of thanksgiving, of treasure, and is repeated by them as often
as the Christians repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Not less precious is the
sublime passage in the second Súra, descriptive of the Divine Majesty,
and entitled Ayatu’l-Kúrsí--that is, being translated, the Verse of the
Throne. It runs something like this:

“God, save whom there is no God, is the living, the self-subsisting
one. Slumber overpowereth Him not, nor sleep. Unto Him belongeth
whatsoever is in the heavens, and whatsoever is in the earth. Who is
he that shall intercede with Him, save through His good pleasure? He
knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come unto them; and
they understand not a single iota of His knowledge, except so far as
He hath willed. His firmament spans the heavens and the earth, the
preservation whereof doth not distress Him. And He is the most High,
the most Supreme.”

Having said our prayers, my guide and I, we left the Harem and returned
to the bazaars. The smell of burning aloe-wood drew our eyes to a shop
where combs seemed to be the only purchasable articles. These combs,
made of ebony, were of two kinds. The first, used by the men, are
called male combs. They are provided with a single row of teeth. The
others, known as female combs, have teeth on both sides. We passed on.
A man bearing a sheepskin was hawking honey, like the water of the eye
for purity. It is brought down to the Meccan markets by the Arabs of
the clan of Beni Salem, another branch of the tribe of Harb, who also
dwell not far from Rabegh, and are more numerous than the two tribes
aforementioned, whose Sheykhs we had the pleasure of meeting in the
coffee-house. Among the countless hawkers thronging the thoroughfares
not a single Arab milkman did we see. We met only one milkman, and he
was an Indian. For milk-selling is not a popular pursuit in Arabia.
Indeed, it carries with it the stigma of an ineffaceable disgrace,
the term “milk-seller” having come to bear the meaning of “bastard.”
In like manner the Persians make use of the expression “mást-kash,”
sour milk carrier, on the rare occasions when they are driven to
reprove a mean flatterer. The first shop we entered was that of a
draper who drove a remunerative trade in winding-sheets. There we
noticed the poorer side of the East. Crowds of beggars--not necessarily
poverty-stricken--were practising their lucrative business. Some were
weeping, many were malingering, and one was really dead. There was no
bargaining over the prices of the grave-clothes. Every purchaser chose
the one he could afford to buy. While I was selecting mine Seyyid ’Alí
intervened, saying, in an undertone:

“Yá-Moulai, allow me to persuade you to buy the oldest you can find,
to the end that Nakír and Munkar, when you come to die (God forbid),
may pass you by as having already answered their cross-examination
as to your spiritual preparedness. For my own part, being in sound
health--praise be to God on high!--I have no faith whatever in the
existence of those Inquisitors. I am of the opinion of the Persian
grandee who, having stuffed the mouth of his dead groom with grain,
and having opened the grave in due course, found the grain still in
the groom’s mouth, and cried: ‘This is proof positive that he never
answered Munkar and Nakír, and strong presumptive evidence that no such
Inquisitors exist!’ Nay, grow not impatient with me. Am I not the least
of thy slaves?”

The sceptical rogue chuckled, emitting a sound like that of a camel
drinking water. The winding-sheet I bought cost about fifteen
shillings. Later on I had it washed in the water of Zem-Zem. It
measures about 8ft. by 4ft. In the middle the figure of a cypress
tree is inscribed with the Verse of the Throne as a protection to the
wearer from the Percussion of the grave; and other verses from the same
chapter of Al-Beghar surround the hem thereof. For the life of me I
could not help being sorry that I should not see myself in it as others
would see me--a reflection which nearly stifled my guide with laughter.
“Since you are still a good enough Muslim to be superstitious,” said
he, “I would suggest that we should next visit a talisman-monger’s, for
there you would find charms to protect you against the Evil Eye and the
contagion of every disease.” Thither, therefore, we bent our steps.

The talisman-monger, as I discerned from his features, stern and
passive, and from the determination of mind underlying them, was
half-Turk, half-Syrian. The Syrians are of a resolute character, and
seldom take a step that does not bring them nearer to the end they
keep ever in view. In this regard they are the antithesis of the
Egyptians, who seem utterly aimless if left to their own devices. In
their attitude towards work the Syrians are more persevering than the
Persians, and less conceited in character. They are at their best
as men of action. As men of thought they are inferior both to the
Persians, who are the Hamlets of the East, and to the Bedouins, whose
wild, imaginative spirits equip them for pillage and for poetry alike.
They are extremely fond of music, these cheery sons of a flowery soil,
though here, again, they must yield the palm to the fiery clansmen of
the Arabian deserts. The charm-seller, a characteristic specimen of
his race, an excellent business man, was taken completely by surprise
when I asked him to give a name to a certain cornelian set in silver
gilt and inscribed with a Kurán text. “May God protect me from Satan,”
he muttered in pious horror. “Here is a Muhammadan who knows not a
Bábághúli!” Then, recovering slowly from his astonishment, he went
on to explain that it is worn by a Muslim child in commemoration of
the Aghigheh sacrifice, and I may repeat here that it forms the chief
feature of the cover design to this volume.

After much bargaining I bought a Bábághúli for a couple of Turkish
pounds, and found in it, beyond its usual interest, a magnificent
example of Perso-Syrian work. The cornelian, which is circular in shape
and slightly raised in the middle, is of a rosy shade, and measures
about an inch in circumference. On it is engraved, in the finest Naskh
writing, a short chapter of the Kurán, which must have cost the artist
half-a-year’s labour. The stone is set in silver of a floral design,
with two loops or links, through which are threaded strings of gold
ending with tassels and a running noose for fastening round the arm.
Round the centre stone are inlaid twenty-two rubies and emeralds, in
alternate order, eleven of each. These stones alone, though they are
not cut properly, are worth three times as much as I gave for the
whole thing. I made haste to tie the Bábághúli round my biceps, more
from fear of theft than any superstitious motive, and promised not to
part with it in any circumstances; whereat my guide, sneering, said,
“May the devil give you a wide berth, yá-Moulai!” the talisman-monger
endorsing the wish by adding, “May it be auspicious.”

The wearing of a túgh, or silver chain, to which is attached a silver
bowl called kashkúl, is confined to the Shiahs. It is worn round the
neck by many Persian boys, and is changed every year until the boy is
nine years old. By the end of that time he has nine chains laid by.
These are sent, as propitiatory offerings, to the shrine of some saint,
that of Abbas in Kerbela being the most sacred. Thus it comes about
that a boy, so long as he wears the túgh, is called “the dog of Abbas,”
and is said to be under the special protection of that saintly man. I
turned to my guide. “How is it,” said I, “that he is called Abbas’s
dog, and not ‘Allah’s dog,’ or, more becomingly still, ‘Allah’s child’?”

“I will answer you in a parable,” replied Seyyid ’Alí. “There was
once a certain man who owned a flock of sheep. Every morning, when he
drove his flock out of the fold to the pasture-land, he would say, ‘O
Abbas, keep watch over my sheep, which I leave in your protection;’
and then he would go about his work until it was time to drive the
sheep home again. One day he was too busy to act as shepherd, and so
he sent his son in his stead. The boy, having brought the sheep to the
grazing ground, said within himself: ‘I wonder why my father leaves
the sheep in the care of Abbas. Did not Allah create them as well as
him? Assuredly my father has committed a fault.’ And, so thinking, he
left the sheep in charge of their Creator. Now it happened that, Abbas
having resigned his office, a pack of wolves passed by, and, being
famished, spared not even a lamb: so that when the father went in
search of the sheep, he could not find a single one. Having questioned
his son, he learned the truth. ‘Silly boy,’ said he, ‘knowest thou not
that Allah takes care of all his creatures, of the wolves as well as of
the sheep, whereas Abbas, listening to our entreaties, would keep the
beasts of prey from attacking our flocks and herds? Be wiser to-morrow
than you were this morning.’ So you see, yá-Moulai, that there is no
use in trying to be anything to Allah beyond what one really is.”

At the end of nine years these chains are valued, and the price of
them is distributed among the poor, after which they are sent to
the shrine of Abbas. To the chain a pair of hands made of silver is
sometimes hung, in memory of Abbas, whose hands were cut off on the
plain of Kerbela. The talisman-monger had hundreds of these chains and
bowls and hands in his shop, and also, among other things, heaps of
mázús, or oak-apples. These oak-apples are used as charms by nearly
all Muhammadans. Those in the shop were of two kinds. Some were nearly
black and perfectly circular; others were of a light brown colour and
spheroid in shape. Among those of a spheroidal shape was a mázú of
exceptional beauty, evidently intended for a woman. The two ends of the
hollow spheroid were set in silver with numerous figures exquisitely
chased, one group of which was that of a female slave handing over the
heart of her young mistress to the expectant lover. This particular
kind of mázú, I was told, is suspended on a chain and worn on their
breasts by the women. Other oak-apples are seen hanging from the tip of
children’s caps on a silk band, along with prayer-bags made of green
velvet and containing texts from the Holy Scriptures.

Meanwhile my guide, having struck up acquaintance with a countryman
of his from Hamadan, was engaged in conversation with him. This new
friend, Murshid Khan by name, was a tall swarthy fellow. He had come to
buy a chip of the sacred tree talh’, an acacia which has small round
golden blossoms, whereof he related the following legend:

“Many centuries ago a certain peasant went to cut wood in a forest
near the city of Hamadan. This he had been wont to do every winter in
order to eke out his livelihood, during the cold weather, as is still
the custom among the peasantry in our parts. Now, it chanced that his
axe struck against a branch of a talh’ which, as it happened, was in
the way of the tree he was felling. To his consternation a stream of
blood oozed out, followed by cries the most pitiable he had ever heard.
They seemed, in their distressful anguish, to come from the heart of
a mother that had lost her child. The axe fell from the peasant’s
hand, and he himself sank to the ground in a faint. When he recovered
consciousness it was to look for the talh’ ... only to find it gone! He
returned to the city as fast as his legs would carry him and there he
told his story, which was spread abroad among the people. And from that
day to this the wood of the talh’ has been regarded as sacred. Children
use it in the place of mázús, and barren women, if they hang a chip of
it above their beds for the space of forty consecutive Fridays, will
bear children in due course. This is so.”

Here the guide, Seyyid ’Alí, interrupted the speaker, saying: “Light
of my heart, thou speakest the truth. In my country, in the town of
Behbehan, near Shíráz, we have a famous way of protecting our women
folk against the attacks of Aal--that cursed ogress who comes to cut
out the liver of every mother after the birth of her child. First we
draw four lines round the walls of the house; then at each of the four
corners we plant a branch of the talh’ tree; and a dagger, with an
onion atop, is stuck in the ground facing the door. This is the only
possible way of keeping Aal out--may she be accursed!”

“Sarkár,” said Murshid Khan, turning to me, “I have, with these two
eyes of mine, seen things beyond belief, though I believe in them
myself, and many a true believer shares the belief with me.” Here he
turned his face in the direction of the Harem, raised his eyes, and
cried: “By the owner of this Harem, the truth of my story is this: I
had a sister, by name Javáher, who became Jinni, Jinnstruck, when she
was ten years old. She had been of an equal mind until one day she went
into a field in Hamadan, where a servant was milking the goats. It
appears that she spilt the milk by accidentally kicking over the bowl
containing it, and thenceforward her mind was troubled: she was Jinni.
Now we people of Hamadan accounted ourselves lucky in that there lived
among us a pious Mullá ’Alí, whose extraordinary capabilities were a
matter of wonder and adoration. As a Jinn-gir, or Jinn-trapper, he was
unrivalled. Him, therefore, we called in that he might cast out the
Jinn that had disturbed the peace of my sister’s mind. When he came
he brought with him his famous tás--a bowl used for ablutions--and a
long white sheet. Having filled the tás, he ordered my sister to sit
down beside it and to gaze into the water. Then he threw the sheet
over the child and the bowl, and made certain passes with a wand he
held in his right hand. Whereupon, as we noticed to our terror, there
arose a mighty stir beneath the sheet, as though a host were fighting
there. On a signal from Mullá ’Alí the tumult ceased and all was in
a hush. Suddenly, the good priest, calling my sister by her name,
said: ‘What do you see there?’ And my sister replied, in a dreamy,
awestruck whisper: ‘O, Mullá ’Alí, I see him seated gloriously on a
throne studded with precious gems, and hundreds of attendants, both
men and women, are kneeling before him. It is the King of the Jinns.’
‘And what do you hear? be attentive!’ said the priest. ‘One little
Jinn,’ replied my sister, in a terror-stricken voice, ‘is prostrating
herself before his Majesty, and this is what she says: “Javáher--may
she be punished--spilled a bowl of milk a month ago, and hurt my toes,
and I have been lame ever since. Though my friends have cast a spell
over her, I must request your Majesty to increase her punishment, that
she may learn to fear the displeasure of our King.” Oh, oh, oh! How
she cries and weeps before the throne of his Majesty; I am fainting.’
‘Beg her humbly to forgive you, and promise to be more careful in the
future, and all will be well,’ cried Mullá ’Alí. It was impossible to
doubt the sincerity of my sister’s repentance, and when the priest
removed the sheet, which he did so soon as my sister had made her
appeal before the throne, behold my sister was in her right mind
once more. I forgot to say that before the removal of the covering
a neighbour came in, saying that he had lost a gold diamond ring,
probably by theft. So the priest commanded my sister to ask the Jinn
she had injured to tell her where the ring was. The Jinn in question
was good enough to mention the thief by name, much to the delight of
our neighbour, who subsequently recovered his property. I can assure
you, Sarkár, that this last proof of the Mullá’s power made Hamadan
the safest city in Persia. Theft was unknown there. May Mullá ’Alí have
a long life!”

The talisman-monger was the next to speak. He said: “You must know that
I am not always in Mecca. I come here for the three journeying months,
then I return to Smyrna, where I have two shops of this nature in the
bazaars. Next to one of my shops there is a small coffee-house, whither
I go for refreshment in my leisure hours. About three years ago there
came to Smyrna a man named Dervish Ibrahim, from Turkistan. Everybody
except myself believed in the supernatural power of this dervish, who
wore a white beard on a shining face. One evening, when I had closed my
shop and was proceeding home, I found the dervish seated on the front
bench of the coffee-house, surrounded by his followers. He called me by
my name--Abdullah-ben-Jafar--though it had never been mentioned before
him, and when I went to him he said: ‘I can see from your face that you
scoff at the power of talismans, though you sell them to those who are
wiser than yourself, and therein show yourself possessed of some share
of wisdom. It is my humour to-night to reveal to you a single drop
of the ocean of omnipotence. Come, take this scrap of paper, whereon
I have written a few words to the dead, carry it to the neighbouring
cemetery, bury it in the sand near the entrance, and bring back to me
a handful of the sand. Be careful, on returning, not to look behind
you, for, if you do so, you will be torn in a million pieces that will
be distributed among those that lie there. Look ahead, and your life
will be safe.’ Well, curiosity possessed me, and off I went. When I
had buried the scrap of paper, and taken up a handful of sand, I heard
thunder and the voices of the dead crying, ‘Oh, Abdullah-ben-Jafar,
take not the sand away, else you will be cut in bits. Stop! Stop!
Stop!’ I shuddered all over my body, and lost consciousness suddenly.
When I awoke it was to see the sun rising. I hurried to the dervish,
and kissed his feet, and implored him to forgive me for having doubted
his power to work miracles.”

This story-telling had attracted a number of pilgrims, who, to the
exaltation of the talisman-monger, fell to examining his curiosities
with a view to business. After every purchase, Abdullah-ben-Jafar
raised his hands to heaven, and cried: “Praise be to God on high! May
His kindness be increased!”

CHAPTER III

SEYYID ’ALÍ’S STORY OF HIS REDEMPTION

On leaving the talisman-monger’s we went about our shopping in the
Meccan bazaars, my guide pointing out to me the places of interest on
the way. He grew excited when we passed a certain coffee-house, from
within whose doors, as he assured me, he had escaped from himself
into the bosom of the Beloved more times than he could count. “There
are better ways of ascending into heaven, yá-Moulai,” he exclaimed,
ecstatically, “than by being buried underground!” He paused as if to
give me the opportunity of begging him to explain the connection; but
all I said in reply was that a Tower of Silence would scarcely suit one
whose tongue was for ever on the wag.

“’Tis true,” he affirmed, in no way disconcerted, “the birds of prey
are not to my liking. I would discourse of the parrot of mysteries,
that hath opened to me the gates of Paradise more than once. If your
Excellency would acquaint himself with----” I interrupted him, saying:
“Are you speaking of hashísh, my friend? If you are, let me tell you
that I have no wish to renew my experience of the drug.” And when I
hurried on, he drew a deep breath, but whether of disappointment or of
relief I couldn’t make out. “In that coffee-house, yá-Moulai,” he said
at last, “you might have tasted of every narcotic of the drowsy East:
of hashísh, the master Seyyid, or the Parrot of Mysteries, an acquired
taste; of bang, a most potent liberator of thought; and, lastly, of
opium, which is, as we Persians have it, the Antidote, the healer of
every ill except the one it engenders. I was once a well-seasoned
vafurí (opium-smoker), and could discourse of mysteries more eloquently
than any dervish. My nose would grow wet every time I smoked a pipe
of hashísh and my imagination bear me on its wings to the seventh
heaven, or plunge me into the lowest hell. Those were days of spiritual
intoxication--yá-Allah. What cured me of drug-bibbing was the dread of
remaining in the abode of the damned.”

He sauntered on, telling over the beads of his rosary. “Never,” he
cried suddenly, “shall I forget the last pipe of hashísh I smoked.” I
followed him up on the scent of a story. “Come,” said I, “tell me your
tale, and have done with it.”

“Well, it was at Shíráz; I was in the society of some twenty matured
dervishes, and the year was at the spring and the sun was set. I never
hear a nightingale, nor smell a rose, but I can taste that kalyan
of hashísh and tobacco. Not that I was conscious at the time of any
stomachic qualm. Not more than half-a-dozen whiffs were enough to speed
me on my way into a world in which this mortal flesh lay shuddering
at the terrible aspect of things--terrible beyond the imagination of
the unenlightened to conceive. Supper was brought in. Among the dishes
laid before me was a plate of piláw, dome-shaped, having on top a
multitude of round pieces of meat, and these, to my exceeding terror,
came tumbling down the pyramid of white rice, owing to the carelessness
of the servant in handling the dish. But what did I, in my excited
fancy, behold, yá-Moulai? I thought I was at the foot of a snow-clad
mountain, whose crest dwarfed that of Demavend, and from the summit
thereof there came hurtling down on me huge boulders of massy rock. I
cried aloud in terror, and tried to hide myself in the corner of the
room. My friends, the dervishes, laid hold of me, and carried me into
the compound, and flung me into the tank, and in so doing they cheated
me to believe that a host of angels had rescued me from the avalanche,
and, bearing me into Paradise, had cast me into the living waters of
Salsabíl. For, on opening my eyes, I saw a heavenly houri, whose face
shone as the face of the sun. Her feet were on the earth, but her head
reached as high as the fourth heaven. How could I--a man of ordinary
stature--make love to a houri whose height, even among the ladies of
Paradise, must have been a swallow’s flight above the average? True,
I might sit in adoration at her feet, but that a taller man than I
would have the pleasure of kissing her lips seemed only too likely.
This thought was blasphemy in itself; and no sooner did it creep into
this unregenerate mind of mine than two angels caught me by the hands
and threw me into the burning furnace of hell. And this sudden change
in my fortunes corresponded with the actions of my friends in taking
me out of the tank and putting me to bed, and applying a hot remedy to
what they believed to be a cold disease. Yá-Allah, how I burned, but
without consuming, in that fire of the unredeemed. I cried for help,
but Allah--may I be His sacrifice--cast me still deeper into the hell
of His displeasure, saying, ‘He who would worship me must worship me
in soberness and sincerity! Eschew all narcotics, O Seyyid ’Alí, lest
I leave thee here to perish in the flames.’ Then repentance wrung my
heart so that the tears started to my eyes and overflowed. And when
that happened a wind from heaven blew, and I caught sight of a cloud
of sun-lit hair--the hair of the divine houri who had previously
overawed me--and these radiant tresses were wafted by the wind within
arms’ reach of my despair. I clutched them in these two hands. The
exhilaration of a swift ascent filled my soul with thanksgiving, and a
shriek--like a throb of pain--darted through me from without, striking
on the drum of consciousness within me. In other words, I awoke to
find myself lying at home, with a handful of my wife’s hair pressed
to my lips in rapture. How I came to be there I never discovered, but
the mother of my children explained to me with many words that the too
forcible removal of the hair I held in my fingers had left a bald patch
on the crown of her head. And this, yá-Moulai, is the true story of my
redemption.”

Meanwhile, we had reached the northern extremity of Mussah-street,
where in a shop I noticed a number of small bags of yellow leather
containing, as Seyyid ’Alí informed me, the celebrated henna of Wady
Fatima. This valley, called after the Prophet’s daughter, the wife
of ’Alí, his cousin, is situated about eight hours’ journey to the
north-west of Mecca, on the road to Medina. The whole neighbourhood
abounds in the shrub from whose pounded leaves the henna paste is
produced. The act of dyeing the hair with henna is known by the name
of khezab, and is so popular among the Muhammadans of both sexes that
it has come to be almost a religious rite. Many a devout dyes his
hands and feet and hair once a week, the paste giving to the skin an
orange-reddish colour, and deepening the original shade of dark hair to
a ruddy black. On the hammám day the henna is taken to the bath; the
attendant forms it into a paste in small dishes used for the purpose
and called jamé-henna; the decoction should be allowed to stand for
half an hour before it is applied to the skin and the hair. There
are special women artists who draw, on the soles of the feet and the
palms of the hands, all manner of pictures with this dye. Not less
than eight hours are devoted to the practice, the victims--women,
of course--lying with outstretched limbs, for the henna “to take its
colour.”

If one neglects to make use of the dye one runs the risk of bringing
misfortune and leprosy on one’s whole family. The henna of Wady Fatima,
which has a perfume peculiar to itself, is considered particularly
blessed. I was told by the shopkeeper--a prejudiced person, no
doubt--that the Devil himself could be rendered harmless to the Muslim
who should dye his hands once a week and employ an apt quotation from
the Kurán, always provided he were not clad in ihrám. The assurance
that he had sold one hundred thousand bags of the precious dye to the
pilgrims within the month gave me a lively notion of the credulity of
his customers.

Next day I had an opportunity of witnessing the funeral of one of
the chief priests of Mecca, who had died of cholera. The procession,
despite the panic created by the epidemic, was of considerable length.
Half a dozen mullás, intoning passages of the perspicuous Book, led
the way. These were followed by twelve unkempt dervishes in quaint
uniforms, reciting in unison the praises of the dead priest. Then came
the rough bier peculiar to Mecca on the shoulders of ten pilgrims of
as many nationalities. The son, supported by two stalwart priests, and
the chief mourners came next, and after them the women, about twenty
in number, and a crowd of beggars, who had heard that the flesh of
two camels was to be distributed among them. Every now and then, as
we noticed on watching the procession pass by, the bearers would be
relieved of their burden by the most eager among the bystanders, for
it is a tradition that seventy thousand angels will praise the man who
lends a helping hand in carrying the dead to the cemetery. A frequent
cry went up of “O Lord, may his sins be forgiven him. Praise be with
Muhammad and with his people.”

“Yá-Moulai,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “you saw how the people lent their
assistance in order to win the approval of the angels? Well, I will
tell you of a clever trick performed in Mecca last year by four Sunnis
who had murdered a Shiah in a lodging-house. One of the assassins was
chosen by the arbitrament of the _estakhhareh_ to buy the bier and
to bring it to the house where the body lay. That being done, the
mutilated corpse was laid inside by the four men, who, so to speak,
bore the burden of their misdeed into the street. The passers-by,
seeing a funeral, hastened to offer their help in carrying the
corpse to its resting-place. No sooner was each one of the assassins
relieved than he made good his escape, so that by the time the
washing-house was reached the culprits had all disappeared. The crime
was detected when the body was taken out to be washed. Suspicion fell
on the bearers--half a dozen strange pilgrims who had lent a willing
shoulder--and they were brought before the Kazi on the charge of
murder. They only escaped death by paying a heavy sum in blood money.”

We pursued our course eastward to the temporary Syrian bazaar called
Sughé-Shami. Goods from all parts of Syria--from the town of Smyrna to
the remotest fastness of Lebanon--were to be found there. The Syrians
drove a lively trade in silk stuffs from Damascus and Aleppo, as well
as in European cotton prints and in steel ware. The steel ware was
sold as “Inglisi,” though it was generally of German manufacture,
imported into Asia Minor either direct from the Fatherland or from
Constantinople. I saw “Inglisi” silk umbrellas, with what appeared to
be silver handles, priced at half a mejidi, or about two shillings.
German watches, guaranteed to be “Inglisi,” could be bought at a cost
varying from four to ten shillings. On the other hand, Persian carpets
were far more expensive there than they are in London, and so also
were Turkish ones. Silk headgear called _chepi_ and silk kerchiefs
called _kefi_ were in great request among the Bedouins, who purchased,
besides, the dried fruits of Syria. There were many coffee-houses _à
la turque_, where story-tellers recited in flowery language, either
Arabic or Turkish, the tales of the Arabian Nights. Some pilgrims might
sit listening from sunrise to sunset, but my guide and I, having drunk
a cup of coffee, proceeded on our way, past the Prophet’s birthplace,
to the Moamil or pottery bazaar. There, as I watched the potters at
work, I couldn’t help quoting the immortal lines of Omar Khayyám, as
translated by Fitzgerald:

“For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a potter thumping his wet clay;
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmur’d--‘Gently, Brother, gently, pray.’”

Thence, in the Sughé-Lail, the carpenters have their niches. My guide
told me a story of a Meccan carpenter who went once to measure a
doorway of one of the houses in the neighbourhood. Having forgotten
his yard measure he calculated the width by opening his arms. Then,
still keeping his arms in the same position, he hastened back to his
shop. On the way he fell down a well; the people gathered round; and
one among them threw him a rope, but the carpenter refused to catch
hold of it, lest he might change the measurement of the doorway. “Ah,
my friend,” said I, “there I waited for you. That story is taken from
‘Mullá Nasiru’-Din,’ a book satirising the mock piety and the folly of
the priests. You must be more careful in choosing the tales you would
foist on my credulity.” And so wrangling we reach the cattle market.

Now, kindness to animals is specially recommended by Muhammad, but
his followers have still much to learn in practice. The sheep and
cattle are driven to the market in the early morning, before sunrise,
and, unless they are sold, must remain all day long without anything
to eat or to drink. The condition of some of the sheep was pitiful.
The camels, that are not accustomed to be for ever nibbling like the
sheep, appeared to suffer less from the deprivation of food. In that
quarter of the town nearly all the tradesmen, whether cattle-sellers,
butchers, fruiterers, or grocers, were Bedouins, dwelling in their
encampments inside the town, and holding themselves aloof from the
Arab townsmen and the foreigners. In manners, customs, and morality
they have suffered but little change from the time of the Prophet,
for, unlike the Meccans themselves, they have borrowed none of the
characteristics of their co-religionists from alien countries. They
forbid their women to be on intimate terms with the townswomen; and
when you meet them buying and selling in the market place they are
always extremely reserved, and sometimes not less haughty in their
demeanour towards you. For the frankness which is their most pleasing
quality in their canvas cities is held in restraint so soon as they
take up their quarters in Mecca during the pilgrimage. The women, both
rich and poor, work hard, in most cases even harder than the men, and
that is why they wear, in contrast to the townswomen, who are corpulent
and comely, an appearance of being as muscular as they are lean and
sun-baked. Near the cattle market we saw some low shops and warehouses
in which corn and provisions were being sold by Indians and Egyptians
to some Bedouins who had entered the town in order to replenish their
supplies, and there, too, the out-going caravans are wont to take
in their eatables for the homeward journey. Rice and wheat are the
commodities which are most needed by the Bedouins of Hejaz, and in
these the southern Indians carry on a brisk trade with the interior of
that barren province.

CHAPTER IV

HEALING BY FAITH

Two things play an important part in the family life of Persia. The
first of these, the yearly almanac or _taghvím_ is studied with a
pathetic trust by all. In a day that has been marked unlucky they see
the frustration of their hopes and prayers, however perseveringly
they may strive, by earnest effort, to elude the working of the
fateful stars and to bring about the consummation of their wishes.
“The most blessed hour for prayer,” I was told by one of them, “is
when the planet Jupiter is in conjunction with the culminating point
of the firmament.” And when I began to argue with him, he said in
astonishment: “Have you no faith in _estakhhareh_ either?” I replied:
“If you can prove to me by any passage in the Kurán that God will lend
his advice to the Muslim who shall consult Him through the beads of
a rosary, I will believe in the _taghvím_, the _estakhhareh_, or any
_fáll_ or omen you care to mention. But, first, let me be sure that
I understand the method of making an _estakhhareh_. Having read a
verse of the Holy Scriptures, you place the finger on a bead, then,
counting the beads from that point to the nearer end of the thread,
you believe that God will grant you your heart’s desire provided the
number be odd, but that He will refuse your request if it be even. Am I
right?” “Certainly,” he replied; “for if my prayer be reasonable and
I deserving in the sight of God, He will assuredly guide my hand.” “It
is obvious,” I retorted, “that God can and does guide His slaves; but
I deny that He shares your belief in the luck of odd numbers. Let the
Prophet be my intercessor. This is what he says:

“‘Do ye acquire knowledge, for he who acquireth knowledge in God’s
service performeth an act of piety; he who giveth utterance to it
praiseth the Lord; he who is diligent in search of it worshipeth God;
and he who imparteth it offereth sacrifice to Him.’ Now, your faith
is rooted not in knowledge, but in superstition. Look around you, and
you will see the wonders of God in the working of laws immutably just,
eternally the same. I tell you that action and reaction are equal
and opposite, that the ordered weal and woe are the results of our
own actions good and evil, and I advise you to put on the armour of
knowledge in the desert less you fall a victim to the superstitious of
whom you now are one. ‘The ink of the scholar,’ the Prophet tells us,
‘is more holy than the blood of the martyr.’”

My opponent, however, remained unconvinced. He assured me that his
spiritual director would not dream of wearing a new ’abá without first
consulting the _taghvím_, nor would he take it on himself to administer
a dose of medicine to a sick child without asking God, through the
beads of his rosary or the pages of the Kurán, whether the remedy would
be efficacious or not. Of the progress of medical science the Shi’ah
pilgrims knew nothing.

[Illustration: A PERSIAN PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY.]

Galen and Avicenna are still regarded as the leading masters of the
profession, and their treatises are the only ones that are studied.
Diseases are divided into hot and cold. A cold remedy is applied to a
hot disease, and a hot remedy to a cold one. The doctors bleed patients
suffering from malarial fever. They keep small-pox endemic by their
curious remedies. Silver armlets containing texts out of the Kurán
are worn as preservatives of health. The saints and _estakhharehs_ are
sometimes the only doctors. “The One who sends fever takes it away
... Khodá rahím ast (God is merciful).... If He wants me to remain
here He will cure me.... He is the best doctor.” Offerings in money
or in sweet-meats are given to the poor for the patient’s recovery.
The money is placed under the pillow every night, and is distributed
every morning among the needy. The patient, despite the stifling
atmosphere, is persuaded to believe in a speedy recovery, everybody
telling him that he will soon be quite _kushdell_ or cheerful. But when
the end draws near a priest is summoned in haste, and the dying man,
if he has no just cause of complaint against a child or against his
wife, says not a word as to the distribution of his property, having
full confidence that the divine law will be religiously followed. He
instructs the priest as to the rites to be observed at his funeral and
the offerings to be paid for the peace of his soul. He may command his
sons to obey their mother and to respect their sisters. If he has no
issue he may settle his property on a school, a mosque, a saint, or a
water cistern.

The corpse must not remain more than twenty-four hours in the house.
The hammámí, or bath-keeper, now enters the house in the capacity of
an undertaker. He places the body on a _korsi_, that is, on a raised
wooden platform in the middle of the room; a copy of the Kurán and
a decanter of rose-water are set down near the head; and a cashmere
shawl is laid over the remains. For a month or forty days after burial
a _ghari_ or hired priest keeps watch over the grave, praying for the
soul’s peace of the newly-departed, and reading the Kurán aloud. On the
night of the interment the percussion of the grave, the fesharé-ghabre,
is supposed to take place. The priest must keep on reciting a certain
passage of the Kurán, called Ayatu’l-Kúrsí or the Verse of the Throne,
in order to extend the space and prevent the pressure. Then come Monker
and Nakír--those livid-faced angels of death--and question the deceased
concerning his faith. If his answers be satisfactory, ’Alí will cause
him to be refreshed by the air of Paradise; if not, he will be beaten
on the temples with iron maces.

The evening before I left Mecca for Jiddah I was suffering from a
racking headache, and my friends advised me to consult a certain Arab
physician. The curiosity to have an interview with this leech overcame
my scepticism concerning his health-giving touch, so off I went to the
east of the town where he dwelt, taking my guide with me; and there,
in a winding lane some three feet wide, we found his house. My guide
summoned the servant by banging at the outer door with his club. In
about ten minutes what we judged to be a small urchin appeared behind
the door and asked us in a piping treble what we wanted. Having assured
himself that we were not Bedouin Arabs bent on pillaging the sacred
house, he drew back the bars, bidding us enter in the name of God the
Merciful and Clement.

The courtyard through which we passed was unpaved and not more than
five yards square. The apartments--six fetid cells--ranged round
three sides of it. The hakím’s room faced the door. We walked in with
the greeting “Salám ’aleykum! Peace be unto you!” The faith-healer
was seated cross-legged on a mat in a corner of the cell. He rose
to receive us, saying “Bismillah! in the name of God!” the Eastern
equivalent of “Please come in.” He was of middle height, lean, of a
pleasing countenance; his eyes were deep-set, brilliant, smiling; his
beard measured the span of a man’s hand; and his teeth flashed between
lips framed for laughter. He wore a white handkerchief round his head,
and a long blue gown reached to his ankles. Nothing could exceed the
courtesy of our host. As a mark of respect, he insisted on my taking
his place; my guide, heaving a “Yá-Allah!” and a sigh of relief, sank
to my side on the left; while the sunny-faced saint, squatting at
my right hand, turned a beaming eye on his trusty henchboy, who was
standing in the doorway, waiting for the orders of his lord and master.

In the East they never break the ice of silence with a remark on the
weather. The customary opening is to inquire if you are in health. I
told the doctor, in answer to his question, that I had a bad headache,
and had come to him to be cured. When he had raised his hands and
cried out “Yá-Muhammad!” thereby invoking the Prophet to lend him
the assistance he required, it was to ask me on which side the head
ached. I touched the spot, whereon he fell to rubbing it vigorously
with the palm of his right hand, calling out the while to the urchin
to fetch the necessary apparatus for the forthcoming operation. The
boy disappeared. In a few minutes he came back, bearing in both his
hands a round hollow plate of clay in which were a few lumps of burning
charcoal.

The next things he brought in were a couple of round iron rods about
twice the length of an ordinary pencil, together with a cup filled with
a black fluid used as ink and composed, if I mistake not, of a mixture
of starch and the soot of an oil lamp. The doctor thrust the rods in
the glowing charcoal. The fear of being branded bathed my brow in
sweat. The doctor, assuring me that I had no cause to be afraid, cried
out: “If we lose heart at the sight of these little rods, how much the
more shall we suffer when we feel the weight of the maces of the angels
of punishment. May God protect you from the fire of hell!”

The tips of the rods by this time were red-hot. Having dipped them
in the cup of ink, he closed his eyes, and then raised his voice in
an incantation that lasted several minutes. Not a single word could I
understand. When it was over he opened his eyes, and, saying the word
“Bismillah,” proceeded to draw with one of the rods on my right temple
five perpendicular lines crossed by five horizontal ones, thus forming
sixteen tiny squares. The same pattern was traced on the left temple
with the second rod. Several magic hieroglyphics besides were inscribed
in the same manner behind my ears and on the nape of my neck.

After every operation the good doctor would pause to ask me: “Is the
pain gone now?” Four times did I tell him the truth; then, fearing that
he would begin to tattoo my body, I assured the persevering little
man that I never felt better in my life. His joy knew no bounds.
Raising his hands to heaven, he cried, “Praise be to God Almighty, who
hath sent to this poor family a power so miraculous. The secret was
bequeathed to my father by the Lord God, and when my father died he
left it to me as an inheritance. On no account must you wash off the
signs until to-morrow morning; for if you do the pain will return to
punish you. The blight of the Evil Eye was the cause of your headache.
Go in peace. You are welcome.”

The following day I set out on my homeward journey, taking Seyyid ’Alí
with me as far as Jiddah; and when I said good-bye to him I felt that
I was losing an entertaining companion. That the reader may experience
the same feeling of loss in parting from me is my dearest hope on
bidding him farewell.

[Illustration: AN ARAB SHEYKH OF THE TOWN.]

APPENDIX

By WILFRID SPARROY

SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EXISTENCE OF A SLAVE MARKET IN MECCA

I brought the notes of “Hájí Ráz” to a conclusion in the last chapter;
and he himself has bidden the reader farewell. It now remains for me
to say a few words on what I conceive to be the greatest weakness in
the Mussulman faith as interpreted by the Mullahs; and in so doing I
wish it to be understood, particularly by my Eastern readers, that
I am solely responsible for the opinions I am about to express on
the subject of the Mussulman’s attitude to slavery, the existence of
which, in the fourteenth century of the Hegira, must be a source of
some misgiving on the part of those who sympathise with so much in the
Muslim creed. And I appeal throughout to the enlightened laymen of our
Indian Empire, on whose interpretations of the Prophet’s message the
welfare of Islám will, in the future, depend in an ever-increasing
degree.

Now, the British are the champions of freedom: under their flag every
man is born free. Nothing is more hateful, to their way of thinking,
than that one human being should be the slave of another. In their
opinion the quality of slavery is to brutalise both the slave and
his master--the slave by depriving him of the self-respect which is
the heritage of every man who is free to choose his own career and
to rule, within the limits of humanity, his own destiny; and the
master, by making him the owner of a human soul--a responsibility so
awful that it is far more likely to lower him to the level of a beast
than it is to raise him to the height of a god. If this, in brief, be
a fair statement of the British attitude towards slavery, it will be
interesting and, in a measure, enlightening to the reader to follow, by
way of contrast, the argument supported by the ordinary Mussulman.

To be frank, the present-day followers of the Prophet--those who have
not been brought under the influence of European civilisation--have far
less sympathy with the opinions expressed in the opening paragraph,
than had Muhammad himself. Humanly speaking, the British crusade
against slavery is not only beyond their comprehension--it is also
above it. Their outlook on life, with its rights, its limitations, and
its responsibilities, differs fundamentally from that of the followers
of the Founder of Christianity. The Christian, who speaks of himself as
“a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven,” believes,
if we misinterpret him not, that the first step is with him, and the
road with God. In other words, he holds the inspiriting belief, which
is, indeed, the source of all his worldly progress and his prosperity,
that God has given him the right to act of his own initiative, but
not the power--or only a circumscribed power--to foresee whither his
actions will lead him. Therefore, in calling himself “a child of God,”
he has chosen the title that would best express his independence and
his limitations. The Muhammadan, on the other hand, cannot admit
that he has the power to move of his own free will, much less the
right to do so. He holds that every true Muslim is, and must be, “the
slave of God,” the theory of free-will being to the Muslim trend
of thought so antagonistic that it has come to bear much the same
meaning as lawlessness. Hence his aversion from Europe and all its
ways. “How,” he asks, “can morality and law flourish in a continent,
in which thought is free, in which women are free, in which God’s
will is superseded by the will of man? Freedom? I say we are all the
slaves of God, even when we are the slaves of other men. There is not
one creature who is free to act. Only the Creator is free. It is our
predestined lot to be submissive to His will.”

I hope the reader is following the thread of my argument. It is the
feeling of the East which I would attempt to lay bare. The existence
of slavery in these days is the natural outcome of that feeling. Many
a child is kept illiterate for no other reason than because its father
is illiterate. If the father is a pea-parcher or a bean-roaster, the
son must be a pea-parcher or a bean-roaster; for a son is nothing more
than a child of its father. This thraldom, to a lad of originality
and spirit, is unbearable, but he must either endure it, or else
run the risk of being an outcast. Thus the son is the slave of his
father. In his turn the father is under the bondage of his spiritual
director, who too often serves no other God than Mammon. The tendency
of the Muslim, however, is to accept the guidance of his “master” with
unquestioning humility. All might go well with him if his “master”--we
mean his priest--were always a man to be trusted, and the right man
to lead. Unfortunately the Muslim priest more often than not is more
unenlightened, more selfish, more avaricious, more unscrupulous than
most of his flock, and thus there is a danger of his enslaving the
whole fold. Poor sheep, they, believing him to be the shepherd of
God, are accustomed to follow him whithersoever he may ensnare them.
They are doomed to perish together on the rock of Predestination,
unless these “masters” can be brought to revise the interpretation
they have put on their Prophet’s teaching. Muhammad, as a matter of
fact, was careful not to draw a too narrow line between the scope and
the limitations of the human will. There is nothing in his message
which need deter a progressive Muslim from accepting the belief that
the first step is with him always, and there is no doubt that the
acceptance of such a belief by the whole Muslim world would go far
to breathe new life into the body politic. For it would give to the
imagination an ever-widening vision of human responsibility, of human
knowledge, and of human destiny. It would emancipate every race that is
proud to pay allegiance to the Prophet, and would make slavery, in its
widest as well as in its literal sense, a curse of the unredeemed past.

“We know,” says Mr. J. H. Shorthouse, speaking in the words of an
oracular voice, addressing the King of Diamonds in a pack of cards,
“that we possess a power by which the fall of the cards is systematised
and controlled. To a higher intelligence than ours, doubtless,
combinations which seem to us inscrutable are as easily analysed
and controlled. In proportion as intellect advances we know this to
be the case, and these two would seem to run side by side into the
infinite--law, and intellect, which perceives law, until we arrive
at the insoluble problem whether law is the result of intellect or
intellect of law.”

Now, the Mussulman, in trying to solve this problem, seems to me to
have chosen the solution which is more likely than not to paralyse
the intellect and clog the wheels of progress. For if he is oppressed
or poor or ignorant or unhappy, he may say it is God’s will that he
should be so; and thus he may remain stationary, making no effort to
keep abreast with the march of civilisation. In other words, he may
come to be a slave to his god. And so, to make an end of this preamble,
it is not surprising that in countries where most men are to some
extent slaves, socially and politically speaking, there should be men
and women who belong, as purchasable and saleable chattels, to such
families as can afford to buy them. But--and this is an all-important
point--the Prophet wrought his manly utmost to mitigate the ill-effects
of slavery: it flourished exceedingly, as every schoolboy knows, long
before his time, and in other countries besides his own; but, thanks
to Muhammad’s laws, the lot of the slaves of Islám was, and is still,
immensely happier than was ever that of the slaves of pagan Rome or
of Christian North America. It is related that Abdullah Ansari went
one day to visit the Prophet, and received from him the following
instructions; “On this the last Friday of Ramazán, you must devote
yourself ‘to taking leave’ of the month, and to redeeming as many
slaves as you can: and these things you must do in order that God
may be gracious unto you.” The “leave-taking,” be it known to the
reader, is practised every year, but the old custom of setting one’s
slaves free on the last day of the congregation of the Muslim Lent has
completely died out. However, though it was not possible for Muhammad
to abolish slavery in a lifetime, the system being far too deeply
rooted in the customs of the country, he fully realised the oppression
to which the slaves had been subjected, and left nothing undone which
would ameliorate their fate.

Thus, in Súra xxiv. of the Kurán, entitled “Light,” it is written:
“And unto such of your slaves as desire a written instrument allowing
them to redeem themselves on the payment of a certain sum, write one,
if ye know good in them: that is, if ye have found them faithful, and
have reason to believe they will fulfil their engagement; and give
them likewise of the riches of God which He hath given you, either by
bestowing on them of your own substance or by abating them a part of
their ransom.” Some commentators believe the last admonition to be
addressed not only to the masters but to Muslims in general, making
it an obligation on them all to assist those who have obtained their
liberty and paid their ransom, either by giving the ransomed slaves of
their own stock, or by admitting them to have a share in the public
alms. One of the Imáms, as we read in a Shi’ah book of traditions,
put a very generous interpretation on the Prophet’s words; for on
the approach of the Hájj Day he would buy as many slaves as he could
afford to set free--a signal and heartening proof that Muhammad had not
preached in vain. But, alas! in these modern days a slave is rarely
allowed to buy his freedom--unless, indeed, he be utterly worthless
as a servant--until such time as his master is dead. A good Muslim
either releases his slaves on his death-bed, having no further use of
their services, or makes provision for their redemption in his will.
The money and the belongings which they may have amassed, as well as
they themselves, are during his lifetime his inalienable property, and,
therefore, on the first day of the moon of Shavvál he must, on paying
his Zikkát (that is, one-tenth of his gross estate), include therein
the purchase-price of his slaves and the value of their hoards.

Another instance of the Prophet’s solicitude for the best welfare
of the slaves must not be omitted here. In his reverence for virtue
he took such steps as would, to a certain extent, guard the female
slaves from the indelicacy of their masters. If the masters have
deteriorated morally, less than one might expect from the burden of
their responsibility and the force of their temptation, dealing as far
as in them lies with kindness by their slaves, what can be said in
respect of morality of the unfortunate slaves themselves? In a play
modelled on the European drama, an Oriental writer has chosen for
his hero a Negro slave by name Pistachio, to whom he attributes the
lowest traits of ignorance and cunning. Pistachio is the evil genius
of the family. He turns the house into a secret gambling hell. He
brings about a _liaison_ between his master’s daughter and a suitor
rejected by her parents; and, by winning his mistress’s favour, excites
the apprehension and jealousy of her husband. Every act of treachery
is committed under the cloak of folly. His perversity has no limit,
and his ingratitude no end. Making every allowance for reasonable
exaggeration, we have in Pistachio a type of what an Oriental slave
too often is. For there is no manner of doubt that a man, born and
bred in slavery, knowing next to nothing of the refining influence of
education, is more apt to represent rather the worse, than the better,
side of human character. Some slaves there are, doubtless, who, like
Arab horses, are surpassingly faithful to their masters, but there
are others--perhaps more numerous--who, in the effrontery of deceit
and moral degradation could hardly be matched by the most thankless
rascal in the sink of hypocrisy. Of the majority connecting the extreme
types whose portraits I have sketched, two things may be said with
almost unquestionable certainty. They are self-willed and effeminate
when young, and indolent and self-willed when old. In their youth,
provided they be good-looking, they are regarded with suspicion by
their masters, if they are male, and with jealousy by their mistresses
if they are female. They live, whether they be men or women, in the
strength-sapping seclusion of the harems, and hence, for one reason,
their lack of such qualities as go to the making of healthy manhood.
For intellect they must be placed not much above the level of the
dog--in fact, if the dog could speak, he would put in his claim to the
higher rank.

I have hardly heard of a single slave in an Oriental house who deserves
to be noted for his intellectual power. Since he is so cunning and can
set the whole family by the ears, how comes it that he is so dull of
understanding? Does the cause lie solely in the neglect of education?
Surely not, for if it did his master’s case would often be no better
than his own. Is the reason, then, to be sought beneath the surface of
his skin? Scarcely, I think, since, under the British flag in South
Africa, his brother blacks are gaining fast in intellectual strength.
No; set your slave free; let him have a body he can call his own.
Educate him that he may develop a mind to rule himself. Give him light,
and room, and liberty. Do this, you master of Islám’s slave, and your
jesters shall have no cause in the future to satirise the wretched
victim who, bought in chains and reared in sloth, is nothing less than
a living stigma cast on your manhood. If anything could emancipate your
sense of justice, it would be a visit to the Slave Market of Mecca.
Go there, see for yourself the condition of the human chattels you
purchase. You will find them, thanks to the vigilance of the British
cruisers, less numerous, and consequently more expensive, than they
were in former years; but there they are, flung pell-mell in the open
square--in crowds that clamour for a recrudescence of Muhammad’s
attitude towards slavery.

One group, that of a mother and daughter, excited the sympathy of
many pilgrims. The girl, unthinking, giddy, broke every now and then
into shrill laughter. In her mirth, more terrible to witness than
grief, it seemed as though she would while away the hours of exciting
expectation. For the girl was bent on winning a master; slavery had
for her no terror, a mother no reclaiming tie. Every time the daughter
laughed her mother’s face twitched all over, and then grew rigid. It
was plain, to the sympathetic eye, that she had forced herself to
rejoice in her own anguish--her daughter’s unconcern, telling herself,
it may be, that, though her own pain would soon be the greater, her
daughter’s would be so much the less. The one, dreading the parting,
disguised her secret anguish, or found her consolation in her child’s
heartlessness; the other, who could not conceal her anxiety lest she
should be overlooked, was innocent of a qualm. The dealer, standing by,
cried out: “Come and buy, the first fruits of the season, delicate,
fresh, and green; come and buy, strong and useful, faithful and honest.
Come and buy.” The day of sacrifice was past, and the richer pilgrims
in their brightest robes gathered round. One among them singled out the
girl. They entered a booth together. The mother was left behind. One
word she uttered, or was it a moan of inarticulate grief? Soon after,
the girl came back. And the dealer, when the bargaining was over, said
to the purchaser: “I sell to you this property of mine, the female
slave Narcissus, for the sum of £40.” “And I,” replied the pilgrim,
“agree to pay you £40 for your property, Narcissus.” Thus the bargain
was clinched. This time the mother’s despair was voiceless; for it
meant to stay with her always.

Most of the slaves, male and female, came from Nubia and from
Abyssinia, and these are said to be the most faithful. “Hájí Ráz”
tried his best to determine the extent of the traffic at Mecca, but
in a country where the census is unknown, where every nobleman is an
independent ruler, and where the revenue cannot be calculated with
any degree of accuracy, he found it impossible to form even a working
hypothesis as to the number of human beings that are sold yearly in the
city of God. That the trade by sea is on the decrease is certain; but
many a slaver escapes from the clutch of the British cruisers owing
to the shallow waters of the Red Sea and to the fact that the pursuer
cannot go ashore. Moreover, the overland route is always open. Thus he
was told that the generality of the richer pilgrims commemorated the
sacramental journey by buying at least one slave, and often two. The
price varied. A woman-slave, if she were good to behold, fetched by
far the higher price--from £20 to £80. Men slaves could be bought for
sums varying from £15 to £40. The children-in-arms were sold with their
mothers, an act of mercy; but those that could feed themselves had to
take their chance. More often than not they were separated from their
mothers, which gave rise to scenes which many a sympathetic pilgrim
would willingly forget if he could.

It is the custom among the Muhammadans to change the names of their
newly-acquired property. Thus the slaves that go to Persia and to
Central Asia are called by the names of the flowers if they are
women, and by those of the precious stones if they are men. Of the
precious stones Turquoise and Cornelian are the most common. Flowers
and precious stones! Are they not men and women, O children of Islám,
and if they are, why do you not restore to them, in accordance with
the express commands of Muhammad, the Prophet, the breath that would
reanimate and the light that would redeem them?... “But zeal outruns
discretion. Here I end.”

INDEX

Aal, 276

Aaron, 61

Abbas, 274

Abdallah Ebn Omm Mactúm, 23

Abdullah Ansari, 303

Abdur Rahman Khan, 160

Abraham, 55, 115, 140, 166, 247

’Abd Allah Ibu Mas’ud, 261

Abú Amid, 166

Abú Bekr, 69, 113

Abú Ghobais, Mount, 257

Abú Hanifa, 115

Abú-Hurairah, 261

Abú Sa’íd al-Khadrí, 261

Abú Sophian, 70

Abú Yúsúf, 115

Abyssinia, 307

Adam, 131, 166

Afghan pilgrim, 259

Aghigheh sacrifice, 47, 272, 273

Ahia, 53

Ahmad Ebn Hanbal, 117

Ahmad Ebn Yúsúf, 93

Ahmad Muizz-u’d-Dawlat, 69

Ainé-Zobeideh, 224, 237

Albanians, 234, 235

Al Beyyid, 93

Alemeyn, 196, 203, 204, 252

Al-Farra of Bagh, 261

Algeria, 178

Al Hadi, 115

’Alí, Imám, his knighthood, 24, 25

----, his injunctions to traders, 45

----, traditions concerning him, 61

----, his wife, Fatima, Muhammad’s daughter, 69

----, his character as Caliph, 69, 70

----, as the “Lion of God,” 70, 71

----, his murder, 71

----, his name inscribed on the gates of the Harem, 113

Al-Káwthar, 59

Al-Khalíl, 55

Al Mutasem, Caliph, 117

Al Moakkibat, 129

Al Omreh, 252

Al Radí, Caliph, 117

Amin-ud-dowleh, 163

Amin-us-Surreh, 206

Amir-ul-Hájj-ul-Mesri, 206

Amir-ul-Hájj-ul-Shami, 206

Arab club, 109

Arab priest, blind, 88, 89

Arabs, 22, 24, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 104, 105, 108;
see also “Bedouins”

Arafat, 27, 56, 102, also Chapters IX., X., XI., Part II.

Arch of Beni Sheybeh, 130

Ardebil, 158

Aryan, 62, 75

Assyria, 71

Avicenna, 290

A’yáde-Ghadir, 60, 61, 62

Ayatu’l-Kúrsí, translated, 269, 270

Ayeshah, 55, 69, 70, 221

Azrail, 131

Bábághúlí, 47, 272, 273

Bábí rebellion, 164

Babylon, 102

Bagdad, 117

Baidáwí, 261

Balám, 60

Balsam of Mecca, 264, 265

Barbary, 116

Bashtar, 96

Baths, Muslim, 41, 50

Bedouins, 94-96, 103, 104, 189, 192-194, 210, 211, 213, 214, 219,
234, 235, 236, 263, 264, 265, 270, 272

Bedre, 264

Benares, 102

Behbehan, 276

Beni Amere, Bedouin tribe, 264

Beni Salem, Bedouin tribe, 270

Beni Shaibeh, gate, 168

Beni Subh, Bedouin tribe, 263, 264, 265

Black Stone, 131-135, 140, 167

Bombay, 180

Burkhardt, 226

Burton, Richard, 226

Cairo, 54, 111, 178

Calvinism, Welsh, 30

Caucasus, 90

Cholera, see Preface, also 83, 178, 179, 180, 181, 187, 203, 204,
212, 213, 284

Christ, 76

Compassing of the Ka’bah, 130-139

Constantinople, 54

Cover-design to the present volume, see “Bábághúlí”

Critic, his aim, 21

----, his attitude to the Kurán, 22

Day of Arafat, see Chapters IX., X, XI., Part II.

Day of the Repose of the Soul, see Chapter VII., Part II.

Day of Victims, see Chapter XII., Part II.

Date-trees, 265

Delhi, 24

Demavend, 281

Devil, see “Lapidation” and “Edris”

Edris, 131

Egyptian Mahmil, 220, 221, 241, 242, 245

Eshagh-ben-Amar, 44

Essraf, 245

Estakhareh, 38, 46, 285, 289, 290

Esteghfar, 134

Euphrates, 47, 71

Eve, 105, 106, 131

Family of the Tent, 72, 73, 75

Fará, 263

Fatihah, translated, 269

Fatima, 61, 69, 72

“Fotúhúl Haremeyn,” 138

Gabriel, angel of Revelations, 52-55, 60, 62, 76, 131, 166

Gaem, 106

Gala, 290

Gate of Peace, see “Salám Gate”

Gate of Purity, see “Safá Gate”

Ghadir, 68

Ghadre-Day, 52, 53, 54

Ghúl-hú-Allah, 134

Gibbon, 72, 73

Gold Spout, 127, 132, 136

Granada, 24

Hamadan, 275, 276, 278

Hamde, 134

Hanbalites, 116, 117, 118

Hanefites, 115, 248

Harb, Bedouin tribe, 104, 263, 264, 265, 270

Harem of Mecca, 112-120, 123-129, 134-141

Harem pigeons, 119, 167

Harun-ur-Rashid, Caliph, 115

Hasan, eldest son of Imám ’Alí, 71

Hashem, 75

Hashemites, 69, 75

Hashísh, 280, 281

Heddah, 103, 108

Hegira, 48

Hejaz, 91-101, 164, etc.

Henna, 283, 284

Hodi, 106

Hozail, Bedouin tribe, 194, 211

Hugo, Victor, 82

Huseyn, Imám, younger son of ’Alí, his knighthood, 25

----, his rules of etiquette, 34

----, his character, 71

----, his last stand, 73

----, his death, 73

----, mourned by the Persians, 74, 75

----, hero of the Persian Passion Drama, 76

----, receives the key of intercession from Muhammad, 77

Ihrám, pilgrims’ habit, 90, 93, 94, 165, 166

Indian Pilgrims, 198, 200, 222

Isfahán, 160

Ishmael, 55, 56, 167

Islám, social, 37, 38, 41-47, see Chap. VI., Part II., and also the
chapters of Part III.

Ismailia, 73

Israfil, 131

Jafar, Imám, 38, 42, 44, 46

Jammé Sakhra, 237

Jebelé-Nur, 182

Jesus, 55, 61

Jiddah, 89, 90, 93-101

Jinns, 276, 277

Jumádáu-’l-ákhir, 48

Jumádáu-’l-sání, 48

Jumádáu-’l-úlá, 48

Ka’bah, 28, 56, 60, 111, 112, 114, 115, 131, 134-141, 164-172, 251

Kadijah, 221

Karmata, 132

Karmatians, 132

Kashán, 160

Kazi of Mecca, 238, 242, 247

Kerbela, 72, 76, 274

Kesveh, 221, 222

Khadasieh, 24

Khaif, 191, 196, 252

Khayyám, Omar, 33, 159, 286

Khedevieh, 89

Kiblah, see “Mecca”

Kirmán, 88

Kitchen of Adam, 222

Kufa, 45, 71, 73, 76

Kuraish, 23, 24, 53, 115, 118, 166

Kurán, Geo. Robinson’s opinion of it, 21

----, refers to the Pilgrimage, 26-29

----, used as a talisman, 43

----, the third Súra, 54, 55

----, Chapter entitled “Man,” 62

----, its use in battle, 70

----, see “Fatihah,” and “Ayatu’l-Kursí”

----, Chapter entitled “Light,” 303

Kurb, King of Yemen, 221

Kurds, 234

Laili, 63

Lapidation of the Devil, 246, 247, 252

Lascars, 89

Lesseps, de, 83

Lote-tree, 41

Magrebis (Moroccans), 214, 217

Mahmil, 220, 221, 241, 242, 245;
see also “Syrian Mahmil”

Majnun, 63

Malay pilgrims, 194, 195, 196, 197

Malek Ebn Ans, 115, 116

Malekites, 115, 116

Malik, Guardian of Hell, 52

Marseilles, 82

Marshmallow, 41

Marveh, 142, 148-152, 252

Maseh (ablution), 34

Masher al haram, 174

Mecca, 29, 48, 68, 81, 103;
see also chapters of Part III.

Medina, 23, 48, 52, 68, 70, 72, 178, 227, 232, 233, 263

Meshireh, 52

Messiah, 106

Messina, 82

Michael, archangel, 131

Mina, 28, 55, 56, 148, 176;
see also Chap. XII., Part II.

Mizab, see “Gold Spout”

Moalla, 181

Moawiyah, 70, 71

Moghavems, 103, 176, 180, 182, 188, 194, 198, 209, 220

Morocco, 178;
see also “Maghrebis” Moses, 61

Mount Shíní, 110

Muezzin, 43, 48, 51, 237, 238, 266

Muhammad, the Prophet,

----, his sincerity, 22

----, “He Frowned,” 23

----, as a soldier, 24

----, his aims as reformer, 25

----, his declaration of God’s unity, 25

----, his view of Christianity, 25, 26

----, the sense he had of his mission, 26

----, his charity, 26

----, approves of the Pilgrimage, 27, 28, 29

----, his cornelian ring, 38

----, his reverence for chastity, 46

----, his ideal woman, 46

----, the festivals which he encouraged, 46, 47

----, on the moon of Rajab, 49

----, his victory over the Kuraish, 53

----, his pond in Paradise, 59

----, his secretary, Othmán, 69

----, his love for his grandson, Imám Huseyn, 73

----, hands over to Huseyn the key of intercession, 77

----, his political aims, 120

----, his highest conception of the Hereafter, 120

----, catechises Muaz, Governor of Yeman, 123

----, his patience, 124

----, his respect for knowledge, 124, 290

----, on the sevenfold compassing of the Ka’bah, 137

----, his loyalty to his first wife, Kadijah, 221

----, his flight from Mecca, 232

----, his kindness to animals, 287

----, his attitude to slavery, see Chap. V., Part III.

Muhammadan, months or moons, 47-62

----, Paradise, 58, 59, 120

----, Orthodox Sects, 115-120, 123, etc.

----, Mullás, 120, 123, 124, 125, etc.

----, Prayers, 126-152, 173, 174, 238

----, self-sacrifice, 137, 138, etc.

----, fortitude, 153, 154

----, beggars, 157

----, women, 46, 88, 94, 95, 148, 187, 188, 199, 200, 217, 306, 307,
308

----, musicians, 198, 199, 200

----, centralisation, 227

Muharram, 48, 62, 68, 69, 73

Munkar, 145, 146, 260, 271

Mussah-street, Mecca, 153, 257

Nahavend, 24

Nakhowales, 227, 232, 233

Nakir, 145, 146, 271

Napoleon, 23

Negro slaves, see Chap. V, Part III

Nessouh, 50, 51

Niyyat, 34, 133, 134, etc.

Noah, 44, 51

Nodbeh, 58

Nu’man Ibu Bashír, 261

Nún, 60

Nureh, 41

Obeidullah, Governor of Kufa, 71

Omar, second Caliph, 24, 69, 70, 74, 113

Ommiyah, 70

Othman, third Caliph, 69, 113

Owf, Bedouin tribe, 263

Paris, 82

Persian Passion-play, 75, 76, 77

---- character, at its best, 74, 75

---- character, according to Nassir, 108

---- character, according to Seyyid ’Alí, 108

---- witticisms, 109, 110

---- mysticism, 62-68, 109, 110

---- poem, 141, 142

---- story, 176; also Chap. III, Part III

---- humour, 186; also Chap. III, Part III

---- noblemen, 188, 189

---- fable, 205

---- Consul-General of Hejaz, 206, 227, 231

---- High-Priest of Teherán, 206

---- tents, 209

---- lullaby, 211

---- water-pipes, 224

---- seal-maker, 260, 261, 262

---- character, 272

---- parable, 273, 274

---- superstition, 275, 276, 277

---- satire, 286

Pilgrimage, conditions, 31, 32

----, the whole of the book Pilgrims, their number, 225, 226

----, the whole of the book

Port Said, 82, 83, 84

Purifications, 33, 34, 35

Queen of Egypt, a, 221

Robegh, 263, 264, 270

Rabíu-’l-avval, 48, 164, 165

Rabíu-’l-sáné, 48

Rajab, 48, 49, 50, 164

Ramazán, 48, 52, 53, 164

“Rewa,” 82

Rewards, of Pilgrimage, 51

Rezvan, Guardian of Paradise, 52

Robinson, George, 21

Rome, 303

Rukú, 36

Russian warships, 83

---- Muslim subjects, see Preface, 90

Sád Vaghas, 24

Safá Gate, 113, 146, 147, 148, 252

Safar, 48

Safaví kings, 68

Safrá, 263

Salám Gate, 113, 126, 129

Salim, 49

Salsabil, 150

Sandals, 93

Scorpio, 46

Sermon, the Kazi’s, 242-244

Seyyid ’Alí, plays an important part throughout Parts II. and III.

Seyyid Rúsé Kháns, 74, 77

Sha’bán, 48, 51, 52, 164

Sháfeis, 116, 117, 247

Shamer, 73

Shavvál, 26, 27, 48, 54

Sheríf of Mecca, 119, 164, 206, 209, 214, 220, 226, 231, 241, 242

Sheykh Mahmud, his tomb, 110

----, plain of, 181

Shi’ahs, Keep Ahia, 53

----, their marriages, 55

----, their Messiah, 55

----, their sacrifices, 57, 58

----, their superstitions, 60, 61, 62

----, their faith and early history, 68-77

----, their sacred river, 71

----, their emancipation in Mecca, 227, 228

----, their medical science, 290, 293

----, their funerals, 293, 294

Shiráz, 125, 281

“Siege of Metz,” 21

Sijdah, 36

Simon Peter, 61

Sinai, Mount, 52

Sinaitic Peninsula, 178

Shorthouse, J. H., 302

Slave Market, at Mecca, see Chap. V, Part III

Smyrna, 278

“Sorrow,” a Súfí song, 109

Suez, 84, 85, 86

Súfíism, 33, 62-68

Sultán, Suleymán, 118, 167

Sultan (Turkey), 119

Sunnis, see “Muhammadan Orthodox Sects,” also under the separate
headings of those Sects

Sureh sújdeh, 44, 182

Syrian caravan, 177, 220

---- Mahmil, 181, 220, 221, 241, 242

---- pilgrims, 181, 191, 220

---- bazaar, in Mecca, 257; see also Chap. II., Part III.

---- character, 272

Taghvím, 38, 289

Tahlil, 223

Tai, tribe, 72

Takbir, 134

Talbih, 128, 171, 174, 223

Talh’-tree, 295

Tamjid, 174

Tasnim, 150

Tayef, 131

Teamol, 137

Teherán, 54

Telha, 70

Tennyson, Lionel, 74

Tewaff, see “Compassing of Ka’bah”

Tripoli, 178

Tunis, 178

Turks, see “Orthodox Sects,” and also under “Muhammadan,” and 226,
227, etc.

Turkistán, 278

Ula, 246

Unitarians, 25, 26

Usury, 45

Vaghas, Sád, 24

Valley of Mina, see “Mina”

Viands, forbidden, 32, 33

Victims, 56, 57, 58

Vitr, 36

Wady Fatima, 283, 284

Wagner, 107

Wahabis, 236

Wusta, 246

Wuzú’h, 33, 35

Yazid, 71

Yemen, 71, 123, 165

Youm-ul-Arafat, Chapters IX., X., XI., Part II.

Youm-ul-Nahre, Chapter XII., Part II.

Youm-ul-Tarvih, Chapter VII., Part II.

Zaideh Gate, 114

Zakani, 88

Zanzibar, 145

Zem-Zem well, 116, 142, 145, 165, 257, 259

Zikat, 54, 304

Zobeir, 70

Zú-’l-hijjah, 26, 27, 28, 48, 55, 56, 60, 62, 173, 174, 175

Zú-’l-ka’dah, 26, 27, 48, 55

Transcriber’s Note

Clear printer’s errors have been corrected by the transcriber; as far
as possible, however, original spelling, punctuation, and accented
characters have been retained. All changes listed in the errata have
also been made.

In the printed book, images occupied whole pages. In this file, some
images have been moved from their original positions to avoid breaking
paragraphs; the page numbers in the table of illustrations have not
been changed.

In this file, text in _italics_ is indicated by underscores.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "With the pilgrims to Mecca: The great pilgrimage of A.H. 1319; A.D. 1902" ***

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