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SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
! 3 1924 075 610 935 
 
 SIX MONTHS IN 
 MECCAH: 
 
 ^iV ACCOUNT OF THE MOHAMMEDAN PILGRIMAGE 
 TO MECCAH. 
 
 RECENTLY ACCOMPLISHED BY AN ENGLISHMAN PEOPESSIKG 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 T] R KEANE. 
 
 {Bajj Mohammed Amin.) 
 
 " The first of the Pilgrims to Meceah and El-Medrnah who has left an 
 authentic aooonnt of the Holy Cities is Lewes Wertomannus (Ludovions 
 Bartema), gentelman, of the citie of Eome. ' If any man,' says this author, 
 ' shall demand of me the cause of this my voyage, oerteynely I can shewe no 
 better reason than is the ardent desire of knowledge, which hath moved many 
 other to see theworld and the miracles of God therein.' " — Burton' s Pilgrimage, 
 Appendix II. First Edition. Longman. " The Navigation and Voyages of 
 Ludovions Tertomannus, gentelman, of Rome. a.d. 1503." 
 
 LONDON : 
 TINSLET BEOTHEES, 8, CATHEEINE STEEET, STEAND. 
 
 1881. 
 [_All rights reserved.'] 
 
CEA.EL-ES riCZENS AND EVAKS, 
 CETBTAL PALACE PEESS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 My object in the following pages is to give an account, in 
 as short and inviting a manner as I can, of everything of 
 interest that came under my notice while in Meccah, during 
 the pilgrim season 1877-78 ; and chiefly for the benefit of 
 those who may not have had the leisure, or perhaps inclina- 
 tion, to read the complete and exhaustive descriptions of 
 the same scenes in the volumes of the well-known Swiss 
 traveller, Johan Ludwig Burckhardt (Shaykh Hajj Ibrahim) 
 and of the better-known learned traveller and author. 
 Captain E. F. Burton (Shaykh Hajj Abdallah). 
 
 So, promising to make up for my lack of further prelude 
 by what I only hope may not be deemed my too frequent 
 interludes, I will with your permission proceed at once 
 to " spin my yarn " in my own way. ^ 
 
 J. F. KBANB (Hajj Mohammed Amin). 
 
EXTEACT FROM THE TIMES, THURSDAY, 
 OCTOBER 23, 1879. 
 
 " I SHOULD strongly recommend to such, of our countrymen 
 as take a morbid delight in depreciating the power and 
 influence of England to take a cruise in the Persian Gulf. 
 If, as we are so constantly told, our word in the Councils 
 of Europe counts for nothing, it is gratifying to see that 
 at all events it stands for something in Asia; and that the 
 Persian Gulf, for instance, in which we do not possess one 
 yard of territory, is for all practical purposes an English 
 lake. Such, indeed, is the case. The shores of the Gulf 
 may actually be situated either in Turkey, Persia, or 
 Arabia ; but the one controlling power which keeps every- 
 thing in order and in its proper place, which has put a stop 
 to piracy, and enjoys the usufruct of peaceful trade, is this 
 same effete, worn-out England : and all this good is effected 
 without the smallest fuss ' and bluster, simply by the quiet 
 .action and influence of a few Englishmen, ofl&cial and com- 
 mercial, whose very names are unknown beyond the im- 
 mediate sphere of their influence, and who are backed 
 by no greater physical force than two or three of Her 
 Majesty's smallest gun-vessels and a single company of 
 Sepoy Infantry." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 mecoah's pilgbims 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 IN MBCCAH J{ 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 IN MECCAH DURING THE AM^R's ABSENCE . . . .57 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 0B8EEVATI0NS ON THE VABIOUS BACES MET WITH IN MBCCAH . 87 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE EEMAINING ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE AND MECCAH 
 
 ITSELF 105 
 
 A * 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 FAQS 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE 135 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 IN MECOAH AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE 163 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " THE LADY VENUS " 205 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 mecoah's pilgeims. 
 
 Meocah's pilgrims, confident of Fate, 
 And resolute in heart ! — Longfellow. 
 
 Though Mohammedans are divided into almost as 
 many sects and schisms as Christians, they are 
 all* agreed on one point, namely, that it is impera- 
 tive on every Mohammedan who can afford it to 
 make a pilgrimage to Meccah at some time in 
 his life. And it is even considered obligatory on 
 those who may have undertaken the pilgrimage 
 during childhood to remake it when they become 
 adult. This pilgrimage must be performed after 
 prescribed rules and forms, and certain ceremonies 
 must be gone through on the proper days of the 
 year ; consequently many thousands of Moham- 
 
 * Excepting a few barbarians, wlio can no more be called 
 Mohammedan than some of the tribes of missionaries' pets in 
 South Africa can be called Christian. 
 
 B 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 medans assemble at Meccah from all parts of the 
 East during tlie pilgrim season, some of whom 
 come in caravans across the Arabian deserts, while 
 by far the greater number come by sea, giving 
 employment to a number of English ships, and 
 during the season of which I am writing 42,718 
 disembarked at Jeddah.'" It was at this place that 
 I was enabled to attach myself to the train of a 
 youthful Hindi t Am6r,J whom I accompanied on 
 pilgrimages to Meccah and other places in the 
 Holy Land of Islam, § and of my expedition to 
 Meccah I shall now attempt to give some account. 
 On the first landing of these pilgrims at Jeddah, 
 what struck me most was their helplessness and gulli- 
 bility, for no party of English tourists in Egypt could 
 have been more victimised than were the pilgrims 
 by their brother Mohammedan touts and crimps 
 
 * " The Britisli Consul at Jeddah states that in the season of 
 1877-78 there were 42,718 pilgrims landed at that port, an increase 
 of nearly 4000 over the preceding year ; but this was more than 
 counterbalanced by the falling off in the numbers at Zembo and 
 Leet. . . . The concourse at Meccah on the Great Feast-day was 
 estimated to have exceeded 180,000 souls." — The Times, October 
 26th, 1878. 
 
 t Mohammedan native of India as distinguished from a Hindoo. 
 
 X Properly, and in this case really, a lord of the land 
 under a ruler, and subject to feudal conditions. 
 
 § The Hejaz. 
 
MEGOAH'S PILGRIMS. 
 
 of Jeddah. Before they landed a Turkish Custom- 
 house official demanded one rupee a head on no 
 apparent grounds whatever, and then, on landing, 
 charged them a rather high duty on all their baggage, 
 by weight, so that as most of the wealthier pilgrims 
 bring almost sufficient food to' last them during 
 their stay in the country they get a pretty good 
 foretaste of what is coming ere they are handed 
 over to the native cicerones to undergo further 
 extortion. Many of the wealthy pilgrims bring intro- 
 ductions to friends or countrymen resident in the 
 Hejaz ; with these introductions my patron was well 
 provided, and thus we secured a tolerably peaceful 
 reception. I cannot describe polyglot Jeddah, as 
 I was not there long enough to find out anything 
 new or interesting about it. To the gentleman 
 acting as British Consul I gave my name and the 
 addresses of friends in England, informing him of 
 my intentions. He said much to dissuade me, 
 tellins me the roads were in an unsafe state and 
 the country rather disturbed on account of the 
 withdrawal of Turkish troops to the war in Europe; 
 but I had already made up my mind on the 
 subject, and accordingly sold such of my clothes 
 as would be unsuitable and provided myself with 
 a native wardrobe ; then, after a three-days' rest in 
 
 B 2 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAII. 
 
 Jeddah, I. entered into the preparations of our party 
 en route for Meccah. About noon on the third 
 day, camels were hired from the Bedawins (the real 
 sons of the Desert, as distinguished from their 
 spurious brethren in Egypt, Palestine, and other 
 countries generally visited by Europeans), whom I 
 now met for the first time, and of whom, notwith- 
 standing their wretched appearance at first sight, 
 their haggling, and their shrill voices, I formed a 
 favourable opinion, and still believe to have their 
 good points. One conclusion I quickly arrived at : 
 the " wily Hindi " would be no match for the 
 " swarthy Paynim " in a " rough-and-tumble." 
 After a great deal of hard swearing in a Babel of 
 tongues, the camels were laden and got under 
 way, and I, following the example of my com- 
 panions, performed the greater ablution (i.e. the 
 bathing of the entire person), and put on the 
 pilgrim's garb, which consists of two pieces of 
 white or light-coloured cotton fabric, one piece 
 round the body over the left shoulder, leaving the 
 right arm bare, the other round the loins, enve- 
 loping the body from the waist to below the knee 
 (the head is left uncovered and the upper part of 
 the foot bare), and then said a two-prostration 
 prayer, which is a supplementary act of devotion 
 
MECGAR'S PILGRIMS. 
 
 for special occasions. We afterwards joined our 
 camels, wliicli had become part of a larger caravan 
 outside the walls of Jeddah. I had no difficulty 
 in getting through the gate in the crowd, nor did 
 I hear of any pass being required from the pil- 
 grims, either here or at Meccah, though one may 
 have been got for me by the Amer as Abdur 
 Mohammed, the name I had adopted. 
 
 As we went through the gate two fine soldierly- 
 looking Turkish sentries stood leanino; on their rifles, 
 smoking cigarettes, and seemed scarcely to notice even 
 the camels passing them. Our party was composed 
 of about fifty in all, men and women ; and, as only 
 fifteen camels had been hired, ten with shugdufs, or 
 litters, and five pack-camels (four of these latter with 
 shibriyahs), and as each of these (the shugduf and 
 the shibriyah) carries only two persons, about twenty 
 of our party had to walk by the camels, in company 
 with a number of fakirs, or beggar-pilgrims, who had 
 attached themselves to us and who were accepted as a 
 matter of course, receiving a great deal of charity in 
 the shape of broken victuals and water, which latter 
 has a money value in this country. I found I had to 
 share a shugduf with one, of whom I shall often have 
 to speak, since he was my camel-mate during the 
 whole pilgrimage, and, as I intend, for reasons that 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAII. 
 
 will readily suggest themselves to the reader, to sup- 
 press or translate all my companions' names, I shall 
 call him (as I always thought of him), the "third 
 warrior," the junior of the three armed retainers 
 who formed the Amur's body-guard. 
 
 The kind of panniers or litters, in which we sat or 
 lay at full length when riding, are known by the names 
 of shugduf or shibriyah. Inside the shugduf is a pocket 
 for food, tobacco, and other little necessaries ; outside, 
 at the tail end and within easy reach, a wicker-basket 
 containing a bottle of water. Having mounted, that 
 is to say, having, by the help of a ladder, ascended 
 into this construction of bent boughs and old bags, 
 resembling a rickety wigwam poised airily on the hump 
 of a camel, the impression I laboured under was that 
 we were instantly to plunge off in mad bounds across 
 an exceedingly rough country, feeling at the same 
 time pity for the poor beast under what I supposed 
 could only have been an immense burden, spiced with 
 momentary expectation of a spill. But on looking 
 out I found the road a perfectly level sandy plain, the 
 camel crawling along at a slow walk, jolting more 
 than the fastest pace of the hardest trotting horse ; 
 moreover the platform on which you lay is on a level 
 with the top of the animal's hump, and the whole 
 structure of the shugduf so top-heavy that it requires 
 
MEGOAE'S PILGBIMS. 
 
 the nicest adjustment of weight on either side to pre- 
 vent the saddle, to which the shugduf is securely 
 lashed (but which has no attachment whatever to the 
 animal, merely adhering to its back in some mys- 
 terious way), turning a complete somersault— a thing 
 which not ^infrequently happens, for the art of balanc- 
 ing a shugduf is only acquired after long practice. 
 Our camel-driver threatened and abused us wildly for 
 our awkwardness, my companion being as much a 
 novice and as unaccustomed to this mode of travel as 
 myself ; however, we purchased peace at the price of a 
 few dates and a little bread. I, for my part, spent one 
 of the most wretched and apparently perilous nights 
 I have ever had the misfortune to undergo, for the 
 pitching and rolling of that desert-ship could not find 
 its equal afloat ; so that I, old sailor as I was, became 
 exceedingly sick, a thing which had not happened to 
 me for many years while at sea. The country over 
 which we passed was a sandy plain, if anything, a 
 slight ascent ; our course, by the stars, nearly east ; 
 and the distance, I was informed, twenty- eight miles 
 to Haddah, where we halted at daylight. Haddah is 
 the stage, or half-way halting-place, between Jeddah 
 and Meccah. Here there are about four or five square 
 miles of cultivated ground, dotted over with groups of 
 Bedawi huts. A stream of brackish water rises in 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 tlie north-east, and flows a mile or two over stone- 
 built watercourses before losing itself in the desert. 
 Around are what would be called the foot-hills of the 
 approach to a range of mountains, the first out- 
 cropping of stone from the sandy plain, gradually 
 increasing into rocky ridges and higher hills to the 
 eastward. In the shade of a large shedlike cara- 
 vanserai we spent the day, praying, eating, and 
 resting ; but sleep could not be got, for some of the 
 more devout pilgrims kept up the "Talbiyat," or 
 Pilgrim's Prayer : 
 
 Labbayk' Allahumma, Labbayk ! 
 
 La Sarika laka, Labbayk ! 
 
 Inna'l Handa wa'n Niamata laka "w'al Mulk 
 
 La Sbarika laka, Labbayk ! * 
 
 Imagine for yourself an unmusical old man of 
 ninety, with his nose in a rat-gin, trying to sing at 
 the top of his voice those words to the tune of 
 "Silent, oh Moyle," or "The Sailor's Grave," for the 
 first time in his life, and you will be able to faintly 
 
 * " Here I am ! AUab ! here am I : 
 
 No Partner hast Thou, here am I. 
 
 Verily the Praise and the Beneficence are Thine, and the Kingdom: 
 
 No Partner hast Thou, here am I." 
 
 Translation from "Burton's Pilgrimage." Third Edition. 
 W. Mullan and Son. London, 1879. 
 
MEGGAE'S PILGBIMS. 
 
 realise the excruciating discord and ghastly contor- 
 tions these pilgrims keep up for hour after hour while 
 on their way to Meccah, to say nothing of many other 
 almost equally disturbing devotional cries. I now 
 found I could perform my ablution and prayer without 
 attracting notice by any awkwardness on my part, 
 audacious imitation giving me considerable help. 
 
 About an hour before sunset we got under way 
 for Meccah ; after this the road became a more decided 
 ascent, the hills around being higher and more 
 rugged as we passed through rocky defiles in which 
 the moaning of the camels and the labbayks of the 
 pilgrims were echoed and re-echoed with a truly 
 weird effect. At daylight, when we seemed to have 
 reached the summit of a rocky platform, the in- 
 creased intensity of the labbayks and the dismounting 
 of those ahead told that " the Meccah " was in sight. 
 The distance we had come from Haddah was 
 about twenty miles, and the course still easterly. 
 The approach to Meccah by this road does not give 
 a good view of the town. You arrive among collec- 
 tions of high stone buildings scattered over rocky 
 slopes, then dismounting— for it is the proper thing 
 to enter Meccah on foot if possible, women and 
 invalids only being excepted — you find yourself 
 passing along rather wide streets, and between houses 
 
10 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 of some height ; and as yoti continue on a downhill 
 course the streets become more narrow and dirty 
 towards the centre of the city, where a house had 
 been prepared for us in the walks of the Haram or 
 square enclosed for piiblic worship, where is situated 
 the Moslem Holy of Holies, the Kaabah. 
 
 Now here was I, a veritable "Britisher," looking 
 through a plain iron-barred window, estimating the 
 dimensions of that Mohammedan pivotal point of the 
 world — " Hub of the Universe," the Kaabah, a shrine 
 for which to die at hundreds of thousands stint 
 and pauper themselves in their old age, and towards 
 which millions of eyes from all points of the com- 
 pass turn with reverence five times daily. But my 
 calculating mood was soon cut short, for having 
 established ourselves on the premises, there was no 
 escaping the forms and ceremonies appropriate to the 
 occasion, which, tired and weary as I felt, kept me 
 going the whole day. Besides the usual everyday 
 five prayers and ablutions, we had to perform a two- 
 prostration prayer in one part of the Haram and 
 another in another part ; to do the tawaf — i.e. walk, 
 or rather trot, round the Kaabah seven times, kissing 
 the Black Stone let into a corner of the building, and 
 touching another stone in it, at every circuit ; to run 
 seven times about one-third of a mile through the 
 
MEGGAE'S PILGEnrS. 11 
 
 streets repeating (after a guide hired for the purpose) 
 proper prayers — this latter ceremony is called El-Sai. 
 and is done in commemoration of Hagar's running up 
 and down searching for water on the same spot. The 
 street is in the middle of the city, skirting the Haram 
 on the east, and crossing the valley of Meccah in- 
 directly from side to side. Lastly, the head must be 
 shaved. And now I was at liberty to take off the 
 pilgrim's garb. My companions only shaved as much 
 of the top of their heads as could be covered by a 
 skull-cap, but I preferred, for reasons of cleanliness, 
 to do all the shearing, moustache-clipping, and nail- 
 paring of the most close-shaving Mohammedan, 
 leaving my beard, the ends of my moustache, and two 
 small locks under my temples, the only hair about 
 me. The costume I assumed was a sort of mixture 
 of Hindi and Turk, with perhaps as much of the 
 Arab as of either in it. My hea,ddress was a Turkish 
 tarb6uche, with a long silk handkerchief tied round 
 it ; on my feet the Hindi sandals, a strip of leather 
 protecting the entire sole of the foot, and kept on 
 by a band over the instep and down between the big 
 and second toes ; by way of breeches, a pair of Hindi 
 cotton pyjamas, four feet round the waisfand tight at 
 the ankles ; a tunic, of the same material, girded 
 about the loins with several folds of a cotton scarf; 
 
12 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 and over all, when in the open air, an Arab-brown 
 cloth mantle, having wide sleeves and reaching down 
 to the ankles. 
 
 Eight glad was I on this my first night in Meccah 
 when we had said onr last prayer and had laid down 
 for the night to sleep, although the Am^r and some 
 thirty other "True Believers," packed head and tail 
 in the same room, were snoring like pigs around me 
 — yes, such was the thought, even the name of the 
 unmentionable animal — literally unmentionable to all 
 strict Mohammedans. Notwithstanding this impious 
 thought my conscience did not prevent my sleeping 
 soundly. Nor did I wake at the 2 a.m. meal — for this 
 was the month Eamazan, when all food must be eaten 
 between sunset and sunrise — but my well-meaning 
 friends took sufficient interest in my spiritual welfare 
 to turn me out for the morning prayer, for which 
 service I appeared properly grateful, exhibiting a great 
 deal of cheerful alacrity in the shape of a cold-water 
 wash before sunrise on a chilly morning, and a quarter 
 of an hour's gymnastic praying. One convenience 
 was that the room in which we lived had three large 
 recess windows looking straight into the Haram, so 
 that we could see the Kaabah to which we prayed, 
 and which is known as the " Ear of God " and by 
 a dozen other flowery Eastern appellations, without 
 
MEOCAE'8 FILOBIMS. 13 
 
 going out. Neither the Am^r nor any of his 
 superior retainers went into the arcades surrounding 
 the Kaabah to pray except at noon on the Moham- 
 medan Sunday, which falls on our Friday, and on a 
 few other festive occasions. At first I always secured 
 a place at these windows, not caring to show myself 
 more in public than was necessary. 
 
 As this narrative is written chiefly for those who 
 know little of Mohammedanism or Meccah, before 
 going farther I will explain what this pilgrimage 
 is, and endeavour to demonstrate my position in 
 Meccah. I had often heard it said and myself 
 believed that this great concourse of people which 
 every year assembles at Meccah, ostensibly on a 
 pilgrimage, really meets for a great mart or fair held 
 there ; but now having made the journey I know that 
 this is not the case. It is a true pilgrimage, the 
 outcome of a belief in the tenets of a religion, the 
 commands of the Prophet. I think I might truly say 
 that a very small minority go for temporal gain, though 
 the majority do not go from disinterested motives 
 (the devotion of love talked of by Christians playing 
 a small part in Mohammedanism, so far as I have 
 seen). The journey and hardship are undertaken 
 profes.sedly with an eye to the future, as believed 
 to be necessary for the salvation of the soul from 
 
14 SIX MONTHS IN AIECCAH. 
 
 the punishments and in the hope of the rewards 
 promised in the Koran, and are, as I said before, 
 the outcome of a wonderful and widespread belief, 
 difficult to understand, and which could only 
 exist among such races as imaginative miracle- 
 mongering dwellers of the East. From this it will 
 be understood that the community of Meccah is 
 composed of the most bigoted Mohammedans, the 
 fanatical scum of the whole Mohammedan world. 
 Now, the precarious position of an unbeliever in 
 any wholly Mohammedan town is well known ; but 
 let a Jew, Christian, or idolater approach to defile 
 ground so holy and held in such veneration as is 
 Meccah in the eyes of Mohammedans — ground of 
 which many declare that should any but a True 
 Believer stand on, it would open and swallow him — to 
 say that he would be stoned to death, torn in pieces, 
 burnt and his ashes sent out of the country, would 
 only be repeating what I have heard Mohammedans 
 declare. I am confident the life of a solitary white 
 man refusing to make " profession of that faith " 
 would not be worth an hour's purchase — two hours 
 outside the walls of Jeddah — even at this day : so 
 that should any but a Mohammedan, from motives 
 of curiosity, gain, or for adventure wish to enter 
 the Hejaz, he must conform to the customs and 
 
MECCAS'S PILGRIMS. 15 
 
 habits of a Mohammedan, and adopt great caution ; 
 for, notwithstanding the security in which the. 
 majority affect to live, there are many jealous 
 and inquisitive watchers, self-constituted spies, 
 who would soon seal the fate of anyone suspected 
 of insincerity. But let him be ' Inaster of the 
 thousand little signs and allusive phrases of Moham- 
 medan Freemasonry, and let him affect minutely 
 all observances and points of etiquette among 
 Mohammedans, and sustain throughout a character 
 for devotion, and he need fear no inconvenience 
 on the score of his nationality in a place like 
 Meccah. He may declare himself a Peckham Eyot, 
 a native of Belgravia, or a country called North, as 
 I have done, and he will meet with courteous, polite 
 credence ; for there is so much dissembUng and 
 cunning in the Eastern character and respect for 
 deceit that a Mohammedan will outwardly appear to 
 believe a lie, in inverse proportion to its obvious un- 
 truth. I have told an Arab that I was by profession 
 mate of a steamer, which must have seemed an 
 imposition in such a poor wretch as I looked at the 
 time, and he has immediately after, in my hearing, 
 declared as a matter of fact that I was captain of a 
 steamer, giving me my promotion out of compliment 
 to what must have appeared to him the immensity 
 
16 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 of my first crammer. All through I made assurance 
 my strong suit and my acquaintance with India and 
 hailing from Bombay my trump card ; but if ever really 
 cornered, as on one or two occasions, a little hand-play, 
 implying that I was a recent convert, would in every 
 case call forth nothing but approval and commendation. 
 To undertake an expedition of this kind was certainly 
 a wild and unscrupulous thing, and I suffered many 
 qualms of conscience and felt the veriest hypocrite ; 
 but having once entered into it there was no drawing 
 back and the ordeal had to be gone through, though 
 I often at first longed to declare myself a humbug. 
 I remember once hearing a sailor say to another : 
 " You have told that lie so often, Jack, you 
 believe it yourself." I now found this to be no 
 impossibility. It became my case to a nicety, and 
 in less than a month I was to all intents and 
 purposes as honestly Mohammedan as any born 
 Arab among them. I, in fact, acted that lie so well 
 I believed it myself! The name I had adopted, 
 the "Servant of the Prophet," though common in 
 several forms in India, was objected to by the most 
 correct of our party as not strictly orthodox, for, 
 said they, was not Mohammed himself the servant 
 of God '? I thought this would be very inconvenient, 
 as a cause of discussion bringing me into uncoveted 
 
MEGGAS'S PILGBIM8. 17 
 
 notice, and added " Amin " to the name I had akeady 
 adopted, then dropping " the servant," by an easy 
 transition I became known as " Mohammed Amin," 
 a name which I supposed could not be objected to 
 by any Mohammedans, no matter of what peculiar 
 persuasion. Though I do not pretend but that I 
 should be very much out of my depth were I to 
 enter into any description of the discrepancies of 
 belief existing among the various sects of the 
 Mohammedans, still I do know more of Wahhabis 
 than of the Wesley ans, and the Shafei is not 
 altogether such a mystery to me as the Shaker; 
 but I will spare the reader the infliction and myself 
 the risk of exposure, having received probably much 
 misinformation from so fertile a source as a Hindi 
 one-sided education, and so I shall continue my 
 narrative as the pilgrim Mohammed Amin, a Suni 
 Mohammedan of the "reasonable class." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IN MECCAH. 
 
 I WAS now settled in Meccah, living the ordinary 
 everyday life of a pilgrim waiting for the " Great 
 Pilgrimage." My'ablutions were performed with the 
 water of the well Zem Zem — Hagar's weU in the 
 wilderness, as tradition has it — and for appearance' 
 sake I drank not a little of it, disagreeable as it 
 was, being a mineral spring tasting like a weak 
 solution of Epsom salts, and having a similar 
 medicinal action. For each prayer said in Meccah, 
 I was supposed to get credit for a thousand said 
 elsewhere ; still it is not desirable for any but the 
 very devout to reside whoUy in Meccah, as one's sins 
 'are multiplied in like proportion. I was not supposed 
 to have any intercourse with my harem, if I had 
 had one, nor to indulge in any feasting, sports, or 
 amusements other than those allowable on religious 
 
IN MECOAH. 19 
 
 grounds. Fighting and the shedding of blood were 
 especially to be abstained from, and killing of vermin, 
 flies, worms, etc. were almost equally reprehensible, 
 on account of the probability of offending a 
 " djin " — a class of spirit which is believed to take 
 this form and to be especially abundant in Meecah — 
 and on account of the sanctity of all living things 
 Meccan, whether " djins," men, or insects. I have 
 heard a hot discussion as to the advisability of killing 
 a human parasite, the slaughterer defending himself 
 on the plea that the insect was undoubtedly of 
 foreign extraction and but recently imported. My 
 food consisted of the native diet of India, two meals 
 of curry and rice a day, morning and evening, supple- 
 mented by such sweets, fruit, or tea as might be 
 going in the household ; for the rice I ate, no matter 
 how much, never satisfied my cravings, it having, as 
 far as my experience goes, much the same effect on 
 a hungry man as salt water on a thirsty one. I 
 sometimes went out into the streets and purchased 
 bread from the Turkish soldiers, who sell their rations, 
 and judging from the quality of their bread and the 
 quantity they have to dispose of, they must be in 
 clover here. After a week or ten days I found I 
 could walk about the crowded bazaars without 
 
 attracting notice, my fair complexion exciting no 
 
 2 
 
20 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 curiosity among the chequered masses, nor my 
 ignorance of Arabic giving me any inconvenience 
 where so many nationalities were gathered, speaking 
 more languages than I will stay to enumerate here, 
 only mentioning that you may jostle against a Tartar, 
 Malay, Negro, and Turk round any Hindi tea-stall. 
 Nor does the style of your get-up make any difference, 
 except that it is advisable not to be too "swell" in order 
 to avoid attracting beggars, but otherwise the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury doing the tawaf in his mitre and 
 robes would not occasion a passing remark, and would 
 be placed nowhere by twenty much more wondrously- 
 attired figures. There was always something about 
 that procession round the Kaabah that made me 
 think of it as Madame Tussaud's male waxworks 
 out for a walk — the many varieties of costume, the 
 stolid expressionless faces and the peculiar Tussaud 
 complexion, were all there. 
 
 I suffered at this time from small boils on the 
 hands, feet, or face, accompanied by feverishness, a 
 complaint (apparently peculiar to Meccah) which 
 foreigners are seldom known to escape during the 
 first month of their residence there. For a few 
 days I was laid up with a very sharp touch of fever, 
 lost count of time, nor did I attempt to recover any 
 dates until my return to Jeddah. About this time 
 
IN ME OCA H. 21 
 
 the end of the Fast Eamazan came, and the Great 
 Feast lasting for three days brought out the whole 
 population, decked in their gaudiest apparel, while 
 the guns from each of the three Turkish forts fired 
 a salute of twenty-one at the times of the sunrise, 
 noon, and sunset calls to prayers on each of the three 
 days. The worship round the Kaabah in the great 
 square was attended by larger numbers than I saw at 
 any other time, notwithstanding that but few of the 
 pilgrims had as yet arrived. I estimated that there 
 could not have been less than thirty thousand 
 assembled at the sunset prayer on the second day. 
 It was an imposing spectacle to see those thousands of 
 bearded, turbaned, hard, worldly men standing, circle 
 widening upon circle, round their sacred Kaabah, 
 silently following the imam as he praised God and 
 blessed Mohammed. Then as from one voice rises the 
 great cry, "God is great!" stirring emotions that must 
 be felt to be appreciated, and simultaneously all bow 
 and prostrate themselves with their faces to the earth. 
 I have often stood in my window-recess going through 
 these motions, unconsciously wrapt in the scene before 
 me ; every bright-coloured dress or brilliant turban 
 a contribution to an extent of blended colour which 
 the eye could not take in, each wave of prostration as 
 it swept over this rainbow-tinted space making aurora- 
 
SIX MONTI-IS IN MECCAH. 
 
 like transformations. In the twilight it was beau- 
 tiful and impressive beyond most human displays. 
 At this time the Kaabah was opened, but I did not now 
 venture to seek admission, though I did so on a future 
 occasion. At the end of three weeks I began to know 
 the ropes and find my way about pretty well. I had 
 taken the bearings of most remarkable objects by the 
 stars and sun, inquiring their names and the histories 
 connected with them. '"" One day I took a rather wider 
 cruise to the top of a hill (Jebel Kubays), about a 
 quarter of a mile south of the centre of the city and 
 five or six hundred feet high, and rather steep on the 
 north side, from which I hoped to get a good view. 
 On this hill Mohammed is said to have wrestled with 
 a great infidel, one Nimrud, and defeated him by a 
 miracle, Nimrud being much the stronger man. It 
 was on this hill also that Mohammed commanded the 
 moon to rise half in the east and half in the west, then 
 disappear down the sleeve of his mantle. On the 
 highest point will the Haram be perched on the Dav 
 
 * I must here caution the reader that most of my observations 
 and statements depend on correctness of judgment, and may be, in 
 some cases, but the widest approximations. I had not the simplest 
 instruments — as a watch or a compass, to make no more scientific 
 pretensions — and my notes were necessarily very scanty. I had, 
 moreover, to look for nearly all information to the most ignorant 
 and superstitious of Easterns, the Hindis. 
 
IN MEGCAH. 23 
 
 ■of Judgment, previous to ascending into heaven, 
 carrying with it all saved Mohammedans. Here there 
 is a small mosque, from which, as I expected, a bird's- 
 eye view of the whole city can be obtained. The town 
 lies in a basin among steep hills of from five hundred 
 to seven hundred feet in height, and probably not 
 more than one thousand two hundred to one thou- 
 sand five hundred above the sea. The whole of this 
 valley, about one mile and a half long by one- third of 
 a mile across, is packed and crammed with buildings 
 of all shapes and sizes, placed in no kind of order, 
 climbing far up the steep side of the surrounding hills, 
 with here and there an outlying house on the summit 
 of some rock, looking as though crowded out and 
 waiting for a chance to squeeze into the confusion 
 below ; a curious gray mass, flat-topped, to an 
 European eye roofless, half-plastered, for plaster in 
 this climate is always either being put on, or well 
 advanced in coming ofi', but never to be seen in its 
 entirety. The walls of the houses are composed of uncut 
 stone and rubble from three to six feet thick, in very 
 high buildings even thicker, but stone is used only for 
 the slUs of windows or jambs and arches of doorways, 
 and very little brick is employed anywhere. Notwith- 
 standing the substantial thickness of the walls, tottering 
 ruins may be found by the sides of the most thronged 
 
24 SIX MONTHS IN MEQCAH. 
 
 thoroughfares in every part of the city. Many of the 
 houses are of great height, large and factorylike, full 
 of little windows ; seldom two adjacent houses face the 
 same way or are the same height ; nothing resembling 
 a row or street could by any stretch of imagination be 
 extricated from such a chaos of masonry. It was im- 
 possible, even from my elevated point of view, to trace 
 a hundred yards of open space between houses in any 
 direction (many of the passages are boarded over, 
 which to a certain extent conceals them), except on 
 the outskirts of the town, where two or three suburbs 
 straggle off up the less inclined outlets from the valley, 
 and where the ground is not so thickly built over, 
 though with the same systematic irregularity. The 
 rule seems to be that no two things must be alike, an 
 Eastern characteristic developed into a fixed law of non- 
 uniformity in everything about Meccah, a town which 
 —built as it is of fragments of the crumbling rock about, 
 made to adhere with thirty per cent, of coarse lime, 
 together with the dusky crowds creeping in swarms 
 about its dark lanes and streets, if such mere tortuous 
 intricacies can be called so — suggests the simile of the 
 giant ant-hill most strikingly, and indeed it applies 
 better than any other description. There is a great 
 sameness about all this detailed dissimilarity, from the 
 midst of which the Haram stands out most prominently. 
 
IN MEGCAH. 25 
 
 at once fixing the attention, and indeed it is the main 
 feature of Meccah. It is a large quadrangular open 
 space, its longest direction north-east by east and 
 south-west by west, enclosed within four arched 
 colonnades or arcades, one hundred and ninety yards 
 on the longest sides by one hundred and twenty-seven 
 yards on the shortest, close up to which, on the exterior, 
 houses are built, except on the east side, where it is 
 bounded by a street skirting the wall of the Haram. 
 
 The arcades, which are twenty-five feet high, have 
 a row of little domes, thirty-six on the long and 
 twenty-four on the short sides, running along the 
 centre of the top, which is fifty feet wide ; but at the 
 two principal entrances, in the middle of the north 
 and west sides, there begins a widening of the roof, 
 which has two more rows of domes. These I did 
 not count, and under the arcades the projection of 
 the roof is not apparent, the space being occupied by 
 ofiices of the Haram built under them. There are six 
 tall minarets, placed at intervals round the outside of 
 the enclosure, one or two of which must be con- 
 siderably over one hundred and fifty feet in height. 
 From the inside of the arcades a number of stone 
 pathways lead across the gravelled square to a central- 
 paved oval space round the Kaabah, a plain unorna- 
 mented oblong, of closely-pointed, massive, cyclopean 
 
26 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 masonry, thirty-eight feet by thirty square, and forty 
 feet high, as I afterwards ascertained when some 
 portion of the cover was removed. It is covered with 
 a heavy black cloth, which has a good deal of silk in 
 its composition, and all round it, ten feet from the 
 top, a band about two-and-a-half feet deep, very richly 
 worked in bullion, with the Caluma, the Mohammedan 
 profession of faith, the whole of the black cloth being 
 damasked with the same characters. The marble 
 pavement glistens in the sun from the high state of 
 polish in which it is kept by the feet of the pilgrims, 
 who may be seen at all hours, both night and day, 
 performing the tawaf There are a few little build- 
 ings in the square, such as an erection over the well 
 (Zem Zem) and the stations of the imams of the 
 different sects. Add to these flocks of blue rock 
 pigeons settled in the square, flying over and about 
 it, perched on every available ledge not covered with 
 little wire spikes, and I can show you no more of the 
 Haram from my present standpoint. There are three 
 Turkish forts or castles on the highest points of the 
 hills around commanding the town, and covering its 
 three principal approaches ; they form a triangle with 
 one another — north-east, west, and south. Jebel 
 Kubays, like every other resort of pilgrims, is fre- 
 quented by sturdy beggars, the sturdiest occupying 
 
m MEGOAH. 27 
 
 the best positions, having handkerchiefs spread out 
 before them with a few suggestive copper coins laid 
 out on them. Before I left I was mulcted of, for an 
 Eastern, a fabulous amount of coin by these beggars. 
 A young Arab damsel with lovely eyes, by no means 
 coy, followed me down from the top and beguiled 
 me of my last half-piastre when she uncovered 
 the lower part of her face in a dark passage near 
 the bottom of the hill. 
 
 The measurements and numbers given were 
 obtained at different times by a regular system, which 
 I followed on every opportunity. I carried with me 
 wherever I went a bamboo stick exactly a yard long, 
 which I dropped or laid down carelessly as I moved 
 about. No one would have suspected the zealous 
 devotee crawling on his hands and knees at night 
 round the holy Kaabah was by way of a prayer mum- 
 bling the number of times he moved his stick. The 
 height of buildings I got by measuring their shadows, 
 which bore the same proportion to the object as my 
 stick's shadow bore to three feet, provided I had a 
 plain surface, as in the Haram. All the measurements 
 given in feet may be relied on as tolerably accurate, 
 and were noted down at the time. 
 
 On the afternoon of this day I ventured into the 
 Haram alone for the first time. On the day of my 
 
28 8IX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 arrival in Meccah the occasion had been one on which 
 I had not been in a condition to observe much, see- 
 ing the desperately tiring journey that had just trans- 
 ported me into such a whirl of strange surroundings. 
 But I had now got the run of things, and felt suffi- 
 ciently at home to go almost anywhere in Meccah. 
 Each of the gates of the Haram is kept by a man — 
 generally Hindi — who takes charge of the shoes of the 
 worshippers as they pass in, and deposits each pair 
 separately in a large wicker framework divided into 
 pigeon-holes. Should you be in the habit of always 
 using the same gate, you may give this man an occa- 
 sional present on any special feast or fast day, but, if 
 entering for the first time, or by a gate you are not 
 accustomed to use, he looks for some trifling copper 
 coin ; though, as a rule, these men do not openly 
 beg, from which fact I infer they must be paid from 
 the funds of the Haram. 
 
 What is very noticeable on first entering the 
 sacred precincts is the general solemn expression of 
 the faces round you ; everybody has on his Sunday- 
 go-to-meeting countenance, and converses in a sober 
 subdued tone, while those sitting have their feet care- 
 fully tucked under them — this is a point of etiquette 
 everywhere, but especially to be observed in the 
 Haram — and those lying down have their feet turned 
 
IN MEGCAH. 29 
 
 away from the Kaabah. Should you carry your shoes 
 in your hand, as some do who may be going out by a 
 different gate from the one by which they entered, 
 you must liold them sole to sole, and no one would 
 think of spitting while in the Haram, except on the 
 soles of his shoes. Only privileged beggars are to be 
 met with in the Haram, such as maimed or very old, 
 and these do not force tribute from you after the 
 manner of " bakhshish," merely getting in your way, 
 and making themselves and their infirmities con- 
 spicuous. One old blind fellow puzzled me for a long 
 time, by the rapidity of his movements from place to 
 place among the thickly-set pillars supporting the 
 arcades without a stick or any other apparent means 
 of guiding himself, until I found by watching him 
 that he was guided by the joints of the pavement over 
 which he walked, feeling their direction and length 
 with his big toes. A number of water-carriers go 
 about among the crowd standing liquors-up indis- 
 criminately, or getting paid by anyone liberal enough ; 
 sometimes, if you don't give them a trifle after 
 imbibing, their generosity exceeds all bounds, and 
 they douche you from head to foot vdth a second 
 cupful. As the water is Zem Zem, you, of course, 
 deem it too great an honour, and bestow a blessing 
 with a benign grin in return for your drenching; 
 
30 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 beaming outwardly, while the chilly liquid trickles 
 down the small of your back. 
 
 Here and there may be seen, at any time night 
 or day, parties of devotees sitting in circles droning 
 out short prayers, over and over, hour after hour, 
 with a uniformity of sound and expression — ecstatic 
 grunts and swaying of the body — which to call 
 monotonous would be to speak of the hundred-ton 
 gun as a trifle large, or the Great Eastern as a 
 tidy craft indeed. This sort of thing is kept up 
 with a persistent monotony that becomes simply 
 bewildering. Enthusiasts after some hours go into a 
 religious frenzy, and what between sheer exhaustion 
 and their mental condition, work themselves up to 
 foaming inarticulate idiotcy. I have seen these fits 
 present the symptoms of epilepsy. To be able to do 
 this well is considered not exactly an accomplish- 
 ment but rather a gift, and the possessor is looked 
 upon with great reverence. 
 
 Men's convictions should be respected whatever 
 they may be ; but the contemplation of this fanaticism 
 gave rise in me to an unhappy train of thought. 
 To think that the noble faith founded by that 
 redeemer Mohammed, at whose coming " the whole 
 world was lost in the darkness of sin," if it ever was 
 and to the stimulating influence of whose hostility 
 
IN MEGGAH. 31 
 
 Christianity may be said to owe its present state, 
 if I read my history aright. To think that the 
 faith preached by such as the earnest Omer, the faith 
 held by the illustrious Moors and many a chivalrous 
 Saladin, should have fallen off in the hands of these 
 Eastern weaklings to a mere belief in prayer doing. 
 How much cant do we hear iterated and reiterated 
 about the " essential unprogressiveness of Moham- 
 medanism ? " I fear, as that stirring faith has failed 
 to make anything of the Eastern, there is but a poor 
 look-out for Christianity. If every tinted skin from 
 light straw to ebony were Evangelical Low Church 
 to-morrow, there would be as much opium and 
 tobacco consumed as before : the only benefit to 
 humanity would be found in the workings of the 
 Protestant alcohol and six-shooter, those sturdy 
 irregular followers of the Christian Church militant, 
 whose cutting-up of the retreat none but the very 
 fittest of the fit survive. "Keep ofi" the grass." 
 I do not charge my readers with habitually infringing 
 Park bye-laws, when I suppose that at some time 
 they may have found it convenient to cut across 
 the tender turf in spite of the above admonition. 
 Well, while promenading the arcades of the Haram ' 
 for the first time, I felt a precisely similar sensation 
 of uncomfortableness as I have felt while committing 
 
32 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 the above oifence, no more ! And yet I remember 
 only a very few years ago being oppressed for days 
 by the horrible guilt of having attended divine 
 service in a Dissenting chapel. 
 
 How a few years of roughing it does knock " he- 
 reditary prejudice" out of a man, to be sure ! It is 
 now enough for me that I have met many good 
 men, " aye, good men and true," of most religions — 
 Catholic, Moslem, Protestant, or Buddhist — more good 
 than bad : so the world may still be lived in, thank 
 goodness ! How I could ramble on ! But I must not 
 do so here, though I may remind the reader that I 
 have only promised to " spin my yarn in my own 
 way," and ask him to bear with my occasional 
 wanderings; so just another word before "standing 
 off on the long tack," and if you are the reader I 
 suppose myself writing for, I shall not offend by 
 offering the following little bit of instruction. 
 
 The name Mohammedanism is applied by Christians 
 to a faith, the followers of which do not know it by 
 any such name. They call themselves " worshippers 
 of the one God," and have, in my humble opinion, a 
 rather fine conception of that deity. They are " true 
 believers" in all the patriarchs and prophets from 
 Adam down, through Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ 
 to Mohammed, whose coming they believe to have 
 
IN MECCAH. 33 
 
 been prophesied by the "Man of Peace," whose re- 
 appearance on earth is prophesied by Mohammed. 
 And it is generally held by so-called Mohammedan 
 theologians that the time of his reappearance is very 
 near at hand ; so much so that the mere repetition of 
 .such a statement was a standing byword among the 
 pilgrims of every nation while I was in Meccah. 
 Also the old idea of the near approach of the end of 
 the world is very prevalent in the East just now, 
 which, all in all, is about as ripe for the reception of 
 some Darwaysh " Peter the Hermit " as it well could 
 be, and were he to come upon the scene in some 
 such a centre as Hyderabad in the Deccan, Moham- 
 medanism might be giving some very troublesome 
 death throes in a year or two. However, we need 
 not be very much alarmed, as they have not sufficient 
 unity left among them to organise anything like a 
 formidable "jihad " — crescentade — anywhere. 
 
 To return to Meccah. Observing and inquiring 
 were now the only things which recalled me to my 
 identity. I had become so accustomed to my surround- 
 ings, and accommodated myself to circumstances so 
 rapidly, that in six weeks I was as much at home 
 as if I had been a Mohammedan all my life. I formed 
 friends, had little tiffs and jealousies with my com- 
 panions' in the household — we all having the same 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 interests, and even eating out of the same plates, 
 without offering to bite, though the disposition to 
 do so is so strong as to be barely under control. 
 Darwinites may safely take my word for this fact, and 
 are at liberty to make use of it as a startling analogy. 
 My trencher-mates were a blind Moulvi,* and a 
 gentleman with only two fingers on his right hand, 
 the only one with which a Mohammedan may take 
 food. I had, with infinite pains, worked this myself, 
 thinking I would stand a better chance ; but the 
 first time I sat down I found I had immensely 
 underrated my friends' abilities, for I never saw 
 two men with such an alarming capacity for curry 
 and rice, or who showed such extraordinary skill at 
 putting it away. At first I was a little fastidious, 
 and had rather a prejudice in favour of not seeing 
 a greasy black hand scratching merrily among my 
 food. I did not seem to enjoy it as much as I 
 ought ; however, it was only a prejudice which I 
 had to overcome. I began by imagining lines drawn 
 over the dish, separating a corner of it to myself 
 and operating inside these bounds. This sort of 
 thing did not last long, the two-fingered gentleman's 
 two long fingers would come ambling along through 
 
 * Doctor of Divinity. 
 
IN MECCAH. 35 
 
 my little rice wall before I had got my third fistful 
 swallowed ; or the Moulvi's skinny hand would wave 
 like a mesmeric pass over the dish, scatter grains that 
 had stuck to his fingers from the last mouthful over 
 it, and then alight on my most meaty morsel, a piece 
 I had perhaps had my eye on from the first ; but it 
 would have shown greedy haste on my part to have 
 taken it so early in the play. No, I hadn't a chance 
 with these two thieves, for they got away five- 
 sixths of the mess every meal, and with such grace 
 too. "Bless you," they would say, "how little you 
 eat, Mohammed Amin ! " as they shared the last 
 mouthful between them. 
 
 There was a time when I thought, to pretend to 
 know anything about India, you must at least own 
 to a passion for curry and rice. Ah yes, that was 
 before I set myself up for an authority on the matter, 
 when I could not have given you the following recipe 
 for a real native curry : — Set a pot on the fire, put 
 anything and some water into it, add saffron and 
 powdered chillies till you are perfectly satisfied that 
 the keenest palate could detect nothing else and it is 
 so hot that you would rather be skinned alive than 
 eat a spoonful of it, call it by the name of the next 
 chief ingredient; cook it in any way, as long as 
 you like, and in the meantime cast about for some- 
 
36 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 thing else to put in it, it does not in the least matter 
 what — a handful of shot or a piece of brown paper — 
 just throw anything at it, you're perfectly safe. Serve 
 it at any meal — breakfast, lunch, or dinner, all are 
 equally suitable ; and, if a victim hints that it is 
 rather hot, and you want to be thoroughly native, 
 swear " by Allah, it has not heard the name of chilly." 
 
 After the evening meal, we all used to sit round 
 a lamp in the middle of the room, eating sweets, 
 smoking hookahs, and telling stories. I got to be 
 very fond of the hookah ; the smoke passes through 
 a chamber full of water which takes up the more 
 solid particles and condenses the steam from the 
 tobacco and cools the smoke, which is always in- 
 haled right into the lungs and has a very soothing- 
 effect, though somewhat painful to a beginner. 
 
 Sometimes I would tell a story, something in 
 this style : — The Amer begins by asking me, "You 
 have been in many countries, Mohammed Amin ? '' 
 
 " Why not, your honour ? Is not my work 
 sailing ? " 
 
 "I have heard there is a big fish in the sea, 
 bigger than a ship ? " 
 
 " I have seen many and hunted them in the sea 
 to the south of India ! " and so go on to give a long 
 account of whaling to which all would listen most 
 
IN MECCAH. 37 
 
 attentively, the Amdr occasionally asking shrewd 
 questions ; or I would tell of a country where the 
 sun does not set for six months, where there is 
 hardly any land to be seen, all ice, ice, ice. 
 
 The Amer has said, " Good ! Is there such a 
 place in the world ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Good ! If there is nothing but ice, for what 
 do ships go ■? " 
 
 This is expected to be a poser, and the whole 
 circle say "Yes, yes," and look inquiringly at me. 
 
 " Oh, there is a big animal called walrus, as big 
 as two camels, having the body of an ox, the feet 
 of a crocodile, the head of a tiger, tusks like an 
 elephant, and tail of a fish ; it is very fat, and we 
 went to hunt them." 
 
 I can see incredulity on every countenance, and 
 the Am& puts a final clencher with " Good ! and 
 what can it get to eat to make it so fat ? " 
 
 " The fish in the sea ! " 
 
 Here follow general laughter and exclamations 
 of " God ! what a father of lies ! " 
 
 I invented many wonderful stories to amuse 
 them and found, here as everywhere, truth less 
 credited than fiction. I have been simply dis- 
 believed when I said I had seen the late Sultan 
 
38 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAII. 
 
 Abdool Azis and Her Majesty ; even an attempt to 
 describe their appearance would not carry conviction. 
 
 Altogether I was not at all unhappy, and remember 
 many pleasant evenings with my Mohammedan friends, 
 with whom I was, I believe, a bit of a favourite all 
 round, and looked upon as an agreeable harmless 
 fellow, my punctilious observance of all religious 
 duties making me much approved by the most devout. 
 I often astonished even the blind Moulvi by my 
 knowledge of divinity and the soundness of my 
 principle — though I could neither read nor write 
 much, and had spent my whole life among men who 
 were only Mohammedan by name. 1 made also a 
 number of acquaintances outside ; a chatty old barber 
 to whom I went twice a week to get my head shaved, 
 and who had been a " Company's sepoy," I found very 
 entertaining. He knew Bombay well, and liked 
 comparing notes with me, talking about those 
 '' Shaitan " English, whom I could not help thinking 
 he remembered kindly, though he of course joined me 
 in my Mohammedan disapproval of them, expressing 
 a little proper patriotic antipathy. 
 
 One day, when work and talk were rather " slack,'"' 
 the old fellow casually remarked, cl propos of the 
 previous conversation, "There is an Englishwoman in 
 Meccah, ' The Lady Venus ' by name.' 
 
IN MECOAH. 39 
 
 This was an eye-opener, though I took care not 
 to show it, merely replying in an uninterested way : 
 
 " Praise be to God, how long has she been here V 
 
 " Many years." 
 
 " Whose zenana is she in ?" 
 
 " Nobody's ; she works at sewing and keeps herself, 
 a Nawab gives her a room in his zenana house, and 
 she does some little work for him. She is old." 
 
 " She is not an English lady. I think perhaps she 
 is a half-caste." 
 
 " No, she is a real lady, sahib. Would you like 
 to see her V 
 
 " Yes, I will speak English to her and find out 
 who she is." For I did not conceal any of my 
 Christian accomplishments ; instead, I rather bragged 
 of them and got it believed I pretended to know more 
 than I really did. Whether the old barber wanted to 
 test me with a real Englishwoman, or whether he did 
 it in a kindly busybody spirit, I cannot say ; there 
 is no accounting for motives. At any rate, he 
 arranged a meeting at his brother-in-law's house (a 
 Moulvi) at two o'clock next day, saying he was certain 
 to get the woman to come. The old fellow may have 
 seen clean through me and expected a tip from one of 
 us, and, if so, he got one. You may be sure I had 
 but one thing to think about that night. An English- 
 
40 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 ■woman in Meccah ; been here many years ; impossible ! 
 I bave seen a gentleman driving an ox team in his 
 swallowtails, and once met a CambriJge B.A. before 
 the mast in a whaler; but this seemed impossible 
 even to me. Still I thought, " I am here, and I did 
 not find it very difficult to get here either ; " and 
 great misgivings came as it occurred to me, I don't 
 know how in the name of the Prophet I could get 
 out if anyone wanted to stop me ; and then, to have 
 to spend a whole life as she was doing, in such 
 wretchedness and misery, buried alive in Meccah, I 
 could put up with it while the novelty and the 
 excitement of acting a difiicult part lasted, but 
 twelve months of it would kill me. "No," I said, 
 "she can't be an Englishwoman;" and I consoled 
 myself by settling she must be a country-born half- 
 caste, fair enough to be called English. However 
 I should see. 
 
 The next day I put on a clean tunic and bright 
 red cumerbund, and paid as much attention to the 
 set and folds of my turban as I ever did to the 
 tying of a white choker, and brushed out my beard 
 with a— Allah, preserve us! — pig's-bristle brush. 
 That brush had got me into great disrepute for a 
 time, for incautiously telling the Amer what it was 
 made of when asked ; but no notice was taken of it. 
 
IN MEGCAH. 41 
 
 as they did not want to believe, and I took care to 
 publicly explain on the first opportunity how hair- 
 brushes were made of elephants' hair, and the old 
 bristles went their round of some two dozen faithful 
 beards every day. Allah, preserve us! Allah, 
 forgive us ! > 
 
 When, having got myself up for the occasion, I 
 hurried off at the right time in a great state of antici- 
 pation to the good Moulvi's house, called a boy in the 
 yard, announced myself, and went upstairs into a 
 little room about the size of a small bedroom, very 
 clean ; the only sign of untidiness being the usual 
 dust - heap in the doorway. At one end of this 
 room were a number of shelves let into the wall, 
 covered with curious china-ware. This is to be seen 
 in nearly every well-to-do house in Meccah, though 
 how or at what time the china-ware found its way 
 into the Hejaz in such quantities I could not find 
 out. Perhaps it comes directly through Persia ; but 
 I heard of no existing import trade.'''' It is likely 
 to be very old, as it is valued only for ornamental 
 
 * I should think it not improhable that some of it represents 
 the remnants of treasure that may have been brought to Arabia at 
 any time during the five thousand years of prosperous commerce 
 carried on from its shores before Vasoo da Gama led Europe round 
 the Cape of Good Hope to " far Cathay." 
 
42 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 purposes. Some of the vases were filled with arti- 
 ficial flowers ; and two French flower lithographs 
 hung on the wall. Representations of animal life 
 are prohibited to Mohammedans. There was also a 
 six-feet by four-feet window, with open teak-wood 
 shutters, roughly carved in an elaborate pattern of 
 very unfinished but substantial joinery. The only 
 furniture in the room was a cushioned ottoman 
 running half round the walls about eighteen inches 
 high and three feet wide, having one or two pillows 
 lying on it ; a rough teak-wood cabinet standing 
 against the wall, and, lying on it, the ^Moulvi's 
 Koran, praying-carpet, and turban. On the floor a 
 good Persian carpet, one or two small mats, and of 
 ■course a hookah and spittoon. 
 
 This may be taken as a good specimen of a room 
 in any middle-class Meccan's house. The occupants 
 were the Moulvi, a kind honest old man with a genial 
 pleasant face. Who could believe he had been a 
 great conspirator in his youth ? Yet he is now an 
 exile, and dare not return to his ovm country ; and 
 is said to have been one of the most daring mutineer 
 leaders at Lucknow. I was greatly taken with the 
 genuineness of the old fellow. He may have fought, 
 and fought hard, for his faith and his country, but I 
 believe he never acted other than conscientiously 
 
IN MEOGAH. 43 
 
 according to his lights — which is saying a good deal 
 for a Hindi. Seated on the ottoman near him, the 
 barber, a most " or'nary cuss," a shiny old black with 
 a straight white beard and a tongue like a Bengali ; 
 and the woman sitting on the floor in the costume 
 of the country — a figure squatted down with a sheet 
 thrown over it and the edges well tucked under, two 
 slits somewhere near the eyes with pieces of gauze 
 sewn over them for looking through. Give the whole 
 a convulsive subdued shaking, and you have the 
 " Lady Venus " as I first saw her. 
 
 I slipped off my shoes, entered the room, and 
 made my bow and " Peace be upon you," exchanged 
 a few " Take-a-seats," " Don't-stirs," with the Moulvi, 
 then subsided cross-legged on the floor opposite the 
 woman. She evidently understood my real character, 
 and it seemed a painful interview to her. We sat 
 silently for some minutes, the motion of her hand to 
 her eyes under the veil showing she was in tears. 
 
 At length the Moulvi spoke to her in Arabic, 
 telling her to ask me some questions in English — as 
 my name, age, country, employment — all of which 
 I answered as I wished the Moulvi to believe ; but 
 when she asked, at his instance, how I came to 
 Meccah, and I replied — "God put it into my head," 
 which she interpreted, " God put it into his heart," 
 
44 SIX MONTHS IN MEOGAH. 
 
 I felt safe and talked more freely. After a time, by 
 her advice, we talked in Hindi on general and safe 
 topics of interest to both. I found that she had 
 been amongst Mohammedans since 1858 ; and satis- 
 fied myself, in the half-hour's conversation, that she 
 was a real, educated Englishwoman. When she rose 
 to a:o I asked her in Enejlish if I might shake hands 
 with her. She said: "No;" and told me the part 
 of the Haram in which she prayed, where I could 
 meet her any day at noon. 
 
 Afterwards I stayed to dinner with the Moulvi, 
 his poor relation, the barber, joining us. He improved 
 the occasion after dinner, over a pipe, by giving me 
 a long religious and moral discourse — a fac-simile of 
 the sort of advice we get from our good old God- 
 fearing seniors at home. He made me feel miserably 
 hypercritical and as ashamed of myself as I could 
 be. I believe I blushed when the old fellow said : 
 "Go, and peace be upon you; trust in prayer, and 
 be sure God will protect you ; " at the same time 
 slipping a dollar into my hand as a token of good 
 feeling. This is an Eastern custom of simple sub- 
 stantial politeness, very preferable to "What will 
 you have to drink ? " though much the same kind of 
 thing. 
 
 When I got home I found the Amer had suddenly 
 
IN MEOOAH. 45 
 
 made up his mind to start on a long-talked-of pil- 
 grimage to Jerusalem in two days, and that four of 
 the party and myself were to be left to occupy the 
 house till his return. During the next two days it 
 was " all hands and idlers " hard at work at it, 
 getting ready for the road, purchasing stores, and 
 packing boxes. The Am^r personally undertook 
 that most important part of the preparations, the 
 confectionery, and had the "third warrior," the 
 head cook, and myself as assistants. We made 
 about half a hundredweight of a new kind of 
 sweetmeat the Am& had just taken a fancy to, 
 intended to last the trip, but the Amer ate so 
 much of it before it was cooked that he made 
 himself sick, so he took an emetic, had a good 
 cry, and would not have any of it packed up. This 
 was of a piece with the whole thing, everybody 
 ordering, nobody obeying, packing up things in 
 the wrong boxes, leaving the most important articles 
 to the last moment. I never expected they would 
 get away at all, and certainly they would not if 
 they had waited till things were in order. How- 
 ever, camels had been engaged and came at the 
 right time — nothing ready of course; still away 
 they went, bundled everything handy on to the 
 camels and started ; found they had forgotten some- 
 
46 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 thing, sent back for it ; sent back for something else, 
 and kept on sending back for things till they got 
 too far away. One of the last things sent back for 
 was the Amur's watch, a very valuable English gold 
 one, which was found under the rug where he had 
 been enjoying an opium sleep during the hubbub of 
 the last two hours before starting. All my Hindi 
 friends were addicted to opium, and in any emergency 
 used just to increase the dose a little and trust to 
 Providence. They got on all right in a kind of 
 " good-enough " fashion, by the " help of G-od," they 
 say, and I suppose that's it. I know they left half 
 the things purchased for the voyage, and took a 
 couple of camel-loads of rubbish that wouldn't be 
 of any earthly use to them. Before they left the 
 Amer's public purse-bearer gave me thirty dollars 
 for the support of my companions and myself while 
 he was away. The four who were left with me were 
 the " third warrior," a boy, the sort of youth you 
 instinctively call Jack the moment you see him, 
 and a couple of old black nonentities, one to cook 
 and the other to eat. The boy Jack's story was 
 rather a characteristic one as to how he came to 
 be with the Am6r. He was thirteen years of age, 
 the son of a Hindi small farmer, and had been 
 seized with the desire to rove, which I suppose we 
 
IN MEGCAH. 47 
 
 are all subject to more or less strongly ; it seems 
 to make its appearance at some time in most people's 
 lives, and just as the English youth looks to the 
 sea as a safety-valve through which to exhaust his 
 uncontrollable wandering propensities, so the Moham- 
 medan invariably vents the same mania in a pil- 
 grimage to Meccah. Jack " felt a call," and appears 
 to have had it badly too, for though his father beat 
 him and his friends laughed at him, still he held 
 out for months keeping up the same cry, always 
 having the same object in view — he must go to 
 Meccah. He offered to accompany pilgrims and 
 work, but of course could not get the employment 
 so much coveted, such pilgrims as do take servants 
 confer a great favour on them by doing so ; indeed 
 most wealthy pilgrims take their relatives in such 
 capacities. Kemuneration is seldom expected by any,, 
 more than is sufficient for their subsistence. At 
 last the mania reached to such a pitch with Jack 
 that one night he stole all the money his father 
 had (one rupee) and ran off. He first walked from 
 his home near Hyderabad Scinde to Kotiee, and 
 here his story became rather confused; he seemed 
 to have gone on "fire-ships" (steamers) and "fire- 
 carriages " (railway trains) for the first time in his 
 life; he is only clear that he found himself in 
 
48 SIX MONTHS IN MECQAH. 
 
 Kurrachee after some days, and knew he was a 
 good step on his road to Meccah. Jack then 
 "stowed away" on board an English steamer for 
 Bombay (how a country boy who had never seen 
 a ship before could be up to this I cannot under- 
 stand !), and was put in prison in Bombay for doing 
 so. When he got out he told his story to many 
 Mohammedans whom he asked for help, and who 
 thought it very great " kismat," and that he must be 
 " chosen of God ; " but though he received enough 
 charity nobody offered to take or send him to 
 Meccah. Jack's zeal had not spent itself yet ; no, 
 his success hitherto encouraged him to go on. 
 
 The pilgrim season came round ; crowded steamers 
 were leaving Bombay for Jeddah, and on board one 
 of these Jack managed to conceal himself on the 
 day of sailing. When the ship was about four days 
 out, all the pilgrims were mustered, and Jack, with 
 half-a-dozen others, was found to have no ticket. 
 It is probable nothing would have been done to them 
 really, more than a kick or two, but the officers of the 
 ship made a great fuss, sent them u]d on to the look- 
 out bridge, and half-frightened them to death. Two 
 of the stowaways were the only two barbers on board, 
 so the other five hundred pilgrims got up a sub- 
 scription to pay for them ; but the officers would 
 
IN MECCA H. 49 
 
 not let these two go without the rest, so they all 
 spent another day on the bridge. In the meantime 
 the Am^r, who was a first-class passenger, heard of 
 this, and also heard that one of the delinquents was 
 from Hyderabad, and thinking he was a countryman 
 of his own, at once made up the subscription and 
 had them all released. He then sent for Jack, but, 
 finding he came from Scinde and not from the 
 Deccan, was of course very much disgusted ; never- 
 theless he heard the boy's story, and ended by taking 
 him into his service. The boy is now with us in 
 Meccah, happy as Larry. Not only is the stolen 
 rupee intact, but he has added seven annas to his 
 treasure and has a very good outfit for a nigger. 
 I never could get on with this boy, always had to 
 be giving him mild Hindi slaps, and abusing his 
 female relatives : he was a cheeky young dog. I 
 could not help a certain amount of sympathy — a 
 sort of fellow-feeling — and that perhaps led me to 
 give him too much of his own way. 
 
 The zenana was also left, but they lived in another 
 part of the house, and I saw little of them. An old 
 hao- (one of those Eastern horrors more hideous than 
 European could picture — a fury with a face like three 
 kicks in a mud wall) used to come down to us to beg 
 tea or anything nice we might happen to have going 
 
50 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 for her mistress the Begum, the Amer's mother, who 
 was the head of the zenana ; for though we lived in 
 completely separate households, our culinary opera- 
 tions were within the range of the old lady's (the 
 Begum's) nose, and she never failed to make her 
 ancient handmaiden swoop down upon any little 
 extra indulgence we might choose to be having. 
 The old women servitors, having discarded the veil, 
 take the place in India of the eunuch in other Moham- 
 medan countries, that is, go-betweens between the 
 men's and women's apartments, acting as spies on 
 both, and are generally chosen for remarkable ugliness. 
 The first thing we did in the morning after the 
 Amur's departure was to organise a general clean- 
 up. The sleeping apartment had not been swept 
 out since we had been living in it, and was filthy. 
 We removed out of this room, fifteen feet by twelve 
 feet, and threw into the street outside (this being 
 the custom of the country) eight, large packing- 
 cases full of rags, spoilt and wasted, fragments 
 of food in difi'erent stages of rot, broken pots, 
 bottles, tins, old shoes, straw, torn matting, and 
 sticks. Besides all this, two snakes, a dead cat, a 
 great many rats and mice, both dead and alive, and 
 about five or six pounds weight of maggots out of 
 one corner. I was afraid to raise the carpet, heaven 
 
IN MEOOAH. 51 
 
 knows what awful disclosures might have followed ! 
 All this brought a perfect treasure-trove to Jack in 
 the way of lost trifles, and I found among the rubbish 
 a ball of opium, which I pocketed. Next we cleared 
 out the cooking-room adjoining the sleeping-room. 
 In the middle of this room there was a large sink, a 
 concave circular stone about four feet in diameter, 
 with a round hole in the centre, down which the 
 refuse and offal of cooking and butchering were 
 thrown. Round this stone we used to sit and 
 perform our everlasting ablutions. The aroma 
 emitted from the hole was — pooh ! " odours of 
 Eden, myrrh, aloes, and cassia ! " Pooh ! Its 
 fragrance varied in kind from day to day, but 
 always seemed to be at its worst. What horrible 
 depths of corruption existed below might be guessed 
 from the thick layer of maggots that formed a 
 coating to the inside of the hole as far down as 
 could be seen,- constantly writhing and crawling 
 upwards, spreading round at the surface, and de- 
 veloping into flies which filled the air with their 
 black buzzing filthinesses. I formed a plan for the 
 amending of this which was strongly opposed at 
 first; however, I got the "third warrior" and Jack to 
 join me, and we carried the day. We filled the large 
 rice-pan with water, about six gallons, made it hot, 
 
 B 2 
 
52 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 and emptied it boiling down the hole. This we did 
 three times, with such beneficial effect that no objec- 
 tion was raised to it on the next occasion when 
 the maggots began to appear, and we very soon saw 
 a sensible diminution in the swarms of flies. I then 
 purchased some benzoin, a yellow gum or resin, which 
 has a very agreeable scent when burnt and is the aver- 
 sion of all kinds of wiusred vermin. With this we fumi- 
 gated the whole place, and so completed the sanitary 
 arrangements of our little household. I am aware 
 the foregoing savoury fragment is not very " in- 
 viting," but I think the reader will recognise how 
 scanty justice would have been done to the descrip- 
 tion had such important factors in the sum of our 
 discomfort been omitted. 
 
 During the last three days I had had no time to 
 look for the " Lady Venus," but the moment I was 
 at liberty I set out in quest of her. To such of my 
 readers as may be wholly unacquainted with the 
 customs of the East, I may here explain why in my 
 interview with the '•' Lady Venus " such great caution 
 was preserved. Our being English, and the subjects of 
 our conversations — which will appear obvious and 
 sufficient reasons — had really little to do with it. If 
 we had been born Meccans we should not have been 
 able to maintain nearly such free intercourse as we 
 
IN MECGAH. 53 
 
 did, for we should have had more prying friends to 
 make scandal of our (from a Mohammedan point of 
 view) grossly improper " goings on " — immoral they 
 would have been called, in a society where it is a 
 canon that no woman may uncover her face to any 
 man who is not her father, brother, or husband ; and 
 it was chiefly on this account that our meetings had 
 to be of such a clandestine character. Any one 
 familiar with the social habits of Mohammedans — the 
 jealousy, conventional and affected, of the men, and 
 the. formal restraint under which the women are 
 held — will be surprised that I was able to walk in 
 public with the lady without attracting notice in the 
 way I did ; but in Meccah the women are allowed 
 great freedom. Many of the most ordinary precau- 
 tions of the harem are relaxed, and it is quite the 
 correct thing for the women of the wealthy to appear 
 at public worship unattended, praying among the 
 men, no part of the Haram being set apart for them 
 as in every other mosque. On the second day after 
 the Amur's departure, I went to that part of the 
 Haram she had mentioned as her place of prayer at 
 noonday. After the prayers I remained sitting, 
 counting my beads. There are ninety-nine beads in 
 a Mohammedan rosary, not counting certain little 
 pendants or stops. As you count your beads, for each 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 bead passed you mention one of the ninety -nine 
 names or attributes of God : the hundred is not 
 complete, as the perfection of God is unlimited. A 
 Mohammedan therefore says, " God is great, good, 
 merciful," etc. etc. etc., through the ninety-nine ; 
 imagine the rest — a sort of 9 9 '9 recurring idea: or, 
 as others say, the hundredth attribute is love, which 
 man shares with God, and so is not mentioned. 
 
 When the crowd had dispersed I observed a little 
 way off on my left a woman sitting alone. I thought 
 this might be my friend, and looked fixedly at her 
 for a few minutes. She was evidently looking at 
 me, and I thought I noticed a beckoning movement 
 of the hands under her garments, so I rose and 
 walked towards her. She then got up and went 
 out of the Haram, and I followed her at a little 
 distance. We had gone some quarter of a mile, 
 through the town in this way, she always looking 
 back at me before turning a corner, when she stopped, 
 and let me come up to her. She at once addressed 
 me in English, telling me to walk by her side, and 
 that we were going to a Hindi friend's where we 
 could talk undisturbedly as long as we liked. 
 
 Some two hundred yards farther on we passed 
 through a narrow part of the street, where a Turkish 
 sentry was posted ; here she talked loudly in Arabic, 
 
IN MECCAH. 55 
 
 and I answered lier in the same, making a great 
 display of such expressions as I was master of. 
 Half-an-hour's walk brought us to a little shieling, 
 into which we went and sat down. I found the old 
 Hindi who dwelt in it very well disposed. He made 
 tea, gave me a smoke of his hookah, excused himself, 
 and left us to ourselves. What a talk we had ! How 
 we let loose our English tongues ! Sometimes we 
 laughed wildly, sometimes she cried. It must have 
 been a strange pleasure to her to hear and talk her 
 native language after so many years. I, who had 
 only been a few weeks away from my kind, felt most 
 foolishly elated, talked all kinds of nonsense, any- 
 thing that came into my head, just for chattering's 
 sake. We asked one another questions, and asked 
 others without waiting for answers. 
 
 We had three hours of this, and then the old 
 Hindi came in, and we thought it time to be going. 
 Before parting she raised her veil and showed me 
 her face, which was as English as my own. We also 
 shook hands, and arranged that a boy Abdallah, a 
 mutual acquaintance, should be our future means of 
 communication. We then parted, and went home by 
 different roads. 
 
 That night, as I lay on my rug, thinking over 
 the occurrences of the day, and hugging myself in 
 
56 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 the anticipation of many such, pleasant conversations 
 — for there was a taste of danger and secrecy that 
 added zest and a feeling of having given another 
 pleasure that naade me supremely satisfied and con- 
 tented that night — only one thing troubled me, 
 almost her last words to me had been, "I can't 
 make out who you are, child" — she always called 
 me child, I suppose on account of my light-hearted 
 attempts to raise her spirits — and I could not make 
 out who she was. So there and then I thought over 
 a list of questions I meant to ask her at our next 
 meeting ; but " inan proposes," etc. Little did I 
 think it would be some weeks before we should meet 
 again, and that then we should have much more 
 interesting matter in hand ; and, most incongruous 
 incongruity, a pilgrim fell asleep in sight of the Kaabah 
 repeating those lines of Hood's : 
 
 The other sex, the tender, the fair, 
 What wide reverses of fate are there ! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN MECCAH DURING THE AMER's ABSENCE. 
 
 There is so mucli room for exhibition of taste in 
 the way of personal adornment about the ' Eastern 
 dress that I defy the most simple-minded of men to 
 don a turban or cumerbund without bringing into 
 play a little vanity. For my part, I became quite 
 an Eastern swell — my tunic of the whitest, my 
 turban of the largest and brightest ; and besides, I 
 felt myself to be rather an important personage, a 
 householder, and possibly entitled to a vote' for a 
 Kasi,^'' though I did not test my rights to any great 
 extent in this way. The idea of any rowdy Arab 
 questioning me as to who I was never for a moment 
 entered into my calculations ; I swaggered about the 
 streets anywhere and everywhere, but I was doomed 
 
 * Judge. 
 
58 SIX MONTHS IN MEOGAH. 
 
 to be let down in a manner that rather astonished 
 my weak nerves. 
 
 One day I was passing a large college on the 
 outskirts of the town under the " Eev. the-grace-of- 
 God-d-his-blessings,— D.D.," when the students, about 
 one hundred and fifty, of all ages from five to fifteen, 
 were out playing. I stayed to look on at their 
 various games, such as marbles — not unlike the 
 English game, as far as I could see. One little group 
 had an old pistol, snapping caps, and altogether I 
 was much amused watching them, when a little Hindi 
 child near me shouted, " Oh, look at the Christian ! " 
 I shall never be able to guess what put it into that 
 son of Iblis's head. Perhaps he had seen Englishmen 
 in India, and was struck with a fancied resemblance ; 
 or it may have been only for fun, though Eastern 
 children are not generally given to unprovoked 
 mischief. Up to this nothing of the kind had 
 happened to me, and as it was unexpected it took 
 me very much aback. It also collected all the 
 young imps in the neighbourhood, who took up the 
 cry ; and one great hulking brute stepped up to me 
 and said, in a blustering manner, "Christian dog, if 
 you are a Mohammedan make the profession of your 
 faith." 
 
 Now I am one of the most peacefully-disposed of 
 
IN MEGOAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 5& 
 
 men, as " Jack " says, " I would rather run a mile 
 than fight a minute," yet all my life I have been 
 getting dragged into fights. I suppose I must look 
 like a fellow easily put upon, whereas I have a 
 Bedawi aversion to dirt* as an article of diet. This 
 beggar riled me and I did not feel at all disposed to 
 give an account of myself to him. No, I just took 
 the fellow by the shoulders, turned him round and 
 administered a kick in the rear that must have made 
 him see stars. Now, I do suppose I could not have 
 perpetrated a more un-Mohammedan act. Instead 
 of seizing the opportunity to deliver myself of profuse 
 expressions of devotion and faith, as a Mohammedan 
 does on the slightest provocation, I had offered to my 
 very proper interrogator one of the greatest indignities 
 possible to a Mohammedan — I had struck him with 
 a shoe. It brought a yell of " Ya ! Christian " from 
 its recipient, taken up by the whole crew. I had put 
 my foot in it, had been taken off my guard, and now 
 saw things could not be mended, so turned round 
 and attempted to make a dignified retreat, when — 
 whirr ! — close past my ear flew a blue object (a pigeon 
 I thought), but it lit a few feet ahead with a clatter 
 that showed the kind of blue rock it was, and another 
 
 * I have eaten dirt — that is, taken an insult. 
 
60 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 followed, fetching me one on the skull, that would 
 have " settled the number of my mess " but for the 
 thickness of my too attractive head-dress. These 
 Meccan youths living, so to speak, on a stone-heap, 
 get, from constant practice, to be able to deliver a 
 stone as straight and almost as hard as a pistol-shot. 
 I looked round an instant, and saw that the whole 
 swarm had entered into the holy work of stoning 
 a Christian to death, with a zeal worthy of first- 
 century Jews. Stones were coming from all direc- 
 tions, I was getting some nasty blows, and had to 
 defend my face with my hands. My probable igno- 
 minious fate flashed across my mind — stoned to death 
 by children, the disclosures that would follow, the 
 example I should be held up as. Suddenly one on 
 the knee and another in the small of the back brought 
 me down ; when up again I did not know which way 
 to turn. A pretty little Arab child was struggling to 
 heave a rock he could scarcely lift, I made a rush, 
 seized the squalling brat in my arms, and a run up 
 (" Rugby rules") of about twenty yards brought me to 
 a long wall, to which I turned my back and held the 
 kicking little wretch before me as a shield. This be- 
 wildered my tormentors for a moment, then on they 
 came again, led on by my kicked friend, to rescue 
 young struggling Ibrahim, as I heard them call him. 
 
IN MEGOAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 61 
 
 Poor little Ibrahim ! even when torn nearly limb from 
 limb he looked a very pretty child, and I was sorry 
 for him. The struggle was short and sharp, Ibrahim 
 got terribly mauled, chiefly by his friends. I was 
 somewhat of an old hand at a scrag; and managed to 
 keep from under the ruck, watched my chance, bolted 
 off, and got about twenty yards' start before I was 
 missed and the pack set out in full cry after me. A 
 Turkish guard-house was close at hand, into which I 
 rushed, passed the sentry and squatted down behind 
 him out of breath, arms and legs aching with bruises, 
 and completely blown ; however, I was safe for the 
 moment and had time to pull myself together for what 
 had become a very serious affair. In the meantime 
 a crowd of Arabs and Negroes were gathering outside 
 and the word "A Christian !" was being passed, and 
 the Turkish guards were giving me very black looks. 
 One of the soldiers went to bring an officer, and 
 returned in a minute or two with a young lieutenant : 
 very spruce and civilised he looked, it was quite 
 a relief to see him in his Paris-cut uniform. He 
 came up to me and at once addressed me in French ; 
 but I had got myself all there by this time and 
 artlessly replied, " I cannot speak Turkish," and 
 proceeded on to declare that, "Allah was great, 
 all praise be to Allah ! there is only one God, 
 
«2 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 Mohammed is his prophet," working myself up 
 gradually till at last I rushed out of the guard- 
 house, saw an old friend — an Arab slave-dealer, 
 who in his negotiations with the Amdr had smoked 
 many of my cigarettes — seized his stick and went 
 for the promising young crowd with " sons of burnt 
 fathers " and a torrent of similar abuse. The men 
 now all took my side, and the old slave- dealer 
 laughingly apologised for the excess of zeal in the 
 rising generation, though he could not help admiring 
 it ; while even the Turkish" sentry helped to disperse 
 the boys with a parting stone, and the lieutenant 
 showed me out into a back way by which I could 
 go home without any chance of being further annoyed. 
 On my way home I strayed into a coffee- shop to 
 arrange my disordered robes, explaining that I had 
 been thrown from my donkey which had bolted. 
 After a smoke and a cup of coffee I began to feel 
 a little more myself, and limped off home, getting 
 stiffer all the time from bruises about the back and 
 limbs. I had luckily no marks on my face, so 
 that I was able to lie down as soon as I got into the 
 house without any awkward questions being asked. 
 My chief fear now was that the affair would get 
 noised abroad in quarters where it would lead to 
 my having a visit paid me by some inquisitive 
 
JN MECOAE DURING THE AMER'S ABSENCE. 63 
 
 gentlemen, whom I knew I should not be able to 
 humbug, if once their suspicions were really aroused 
 and they took to serious inquiries. 
 
 The Arab to whom the house belonged came also 
 that evening and gave us a good deal of trouble, trying 
 to get us to turn out into a smaller, room, so that 
 he might have our larger and better - situated one 
 till the Amur's return ; but I knew that the room 
 had been paid for for two months in advance, so 
 would not turn out. Though the fellow was in an 
 independent position, he was not above taking a 
 luck-penny (a dollar), and I was glad to get rid of 
 him so cheap with a blessing backwards. To guard 
 against this sort of thing I told my companions I 
 was very sick (I really was in a good deal of pain), 
 and that I would go and sleep in a little closet off 
 the cooking-room so as not to be disturbed by noise 
 or visitors. Into this room about eight feet by four 
 I moved my clothes and blankets, and did not stir 
 out of it till the Amur's return — about three weeks, 
 during which there were many friendly inquiries 
 for me. My companions stuck to me like bricks, 
 giving out at my request that I had gone to Jeddah. 
 I heard no more of " the Christian " row, and the 
 " third warrior" was very much surprised and would 
 scarcely believe it when I told him some time after 
 
64 SIX MONTHS IN MECCA H. 
 
 what had happened, and although I insisted I knew 
 more about Christians than he did, he would give 
 me much interesting information about their beliefs 
 and their neglect of certain ablutions. I was much 
 edified to learn that their heaven was an eternal 
 gorge of "that animal's"" flesh and wine. 
 
 My assurance and indiscretion had all but done 
 for me, and now I must appear to have gone to the 
 other extreme. It was not so much caution kept 
 me confined the whole time as the ball of opium, 
 a small pill of which I took the first night and 
 continued to take every day, increasing the dose 
 
 ■ 
 
 as I found it afl'ecting me. I only ate one meal 
 a day, brought me by the "third warrior" when he 
 came to make up housekeeping accounts. He knew 
 I was under opium and sympathised with me and 
 could recommend nothing better, looking upon that 
 drug as a specific for all maladies. I will not go 
 into the " pains and pleasures of opium eating " more 
 than to say the three weeks passed like three days. 
 
 I was perfectly happy, everything appeared couleur 
 de rose. Groups of devotees sitting under my 
 window in the Haram chanting " La, Illah ; ah ! 
 
 II Allah," over and over and over " in a sing-song 
 
 PiR. 
 
IN MECGAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 65 
 
 tuneful sort of no tune " which had before been 
 most distressing to listen to, would now transform 
 themselves, in my waking dreams, into some merry 
 English party — a picnic perhaps — and the " La-illah " 
 into " La-de-da," the chorus of some charming 
 unheard air. In short, I did not know a moment's 
 discomfort the whole time. 
 
 Our living averaged about one dollar a day. As 
 I kept an account of all the money spent I can 
 give an example of a fair day's expenditure. 
 
 Provisions One Day for Five People. 
 
 (1 Eatl, nearly 14 oz.) 
 
 Piastres. 
 
 Parrai 
 
 Meat — Camel, 5 rati: Mutton, 3 rati ... 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 Vegetables for Curry — Parsley, Beetroot, 
 
 
 
 Bavish. Marrow, Carrot 
 
 d 
 
 — 
 
 Bread, 2 rati 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Water, 20 gallons. — 4 small goat skins 
 
 
 
 brought to the house 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Sugar, \ rati 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Dates (best common) 1 rati 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Wood for fire 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Lentils, J rati 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Milk, about 1^ pint 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Chillies and other Spices for Curry 
 
 — 
 
 20 
 
 Sour Millc for Curry 
 
 — 
 
 20 
 
 Tea, \ oz 
 
 — 
 
 20 
 
 Tobacco, J oz. Turkish 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 Lamp Oil, Paraffin 
 
 — 
 
 10 
 
 Sundries— Shaving, Fruit, Sweets, Pocket 
 
 
 
 Money, etc _ 
 
 4 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
66 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 Besides this we had rice, ghee, and tamarinds in 
 the house, of which we consumed daily — rice, eight 
 pounds ; ghee, four ounces ; tamarinds, half pound. 
 This is very sumptuous living indeed for Hindis ; 
 quite as good and more varied than we got at the 
 Amur's table. 
 
 I must not omit to mention little Ismail, an Arab 
 boy whose acquaintance I had made at his father's 
 place of business, in the bazaar near at hand, where 
 I had often gone to talk to them. He was a very 
 bright youth, spoke Hindustani well ; and I had taken 
 rather a fancy to him. Now that I was laid up I 
 found him excellent company, and admitted him 
 almost daily, amusing him greatly, telling him stories 
 by the hour. " iEsop's Fables" I found a capital 
 fund of the very best material, and after them, other 
 children's stories and nursery rhymes, changed of 
 course to suit time and place, as it would not have 
 done to have let him know the original of — 
 
 This little sheep went to market, 
 This little sheep stopped at home — 
 
 or he might not have laughed quite so gleefully at my 
 "rattletrap rhyme." For the opium had the effect 
 of not only enabling me to converse incessantly but 
 sometimes to improvise rhyme as fast as I could talk. 
 
IN MECCAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 67 
 
 Many travellers in the East, especially lady 
 travellers, have had a good word to say for Eastern 
 boys ; and they are very attractive, I admit. This 
 peculiar lovableness, for it is such, may be easily 
 accounted for, as they have generally good features, 
 many of them being remarkably handsome, and fine 
 eyes are the rule ; all have a feminine grace of manner 
 and speech acquired in the harem, which is their 
 home for the firfet seven or eight years of their lives. 
 And there is also a downrightness and freedom from 
 anything like afi'ectation about them, when in the 
 presence of strangers, which contrasts very favourably- 
 with the bashfulness of the nicey-nicey stereotyped 
 English schoolboy, who has all individuality stamped 
 out of him at a public school. Mohammedan children 
 owe this to a primitive Hebrew innocence, there being 
 hardly a word in their language which they may not 
 freely use as occasion requires. "To the pure all 
 things are pure." With all this, however, they are 
 intelligent to a degree, their intellectual faculties 
 being very highly developed at an early age, and 
 so far as simple learning and having an amount of 
 knowledge (such as it is) in their heads, goes, they are 
 certainly in advance of European children of their 
 years ; but by the time they are fourteen they have 
 attained the limits of an ordinary Mohammedan 
 
68 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 education. They read and write well in more than 
 one language, do simple arithmetic, are perfectly 
 instructed in all the minutest observances of their 
 faith, and have an immense stock of religious lore, in 
 which they take a deep interest and no little ]3ride. 
 For the manner in which the idea of the One God 
 and antagonism to all other creeds is instilled into 
 their minds goes down greatly with the youthful 
 sinners ; their little faces brighten up bravely as they 
 declare the One God, and scowl savagely as they 
 curse and defy the " kaffir " in a " quite too amusing " 
 way. 
 
 Bat after leaving the harem all their former 
 attractiveness is soon rubbed off by rude intercourse 
 with the men ; and I know few creatures more un- 
 lovable than the Eastern in the transition stage from 
 boy to man. He has all the obtrusive forwardness 
 in the vulgar hobbledehoyhood everywhere, and 
 rapidly cultivates the craftiness, low cunning, and 
 brutal coarseness — those chief characteristics of 
 manbood in the East. 
 
 On the day before the new moon in December 
 the Am6r returned loaded with purchases — crockery, 
 glass-ware, and cutlery, from Cairo; jewellery, two 
 guns, and a rifle (breech-loading), from Alexandria ; 
 ornamental wood and stone, cups and saucers. 
 
IN MECOAH DURING THE AMlilR'S ABSENCE. 69 
 
 cigarette-cases, etc. from Jerusalem ; altogether about 
 half a ton of flashy French " notions ; " and such 
 news I Each one of the party seemed bent on over- 
 whelming us with the wonders he had seen — the. 
 Suez Canal, the Opera, the Pachas and their beautiful 
 carriages and horses, the splendid livery of their 
 servants. 
 
 " And what did the Pacha wear ? " asked an old 
 untravelled one, expecting to hear his dress com- 
 pared to a rainbow. 
 
 They could scarcely bring themselves to say it, but 
 were obliged to confess that he " had nothing on but 
 a tarbouche." They had seen Mohammedans and 
 Christians dressed so that you could not tell but for 
 the hat which was which ; they had seen Christians 
 working as labourers. This seemed to give them 
 great satisfaction. They " chewed " over one to 
 another : — " Many beggarly Christians under the 
 Sultan" — much to my chagrin, for I knew they could 
 not distinguish between a Greek and an Englishman. 
 Travel had certainly not increased their respect for 
 their rulers. 
 
 I now felt perfectly safe while in the Amur's 
 favour and recognised by him. I came out and 
 began to move about; gave up opium suddenly, 
 and found my nerves much affected in consequence. 
 
70 SIX MONTHS IN MEGOAH. 
 
 A stranger coming into the room would startle me, 
 I dare not let anyone pass behind me, always 
 backing up to the wall, and it was some days before 
 this wore off. On the day of the new moon I was 
 so ill, it being the day after I stopped my opium, 
 that I was unable to pray, thereby missing much ; 
 for a prayer at Meccah on this day scores some- 
 thing enormous, though I forget exactly how many 
 thousand rupees given in charity it is supposed to 
 equal. I went about a good deal with the Amdr 
 now, and wore a less conspicuous dress, keeping 
 more in the background. We paid a visit to the 
 college, the scene of my unlucky encounter. The 
 boys looked very sheepish, and pretended not to 
 recognise me when they saw me in such good 
 company, and you may be sure I let well alone. 
 While in the courtyard, I heard a great squalling 
 and crying going on in one of the rooms, and could 
 not resist my curiosity to see what it was all about ; 
 so separated myself from my party, found my way 
 to the door of the room and looked in, and saw a 
 whole class of about twenty boys being punished. 
 Half had already undergone the bastinado, and were 
 sitting blubbering round the wall, five others were 
 at the time getting it. Two big boys held each 
 one end of a thick stick, with a rope noose in the 
 
IN MEGGAH DURING THE AMJSR'S ABSENCE. 71 
 
 middle of it ; into this noose each of the culprits 
 had to put one foot, then the stick was twisted 
 round till the feet were squeezed up tightly into a 
 bunch, which was then lifted breast-high by the 
 two assistant-executioners, and a big Arab tutor 
 came down on those wriggling toes with a Malacca 
 cane, as hard as he could let out, showing no mercy : 
 it seemed to be a very effective mode, judging by 
 the yells, struggles and brandishings of the dis- 
 engaged limbs of the youngsters as they hung in 
 a cluster head down. I saw by the unhappy looks 
 of the rest of the class that the same was in 
 store for them, and as some of my most vindictive 
 assailants were there, I must say I did not pity them 
 much ; though I did not care to stay and witness 
 their tortures. 
 
 During the next few days I visited a number 
 of shrines and holy places, the name of which is 
 legion about Meccah, there being scarcely a spring 
 or hill round, which is not said to be the scene of 
 some remarkable event in the life of either Adam, 
 Eve, Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael, or some other holy 
 personage ; while as for Mohammed, the lies that 
 have been fathered upon him (honest man I) would 
 have made him take the dome off his Medinah 
 mausoleum in a great triple somersault, and snort 
 
SIX MONTHS IN MEQCAH. 
 
 the sides out of his shrine, if he had been there 
 at all, a fact which there are other good reasons 
 for doubting. 
 
 " What are you picking up that stone for ? " 
 you inquire. 
 
 " Oh ! Mohammed was fighting infidels, and God 
 sent angels and a shower," etc. etc. 
 
 " Why are you eating that shrub ? " 
 
 " Oh ! this is called the Prophet's bread. 
 Mohammed and his companions were starving in 
 the desert and he told them to take this," etc. etc. 
 
 Eocks, pools, holes in the ground, she-camels, 
 dogs, cats, rats, mice, Mohammed, Mohammed, 
 Mohammed, Mohammed. 
 
 I used to find a quiet place and sit down and 
 say over all the swearing I knew in five languages, 
 and make resolutions that if I ever got out of this 
 and met a white man who said he believed in 
 miracles, I would go and get a gun and shoot him. 
 Why, if Mohammed had been actively employed 
 since the year one of the Hegira to the present day, 
 performing the marvels attributed to him, he would 
 still have a few legerdemain trifles, in milk and mud, 
 on hand. No ! — nonsense apart ! — it cannot be esta- 
 blished that Mohammed ever openly attempted to 
 dupe his followers with one single miracle. All 
 
/iy MEGGAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 73 
 
 these supernatural wonders are the accumulated 
 imaginings of marvel-craving Eastern minds ; the 
 more ignorant the more fertile in the like. Not one 
 of my companions but was perfectly well acquainted 
 with the minutest circumstances of half-a-dozen 
 miracles of yesterday, or who had not been eye- 
 witness to at least one. Only a year before the 
 Amur's uncle had been present when six laden camels 
 were either eaten up by the earth or carried off to 
 the zenith — the work of the devil, who appeared in 
 the form of a dog. We are not living in an age 
 of miracles. Are we not ? Come to the East and 
 see, or for the matter of that, not so very far East 
 either, for the genuine article. 
 
 Such of these places as I did visit I will now 
 attempt to describe. First, the Haram itself, of 
 which I have already given a view from the top 
 of Jebel Kubays, shall be more minutely described. 
 The Kaabah, in the middle of that enclosure, is 
 called the Centre of the World, the Mohammedan 
 Hub of the Universe : towards this Mohammedans 
 in all parts of the earth face Avhen praying. The 
 whole ground within the outer bounds of the arcades 
 is deemed part of heaven on earth, to which it will 
 return on the Last Day. The architectural design of 
 the whole is such that I know of no other structure 
 
74 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 or edifice familiar to Europeans with which to com- 
 pare it.'" The same form of mosque may be seen in 
 Cairo and some other places in the East ; but if, as I 
 hope, I have already given the reader a general idea 
 of its form, I may now succeed in conveying some 
 notion of its appearance on closer inspection. It is 
 entered from the street by doorways of different sizes : 
 the two largest are on the northern and western sides, 
 the Gate of Abraham in the western being very high 
 and arched, and really fine. There are a dozen or 
 more other public entrances and a number of smaller 
 private doorways and windows into the offices of the 
 Haram and adjoining dwellings. The tower being- 
 some ten feet above the level of the square, you 
 descend, at all the entrances, either a steep paved 
 incline, a flight of steps, or an irregular com- 
 pound of both, into the arcades, which are about 
 fifty feet wide and paved throughout with limestone 
 and a greenish crystalline stone common in the 
 neighbourhood, laid very unevenly and in small 
 oblong blocks, none of them bigger than could be 
 conveniently carried by a man. The roof is sup- 
 ported on three rows of thirty-six pillars on the 
 
 * Sale compares it to the Eoyal Exchange, London. It is 
 true they both are open squares surrounded by colonnades, but 
 beyond that the two have not a single point of resemblance. 
 
IN MECCAH DURING THE AMIDE'S ABSENCE. 75 
 
 longer and twenty-four pillars on the shorter sides, 
 each sixteen feet apart. Every fourth pillar is an 
 hexagonal-built support about four feet thick, the 
 rest are plain round pillars something more than 
 a foot in diameter, composed generally of either 
 sandstone or limestone. The capitals of these are 
 the only ornamental stone-work in the building ; 
 they are carved with flower, scroll, or angular 
 devices, respectively and promiscuously. The roof 
 consists of rows of arches, thirty-six on the longer 
 and twenty-four on the shorter sides longitudinally, 
 and all round three arches transversely springing 
 from every pillar throughout, dividing the ceiling 
 into three rows of small domes, except at the corners, 
 where the architect seems to have got confused, tried 
 to round them off, failed, and so bungled them up 
 anyhow, and at the principal portals, where ingenious, 
 bewildering non-uniformity baffles description. From 
 the top of each transverse arch a large globe lamp is 
 suspended by a brass chain, and all round under the 
 inner row of arches facing towards the Kaabah there 
 hang from a cross-bar, reaching from pillar to pillar, 
 five lamps to each arch. The square itself is gravelled 
 and divided by narrow pavements into a sort of 
 " Union Jack " pattern. There are three bronze 
 date trees, about twelve feet high, with lamps hanging 
 
76 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAII. 
 
 to the ends of their fronds equidistant from one 
 another, and midway between the Kaabah and the 
 arcades, across the eastern and western ends of the 
 square. All round on the gravel at intervals are 
 placed stacks of earthenware bottles containing water 
 of Zem Zem for the use of the pilgrims. The well 
 Zem Zem is about eighty feet from the north-east 
 corner of the Kaabah. It has an irregular shambling 
 building over it, roofed by a large cupola, a small 
 dome, and a couple of sections of a pagoda, and pro- 
 bably occupyicg an area of about seventy feet square. 
 On the eastern, western, and southern sides of the 
 Kaabah, at about the same distance as the well, are 
 three other unimportant erections with rather more 
 than their share of lamps. On the northern side, 
 about thirty feet distant, Abraham's Stone is de- 
 posited in a small house ten feet high by six by 
 eight feet square, having a large heavy wooden door 
 on its north side. This is the stone which acted as a 
 stage for Abraham when building the Kaabah, pass- 
 ing up and down to and from the work as required 
 with any weight of workmen or material. I did not 
 see the stone, as it can only be seen by paying very 
 highly, and few can afford it ; but it is popularly 
 believed to have Abraham's footprint on it' — another 
 of the many like impressions Eastern celebrities seem 
 
IN MECOAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 11 
 
 to have been so fond of leaving. About eight yards 
 off on each side of this building there are two stone 
 pulpits, plain hexagonal pedestals, three feet thick 
 and twelve feet high, topped with a stone railing and 
 mounted by a set of stone steps on the opposite side 
 to that facing the Kaabah. At each of these pulpits 
 commences a row of lamp-posts about ten feet high 
 extending all round the Kaabah about fifteen feet 
 distant from one another, and having between each 
 two posts seven lamps suspended from cross-bars, 
 each post being surmounted by a gilded crescent. 
 Outside this circle the pavement extends about twenty 
 feet, and is the same as that under the arches, while 
 that within the circle of lamps is a pavement com- 
 posed of smooth flagstbnes about eighteen inches 
 below the level of the square. 
 
 On the western side of the Kaabah is a horseshoe 
 wall four-and-a-half feet high and three feet thick, its 
 ends towards the Kaabah, leaving a passage between, 
 enclosing a semicircular space thirty feet in diameter, 
 in the middle of which is the tomb of Ishmael with 
 an engraved slab of marble over it. The base of the 
 Kaabah is surrounded by a marble rim or " half 
 round " about two - and - a - half feet wide and one 
 foot high, and into this a number of brass ringbolts 
 are let, having a four-inch cotton rope passed through 
 
78 SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 them, to which the lower edge of the Kaabah cover 
 is laced. There arc three openings in this cover — 
 one in the east end of the north side is a heavy 
 buUioned curtain before the silver-plated door in the 
 Kaabah, which is of ordinary size, about seven feet 
 from the ground ; near this, but right on the corner 
 of the building, is a round hole in the cover about 
 tive feet in circumference, and its lower border about 
 two feet above the base rim of the Kaabah, showing a 
 massive silver boss, with ears for securing it to the 
 stone- work ; and set so deeply into this that the face 
 is concealed by the silver rim when in the act of 
 kissing it, is the Black Stone. This is about the size 
 of a man's head, of a brownish-black, glassy sub- 
 stance, presenting rounded inequalities of surface, as 
 if from fusion or fracture. There is a piece of 
 obsidium from Hecla in the British Museum, its 
 exact counterpart in shape and appearance, but 
 about three times its bulk. So closely do they 
 resemble one another, that after having carefully 
 inspected both — and I lived for four months in sight 
 of the Black Stone — I have no doubt whatever that 
 the two are identical in substance. If I required 
 anything to confirm the evidence of my senses, there 
 is a belief that the Black Stone will float in water ; 
 this most likely means that it is momentarily buoyant 
 
IN MECGAII DURING THE A3I^R'S ABSENCE. 79 
 
 after being thrown in, which might be true if it 
 contained a great number of cavities or bubbles, as 
 a piece of obsidium often does. And another general 
 belief is that the stone is white, but that its surface has 
 been blackened by defilement ; which led me to break 
 the agate in a ring I wore in order to test it with a 
 scratch, but the result showed it to be white like any 
 other piece of coloured glass. There are two or three 
 versions of the history of this stone, but the most 
 generally received one is, that it is the angel who 
 had charge of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden 
 turned into stone for allowing them to be beguiled by 
 the serpent into eating the " wheat," and that he will 
 be restored at the Last Day. 
 
 In the south-east corner of the Kaabah there is 
 another piece cut out of the cover about three feet 
 high and eighteen inches wide, exposing one of the 
 corner-stones of the building, a small oblong granite 
 block, very much polished by the touchings it receives 
 at the hands of the pilgrims every circuit while 
 performing the tawaf. On the west side from the 
 top of the Kaabah is a gold-plated spout, appearing 
 from below to project about four feet from the build- 
 ing, to be about a foot wide and six inches high at 
 the sides. The rain-water off the flat roof of the 
 Kaabah is discharged through this, and when it rains 
 
80 SIX MONTHS IN MECCA H. 
 
 there is a free fight among the pilgrims to get 
 under it and be douched. Considering the open-air 
 character and the dimensions of the whole, the place is 
 kept in a good state of order and repair, the whitewash 
 and paint all appearing fresh and clean. The colours 
 employed are black, mauve, Indian red, and yellow 
 wash, each stone on the inside and much of the 
 outer walls being painted one of these colours with, 
 as it were, a system of avoiding anything like rule. 
 There are also large whitewashed spaces on these 
 walls occupied with chapters of the Koran, and the 
 stones of the arches are painted like those in the 
 walls, as are the stones in built pillars. The domed 
 ceiling is cleanly whitewashed, and the plaster on the 
 top and front of the arcades and buildings is kept in 
 constant repair, while the whole place is cleaned out 
 by gangs of sweepers twice a day, morning and 
 evening. The reader will not have gathered from 
 all these details the fine simplicity of the whole until 
 reminded that the building occupies within its outer 
 walls a space of eight-and-a-quarter acres. 
 
 The behaviour in the Haram is much better than 
 in most other Mohammedan mosques. During the day 
 crowds sit about or promenade under the shade of 
 the arcades until a call to prayer, when all join in 
 the regular worship lasting for about a quarter of an 
 
IN MEGQAH DURING THE AM:ER'S ABSENCE. M 
 
 hour, more or less, the noonday prayer being the 
 longest. After sunset the lamps, 2860 in number, 
 are lit, and many groups of pilgrims sit round private 
 coloured lamps, which add greatly to the general 
 brilliancy, until after the last evening prayer, when 
 the Haram becomes deserted, no one being permitted 
 to sleep inside the gates ; and all who are not actually 
 employed in performing some act of prayer or devo- 
 tion are turned out after this hour by the attendants 
 of the Haram. 
 
 Jebel Nur, lying about four miles north-east of 
 Meccah, is a steep conical hUl rising some nine hun- 
 dred feet above the sand-level, for the sand in the 
 valley maintains a level of its own as water would. 
 Looking at Jebel Nur from the south, it appears to 
 be inaccessible from about two-thirds of the way up, 
 the upper part seeming to be one solid oval rock, its 
 sides projecting beyond the perpendicular ; but in 
 the ascent, having reached this point, you pass 
 round to the north side, where you see that it would 
 have been impossible to ascend so far on that side, 
 but find a somewhat difficult though perfectly prac- 
 ticable path leading to the summit. Half-way up this 
 path there is a rain-pool in the rock, generally full 
 .at this season. Here you may perform your ablutions 
 before ascending to th« very apes of the cone, where a 
 
82 SIX MONTHS IN MEGOAH. 
 
 small dome is erected over a fissure in the solid rocks, 
 some eight feet long by three feet deep, said to have 
 been made by a slip of the Angel Gabriel's delicate 
 instrument, while performing the somewhat nice 
 operation of removing the black spot (sin) from the 
 heart of Mohammed preparatory to giving him his 
 prophet's commission. There Mohammed received 
 his first inspired message. Farther down on the 
 south side are two small caves, in which Mohammed 
 concealed himself at the time of his persecution in 
 Meccah. Into one of these, when being pursued, 
 Mohammed had just time to escape ere his pursuers 
 came up and found a pigeon sitting over its nest at 
 the entrance, and a spider's web woven across the 
 mouth of the cave — a miraculous interposition which 
 led them to beheve that no one had entered lately. In 
 the other cave, Mohammed and his friend Abubekr 
 were sleeping concealed, when Abubekr awakening 
 saw a serpent putting its head out of a hole to bite 
 Mohammed. Rather than awake the prophet he 
 put his own heel over the hole and was bitten. 
 When Mohammed awoke he found his friend still 
 keeping the serpent back with his heel, but nearly 
 dead ; whereupon he of course killed the serpent 
 and cured his friend by a miracle. Both these events 
 are generally said to have taken place on Jebel Saur, 
 
m MEOCAH DURING THE AMUR'S ABSENCE. 83 
 
 another mountain to the south-east of Meccah, but 
 I and my companions related these stories to one 
 another in the very caves I speak of as having 
 occurred in them. 
 
 Umrah lies in a valley, about four miles south- 
 east of Meccah, is a deep pool or janlo, built round, 
 about one hundred feet by fifty feet square. There are 
 steps leading down to the water, in which the 
 pilgrims wash ; and it is looked upon as a sort of 
 Pool of Siloam. This is said to have been one of 
 Mohammed's favourite places of resort for prayer and 
 meditation. He is said to have prayed there so long 
 that his knees became stiff and hard and his muscles 
 rigid. Most Arab and Hindi (i.e. stockingless) 
 Mohammedans have a callosity on the outside of 
 the left ankle, the effect of one of the most constant 
 attitudes of prayer — sitting with the left foot tucked 
 under them. 
 
 At all these places, and many others, the pilgrim 
 may say a two-prostration prayer, and dole out his 
 charity to the inevitable irrepressible Hejaz beggar. 
 These beggars may be classed under two heads — the 
 pauper pilgrim and the professional beggar. In 
 Meccah the pauper pilgrim falls into obscurity, and 
 so may be dropped for the present. The professional 
 beggar luxuriates simply, and probably forms half 
 
 G 2 
 
84 SIX MONTHS IN MECCA 11. 
 
 tHe Arab population. " Bakhshish, bakhshish ! " they 
 continually do cry. " Bakhshish ! " roars the camel ; 
 " bakhshish !" brays the ass ; " bakhshish !" yelps the 
 cur, till, after passing through a stage where you 
 fancy you hear nothing else, you get so accustomed 
 to it that it costs you an effort of will to hear 
 it. It is encouraged by the pilgrims, who make 
 it a means of carrying out the letter of the 
 prophet's charitable commands ; true generosity not 
 being an Eastern trait. A large proportion of these 
 beggars are Hindi ; Turkish or Persian beggars being 
 comparatively few; and a Malay beggar is never 
 seen. 
 
 Every day all who will take the trouble to go 
 can receive for the asking a bowl of soup, given by 
 the High Sherdf, the hereditary head curl and religious 
 authority of Meccah, who is assisted in administration 
 by the Mufti, Kadis, and a council of Moulahs under 
 the Turkish pacha, or governor, to whom final appeals 
 in all disputed cases are brought. 
 
 The Turks can only be said to hold the country 
 in military possession, garrisoning the towns and 
 maintaining order in them. They have no control 
 over the desert men, to whom they yearly pay a 
 reluctant subsidy, which they have from time to time 
 attempted to stop ; but the tribes have thereupon 
 
IN MEOGAH DURING THE AMjER'S ABSENCE. 85 
 
 become unmanageable and closed the roads, and the 
 Turks have found it expedient to continue payment. 
 
 It now wanted but two days to the going out to 
 Mount Arafat. At this time, about six feet of the 
 lower part of the Kaabah cover, which had become 
 very ragged by pilgrims leaning against it, was raised 
 all round and replaced by white calico, adding greatly 
 to the effect by contrast with the black and gold. 
 Pilgrims were now arriving in crowds ; all the great 
 caravans had come in, the town was packed till there 
 was scarcely standing room in some of the streets. 
 I have only seen such dense crowding in such places 
 as Gracechurch Street on a Lord Mayor's Show day. 
 The crowd here, however, was very different. Every- 
 one here was all yielding affability. The London 
 rough — who thinks it the height of pleasantry to 
 knock a gentleman's hat over his eyes, or jump on a 
 lady's feet and tender the horsey advice of " Sit 
 hon 'er 'ead " when she faints — had no representative 
 here. Quarrelling of any kind is seldom seen in the 
 streets, which is very creditable, considering the 
 number of different nationalities and sects brought 
 into close contact here, who elsewhere entertain the 
 bitterest animosity against one another. 
 
 During the whole of my stay in Meccah I only 
 
86 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 once saw serious fighting in the streets. Two 
 Panjabis, tearing mad, were scratching and slapping 
 one another, when one of the Turkish soldiers, who 
 do police duty about the streets, went up to separate 
 them. One of them turned on the Turk and slapped 
 him. The Turk drew his sword-bayonet and smote 
 the Panjabi a swinging slash on the neck, cutting 
 the head half off. Turkish soldiers are never allowed 
 out of barracks without their swords, which are 
 always carried sharp. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE VARIOUS RACES MET WITH IN 
 
 MECCAH. 
 
 If, at this time, the congregation in the Haram had 
 been shaken together, well mixed, and then one 
 hundred taken out and analysed, different nation- 
 alities would have been found in about the following 
 proportions : 
 
 * Turks 
 
 
 
 .. 6 
 
 * Arabs ... 
 
 
 
 .. 15 
 
 * Hindis 
 
 
 
 .. 20 
 
 ■* Malays... 
 
 
 
 .. 5 
 
 * ITegroes 
 
 
 
 .. 10 
 
 * Persians 
 
 
 
 .. 10 
 
 * Maghribis 
 
 
 
 .. 15 
 
 * Syrians 
 
 
 
 .. 6 
 
 Tartars 
 
 
 
 .. 5 
 
 Bedawin 
 
 
 
 .. 3 
 
 A nondescript rabble from China, the West Coast of 
 Africa or Eussia, and wild Darwaysh-looking 
 savages from God knows where ... ... 5 
 
 100 
 
88 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 The races marked witli an asterisk are mere general classifica- 
 tions, and might be made subject to innumerable subdivisions, as 
 under the head of Hindi I include all the Mohammedan races of 
 India, and under the Turks, Maghribis, anl Syrians, I have 
 allowed the Egyptians to fall. 
 
 All these different nationalities brought into 
 contrast in this way give a good opportunity of 
 comparing them one with another, and I may 
 here give the impressions I received, first prefacing 
 with the following stock yarn of the Meccah 
 guide — one of those illustrative stories the Arabs 
 are so fond of It is told in justification of the 
 bearing of Arabs and Bedawins towards foreigners 
 at the present day, and, like so many of their 
 stories, turns upon what may be called first original 
 characters. 
 
 A Bedawi Shaykh, whom we will call Shaykh 
 Salaam, and his whole establishment lived peacefully 
 in the valley of Meccah, worshipped God, performed 
 his prayers and ablutions five times daily, and was 
 proportionably prosperous. When, in an evil hour, 
 there came a Turkish pilgrim to his tent, Shaykh 
 Salaam, . with characteristic Arab hospitality, invited 
 the stranger to enter, gave him the best of every- 
 thing to eat, and allowed him to sleep in his tent. 
 But on Shaykh Salaam's waking next morning 
 he found that his wife had eloped with the Turk. 
 
THE VARIOUS RACES. 89 
 
 He had just finished thanking God that matters were 
 no worse when along came a Persian pilgrim. To 
 him the good Shaykh was even more hospitable than 
 he had been to the Turk, and was repaid by the 
 Persian's absconding in the night with his horse, and, 
 the story continues, the Misri * stealing his camel, 
 the Maghribi t his ass ; until, what between charity 
 and theft, he is left with nothing in the world but 
 his little son, who falls a victim to the crime of the 
 Sulaymani. Last of all there crawls up to him a 
 wretched begging Hindi, to whom the good Shaykh 
 tells his tale of woe — how he has been imposed on 
 and himself left destitute — to say nothing of his 
 being able to assist the wayfarer. Whereupon the 
 Hindi turned round and blackguarded the good man 
 as none but a Hindi knows how. This is more than 
 even long-suffering Shaykh Salaam can stand, so he 
 sallies forth and slays his reviler ; and in the ragged 
 cloth around the Hindi's loins he finds an immense 
 treasure. 
 
 Besides the touches of character, the moral of the 
 story is obvious, and I can vouch for the facts related 
 having apparently opened the eyes of the Shaykh 
 to a worldly wisdom which his descendants have, 
 inherited in a very marked degree. 
 
 * EgyiJtian. t Moor. 
 
90 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 First on the list comes the Turk. He certainly 
 appears to advantage as the most civilised, clean, 
 and sensible of them all ; bad as he is, he is as much 
 superior to other Easterns as any European nation is 
 to him. The Turks, as the ruling power, are hated 
 and feared not only by their unwilling subjects, the 
 natives of the Hejaz, but by all other Mohammedans, 
 both on account of their adoption of European costume 
 and their introduction of such Christian innovations 
 as forks, chairs, and, it is whispered, even wine into 
 the holy Meccah; so that none allow them to be 
 Mohammedans more than in name. They do not 
 hesitate to increase their unpopularity, and by a 
 high-handed and bullying carriage freely expressing 
 their contempt for their unsophisticated and more 
 primitive co-religionists. Individually I like the 
 Turk, he is a manly brave little fellow. I never saw 
 a Turkish soldier with his clean fighting uniform, 
 shaven chin, and European accoutrements, but I felt 
 a strong impulse to go and shake hands with him. 
 I once did in English ask a red-haired, blue-eyed 
 sentry : " How do you like the new rifle, old man ? " 
 (the Turkish troops in the Hejaz had just been 
 supplied with the Snider) but happily got only 
 a vacant stare in reply. An Arab shopkeeper who 
 professed to be up in statistics informed me that the 
 
THE VARIOUS RACES. 91 
 
 settled Turkish population numbered five .thousand, 
 which is probably near the mark; if so, more than 
 two-thirds must belong to some branch of the 
 military. The rest are merchants and well-to-do 
 shopkeepers, dealing in cloth., tobacco, medicine, 
 and European manufactures generally. This year 
 the pilgrims from Turkey were said to be very few 
 on account of the war, but they have never struck 
 me as being a people likely to mortify themselves for 
 conscience' sake to the extent of pilgrimising much 
 at any time, for the modern Turk shows little respect 
 for the practice of his faith even in Meccah. I have 
 seen a Turkish officer cut across the corner of the 
 Haram from gate to gate without taking his boots 
 off — an unparalleled profanation, for which a Persian 
 would have been mobbed and murdered on the spot. 
 The next in importance are the Arabs, sanctified 
 Meccans, who honour you by accepting charity. 
 Blustering, "frauds," swindlers to a man, trained 
 from infancy to the rooking, of the pilgrim-pigeon, 
 inherited for an unknown number of generations,"" 
 they are perfect in every dodge and art of crimping 
 and cadging. I have but one good word for them — 
 they are clever and speak any language they hear. 
 
 * See historical accounts of Arabia. 
 
92 SIX MONTHS IN MEOCAH. 
 
 Imagine yourself a perfect stranger in the hands of a 
 population of Cairo dragomen and donkey-boys, only 
 doubly as obtrusive as the first, and doubly as rude 
 and discourteous as the latter, and you would be 
 much in the same situation as a pilgrim paying his 
 way through Meccah. Though this description applies 
 to the great majority of shopkeepers and lodging- 
 house keepers, many Araljs are artisans, since most 
 of the mechanics in Meccah are either Hindi or Arab, 
 the best being Arab gunsmiths, tinsmiths, or car- 
 penters, from Egypt or Syria. They seem industrious, 
 and turn out tolerably substantial work of the elabo- 
 rately-ornamented and unfinished Eastern description, 
 but preferable to the French " Brummagem " with 
 which the shops are stocked. Imams, muezzins, 
 and nearly all posts of religious and civil authority 
 from the High Sher^f downwards, are held by Arabs. 
 With them, however, I had no intercourse, nor had 
 I any anxiety to make their acquaintance. 
 
 The settled Hindi population in Meccah, I was told, 
 numbered thirty thousand; this maybe an exaggeration, 
 as my Arab informer would be likely to overrate the 
 numbers to me, coming as I did from India ; still the 
 statement is possible, the Hindi element much exceed- 
 ing, perhaps even doubling, the Arab, and the pilgrims 
 from India almost equalling in number those from all 
 
THE VARIOUS RACES. 93 
 
 other parts of the East, except the Bedawin and Arab 
 population of the country round, which must be 
 almost depopulated on the day of assembling at 
 Arafat. Many Hindis are in official employ, and hold 
 lucrative, and a few even important, posts under the 
 Government. There are also a number of wealthy 
 and independent Hindis permanently settled in 
 Meccah, some from religious motives, and a few for 
 political reasons. They occupy also the following 
 positions : readers of the Koran, professors of the law, 
 agents for pilgrims, shopkeepers and tradesmen — for 
 the wily cunning nature of the Hindi is quite able to 
 compete with and hold its own against Arab roguery. 
 In whatever position, they are all beggars from top to 
 bottom — underhand, insinuating beggars ; the Arab 
 demands bakhshish, the Hindi cringingly pleads for 
 charity : they form by great numbers the poorest and 
 most miserable class to be found in Meccah : there 
 seems no bottom to the depths of wretchedness and 
 misery to which the Hindi can descend and live. 
 
 A good many pilgrims come from Afghanistan and 
 enjoy a very evil repute in Meccah. They are all known 
 by the name Sulaymani, whether true Afghans or of 
 any of the other races inhabiting the country which is 
 bounded by the frontiers of Persia, the Sulaymani 
 range, the Oxus, and Beluchistan. This name Sulay- 
 
94 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 mani is never uttered by an Arab unless coupled with 
 the epitbet " barami," a very comprebensive term, 
 wbicb, applied to tbe Bedawi, means merely "murderer 
 and robber," a cbaracter of wbicb be considers bimself 
 justly proud, but applied to tbe Sulaymani it bas a 
 different and very mueb worse signification. 
 
 Tbe Malays come in great numbers, considering 
 tbe long sea voyages from Java and even fartber 
 wbicb tbey bave to accomplisb. So far as I could 
 ascertain, tbe Malay permanent residents in Meccab 
 are limited to but some balf-dozen. It is known 
 tbey never set out on a pilgrimage witbout sufficient 
 funds to ensure tbeir return, and it bas become a 
 byword among tbe Arabs tbat tbey never beg, and 
 a common Arab expression, wbicb may be freely 
 translated "No bumbug in tbe Malay," perfectly 
 describes tbem. Quiet and fairly bonourable in tbeir 
 dealings, yet close-fisted, tbey may be called tbe 
 Scotchmen of tbe East, and are tbe most rational of 
 tbe pilgrims, tbe only ones wbo understand managing 
 tbe cantankerous Bedawin. 
 
 Tbe Negro is to be found here in bis proper 
 place, an easily-managed, useful worker. Tbe Negroes 
 are tbe porters, water-carriers, and performers of 
 most of tbe real labour in Meccab. Happy, bealtby, 
 well fed, well clotbed (as sucb things go in Meccab), 
 
THE VARIOUS RAGES. 95 
 
 they are slaves, proud of their masters, in a country 
 where the slave is " honoured only after his master." 
 Slavery in the East has an elevating influence over 
 thousands of human beings, and but for it hundreds 
 of thousands of souls must have passed their exist- 
 ence in this world as wild savages, little better than 
 animals ; it, at least, makes men of them, useful 
 men too, sometimes even superior men. Could the 
 Arab slave-trade be carried on with safety, it might 
 be executed more humanely; and it would, philan- 
 thropically speaking, do good to many of the human 
 race, far above that heartlessly cruel coolie trade of 
 India, where the ignorantly credulous natives are 
 deluded by hopes never to be fulfilled into trans- 
 portation half round the globe, to a country from 
 which but few ever return, as they are led to believe 
 they will by promises — a state of things compared 
 to which Arab slave-trade is humane in the extreme. 
 I have been an overseer on a sugar plantation in 
 the West Indies, where three hundred of these coolies 
 were employed, helpless droves of strangers in a 
 strange land, worked in a manner killing to the 
 feeble Hindi, for the most paltry remuneration out 
 of which they must save enough to pay for the 
 return passage. At the very most, one in ten again 
 saw India, and these only the shrewd, independent 
 
96 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 and clever ones — exceptional characters among the 
 class of natives from which these coolies are drafted. 
 It is in that country, too, -vfliere that abortive pro- 
 duction of the real slave-trade, the civilised nigger, 
 is met : that objectionable character, the " Wutless 
 Badian,"* might be held up in contrast to his Meccan 
 brother, showing the nigger as he is to be found 
 and the nigger as he ought to be. No ! my cheerful, 
 contented slave shall not be seen in such disgraceful 
 company as that depraved shameless creature. 
 
 Having been in the heart of the Arab slavery, 
 I may, I hope, be permitted to offer my humble 
 opinion on a rather important point, with all due 
 deference to such of my " most potent, grave, and 
 reverend signiors " as I may have the misfortune to 
 differ from. " Are our attempts to abolish the slave- 
 trade of Arabia likely to succeed ? " " Are they 
 at present producing good of any kind ? " To both 
 these questions I must answer "No" — most empha- 
 tically, " No." While every settled town under 
 Turkish or native rule in all wide Arabia has a 
 slave-market to be stocked, our greatest efforts 
 can but increase the demand and raise the markets. 
 Witness : a strong male adult might be bought for 
 
 * "Worthless Bardihan. — West Indian patois. 
 
THE VARIOUS RAGES. 97 
 
 forty dollars four years ago in Meccah, and the same 
 will now fetch sixty dollars. Were our cruisers 
 doubled, the weekly landing of slaves among the 
 creeks and reefs along the coast of the Hejaz could 
 not be prevented. The embarking on the western 
 shore, the crossing and disembarking on the eastern, 
 need be but the work of three days under favour- 
 able circumstances, of which the Arab slaver knows 
 well how to take advantage, as some naval men 
 could testify, I think, if tales of more than one 
 successful ruse told me by a Yemen Arab be true. 
 What was before a legitimate peaceful trade has 
 now become a dangerous adventure for the procurers 
 of slaves, even the most unscrupulous and daring 
 of their kind, and the ill-treatment practised on 
 their cargoes necessarily increases with the danger of 
 carrying them. A story told me by a Yemen "jack- 
 tar" will illustrate. A dhow in which he was 
 serving had on board two Negroes, nominally slaves, 
 who had for five months worked on board the dhow, 
 and who, knowing when they were well ofi", would 
 not have taken their liberty had it been offered 
 them. She was a large Mascat babeela, bound down 
 the Persian Gulf from Aber Shir to Bombay. On 
 the day after clearing the Straits of Ormuz, in a 
 calm, they sighted an English man-of-war steaming 
 
98 SIX MONTHS IN MECCA H. 
 
 towards them, as they well knew with the intention 
 of boarding. The two Negroes would have been 
 enough to condemn their craft, which meant ruin 
 to some and misfortune more or less to every man 
 of the crew, so they killed them and threw them 
 overboard ; here my informer regretted the necessity 
 which compelled them to this, mainly because they 
 were both very strong men and very hard to kill, 
 blaming those " Shaitan " English, and barging them 
 in choice Arabic, though they did not confiscate his 
 craft ; and I have no doubt the lieutenant and 
 interpreter found everything very satisfactory on 
 board her half-an-hour after what must have been 
 rather an exciting scene. 
 
 That there are evils in Arab slavery I do not 
 •pretend to deny, though not affecting the Negro, 
 once a slave. The exacting slave-driver is a character 
 wholly unknown in the East, and the slave is 
 protected from the caprice of any cruel master in 
 that he is transferable and of money value. The 
 man who would abuse or injure his slave would 
 maim and wilfully deteriorate the value of his 
 horse. Whatever the Arab may not know, he most 
 assuredly knows what is to his own immediate 
 interest better than that. And the Negro himself, 
 
THE VARIOUS RACES. 99 
 
 though he possesses the moral senses in the merest 
 rudimentary form, has the instincts of self-preserva- 
 tion from physical hurt most highly developed, and he 
 may through this medium be raised from a savage, 
 existing only for the moment (a state above which 
 he has not capacity for if left to himself), to a 
 profitable member of society, a strong tractable 
 worker, the position Nature seems to have made him 
 to occupy. 
 
 I know of the abuses practised in the countries 
 where the slaves are procured, and we must 
 have other Livingstones ere they will cease, but 
 one step towards the abatement of them would 
 be the recaUing of our police de I'univers from 
 those unhealthy coasts, when labour would again 
 become almost a drug in the Arab market and the 
 traffic assume a more moderate and less barbarous 
 form. We are at this moment opposing the imme- 
 morial customs and religious principles of totally 
 distinct and independent races — customs not only 
 almost harmless to all, but actually beneficial to 
 thousands — with a sword worthy of Antient Islam 
 itself. The only effect of this will be to produce 
 permanently a new and horrible form of this slave- 
 trade, if it has not already done so, and the expending 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 of thousands of pounds and hundreds of valuable 
 lives, for a sentiment, in doing so. Let us hope 
 that those in authority will take a reasonable view 
 of the matter, and issue another Slave Circular, 
 applicable to the peculiarities of the case, and not 
 meet the fate of the former rapidly extinguished 
 spark of official intelligence ; or, if England must be 
 international monitor, then — as the nigger says : " If 
 you do a t'ing, do a t'ing " — annex Arabia, blow 
 up Meccah, and reform the world ; but don't con- 
 tinue to figure a ]3etty plundering pirate to the 
 180,000,000 of its Mohammedan inhabitants. 
 
 I must apologise for having been carried off into 
 this tirade, and return calmly to the proper subject 
 of my narrative. 
 
 Besides these slaves, there are many free Negroes, 
 labourers and keepers of stalls in the bazaars. The 
 attendants of the Kaabah are Negro eunuchs, whose 
 duties are to keep order among the worshippers, serve 
 out materials for the trimming and lighting of the lamps 
 to the volunteers who are never wanting to perform 
 these and other like duties. The Kaabah itself is 
 washed out once a year by these attendants alone. 
 They possess a kind of sanctity by virtue of their 
 office, and carry long wands with which they make 
 very free play among the refractory or crowding 
 
THE VARIOUS RAGES. 101 
 
 pilgrims, and are veritable jacks-in-office. There 
 is also a scattering of Negro pilgrims from most 
 Mohammedan countries.* 
 
 The Persians move rather under a cloud in 
 Meccah on account of their unorthodox doctrines, 
 keep very much to themselves, and pray together 
 in parties. I believe they nearly all come by land, 
 and many of them on horses which they bring with 
 them. They are necessarily well conducted while 
 in Meccah, and appear to be a quiet and inoffensive 
 lot, and are as good hands at a bargain as any. 
 There cannot be many Persian residents in Meccah, 
 though there are a good many itinerant dealers 
 and speculators in precious stones and hawkers of 
 dried fruit. 
 
 Maghribis are the Arabs of the whole of North 
 Africa, a mal-odorous brawling horde, principally 
 remarkable for neglect of the practices of their faith, 
 especially ablution. The Moorish magician exists 
 (but let us hope, for the credit of the Oriental 
 novelist, in a very degenerate form), and a great 
 deal of faith is placed in the charms these Maghribis 
 profess to work, especially by the Hindis. I myself 
 
 * Especially JumaUis, to whose earnest, childish faith Moham- 
 medanism is fetisch. 
 
102 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 underwent an exorcism, for the curing of a large 
 boil on my forehead, at the hands of a hoary old 
 thief, recommended to me by the "third warrior." 
 It consisted in squeezing and stroking my head 
 and shoulders, at the same time muttering incanta- 
 tions with closed eyes and many minor gesticulations, 
 drawing mystic signs and strange devices mingled 
 with the written names of God and Mohammed on 
 a small piece of paper, then soaking it in a solution 
 of common salt (so far as I could make out) with 
 which I afterwards washed the boil ; and I must 
 record here either as a coincidence or a curious 
 result, that the swelling certainly did subside 
 without breaking in about three days, when I was 
 obliged to admit it cured and pay one dollar as 
 agreed. 
 
 I have given the Syrians a place in the list, but 
 they are only distinct from many others in that they 
 come from Syria. I h^ve not been to Damascus, but 
 should imagine the population there must present 
 almost as heterogeneous a collection, and as many 
 varieties of the human race, as Meccah itself. Amonof 
 the Syrians I must not omit to mention the sword- 
 sharpeners, numbers of whom are to be seen following 
 their trade in the bazaars of Meccah during the pil- 
 grim season. They bring their somewhat large knife- 
 
THE VARIOUS RACES. 103 
 
 grinding machines on their backs from Syria, their 
 only " impedimenta." 
 
 The Bedawi in Meccah is very much out of his 
 element. He slinks about with a hang-dog, surprised 
 look, and returns the push and curse of the Turkish 
 soldier with a sulky scowl. The mean-spirited Ben- 
 gali, who would go into a nervous paroxysm if he 
 met the Bedawi in the desert, crowds past him in 
 the bazaar with impunity, though the Bedawi is, I 
 can assure you, a very different customer at home. 
 
 Tartars and Bokharans — powerful, well-built races 
 of very large men with Kussian complexions and rosy 
 cheeks — come the whole pUgrimage on foot from the 
 most remote parts of Central Asia, some occupying 
 five and six months on the journey. They perform 
 all minor pilgrimages most assiduously, and are never 
 to be seen riding donkeys on such occasions as other 
 pilgrims. They go about enveloped in their thick 
 woollen garments on the most scorching day in the 
 desert, and are as dirty as any others or dirtier. 
 
 The last on the list are the nondescript rabble 
 from China, the West Coast of Africa or Eussia, and 
 wild Darwaysh savages from God knows where. The 
 Darwayshes are not to be confounded with the pro- 
 fessional beggar or pauper pilgrims ; they are hond 
 jide religious mendicants, passing their hves in 
 
104 SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 prayer and devotion, subsisting entirely on charity, 
 and having no home ; to abuse or hit one of these 
 would be a most unholy act. They dress in as 
 remarkable and eccentric a manner as they can, and 
 behave outrageously ; most of them affecting madness. 
 A Negro Darwaysh, with his amulets of talismans 
 and relics, and festoons of knuckle-bones, stones, 
 and rags, would fetch entire the value of his full 
 weight in a marine store-shop. All of them carry 
 a staff, and a half gourd which they thrust forward 
 to high and low for alms ; and he would be a bad 
 Mohammedan who would refuse to give at least 
 something, be it ever so small, to one of these when 
 solicited. These with their companions in the list 
 may be disposed of in two words — mangy mongrels. 
 
 Having now reached the bottom of the scale of 
 humanity, I will, while my hand is in, pass on to — 
 I am afraid I cannot in justice to the brutes say 
 downwards to — a description of the remaining animal 
 life to be found in Meccah. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE REMAINING ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE AND 
 MECCAH ITSELF. 
 
 The camel has no hump. Well, not exactly that ; 
 but the hard-worked, ill-conditioned camel of the 
 Hejaz has very little hump, a mere slight elevation of 
 the dorsal ridge, more thickly clothed with wool than 
 the rest of the body, over which the saddle fits. The 
 saddle is a long bag of coarse sacking about the 
 thickness of a large pillow and twice the length of 
 the camel's back ; when put on it is doubled round 
 above the tail and the ends kept together at the 
 shoulders by a wooden fixture constructed much on 
 the same principle as our pack-saddles. This huge 
 ungainly brute is endowed with a stupidity and help- 
 lessness perfectly pitiable, and its temper is diabolical. 
 While being laden it gives vent to spuming, splutter- 
 ing, bellows and whines not unlike what the roars of 
 
106 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 an enraged croupous lion miglit be supposed to be. I 
 never recall to my mind a camel, but I picture it 
 biting, or trying to bite something, an operation, for 
 which its peculiar dental arrangement well adapts it. 
 It never loses an opportunity of biting anything it 
 dares bite, and it dares bite anything but a Bedawi : 
 some will even occasionally venture a sly nibble at 
 their masters, by whom they are brutally treated. 
 They are seldom to be seen without saddle sores, raw 
 ulcers as often covering a surface of feet as inches, 
 and they always die in harness. Though the camel 
 if allowed will drink freely twice a day, I have myself 
 ridden them three days from water to water, during 
 which their great sufiferings were most evidently ex- 
 hibited. In some places the road, over an otherwise 
 trackless plain, was literally marked out by lines x)f 
 their bleached skeletons ; many hundreds of which I 
 have seen, and have often pulled the huge bones 
 apart. The camel's jDace in caravan is about two-and- 
 a-half miles an hour, and a fair load a quarter of a 
 ton ; they may be hired for one-and-a-half dollars 
 a day. This hire varies somewhat with circumstances, 
 and the average price of a camel ranges from thirty 
 dollars to sixty dollars, but there are, of course, fancy 
 prices given for first-rate animals. The Turkish 
 Government use the Egyptian camel, which is a third 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. lOT 
 
 and much stronger variety than either of the Hejaz 
 camels, though I have been told it has not the same 
 endurance. Altogether camels are more numerous in 
 the Hejaz than in any other part of the East to which 
 I have been. I estimated, so far as such a thing was 
 possible, that there could not have been less than 
 sixty thousand assembled on the plain of Arafat on 
 the day of the celebration there. 
 
 The Hejaz can scarcely be called a country of 
 horses at all, as there are few to be found other 
 than those of the Turkish mounted troops. These 
 are the well-known hardy little Arabs, good horses 
 at their worst. They are never groomed, and they 
 are badly shod; their hoofs are not pared, and con- 
 sequently present some curious malformations- — but 
 that Nature has given the Arab an abnormally perfect 
 foot, the coronet or pastern might be the point of 
 contact with the ground. " No frog ; no foot " is 
 most assuredly not one of the many saws common 
 to both East and West, for here when the shoe, which 
 is a flat plate of iron with a small hole in the centre, 
 is removed, it invariably discloses the frog in a high 
 state of decay. There are a few horses of the finer 
 Arab kinds belonging to rich Arabs. A good Meccan 
 gentleman's riding - horse can be purchased for 
 one hundred dollars. A few horses — a very few, 
 
108 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 I think I saw three — are owned by the Bedawin, 
 and they must be hardy brutes indeed to live at all 
 under the treatment they experience. The marked 
 traits of the Hejaz horse generally are its inability 
 to trot or leap, its even temperament, steady nerve, 
 and a knack of lying down with you like a camel, 
 after having been kept standing for a time. 
 
 The donkey of the Hejaz is, I think, peculiar to 
 that country. I am not aware that I have seen the 
 variety anywhere else ; it is totally different from the 
 Egyptian. In form it may be said to take the 
 place among donkeys of the Flemish horse among 
 horses ; exceedingly powerful to look at, but with 
 this difference — it is a "good 'un to go," and very 
 willing, though, like most donkeys, it " steers aft." Its 
 colour is white, with the black markings very clearly 
 defined. A good donkey may be bought for about 
 thirty dollars. Caravans of them between Meccah 
 and Jeddah start nightly after sunset, and reach 
 their destination before daylight, a distance of over 
 forty miles, either carrying men or heavily laden. 
 Donkeys are said to last three years at this work, 
 and when no longer fit for it, are valued very highly 
 as private riding donkeys, on account of the working 
 habits they have acquired. There is also a small 
 black variety, not nearly so common as the white 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 109 
 
 one. I saw no donkeys in the Hejaz with rough 
 coats, or of the. common mouse colour. 
 
 The mule, always by large jackasses, is a very 
 fine animal here, and though the mare is seldom 
 over fourteen hands, the mule often stands that 
 height. I was told of a jackass in Medinah as big 
 as a horse, but did not see it when I was there, 
 though I have seen them in Meccah very big 
 indeed. 
 
 I saw no cows or oxen of any kind, but was 
 told they existed. I am inclined to account for 
 this on the supposition that they are a transparent 
 description of lean kine, browsing, as they must, on a 
 pasturage of sand, small stones, and dead gooseberry 
 bushes ; the more so as the sheep and goats which I 
 did see can be called little more than semi-opaque, 
 and mio-ht be driven about the dark lanes of 
 Meccah at night, with lighted candles inside them, 
 to advantage. 
 
 There are many varieties of sheep and goats in 
 the Hejaz— close-haired, straight-horned sheep like 
 goats, and woolly, curly-horned goats like sheep, so 
 that the mass of fat round the root of the tail in the 
 sheep is really the only distinguishing mark ; this not 
 unusually weighs as much as six or eight pounds. 
 The price of a sheep or goat ranges, according 
 
110 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 to its size and condition, from one dollar to five 
 dollars. 
 
 All the domestic animals are branded, tlie horses 
 and sheep moderately, but camels and donkeys are 
 sometimes seamed and scarred from head to foot in 
 a,ll manner of fanciful devices most painful to see, 
 reminding one of periods of torture through which 
 the animals must have passed. I have seen a Bedawi 
 engaged for more than an hour on the skin of a 
 camel with a red-hot iron. 
 
 Canine scavengers are as numerous and inter- 
 esting in Meccah as in Constantinople or anywhere 
 else in the East, and notwithstanding their numbers, 
 the great heat, and scarcity of water, rabies is 
 almost unknown. I heard vague rumours of a 
 hunting-dog to be found in the country, but never 
 came across it. 
 
 Cats abound, and are lank, large-eared, and small- 
 headed. 
 
 The monkeys in this country are, without 
 exception, the most grotesque, quaint little creatures 
 of their kind. I once came upon a pack of about 
 five of these doglike little monkeys on Jebel Nur, 
 and found them very tame, though much too wide- 
 awake to allow themselves to be caught. Stories 
 told by the Arabs of their thieving and imi- 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. Ill 
 
 tative propensities entirely laclc point, unless you 
 grant the beasts, as a matter of course, great reason- 
 ing powers. I know it is universally accepted as 
 a fact that monkeys can talk, but will not, for fear 
 they should be made to work ; though I believe this 
 to be but badly authenticated by the unsupported 
 evidence of only one sailor, who stated that he 
 roasted a live monkey in an oven till it cried out, 
 " Could any mortal man stand this ? " However, 
 be it known, on the indisputable authority of an 
 "intelligent native," that a sage Shaykh of Arabia 
 satisfactorily settled that question ages ago when 
 monkeys could talk, which they cannot do now. 
 One Shaykh Ali brought twelve monkeys into a 
 yard — ^you are to suppose these a primal Shaykh 
 and primal monkeys, the progenitors of all Shaykhs and 
 all monkeys : (this is a very favourite groundwork to 
 any piece of thoroughly reliable Eastern history). 
 Well, Shaykh Ali went up to the first of the dozen 
 monkeys and pointing to a stone, addressed it some- 
 thing in this style : " Now then, I want you to 
 move along that stone, or, much| as I may regret it, 
 I shall have to make a decapitated ape of you ; 
 come, walk round, exhibit, show the ladies your 
 agility, Alhamdulelahe Hurry up Alak Akbar." But 
 the artful beast remained inattentive and apparently 
 
112 SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 preoccupied — a way they have. Quoth the Shaykh : 
 " My conviction is that that's altogether too logical 
 a lie. Bismallah ! " and whipped off its head, and so 
 on through the lot till he came to the twelfth, an 
 enceinte lady he had considerately spared till last, 
 which got up and walked away with the stone 
 without being asked ; explaining that now it was the 
 last of its race it did not mind confessing it could 
 talk, but swore that the accomplishment should die 
 with it. " May dogs defy your great - grand- 
 mother's beard!" said the Shaykh. "Certainly," 
 said the monkey ; but it taught none of its progeny 
 the faculty of speech. I wonder if it is true ! There 
 are a great many of these little baboons kept as pets 
 in Meccah ; sometimes they are tied in the doorways 
 and make very good gatekeepers ; there could be few 
 things much more amusing than to see one of these 
 little men objecting to a stranger. I can understand 
 their having been quite "the rage" at Jerusalem in 
 Solomon's time. 
 
 Eats and mice swarm. 
 
 There are eagles in the country, as a Bedawi 
 once tried to sell me a large pair of wings; and 
 hawks of many species are numerous. 
 
 Vultures and kites wheel in circles over all in- 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 113 
 
 habited localities, or share the carrion, of which there 
 is no lack, with the ravens and crows. 
 
 Fowls are plentiful, though eggs are rather dear, 
 seldom being less than a piastre for four. 
 
 Desert grouse, partridges, and quails are brought 
 to the bazaars by Bedawi children, who snare them 
 and knock them over with sticks. 
 
 Blue-rock pigeons are to be seen here in large 
 numbers such as are probably not to be met with else- 
 where. I amused myself for some time by counting 
 smaller flocks and comparing them with larger, so 
 estimating the number to be seen at one time 
 in the Haram, which could not have been less than 
 between five and six thousand. They are so tame 
 that they feed freely from the hand. The reason of 
 this extreme fearlessness is that they are held to be 
 almost sacred, more so than any other Meccan animal 
 (unless, perhaps, the swallow). They are considered 
 the property of the Haram, and are, I believe, never 
 killed."' I have occasionally gone out into the 
 
 * I heard no reason given for tlie special favour sliown to 
 tliese birds, and suppose that they, sharing with all other Meccan 
 creatures a common immunity from harm, have by their nature 
 merely accommodated themselves in the way they have to the 
 favourable circumstances. 
 
 I 
 
114 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 Haram to feed these birds, after the manner of the 
 pilgrims, who purchase baskets of mixed and damaged 
 grain sold for the purpose. The moment you leave 
 the pavement you become the vortex of a revolving 
 storm of pigeons, the air taking a leaden hue above 
 and about you, while the view is completely obscured 
 by the cloud of birds, and the grain is whisked out of 
 your basket, and your clothes whirled about by the 
 wind from their wings. The noise is deafening, 
 and you are glad to empty your basket and escape. 
 Or I have sometimes sat down in the middle of the 
 turmoil, and let the birds light on me and struggle 
 over me, the ground for yards round paved two or 
 three deep with their fluttering bodies ; when the 
 grain is finished they disperse over the square or to 
 the neighbouring bazaars. I observed among these 
 birds a number of interesting varieties curiously like 
 our commoner domestic varieties. My attention was 
 called to this, shortly after my arrival in Meccah, by 
 seeing a jacobin-looking specimen, which I afterwards 
 saw always in the same flock, as I knew by the 
 number of birds composing it. This bird I at first 
 supposed to be distinct, but I afterwards ascertained 
 that no pigeons were to be found in the district other' 
 than wild ones ; and indeed where every house has 
 its sitting bird in some room or another (in one room I 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 115 
 
 saw as many as five nests with eggs or young ones in 
 them, on niches placed high up in the wall apparently 
 for that purpose) ; any attempt to introduce a per- 
 manent variety would be a failure, as it would soon 
 be absorbed into the more numerous stock. I saw 
 many in which the bars on the wings and tail were 
 single, reduced to a mere blotch on one or two 
 feathers, or absent altogether; while a strawberry 
 tinge across the back is not at all uncommon. The 
 tumbling peculiarity of one of our pigeons is to be 
 " seen, and appears to be used as a means of suddenly 
 stopping to alight during swift flight. As these 
 birds have existed in their present state probably for 
 centuries, such varieties can scarcely result from occa- 
 sional temporary introductions of distinct kinds, and 
 are more likely to have been developed naturally 
 in the condition in which the birds live. 
 
 The swallows are held in the greatest regard, and 
 are allowed to build in the Haram. The beautiful 
 Saracenic arch, about fifty feet high, forming the 
 Gate of Abraham, is completely disfigured by the 
 masses of mud composing clusters of their nests. 
 This respect for the swallows is held on account of 
 a belief that they were the instruments by which 
 Meccah was saved from an Abyssinian army in the 
 
 same year as Mohammed's birth. The tradition is 
 
 I 2 
 
116 8IX MONTHS IN ME OCA H. 
 
 that God sent these birds with three small stones 
 each, one in the beak and two in the claws, which 
 they dropped on the heads of the Abyssinians, and 
 which miraculously penetrated the bodies of men 
 and elephants to the ground till only one of the 
 invaders was left alive, who fled back to his own 
 country, and had just finished telling the news to 
 his king when one of the swallows, which he had 
 observed following him overhead from Meccali, 
 dropped its stone and killed him. 
 
 It occurred to me, as a possible explanation, 
 that if a swallow had been seen to drop one of the 
 particles of mud they carry to make their nests, 
 this, together with a sudden panic, might have 
 given rise to a fiction that would have been quite 
 a solid foundation for such a piece of history in 
 the East, but I have since come across the subjoined 
 note in Syed Ameer All's "Life of Mahommed" 
 (Williams and Norgate. London, 1873).'" 
 
 To the statement in the note at the foot of 
 
 * The account of this event exemplifies well how legends grow 
 among uncultured nations. The invaders were destroyed hy some 
 pestilential epidemic, probahly small-pox ; and the word al-liasahut, 
 which signifies " pustules," also signifying " small stones," the orioin 
 of the legend that the army was destroyed by stones showered from 
 heaven can easily he traced. 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 117 
 
 page 116, I may add that if a Sepoy army were 
 to encamp in the valley of Meccah to-morrow it 
 would be quite in the ordinary course if a week 
 hence it had not a man capable of doing " sentry 
 go " from pustules — the Meccah disease which I 
 have already alluded to. 
 
 The above tradition had matured into its present 
 form, and was recorded during the life of "Mohammed 
 as a fact. 
 
 The cosmopolitan little house-sparrow twitters 
 on your window-sill here, as where does it not ? 
 A few small birds of the fly-catcher family are 
 to be found in the desert. 
 
 Snakes are all over the country, though nowhere 
 very numerous or large ; some are very venomous 
 indeed. One of our party was bitten on the toe by 
 one which had escaped; by the man's description of its 
 appearance it was a yellow-and-black spotted slender 
 snake, about eighteen inches long, and he almost suc- 
 cumbed to the bite, remaining insensible for about 
 three hours, nor did he recover the shock for some 
 
 weeks. 
 
 There are a few large lizards among the rocks ; 
 and a little yellow fellow who frequents the houses 
 amused me for what would have been many a weary 
 hour, watching him hunting flies on the ceiling. 
 
118 SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 Scorpions, tarantulas, spiders, centipedes, and all 
 creeping creatures, abound. 
 
 Cockroaches an inch-and-a-half long may be 
 brought to bay in any corner, or stalk past you 
 with a contemptuous wave of a three-inch antenna. 
 
 Clouds of locusts cross the country at times, and 
 are always more or less abundant. The Arabs eat them, 
 the children looking upon them as a great treat, buying 
 halfpenny-worths of the men who hawk them about 
 the streets in baskets very suggestive of " sh-r-imps," 
 to which they do bear a distant resemblance, both in 
 the shape of their bodies, their great percentage of 
 legs and spines, and in taste, which is rather fishy 
 and very oily. I gave them a fair trial, but could 
 not bring myself to like them, apart from the idea 
 they are not good eating. I was told the Arabs 
 caught them by setting fire to the dry vegetation 
 over which they were flying, or among which they 
 had alighted, and so suff'ocating them by camel-loads. 
 When caught in this way they receive no other cook- 
 ing than the slight scorching and smoking of the 
 light fire into which they fall. 
 
 The honey of wild bees is to be bought in the 
 bazaars for about five piastres a pound. 
 
 A few butterflies are to be met with in the 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 119 
 
 sylvan (?) districts, and moth doth corrupt "the 
 worst kind " in the urban. 
 
 Carrion flies of every description are a pest in 
 Meccah, though not equalling the perpetual fly 
 plague of Egypt.* 
 
 Mosquitoes are troublesome, but there are many 
 worse places than Meccah for mosquitoes, so I will 
 not ask my most incredulous reader to " strain at 
 my gnat." 
 
 All other carnivorous, man-eating invertebrates 
 infest the place, and rare feeding-ground they find it. 
 
 This finishes the somewhat limited fauna of 
 Meccah, nor do I think I have omitted to mention 
 a single creature that came under my notice. 
 
 The flora is not quite so limited as the fauna. 
 
 Though the general appearance of the country 
 is bare rock or sandy desert, there is no part abso- 
 lutely without a little vegetation. In some places there 
 are large savannahs of coarse grass like long stubble, 
 and in others small jungles of gorse and broom- 
 like growths (not in the least like gorse or broom on 
 close inspection, only presenting the same appear- 
 
 * Probably the flies inoculate the stranger with the Meccah 
 disease, as the sores only appear on the skin of the uncovered 
 parts of the body. 
 
1'20 SIX MONTHS IN MUCOAH. 
 
 ance in the landscape) — all good grazing for camels, 
 for the camel munches greedily large mouthfuls of 
 desert thorns, the spikes of which make stilettoes 
 used for embroidering, and compared to which a 
 white brier in December would be a luscious morsel, 
 a birch-broom a delicate tid-bit. 
 
 In the most arid and rocky parts small stunted 
 shrubs crop up here and there, enough to support 
 a few sheep and goats ; among these an absyn thine 
 plant, one of the favourite adornments of the filthy 
 fakir, deserves mention for its remarkably sweet 
 scent and delightfully fresh greenness. The whole of 
 the surrounding country is dotted over with widely- 
 dispersed spots of most thorough fertility where 
 almost anything can be grown — wheat, dates, apples, 
 or oranges. These places are assiduously cultivated, 
 and send a great variety of fruit to the market. 
 
 The water-melons and pomegranates are perhaps 
 the best in the world. One kind of pomegranate has 
 the seeds so soft that they may be eaten with 
 pleasure. A much-worn green dye is procured by 
 a simple process from the skin of the pomegranate. 
 This colour in Meccah is not worn exclusively by the 
 Kuraysh,'*'' nor is it looked upon as the mark of 
 
 * Descendants of the family of Mohammed. 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 121 
 
 a three-pilgrimage pilgrim, as has been said by some 
 writer. 
 
 Vegetables are dear, though nearly every kind 
 but potatoes and cabbages is grown. 
 
 The thorny acacia and tamarisk supply firewood 
 and small timber. Beams and rafters are made of 
 the split trunk of the date tree, and laths for roofing 
 from its fronds. 
 
 I suppose I should be doing something unprece- 
 dented were I to write a book, however small, on 
 Arabia and say nothing about dates ; and I admit my- 
 self rather puzzled to think of something to say about 
 them that everybody does not know. Dates are the 
 staple article of food in Meccah, though bread runs 
 them very close. Still I have scarcely ever seen bread 
 eaten without dates, and I have often seen dates 
 eaten without bread ; so dates may be allowed to be 
 » the staif of life here. There are many kinds ; but of 
 'whatever quality, they are a trifle dearer than the 
 same would be in London. At times, and in places, 
 the streets of Meccah are almost laid with date-stones. 
 Painful -looking old women aud miserable Hindi 
 beggars gather these and sell them, for they have, in 
 quantities, a considerable value, being about the most 
 nutritious fodder the country afi"ords for milch-camels 
 or sheep ; a few hours' soaking in water softening 
 
122 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 them so as to be easily masticated. The largest and 
 best-coloured stones are carefully sorted out and sold 
 to be turned on the lathe into rather pretty laeads. 
 Meccah producing nothing itself depends on external 
 sources even for its dates. 
 
 Most of the gardens are said to lie in the direc- 
 tion of Tayf, a town three days' journey east of 
 Meccah, which I did not visit. It is the sanatorium 
 of Meccah, where many of the rich Meccans spend 
 the months of August and September (the season at 
 Tayf), "living on grapes and honey among cool 
 breezes," as I heard it put. Besides the produce of 
 Arabia great quantities of fruit and vegetables are 
 imported from Egypt, and timber from Burmah. 
 
 Though I do not know the mast from the gun in 
 geology, so to speak, a man must indeed have gone 
 through a country like this blindfold not to have 
 observed the wonderfully rapid changes in the surface 
 of the land so palpably in process under your very 
 eyes. If the reader remembers, on our way to 
 Meccah, we journeyed over some twenty-eight miles 
 of sandy plain, from the sea to the beginning of a 
 rocky region. This border extends up and down the 
 entire coast of the Hejaz, and is, on a fair average, 
 about thirty miles across. 
 
 I have at different times travelled over probably 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 123 
 
 four hundred miles of this part of the country, 
 and found it everywhere of the nature of a dry 
 sea -beach. On entering this most unpromising 
 desert from inland, before you are five miles past 
 the last ridge of rock, you will pick up a decayed 
 fragment of the shell of some flinty old bivalve, 
 and ere long you will find yourself passing over 
 beds of bleached and rotten sea-shells.. Turn your 
 camel from the beaten track, and there will be 
 a crunching under foot as though walking over 
 " afternoon-tea " cups. As you advance over this 
 all but perfectly barren waste, you will find every- 
 where similar indications, immense tracts of large 
 water-worn pebbles, or ditto of small shingle and 
 tiny shells set to a hardness like conglomerate rock : 
 and, overlying these, another feature will be miles 
 in area of dusty shifting sand, stirred up by the 
 lightest breeze ; or at the bottom of some gentle long 
 undulatioij you may come upon a crust of fine light 
 clay two or three inches thick — a greasy yellow 
 slough yesterday in the shower, and in the solar 
 oven of to-day baked hard as pot, cracked and seamed 
 like the enamel on old china, with all the little 
 seo-ments loosened from their beds and some of them 
 curled up into positive drain-pipes. In such places 
 the camels have " a hard road to travel," for, when 
 
124 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 it is wet, they slip and sprawl about on it and 
 often sprain themselves badly, and when dry the 
 hard curled- up cakes break under their weight and 
 cut their feet. In^ either case, if lamed so as to be 
 unable to keep up with the rest, " their throats are 
 cut to save their lives." As you draw nearer to 
 the sea the shells become noticeably harder and 
 have not the mother-o'-pearl scaled off them, and 
 you may traverse hard black marly patches covered 
 with a white saline efflorescence like hoar-frost. Even 
 here something will grow. Every two or three 
 hundred yards a little green plant, an inch or two 
 high, or small bed of violet-flowered vetches, quite 
 startling as seen beneath your camel on the eye 
 returning from glaring painfully over a hot waste of 
 glittering plain with nothing more substantial to 
 obstruct the view than a few curling sand-pillars 
 flitting about an uncertain horizon in little whirl- 
 winds. These are always most numerous on the 
 hottest days, when the discomfort is too great to 
 admit of your taking any interest in them ; but if 
 seen towards evening their rapid movements and 
 changing forms may be watched with great interest, 
 and you may chance to see the description of the 
 poet realised : 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 125 
 
 Before my dreamy eye 
 Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, 
 Its unimpeded sky. 
 
 And, borne aloft by the sustaining hlast. 
 
 This little golden thread 
 Dilates into a column high and vast, 
 
 A form of fear and dread. 
 
 And onward, and across the setting sun. 
 
 Across the boundless plain. 
 The column and its broader shadow run. 
 
 Till thought pursues in vain. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 I cannot swear that I ever did reach the sea, 
 except at Jeddah, not having actually felt the water 
 elsewhere ; and at the other points on the coast, 
 where I came nearest to it, sandpits and growing 
 reefs blended into shallows and retreating creeks 
 in such a way that there was really no defined 
 junction of land and water ; and besides, in places 
 like this, the mirage is so constant and plays such 
 extraordinary freaks that a man would be a fool 
 to believe his eyes. 
 
 So much for the superficial deposits of the coast, 
 a good deal of which is not geology, I am afraid, and 
 has led me wandering from Meccah. The nature of 
 the strata ! — save the mark ! — its rocks are about as 
 much stratified as are the various components in a 
 
126 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 bowl of Scotch broth. For the materials of which the 
 hills about Meccah are composed, I suppose there 
 is not a possible mineral combination, plutonic, 
 metamorphic, or eruptive, of which a specimen could 
 not be procured from the hills of Meccah. How a 
 geologist would revel in it ! A mangled limb of old 
 mother earth, compound comminuted fracture, bones 
 protruding, exposing the very marrow of the world ; 
 or better, call them skeletons of mountains, around 
 you on every side pile after pile of naked rocky ribs 
 falling apart, crumbling to pieces as you look at them, 
 burying themselves in their own debris, fantastic 
 ruins, the sides clothed with fragments of them- 
 selves, to be cast off only to make room for others, 
 and help to swell the level plain, creeping steadily 
 up like an ocean tide. Of all the countries in the 
 world in which I have been I have beheld not 
 conditions so favourable for rapid disintegration 
 of rock as the sudden extremes of heat and cold 
 of this part of Arabia, and I never (not even in an 
 earthquake) so fully realised having seen Nature at 
 work as when I felt I had caught her in the act, 
 reducing those iron rocks. I have slept at night 
 on them : I may here mention in passing that I should 
 be very much surprised if it had been recorded of 
 Jacob, that he, similarly situated, did not have a 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 127 
 
 bad dream, " pace " of the serious reader. I have lain 
 on those rocks on a chilly night and heard them 
 crack and felt the dust from them fall on my 
 face. 
 
 Sitting one day on a hill about one hundred 
 and fifty feet high, perhaps a mile or- so to the 
 west of Meccah, half round the base of which passes 
 a road called the Sultan's Eoad, I noticed on the 
 plain below a formation which struck me as very 
 curious and set me speculating. All along the side 
 of the road opposite to the hill, from the point 
 where the road first touched the hill to the point 
 where it left it — a distance of about four hundred 
 yards — extended as symmetrical a stone-heap as ever 
 lay by the side of an English highway, but of 
 Brobdingnagian proportions, about fifteen feet high 
 and fifty feet across ; between it and the hill ran a 
 smooth beaten camel-path wide enough for two laden 
 camels to pass one another. 
 
 I soon guessed the way in which this stone- 
 heap had been made, Bedawin, as they -walk 
 along leading their camels, throw out of the path 
 all stones over a certain size which would be- 
 likely to hurt the feet of the camels if trodden 
 on by them unexpectedly, and in this way this- 
 vast heap had been formed. To prove it I took 
 
128 BIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 the trouble to push a few stones down into the 
 road, and the very next Bedawi who came past 
 gave me the satisfaction of seeing him do a share 
 in a public work of collecting all the pieces of stone 
 larger than a walnut that fell from the hill, and 
 depositing them in a heap by themselves. If, as 
 its name seems to imply, this road has been made 
 since the Turkish occupation of the Hejaz, the 
 hill, other things considered, looks to have shed 
 about one-tenth of its entire bulk in three hundred 
 years. 
 
 Of the many other interesting workings of Nature 
 on an unusual scale in this country, I have seen a 
 sand-storm, by forming drifts, alter a landscape in 
 a few hours ; and the triturating action on the 
 rocks of this sand — with which the air is so loaded 
 during any fresh breeze as to give the appearance 
 of a yellow fog — is very considerable, as all the 
 harder nodules of stone lying in the valleys are 
 rounded on their upper surfaces, as though water- 
 worn from this cause. 
 
 A rain-storm raised the valley of Meccali six 
 inches (of which a description will be given in due 
 course). I have seen a mound of sand one hundred 
 feet high in the open desert, for which I could not 
 account, unless it were a tenable theory that it had 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 129 
 
 accumulated round some such nucleus as the growths 
 over a spot fertilised by a dead body. 
 
 But now I think enough has been said to illustrate 
 the extraordinary rate at which geologic change goes 
 on over the surface of this country, and possibly to 
 prepare you to agree that "Araby the Blest" may 
 not have been quite such a fabulous country after all. 
 Say five thousand years ago, after having passed 
 through the first stages of natural change in which, as 
 geologists tell us, the finer soil forming particles from 
 the rocks would have been brought down to the well- 
 watered lower levels, might it not be in accordance 
 with scientific principles if Arabia had been a 
 country of richly fertile valleys ? — how much so may 
 be judged from the almost rank productiveness of 
 any place where the water is not too deeply buried 
 under sand and stones even at this day. 
 
 I will not say how rich I believe the Hejaz to be in 
 metals, because, understanding nothing of mineralogy, 
 my opinion would be worth little. I know, however, 
 as a matter of fact, that gold is procured by the 
 Bedawin, and that there is in Meccah a large sale 
 of precious stones which are found in the country; 
 moreover, the Arabia of the ancients is also the 
 Arabia of the Scriptures — then why should these 
 concurrent testimonies be doubted ? For my part 
 
130 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 I think it most likely that the gardens and lakes 
 of Arabia have, in the course of nature and during 
 the historic era, been buried under the ruins of 
 its mountains. The often-quoted explanation, which 
 accounts for the difference between the Arabia of 
 to-day and the Arabia known to Solomon, and 
 described by the ancients on the supposition that 
 they were designedly misled by the Egyptians 
 and Phoenicians, who themselves traded only in 
 the wealth of India, seems to me to be utterly 
 feeble. 
 
 The dollar called "riyal," in which I have given 
 all the prices, is, with the English pound (called 
 "jinni") and the Turkish piastre, the standard 
 currency of the country : though every gold and 
 silver coin known can be readily changed. The most 
 common and most preferred dollar is the Austrian 
 Maria Theresa, and I noticed that although they 
 were all dated about 1790, such a great proportion 
 of them looked new, that I fancy they must have 
 been struck since that date, if they are not now 
 being coined somewhere. The only copper coins 
 current are the Turkish piastre and parts of a piastre, 
 so that as pilgrims bring only gold and silver, 
 they find a great scarcity 'of small change, and the 
 shopkeepers can refuse to sell if you offer to pay 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 131 
 
 with a coin worth more than three times the value 
 of the article to be purchased. The money-changers 
 charge an unvarying rate of a half piastre in the 
 dollar. 
 
 The shops are of the ordinary Eastern description, 
 A low platform facing the street, on which samples 
 of the wares are exposed, behind which the dealer 
 sits in a room containing the bulk of his merchandise. 
 The bazaars do not follow the rule, as in other 
 Eastern countries, of aU shops in the same line of 
 business being collected in the same locahty; the 
 order being oftener — a dealer in European com- 
 modities, a fruiterer, a baker, and a gunsmith, or 
 anything else, the butchers being the only dealers 
 who stick to a particular market-place. All things 
 considered, order and honesty are kept up to a 
 wonderful degree in Meccah, theft being not nearly 
 so common as might be expected. No indications of 
 female profligacy are publicly observable, and, apart 
 from existing legislative prohibitions, would not 
 indeed be tolerated by the pilgrims. Spirits or 
 wine are not to be procured by the uninitiated 
 outsider, though I did meet with one adventurous 
 Egyptian speculator, who was making a good thing 
 out of Eau-de-Cologne, selling it as a " medicine for 
 head or heart ache," to be taken internally; until 
 
 K 2 
 
132 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 it was discovered to be a spirit, when all his stock 
 was thrown into the street and his bottles smashed 
 by the mob, the owner only escaping with his life. 
 The water, which is very bad, is plentiful — that is 
 to say, can always be got for a price. 
 
 The sanitary condition of the place is wonderful, 
 considering what a cesspool the valley of Meccah 
 really is, there being no outlet whatever from the 
 valley for the sewage, which must percolate down 
 into the wells ; and I strongly suspect that the water 
 of the well Zem Zem owes much of its virtue to 
 ammonia, it being in the centre of the city and at 
 the lowest level in the valley. 
 
 Notwithstanding the general squalor, unhealthy 
 condition, and indescribable filthiness of the place, 
 I believe no very great plague is known to have 
 visited Meccah. This might be accounted for by the 
 exceeding dryness and clearness of the atmosphere, 
 in which dead flesh generally dries without decom- 
 posing, and the facts that the majority of the 
 population are men who have been in a physical 
 condition which has enabled them to perform a 
 long journey — consequently much - enfeebled con- 
 stitutions among the great mass are rare ; and that 
 the pilgrim frame of mind is such as to render 
 
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. 133 
 
 him not liable to disease, for, if faith works the 
 wonders accredited to it, there should be few sick 
 men in Meccah. Another, and perhaps the main, 
 reason is that famine, the usual precursor of 
 pestilence, cannot reach Meccah, since there is no 
 great lower class in absolute destitution ; the 
 thousands seen begging are " beggars at a fair," 
 reaping the yearly harvest of supplies and wealth 
 brought by the pilgrims. It is not surprising that 
 Mohammedans attribute the comparatively small rate 
 of mortality among the community to a perpetual 
 miraculous interposition of Providence in behalf of 
 "Meccah the inviolable." The climate is subject to 
 occasional heavy downpours of rain in the winter 
 months, seldom lasting longer than a few hours. 
 The temperature is extremely variable. I have sat 
 at night shivering, fingers blue and teeth chattering 
 with cold, and have been on the afternoon of the 
 same day scorched by the dry heat till my lips 
 cracked. I often wished for a thermometer, which 
 would have shown some curious fluctuations. I 
 am convinced that the shade temperature would at 
 times have ranged from 40° to 100° Fahr. in twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 The history of Meccah shows it to have passed 
 
134 SIX MONTHS IN MECOAH. 
 
 througli fully its share of the exigencies of flood, 
 fire, and sword. The pilgrimage to Meccah and 
 almost all the ceremonies connected with it were 
 ancient customs of the Arabs at the time of 
 Mohammed, and were believed by him to be of 
 Divine origin, and so adopted into his faith. 
 
CHAPTER Vr. 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Friday, December 14tli, 1877; was the day of 
 standing to Arafat. The pilgrimage coming off on 
 Friday is called the " Greater Pilgrimage," and is 
 attended by far greater numbers than in an ordinary 
 year. On December 13th, all the gathering of 
 nations which had hitherto loaded almost to bursting 
 the small valley of Meccah was shot out, discharged 
 — I can give no better idea. In twenty-four hours 
 this army of two hundred thousand strong, every- 
 one his own general, everyone his own commissary, 
 evacuated Meccah almost to a man, marched about 
 eleven miles east, and camped on the plain of 
 Arafat, near Mount Arafat; this march must at 
 least have been confused, but with every man doing 
 his worst to make a rout of it (for it is intended 
 to be figurative of Mohammed's flight from Meccah) 
 
136 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 confusion was no name for it. Our preparations 
 had as usual been of the most casual and desultory 
 character. The camels were at the door shortly 
 after morning prayer, yet it was eleven o'clock 
 before the tents, baggage, and provisions could be 
 hurry-scurried together on to their backs. Some of 
 the most important articles had been forgotten, such 
 as water-bottles, new pilgrims' garbs, etc., which 
 had to be purchased at the last moment. The pil- 
 grims' garbs in which we had made our first entry 
 into Meccah had been mere lengths of calico ; we 
 now found there was a fashionable pilgrim's garb, 
 this being nothing more or less than a couple of 
 rough bath towels. We mounted the camels at the 
 door, and it took us two hours to get over the first 
 mile through the streets, so closely were they 
 thronged with camels ; sometimes the shugdufs 
 would get entangled and be torn nearly off,; the 
 inmates, if women, would scream and pray ; if men, 
 curse and pray, notwithstanding the guard which 
 they are supposed to keep over their tongues on 
 this so solemn an occasion ; and predominant over 
 all rose the oft-repeated shrill " labbayks," to which 
 I added my quota of discordance, entering into the 
 thing gleefully. In the narrow streets, the shugdufs 
 would get jammed together, and no advance could 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 137 
 
 be made for some miniates ; but as the crush 
 all tended in one direction, we were at last 
 carried out of the town into the open roads, and 
 passed on with the current — one continuous stream 
 of men and animals flowing out of Meccah towards 
 Muna, a village some five miles east of Meccah, 
 at which we arrived about three p.m. Two rooms 
 had been engaged for us on the ground-floor of 
 a house near the middle of the village, facing the 
 main road, passing through it to Arafat, and here 
 we put up for the night. The road towards 
 Muna had been a gradual ascent. We passed over 
 one or two stone viaducts and some cuttings 
 between the hills ; altogether it was the best 
 attempt at a made road I saw in the country. 
 We also met with one or two reservoirs well supplied 
 with water. 
 
 The village of Muna lies in a pass rather 
 than a valley, some two or three hundred yards 
 across and half-a-mile long, between two abrupt 
 rocky ridges about two or three hundred feet in 
 height. A good many low houses are built along 
 the pass at the sides of the Arafat road, which 
 is about eighty feet wide. All along this street 
 rows of provision, tea, or tobacco stalls had been 
 set up, and the place for the time had become a 
 
138 STX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 fair. In one of the windows of our room I took 
 up my post to watcli the crowds passing in their 
 uniform white dresses, for although the women do 
 not wear the pilgrims' garb, they must dress in 
 white. I had not been looking out long when I 
 became aware from the greater commotion and a 
 general pressing from the middle of the street that 
 something was going to happen ; so I inquired from 
 the keeper of a date-stall outside the window, and 
 was told the "Sher^f" was coming, and in a 
 minute or two the head of the procession appeared. 
 As nearly as I can remember it passed my window 
 in the following order : First came the Sherdf 's 
 vanguard, about one hundred bare-backed camels, 
 each ridden by two armed Bedawin, a spearman 
 in front and a matchlock-man behind, the choicest 
 collection of Bedawi rags and filth I ever had the 
 pleasure of contemplating. Their animals were 
 huddled together like a flock of sheep, filling up 
 the whole street, forcing the crowds before them 
 and into the shops and stalls ; though the rao-a- 
 muffins exerted themselves madly, and appeared to 
 be riding furiously they made little headway, their 
 very hurry and confusion retarding their advance. 
 I never saw a more barbarous, savage exhibition 
 than these excited ferocious-looking warriors, with 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 13& 
 
 their long matted locks and the twenty-five foot 
 spears surmounted with tufts of ostrich feathers, 
 which some of them carried. In rear of these 
 mingled with and close behind came other camel- 
 riders, playing on reed instruments like short 
 flageolets, keeping very good time and producing 
 much noise : the music was in keeping with time 
 and place, and was not at all bad to listen to : 
 an Irish, keen played merrily on half-a-dozen 
 Highland pipes would perhaps be as much like 
 the Sherdfs band as anything. After them 
 followed a led camel in crimson cloth and gold 
 ornaments, said to be carrying something belonging 
 to the Kaabali : what was visible was a piano- 
 case - shaped structure about four feet high, 
 covered with red cloth, and a lot of bells 
 hanging on its front side which made a great 
 jangling at every step of the camel. Behind this 
 followed a rabble of armed functionaries on foot, 
 carrying breech-loading and revolving guns and 
 rifles, spears, swords, and anything to kill with, 
 from a Deringer to a battle-axe. After these came 
 twelve led horses in gold and silver trappings 
 following one another in line — light bays and 
 chestnuts in rather too good condition for work, 
 but compact, muscular, pretty little animals, each 
 
140 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAII. 
 
 one handsomer than the last ; and if they had gone 
 on following one another all day, you could not 
 have taken your eyes off. Then came the Sheref 
 himself, riding an iron-gray horse somewhat higher 
 than the led ones, with exceedingly slight limbs and 
 neck, giving the idea of light weight and great 
 speed, but pacing quietl}^ and unconcernedly through 
 the mob without as much as turning its lovely little 
 head. The wonderful docility of these evidently 
 high-mettled animals was good to look at. The 
 Sheref 's horse was " the model " of them all ; it 
 seemed to be diligently persevering to carry its 
 burden easily and not to haA^e a look or thought 
 for any other object. The Sheref himself was dressed 
 in the costume of a Bedawi Shaykh ; light blue 
 mantle* worked in gold about the shoulders and 
 collar, fastened in front with a thick gold cord and 
 tassels ; on his head the ordinary silk head-dresst of 
 the Bedawi, kept on by a camel's-wool ring;|: round 
 the top of the head. He is a slight, wiry, well-made 
 man, below the medium height ; his complexion 
 would be considered very dark even for a Bedawi, 
 almost black. He has a small round bullet head, 
 and that peculiar cast of countenance which provokes 
 
 * Aba. t KufiyaL. { Aahal. 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 141 
 
 you to say he has a face like a monkey, notwith- 
 standing his very shrewd intelligent expression. 
 His beard and moustache are short and scrubby, and 
 I should guess him at under forty years of age. 
 His years, however, are hard to judge, and he might 
 be any age from twenty-four to forty, or older if he 
 uses hair-restorer, as is the custom of many Meccans. 
 I have only one little matter to add : the High 
 Sheref, the first Mohammedan in the world, was 
 mounted in an English saddle, doing the Great 
 Pilgrimage in the pig's skin, happy and unconscious ! 
 The soul of that porker, wherever it is, must be 
 grunting triumphant hallelujahs. It does not require 
 a profound knowledge of the East to appreciate the 
 awful portent to Mohammedanism in this. At 
 distances of about twenty yards respectively followed 
 his nephews or sons — (I was differently informed). 
 The elder came first, a rather good-looking, bamboo- 
 complexioned youth about fourteen, and after him 
 the younger, evidently a brother of the first, about 
 eight years old. Both were mounted on chestnut 
 horses, and dressed like the Sheref At this part of 
 the procession were a great number of followers, 
 bearers of wands and insignia of ofiice, mounted 
 and foot armed attendants, some in pilgrims' garb 
 and some in ordinary gala-dress. At a distance of 
 
142 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 some fifty yards behind these rode a number of Turkish 
 officers in uniform clearing the way for the Pacha, the 
 Sherdf taking precedence of him, I believe, in con- 
 sideration of the religious nature of the ceremony. 
 A line of Mamelukes (all Turkish horse-soldiers are 
 called Mamelukes in the Hejaz) in uniform, armed 
 with sabres and " Winchester " repeating-carbines, 
 were drawn up on each side of the road ; this line 
 was kept advancing by the rear-man trotting outside 
 to the front, where he would draw up until he again 
 became rear-man. This kept a line of some fifty 
 horses stationary on each side of the road : between 
 them the Pacha passed in an open carriage, which 
 was a new shiny barouche drawn by two European 
 chestnut carriage-horses, with coachman and foot- 
 men dressed in civilised livery, and the Pacha, a 
 gray old gentleman, in a well-cut suit of black cloth 
 — a spick-and-span turn-out that would have shone in 
 the Park. Imagine the contrast between them and 
 their surroundings ! I had become to think of such 
 things as belonging to another state of existence ; 
 the barouche and pair quite carried me back with 
 a revulsion. Close after the carriage followed two 
 brass twelve-pounder field-guns drawn by mules, 
 and a regiment of infantry, carrying their arms 
 sloped and bayonets fixed, all the ofiicers being 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 143 
 
 in uniform, but the privates in pilgrims* garb. 
 This ended the procession, which encamped about 
 a mile farther on. Then the same crowd of men 
 and animals, with now and then detachments of 
 Turkish troops, kept sweeping by till two A.M., 
 when I lay down on my blanket in a corner of 
 the room where the Amdr and nine or ten more of 
 his principal servants were sleeping. 
 
 In the morning I did not get up till the stir of 
 rolling up rugs and carpets awoke me. I found bright 
 sunshine, and the morning prayer long over. So taken 
 up had my companions been with peace-making and 
 forgiving one another all grudges, as they were to 
 \)Q absolved from all past sins on that day, that I had 
 been overlooked. So I said a great many " God- 
 forgive-mes " with all due contrition, and after my 
 ablution and prayer, joined in the general recon- 
 ciliation that was going on. We fell on one an- 
 other's necks, recalled and confessed all little petty 
 offences one to another, certain of being forgiven 
 in tears. I at first relied on my imagination for 
 items, but my companions soon reminded me of 
 numbers of ways in which I had offended them 
 unconsciously or otherwise. They seemed sincere 
 though, and made very clean breasts of it them- 
 selves. I found where numbers of little articles 
 
144 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 had gone that I had missed from my bundle. 
 This one had appropriated a penknife, another a pair 
 of socks. I, of course, gave and forgave with the best 
 grace possible. We were now supposed to be at 
 peace with all the world of True Believers, and 
 might with clear consciences appear at Arafat. 
 Though the crowds had been pressing past all 
 night, their numbers did not seem in the least 
 diminished. 
 
 I remember feeling very uncomfortable on 
 that morning, the morning of the day on 
 which I was to acquire the honoured title of 
 Haji, and witness a scene, which it is given to 
 few Europeans to see (probably not more than one 
 in a generation). I felt a sort of depression, as 
 though I required to be brought up to the sticking- 
 point. Perhaps I had not quite got over the opium. 
 I tried to wear this off by extra exertion in assisting 
 at loading the camels; and while passing to and 
 fro from the house, with bundles of gear, I twice 
 fancied a woman in the yard tried to attract my 
 attention, and the next time I passed I heard her 
 pronounce my name. The " Lady Venus " at once 
 dawned on me. I had been living in such stirring 
 times lately that she had quite escaped my memory, 
 and you may be sure my "Peace be upon you!" 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 145 
 
 and " God be praised ! " came from the bottom of 
 my heart, when she now appeared on the scene 
 so opportunely. She told me that she was staying 
 in the same house as myself, with a lady friend, 
 who was treating her to a seat on a camel for the 
 pilgrimage. She also said the boy Abdallah had 
 been twice to my house in Meccah to inquire for 
 me, but had been told that I was gone to Jeddah, 
 We had not much opportunity to talk, but I 
 hastily got her to give me a programme of the 
 forthcoming events of the next three days, and 
 we agreed to meet in the Haram on that day week. 
 Coarse remarks soon began to be made by the men 
 standing about, and we were obliged to part quickly. 
 About eight a.m. our party started. In a shug- 
 duf you are so shut in by the cover that you can 
 see little outside but your own animal's head and 
 the preceding one's rear ; so as I had been consider- 
 ably freshened up by my meeting with the "Lady 
 Venus," I preferred to walk by the camels, and 
 mingle with the throng, giving my mount to one 
 of my companions. As we passed along the valleys 
 between, the rocky hills became more open, and 
 the crowds were able to disperse themselves over 
 wider roads, so that the press was not so great as 
 on the day before. 
 
146 8IX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 About an hour after leaving Muna, I recog- 
 nised in a dead horse on the road one of the 
 fine carriage-horses I had seen the day before 
 drawing the Pacha. Its throat had been cut, as 
 is the custom when an animal is thought to be 
 past recovery ; and though it could not have been 
 dead more than three or four hours, its skin was 
 fast becoming like leather, so quickly does the dry 
 sand and air of the desert absorb moisture. The 
 road from Meccah to Arafat cannot be more than 
 ten or eleven miles, yet many animals had fallen 
 by the way. Between Muna and Arafat I counted 
 fourteen dead camels, and also saw many fresh 
 graves of the last night, probably those of men 
 who, having travelled thousands of miles, had died 
 at the very threshold of their goal. 
 
 The camel-shaykh, who was conductor of our 
 caravan, and from whom we had hired the camels 
 owned by him or some of his relations, spoke a little 
 Hindustani — a very unusual accomplishment for a 
 Bedawi. He was an exceedingly good specimen of his 
 kind, though not by any means a fair sample of that 
 light-hearted murderer; far too good for that. The 
 ordinary Bedawi is slightly made, wiry and short, 
 and you may see a better leg on a crutch than his- 
 any day. This man was tall, muscular, and full- 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 147 
 
 bearded, but a thorough Bedawi in manner, active 
 and seamanlike. He gave his orders to those he 
 considered under him with all the confidence of 
 an efficient officer, and a good deal of the "hop 
 along" air of a Yankee boatswain. So much of 
 the "nautical touch" was there about him and his 
 companions, that I at once christened him " Shaykh 
 the Bow'sen," and would have quite expected to 
 see him give his pants a hitch if he had worn 
 what he and all Bedawin consider such a very 
 unnecessary and effeminate article of apparel. He 
 walked for some distance by my side, mounting 
 his little son, about nine years of age, on his 
 riding camel. After bandying a few Eastern ques- 
 tions and compliments, he asked me for one of the 
 cheroots I was smoking, and then went on to ask 
 me about India, a country where he had heard the 
 inhabitants were not quite all Mohammedans. I 
 noticed one of the weapons in his girdle, a long 
 straight knife which struck me as being somehow 
 familiar, so I pointed to it, and said inquiringly, 
 " Good ?" He at once drew it, and holding it out 
 in admiration, exclaimed, " Eodgers !" Well, come, 
 I thought, this is worse than my not knowing the 
 "Lady Venus" — an unmistakable large Eodgers 
 carving-knife, clean and bright, calling to mind 
 
 L 2 
 
148 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 more than one cut off a ham. "Eoclgers !" I said. 
 "Where's Rodgers?" He was astonished at my 
 ignorance. Did not I know a Eodgers blade when 
 I saw it ? And he pointed out the mystic characters 
 and explained that all knives with that mark 
 were and here he gave the steel point a signi- 
 ficant spring with his finger and thumb, and went 
 through the motions of cutting a throat with, " In 
 the name of God ! " " God is great ! " and " Infidel ! '. 
 I did not care to continue the subject. 
 
 A Eodgers blade in the Hejaz I afterwards found 
 need not necessarily have been made by Eodgers, 
 but any blade with English characters on it, or 
 even a native-made blade of well-proved metal 
 obtains that name, the word having been generally 
 adopted as a synonym for good steel ; and I suspect 
 you would ha,ve some difficulty in finding a Meccan 
 who could explain the derivation of the word or 
 tell when it was introduced. 
 
 There are many other words of the same kind 
 current. The term " Anglais " is applied to all wares 
 of well-known or evidently good material, without 
 any reference to the place they were made ; the 
 merchants themselves, either by courtesy or from 
 ignorance (it is difficult to say which sometimes), 
 calling all European manufactures Egyptian or 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 149 
 
 Turkish, utterly oblivious to glaring Manchester 
 or London brands and labels ; and a Bedawi will 
 pronounce an article to be Frangaia or Anglais at 
 a glance, without in the least knowing the proper 
 significance of the terms. 
 
 About eleven a.m. we reached the plain of Arafat, 
 a large sandy open, appearing to be somewhat below 
 the level of the approach, and occupying an area 
 of some four or five square miles. In the north-east 
 of the plain is " Mount Arafat," a small hill, about 
 two hundred feet high, composed of large masses 
 of gray granite, at the base of quite a respectable 
 little mountain, the " Mount of Mercy." 
 
 We pitched our tents (one for the Am^r and 
 men, another for the Begum and women) about 
 a third of a mile south of this hill. As soon as 
 this work was completed, I took good bearings, 
 marked the tents well, and went off" alone to the top 
 of Mount Arafat. The scene from here was. . . . 
 I shall not be surprised if it flits across my mind 
 on my death-bed. The depression of the plain 
 gives an amphitheatre-like appearance, and you 
 could almost believe yourself on the stage of some 
 mighty theatre, miles of audience before you, and 
 the sombre scenery of the black " Mount of Mercy " 
 behind you. AVhat a time and place for a sermon ! 
 
150 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 We had all come out into the wilderness to hear 
 a sermon on this day ; and I had determined to hear 
 it, so sat down on. the hill to wait till noon, when 
 the " Lady Venus " had told me it would begin. 
 
 As I looked down on the great throng, a gray 
 rippling sea of black heads and white bodies, extending 
 from the sides of the hill, thickly clothed with men to 
 a mile and a half off on the south, and half a mile 
 across, and remembered the distant countries from 
 which they came, and what brought them, it was 
 impossible to help a feeling almost of awe. It set 
 one thinking. Could all this be of no avail, and 
 all this faith be in vain ? If so, it Avas enough to 
 make a man lose faith in everything of the kind. 
 
 At noon I left my post on the top of the hill 
 and pressed my way about to try and find where 
 the preacher would stand, and see what was to 
 be seen. The practice among the pilgrims seemed 
 to be to come up on the hill, say one or two prayers, 
 remain a quarter of an hour or so, and return to 
 the plain. At noon there was no general call to 
 prayer, the pilgrims praying in parties near their 
 tents and judging the hour for themselves. I said 
 no noonday prayer myself, but spent the afternoon 
 looking about on ]\Iount Arafat. 
 
 On the top there is a small colonnade, an obelisk 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 151 
 
 about fifteen feet high, and some low stone walls 
 separating one little irregularity of the surface of 
 the rock from another. Inside and outside these 
 enclosures, and, in fact, all over the hill, the crowd 
 was so great that it was very difficult to get from 
 one place to another, even by climbing walls and 
 jumping from rock to rock. On the sides of the 
 hill are a number of platforms, built up or hewn 
 out of the rock, and a winding road, cut from the 
 bottom to the top, much of which is composed of 
 steps in the rock. At the bottom of the hill is a 
 gravelled terrace forming a road between the hill 
 and a large reservoir of water at its base, and there 
 is another of these built " tanks " (as they are 
 called in India) about one hundred yards south of 
 the first. The sides of both these tanks were 
 occupied the whole day by pilgrims performing the 
 " lesser " ablution. I only .saw one man enter the 
 water bodily, and he slipped ofl" the stone edge, 
 I think, as I noticed those near him laughing. 
 Though I stayed on or about the hill until nearly 
 time for afternoon prayer I heard no sermon, saw 
 no preacher, unless a very old and dirty Arab, 
 not in pilgrim's garb, sitting with his legs across 
 the top of a six-foot wall, haranguing the crowd 
 in a voice that could not be heard ten yards ofi", 
 
152 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 was the orator we had all come so far to hear ; 
 but this I doubt. The probability is, seeing the 
 crowd and noise was so great, the Mufti and his 
 sermon escaped me, more especially as I did not 
 risk inquiring of strangers whom I did not know 
 and who might be anybody short of "Our Special 
 Correspondent," even in the Hejaz nowadays. 
 
 As the afternoon wore on the press on the hill 
 became greater, the crowd so dense as to literally 
 bear you up, and those on the top had the greatest 
 difficulty in forcing their way down. Many women 
 had got on the hill and were beins: much crushed, 
 some people were trodden under foot and forced 
 into the crevasses of the rocks. I managed to 
 battle my way out of it, and began to make for 
 our tents. I had been pushing across the plain 
 for a quarter of an hour or so, and was well out 
 of the thick of the crowd, to where the ground 
 began to be occupied more by tents and hobbled 
 camels, when I was "brought up all standing" by 
 a confused roaring behind me, and, on looking 
 back, saw all the men taking off their upper pieces of 
 cloth and waving them over their heads, shouting at 
 the same time the names of "Allah !" " Mohammed!" 
 and other exclamations. It seemed to begin at 
 a preconcerted signal, whether the afternoon call 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 153 
 
 to prayers or the end of the sermon, I did not 
 know. This shouting would last for a few minutes 
 at its height, then die almost out, and the cloud 
 of waving white cloths almost all subside, then 
 rise again, beginning at Mount Arafat and spreading 
 over the plain. These intervals of great noise and 
 almost silence continued regularly for about half 
 an hour, and then lapsed gradually into roar and 
 tumult. 
 
 The whole multitude was now worked up to 
 the highest pitch of excitement, individuals ex- 
 pressing the greatest emotion, while some were 
 quite frantic, and the scene had become a perfect 
 pandemonium. There was something eerie, almost 
 horrible, about it to me, an unimpassioned observer. 
 I felt like a sane man among three hundred thousand 
 lunatics. However, I shouted, flourished my cloth, 
 capered about, and conducted myself like my uncanny 
 mates, till the firing of the Pacha's two guns, which 
 was the signal for decamping, reminded me that I had 
 better return to my party. All the tents at once began 
 to be rased and camels moved, completely changing 
 the whole appearance of the great camp in a few 
 minutes. I had much difficulty in finding our people, 
 and only reached them when they were on the point 
 of moving oflf. They were not at all surprised that 
 
154 8IX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 I had lost them, and congratulated me on my 
 luck in finding them as I did. All was ready for 
 starting, but the Sheref and Pacha, together with 
 another procession of the same kind from Medinah, 
 passed near our camp, so we waited to follow behind 
 them, spending the time firing off all the firearms 
 we had, and sending up rockets. The breechloaders 
 were fired without taking the trouble to remove 
 the balls from the cartridges ; the Amdr alone 
 expended fifty rounds of ball cartridge, impartially 
 distributed over the thickly-peopled plain ; but as 
 he fired high and the guns had a long range, 
 I cannot give a return of his killed and wounded, 
 though I have no doubt he winged a great many 
 in remote parts. The two field-guns, as they were 
 being drawn along, were fired, round after round, 
 as fast as they could be loaded with small charges 
 of loose powder without being sponged ; they were 
 laid point-blank, and at every discharge cleared a 
 lane through the crowd, which immediately closed 
 up, nobody seeming to be hurt. One fellow re- 
 peatedly exploded an old matchlock, with a bend 
 in the barrel that could be distinctly perceived 
 twenty yards off in the dusk ! Immense Congreve 
 rockets and coveys of smaller ones rose from all 
 parts of the plain, whose sticks as they fell could 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 155 
 
 not but have hurt some one. For though the 
 fall of a small rocket-stick is an indirect wavering 
 flight and so harmless, still I think a twelve- 
 foot rocket-pole, after a descent of nearly three 
 thousand feet, might hurt a man, if it did not 
 harpoon him clean. 
 
 Though I know every man there was living 
 through a succession of narrow escapes, I must 
 say I did not see a single accident. I afterwards 
 heard of a good many who had been privileged 
 to win (when a Mohammedan dies he is said to 
 win or gain) on the field that day. One dead man 
 was carried past me, who was curiously enough 
 said to have been killed by the Tcich of a camel. 
 That night we camped about a mile and a half 
 before we came to Muna, at a place called Muzda- 
 lifah, and here we gathered the sixty- three small stones 
 to be used during the next three days stoning the 
 devil-stones at Muna : these pet stones ought to be 
 gathered on this spot, and ought to be of a cer- 
 tain size (about that of a buckshot). Some were 
 very particular as to this, and spent the greater 
 part of the night gathering and sorting out such 
 as they supposed to be of the proper size. 
 
 This site, like every other pilgrim site described, has 
 innumerable minute observances connected with it. 
 
156 SIX MONTHS IN MEGOAH. 
 
 ■which the pilgrim performs more or less punctiliously 
 according to his strictness, and diflferently according 
 to his knowledge or belief. We spent much of the 
 night praying and listening to a stranger Moulvi 
 giving us a long extempore prayer, in which he 
 prayed literally "that all who profess and call 
 themselves" Mohammedans, "might hold the faith 
 in unity and peace," that " the God who conquers 
 by many or by few," might " give us victory over 
 all our enemies," and much more to the same effect 
 straight from our Church Service, we responding 
 "Amen" to every approved sentiment. 
 
 It was piercingly cold next morning, and about 
 two hours before daylight we started for Muua, being 
 among the first of the great mass to get there. I said 
 my morning prayer at Muna, using warm water for 
 the ablution, and went ofi" immediately after to Meccah 
 on a donkey, in company with the boy Jack, as I 
 was anxious to reach the town, which had before 
 been such a scene of life and bustle, in the deserted 
 state I knew it would then be. There was nothing 
 out of the way in this, and my haste to go before 
 the morning meal was only put down to a little 
 superfluous religious zeal, it being the proper thing 
 to go into Meccah as soon as possible after the pil- 
 grimage, and perform the same rites as on your 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 157 
 
 first arrival at the " Holy City," discarding the 
 pilgrim's garb. The road to Meccah was not yet 
 thronged by returning pilgrims, and the few who 
 were on foot so early we soon passed on our 
 donkeys, reaching Meccah shortly after sunrise. On 
 the outskirts of the town a few coflfee-shops had 
 already been opened, and we passed two or three 
 groups of Bedawi and Negroes; but as we came 
 more into the town the streets were entirely deserted, 
 not a living soul to be seen, all the shops being 
 shut up, and the house-doors and windows closed. 
 It had a most strange aspect, after the appearance 
 which I had been accustomed to for months. As 
 we approached the Haram we came upon some 
 beggars sitting and lying at the roadside, who had 
 been in extremis or too feeble to join the pil- 
 grimage : such as were alive, for some were actually 
 dead, greeted us most piteously, imploring us for 
 food — and a hungry time they must have had of it. 
 It was not so with the dogs, as they had been making 
 horribly free with the legs of the defunct. I soon 
 got rid of a handkerchief of bread and dates I had 
 brought as a snack for myself, and prolonged the 
 existence of one or two exhausted wretches. 
 One of these held our donkeys while we went into 
 the Haram. 
 
158 SIX MONTHS IN MEG AH. 
 
 I found only a party of half-a-dozen Maghribis 
 who had returned straight from Arafat during 
 the night, and who were the only pilgrims 
 that had been beforehand with me. Some of the 
 Arabs who officiate in the Haram, and who had 
 remained behind to change the cover of the Kaabah, 
 which is renewed at this time yearly, were giving 
 the finishing-touches to their work. This cover is 
 sent from Cairo, and is supposed to be made there 
 by seven hundred virgins. After our prayers 
 and tawaf, we did El Sai on our donkeys, 
 which is allowable to the weak, and we easily recon- 
 ciled it to our consciences, seeing we had made such 
 haste to do it, and might be supposed to be at least 
 very tired. After this we roamed about the dismal 
 streets, letting our animals go as they willed. There 
 was a kind of fascination about the lonely, lifeless 
 lanes and passages lately so thronged, and my com- 
 panion seemed to share the feeling with me, for he 
 made the original remark, which I quote from him 
 and not anyone else : " It is like a city of the dead." 
 While going along a narrow out-of-the-way passage 
 I had not before been in I came across an object 
 that nearly brought me off my beast. Overhead, 
 projecting straight out over the lane was a large black 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 15& 
 
 board, and painted on it in yellow these letters — 
 
 LODGINGS. 
 
 "Jack," I said, "let's go back." I felt as if I 
 had seen a ghost. However, I recovered the shock 
 sufficiently to note the locality for future investi- 
 gation, and returned thoughtful and meditative along 
 the road, now thronged with returning pilgrims, to 
 our headquarters for the time at Muna, When I 
 got back I was glad to get out of the pilgrim's 
 garb, which I had found very inadequate against 
 the cold of the night and the sun in the day, which 
 struck painfully on my bare shaven head. Most of 
 our party had gone into Meccah, but returned 
 before noon to purchase and kill the animals of 
 which every man, who can by any means affi)rd it, 
 should kill at least one on this day, and which 
 the country supplies plentifully for the occasion. 
 This ceremony partakes more of the character of a 
 feast than of a sacrifice, though all the sheep and 
 goats killed are young males : I do not think even 
 this is essential, but rather a custom resulting from 
 the necessary practice in the country of always 
 preserving females for breeding and mUk. 
 
 I purchased a little black ram for two dollars, and 
 killed it at home in the usual way, except that the 
 
160 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 head was carefully turned towards the Kaabah, and 
 saying, " In the name of God the most merciful and 
 charitable," while cutting its throat. There ought 
 to be something soothing to the feelings about this 
 short prayer, which in the mouth of the Moham- 
 medan operator sounds a fervent hissing curse, as 
 all who have heard it know. Besides a good many 
 rams and goats, the Amer had two young camels 
 killed to be given to our Bedawi followers and 
 the poor. They were killed at the east end of 
 the village, where a level square space of about 
 half an acre had been set aside for butchering, 
 with a deep trench dug round it for the blood. 
 Here the greater number of the pilgrims brought 
 their animals to be killed, as most of the flocks 
 were stationed at that end of the village. The 
 mode of killing the camels was this : The animal 
 was made to kneel down close up to the trench, 
 and its legs were then tied in a position which 
 made it absolutely incapable of moving them. One 
 man then held out the head, and another drew a 
 short knife, like a sailor's sheath-knife, round the 
 neck, close up to the shoulders, then a rotation of 
 the head and the neck falls, severed clean from the 
 body. The cutting up is done without moving the 
 carcase, the skin being opened down the centre of 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE. 161 
 
 the back. This work went on actively all through 
 the day. 
 
 We also on this day got rid of the first 
 twenty-one of our stones, seven of them being 
 thrown at each of three places in the village. The 
 first place is at the eastern extremity, and is a 
 small obelisk about nine feet high, with a low 
 circular wall round the base, inside which the 
 stones fall after striking the obelisk. The second 
 is in the middle of the village, like the first, but 
 rather larger. The last is at the west end of the 
 village. This is a high stone wall on the right- 
 hand side of the road looking west, and a particular 
 stone in this is the object to be hit. 
 
 It was very difficult to get near them on account 
 of the crowd. Many pilgrims less robust than others 
 had to throw their stones from a distance over the 
 heads of those in front, making very wide shots. 
 This rite is to commemorate Abraham's stoning the 
 devil at the advice of the Angel Gabriel, when 
 tempted by Satan at these three places. Y/e re- 
 peated this throwing of stones on each of the two 
 next days. I estimated that about three tons of 
 shingle ballast had been deposited in the receptacles 
 round the bases of the obelisks before I left Muna. 
 These must be cleared out every year, or they would 
 
162 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 be filled iu a couple of pilgrimages. The popular 
 belief is that they are conveyed back to Muzdalifah 
 by angels. 
 
 Little occurred specially worthy of remark 
 during the rest of our stay in Muna, except that 
 we revelled in butcher's meat, of which hundreds 
 of carcases were wasted, while gorged vultures could 
 scarcely flounder out of your way, and flies became 
 a great nuisance. Water was very dear, having to 
 be brought some distance to the vUlage. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IN MECCAH AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 On the fourth, day after the pilgrimage we returned 
 
 to our old quarters in the walls of the Haram, and 
 
 next day early I set out to look for — lodgings. As 
 
 I wended my way among turbaned and scymitared 
 
 Syrians, Parthians, Moguls, and Arabians, I began 
 
 to think it must have been a dream, and when 
 
 I came to the place and saw the veritable notice, I 
 
 was almost as much surprised as on my first meeting 
 
 it. There was a little tobacco-shop opposite the 
 
 house, to which I went and began making small 
 
 purchases, getting up a dispute about the change 
 
 of a rupee, at the same time taking stock of the 
 
 premises opposite, for I fought rather shy of the 
 
 place. I had just come to an amicable conclusion 
 
 about my change, purposely making a mistake on 
 
 the right side for the shopkeeper to put him in 
 
 M 2 
 
164 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 a good humour, and was asking him who lived 
 in the house over the way, when a tall heavily- 
 built man, whom I at first took for a fair-skinned 
 Arab, slouched out of the door and came straight 
 over to the shop, whistling merrily. That was 
 enough. 
 
 " Good morning," said I. 
 
 " Well, I be d . Do you speak English ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Good morning." 
 
 We stood for some moments looking at one 
 another, and I thought I had taken the fellow's 
 measure to be the right sort, and was just on the 
 point of opening out and declaring myself when 
 he said : 
 
 " You are not an Englishman, are you ? " with 
 a gravity that gave me my cue. 
 
 I replied in the vilest Che-che* I could muster, 
 " Oh yes, I am Englishman. I am speaking the 
 English very well." 
 
 This and a happy unconscious air banished any 
 suspicions of such a possibility he might have had 
 for the moment. Though he said : " Englishmen 
 turn Mohammedan and come here and see what 
 
 * Half-caste Indian. 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 165 
 
 we do, and go back and write books. There are 
 three here now with iron collars round their necks 
 chained among the hills." 
 
 I did not tell him I thought that was a lie. 
 He walked about with me the greater part of 
 the morning, I talking broken English to him. 
 He was a Cape of Good Hope Malay, one of an 
 English-speaking Mohammedan community, who 
 yearly send their half-dozen pilgrims to Mcccah. 
 He had been living some years in Meccah, and 
 said his people had been very ill-treated when 
 they began to come the pilgrimage. The authorities 
 had only allowed them to live in Meccah on 
 condition that they spoke no other language than 
 Arabic, of which few of them knew the meaning 
 of more than a dozen words. If an Arab had 
 heard them speaking any other language, he was 
 at liberty to beat them, and they dared not retaliate. 
 This was in the days of a strict old Pacha of 
 the good old school, who had administered the law 
 of the Koran to the letter. 
 
 In evidence of this he pointed out to me what 
 a number of beggars were to be seen minus a hand 
 or a foot, the result of the said old Pacha's summary 
 justice. This lopping-off of limbs is a great idea, 
 by deo-rees practically incapacitating the old offender. 
 
166 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 However, such severity is seldom resorted to under 
 the present milder regime. The Cape Malays have 
 now outlived all prejudice, and my new friend told 
 me that he was very comfortable in Meccah and 
 making money. He had in his youth been to an 
 English school, could read and write English well, 
 and he confessed he missed his beer and potatoes. 
 He then began to inquire into my antecedents and 
 what I was doing. I told him I was the servant 
 of a rich Hindi, giving him a wrong name, for 
 the fellow knew a great deal too much to be pleasant 
 company, and the worst Mohammedans at heart 
 often for appearance' sake act as the most bigoted 
 and truculent where there is no danger to themselves. 
 
 So to get rid of my friend I put in practice a 
 dodge I had never found to fail— begging. I began 
 by guessing the value of his watch-chain very high, 
 admiring his rings, and flattering him up into a 
 little Croesus. I then, in contrast, represented my 
 own poverty and dependent position. After this 
 it did not require great 'cuteness in an Eastern to 
 see what was coming. He recollected he had business 
 to attend to, and went off suddenly, with a hasty 
 " Upon you be peace." 
 
 I saw him several times after, but he never 
 granted me an interview long enough to allow of 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 167 
 
 my following up our last conversation. On one 
 occasion he told me lie had lately imported a 
 sewing-machine, which some Moulahs had viewed 
 and declared to be the invention of an English 
 devil, and he wanted to know whether I could 
 put him up to a likely purchaser. 
 
 On this day the Kaabah was opened for those 
 who had not been in Meccah during the Eamazan, 
 and the Haram was crowded. Every part of Meccah 
 was always crowded. I might have given you to 
 understand this at the beginning of my story, and 
 that when I ever did come upon a part of Meccah 
 that was not crowded, I should mention that re- 
 markable circumstance ; however, as it is, the 
 reader must understand that when I say crowded, 
 I mean crowded. 
 
 Every part of the Haram was crowded with 
 men, but no women, as the Kaabah was to be 
 opened for them- on the following day. It took 
 me two hours to force my way up to the steps 
 to await my turn, for the pilgrims were let in by 
 parties, the steps being wheeled up to the door 
 and drawn away by the eunuchs of the Haram, 
 who laid about them with their sticks as we pressed 
 for admission. At last I got in. There is no 
 opening into the chamber but the door into which 
 
168 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 I was carried in the rush. The heat was intense, 
 the atmosphere unendurable. I instantly plunged 
 my way out as a man struggles to the surface 
 after a dangerous dive. Inside I had just time to 
 give a good look round and glance up. Nobody 
 is supposed to look up while in this chamber. You 
 are told that the only man who ever did so was 
 struck blind. All that could be seen — for the place- 
 was very dark — were the red hangings of the walls 
 and ceiling embroidered in gold, and the three pillars 
 supporting the flat roof, between which a number 
 of dim lamps hung suspended from metal cross-bars. 
 
 On the day on which the women were admitted 
 I heard the Arab cheer to great perfection. This is 
 given by the women, or sometimes by boys. It 
 was often repeated by hundreds of voices all 
 through this day. They give a prolonged cry in a 
 rather high note, with the right thumb inserted 
 in the left cheek, which they shake rapidly ; or a 
 vibration is given to the cry by means of the 
 tono-ue. Some of the women seemed almost to 
 warble in their throats, giving to the cry a tinkling 
 sound which was really musical. 
 
 Then came my meeting with the "Lady Venus.'' 
 This time we had arranged that she should, after 
 the noonday prayer, walk backwards and forwards 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 169 
 
 in the arcade under my window, where I was to 
 sit and look out till we recognised one another. 
 This was easily managed, and I went off under her 
 guidance. The crowd was so great that we were 
 able to keep close together without appearing to be 
 in company till near the shop of a Hindi binder 
 of Korans, where she told me to wait while she 
 went in. After waiting a few minutes a little child 
 came up to me and invited me into the shop, 
 leading me through to a small room at the back, 
 where I found her sitting alone : the child then left 
 us to ourselves. We talked for a short time about 
 our lucky meeting at Muna, about her health, which 
 bad been very bad during the last year, almost as 
 bad as on her first coming to Meccah many years 
 ago (I think she said twenty). She threw her veil 
 back and exposed her face for some time — a 
 scandalous impropriety, which if witnessed by any- 
 one, the least I could have done would have been 
 to declare her my wife on the spot. I had time 
 to observe her features closely. She was rather 
 short, and appeared about forty. She must have 
 been good-looking in her youth, nor was she by 
 any means ill-favoured now. She looked healthy, 
 all things considered. Though her complexion was 
 somewhat sallow, her skin was fair. She had an 
 
170 SIX MONTHS IN MEOCAH. 
 
 animated and pleasing expression. I can at this 
 moment see her in my mind as distinctly as if she 
 were before me in the flesh — the same sad, indulgent 
 smile with which she greeted my little attempts 
 at Anglo-Arabic jokes, saying : " Speak English, 
 child." 
 
 I really felt the deepest pity for her, an English- 
 woman existing in the way she had been doing for 
 years ; and I must confess to a very soft moment 
 when I saw the poor creature smiling, with her eyes 
 brimful of tears before giving way and having a 
 good cry, which relieved her. I had found in our 
 very first tite-d-tete that any reference to her past 
 had a painful efli'ect, and hesitated to broach the 
 subject, and so began to tell her about myself, my 
 christian name, why I had come to Meccah, and 
 the like, in the hope of getting her to give some 
 such account of herself, when a noise outside made 
 her draw her veil, and a boy entered with some tea 
 and sweetmeats sent by her friend the master of 
 the house. This took our attention for the moment, 
 and we both had tea, and I asked the boy to get 
 me a smoke : first, because I wanted a smoke ; 
 secondly, because when I had done, returning the 
 hookah would be a good excuse for going out of 
 the room and having a look round. This little 
 
AFTER TEE PILGRIMAGE. 171 
 
 interruption over, I asked her if she knew the Cape 
 people. She said she had made friends with some 
 of their women a year or two before, and had sent 
 letters by them to the Cape to a relation whom 
 she had seen there on her way out to India, and 
 whose address she remembered, but had heard nothing- 
 of it since. 
 
 Having brought her to talk about herself, I 
 now kept her at it, and pumped her as dry as I 
 could, but it was very hard work. As well as my 
 m.emory serves me, she told me that her name was 
 " Macintosh," her father a doctor, and that she had 
 lived in Devonshire in her youth, that she was at 
 Lucknow at the time of the siege, and had been 
 taken from there by a leading rebel. She avoided 
 going into particulars, so that I did not ascertain 
 whether she went willingly or as a captive. She 
 said she had lived a year or so in India with this 
 man, and that he had been hunted out of the 
 country by the English, who set a price on his 
 head, and had found refuge in Meccah, taking her 
 with him ; that he had died eight years before, 
 leaving her in poverty, and that she now made a 
 living by embroidering skull-caps, which she sold 
 to the dealers in the bazaars. 
 
 A rich Hindi merchant, who occasionally received 
 
172 SIX MONTH'S IN MECOAH. 
 
 letters -written in English from his son, who was 
 managing his business for him in India, and knew 
 that he could get them translated by her, gave her a 
 little room in his zenana-house to herself. All this I 
 got from her only in replies to my persistent question- 
 ing, till at last I was obliged to desist out of pure 
 compassion, she seemed so cowed and bullied, and 
 was getting quite incoherent. After this I got her to 
 repeat a few chapters of the Koran, pretending I 
 wanted to learn the Meccah accent, so interesting 
 her. I found, besides Hindustani, she could speak and 
 read Persian and Arabic, though not Turkish. She 
 regretted she was not in a position to be acquainted 
 with any Turks, for whom she seemed to have some 
 respect. She mentioned the names of a number of 
 men living in Meccah who she said had been rebels 
 or mutineers, also telling me the prices set on their 
 heads by the English Government, and appeared 
 perfectly up in everything connected with the siege 
 and relief of Lucknow. She also let drop that a 
 young Frenchman had lived eighteen months in 
 Meccah, and had died about six months before my 
 arrival. I asked her what he died of. To which she 
 replied in Hindustani, with the usual " God knows ; 
 God giveth and God taketh away. Blessed be the 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 173 
 
 name of the Lord." And then told me the following 
 story : 
 
 " That about two years before a young French- 
 man had come to Meccah with whom she became 
 very intimate, and had often seen him just as she was 
 now seeing me. He had told her that he was a 
 Mohammedan from conviction, and that he had at 
 first gone to Constantinople to live, but that his 
 father, who was very wealthy, had made such efforts 
 to get him back that he was obliged to remove to 
 Cairo. Here he was again found out by his friends, 
 who did everything that money and influence could 
 do to make him return to Christianity. He seems to 
 have been a mere lad, for some attempt was made 
 to get him off from here by force to France ; how- 
 ever he escaped and fled to another place in Egypt, 
 where he was again hunted out by his friends, who 
 drove him to Meccah as a last refuge from them. It 
 must have been ' preserve me from my friends ' with 
 him, poor fellow ! In Meccah he took service in the 
 house of a wealthy Turk, and was thought a very 
 clever youth, 'learned in all the learning of the 
 Egyptians,' so much so that he was looked upon 
 with great jealousy by the Moulahs (most likely on 
 account of the peculiar views he would be likely to 
 
174 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 have held), and, as the ' Lady Venus ' said, ' made 
 many enemies.' He repudiated the Frenchman, 
 always calling himself a Turk." 
 
 I asked if he was known to be a Frenchman, and 
 she replied : 
 
 " He was a True Believer," implying that beyond 
 that nobody knew or cared what he might be. 
 
 She laid great stress on his extensive reading and 
 the fluency with which he spoke Turkish and Arabic, 
 and on the fact of his being well known and much 
 disliked by a certain set who made it so hot for him 
 that he was on the point of going away, and had seen 
 and said good-bye to her when he suddenly died, and 
 she had no doubt but that there had been foul play, 
 darkly hinting at a cup of coflfee. 
 
 This was the sum of all I heard from the "Lady 
 Venus" on this our longest interview. On parting 
 she pointed out to me a peculiarity in the make of 
 the upper part of her veil by which I might dis- 
 tinguish her from any other woman, and we appointed 
 a rendezvous in the Haram, where we could meet on 
 any day at a certain hour, in order that we might see 
 as much of one another as possible, and that I might 
 consult her about my prospects of getting away ; for 
 I was becoming very sick of hearing every day of 
 ships leaving Jeddah, only a matter of some forty 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 175 
 
 odd miles off, yet seeming to be almost in another 
 world — ships I knew well, and whose officers were 
 old shipmates. Often when I with difficulty recog- 
 nised under the disguise of Arab mispronunciation the 
 mutilated name of some well-known old craft, and 
 pictured to myself scenes " so near and yet so far," 
 in which iced beer and table-napkins figured pro- 
 minently, I would have given five years of my life 
 for a few dollars to carry me over the little strip of 
 desert to Christianity and cleanliness. The " Lady 
 Venus " could not help me, and there was nothing for 
 it but to wait with my eyes open. Sometimes I 
 would think of "humping my swag,"'" taking the 
 road for it in the true " turnpike-sailor " style ; 
 but the Hejaz is not the Colonies, and a " sun- 
 downer "f here runs the risk of being potted 
 at from behind every rock, as a Bedawi would 
 not think of letting a solitary wayfarer pass with- 
 out at least the little attention of a casual snap- 
 shot ; not that he would hit or expect to hit, but 
 then nothing is impossible, and though the boast 
 of the Hejaz Bedawi is that he never robs a 
 
 * (Colonial) Shouldering my kit. 
 
 f Colonial name for a tramp ; so called, from their way of 
 going from farm to farm, timing it so as to arrive at sundown, 
 in order to ensure a supper and bed. 
 
176 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 living True Believer, he has a knack of asking said 
 True Believer to give him something, at the same 
 time playing the curved point of a short sharp 
 sword about the pit of his stomach in a way that 
 generally influences even a True Believer to be 
 charitable ; or should he prove ungenerous, our 
 Bedawi has not the slightest hesitation about 
 stripping him dead, and, to insure his not feeling 
 deprived, generally makes his children with careful 
 kindness relieve him of his head and hands. Also 
 my position with the Amer, though solid enough 
 at present, might have been very delicate had I 
 shown any wish to desert him or failed in an 
 attempt to do so. No ! I decided that as I had 
 a whole skin as yet, it would be a pity to risk it 
 when I might do better by waiting. 
 
 I think it was on the eighth day after the 
 pilgrimage that the inundation occurred. Such 
 a flood had not visited Meccah for seventeen years, 
 on which occasion the water had risen seven feet 
 in the Haram. This time the day opened very 
 black indeed to the eastward, the clouds having a 
 sandy, smoky appearance I had noticed before on 
 one or two occasions when it had been followed 
 by a heavy downpour of rain. These black days 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 177 
 
 were very marked as a great and sudden change 
 from tlie usual blue clearness of the sky. It did 
 not begin to rain in Meccah till about eleven A.M., 
 though it must have been raining for some time 
 towards Muna and Arafat, for the stream from there 
 into the valley of Meccah had overflowed, and 
 already the streets at the east end and in the 
 centre of the city were flooded with several inches of 
 water. Still no serious inundation was anticipated, 
 the flooding of the streets being the usual result 
 of an ordinary shower, and the stalls in the 
 bazaars stood at the sides of streets, down the 
 centre of which people were wading in little 
 torrents. 
 
 As soon as it began to rain I returned 
 to the house, and saw through the window that it 
 shortly after set in to blow hard from the east, 
 accompanied by heavy tropical rain — not excep- 
 tionally heavy for the tropics, but much harder 
 than would be likely to be seen out of them. As 
 the rain continued, all our people and a number of 
 friends not belonging to our party, dripping wet, 
 came in for shelter and filled our two rooms. In 
 the Haram a few inches of water quickly gathered, 
 and the attendants were employed, as I had often 
 
178 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 seen them before, in keeping the pavement round 
 the Kaabah clear by sweeping the water down large 
 holes in the pavement. 
 
 Another hour, and the rain still continued to 
 come down as hard as ever, the wind blowing half a 
 hurricane, flapping and bellying out the cover of the 
 Kaabah as though it would blow it away, which it 
 certainly would have done had it not been new. At 
 this time the Amdr sent some of his under servants 
 out to try and get a little of the water that flowed 
 oS" the Kaabah for us to drink, and, as they went 
 in and out, they told us that the water was rising 
 rapidly in the streets, and shortly afterwards came in 
 and said it would soon be flowing into the Haram. 
 
 Some of us went out to see ; I among the rest. 
 The water had risen so suddenly and unexpectedly 
 that there had been no time for the most ordinary 
 precautions. Those who had seen it said it had 
 come in like a wave from the direction of Muna ; 
 if so, and it had passed over the scene of the late 
 slaughter, it must now be simply a poisoned flood. 
 It was now flowing in turbid muddy streams, three 
 or four feet deep, down all the streets. 
 
 Across every entrance to the Haram there is 
 a raised stone parapet, apparently built for the 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 179 
 
 purpose of keeping the water out during these 
 floods. I took my stand on one of these and 
 watched the strong steady stream flowing past 
 laden with the floating wreck of the bazaars, cages 
 of fowls, all kinds of fruit, flocks of bread loaves, 
 empty baskets, the legs and tops of wooden stalls, 
 dogs swimming about, and being forced whining 
 back wherever they attempted to land, Negroes and 
 Arabs standing in the stream seizing whatever was 
 best worth picking up as it floated past. 
 
 Most of the shops were already flooded, and 
 the water had risen so quickly that there had not 
 been time to remove much of the stock, which 
 was being floated out into the stream, the owners 
 piling it back manfully. Such of the shops as were 
 not already flooded were crowded by as many as 
 could find standing room, as were all steps and 
 isolated dry points. 
 
 The depth and strength of the stream continued 
 to increase visibly, and it became a business of 
 swimming for those who plunged in after salvage. 
 The flood had not yet reached the Haram, where 
 thousands had taken refuge and shelter under the 
 arcades, but in a few minutes the water trickled 
 under our feet down into the Haram behind us. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 The larger gates of the Haram were now shut, but 
 these had little doors in them which were left open 
 till the rush of water became so strong that it 
 was found impossible to close some of them. This 
 was about noon. I then went into the house out 
 of the storm, put on dry clothes, and spent the 
 rest of the day looking out of the window. 
 
 The rain showed no signs of easing, and the 
 wind continued to blow with great violence, and 
 in the same direction. The water was rushing 
 into the Haram at every gate, the badly-made and 
 loosely -jointed doors scarcely offering any obstruction 
 and merely filtering it of the coarser debris. At 
 this time a sailor might have described the Haram 
 as taking in green seas fore and aft, except that 
 the water was bright pea-soup colour. 
 
 About two P.M. the wind suddenly shifted to the 
 west, taking the cover of the Kaabah " flat aback," 
 only giving it time for a couple of tremendous 
 flaps and bangs before it settled into fluttering and 
 bellying in the opposite direction. It continued to 
 rain and the water to flow in until about three p.m., 
 when the wind fell away with a few parting gusts, 
 and the rain took oS' with one or two parting 
 gushes of large drops. 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 181 
 
 After this, the water ceased to rise in the Haram, 
 and stopped flowing in from the outside very quickly. 
 During the whole storm pilgrims had been performing 
 the tawaf and kissing the Black Stone in greater 
 numbers than usual at this time of the day, and now, 
 when the water was at its highest and the Black 
 Stone immersed, many continued to swim round 
 the Kaabah, and put their heads under to kiss the 
 stone. The temperature throughout the storm was 
 uniformly cool, though not more than normally so, 
 and it only remained overcast until sunset, the storm 
 passing away to the north.* 
 
 The whole of the large square was now turned 
 into a lake, the water lying about three feet deep 
 in the western arcades, six feet round the Kaabah, 
 and a few inches in the eastern arcades, showing 
 that though the square looked a plain when dry, 
 it was considerably inclined in these directions. 
 
 * Notwithstanding that storms of this nature are rare in the 
 neighbouring sea, erratic whirlwinds of any dimensions are daily 
 occurrences in the Hejaz. The one above described, however, will 
 have been seen to have been a true rotatory storm of moderate 
 cyclonic violence ; and acting on the known laws it travelled up 
 from the south-east in an indirect course, at varying slow rates, 
 averaging about four or five miles an hour, which would give it a 
 diameter of some twenty miles. 
 
182 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 There was great rejoicing among us when the 
 water ceased to rise, for it was beginning to be 
 feared that it would put out the lamps as it had 
 done in the last great flood ; and this is 
 looked upon as unfortunate or ominous in some 
 way. The water subsided almost as quickly as it 
 had risen ; by the time of sunset prayer it had 
 retreated from the arcades on the three higher 
 sides of the square, and at the evening prayer 
 (nine P.M.) there remained only a couple of feet of 
 water near the Kaabah, and the arcades were left 
 dry all round. 
 
 The next morning opened with an azure firma- 
 ment, and when we got up for early prayer there 
 was hardly a pint-pool of water to be found at the 
 surface anywhere in Meccah ; but in every place where 
 the water had been it had left a layer of about six 
 inches of tough springy earth, cutting like clay— in 
 many places it was much thicker : round the Kaabah 
 this deposit was eighteen inches deep. In the 
 morning before the traffic began the lumpy uneven 
 roads looked smooth and clear as though freshly laid 
 with asphalt, and the whole square of the Haram 
 like a sandy beach at low water. It was plea- 
 sant to the bare feet — soft and smooth. I did the 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 183 
 
 tawaf several times that morning at a good run — 
 sharper exercise than I had taken for many a 
 day. I had a walk after daybreak in the streets, 
 which were soon trodden slushy, for though the 
 layer of earth left by the flood was pretty firm at 
 first, there was a good deal of water in it, and the feet 
 of the passengers soon kneaded it into a tenacious 
 black mud, from which the beggars and passers-by 
 unearthed all kinds of little articles of property. 
 Here and there the leg of a drowned dog protruded, 
 perhaps side by side with a prettily-worked broken 
 cane basket, or a squashed melon. It was curious 
 to reflect what a number of strange odds and ends 
 must have been buried side by side under that layer 
 of mud, the productions of almost a!ny age or state 
 of art, from a piece of worked gun-flint or Bedawi 
 pottery to a four-bladed penknife, perhaps in some 
 future age to be brought to light together in be- 
 wildering variety. Three old tottering ruins in 
 the east end of the town had received the last 
 shake to their foundations and fallen, killing, I was 
 surprised to hear, only four persons. I heard of no 
 other human lives being lost directly from the inun- 
 dation. Much destruction must have been done to 
 all damageable property on the ground -floors 
 
184 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 throughout the lower arch of the valley, still I heard 
 very little complaint about losses except from the 
 beggars and people who had nothing to lose ; these 
 of course made a great pretext of the flood. 
 
 Next day the bazaars looked the old style, and busi- 
 ness flourished as if nothing had happened. With 
 their " all's-for-the-best " indifi"erence to fate, these 
 people barely made the events of the previous day the 
 subject of a morning call's gossip. The mud defiling 
 the Haram was another matter thoug-h, and great 
 numbers of volunteers were soon at work removing 
 it, many of the wealthiest pilgrims carrying baskets 
 or fishing-mattocks, together with working-parties 
 of soldiers from the barracks. In spite of the great 
 supply of labour it took three days to clear it all 
 out, and place it in the streets in the immediate 
 vicinity in large heaps blocking up the way, till the 
 mounds were trodden out and hardened down, still 
 leaving some of the roads so hummocky and uneven 
 that camels could not travel before the soldiers 
 had done a little towards levelling off the tops of 
 the steepest hillocks ; for notwithstanding the soft, 
 I was going to say catlike, feet of the camel, it can 
 neither go up nor down a very steep hill. 
 
 For many days after the flood the water in all the 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 185 
 
 wells was brown and muddy, and if left standing all 
 night would not be more than half settled in the morn- 
 ing. The taste of all the wells was altered, the ordinary 
 water tasting like Zem Zem, and the Zem Zem itself 
 much weakened. For a couple of days there 
 was some moisture in the air, and bread left on a 
 shelf uncovered for a few hours did not appear to 
 have undergone a second baking, and have a metallic 
 ring from hardness. The worst result of the flood 
 was the great amount of sickness that prevailed after 
 it ; cholera, small-pox, and typhus epidemics broke 
 out and raged wildly together for about three weeks. 
 Mohammedan burial rites differ a good deal in 
 different countries, and of course vary with circum- 
 stances — from the dancing howling wakes of Egypt 
 and Syria, to the mere laying of the body straight 
 and placing a few stones over it in the desert. In 
 Meccah it is iisual to take the bier to a part of 
 the Haram near Abraham's Stone, so that the soul 
 may pass out of it through the door of the Kaabah, 
 and the noonday prayer is recited by the Imam before 
 interment of the body under a few bushes and a 
 couple of feet of earth, with its face towards the 
 Kaabah. A coffin is never used by Mohamme- 
 dans, though voluminous swathings and wrappings 
 
186 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAII. 
 
 are, the grave-clothes being sometimes made of fine 
 material, white being the common mourning colour. 
 
 Within three days after the flood I noticed the 
 number of funerals increasing ; and at one time, 
 about ten days after, the quantity passing through 
 the Haram was so great as to form almost a con- 
 tinuous procession for an hour before noon. One 
 day I counted sixty-three funerals. 
 
 No idea can be formed from this of the number 
 of deaths which really occurred daily, as probably 
 by far the greater majority of those who died had 
 no friends, or were not thought worth the trouble 
 of carrying to the Kaabah on the way to the burial- 
 ground. Men in the agonies of cholera might 
 frequently be seen lying at the sides of the streets, 
 and never a good Samaritan went near them. Small- 
 pox and typhus cases, in all stages of the diseases, 
 walked about in public, almost arm-in-arm, no one 
 avoiding or seeming to think it the least out of the 
 way. In one house I visited there were eight small- 
 pox cases down at the same time, of which five 
 died, and yet five other healthy men continued to 
 eat and sleep in the same room ! 
 
 If there is any foundation at all for our English 
 notion about contagion, how Meccah escaped deci- 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 187 
 
 mation does seem a miracle. Somehow I did not 
 apprehend anything myself ; I don't know why 
 exactly, but I had not the slightest fear, though I 
 certainly expected some of our party to be laid 
 up, so many of us being crowded into the two 
 rooms, which ,had become revoltingly filthy. Still, 
 though we moved about amidst infected localities 
 and among infected people in the most reckless 
 manner, none of us were taken seriously ill. This 
 was attributed to the Amur's energetic precautions, 
 he having, regardless of expense, provided his whole 
 household with a new and infallible charm. I wore 
 mine round my neck till it got entangled with my 
 beads, so I broke the string and threw it away, first 
 opening it out to see what it was made of It 
 was a ball of bees' -wax, about the size of a No. 12 
 bullet, with a little pellet of paper inside on which 
 something had been written ; but it was now so 
 crumpled and torn I could make nothing of it. The 
 run on the graveyards soon began to take the 
 pilgrims oS", and the town was getting less crowded, 
 the pilgrims leaving by thousands ; and we now 
 began to make our preparations for starting with 
 the first caravan to Medinah. 
 
 I met the " Lady Venus " three or four times in 
 
188 SIX MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 the Haram, and had conversations with her for 
 intervals varying from the mere exchange of a few 
 words during a moment's opportunity to a ten 
 minutes' talk walking together under the arcades. 
 Once she asked me if I had a book or any English 
 printing to give her, saying she had part of an 
 old almanac, ever so many years old, which she 
 had come across in Meccah, and hoarded up ever 
 since to read. One day she showed me her much- 
 thumbed treasure — ■ only five pages, one month 
 on each page. I did not notice the year, but 
 saw the sort of thing it was — " Coronation Day," 
 "Battle of Waterloo," etc. etc., and then re- 
 turned ^it to her carefully, telling her that it 
 was not bad reading under the circumstances, 
 though it did occur to me how she would 
 value a more substantial and interesting volume, 
 poor beggar ! I wrote in English my christian- 
 name and address in Eno-land on a little bit of ■ 
 blue paper and gave it to her, and heard her 
 read it straight off. I told her if she wrote a 
 letter and could get any returning pilgrim to give 
 it to an English officer in one of the ships, it 
 would be sure to be forwarded. She had little 
 hopes of being able to find anyone she could trust, 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 189 
 
 or. who would be likely to do such a thing even 
 if they promised. The last time but one that I 
 met her she was very queer, slightly hysterical 
 I thought. She kept repeating : " Ah, child ! you 
 don't know what it is to me to see you," and 
 then, "I would not hurt you," "I would not do 
 you any harm," stopping me and catching hold 
 of my arm as we walked along so excitedly that 
 I expected a scene every moment : certainly in 
 London the expression of half such emotion would 
 have found us the centre of an admiring throng. 
 I looked as unconcerned as I could, talking in 
 Arabic to her and trying to calm her ; till at last I 
 lost my temper, and said : "Do you want to raise a 
 row ? " and then told her that I should meet her on 
 the day of my leaving for Medinah, if she would 
 keep cool and find a place where we could be alone. 
 I then hurried home, for I had distinctly heard a sly- 
 looking Arab make use of the nasty word — Christian. 
 In view of our desert journey to Medinah, the 
 Amdr began to curtail his retinue : he dis- 
 banded quite a little army of spongers and 
 loafers, who had attached themselves to us on 
 one pretence or another. These hangers-on were 
 very useful, always ready to oblige or do any 
 
190 SIX MONTHS IN MECCA ff. 
 
 little thing, getting in return only what they 
 could beg or steal, which is not much really. 
 However, they have an innocent weakness for new 
 boots, which they have a somewhat inconvenient 
 habit of mistaking for their own, often accidentally 
 slipping their feet into the best pair on the 
 threshold (where all the boots are left) when they 
 go out of the house. My boots seemed to be 
 especially coveted by them. I lost a couple of 
 pairs a very short time after I came to Meccah. 
 If that sort of thing had gone on it would have 
 been disastrous, so I was obliged in self-defence, 
 whenever my boots were changed, to put on the 
 old pair left, make a call where I knew there 
 would be a crowded "At home," leave early, and 
 mistake some other gentleman's boots for the ones 
 I came in. In this way I seldom went about 
 in the same pair for more than a fortnight. They 
 were loose red leather slippers, turned up at the 
 toes and worn down at the heel, and there 
 was no difficulty about the matter of fitting if 
 they were only big enough. I gave up the sandals 
 I had at first taken to, as my feet got so dirty, and 
 would soon have been so deformed that I should 
 have found it difficult to return to European boots. 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 191 
 
 I had some hopes about this time that the Amdr 
 would give me " the sack " and a few dollars, as he 
 was doing with others, and indeed I did not think 
 it at all unlikely, as he seemed to have forgotten 
 my existence since our return from Arafat, and I 
 had kept a good deal out of the way, merely coming 
 in to eat and sleep, neither making myself 
 useful nor amusing. Some of my companions, too, 
 had got hold of a story that I had been trying to 
 join the Sultan's army. The fact was that a fanatic 
 Moulah had raised a band of about four hundred 
 men to go to Turkey and fight the Eussians, by 
 preaching a jehad and proclaiming that miracles 
 would be performed for us if we fought with swords 
 only, and gave up our lives with proper cheerful- 
 ness ; and I had secretly enrolled myself under the 
 good Moulah in the hope of getting away with 
 him. But as the Turkish authorities discountenanced 
 all this sort of thing, and as the Moulah met with only 
 half-hearted encouragement from the pilgrims, the 
 scheme fell through for want of funds to carry us 
 to the far-off scene of action. I was told that on 
 the outbreak of war between Turkey and Eussia, 
 the Pacha of Meccah had made a call for volun- 
 teers, which had been responded to by thirty 
 
192 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 thousand untrained men. They were all imme- 
 diately put into training, when orders were received 
 from Constantinople to tell them that the Sultan 
 was grateful for their oflfer, and would not ask 
 them to endanger their lives, but that any little 
 trifle from their purses would be most acceptable : 
 I suspect this call was not so readily responded to. 
 I believe some rumour of Turkish reverses must 
 have got abroad to cause this second war fever, 
 which appeared just after the pilgrimage, though 
 the only talk I ever heard about it was the ever- 
 lasting " By the help of G-od the Sultan wins," 
 and no further interest seemed to be taken in the 
 matter. 
 
 Well, I let this story of my wanting to enlist pass 
 without contradiction, as a sort of feeler to see how 
 the Am^r would like it (I never knew whether he 
 heard it or not, but think he must). I then inva- 
 lided. I had noticed all my companions took turns 
 at a rest, pretending to be suffering from what 
 they called " cold fever," another term for an opium 
 booze. It would not have done for me to take 
 opium, the symptoms were too well known to my 
 companions, and so to make myself thoroughly 
 useless, I had to get a " cold fever " which they 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 193 
 
 could not cure. I lay on my blanket, got off 
 my feed, and did not sleep all day and say good 
 ■when every one else said had. The giving up of 
 my regular meals made no great difference to me, as 
 I had lately become so tired of the dietary that 
 I could eat nothing with pleasure, and felt a craving 
 for a slice of white bread or salt beef almost as 
 badly as the gnawings of real starvation. 
 
 In the meantime our preparations for the road 
 were going on in earnest, making immense tins 
 of sweetmeats (at which I would not assist), cleaning 
 and burnishing up of arms. How those niggers 
 and their arms did tease me, to be sure ! Four 
 months before their humanlike movements might 
 have amused me ; and now, when the Am^r struggled 
 the bayonet on to the end of the rifle, and displayed 
 his skill in the use of it by making swinging slashes 
 at an imaginary adversary in the top of a cocoa-nut 
 tree or in a balloon, if I had not been able to resist 
 a very powerful impulse, I should have jumped 
 up, whipped the rifle out of his paws, clubbed 
 him with the butt till he made a new joke, and 
 forced all the rest to sing "God save the Queen" 
 at the point of the bayonet. I suppose it was 
 because I knew that if I had offered to explain 
 
194 SIX- MONTHS IN MECGAH. 
 
 that five rounds in fifteen minutes was not con- 
 sidered sharp practice with the Martini-Henri, I 
 should have been told I knew nothing about it, 
 and the Am^r would have condescended to explain 
 the action of the breech in this "invention of the 
 Sultan of Turkey's for the benefit of the Eussians ! " 
 as he called it. 
 
 I had been living so long with these people as 
 one of them, that I had actually come down to 
 being annoyed by the airs of a nigger. It's time 
 I was out of this, I thought, and no mistake. 
 
 Their own weapons are murderously dangerous to 
 look at, and ingeniously harmless to use. Take the 
 swords for instance. ''■ The blades are so much 
 curved, and so badly balanced, that in real work 
 it would require half your attention to prevent 
 them turning in the hand. The hilts are like old- 
 fashioned brass door-knobs, or paper-cutter handles, 
 about large enough to admit of being grasped with 
 three fingers on a pinch, and the idea of giving 
 points has yet to occur to the mind of an Eastern 
 swordsman. For all the rest of our impossible 
 
 * Only Indian swords, as some of the Persian swords, might he 
 trusted for work. 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 195 
 
 armouiy, a similar collection may be seen in any 
 museum of antiquities. 
 
 The only one worth description here is the Arab 
 knife or jambiyah, with one of which most of our people 
 had provided themselves. Jambiyahs are slightly 
 different in make in different parts of Arabia, and are 
 known by the names of the places that most affect 
 the particular shape. The Meccah jambiyah is the 
 broadest and most bent; the Mascat jambiyah is 
 nearly straight, and about half as broad as the Meccan. 
 The iron of the jambiyah is exceedingly soft, and 
 sharpened by beating out the edge cold on a small 
 anvil, shaped for this purpose only, the sharpening 
 of jambiyah being a trade of itself. This gives 
 the best edge I know for severing skin and hair, 
 though of course when applied to anything hard 
 it instantly disappears. With a newly-sharpened 
 jambiyah a roUed-up sheepskin may be divided at 
 one stroke. 
 
 At this time if a gunlock was out of order, 
 I would not mend it; for though systematically 
 snubbed for my general ignorance, I had established 
 a bit of a reputation as a mechanic. I was too 
 sick to pray, or if I did, I would only perform the 
 
 " jumo," that is, going through the motions of the 
 
 2 
 
196 SIX MONTHS IN MEOGAH. 
 
 ablution without water, which is allowable to the 
 very sick, or when there is no water to be had. 
 I lay on my blanket night and day, scarcely speaking 
 to anyone, but taking in everything going on 
 around me most keenly. Tales of robbery and 
 bloodshed committed by the Bedawin were being 
 brought in every day by kind friends who were 
 not going with us, and long stories of past adventures 
 in the desert would be recounted by comforters who 
 dropped in to cheer us up, generally putting the 
 Amdr into half-an-hour's passionate weeping and 
 praying, to pass off in a second when " Shaykh 
 the Bow'sen " (the same who had conducted us to 
 Arafat) appeared Ton the scene, to bargain and 
 arrange about the number of camels we should 
 require ; then the Amdr and all his uncles and 
 relations composing his suite would smile, cajole 
 and " brother " the Shaykh, to whose tender mercies 
 they were going to entrust themselves for a month 
 in the desert, only to curse and abuse him and 
 all " Shaitan " Bedawin after he was gone. 
 
 Some of our people, the " first warrior " among 
 them, " funked" the Medinah journey altogether, and 
 set to work to persuade the Amdr that the best 
 thing he could do would be to send them home 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 197 
 
 to Hind with the bulk of his purchases and all 
 the baggage he was unable to carry across the 
 desert with him, and, above all, that his letters 
 home might be carried by safe hands. This settled 
 it, and he decided to let them go. I could quite 
 understand his anxiety to communicate with his 
 friends, for he and all his party most fully realised 
 the dangers of their next undertaking, even I — who 
 certainly did not, being very sceptical as to the 
 amount of peril, putting down the Hindi exag- 
 gerated accounts for what I thought they were worth 
 — would have liked to have left some traces behind 
 me before starting three hundred miles into Arabia. 
 As soon as these last arrangements of the Am^r 
 were settled I put on foot another scheme, which 
 promised to answer perfectly. I told the "first 
 warrior" that if the Am^r proposed retaining my 
 services, I should like to go at once to Hind to 
 the Amer's home and wait there without wages till 
 his return ; but that when he did come back I 
 should insist on pay beginning. I explained that 
 though the hope of my life was to perform the 
 meritorious pilgrimage to the tomb of the Prophet 
 of God, I was now so sick that I should only be 
 an encumbrance to the Amdr if I went with him. 
 
198 SIX MONTHS IN MEQGAH. 
 
 As I expected, this came at once to the Amur's 
 ears, and lie called me to him the same evening 
 and asked me whether I would prefer to go 
 to Medinah or return to Hind. It would not 
 have done to have appeared too anxious ; so, after 
 stating whys and wherefores, I asked him to allow 
 me not to decide till the day before starting, when 
 finally the number of camels required was to be 
 fixed, and when I hoped, please God, to be well 
 enough to go with him to " Medinah the Honoured ; " 
 if not, then God is great, and I am ill-fated. 
 " Good ! Go," said the Amdr, and I already almost 
 fancied myself eating ham and eggs in the Bombay 
 Sailors' Home. 
 
 When the day for giving my answer came, I 
 told the Amdr that I was worse, " my blood was 
 dry," " my brains were wet," " my stomach twisted," 
 and " I was not as strong as a chicken ; " but by 
 the help of God, once at his honour's house, the 
 " Diamond Gate," its world-famed air and water 
 would soon restore me ; " Meccah the fortunate " 
 was undoubtedly heaven-sent, " its waters ! " — here 
 raptures ; " its climate ! " — here outbursts of admi- 
 ration. Still I declared I was afraid I was too bad 
 a sinner to derive full benefit from these great gifts. 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 199 
 
 and my own poor climate of Hind would suit me 
 better. He soon cut my blarney short with, " Grood, 
 you shall go to the 'Diamond Gate;'" and I had 
 to sustain my part by expressing proper grief and 
 having to be forced back to my blanket greatly 
 excited. 
 
 Next day by noon the Amdr and all his 
 party had gone to a place outside Meccah, " Waddy 
 Fatima," where the Medinah caravan was to assemble 
 before starting. There had been most gushing part- 
 ings between us — we that were going back to Hind 
 had innumerable messages to kith and kin given us 
 to take. I felt I was parting with them never to 
 see any of them again most likely, and they believed 
 in me, so that I must say I felt a certain amount 
 of regret. I was sorry to lose the "third warrior," 
 with whom I had really struck up a friendship. We 
 were to start the same evening for Jeddah. I 
 soon tied up my bundle, which was not a very big 
 one, and now as I might consider myself booked, 
 I thought there would be no harm in going out 
 to make a few little purchases of relics and other 
 reminders of Meccah, as my companions had done ; 
 this is what I told the " first warrior," but I of course 
 went at once to the Haram to meet the " Lady Venus," 
 
200 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 as I had appointed with her. I had not been 
 sitting long when she came up to me, and we went 
 off together as we had done on other occasions. This 
 time we walked about two miles into the country 
 on the Muna road, to the house of an Arab ; here 
 she went in, and shortly after came out and told 
 me that the man had disappointed her and was 
 not at home, and as there were only women inside 
 I could not be admitted. This was a disappointment, 
 and poor " Lady Venus " was extremely sorry ; how- 
 ever, we walked about together among the hills, always 
 walking fast, as if we were going somewhere, and 
 had a talk. I told her how I had worked it, and 
 the luck I had met in getting away on that day, 
 and I asked her point-blank, " If I come back for 
 you will you go to England with me ? " to which 
 she replied " Yes," much in the same tone as the 
 little boy answered the lady who asked him, " Could 
 you eat a bun ? " I said to her, " You, understanding 
 so many languages, could easily make a living in 
 England," and I mentioned the " Asiatic Home," 
 not that I knew anything about it, but it occurred 
 to me at the moment as a place where she would 
 be likely to find work. I also told her that there 
 were many rich people in England who would, if 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 201 
 
 they knew of her existence, soon provide money 
 or means of getting her released. To this she 
 replied : 
 
 " How you talk ! " (events have shown how I did 
 talk, to be sure ! Yes, I am afraid I was a great deal 
 too hopeful), and so on ; I promising her she would 
 be in England in less than a year, and she very 
 much doubting the chances of such a thing till we 
 got back to the Haram, when she again became as 
 excited as on our last meeting, and behaved so 
 foolishly that (I am ashamed to say it) I doubted her 
 for a moment and remembered the fate of the poor 
 Frenchman. Three times I said " With you be 
 peace " and left her, but she followed me to the gate 
 of the Haram, and I had to go back and speak to her 
 and tell her that people were noticing her strange 
 conduct. The last time I went back I led her to the 
 opposite side of the Haram, and then said "Good- 
 bye" and ran out of one of the near gates. As I 
 passed out I looked out and saw her sitting down 
 against one of the pillars and a number of children 
 standing round looking at her. This was the last 
 time I saw the "Lady Venus." 
 
 As soon as I reached our house and passed in 
 through the outer door, I heard the " first warrior " 
 
202 SIX MONTHS IN MEGCAH. 
 
 in the inner room protesting loudly that something 
 was not at all " the cheese," and then met " Shaykh the 
 Bow'seh," coming out, who told me he had brought 
 a letter from the Amdr recalling the " first warrior " 
 and myself to go with him to Medinah. In half 
 an hour more the letter would have been too late. 
 The first thing I did was to run back to where I 
 had left the " Lady Venus" to tell her what had 
 happened and see if she could not help me. When 
 I got to the place where I had last seen her she 
 was gone. I looked out in the crowded street and 
 could see nothing of her. What was I to do now ? 
 My chance of getting away knocked on the head 
 at the last moment by the whim of a nigger ! I 
 was savage. A good rule for a man who smokes is, 
 whenever bothered, take a pipe. I went across the 
 street to a little cofiee-shop, called for a chillam, and 
 sat down to consider. At the third whiff I found 
 myself laughing at my own awkward fix, and by the 
 time I had finished my smoke I had fully decided to 
 start that night for Jeddah and run with the donkeys. 
 Arabs did it, and why should not 1 1 — though I cer- 
 tainly was not in good form for fifty miles in twelve 
 hours. I then went into the Haram and walked 
 round the square and changed my mind. I should 
 
AFTER THE PILGRIMAGE. 203 
 
 like to see the tomb of Mohammed, I thought, and 
 two months more of this would not kill me, and then 
 I changed my mind again, felt how sick I was of 
 it, and thought I had seen sights enough for one 
 while. Jeddah or nowhere ! 
 
 When I got to the gates of the Haram nearest 
 to our house I took out my little bag, which I kept 
 hung round my neck, to look at my money, one 
 dollar four piastres : the sight of the dollar deter- 
 mined me. Bird for Jeddah — Christianity, cleanli- 
 rLess, and something to eat; cap for Medinah — the tomb 
 of Mohammed and discomfort the worst. Up went 
 the dollar — cap — there was no getting out of it. 
 Oh ! twice out of three times, of course ; up again — 
 bird. The people about must have thought me mad. 
 I moved off a short distance, dropped my dollar on 
 the pavement and picked it up — cap. Medinah it is. 
 
 And now, reader, I must take my leave of you 
 for . the present. The rest of my career in the 
 Hejaz became one of such incredible adventure 
 that I hesitate to publish an account of it ; but 
 should the reception of my present effort encourage 
 me to do so, I can promise to put before you 
 a narrative of hairbreadth escapes and strange 
 
204 SIX MONTHS IN MEOOAH. 
 
 incidents wliicli appear marvellous even to me, 
 who has lived a life of the wildest adventure from 
 the age of twelve to twenty-five in every quarter 
 of the globe. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE LADY VENUS. 
 
 I HAVE been withholding my MS. from the pub- 
 lisher for the last eight months in the hope of 
 being able to add, in conclusion, the story of the 
 " Lady Venus ; " or, at least, to be able to assure the 
 reader of her release. But I now find that there 
 is no likelihood of her story ever being divulged, 
 which is to be regretted, as it cannot but be one 
 of intense interest. 
 
 She has had an opportunity of escape offered 
 her, of which she has refused to take advantage; so 
 that there seems nothing more to be done on her 
 account, as I think the reader will see when I 
 have shown him something of what has already 
 been done for her. 
 
 On my return to England, in the winter of 
 
206 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 1878, I told my story to a number of gentlemen 
 who liad been either long residents in India or 
 were well-known travellers in the East, and 
 through them the fact of an Englishwoman being 
 in Meccah was brought to the notice of the 
 Government authorities. The Foreign Office then 
 sent instructions to their Consul at Jeddah to send 
 a Mohammedan agent into Meccah and make 
 inquiry for the supposed captive. The inquiry 
 found my statements of her existence and locality 
 correct; but she had left Meccah a short time 
 previously for India, accompanying the family with 
 whom she had been living in Meccah. As she 
 was now no longer within the range of the 
 Foreign Office (Consular), the India Office was 
 moved to go on with the necessary inquiry, and 
 with some difficulty the lady was traced in India 
 and at last found. 
 
 Whether she is really an English lady, now 
 unwilling under her sad and painful circumstances 
 to disclose her real identity, is open to doubt. 
 The English magistrate, whose lady had two hours' 
 conversation with her, seems to have some suspicion 
 of the truth of the story now told by her. And 
 as I have been given an opportunity of reading 
 
"THE LADY VENUS." 207 
 
 that gentleman's semi-official communication on the 
 subject, I hope I shall not transgress in quoting 
 the following from it : 
 
 "Semi-Official, from the Magistrate in ivhose Dis- 
 trict the lady was found, to the Foreign Office 
 Authorities. 
 
 " I beg to say that I acted on your suggestion 
 to continue my inquiries through my wife ; but 
 finding that the required interview was on one 
 pretext or another put off, I sent for Mohammed 
 
 myself on the twenty-third instant from 
 
 D , which is about twenty-four miles from the 
 
 station, and he came next day. I at once told 
 him what I had heard about an Englishwoman 
 being under his protection, and if so I required 
 an interview between her and my wife. He 
 frankly admitted the fact, and while he said he 
 knew nothing about her he made no objection 
 whatever to bring her to the station and let my 
 wife converse with her. Accordingly, nine o'clock 
 last night was appointed, and the lady duly came 
 to my bungalow, where my wife conversed with 
 her in privacy for more than two hours. 
 
 " I enclose herewith the substance of her own story. 
 
208 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 There is no reasonable doubt that this is the lady 
 referred to by Mr. Keane ; for except the material 
 point (which she here denies) that she is an English- 
 woman who was ravished from her friends during 
 the Mutiny, forced to turn Mohammedan and 
 marry her ravisher, all other details of Mt. 
 Keane's description are found in her. And as I 
 have carefully kept all the correspondence sealed 
 and concealed from native view, it was utterly 
 impossible for her to have been prompted in 
 telling any set tale ; and, moreover, as she con- 
 versed without reserve, no suspicion could arise as 
 to the truth of her own story — except, perhaps, 
 the main point, which she may be loath to divulge, 
 and which certainly she positively denied to my 
 wife. 
 
 "The facts referred to are these. She went to 
 Meccah soon after the Mutiny. Her husband died 
 there, or at Medinah, about seven or eight years 
 ago. She supported herself at Meccah by doing 
 small needlework. She was always known as an 
 Englishwoman in Meccah. She speaks Hindi (i.e. 
 Hindustani) &nd Arabic, and used to translate English 
 letters for a native merchant. She is about forty 
 years of age (probably nearer forty-five). She was 
 
"THE LADY VENUS." 209 
 
 in straitened circumstances in Meecah. She appears 
 to be an intelligent and educated Englisliwoman. 
 She lived in Meecah in the house of Mohammed 
 
 . She had interviews with Europeans at 
 
 Meecah. She was known in Meecah to be an 
 Englishwoman turned Mohammedan. 
 
 " Finally, Mr. Keane's impression that ' she was 
 certainly ^ European, . though bronzed from long 
 exposure,' he judging from a momentary view of 
 her face when she raised her veil and shook hands 
 at parting, is corroborated by my wife, who had 
 a very long tSte-d-tSte with her in strict privacy, 
 as she has the appearance of nothing so much as 
 a reduced gentlewoman. In the face of her repeated 
 and unreserved statement it is difficult if not im- 
 possible to believe that she is an Englishwoman, 
 although fair enough to pass for one. And yet 
 her English accent is hardly at all East-Indian, 
 while her speech is so fluent and natural that it 
 is not easy to suppose that she could ever have 
 acquired English, which she seems to have learnt 
 as her mother - tongue. Could I have had five 
 minutes' conversation with her, I should probably 
 have satisfied myself as to her race ; but I had 
 promised Mohammed that I would not see 
 
210 SIX MONTHS IN MEGGAH. 
 
 her, and she herself shrank from seeing me, a 
 suggestion which my wife made to her in order to 
 settle the matter. 
 
 " Be she whoever she may, there is no doubt she 
 is very well content where she is. She is under 
 no restraint whatever, beyond such as is imposed 
 on females of her creed and country (supposing she 
 is, as she says, a native), and has nothing to com- 
 plain of; has neither friends nor relations according 
 to her own account, and is treated more as a 
 companion than as a dependant by the members 
 of Mohammed's family. 
 
 " My own impression is that her father (of whom 
 she says she knows nothing, and about whom her 
 mother would never disclose anything to her) may 
 have been an Englishman, and her mother, as she 
 says, a Kashmirin ; that she was brought up to 
 speak English from infancy until she became an 
 adult, and that in a way which her own story does 
 not account for ; that, after the Mutiny, by some 
 vicissitude of fortune over which a veil still hangs (her 
 own story to the contrary notwithstanding) she was 
 taken to Meccah, where she lived ever since tUl the 
 beginning of this year.* 
 
 * 1879. 
 
"THE LADY VENUS." 211 
 
 " It is only just to Mohammed to say that, 
 barring his putting off my wife two or three 
 times, for which probably the ladies of his family 
 were more responsible than himself, he has given 
 every assistance in his power. I believe, what he 
 says, that he never conversed with the lady herself 
 tUl I asked him to introduce her to my wife, and 
 that all that he knew about her was that the 
 Shahzadi, his stepmother, was a kind of patron of 
 hers, and called her a Feringhi * in Meccah, and 
 an Angrezint in this country. Of course I have in 
 no way intruded on the privacy of the family, the 
 lady in question, according to mutual accounts, 
 being no connection. But the fact that the lady 
 was sent for alarmed the family, and only this 
 morning Mohammed begged of me to take charge 
 of the lady, whose residence with him would at 
 any time, he thought, expose him to suspicion. I 
 assured him that there was no occasion for any 
 alarm, as he at least had done all that was required 
 of him, and I requested him to let the lady live 
 on with him as she had done for years past, which 
 he consented to do for the present at least. 
 
 * Frank. t Englishwoman. 
 
212 SIX MONTHS IN MECCAH. 
 
 "Description- of the Lady. 
 " Complexion light olive, eyes of a light colour^ 
 middle height, medium size, hair short and thin, 
 face slightly pitted with small-pox ; manner quiet 
 and self-possessed ; general appearance that of a 
 reduced gentlewoman ; speaks English remarkably 
 well, with an accent slightly East-Indian ; reads 
 and writes English and Arabic ; is said to speak 
 Hindi with a foreign accent ; age about forty-five." 
 
 Either her present statement is true, or, as some 
 think, after her sad and painful captivity and degra- 
 dation of more than twenty years, and the uncertainty 
 she may feel about finding a home and maintenance 
 open to her, she prefers to remain in her present obscu- 
 rity and seclusion. If not really English, it is difficult 
 to account for her accurate knowledge of English — 
 a language to which she has been a stranger for twenty 
 years — her manner and appearance. At all events, 
 I have fulfilled my promise made to' her in Meccah. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHAELES DICKENa AND EVAWS, 0ET8TAL PALAOH PRESS,