Travels in Arabia

's Pil

ssful visit to Medina and Mecca, in the year 1853, in the disguise of a Moslem pilgrim. Although his journey was that of Burckhardt, reversed, and he descr

obtain a sufficient leave of absence from the East India Company, which only granted him a furlough of one year-a period quite insufficient for the undertaking. He therefore determined to prove at

rvishes, under the name of Shekh Abdullah, kept the severe fast of Ramazan, and familiarized himself with all the orthodox forms of ablution, prayer, and prostration. He gave himself out to be an Afghan by birth, but long absent from his native country, a character which was

Arab boat bound for Yembo. The vessel was called the Golden Wire. "Immense was the confusion," says Burton, "on the eventful day of our departure. Suppose us standing on the beach, on the morning of a fiery July day, carefully watching our hurriedly-packed goods and chattels, surrounded by a mob of idlers who are not too proud to pick up waifs and strays, while pilgrims rush about apparently mad, and friends are

ou givest victory to whom thou pleaseth, and thou art the glorious, the merciful! We pray thee for safety in our goings-forth and in our standings-still, in our words and our designs, in our dangers of temptation and doubts, and the secret designs of our hearts. Subject unto us this sea, even as thou didst subject the deep to Moses, and as thou didst subject the fire to Abraham, and as thou didst subject the iron to Dav

reached a wilder region, which Burton thus describes: "We travelled through a country fantastic in its desolation-a mass of huge hills, barren plains, and desert vales. Even the sturdy acacias here failed, and in some places the camel grass could not find earth enough to take root in. The road wound among mountains, rocks, and hills of granite, over broken ground, flanked by huge blocks and bowlders, piled up as if man's art had aided nature to disfigure herself. Vast clefts seemed like scars on the hideous face of earth; here they widened into dark caves, there they were choked up with glistening drift sand. Not a bird or a beast was to be seen or

every eye-rose in the air, and instantly afterward rang the loud, sharp cracks of the hill-men's matchlocks, echoed by the rocks on the right. My shugduf had been broken by the camel's falling during the night, so I called out to Mansur that we had better splice the frame-work with a bit of rope; he looked up, saw me laughing, and with an ejaculation of disgust disappeared. A number of Bedouins were to be seen swarming like hornets over the crests of the rocks, boys as well as men carrying huge weapons, and climbing with the agility of cats. They took up comfortable places in the cut-throat eminence, and began firing upon us with perfect convenience to themselves. The height of the hills and the glare of the rising sun prevented my seeing objects very distinctly, but my companions poi

e Mudarraj, or flight of steps over the western ridge of the so-called El-Harratain; it is holy ground, for the Prophet spoke well of it. Arrived at the top, we passed through a lane of black scoria, with deep banks on both sides, and, after a few minutes a full view of the city suddenly opened on us. We halted our beasts as if by word of command. All of us desce

d of Nedjed; on the left was a grim barrier of rocks, the celebrated Mount Ohod, with a clump of verdure and a white dome or two nestling at its base. Rightward, broad streaks of lilac-colored mists were thick with gathered dew, there pierced and thinned by the morning rays, stretched ov

that at Mecca, the approach is choked up by ignoble buildings, some actually touching the holy 'enceinte,' others separated by a lane compared with which the road around St. Paul's is a Vatican square. There is no outer front, no general aspect of the Prophet's mosque; consequently, as a building it has neither beauty nor dignity. And entering the Bab el-Rahmah-the Gate of Pity-by a diminutive flight

the upper apartments. Ejaculating 'Bismillah'-the Moslem grace-we all sat round it, and dipped equal hands in the dishes set before us. We had usually unleavened bread, different kinds of meat and vegetable stews, and at the end of the first course plain boiled rice, eaten with spoons; then came the fruits, fresh dates, grapes, and pomegranates. After dinner I used invariably to find some excuse-such as the habit of a 'Kaylúlah' (midday siesta), or the being a 'Saudawi,' or person of melancholy temperament, to have a rug spread in the dark passage, and there to lie reading, dozing, smoking, or writing, all through the worst part of the day, from noon to sunset. Then came th

unt of danger from the Bedouins, decided to leave on the fourth day afterward, taking the Desert road to Mecca, the same travelled by the Caliph Haroun El-Raschid and his wife Zobeida, instead of the longer road nearer the coast, which Burckhardt had followed. When this plan was announced,

ches between the wells obliged them sometimes to endure the greatest heat of the day. Burton says: "I can scarcely find words to express the weary horrors of a long night's march, during which the hapless traveller, fuming, if a European

ut stone, piled up so as to make a parapet. The lower part of the town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers. Inside there is a bazaar, well supplied with meat (principally mutton) by the neighboring Bedouins, and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the town. There is little to describe in the narrow streets and the mud house

to die in it-a wilderness where, to use my companion's phrase, there is nothing but He (Allah). Nature, scalped, flayed, discovered her anatomy to the gazer's eye. The horizon was a sea of mirage; gigantic sand-columns whirled over the plain; and on both sides of our road were huge piles of bare rock standing detached upo

ches, or fifty miles, from Mecca, the pilgrims were by no means safe, as the night after they left Zaribah testified. While threading a narrow pass between high rocks, in the twilight, there was a sudden discharge of musketry and some camels dropped dead. The Utaybah, hidden behind the rocks crowning the pass, po

per. Shekh Nur, exanimate with fear, could not move. The boy Mohammed ejaculated only an 'Oh, sir!' and the people around exclaimed in disgust, 'By Allah! he eats!' Shekh Abdullah, the Meccan, being a man of spirit, was amused by the spectacle. 'Are these Afghan manners

became visible, and as evening approached all eyes were strained, but in vain, for a sight of Mecca. Night came down, and the pilgrims moved slowly onward in the darkness. An hour after midnight Burton was roused by a general excitement in the caravan. "Mecca! Mecca!" cried some voices; "The Sanctuary, O the Sanctuary!" exclaimed others, and all burst into

during his stay. A meal of vermicelli and sugar was prepared on their arrival in the night, and after an hour or two of sleep they rose at daw

as in Greece and Italy, no barbaric gorgeousness as in the buildings of India; yet the view was strange, unique, and how few have looked upon the celebrated shrine! I may truly say, that, of all the worshippers who clung weeping to the curtain, or who pressed their beating hearts to the stone, none felt for the moment a deeper emotion than did

by foully abusing every Persian in his path, and the inopportune introduction of hard words into his prayers made the latter a strange patchwork. He might, for instance, be repeating 'and I take refuge with thee from ignominy in this world,' when, 'O thou rejected one, son of the rejected!' would be the interpolation addressed to some long-bearded Khorassani, 'and in that to come-O hog and brother of a hoggess!' And so he continued till I wondered that no one dared to turn and rend him. After vainly addressing the pilgrims, of whom nothing could be seen but a mosaic of occiputs and shoulder-blades, the boy Mohammed collected about half a dozen

ngelic agency to whence they came; during the three days of drying meat rapacious birds and beasts cannot prey there, and flies do not settle upon the articles of food exposed in the bazaars. Beyond the

ered more. Between Muna and Arafat I saw no less than five men fall down and die upon the highway; exhausted and moribund, they had dragged themselves out to give up the ghost where it departs to instant beatitude. The spectacle showed how easy it is to die in

of the guards that defend the unarmed pilgrims. To the eastward was the Scherif's encampment with the bright mahmals and the gilt knobs of the grander pavilions; whilst, on the southern and western sides, t

en to approach as near as possible to the Devil; it would have been easy to run over the heads of the mass. Amongst them were horsemen with rearing chargers. Bedouins on wild camels, and grandees on mules and asses, with outrunners, were breaking a way by assault and battery. I had read Ali Bey's self-felicitations upon escaping this place with 'only two wounds in the left leg,' and had duly provided myself with a hidden dagger. The precaution was not useless. Scarcely had my donkey entered the crowd than he was overthrown by a dromedary, and I found myself under the stamping and roaring beast's stomach. By a judicious use of the knife, I avoided being trampled upon, and lost no time in escaping from a place so ignobly dangerous. Finding an opening at last, we approached within about five cubits of the place, and holding each stone between the thumb and forefinger of the rin

together in any other building upon earth. The women, a dull and sombre-looking group, sat apart in their peculiar place. The Pasha stood on the roof of Zem Zem, surrounded by guards in Nizam uniform. Where the principal ulema stationed themselves the crowd was thicker; and in the more auspicious spots naught was to be seen but a pavement of heads and shoulders. Nothing seemed to move but a few dervishes, who, censer in hand, sidled through the rows and received the unsolicited alms of the faithful. Apparently in the midst, and raised above the crowd by the tall, pointed pulpit, whose gilt spire flamed in the sun, sat the preacher, an old man with snowy beard. The style o

many lands, but never-nowhere-aught so

ce caravan of returning pilgrims reached, about midnight, a mass of huts called El Hadda, which is the usual half-way halting-place. It is maintained solely for the purpose of supplying travellers with coffee and water. Here the country slopes g

ithout the Meccan boy, Mohammed, who began to have a suspicion of his true character, a