Part 3

Entering the “Garden” we fronted towards Meccah, prayed, recited two chapters of the Koran, and gave alms to the poor in gratitude to Allah for making it our fate to visit so holy a spot. Then we repaired to the southern front of the chamber, where there are three dwarf windows, apertures half a foot square, and placed at eye’s height from the ground. The westernmost is supposed to be opposite to the face of Mohammed, who lies on the right side, facing, as is still the Moslem custom, the House of Allah at Meccah. The central hill is that of Abubaki, the first Caliph, whose head is just behind the Prophet’s shoulder. The easternmost window is that of Omar, the second Caliph, who holds the same position with respect to Abubaki. In the same chamber, but decorously divided by a wall from the male tenants, reposes the Lady Fatimah, Mohammed’s favourite daughter. Osman, the fourth Caliph, was not buried after his assassination near his predecessors, but there is a vacant space for Isa bin Maryam when he shall return.

We stood opposite these three windows, successively, beginning with that of the Prophet, recited the blessings, which we were directed to pronounce “with awe and fear and love.” The ritual is very complicated, and the stranger must engage a guide technically called a muzawwir, or visitation-maker. He is always a son of the Holy City, and Shaykh Hamid was mine. Many a piercing eye was upon me: the people probably supposed that I was an Ajemi or Persian, and these heretics have often attempted to defile the tombs of the two Caliphs.

When the prayers were at an end, I was allowed to look through the Prophet’s window. After straining my eyes for a time, the oil lamps shedding but a dim light, I saw a narrow passage leading round the chamber. The inner wall is variously represented to be made of stone planking or unbaked bricks. One sees nothing but thin coverings, a curtain of handsome silk and cotton brocade, green, with long white letters worked into it. Upon the hangings were three inscriptions in characters of gold, informing readers that behind there lie Allah’s Prophet and the two first Caliphs. The exact place of Mohammed’s tomb is, moreover, distinguished by a large pearl rosary and a peculiar ornament, the celebrated Kankab el Durri, or constellation of pearls; it is suspended breast high to the curtain. This is described to be a “brilliant star set in diamonds and pearls” placed in the dark that man’s eye may be able to endure its splendours; the vulgar believe it to be a “jewel of the jewels of Paradise.” To me it suggested the round glassy stoppers used for the humbler sort of decanters, but then I think the same of the Koh-i-Nur.

I must allude to the vulgar story of Mohammed’s steel coffin suspended in mid-air between two magnets. The myth has won a world-wide reputation, yet Arabia has never heard of it. Travellers explain it in two ways. Niebuhr supposes it to have risen from the rude ground-plan drawings sold to strangers, and mistaken by them for elevations. William Banks believes that the work popularly described as hanging unsupported in the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem was confounded with the Prophet’s tomb at El Medinah by Christians, who until very lately could not have seen either of these Moslem shrines.

A book which I published upon the subject of my pilgrimage gives in detail my reason for believing that the site of Mohammed’s sepulture is doubtful as that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.[4] They are, briefly, these four: From the earliest days the shape of the Prophet’s tomb has never been generally known in El Islam. The accounts of the grave given by the learned are discrepant. The guardianship of the spot was long in the hands of schismatics (the Beni Husayu). And lastly, I cannot but look upon the tale of the blinding light which surrounds the Prophet’s tomb, current for ages past, and still universally believed upon the authority of attendant eunuchs who must know its falsehood as a priestly glory intended to conceal a defect.

To that book also I must refer my readers for a full description of the minor holy places at El Medinah. They are about fifty in number, and of these about a dozen are generally visited. The principal of these are, first, El Bakia (the Country of the Saints), to the east of the city; on the last day some seventy thousand, others say a hundred thousand, holy men with faces like moons shall arise from it; the second is the Apostle’s mosque at Kubas, the first temple built in El Islam; and the third is a visitation to the tomb of Mohammed’s paternal uncle, Hamzeh, the “Lord of Martyrs,” who was slain fighting for the faith in A.D. 625.

A few observations concerning the little-known capital of the Northern Hejaz may not be unacceptable.

Medinah El Nahi (the City of the Prophet) is usually called by Moslems, for brevity, El Medinah, or the City by Excellence. It lies between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth degrees of north latitude, corresponding therefore with Central Mexico; and being high raised above the sea, it may be called a _tierra temprada_. My predecessor, Burckhardt, found the water detestable. I thought it good. The winter is long and rigorous, hence partly the fair complexion of its inhabitants, who rival in turbulence and fanaticism their brethren of Meccah.

El Medinah consists of three parts――a town, a castle, and a large suburb. The population, when I visited it, ranged from sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand souls, whereas Meccah numbered forty-five thousand, and the garrison consisted of a half-battalion, or four hundred men. Mohammed’s last resting-place has some fifteen hundred hearths enclosed by a wall of granite and basalt in irregular layers cemented with lime. It is pierced with four gates: the Syrian, the Gate of Hospitality, the Friday, and the Egyptian. The two latter are fine massive buildings, with double towers like the old Norman portals, but painted with broad bands of red pillars and other flaring colours. Except the Prophet’s mosque, there are few public buildings. There are only four caravanserais, and the markets are long lines of sheds, thatched with scorched and blackened palm-leaves. The streets are what they should always be in torrid lands, dark, deep, narrow, and rarely paved; they are generally of black earth, well watered and trodden to harden. The houses appear well built for the East, of square stone, flat roofed, double storied, and enclosing spacious courtyards and small gardens, where water basins and trees and sheds “cool the eye,” as Arabs say. Latticed balconies are here universal, and the windows are mere holes in the walls provided with broad shutters. The castle has stronger defences than the town, and inside it a tall donjon tower bears, proudly enough, the banner of the Crescent and the Star. Its whitewashed lines of wall render this fortalice a conspicuous object, and guns pointing in all directions, especially upon the town, make it appear a kind of Gibraltar to the Bedouins.

For many reasons strangers become very much attached to El Medinah and there end their lives. My servant, Shaykh Nur, opined it to be a very “heavenly city.” Therefore the mass of the population is of foreign extraction.

On August 28th arrived the great Damascus caravan, which sets out from Constantinople bringing the presents of the Sublime Porte. It is the main stream which absorbs all the small currents flowing at this season of general movement from Central Asia towards the great centre of the Islamitic world, and in 1853 it numbered about seven thousand souls. It was anxiously expected at El Medinah for several reasons. In the first place, it brought with it a new curtain for the Prophet’s chamber, the old one being in a tattered condition; secondly, it had charge of the annual stipends and pensions for the citizens; and thirdly, many families had members returning under its escort to their homes. The popular anxiety was greatly increased by the disordered state of the country round about, and moreover the great caravan was a day late. The Russian war had extended its excitement even into the bowels of Arabia, and to travel eastward according to my original intention was impossible.

For a day or two we were doubtful about which road the caravan would take――the easy coast line or the difficult and dangerous eastern, or desert, route. Presently Saad the robber shut his doors against us, and we were driven perforce to choose the worse. The distance between El Medinah and Meccah by the frontier way would be in round numbers two hundred and fifty (two hundred and forty-eight) miles, and in the month of September water promised to be exceedingly scarce and bad.

I lost no time in patching up my water-skins, in laying in a store of provisions, and in hiring camels. Masad El Harbi, an old Bedouin, agreed to let me have two animals for the sum of twenty dollars. My host warned me against the treachery of the wild men, with whom it is necessary to eat salt once a day. Otherwise they may rob the traveller and plead that the salt is not in their stomachs.

Towards evening time on August 30th, El Medinah became a scene of exceeding confusion in consequence of the departure of the pilgrims. About an hour after sunset all our preparations were concluded. The evening was sultry; we therefore dined outside the house. I was told to repair to the shrine for the ziyarat el widoa, or the farewell visitation. My decided objection to this step was that we were all to part, and where to meet again we knew not. I therefore prayed a two-prostration prayer, and facing towards the haram recited the usual supplication. We sat up till 2 p.m. when, having heard no signal gun, we lay down to sleep through the hot remnant of the hours of darkness. Thus was spent my last night at the City of the Prophet.

[1] “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chap. i.

[2] _Vide_ Burton’s “Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah,” chap. iii.

[3] _Ibid._, chap. vi.

[4] “Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah,” by Richard F. Burton.

II

_THE PILGRIMAGE TO MECCAH_

On Wednesday, August 31st, 1853, I embraced my good host, Shaykh Hamid, who had taken great trouble to see me perfectly provided for the journey. Shortly after leaving El Medinah we all halted and turned to take a last farewell. All the pilgrims dismounted and gazed long and wistfully at the venerable minarets and the Prophet’s green dome――spots upon which their memories would ever dwell with a fond and yearning interest.

We hurried after the Damascus caravan, and presently fell into its wake. Our line was called the Darb el Sharki, or eastern road. It owes its existence to the piety of Zubaydah Khatun, wife of the well-known Harun el Rashid. That esteemed princess dug wells, built tanks, and raised, we are told, a wall with occasional towers between Bagdad and Meccah, to guide pilgrims over the shifting sands. Few vestiges of all this labour remained in the year of grace 1853.

Striking is the appearance of the caravan as it draggles its slow length along

The golden desert glittering through The subtle veil of beams,

as the poet of “Palm-leaves” has it. The sky is terrible in its pitiless splendours and blinding beauty while the simoon, or wind of the wild, caresses the cheek with the flaming breath of a lion. The filmy spray of sand and the upseething of the atmosphere, the heat-reek and the dancing of the air upon the baked surface of the bright yellow soil, blending with the dazzling blue above, invests the horizon with a broad band of deep dark green, and blurs the gaunt figures of the camels, which, at a distance, appear strings of gigantic birds.

There are evidently eight degrees of pilgrims. The lowest walk, propped on heavy staves; these are the itinerant coffee-makers, sherbet sellers, and tobacconists, country folks driving flocks of sheep and goats with infinite clamour and gesticulation, negroes from distant Africa, and crowds of paupers, some approaching the supreme hour, but therefore yearning the more to breathe their last in the Holy City. Then come the humble riders of laden camels, mules, and asses, which the Bedouin, who clings baboon-like to the hairy back of his animal, despises, saying:――

Honourable to the rider is the riding of the horse; But the mule is a dishonour, and a donkey a disgrace.

Respectable men mount dromedaries, or blood-camels, known by their small size, their fine limbs, and their large deer-like eyes: their saddles show crimson sheep-skins between tall metal pommels, and these are girthed over fine saddle-bags, whose long tassels of bright worsted hang almost to the ground. Irregular soldiers have picturesquely equipped steeds. Here and there rides some old Arab shaykh, preceded by his varlets performing a war-dance, compared with which the bear’s performance is graceful, firing their duck-guns in the air, or blowing powder into the naked legs of those before them, brandishing their bared swords, leaping frantically with parti-coloured rags floating in the wind, and tossing high their long spears. Women, children, and invalids of the poorer classes sit upon rugs or carpets spread over the large boxes that form the camel’s load. Those a little better off use a shibriyah, or short coat, fastened crosswise. The richer prefer shugduf panniers with an awning like a miniature tent. Grandees have led horses and gorgeously painted takhtrawan――litters like the bangué of Brazil――borne between camels or mules with scarlet and brass trappings. The vehicle mainly regulates the pilgrim’s expenses, which may vary from five pounds to as many thousands.

I will not describe the marches in detail: they much resemble those between Yambu and El Medinah. We nighted at two small villages, El Suwayrkiyah and El Suyayna, which supplied a few provisions to a caravan of seven thousand to eight thousand souls. For the most part it is a haggard land, a country of wild beasts and wilder men, a region whose very fountains murmur the warning words, “Drink and away,” instead of “Rest and be thankful.” In other places it is a desert peopled only with echoes, an abode of death for what little there is to die in it, a waste where, to use an Arab phrase, “La Siwa Hu”――“There is none but HE.” Gigantic sand columns whirl over the plains, the horizon is a sea of mirage, and everywhere Nature, flayed and scalped, discovers her skeleton to the gazer’s eye.

We passed over many ridges of rough black basalt, low plains, and basins white with nitrous salt, acacia barrens where litters were torn off the camels’ backs by the strong thorns, and domes and streets of polished rock. Now we travelled down dry torrent-beds of extreme irregularity, then we wended our way along cliffs castellated as if by men’s hand, and boulders and pillars of coarse-grained granite, sometimes thirty feet high. Quartz abounded, and the country may have contained gold, but here the superficial formation has long since been exhausted. In Arabia, as in the East Indies, the precious metal still lingers. At Cairo in 1854 I obtained good results by washing sand brought from the coast of the Red Sea north of Wijh. My plan for working was rendered abortive by a certain dictum, since become a favourite with the governing powers in England――namely, “Gold is getting too plentiful.”

Few animals except vultures and ravens meet the eye. Once, however, we enjoyed a grand spectacle. It was a large yellow lion, somewhat white about the points――a sign of age――seated in a statuesque pose upon a pedestal of precipitous rock by the wayside, and gazing upon the passing spectacle as if monarch of all he surveyed. The caravan respected the wild beast, and no one molested it. The Bedouin of Arabia has a curious custom when he happens to fall in with a lion: he makes a profound salaam, says many complimentary things, and begs his majesty not to harm a poor man with a large family. If the brute be not hungry, the wayfarer is allowed to pass on; the latter, however, is careful when returning to follow another path. “The father of roaring,” he remarks, “has repented of having missed a meal.”

On Friday, September 9th, we encamped at Zaribah, two marches, or forty-seven miles, from Meccah. This being the north-eastern limit of the sanctuary, we exchanged our everyday dress for the pilgrim garb, which is known as el ihrám, or mortification. Between the noontide and the afternoon prayers our heads were shaved, our beards and nails trimmed, and we were made to bathe. We then put on the attire which seems to be the obsolete costume of the ancient Arabs. It consists of two cotton cloths, each six feet long by three or four feet wide, white, with narrow red stripes and fringes――in fact, that adopted in the Turkish baths of London. One of these sheets is thrown over the back and is gathered at the right side, the arm being left exposed. The waistcloth extends like a belt to the knee, and, being tucked in at the waist, supports itself. The head is bared to the rabid sun, and the insteps, which must also be left naked, suffer severely.

Thus equipped, we performed a prayer of two prostrations, and recited aloud the peculiar formula of pilgrimage called Talbiyat. In Arabic it is:

_Labbayk, ’Allahumma, Labbayk! La Sharika laka. Labbayk! Jun ’al Hamda wa’ n’ Niamata laka w’ al Mulh! La Sharika laka. Labbayk!_

which I would translate thus:

_Here I am, O Allah, here am I! No partner hast thou. Here am I! Verily the praise and the grace are thine, and the kingdom! No partner hast thou. Here am I._

The director of our consciences now bade us be good pilgrims, avoiding quarrels, abusive language, light conversation, and all immorality. We must religiously respect the sanctuary of Meccah by sparing the trees and avoiding to destroy animal life, excepting, however, the “five instances,”――a crow, a kite, a rat, a scorpion, and a biting dog. We must abstain from washes and perfumes, oils, dyes, and cosmetics; we must not pare the nails nor shave, pluck or cut the hair, nor must we tie knots in our garments. We were forbidden to cover our heads with turban or umbrella, although allowed to take advantage of the shade, and ward off the sun with our hands. And for each infraction of these ordinances we were commanded to sacrifice a sheep.

The women followed our example. This alone would disprove the baseless but wide-world calumny which declares that El Islam recognises no soul in, and consequently no future for, the opposite sex. The Early Fathers of the Christian Church may have held such tenet, the Mohammedans never. Pilgrimesses exchange the lisam――that coquettish fold of thin white muslin which veils, but does not hide, the mouth――for a hideous mask of split, dried, and plaited palm-leaves pierced with bull’s-eyes to admit the light. This ugly mask is worn because the veil must not touch the features. The rest of the outer garment is a long sheet of white cotton, covering the head and falling to the heels. We could hardly help laughing when these queer ghostly figures first met our sight, and, to judge from the shaking of their shoulders, they were as much amused as we were.

In mid-afternoon we left Zaribah, and presently it became apparent that although we were forbidden to take lives of others, others were not prevented from taking _ours_. At 5 p.m. we came upon a wide, dry torrent-bed, down which we were to travel all night. It was a cut-throat place, with a stony, precipitous buttress on the right, faced by a grim and barren slope. Opposite us the way seemed to be barred by piles of hills, crest rising above crest in the far blue distance. Day still smiled upon the upper peaks, but the lower grounds and the road were already hung with sombre shade.

A damp fell upon our spirits as we neared this “Valley Perilous.” The voices of the women and children sank into deep silence, and the loud “Labbayk!” which the male pilgrims are ordered to shout whenever possible, was gradually stilled.

The cause soon became apparent. A small curl of blue smoke on the summit of the right-hand precipice suddenly caught my eye, and, simultaneously with the echoing crack of the matchlock, a dromedary in front of me, shot through the heart, rolled on the sands. The Utajbah, bravest and most lawless of the brigand tribes of the Moslem’s Holy Land, were determined to boast that on such and such a night they stopped the Sultan’s caravan one whole hour in the pass.

There ensued a scene of terrible confusion. Women screamed, children cried, and men vociferated, each one striving with might and main to urge his animal beyond the place of death. But the road was narrow and half-choked with rocks and thorny shrubs; the vehicles and animals were soon jammed into a solid and immovable mass, whilst at every shot a cold shudder ran through the huge body. Our guard, the irregular horsemen, about one thousand in number, pushed up and down perfectly useless, shouting to and ordering one another. The Pacha of the soldiers had his carpet spread near the precipice, and over his pipe debated with the officers about what should be done. No one seemed to whisper, “Crown the heights.”

Presently two or three hundred Wahhabis――mountaineers of Tebel Shammar in North-Eastern Arabia――sprang from their barebacked camels, with their elf-locks tossing in the wind, and the flaming matches of their guns casting a lurid light over their wild features. Led by the Sherif Zayd, a brave Meccan noble, who, happily for us, was present, they swarmed up the steep, and the robbers, after receiving a few shots, retired to fire upon our rear.

Our forced halt was now exchanged for a flight, and it required much tact to guide our camels clear of danger. Whoever and whatever fell, remained on the ground; that many were lost became evident from the boxes and baggage which strewed the shingles. I had no means of ascertaining our exact number of killed and wounded; reports were contradictory, and exaggeration was unanimous. The robbers were said to be one hundred and fifty in number. Besides honour and glory, they looked forward to the loot, and to a feast of dead camel.

We then hurried down the valley in the blackness of night, between ribbed precipices, dark and angry. The torch smoke and the night fires formed a canopy sable above and livid below, with lightning-flashes from the burning shrubs and grim crowds hurrying as if pursued by the Angel of Death. The scene would have suited the theatrical canvas of Doré.

At dawn we issued from the Perilous Pass into the Wady Laymun, or Valley of Limes. A wondrous contrast! Nothing can be more soothing to the brain than the rich green foliage of its pomegranates and other fruit-trees, and from the base of the southern hills bursts a babbling stream whose

_Chiare fresche e dolci acque_

flow through the garden, cooling the pure air, and filling the ear with the most delicious of melodies, the gladdest sound which nature in these regions knows.

At noon we bade adieu to the charming valley, which, since remote times, has been a favourite resort of the Meccan citizens.

At sunset we recited the prayers suited to the occasion, straining our eyes, but all in vain, to catch sight of Meccah. About 1 a.m. I was aroused by a general excitement around me.

“Meccah! Meccah!” cried some voices. “The sanctuary, oh, the sanctuary!” exclaimed others, and all burst into loud “Labbayk!” not infrequently broken by sobs. With a heartfelt “Alhamdu lillah,” I looked from my litter and saw under the chandelier of the Southern Cross the dim outlines of a large city, a shade darker than the surrounding plain.

A cool east wind met us, showing that it was raining in the Taif hills, and at times sheet lightning played around the Prophet’s birthplace――a common phenomenon, which Moslems regard as the testimony of Heaven to the sanctity of the spot.