[4] A fourth, the "Darb-el-Sharki," or Eastern Road, has since been built by order of the wife of the famous Haroun al Raschid.
[5] Joseph Pitts, A.D. 1680, says: "Mecca is surrounded for several miles with many thousands of little hills which are very near to one another. They are all stony-rock, and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness, appearing at a distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards Mecca."
[6] Burton says the black stone is volcanic, but is thought by some to be a meteorite or aërolite. Burckhardt thought it composed of lava. Of its appearance Ali Bey says: "It is a block of volcanic basalt, whose circumference is sprinkled with little crystals, with rhombs of tile-red feldspath on a dark background like velvet or charcoal."
[7] By the latest statistics the number of Mohammedans now scattered throughout Asia, Africa, and the south-eastern part of Europe amounts to some 176,834,372.
[8] Moslems assert that upon this night Mohammed was carried through the seven heavens of which El Islam tells.
[9] The initial "A" is placed at the top of all Arabian writings. It is the initial of "Allah" and the first letter of the alphabet, and is symbolic of the origin of creation.
[10] Burton gives seven hundred.
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