On donning this picturesque attire I returned to the Hôtel d’Orient by way of the narrow and filthy bazaars, where my attention was attracted by a band of dancers who were drawing together a crowd of sightseers of every nationality. While one man was cutting his capers in the skin of a Polar bear, a second, tambourine in hand, powdered his face to imitate a European, while a third, got up in guise of a Negro, played with a lively monkey in chains, and three dancing girls with huge artificial moles on their faces completed the company. All these, including the monkey, pranced up and down to the tune vociferated by the women and accompanied on the tambourine by the man with the white face, repeating at intervals the shrill cry of “Hullá-hee-há-há.”
As I sat within the courtyard of the Hotel, listening to the voice of the Greek prima donna who sang nightly to the assembled guests, I could not refrain from smiling within myself at the transformation in my appearance and demeanour which recalled to my memory a line of Obaid Zakani’s satire of “The Mouse and the Cat,” which runs: “Be of good cheer, comrades, the cat has become pious.” These glad tidings were spread abroad by a little mouse that, having hidden itself under the altar of a mosque at Kirmán, overheard the cat reading aloud the passage of repentance, meekly kneeling on its knees. Unfortunately the cat, the symbol of vicious cunning, broke its vows a little time after, and I wondered how far and how long I should succeed in keeping mine.
Next morning I came across a blind Arabian priest patiently waiting on the landing-stage for the departure of the steamer, and in the evening he was still in the self-same spot, kneeling on his prayer-rug and singing aloud the verses of the Kurán in a deep original Arab melody, rosary in hand. His young son was kneeling by his side, listening with downcast eyes to the never-ceasing chants of his father, who knew by heart every word of the sacred book, to say nothing of the saddening elegies of the Arabian traditionists. Like most of the singers of the East, who pour out their rhapsodies all day long in an ever-flowing torrent of melody, he was extremely monotonous, and so I sought to stem the current of his song by entering into conversation with him. On hearing from me that he would be obliged to descend into the hell of the Turkish quarantine and to remain there five days before he could hope to ascend into the pilgrim’s paradise of Mecca, a look of keen distress swept like a cloud over his enraptured countenance. Rising slowly to his feet, he raised his sightless eyes, saying: “God, if it please Him, will provide me with a swift means of transport to His city. We shall meet again.” So confident was his tone that my own misgivings yielded to the hope that I should yet overcome the difficulty of the quarantine. And soon after I was informed that all the first-class passengers on board the last pilgrim boat would be allowed to proceed to their destination without let or hindrance, but the unfortunate deck passengers would have to conform to the regulations. Never was the privilege of wealth and the curse of poverty brought home to the hearts of the weary in a more convincing fashion. The next best thing to being wealthy, I told myself, is to have the prerogatives of wealth thrust upon one.
Having had my passport viséd, I booked a berth and went on board the Khedivieh steamer, which completed the distance between Suez and Jiddah—some six hundred and forty-five nautical miles—in about eighty hours. At ordinary times these steamers are simply employed on the mail service, one of them leaving Suez for Jiddah every week—generally on Thursday—and another leaving Jiddah for Suez on the same day. Though they practically belong to a British syndicate, they go under the name of Khedivieh steamers. The captain and the chief officers are English, whereas the crew are Egyptians and Lascars. During the pilgrimage steamers run frequently between the two ports, and in the year 1902 not less than two hundred thousand pilgrims, I was told, had landed at Jiddah, the majority of whom embarked at Suez. Among these numbers must be reckoned the eighty thousand Russian subjects from the Caucasus and Central Asia, who, for the first time since they came under the Russian rule, had been granted the privilege of undertaking the ancient pilgrimage. Rumour credited them with being the main cause of the cholera that year. If only the half of what I heard about them were true their pollution would still beggar description.
The cruise in the Red Sea is not so interesting as that in the Mediterranean. Save an occasional ragged rock rising from the yellow waters, or a flight of white birds over the steamer, nothing was to be seen from hour to hour.
PREPARING TO EMBARK AT SUEZ.
When we sighted the port of Jiddah, which I shall describe by-and-by, we were told to put on our ihrám, or sacred habit, before entering the holy territory on our way to Mecca. As a preliminary, I at once removed my Arabian costume, washed my hands, up to the elbow, and my feet, up to the knees; I afterwards shaved the upper lip, leaving the fresh-grown, unsightly beard to its own fate. Then, having performed the prescribed ablution of the head, I closed my eyes and expressed, with the tongue of my heart, the earnest desire to cast off the garb of unrighteousness and pride and to put on the winding-sheet of humility and of passive obedience to God’s will. Last of all, that I might be worthy to visit His house, I prostrated myself on the prayer-rug and said aloud the following formula of devotion: “O Almighty God, Thou art without a mate; I praise Thy sovereign grace with all my heart; Thou art pure and everlasting;” then I repeated three times: “O Lord, Thou art without a mate,” adding, “I praise, O Lord, Thy apostle Muhammad and his disciples and his family; in like manner, I also praise our father Abraham and his house.” The next thing I said was: “Send down upon me, O Lord, the healthful spirit of Thy satisfaction; open unto me, I beseech Thee, the gates of Paradise, and shelter me from the fire of Hell.” And this petition I also repeated three times. I was then ready to don the sacred habit.
Now, my ihrám, which I had bought at Suez, consisted of two thin woollen wrappers and a pair of sandals. One wrapper was tied about the middle and allowed to fall all round to the ankles, while the other was thrown over the shoulders, leaving my head and the forearms bare. Both wrappers were spotlessly white, and had neither seam nor hem. The sandal was a kind of shoe, consisting of a sole fastened to the foot by means of a tie which passed between the large toe and the first toe of the foot; it left uncovered both the instep and the heel. This sacred habit was worn by all pilgrims during the four days preceding the Hájj Day. While they have it on they must neither hunt nor fowl, though they are allowed to fish—a doubtful privilege in a dry land. This precept, according to Ahmad Ebn Yûsuf, is so strictly observed that nothing will induce pilgrims to kill so much as a flea. We are told by Al Beidáwí, however, that there are some noxious animals that they have permission to kill during the pilgrimage, such animals, for instance, as kites, ravens, scorpions, mice, and dogs given to bite. Pilgrims must keep a constant watch over their words and their actions so long as they wear the sacred habit. Not a single abusive word must be uttered; all obscene discourse and all converse with women must be avoided; and not a single woman’s face must be seen, save that of a wife, a sister, or a cousin-german, i.e., a sister’s or a brother’s daughter. The men, as I have said, must now doff their sewn clothes and must keep both their faces and their heads uncovered; but the woman must be, as it were, hermetically sealed in their stitched cloaks and veils. The only part of their bodies that they have the right to expose, if they like, is the palms of their hands. For the rest, they must not travel alone, but must be accompanied by a man who may lawfully see them unveiled.
Poor pilgrims! They suffered from right and left. First came the blood-suckers’ passport picnic. Here the pilgrim was plagued to death with questions that the most cursory perusal of his safe-conduct had rendered unnecessary. “Where do you come from? When did you leave? How did you get here? What are your intentions? Why this? How that? When the other?” The poorer pilgrims complained that they were positively fleeced on the most frivolous pretexts. “Your passport is not properly written; you must pay forty-eight piastres,” and so on.