I conclude this chapter with a few remarks upon the watershed of Al-Hijaz. The country, in my humble opinion, has a compound slope, Southwards and Westwards. I have, however, little but the conviction of the modern Arabs to support the assertion that this part of Arabia declines from the North. All declare the course of water to be Southerly, and believe the fountain of Arafat to pass underground from Baghdad. The slope, as geographers know, is still a disputed point. Ritter, Jomard, and some old Arab authors, make the country rise towards the south, whilst Wallin and others express an opposite opinion. From the sea to Al-Musahhal is a gentle rise. The water-marks of the Fiumaras show that Al-Madinah is considerably above the coast, though geographers may not be correct in claiming for Jabal Radhwa a height of six thousand feet; yet that elevation is not perhaps too great for the plateau upon which stands the Apostles burial-place. From Al-Madinah to Al-Suwayrkiyah is another gentle rise, and from the latter to Al-Zaribah stagnating water denotes a level. I believe the report of a perennial lake on the eastern boundary of Al-Hijaz, as little as the river placed by Ptolemy between Yambu and Meccah. No Badawi could tell me of this feature, which, had it existed, would have changed the whole conditions and history of the [p.155] country; we know the Greeks river to be a Fiumara, and the lake probably owes its existence to a similar cause, a heavy fall of rain. Beginning at Al-Zaribah is a decided fall, which continues to the sea. The Arafat torrent sweeps from East to West with great force, sometimes carrying away the habitations, and even injuring the sanctuary.[FN#34]
[FN#1] There are certain officers called Zemzemi, who distribute the holy water. In the case of a respectable pilgrim they have a large jar of the shape described in Chap. iv., marked with his names and titles, and sent every morning to his lodgings. If he be generous, one or more will be placed in the Harim, that men may drink in his honour. The Zemzemi expects a present varying from five to eleven dollars. [FN#2] The shishah, smoked on the camel, is a tin canister divided into two compartments, the lower half for the water, the upper one for the tobacco. The cover is pierced with holes to feed the fire, and a short hookah-snake projects from one side. [FN#3] The Hindustani sir. Badawin address it slightingly to Indians, Chapter xii. [FN#4] When Indians would say he was killed upon the spot, they use the picturesque phrase, he asked not for water. [FN#5] The Arabs are curious in and fond of honey: Meccah alone affords eight or nine different varieties. The best, and in Arab parlance the coldest, is the green kind, produced by bees that feed upon a thorny plant called sihhah. The white and red honeys rank next. The worst is the Asal Asmar (brown honey), which sells for something under a piastre per pound. The Abyssinian mead is unknown in Al-Hijaz, but honey enters into a variety of dishes. [FN#6] La Siwa Hu, i.e., where there is none but Allah. [FN#7] This article, an iron cylinder with bands, mounted on a long pole, corresponds with the European cresset of the fifteenth century. The Pashas cressets are known by their smell, a little incense being mingled with the wood. By this means the Badawin discover the dignitarys place. [FN#8] Abu Sham, a familiar address in Al-Hijaz to Syrians. They are called abusers of the salt, from their treachery, and offspring of Shimr (the execrated murderer of the Imam Hosayn), because he was a native of that country. Such is the detestation in which the Shiah sect, especially the Persians, hold Syria and the Syrians, that I hardly ever met with a truly religious man who did not desire a general massacre of the polluted race. And history informs us that the plains of Syria have repeatedly been drenched with innocent blood shed by sectarian animosity. Yet Jalal al-Din (History of Jerusalem) says, As to Damascus, all learned men fully agree that it is the most eminent of cities after Meccah and Al-Madinah. Hence its many titles, the Smile of the Prophet, the Great Gate of Pilgrimage, Sham Sharif, the Right Hand of the Cities of Syria, &c., &c. And many sayings of Mohammed in honour of Syria are recorded. He was fond of using such Syriac words as Bakhun! Bakhun! to Ali, and Kakhun! Kakhun! to Hosayn. I will not enter into the curious history of the latter word, which spread to Egypt, and, slightly altered, passed through Latin mythology into French, English, German, Italian, and other modern European tongues. [FN#9] There is a regular language to camels. Ikh! ikh! makes them kneel; Yahh! Yahh! urges them on; Hai! Hai! induces caution, and so on. [FN#10] Both these names of the Almighty are of kindred origin. The former is generally used when a woman is in danger of exposing her face by accident, or an animal of falling. [FN#11] A birkat in this part of Arabia may be an artificial cistern or a natural basin; in the latter case it is smaller than a ghadir. This road was a favourite with Harun al-Rashid, the pious tyrant who boasted that every year he performed either a pilgrimage or a crusade. The reader will find in dHerbelot an account of the celebrated visit of Harun to the Holy Cities. Nor less known in Oriental history is the pilgrimage of Zubaydah Khatun (wife of Harun and mother of Amin) by this route. [FN#12] Some believe this literally, others consider it a phrase expressive of blood-thirstiness. It is the only suspicion of cannibalism, if I may use the word, now attaching to Al-Hijaz. Possibly the disgusting act may occasionally have taken place after a stern fight of more than usual rancour. Who does not remember the account of the Turkish officer licking his blood after having sabred the corpse of a Russian spy? It is said that the Mutayr and the Utaybah are not allowed to enter Meccah, even during the pilgrimage season. [FN#13] Coloquintida is here used, as in most parts of the East, medicinally. The pulp and the seeds of the ripe fruit are scooped out, and the rind is filled with milk, which is exposed to the night air, and drunk in the morning. [FN#14] Used in Arabian medicine as a refrigerant and tonic. It abounds in Sind and Afghanistan, where, according to that most practical of botanists, the lamented Dr. Stocks, it is called ishwarg. [FN#15] Here called Ashr. According to Seetzen it bears the long-sought apple of Sodom. Yet, if truth be told, the soft green bag is as unlike an apple as can be imagined; nor is the hard and brittle yellow rind of the ripe fruit a whit more resembling. The Arabs use the thick and acrid milk of the green bag with steel filings as a tonic, and speak highly of its effects; they employ it also to intoxicate or narcotise monkeys and other animals which they wish to catch. It is esteemed in Hindu medicine. The Nubians and Indians use the filaments of the fruit as tinder; they become white and shining as floss-silk. The Badawin also have applied it to a similar purpose. Our Egyptian travellers call it the Silk-tree; and in Northern Africa, where it abounds, Europeans make of it stuffing for the mattresses, which are expensive, and highly esteemed for their coolness and cleanliness. In Bengal a kind of gutta percha is made by boiling the juice. This weed, so common in the East, may one day become in the West an important article of commerce. [FN#16] Al-Ihram literally meaning prohibition or making unlawful, equivalent to our mortification, is applied to the ceremony of the toilette, and also to the dress itself. The vulgar pronounce the word heram, or lehram. It is opposed to ihlal, making lawful or returning to laical life. The further from Meccah it is assumed, provided that it be during the three months of Hajj, the greater is the religious merit of the pilgrim; consequently some come from India and Egypt in the dangerous attire. Those coming from the North assume the pilgrim-garb at or off the village of Rabigh. [FN#17] These sheets are not positively necessary; any clean cotton cloth not sewn in any part will serve equally well. Servants and attendants expect the master to present them with an ihram. [FN#18] Sandals are made at Meccah expressly for the pilgrimage: the poorer classes cut off the upper leathers of an old pair of shoes. [FN#19] This Niyat, as it is technically called, is preferably performed aloud. Some authorities, however, direct it to be meditated sotto-voce. [FN#20] Talbiyat is from the word Labbayka (here I am) in the cry Labbayk Allahumma, Labbayk! (Labbayka) La Sharika laka, Labbayk! Inna l-hamda wa l niamata laka wa l mulk! La Sharika laka, Labbayk! Some add, Here I am, and I honour thee, I the son of thy two slaves: beneficence and good are all between thy hands. A single Talbiyah is a Shart or positive condition, and its repetition is a Sunnat or Custom of the Prophet. The Talbiyat is allowed in any language, but is preferred in Arabic. It has a few varieties; the form above given is the most common. [FN#21] The object of these ordinances is clearly to inculcate the strictest observance of the truce of God. Pilgrims, however, are allowed to slay, if necessary, the five noxious, viz., a crow, a kite, a scorpion, a rat, and a biting dog. [FN#22] The victim is sacrificed as a confession that the offender deems himself worthy of death: the offerer is not allowed to taste any portion of his offering. [FN#23] The reason why this ugly must be worn, is, that a womans veil during the pilgrimage ceremonies is not allowed to touch her face. [FN#24] The Sharifs are born and bred to fighting: the peculiar privileges of their caste favour their development of pugnacity. Thus, the modern diyah, or price of blood, being 800 dollars for a common Moslem, the chiefs demand for one of their number double that sum, with a sword, a camel, a female slave, and other items; and, if one of their slaves or servants be slain, a fourfold price. The rigorous way in which this custom is carried out gives the Sharif and his retainer great power among the Arabs. As a general rule, they are at the bottom of all mischief. It was a Sharif (Hosayn bin Ali) who tore down and trampled upon the British flag at Mocha; a Sharif (Abd al-Rahman of Waht) who murdered Captain Mylne near Lahedge. A page might be filled with the names of the distinguished ruffians. [FN#25] In these lines of Labid, the Mina alluded to must not, we are warned by the scholiast, be confounded with Mina (vulg. Muna), the Valley of Victims. Ghul and Rayyan are hills close to the Wady Laymun. The passage made me suspect that inscriptions would be found among the rocks, as the scholiast informs us that men used to write upon rocks in order that their writing might remain. (De Sacys Moallaka de Lebid, p. 289.) I neither saw nor heard of any. But some months afterwards I was delighted to hear from the Abbe Hamilton that he had discovered in one of the rock monuments a lithographed proof of the presence of Sesostris (Rhameses II.). [FN#26] The balsamon of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, a corruption of the Arabic balisan or basham, by which name the Badawin know it. In the valley of the Jordan it was worth its weight in silver, and kings warred for what is now a weed. Cleopatra by a commission brought it to Egypt. It was grown at Heliopolis. The last tree died there, we are told by Niebuhr, in the early part of the seventeenth century (according to others, in A.D. 1502); a circumstance the more curious, as it was used by the Copts in chrisome, and by Europe for anointing kings. From Egypt it was carried to Al-Hijaz, where it now grows wild on sandy and stony grounds; but I could not discover the date of its naturalisation. Moslems generally believe it to have been presented to Solomon by Bilkis, Queen of Sheba. Bruce relates that it was produced at Mohammeds prayer from the blood of the Badr-Martyr. In the Gospel of Infancy (book i. ch. 8) we read,9. Hence they (Joseph and Mary) went out to that sycamore, which is now called Matarea (the modern and Arabic name for Heliopolis). 10. And in Matarea the Lord Jesus caused a well to spring forth, in which St. Mary washed his coat; 11. And a balsam is produced or grows in that country from the sweat which ran down there from the Lord Jesus. The sycamore is still shown, and the learned recognise in this ridiculous old legend the hiero-sykaminon, of pagan Egypt, under which Isis and Horus sat. Hence Sir J. Maundeville and an old writer allude reverently to the sovereign virtues of bawme. I believe its qualities to have been exaggerated, but have found it useful in dressing wounds. Burckhardt (vol. ii. p. 124) alludes to, but appears not to have seen it. The best balsam is produced upon stony hills like Arafat and Muna. In hot weather incisions are made in the bark, and the soft gum which exudes is collected in bottles. The best kind is of the consistence of honey, and yellowish-brown, like treacle. It is frequently adulterated with water, when, if my informant Shaykh Abdullah speak truth, it becomes much lighter in weight. I never heard of the vipers which Pliny mentions as abounding in these trees, and which Bruce declares were shown to him alive at Jeddah and at Yambu. Dr. Carter found the balm, under the name of Luban Dukah, among the Gara tribe of Eastern Arabia, and botanists have seen it at Aden. We may fairly question its being originally from the banks of the Jordan. [FN#27] This being one of the Muharramat, or actions forbidden to a pilgrim. At all times, say the Moslems, there are three vile trades, viz., those of the Harik al-Hajar (stone-burner), the Kati al-Shajar (tree-cutter, without reference to Hawarden, N.B.), and the Bayi al-Bashar (man-seller, vulg. Jallab). [FN#28] This attire was customary even in Al-Idrisis time. [FN#29] From India to Abyssinia the umbrella is the sign of royalty: the Arabs of Meccah and Senaa probably derived the custom from the Hindus. [FN#30] I purposely omit long descriptions of the Sharif, my fellow-travellers, Messrs. Didier and Hamilton, being far more competent to lay the subject before the public. A few political remarks may not be deemed out of place. The present Sharif, despite his civilised training at Constantinople, is, and must be a fanatic, bigoted man. He applied for the expulsion of the British Vice-Consul at Jeddah, on the grounds that an infidel should not hold position in the Holy Land. His pride and reserve have made him few friends, although the Meccans, with their enthusiastic nationality, extol his bravery to the skies, and praise him for conduct as well as for courage. His position at present is anomalous. Ahmad Pasha of Al-Hijaz rules politically as representative of the Sultan. The Sharif, who, like the Pope, claims temporal as well as spiritual dominion, attempts to command the authorities by force of bigotry. The Pasha heads the Turkish, now the ruling party. The Sharif has in his interest the Arabs and the Badawin. Both thwart each other on all possible occasions; quarrels are bitter and endless; there is no government, and the vessel of the State is in danger of being water-logged, in consequence of the squabbling between her two captains. When I was at Meccah all were in a ferment, the Sharif having, it is said, insisted upon the Pasha leaving Taif. The position of the Turks in Al-Hijaz becomes every day more dangerous. Want of money presses upon them, and reduces them to degrading measures. In February, 1853, the Pasha hired a forced loan from the merchants, and but for Mr. Coles spirit and firmness, the English proteges would have been compelled to contribute their share. After a long and animated discussion, the Pasha yielded the point by imprisoning his recusant subjects, who insisted upon Indians paying, like themselves. He waited in person with an apology upon Mr. Cole. Though established at Jeddah since 1838, the French and English Consuls, contented with a proxy, never required a return of visit from the Governor. If the Turks be frequently reduced to such expedients for the payment of their troops, they will soon be swept from the land. On the other hand, the Sharif approaches a crisis. His salary, paid by the Sultan, may be roughly estimated at £15,000 per annum. If the Turks maintain their footing in Arabia, it will probably be found that an honourable retreat at Stambul is better for the thirty-first descendant of the Prophet than the turbulent life of Meccah; or that a reduced allowance of £500 per annum would place him in a higher spiritual, though in a lower temporal position. Since the above was written the Sharif Abd al-Muttalib has been deposed. The Arabs of Al-Hijaz united in revolt against the Sultan, but after a few skirmishes they were reduced to subjection by their old ruler the Sharif bin Aun. [FN#31] Saniyat means a winding path, and Kudaa, the cut. Formerly Meccah had three gates: 1. Bab al-Maala, North-East; 2. Bab al-Umrah, or Bab al-Zahir, on the Jeddah road, West; and 3[.] Bab al-Masfal on the Yaman road. These were still standing in the twelfth century, but the walls were destroyed. It is better to enter Meccah by day and on foot; but this is not a matter of vital consequence in pilgrimage. [FN#32] It is a large whitewashed building, with extensive wooden balconied windows, but no pretensions to architectural splendour. Around it trees grow, and amongst them I remarked a young cocoa. Al-Idrisi (A.D. 1154) calls the palace Al-Marbaah. This may be a clerical error, for to the present day all know it as Al-Maabidah (pronounced Al-Mabda). The Nubian describes it as a stone castle, three miles from the town, in a palm garden. The word Maabidah, says Kutb al-Din, means a body of servants, and is applied generally to this suburb because here was a body of Badawin in charge of the Masjid al-Ijabah, a Mosque not now existing. [FN#33] I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the strange error that apparitions are unknown in Arabia. Arabs fear to sleep alone, to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during dark, and to sit amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions. And Arabia, together with Persia, has supplied half the Western world with its ghost stories and tales of angels, demons, and fairies. To quote Milton, the land is struck with superstition as with a planet. [FN#34] This is a synopsis of our marches, which, protracted on Burckhardts map, gives an error of ten miles. 1. From Al-Madinah to Ja al-Sharifah, S.E. 50° - 22 Miles 2. From Ja al-Sharifah to Ghurab, S.W. 10° - 24 Miles 3. From Ghurab to Al-Hijriyah, S.E. 22° - 25 Miles 4. From Al-Hijriyah to Al-Suwayrkiyah, S.W. 11° - 28 Miles 5. From Al-Suwayrkiyah to Al-Sufayna, S.E. 5° - 17 Miles 6. From Al-Sufayna to the Benu Mutayr, S.W. 20° - 18 Miles 7. From the Benu Mutayr to Al-Ghadir, S.W. 21° - 20 Miles 8. From Al-Ghadir to Al-Birkat, S.E. 10° - 24 Miles 9. From Al-Birkat to Al-Zaribah, S.E. 56° - 23 Miles 10.From Al-Zaribah to Wady Laymun, S.W. 50° - 24 Miles 11.From Wady Laymun to Meccah, S.E. 45° - 23 Miles Total English miles 248
[p.157]PART III.
MECCAH.
[p.159]CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FIRST VISIT TO THE HOUSE OF ALLAH.
THE boy Mohammed left me in the street, and having at last persuaded the sleepy and tired Indian porter, by violent kicks and testy answers to twenty cautious queries, to swing open the huge gate of his fortress, he rushed up stairs to embrace his mother. After a minute I heard the Zaghritah,[FN#1] Lululu, or shrill cry which in these lands welcomes the wanderer home; the sound so gladdening to the returner sent a chill to the strangers heart.
Presently the youth returned. His manner had changed from a boisterous and jaunty demeanour to one of grave and attentive courtesyI had become his guest. He led me into the gloomy hall, seated me upon a large carpeted Mastabah, or platform, and told his bara Miyan[FN#2] (great Sir), the Hindustani porter, to bring a light. [p.160] Meanwhile a certain shuffling of slippered feet above informed my ears that the Kabirah,[FN#3] the mistress of the house, was intent on hospitable thoughts. When the camels were unloaded, appeared a dish of fine vermicelli, browned and powdered with loaf sugar. The boy Mohammed, I, and Shaykh Nur, lost no time in exerting our right hands; and truly, after our hungry journey, we found the Kunafah delicious. After the meal we procured cots from a neighbouring coffee-house, and we lay down, weary, and anxious to snatch an hour or two of repose. At dawn we were expected to perform our Tawaf al-Kudum, or Circumambulation of Arrival, at the Harim.
Scarcely had the first smile of morning beamed upon the rugged head of the eastern hill, Abu Kubays,[FN#4] when we arose, bathed, and proceeded in our pilgrim-garb to the Sanctuary. We entered by the Bab al-Ziyadah, or principal northern door, descended two long flights of steps, traversed the cloister, and stood in sight of the Bayt Allah.
There at last it lay, the bourn of my long and weary Pilgrimage, realising the plans and hopes of many and many a year. The mirage medium of Fancy invested the