[p.297] style, are nowhere seen; the floors of the colonnades are paved with large stones badly cemented together.
Some paved causeways lead from the colonnades towards the Kaabah, or Holy House, in the centre.[FN#9] They are of sufficient breadth to admit four or five persons to walk abreast, and they are elevated about nine inches above the ground. Between these causeways, which are covered with fine gravel or sand, grass appears growing in several places, produced by the Zem Zem water oozing out of the jars which are placed in the ground in long rows during the day.[FN#10] There is a descent of eight or ten steps from the gates on the north side into the platform of the colonnade, and of three or four steps from the gates on the south side.
Towards the middle of this area stands the Kaabah; it is 115 paces from the north colonnade, and 88 from the south. For this want of symmetry we may readily account, the Kaabah having existed prior to the Mosque, which was built around it, and enlarged at different periods. The Kaabah is an oblong massive structure, 18 paces in length, 14 in breadth, and from 35 to 40 feet in height.[FN#11] It is constructed of the grey Mekka stone, in large blocks of different sizes joined together, in a very
[p.298] rough manner, with bad cement.[FN#12] It was entirely rebuilt, as it now stands, in A.D. 1627. The torrent in the preceding year had thrown down three of its sides, and, preparatory to its re-erection, the fourth side was, according to Asamy, pulled down, after the Olemas, or learned divines, had been consulted on the question whether mortals might be permitted to destroy any part of the holy edifice without incurring the charge of sacrilege and infidelity.
The Kaabah stands upon a base two feet in height, which presents a sharp inclined plane.[FN#13] Its roof being flat, it has at a distance the appearance of a perfect cube.[FN#14] The only door which affords entrance, and which is opened but two or three times in the year,[FN#15] is on the
[p.299] north side and about seven feet above the ground.[FN#16] In the first periods of Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in A.H. 64 by Ibn Zebeyr (Zubayr), chief of Mecca, it had two doors even with the ground floor of the Mosque.[FN#17]
[p.300] The present door (which, according to Azraky, was brought hither from Constantinople in A.D. 1633), is wholly coated with silver, and has several gilt ornaments; upon its threshold are placed every night various small lighted wax candles, and perfuming pans, filled with musk, aloe-wood, &c.[FN#18]
At the north-east[FN#19] corner of the Kaabah, near the door, is the famous Black Stone[FN#20]; it forms a part of the [for p.301, see footnote 20]
[p.302] sharp angle of the building,[FN#21] at four or five feet above the ground.[FN#22] It is an irregular oval, about seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface, composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly well smoothed: it looks as if the whole had been broken into many pieces by a violent blow, and then united again. It is very difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone, which has been worn to its present surface by the million touches and kisses it has received. It appeared to me like a lava, containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance. Its colour is now a deep reddish brown, approaching to black. It is surrounded on all sides by a border composed of a substance which I took to be a close cement
[p.303] of pitch and gravel of a similar, but not quite the same, brownish colour.[FN#23] This border serves to support its detached pieces; it is two or three inches in breadth, and rises a little above the surface of the stone. Both the border and the stone itself are encircled by a silver band,[FN#24] broader below than above, and on the two sides, with a considerable swelling below, as if a part of the stone were hidden under it. The lower part of the border is studded with silver nails. In the south-east corner of the Kaabah,[FN#25] or, as the Arab call it, Rokn al-Yemany, there is another stone about five feet from the ground; it is one foot and a half in length, and two inches in breadth, placed upright, and of the common Meccah stone. This the people walking round the Kaabah touch only with the right hand; they do not kiss it.[FN#26]