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down on the ground as he best might. Poor Burckhardt, with his usual bad luck, had lost his camels in the tumult of the start, and after being obliged to walk all the way, had to stretch himself on the plain with no other protection against the damp and chilly atmosphere than his scanty ihram. Before dawn of the following morning the whole hadj was aroused, and assembled around the mosque of Mezdelfe, with lighted torches, to hear another sermon from the kadhy of Mecca, who preached, as before, from daybreak to sunrise—a short interval in that latitude. After the conclusion of his discourse and the recital of a prayer, it moved from Mezdelfe to Wady Muna, distant one hour's journey from the former place.

It is at Wady Muna that the extraordinary ceremony of throwing stones at the devil, and making an expiatory sacrifice, is performed. According to belief, when Abraham was returning from the pilgrimage to Arafat, the devil Eblis presented himself before him at the entrance of the valley to obstruct his passage, when the angel Gabriel, who accompanied the patriarch, advised him to throw stones at the fiend, which he did, and after pelting him seven times, Eblis retired. Not sufficiently scared, however, the Evil One again confronted Abraham in the middle of the valley, who once more put him to flight by a shower of seven stones. Still the malignant foe was not repulsed, for he appeared a third time at the end of the valley, and it required a final volley of seven stones from the indignant father of the faithful to dislodge him, and drive him for ever from his sight. In consequence of this tradition, three pillars are erected at the different places in the valley where the devil made his stand, and at each of them every pilgrim has to throw seven stones, exclaiming as he does so, “In the name of God; God is great. We do this to secure ourselves from the devil and his troops." After this ceremony of throwing stones is completed, the sacrifice of animals commences. Not more than between six and eight thousand sheep and goats were slaughtered upon this occasion; but in the days of the caliphs, when they were accustomed to head the hadj in person, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand sheep, have been offered up in sacrifice. The animals are butchered in all parts of the valley, but the favourite spot is a smooth rock at its western extremity. The act of sacrifice is accompanied by no other ceremony than turning the victim's head towards the Kaaba, and crying out, whilst cutting its throat, "In the name of the most merciful God! Oh supreme God!" This sacrifice is in commemoration of a request said to have been made by Abraham to the Deity, for leave to offer up his son as a sacrifice, which being granted, a ram was substituted by Gabriel as he was about to plunge his knife into the body of his son. The spot is shown where this occurrence took place, on a mountain near Muna; but the Mohammedan doctors are not agreed which son was the intended victim, Isaac or Ishmael, though the

weight of authority is in favour of the latter, who is revered as the father of the Bedouin Arabs. The pilgrims remain at Muna two days longer, and on each of them renew the ceremony of throwing stones at the devil, making in the whole sixty-three stones cast by every hadji, so that in the end those missiles become scarce, especially as they are not to be above the size of a bean, and the same are used more than once, in contravention of a solemn ordinance to the contrary.

During the stay of the hadj at Muna for three days a sort of jubilee prevailed. After the sacrifice of animals, the pilgrimage is virtually concluded, and the ihram is thrown aside. Shops are fixed in rows along the valley, and articles of every description are provided in abundance. The hadjis give themselves up to rejoicing, the more heartily as they have now accomplished the arduous task which secures them for the rest of their lives a peculiar character of sanctity. On all sides, accordingly, were heard mutual congratulations, and hopes that the pilgrimage might prove acceptable to God. At night the whole valley appeared as if in a blaze, every house and tent was lighted up, the abodes of the pashas were brilliantly illuminated, and bonfires gleamed from the tops of the surrounding hills. Fireworks also were exhibited, and a multitude of rockets shot into the air. The roar of artillery, and the clang of kettle-drums, kept up a fit accompaniment to these demonstrations; and the scene would have been one of unmixed enjoyment, but for the uncleanly habits of the Orientals. The entrails of the slaughtered sheep were left to rot on the ground, and the odour of their putrefaction polluted the air, filling the nostrils with a pestilent breath.

Shortly after noon on the 12th of Zul Hadj, immediately after having discharged their last shot at the devil, the whole body of the hadjis left Muna and returned to Mecca, evincing the joy that filled their hearts by boisterous mirth, jovial songs, and animated discourse-affording a striking contrast to the gloom which marked the peregrination to Arafat. On their arrival at Mecca, it is incumbent on them forthwith to visit the Kaaba, which, in the meantime, has been covered with the new black curtain provided annually for the purpose. Here they repeat the towaf-consisting of seven perambulations-and afterwards go through the unmeaning ceremony of the say. With a subsequent visit to the Omra, and a repetition of the towaf and say, the whole duties of the pilgrimage are fulfilled. The caravans take their departure, and individual hadjis either loiter for a time at Mecca, or set out for their several destinations.

The inhabitants of Mecca contrive to glean an abundant harvest from this pilgrimage. Fees are exacted from the hadjis at every place they visit, and every rite they perform, and each locality is appropriated to separate families, who enjoy them as a sort of patrimony. Thus, in the aggregate, immense sums are

collected,* which, in addition to the extortion practised in the shape of charges for board and lodging, serve to keep them in competence for the whole year. Besides those already enumerated, there are other places in and around Mecca at which the pilgrims are expected to pray-such as the spot where Mohammed was born, those in which Fatme his daughter, and Ali his cousin, first saw the light; the tombs of Khadidji his wife, and of Umna his mother; and the mountains, Abou Kobeys, where Mohammed executed the miracle of putting the moon in his sleeve, extinguishing the sun, and thereby converting his powerful and hostile kinsmen the Koreysh; Nour, where he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who brought him a chapter of the Koran; and Thor, in which is the cavern wherein he secreted himself when pursued by his enemies, and over the mouth of which a spider spun his web. At all of these the pilgrim must make offerings; and such is the rapacity exhibited, that devout Mussulmans are shocked and disgusted, insomuch that a bad impression is left on the minds of all the hadjis, who are initiated into a system of cheating which too often forms the rule of their own subsequent conduct, whereby it has come to pass that the appellation of hadji, in most parts of the East, is considered as synonymous with that of knave. The prevalence of indecent practices, too, tends in no small degree to poison the morals of the pilgrims, who have opportunities of witnessing places the most hallowed in their faith polluted by the grossest abominations. Burckhardt relates that he has seen the Kaaba itself made the scene at nights of detestable proceedings, which were pursued without shame or censure. Hence it happens that scarcely any pilgrim escapes demoralisation: all his cherished hallucinations are dispelled, and he begins thenceforth to consider religion but as a convenient cloak for iniquity.

As Burckhardt intended to proceed to Medina, he was obliged to tarry nearly a month at Mecca, waiting to join a caravan proceeding thither. During this compulsory stay, he had occasion to observe the difference perceptible after the departure of the caravans and the bulk of the pilgrims. But a few of these were left, except of the poorest class, principally Indians and negroesthe former of whom go about as mendicants, soliciting alms to enable them to return to their homes, whereas the latter seek the same means by labour and industry. As the Arabians regard themselves in the light of a superior people, they universally refuse to perform anything like menial offices, and consequently the negroes are in great request as porters and hewers of wood,

*Burckhardt distributed thirty dollars in fees during the pilgrimage. This perhaps may be taken as a fair average of the cost, as the rich hadjis pay a great deal more, whilst the poorer ones contribute much less. Taking the number of actual pilgrims to have been 40,000, that gives a sum of 1,200,000 dollars, or £255,000 sterling, levied in the shape of offerings alone.

and being orderly and thrifty, they often acquire comparative wealth. Burckhardt every where speaks of them in terms of eulogy, and represents them as by far the most decent of the pilgrims who resort to Mecca. Meanwhile that city appeared, in comparison with the recent bustle, as if deserted. The bazaars that had been lately filled with costly merchandise were, for the most part, closed; and the streets which, but a few days ago, had been inconveniently crowded, so that it was difficult to force a passage, were abandoned to solitary stragglers, and beggars whining their piteous supplications before the windows of the houses. Many of the poor hadjis, overcome by the climate, were stretched in the porticos of the temple, ill and dying, with none to tend or care for them. The suburbs of the town were strewed with the carcasses of camels, and the offal left by the caravans in their halting-places; and every street was a dunghill of rubbish and filth, which was quietly allowed to stagnate; so that, from these combined causes, an effluvium pervaded the whole town of the most offensive and noxious description, fully accounting for the numerous diseases raging within it. And, as if this were not enough, the inhabitants select this period of the year to empty the contents of their cess-pools, which they do into holes dug in the streets before their houses, covering the receptacles with a simple layer of earth, whereby they insure themselves a perpetual miasma. They avoid, however, the pernicious practice of burying the bodies of the dead within the precincts of the city, but remove them to cemeteries at a distance.

During his prolonged sojourn Burckhardt likewise enjoyed the opportunity of gaining a clearer insight into the manners of the Meccans, or Makkawys, as he calls them. These partake of the general Oriental character, with some few peculiarities. The Arabians have been, from time immemorial, divided into two classes the Bedouins or wandering Arabs, and the settled cultivators and inhabitants of towns and villages. The native Arabians have been almost completely rooted out of Mecca; the great family of the Koreysh, so paramount in the time of Mohammed, and of which he was a member, has sunk into obscurity, and is nearly extinct; and the only survivors of the original stock are certain families of sheriffs, who derive their descent from Hassan and Hossein, the sons of Fatme, the daughter of Mohammed. These latter yet form a powerful class, having intimate relations with many of the largest Bedouin tribes, whose aid they can command, and they choose from among them the reigning sheriff, who shares with the kadhy, an officer sent annually from Constantinople, the governorship of the city. At times this sheriff has extended his sway over the whole Hedjaz; but under Mohammed Ali he exercises a very confined jurisdiction. The rest of the inhabitants are all of foreign origin, and comprise representatives from most of the states of the eastern world; but they have become gradually

amalgamated, and are scarcely distinguishable from the pure Arabians. This surplus of strangers is owing to the pilgrimage, as every year some of the hadjis remain, either from illness or through inclination, and ultimately take up their abode in the place. The depopulation of the Koreysh and other native Arabians is to be attributed to the incessant intestine feuds that prevailed amongst them, whereby, in process of time, they have been either extirpated or expatriated. Almost everybody in Mecca is more or less engaged in trade, which is carried on to a very considerable extent, as, there being no manufactories in Arabia, the country is wholly dependent on the foreign supply. The pilgrimage gives a great stimulus to commerce likewise, and many of the principal merchants have amassed large fortunes. One is mentioned by Burckhardt, of the name of Djeylany, who had establishments both at Mecca and Djidda, who was reputed to be worth £150,000 sterling. From the amount of wealth that annually flows into Mecca, Burckhardt considers it ought to have been one of the richest cities in the East, but for the dissolute habits of its inhabitants. "The generality of Mekkawys," he says, "of all descriptions and professions, are loose and disorderly spendthrifts. The great gains which they make during three or four months are squandered in good living, dress, and the grossest gratifications; and in proportion as they feel assured of the profits of the following year, they care little about saving any part of those of the present. In the month of Moharram, as soon as the hadj is over, and the greater part the pilgrims have departed, it is customary to celebrate marriage and circumcision feasts. These are celebrated at Mecca in very splendid style; and a man that has not more than three hundred dollars to spend in the year, will then throw away half that sum in the marriage or the circumcision of his child. Neither the sanctity of the holy city, nor the solemn injunctions of the Koran, are able to deter the inhabitants of Mecca from the using of spirituous liquors, and indulging in all the excesses which are the usual consequences of drunkenness. The sheriffs in Mecca and Djidda, great merchants, olemas, and all the chief people, are in the habit of drinking an Indian liquor called raky (arrack), which they persuade themselves is neither wine nor brandy, and therefore not prohibited by the law.”

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From this description, it is not surprising that the arts and sciences are very far from being in a flourishing state. Where the sole pursuit of all is gain, to be afterwards dissipated in de bauchery, learning is sure to languish; and accordingly we find the Meccans, above all other communities in the East, distin guished for ignorance. Even in the subtleties of their own religion they are unversed, concerning themselves only with the prescribed formalities; and in the mere mechanical arts they are so deficient, that when any repairs are required in the mosque workmen

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