6

Joseph Pitts

England

ca. 1685

One day in the summer of 1678, when piracy on the high seas was as common as carjackings in Florida today, an Algerian rowing galley accosted an English fishing boat off the Spanish coast, captured its crew, and sank the vessel. Among those taken prisoner was a fifteen-year-old hand named Joseph Pitts.

A Presbyterian cabin boy without much education, Pitts was delivered to Algiers and sold into slavery. Over the next fifteen years, he served three owners. The first was merely cruel. The second, perverse, forced Pitts to change religions. The third, benign, took him to Mecca and set him free. Returning to Exeter still in command of his English, Pitts produced an account of this fifteen-year adventure. It is one of English literature’s more curious travelogues: on the one hand, an exotic yarn of capture and escape on the Barbary Coast; on the other, an earnest Christian’s effort to disavow his conversion to Islam. It is the ingenuous account of a common man whom fate made an expert witness. The longest section, omitted here, consists of an accurate guide to the fundamentals of Muslim religious practice. Other chapters provide a vivid window on the complex world of Mediterranean piracy and slavery. Inserted into all this, a tale within the tale, is an oddly sympathetic account of an English sailor’s pilgrimage to Mecca.

These excerpts begin by sketching Pitt’s life as a slave in Algiers, continue with passages depicting his itinerary to Mecca, and contain a few sections on the city and on the Hajj. It should be pointed out that Pitts’s Mecca of the 1680s was either greatly reduced in style and comfort as compared wth the city in previous reports, or he was judging it by the standards of contemporary London. He remained in the city for four months and his account of it is credible and detailed. The selections conclude with a detailed description of his return to Egypt with the official Cairo caravan.

It will come as no surprise that Pitt’s book is studded throughout with descriptions of enslavement. Slavery in his day was a booming, lucrative, and brutal business in which every Mediterranean culture engaged. To work its vast plantations in the New World, Portugal alone had extracted a million and a half slaves by 1650 from just one of its colonies, the present-day Angola. The English were equally active in the trade, from the Gold Coast to Maryland to Jamaica. The Spanish, French, and Dutch played large roles, too, in the Caribbean and South America. Superficially, all slavery looks alike. Pitts’s description of the market in Algiers could almost stand for Norfolk, Virginia’s. Yet the workings of the two systems were quite different. For one thing, slaves in Algeria were often European, while their owners, of course, were African. Turks, Arabs, Berbers, Christians, and Jews could all own slaves in Algiers, and many did so. Households, farmlands, palaces, public shops, even the local army and navy, depended on them. Moreover, the pirate ships that brought fresh captives into port were often run by European captains who, in exchange for a market and safe harbor, paid one eighth of their profits to the Dey, the Ottoman governor. The galley that captured Joseph Pitts, for instance, had a Dutch captain, an English mate, and thirty or forty oarsmen, mostly slaves. Pitts refers to the captain as a renegado.

The status of a slave in Muslim Algiers was radically different from that of a slave in the European system, too. The unskilled poor were treated worst, of course, since a slave’s value rested on two things: potential for ransom and earning power. Ransom applied to slaves with family wealth, connections at home, or the skills to earn an income in Algiers. It was an occasional source of ready cash for owners. Because it put an end to further profits, however, slaves were more often hired out to work—in a shop, in a factory, in the military, or on a ship. With these low-paying jobs, a slave’s earnings accrued to his “patroon.” Pitts’s first owner signed him on to a pirate ship, then collected his wages.

Slaves with skills—leatherworkers, ironmongers, and so on—were commonly set up in public shops. Their owners encouraged them to ply their trades, and the relationship became one of simple business. Many a Spanish blacksmith or an Italian cabinetmaker earned his freedom this way, paying part of his profits to his patron and saving another portion for his ransom. A skilled slave was worth too much to mistreat or hem in. A literate one with a head for numbers might well be sent to work at the Dey’s palace, again to the mutual profit of slave and owner. Such a berth meant a life of ease and comfort, but it also reduced a slave’s chances of release. Under his beneficent third owner, Pitts quit excelling in a Turkish school for fear that too much success might jeopardize his future liberty. On the one hand, he tells us, he “was in a much fairer way for honor and preferment in Algiers than I could expect ever to have been in England.” On the other, he wanted his freedom.

Like the picaresque hero in a Henry Fielding novel, Pitts experienced a decade of captivity in Algiers that ran the gamut of mistreatment. His first owner merely misused and occasionally whipped him. His second, a brute with a flair for melodrama, by personally beating Pitts most of one night, forced him with a stick to “embrace” Islam. Pitts makes it clear that this treatment was a rarity in Algiers, that the man’s behavior was socially aberrant and personally compulsive.76 It is no surprise to learn that a few months later the same man was beheaded in a failed attempt to overthrow the Dey. At this point in the story, Pitts’s third owner, an elderly bachelor, turns up like an unexpected trump card and all but adopts him. He apparently planned to leave Pitts all his money and trusted him completely. He also carried him to Mecca for the Hajj.

Pitts was devoutly Christian. His forced conversion filled him with anxiety and remorse and redoubled his desire to escape. Offered liberty on returning to Algiers, he took it, but slipping the bonds of Ottoman society was not simple. It took several more years of religious masquerading, a stint in the Turkish army, and clandestine assistance from two British consuls before Pitts managed to escape. Near the end, he wrestled with temptation: to take the easier route, to return to Algiers, collect his eight months’ army pay and, perhaps in time, the estate of his ex-master. He describes this period of uncertainty as “a labyrinth of sorrows.” A month later he finally took the leap, boarded a French ship at Smyrna, and returned to England, where he remained until his death, in the 1730s.

Pitts was the first (and for many years the only) Englishman to visit Mecca and write about it. He was not, however, the only European slave to make the journey. There are earlier records of similar adventures: an anonymous report by a Portuguese slave, written in code in the margins of an Arabic book in the Vatican Library, dated 1565; a 1612 account by a German youth named Hans Wild, captured by Turks in Hungary and taken on the pilgrimage as a servant. A few years later we hear from Marco de Lombardo, a Venetian boy captured at sea and sold into slavery in Egypt, then (like Pitts) appointed as an escort on the Hajj. All returned home with eyewitness accounts of the Muslim holy cities. These few surviving records give reason to assume that many more European captives performed the Hajj but wrote nothing about it or that their records have been lost. How many more? In Pitts’s lifetime, Mecca was the least accessible spot on earth for a Western Christian. What was the ratio of authors to travelers there—one in a hundred, one in a thousand? What is the ratio of saved to lost accounts?

Pitts’s book is by far the best informed of these curious memoirs. For the work of a man coerced into apostasy, it is amazingly evenhanded. His commitment to accurate reporting is so strong that he frequently neglects to express a grudge against the society that wronged him. An antipapist and a Puritan, he approved Islam for its lack of a priesthood. He makes no secret of his disbelief in non-Christian dogma, but he seems more determined to get Islam right than to knock it. This passion for factual information is a hallmark of his age, a period of expanding trade, when Europe was seized with a need to know the world it so profitably exploited, and a time of Islamic expansion, too, when the Ottoman Empire was literally at the gates of Western Europe.

European maritime expansion quickened an interest in all things foreign, and Islam, the West’s old nemesis and neighbor, gained a lion’s share of the attention during this period. With the spread of the printing press and the waning of the Spanish Inquisition, old works from Muslim Spain began to resurface. In 1542, a Latin translation of the Quran, one that Robert of Ketton had made in Toledo in 1143, appeared in Basel, with a Protestant preface by Martin Luther. In England, at Oxford and Cambridge, other old translations, dusted off, became the foundation stones of Oriental studies. By the time of Pitts’s birth, there were twice as many European publications on Muslims as on all the tribes of Africa and the Americas combined. Even an unschooled author such as Pitts could read up enough on his subject to criticize, in footnotes, certain acknowledged authorities on Islam: “And since I came home, I have seen many books, some of which have treated of Algiers in particular, and others of the Muslim religion in general, which are stuffed with very great mistakes.”

In 1704, when it appeared, his True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mahometans was received well enough to go into several editions, one of them pirated. In the preface, Pitts apologizes for his unpolished prose and scholarship, then bases his right to speak on experience. “I question,” he writes, “whether there be a man now in England who has ever been at Mecca.” Of his book, he says, “I am sensible that I have not the abilities which are required in a person that writes such a history: Only I beg leave to say plainly, I have the most valuable qualification of the historian on my side, i.e., Truth.”

Pitts wrote a layman’s version of plain-style English prose that nonetheless succeeds by delivering direct experience in a personal tone without euphemisms. The style was already being made popular by Daniel Defoe, who, about the time that Pitts’s book appeared, was editing his much read periodical, the Review. Defoe was obsessed with tales of shipwreck and exile, and he is generally credited with ghostwriting the best book about piracy of his time. He also created new amalgamations of all the subgenres of Western travel writing—the itinerario, the wonder book, the geography, the explorer’s account, the travel liar’s fiction. Defoe possessed a large collection of travelers’ accounts in English, from which he drew new plots. It is almost inconceivable that he did not own Pitts’s book. Certainly Pitts could not have missed Defoe.

from A True and Faithful Account by Joeseph Pitts

BEING TAKEN BY THE ALGERIANS When I was about fourteen or fifteen years of age, my genius led me to be a sailor and to see foreign countries, much contrary to my mother’s mind, tho’ my father seemed to yield to my humour. Having made two or three short voyages, my fancy was to range farther abroad, for which I sufficiently suffered, as in the sequel of my story will appear.

I shipped myself on Easter Tuesday 1678 with one Mr. George Taylor, master of the Speedwell of Lymson near Exeter, bound to the Western Islands, thence to the Canaries, and so home, had God permitted. We got safe to Newfoundland and, our business being ended there, with a fair wind we set sail for Bilbao. After we had been out about forty days from Newfoundland, coming near the Coast of Spain, which we knew was the place where Algerians used to hunt for poor ships that come from the westward, we looked out sharp for ships, avoiding all we saw, but especially did we look out in the morning at sunrise and in the evening at sunset. The day on which we were taken, our mate Mr. John Milton was early at the topmast head and cried out, “A sail!” The master asked him, “Where?” “At leeward,” replied the mate, “about five or six leagues.” And so, to be brief in my relation, about midday, being almost overtaken by them, the enemy being but about a mile’s distance from us, our master said, “It will be in vain for us to make our flight any longer, seeing it will be but an hour or two e’er we shall be taken, and then probably fare the worse if we continue our flight.”

As soon as the pirate came up with us, the captain being a Dutch renegado and able to speak English, bid us hoist our boat. [This] we could not do without much trouble [because] a few days before one of our men in a great storm was washed overboard and l myself was so scalded with boiling water as to be disabled for working, so that we had but four men that were able. Therefore, before we could make half-ready to hoist our boat, they came aboard us in their own. I being but young, the enemy seemed to me as monstrous ravenous creatures, which made me cry out, “O master! I am afraid they will kill us and eat us.” “No, no, child,” said my master. “They will carry us to Algiers and sell us.”

We were the first prize they had taken for that voyage, tho’ they had been out at sea about six weeks. As for our vessel after they had taken out of her what they thought fit and necessary for their use, they sunk her. For being laden with fish, they thought it not worthwhile to carry or send her home to Algiers.

About four or five days after our being thus taken, they met with another small English ship which also came from Newfoundland with five or six men aboard. . . . And two or three days after that they espied another small English vessel, with the like number of men aboard, laden with fish and coming from New England. This vessel was . . . some leagues at windward of them, and as there was but little wind, they were out of hopes of getting up to her. They therefore used [a] cunning device: [they] hauled up their sails and hung our English king’s colours and so, appearing man-of-war-like, decoyed her down and sunk her also.

Two or three days after this, they took a fourth little English ship with four or five men aboard, laden with herring, of which they took [the] most part and then sunk her. And last of all they met with a small Dutch ship with seven men, laden partly with pipe staves, which they also sank. . . . They used a like stratagem to decoy her down: [they] put up Dutch colours. But when the Dutchman came about half a league from him and perceived him to be a Turk, he begun to loose up with all his sail but to no purpose. For e’er it was night, he was overtaken.

A SLAVE IN ALGIERS Soon after our arrival at our undesired haven, Algiers, we were carried ashore to the captain’s house and allowed nothing but a little bread and water that night. The next morning they drove us all to the Dey’s,77 or King’s, house. The Dey makes his choice and takes his pengick, that is, the eighth of part of the slaves for public use and the same part of the cargo. After which all were driven to the battistan, or marketplace, where Christians are wont to be sold. There we stand from eight in the morning till two in the afternoon and have not the least bit of bread allowed us during our stay there. Many persons are curious to come and take a view of us whilst we stand exposed to sale, and others who intend to buy, to see whether we be sound and healthy and fit for service. The taken slaves are sold by way of auction and the crier endeavours to make the most he can of them. When the bidders are at a stand, he makes use of his rhetoric: “Behold what a strongman this is! What limbs he has! He is fit for any work. And see what a pretty boy this is! No doubt his parents are very rich and able to redeem him with a great ransom.” And with many such fair speeches does he strive to raise the price. After the bidders have done bidding, the slaves are all driven again to the Dey’s house, where any that have a mind to advance above what was bidden at the battistan may. But then whatever exceeds the bidding in that place belongs not to the picaroons, or pirates, but goes to the Dey.

MY THREE OWNERS ‘Tis usually reported among us here in England that when any Christians are taken by the Algerians, they are put to extremest tortures, so that they may be brought over to the Muslim faith. But I assure the reader it is a very false report, but they very seldom use any such severities on that account, tho’ it was my hard lot be so unmercifully dealt with. They do not usually force any Christian to renounce his religion.

In Algiers, I have known some Turks who, when they have perceived their slaves inclined to turn [to the Muslim religion], have forthwith sold them. . . . For you must know that when a Christian slave turns Muslim, there can be no ransom for him, and it is looked on as an infamous thing for any patroon,78 [within a few years of their conversion] to deny them their liberty and to refuse to set them out handsomely in the world. . . . For my part I remained several years a slave after my defection, suffered a great deal of cruel usage, and then was sold again.

My first patroon would, when exercising his barbarous cruelty upon me, press me to turn Musselman,79 but all the while I did not believe that he was really willing I should do so. [He only did this so that] he might think that he discharged his duty in importuning me. [The] reason why I thought so is because I knew at that time he could hardly sustain such a loss, for not very long before he had bought a little boy of Dover who soon renounced his religion and died some years after. This cruel man I lived with about two or three months, and then he sent me to sea in one of the ships to attend upon the head gunner. . . .

We made, they said, a very indifferent voyage, for we took but one ship, a Portuguese, with eighteen slaves. We were out about two months, to my great ease and contentment. When we were returning to Algiers, my heart began to be heavy with the thoughts of entering again into my former misery, but there was no remedy but patience. But (bless be God) within a few days he sold me, and so I was out of the possession of that inhuman wretch.

My second patroon lived in the country and was called Handsome Abraham. He had several slaves, both Christians and Negroes. He [also] had two brothers in Algiers and a third in Tunis. The middle brother had designed to make a voyage to Tunis and to see his brother there and, it seems, I was bought in order to be given as a present to him. I was then clothed very fine that I might be the better accepted. On the ship there was another young Englishman with his patroon, bound also for Tunis, where he was to be redeemed by the [British] Consul at a moderate price. The next day my patroon’s brother’s son, taking pride to have a Christian to wait upon him, made me walk after him. I was ready and glad to do it, because I was desirous to see the city. [In] the streets, I met with a gentleman dressed like a Christian. . . . He looked earnestly upon me and asked me whether I was not an Englishman? I answered, “Yea.” “How came you hither?” said he. I told him I came with my patroon. “What? Are you a slave?” said he. I replied, “Yes.” “To what place do you belong?” continues he. “To Algiers,” quoth I. But he was not willing to enter into any further discourse with me in the public street. He therefore [indicated to] the young man on whom I waited that he would be pleased at such an hour of the day to bring me to his house with a promise of a hearty welcome. The young man assured him he would, for being a drinker of wine and knowing the [store] of it in the gentleman’s house, he was willing to go. . . .

My new master told me that [this] was the English consul which I was glad to hear. We went as appointed to the consul’s house, where, when he came, I was directed up to his chamber (the young spark in the meantime eating and drinking in another room). The consul asked me many questions about my country, parentage, etc., and whether I could write and understood arithmetic. I told him I could do both tolerably. . . . Upon the whole, the Consul kindly told me, if I were left in Tunis, he would order matters to my satisfaction. But if my patroon designed to carry me back again to Algiers, I should acquaint [the consul] with it. In the meantime, he bid me, if I had the liberty, to come every day to his house, where I should be welcome. This worthy gentleman’s name was Baker (I think Charles), brother to Thomas Baker, Consul of Algiers. . . .

[After my second owner died], l was in hopes that my patroona, or mistress, would now give me my freedom. But she would not and intended to sell me . . . in the country[side]. [If this had happened, I would], in all probability, have been a slave as long as I lived, for I don’t see how I could possibly have made my escape. I therefore earnestly desired that I might be sold in Algiers, which was at length granted. According to custom, I was carried three days by the crier about the streets and was bought the third time by an old bachelor. My work with him was to look after his house, dress his meat, wash his clothes, and in short to do all those things that are looked on as a servant-maid’s work in England.

I must own that I wanted nothing with him. Of meat, drink, clothes, and money I had enough. After I had lived with him about a year, he made his pilgrimage to Mecca, and carried me with him. . . . He seldom called me anything but son, and he bought a Dutch boy to do the work of the house, who attended upon me and obeyed my orders as much as his. . . . He desired me to mind my reading, in which I made a considerably proficiency, and would have me also learn to write. Understanding something of writing, I could strike the Turkish character beyond their expectations, and all in the school admired me for it. But I began to consider with myself that I should soon be a master of writing, as well as a pretty good accountant, and my patroon, being related to the then Dey, could easily get me promoted, as such usually are; and for this reason I laid aside my writing, fearing what the consequence might be. I often saw several bags of his money, a great part of which, he said, he would leave me. He would say to me, “Tho’ I was never married myself, yet you shall in a little time, and then your children shall be mine” [and will inherit]. An offer was made to me of that nature, but, I bless God, it was no temptation to me. Had I been prevailed upon to alter my condition there, I tremble to think what the issue might have been. Many more kindnesses of this, my last patroon, I could relate, for which I cannot but say I had a great love for him even as a father. But still this was not England and I wanted to be at home. . . .

THE FOUR HAJJ CARAVANS There are four caravans which come to Mecca every year, with great numbers of people in each. There is first the Maghrib caravan, which comes from the west, from the Emperor of Fez and Morocco’s country (from which parts they all go by land) and touches at Egypt, where they take in what provision will serve to Mecca and back again to Egypt. . . .

The second caravan goes from Grand Cairo in Egypt, which is joined by great multitudes, because it is better armed and they go with more safety under its protection. And it is also more pleasant, because they go everyone in order and each knows his place, so that there arise no quarrels or disputes at all on the road about precedence. With this caravan is sent the covering of the Bayt Allah, or House of God, of which I shall give a description by and by.

The third caravan is called Sham [Syrian] carawan, which brings those that come from Tartary and parts thereabouts, and also from all Turkey, Natolia, and the land of Canaan, without touching at Egypt.

The fourth is called Hind [Indian] carawan, which comes from the East Indies and brings many rich and choice goods, which are sold to all sorts of persons who resort to Mecca.

These four caravans jump all into Mecca together, there being not above three or four days’ difference in their arrival, which usually is about six or seven days before the Feast of Sacrifice. . . .

ALGIERS When a ship is going for Alexandria, it is cried about the town of Algier, where I lived, that she will sail such a day, and then everyone that designs for Mecca that year joyfully embraces the opportunity of going so far by sea, because they thereby save both a great deal of trouble and cost, which they must be at if they were forced to go by land.

You must observe that no Turks who are in pay [public employment] dare to undertake this pilgrimage without leave from the Dey, and if they exceed a year in it, how much soever it be, when they return to Algier, they must be contented with one year’s pay and lose all the rest.

That year I went from Algier to Mecca, we arrived at Alexandria in between thirty and forty days, which is reckoned to be a very good passage. In our voyage we espied a small vessel one morning, which we chased till almost night. We hung out French colours, and the chased vessel did the like but still shunned us, which made us continue our chase. When we came up with her, we found the men to be all Turks and Moors in a French vessel, who were brought from Malta and were designed to be carried to Leghorn and sold there. They told us that that very morning they were at an anchor at a certain place and most of the French crew went ashore in their boat, leaving only two men and a boy on board, upon which the slaves rose and killed the two Frenchmen and so became masters of the ship, [and] that therefore, upon our hanging out French colours, they were in a great consternation at the first, but when they knew we were Turks, they as much rejoiced as before they feared. Some of them, men, women, and children, came on board of us and would by no means be persuaded to return to the French vessel again. They steered directly for Tunis, where (we heard) they safely arrived.

At Alexandria we tarried about twenty days. . . .

THE RED SEA PASSAGE We were on this sea about a month. After we had sailed from Suez about twenty days, we came to a place where was buried ashore a marabout, i.e., a saint or one reputed eminently devout and religious, and perhaps some hundreds of years are passed since he was there interred. When we came here, one of the ship’s crew, with the consent of the rest, made a little ship, about two feet in length, and went to everyone of the pilgrims (for you must observe that if any die on the journey before they come to Mecca, they are notwithstanding ever after termed by the honourable name of hajji), desiring them to bestow their charity in honour of the said marabout, and at such a time they liberally bestow some piece of money to the said end. They then took some small wax candles, with a little bottle of oil, and put them into the ship, together with the money they had received of well-inclined people (as they said, but I am apt to think they put in but a very small part of it, if any at all, but kept it to themselves). This being done, they all held up their hands, begging the marabout’s blessing and praying that they might have a good voyage. And then they put the ship overboard into the sea, not in the least doubting of its safe arrival to the marabout, for the benefit of his sepulchre, tho’ it be a desolate place and not at all inhabited where he is said to lie interred. Poor ignorant creatures! This marabout, they have a tradition, died in his voyage towards Mecca, and therefore his memory is most highly esteemed and venerated by them. The veneration they have for these marabouts is so great that if any person who has committed murder flees to one of the little houses which are built upon their sepulchres for sanctuary, he is as safe as if he were in a convent, for none durst touch him in order to fetch him thence.

A few days after this we came to a place called Rabigh,80 about four days’ sail on this side [of ] Mecca, where all the hajjis (excepting those of the female sex) do enter into ihram, i.e., they take off all their clothes, covering themselves with two large white cotton wrappers. One they put about their middle, which reaches down to their ankles; the other they cover the upper part of the body with, except the head. And they wear no other thing on their bodies but these wrappers; only a pair of jamjamiya, i.e., thin-soled shoes (like sandals), the overleather of which covers only the toes, their insteps being all naked. In this manner, like humble penitents, they go from Rabigh till they come to Mecca to approach the temple, many times enduring the scorching heat of the sun till their very skin is burnt off their backs and arms and their heads swollen to a very great degree. Yet when any man’s health is by such austerities in danger and like to be impaired, they may lawfully put on their clothes, on condition still that when they come to Mecca, they sacrifice a sheep and give it to the poor. During the time of their wearing this mortifying habit, which is about the space of seven days, it is held unlawful for them so much as to cut their nails or to kill a louse or a flea, tho’ they see them sucking their blood; but yet if they are so troublesome that they cannot well endure it longer, ‘tis lawful for them to remove them from one place of the body to another.

During this time they are very watchful over their tempers, keep a jealous eye upon their passions, and observe a strict government of their tongues, making continual use of a form of devout expressions. And they will also be careful to be reconciled and at peace with all such as they had any difference with; accounting it a very sinful and shameful thing to bear the least malice against any. They do not shave themselves during this time.

Next we come to Jidda, the nearest seaport to Mecca, not quite one day’s journey from it, where the ships are unloaded. Here we are met by dalils81 i.e., certain persons who come from Mecca on purpose to instruct the pilgrims in the ceremonies (most of them being ignorant of them), which are to be used in their worship at the temple there, in the middle of which is a place which they call Bayt Allah, i.e., the House of God. They say that Abraham built it, to which I give no credit.

ARRIVAL AT MECCA As soon as we come to the town of Mecca, the guide carries us into the great street, which is in the midst of the town and to which the temple joins. After the camels are laid down, he first directs us to the fountains, there to take abdast,82 which being done, he brings us to the temple, into which (having left our shoes with one who constantly attends to receive them) we enter at the door called Bab al-Salaam i.e., the Welcome Gate, or Gate of Peace. After a few paces’ entrance the dalil makes a stand and holds up his hands towards the Bayt Allah (it being in the middle of the mosque), the hajjis imitating him and saying after him the same words which he speaks. At the very first sight of the Bayt Allah the hajjis melt into tears. Then we are led up to it, still speaking after the dalil; then we are led round it seven times, and then make two rakats. This being done, we are led out into the street again, where we are sometimes to run and sometimes to walk very quick with the dalil from one place of the street to the other, about a bowshot.83 And I profess I could not choose but admire to see those poor creatures so extraordinarily devout and affectionate when they were about these superstitions, and with what awe and trembling they were possessed, insomuch that I could scarce forbear shedding of tears to see their zeal, tho’ blind and idolatrous. After all this is done, we returned to the place in the street where we left our camels, with our provision and necessaries, and then look out for lodgings; where when we come, we disrobe and take off our ihram and put on our ordinary clothes again.

All the pilgrims hold it to be their great duty well to improve their time whilst they are at Mecca, not only to do their accustomed duty and devotion in the temple but to spend all their leisure time there and (as far as strength will permit) to continue at tawaf, i.e., to walk round the Bayt Allah, which is about four and twenty paces square. At one corner of the Bayt there is a black stone fastened, and framed in with silver plate, and every time they come to that corner, they kiss the stone; and having gone round seven times, they perform two rakats, or prayers. . . .

This place is so much frequented by people going round it that the place of tawaf, i.e., the circuit which they take in going round it, is seldom void of people at any time of the day or night. Many have waited several weeks, nay, months, for the opportunity of finding it so; for they say that if any person is blessed with such an opportunity, that, for his or her zeal in keeping up the honour of tawaf, let him petition what they will at the Bayt Allah, they shall be answered. Many will walk round it till they are quite weary, then rest, and at it again, carefully remembering at the end of every seventh time to perform two rakats. . . .

THE TOWN AND ITS TEMPLE I shall now give you a more particular description of Mecca and the temple there.

First, as to Mecca. It is a town situated in a barren place (about one day’s journey from the Red Sea) in a valley, or rather in the midst of many little hills. ‘Tis a place of no force, wanting both walls and gates. Its buildings are (as I said before) very ordinary, insomuch that it would be a place of no tolerable entertainment were it not for the anniversary resort of so many thousand pilgrims, on whose coming the whole dependence of the town (in a manner) is, for many shops are scarcely open all the year besides.

The people here, I observed, are a poor sort of people, very thin, lean, and swarthy. The town is surrounded for several miles with many thousands of little hills, which are very near one to the other. I have been on the top of some of them near Mecca, where I could see some miles about, but yet was not able to see the farthest of the hills. 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. Some of them are half a mile in circumference, etc., but all near of one height. . . .

There is upon the top of one of them84 a cave, which they term hira [Arabic, khira], i.e., blessing; into which (they say) Muhammad did usually retire for his solitary devotion, meditations, and fastings. And here, they believe, he had . . . [the first] part of the Quran brought him by the angel Gabriel. I have been in this cave, and observed that it is not at all beautified, at which I admired.

About half a mile out of Mecca is a very steep hill, and there are stairs made to go to the top of it, where is a cupola, under which is a cloven rock. Into this, they say, Muhammad, when very young, viz., about four years of age, was carried by the angel Gabriel, who opened his breast and took out his heart, from which he picked some black blood specks, which was his original corruption, then put it into its place again and afterward closed up the part; and that during this operation Muhammad felt no pain. Into this very place I myself went, because the rest of my company did so, and performed some rakats, as they did. . . .

As to Mecca itself, it affords little or nothing of comfortable provisions. It lies in a very hot country, insomuch that people run from one side of the streets to the other to get into the shadow, as the motion of the sun causes it. The inhabitants, especially men, do usually sleep on the tops of the houses for the air, or in the streets before their doors. Some lay the small bedding they have on a thin mat on the ground; others have a slight frame, made much like drink stalls on which we place barrels, standing on four legs, corded with palm cordage, on which they put their bedding. Before they bring out their bedding, they sweep the streets and water them. As for my own part, I usually lay open without any bed covering, on the top of the house. Only I took a linen cloth, dipped in water and, after I had wrung it, covered myself with it in the night; and when I awoke, I should find it dry. Then I would wet it again; and thus I did two or three times in a night.

Secondly, I shall next give you some account of the temple of Mecca. It has about forty-two doors to enter into it; not so much, I think, for necessity as figure, for in some places they are close by one another. The form of it [is] much resembling that of the Royal Exchange in London, but I believe it’s near ten times bigger. ‘Tis all open, and gravelled in the midst, except some paths that come from certain doors, which lead to the Bayt Allah and are paved with broad stones. The walks or cloisters all round are arched overhead and paved beneath with fine broad stone; and all round are little rooms or cells, where such dwell as give themselves up to reading, studying, and a devout life, who are much akin to their dervishes, or hermits. The dervishes are most commonly such as live an eremetic life, travelling up and down the country, like mendicants living on the charity of others, wearing a white woollen garment and a long white woollen cap (much like some of the orders of friars in the Romish Church), with a sheep or goat’s skin on their back to lie on and a long staff in their hand. When they read, they commonly sit down, putting their legs across and keeping their knees above the ground. They usually carry their beads about their arms or necks, whereas others carry them in their pockets. Many Turks, when they reform, give themselves up to a dervish sort of life. And for an instance, my second patroon had a younger brother who had lived a very debauched life; but on a sudden a great change seemed to be wrought upon him, insomuch that he let his beard grow, never shaving it, and put on his great green turban (which none presume to wear but such as are of the blood and race of Muhammad) and betook himself to the learning his alif, ba, ta, i.e., A, B, C. In a little time he attained to read very well, and spent a great part of his time in reading. Some of his old jolly companions would laugh at him for it, but he still kept on in this strict way of living, notwithstanding all their banters.

The Bayt Allah, which stands in the middle of the temple, is foursquare, about twenty-four paces each square and near twenty-four in height. ‘Tis built with great stone, all smooth and plain, without the least bit of carved work on it. ‘Tis covered all over, from top to bottom, with a thick sort of silk. Above the middle part of the covering are embroidered all round letters of gold, the meaning of which I cannot well call to mind, but I think they were some devout expressions. Each letter is near two foot in length and two inches broad. Near the lower end of this Bayt are large brass rings fastened into it, through which passes a great cotton rope, and to this the lower end of the covering is tacked. The threshold of the door that belongs to the Bayt is as high as a man can reach, and therefore, when any person enters into it, a sort of ladder stairs are brought for that purpose. The door is plated all over with silver, and there’s a covering hangs over it and reaches to the ground, which is kept turned up all the week, except Thursday night and Friday, which is their Sabbath. The said covering of the door is very thick embroidered with gold, insomuch that it weighs several score pounds. The top of the Bayt is flat, beaten with lime and sand, and there is a long gutter or spout, to carry off the water when it rains, at which time the people will run, throng, and struggle to get under the said gutter, that so the water that comes off the Bayt may fall upon them, accounting it as the dew of heaven, and looking on it as a great happiness to have it drop upon them, but if they can recover some of this water to drink, they esteem it to be yet a much greater happiness. Many poor people make it their endeavour to get some of it and present it to the hajjis, for which they are well rewarded. . . .

This Bayt Allah is opened but two days in the space of six weeks, viz., one day for the men and the next day for the women. As I was at Mecca about four months, I had the opportunity of entering into it twice—a reputed advantage which many thousands of the hajjis have not met with; for those that come by land make no longer stay at Mecca than sixteen or seventeen days. . . . Those that go into the Bayt tarry there but a very little while, viz., scarce so much as half a quarter of an hour, because others wait for the same privilege; and while some go in, others are going out. After all is over and all that will have done this, the Sultan of Mecca, who is a sharif, i.e., one of the [family] of Muhammad, accounts himself not too good to cleanse the Bayt and therefore, with some of his favourites, doth wash and cleanse it. And first of all they wash it with the holy water, Zamzam, and after that with sweet water. The stairs which were brought to enter in at the door of the Bayt being removed, the people crowd under the door to receive on them the sweeping of the said water. And the besoms wherewith the Bayt is cleansed are broken in pieces and thrown out amongst the mob, and he that gets a small stick or twig of it keeps it as a sacred relic.

Every year the covering of this Bayt Allah is renewed in Grand Cairo, by the order of the Grand Seigneur [Sultan]; and when the caravan goes with the hajjis to Mecca, then is the new covering carried upon two camels, which do no other work all the year long. It is sent out of Egypt with a great deal of rejoicing and received into Mecca with wonderful joy, many people even weeping for joy, and some kissing the very camels that carry it, bidding them welcome again and again, reaching their hands up to the covering and then smoothing down their faces. This and a great deal more they do, to show what a veneration they have for this new covering, tho’ not yet put on about the Bayt. Well may you think then what esteem they have for the Bayt Allah itself. . . . But to speak something further of the temple at Mecca, for I am willing to be very particular in matters about it, tho’ in so being I should (it may be) speak of things which by some people may be thought trivial. The compass of ground round the Bayt (where the people exercise themselves in the duty of tawaf ) is paved with marble about fifty feet in breadth, and round this marble pavement stand pillars of brass, about fifteen feet high and twenty feet distant from each other; above the middle part of which iron bars are fastened, reaching from one to the other, and several lamps made of glass are hanged to each of the said bars with brass wires in the form of a triangle, to give light in the night season. For they pay their devotions at the Bayt Allah as much by night as by day during the hajjis’ stay at Mecca. These glasses are half-filled with water and a third part with oil, on which a round wire of brass is buoyed up with three little corks. In the midst of this wire is made a place to put in the wick or cotton, which burns till the oil is spent. Every day they are washed clean and replenished with fresh water, oil, and cotton. . . .

THE HAJJ PROCESSION The Feast of Sacrifice follows two months and ten days after the Ramadan fast. The eighth day after the said two months they all enter into ihram, i.e., put on their mortifying habit again, and in that manner go to a certain hill, called Arafat, i.e., the Mountain of Knowledge; for there, they say, Adam first found and knew his wife, Eve. . . .

It was a sight, indeed, able to pierce one’s heart to behold so many thousands, in their garments of humility and mortification, with their naked heads and cheeks watered with tears, and to hear their grievous sighs and sobs, begging earnestly for the remission of their sins and promising newness of life, using a form of penitential expressions, and thus continuing for the space of four or five hours, viz., until the time of salat maghrib, which is to be performed about half an hour after sunset. . . .

After their solemn performance of their devotions thus at the mountain, they all at once receive that honourable title of hajji from the imam and are so styled to their dying day. Immediately upon their receiving this name, the trumpet is sounded and they all leave the hill and return for Mecca; and being gone two or three miles on their way, they there rest for that night. But after salat, before they go to rest, each person gathers nine and forty small stones, about the bigness of a hazel nut, the meaning of which I shall acquaint you with presently.

The next morning they move to a place called Mina. . . . Here they all pitch their tents, it being in a spacious plain, and spend the time of Id al-Adha, viz., three days. As soon as their tents are pitched and all things orderly disposed, every individual hajji, the first day, goes and throws seven of the small stones (which they had gathered) against a small pillar or little square stone building. Which action of theirs is intended to testify their defiance of the devil and his deeds, for they at the same time pronounce the following words, viz., urjum al-Shaytan wa-hizbahu, i.e., “stone the devil and them that please him.” And there are two other of the like pillars, which are situated near one another, at each of which (I mean all three) the second day they throw seven stones,85 and the same they do the third day. As I was going to perform this ceremony of throwing the stones, a facetious hajji met me. Saith he: “You may save your labour at present, if you please, for I have hit out the devil’s eyes already.”

You must observe that after they have thrown the seven stones the first day, the country people, having brought great flocks of sheep to be sold, everyone buys a sheep and sacrifices it; some of which they give to their friends, some to the poor which come out of Mecca and the country adjacent (very ragged poor), and the rest they eat themselves; after which they shave their heads, throw off ihram, and put on other clothes and then salute one another with a kiss, saying Id mubarak, i.e., “the Feast be a blessing to you.”

These three days of the Id they spend festivally, rejoicing with abundance of illuminations all night, shooting of guns, and fireworks flying in the air; for they reckon that all their sins are now done away, and that they shall, when they die, go directly to heaven, if they don’t apostatise, and that for the future, if they keep their vow and do well, God will set down for every good action ten, but if they do ill, God will likewise reckon every evil action ten; and any person who, after receiving the title of hajji, shall fall back to a vicious course of life, is esteemed to be very vile and infamous by them. Some have written that many of the hajjis, after they have returned home, have been so austere to themselves as to pore a long time over red-hot bricks or ingots of iron, and by that means willingly lose their sight, desiring to see nothing evil or profane after so sacred a sight as the temple of Mecca, but I never knew any such thing done.

During their three days’ stay at Mina scarce any hajji, unless weak or ill, but thinks it his duty to pay his visit, once at least, to the temple at Mecca. They scarce cease running all the way thitherward, showing their vehement desire to have a fresh sight of the Bayt Allah, which as soon as ever they come in sight of, they burst into tears for joy. And after having performed tawaf for a while and a few rakats, they return again to Mina. And when the three days of Id al-Adha are expired, they all, with their tents, etc., come back again to Mecca. . . .

MECCA After they are returned to Mecca, they can tarry there no longer than the stated time, which is about ten or twelve days, during which time there is a great fair held, where are sold all manner of East India goods and abundance of fine stones for rings and bracelets, etc., brought from Yemen, also of China ware and musk and a variety of other curiosities. Now is the time in which the hajjis are busily employed in buying, for they do not think it lawful to buy anything till they have received the title of hajji. Everyone almost now buys a kafan, or shroud, of fine linen to be buried in—for they never use coffins for that purpose—which might have been procured at Algiers, or their other respective homes, at a much cheaper rate, but they choose to buy it here, because they have the advantage of dipping it in the holy water, Zamzam. They are very careful to carry the said kafan with them wherever they travel, whether by sea or land, that they may be sure to be buried therein.

The evening before they leave Mecca, everyone must go to take their solemn leave of the Bayt entering in at the gate called Bab al-Salaam, i.e., Welcome Gate. And having continued at tawaf as long as they please (which many do till they are quite tired), and it being the last time of their paying their devotions to it, they do it with floods of tears, as being extremely unwilling to part and bid farewell. And having drank their fill of the water Zamzam, they go to one side of the Bayt, their backs being towards the door called by the name of Bab al-Wida, i.e., the Farewell Door, which is opposite the Welcome Door; where having performed two or three rakats, they get upon their legs and hold up their hands towards the Bayt, making earnest petitions, and then keep going backwards till they come to the above-said Farewell Gate, being guided by some or other; for they account it a very irreverent thing to turn their backs towards the Bayt when they take leave of it. All the way as they retreat, they continue petitioning, holding up their hands, with their eyes fixed upon the Bayt till they are out of sight of it; and so go to their lodgings weeping. . . .

THE CARAVAN LEAVES MECCA Having hired camels of the carriers, we set out; but we give as much for the hire of one from Mecca to Egypt (which is about forty days’ journey) as the real worth of it is, viz., about five or six pounds sterling. If it happen that the camel dies by the way, the carrier is to supply us with another, and therefore those carriers who come from Egypt to Mecca with the caravan bring with them several spare camels; for there is hardly a night passes but many die upon the road. For if a camel should chance to fall, ‘tis seldom known that it is able to rise again; and if it should, they despair of its being capable of performing the journey or ever being useful more. ‘Tis a common thing, therefore, when a camel once falls, to take off its burden and put it on another and then kill it, which the poorer sort of the company eat. I myself have eaten of camel’s flesh, and ‘tis very sweet and nourishing. . . .

The first day we set out from Mecca it was without any order at all, all hurly-burly, but the next day everyone laboured to get forward. And in order to do it, there was many times much quarrelling and fighting, but after everyone had taken his place in the caravan, they orderly and peaceably kept the same place till they came to Grand Cairo. They travel four camels in a breast, which are all tied one after the other, like as in teams. The whole body is called a caravan, which is divided into several kitars, or companies, each of which has its name and consists (it may be) of several thousand camels, and they move, one kitar after another, like distinct troops. In the head of each kitar is some great gentleman or officer, who is carried in a thing like a horse litter, borne by two camels, one before and the other behind, which is covered all over with searcloth86 and over that again with green broadcloth, and set forth very handsomely. If the said great person has a wife with him, she is carried in another of the same. In the head of every kitar there goes likewise a sumpter camel, which carries his treasure, etc. This camel has two bells, about the bigness of our market bells, hanging one on each side, the sound of which may be heard a great way off. Some other of the camels have round bells about their necks, some about their legs, like those which our carriers put about their fore horses’ necks, which, together with the servants (who belong to the camels and travel on foot) singing all night, make a pleasant noise, and the journey passes away delightfully. They say this music makes the camels brisk and lively. Thus they travel in good order every day till they come to Grand Cairo. And were it not for this order, you may guess what confusion would be amongst such a vast multitude.

They have lights by night (which is the chief time of travelling, because of the exceeding heat of the sun by day), which are carried on the tops of high poles, to direct the hajjis in their march. They are somewhat like iron stoves, into which they put short dry wood, which some of the camels are loaded with. ‘Tis carried in great sacks, which have a hole near the bottom, where the servants take it out as they see the fires need a recruit. Every kitar has one of these poles belonging to it, some of which have ten, some twelve, of these lights on their tops, or more or less. And they are likewise of different figures as well as numbers; one perhaps oval, like a gate; another triangular, or like an n or m, etc., so that everyone knows by them his respective kitar. They are carried in the front and set up in the place where the caravan is to pitch, before that comes up, at some distance from one another. They are also carried by day, not lighted, but yet by the figure and number of them the hajjis are directed to what kitar they belong, as soldiers are by their colors where to rendezvous; and without such directions it would be impossible to avoid confusion in such a vast number of people. Every day, viz., in the morning, they pitch their tents and rest several hours. When the camels are unloaded, the owners drive them to water and give them their provender, etc. So that we had nothing to do with them besides helping to load them.

As soon as our tents were pitched, my business was to make a little fire and get a pot of coffee. When we had eaten some small matter and drunk the coffee, we lay down to sleep. Between eleven and twelve we boiled something for dinner and, having dined, lay down again till about four in the afternoon, when the trumpet was sounded which gave notice to everyone to take down their tents, pack up their things, and load their camels, in order to proceed in their journey. It takes up about two hours’ time e’er they are all in their places again. At the time of [the] two evening prayers, they make a halt and perform their salat (so punctual are they in their worship), and then they travel till next morning. If water be scarce, what I call an imaginary wudu’87 will do. As for ancient men, it being very troublesome for them to alight off the camels and get up again, ‘tis lawful for them to defer these two times of prayer till the next day, but they will be sure to perform it then.

As for provisions, we bring enough out of Egypt to suffice us till we return thither again. At Mecca we compute how much will serve us for one day and, consequently, for the forty days’ journey to Egypt; and if we find we have more than we may well guess will suffice us for so long a time, we sell the overplus at Mecca. There is a charity, maintained by the Grand Seignieur, for water to refresh the poor who travel on foot all the way; for there are many such undertake this journey or pilgrimage without any money, relying on the charity of the hajjis for subsistence, knowing that they largely extend it at such a time.

Every hajji carries his provisions, water, bedding, etc., with him, and usually three or four diet together, and sometimes discharge a poor man’s expenses the whole journey for his attendance on them. There was an Irish renegado who was taken very young, insomuch that he had not only lost his Christian religion but his native language also. This man had [later] endured thirty years’ slavery in Spain and in the French galley, but was afterwards redeemed and came home to Algiers. He was looked upon as a very pious man and a great zealot by the Turks, for his not turning from the Muslim faith, notwithstanding the great temptations he had so to do. Some of my neighbours, who intended for Mecca the same year I went with my patroon thither, offered this renegado that if he would serve them on this journey, they would defray his charges throughout. He gladly embraced the offer; and I remember, when we arrived at Mecca, he passionately told me that God had delivered him out of a hell upon Earth, meaning his former slavery in France and Spain, and had brought him into a heaven upon earth, viz., Mecca. I admired much his zeal, but pitied his condition.

Their water they carry in goatskins, which they fasten to one side of their camels. It sometimes happens that no water is to be met with for two, three, or more days; but yet it is well-known that a camel is a creature that can live long without drinking; God in his wise providence so ordering it, for otherwise it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to travel through the parched deserts of Arabia. Every tent’s company have their convenient place for easing nature, viz., four long poles fixed square, about three or four feet distance from each other, which is hung round with canvas. . . .

In this journey many times the skulking, thievish Arabs do much mischief to some of the hajjis; for in the night time they’ll steal upon them, especially such as are on the outside of the caravan, and being taken to be some of the servants that belong to the carriers or owners of the camels, they are not suspected. When they see a hajji fast asleep (for it is usual for them to sleep on the road), they loose a camel, before and behind, and one of the thieves leads it away, with the hajji upon its back asleep. Another of them in the meantime pulls on the next camel, to tie it to the camel from whence the halter of the other was cut; for if that camel be not fastened again to the leading camel, it will stop, and all that are behind will then stop of course, which might be a means of discovering the robbers. When they have gotten the stolen camel, with his rider, at a convenient distance from the caravan and think themselves out of danger, they awake the hajji and sometimes destroy him immediately; but at other times, being a little more inclined to mercy, they strip him naked and let him return to the caravan. . . .

APPROACHING CAIRO When we came within seven days’ journey of Cairo, we were met by an abundance of people more, some hundreds, who came to welcome their friends and relations. But it being night, it was difficult to find those they wanted, and therefore, as the caravans passed along, they kept calling them aloud by their names, and by this means found them out. And when we were within three days’ journey of it, we had many camel loads of the water of the Nile brought us to drink. But the day and the night before we came to Cairo, thousands came out to meet us, with extraordinary rejoicing. ‘Tis thirty-seven days’ journey from Mecca to Cairo, and three days we tarry by the way, which together make up (as I said) forty days’ journey. And in all this way there is scarce any green thing to be met with, nor beast or fowl to be seen or heard, nothing but sand and stones, excepting one place which we passed by night. I suppose it was a village, where were some trees and (as we thought) gardens. We travelled through a certain valley, which is called by the name of Attash al-Wayt, i.e., the River of Fire; the vale being so excessively hot that the very water in their goatskins has sometimes been dried up with the gloomy, scorching heat. But we had the happiness to pass through it when it rained, so that the fervent heat was much allayed thereby, which the hajjis looked on as a great blessing and did not a little praise God for it.

When we came to Cairo, the plague was very hot there, insomuch that it was reported there died sixty thousand within a fortnight’s time. Wherefore we hastened away to Rosetta, and from thence to Alexandria, where in a little time there was a ship of Algiers ready to transport us thither.

The plague was hot in Alexandria at this time, and some persons infected with it being taken on board our ship, which was bound for Algiers, the plague reigned amongst us; insomuch that, besides those that recovered, we threw twenty persons overboard who died of it. And truly I was not a little afraid of the distemper and wished I were safe at Algiers, hoping that if I were got there I should escape it. But soon after we got ashore there, I was seized with it, but through the divine goodness escaped death. It rose under my arm, and the boil which usually accompanies the plague rose on my leg. After it was much swollen, I was desirous to have it lanced, but my patroon told me it was not soft enough. There was a neighbour, a Spaniard slave, who advised me to roast an onion and apply a piece of it, dipped in oil, to the swelling, to mollify it, which accordingly I did. The next day it became soft, and then my patroon had it lanced; and, through the blessing of my good God, I recovered. Such a signal mercy I hope I shall never forget, a mercy so circumstantiated, considering everything, that my soul shall thankfully call it to mind as long as I have any being; for I was just returned from Mecca when this mercy was dispensed to me. I do observe the divine providence plainly in it, and hope ever to make the best use of it.

76 Cervantes testified that he was not beaten once in his five years of captivity in Algiers. James Cathcart, an Irishman enslaved there a century after Pitts, mentions one execution of a Christian in ten years.

77 Dey: commander of the Ottoman army at Algiers, who in Pitts’s time shared authority with a civilian ruler, the Pasha. After 1710, the Dey ruled alone. [Ed.]

78 patroon: patron, or slaveowner. [Ed.]

79 Musselman: older, variant European spelling of Muslim, [Ed.]

80 Rabigh: a small seaport about halfway between Yanbu and Jibbs, and 124 miles northwest of Mecca.

81 dalil: “a guide, generally called at Mecca mutawwif.” (Sir Richard Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madinah and Mecca)

82 abdast: “the Turkish word, borrowed from the Persian, for wudu’ , the minor ablution.” (Burton, Personal Narrative)

83 This is the ceremony technically called al-saʿy, or running between Safa and Marwa. Burckhardt describes it accurately (Travels in Arabia, 174–75). (Burton, Personal Narrative)

84 One of them: “now Jabal Nur.” (Burton, Personal Narrative)

85 The three pillars “mark the successive spots where the devil, in the shape of an old shaykh, appeared to Adam, Abraham, and Ishmael and was driven back by the simple process, taught by Gabriel, of throwing stones about the size of a bean.” (Burton, Personal Narrative, II: 203)

86 searcloth: cerecloth, that is, cloth coated with wax.

87 imaginary wudu’: “the sand ablution—lawful when water is wanted for maintaining life.” (Burton, Personal Narrative)