8

John Lewis Burckhardt

Switzerland

1814

More is known about this author than all our previous pilgrims put together. Burckhardt’s family origins, unlike Varthema’s and al-Abbasi’s, are clear. Moreover, we understand why he performed the Hajj and to whom he reported. He was born in Lausanne in 1784 and grew up in Basel, steeped in culture and learning. Gibbon and Goethe were among his father’s guests. When the French army overran Switzerland, however, the family went into exile, and Burckhardt was sent away to school. To this he owed a lifelong hatred for Bonaparte and a corresponding loyalty to Britain. He studied history and the new sciences at Leipzig and Göttingen. He read Greek and Latin and spoke French, German, and English fluently.

Burckhardt arrived in London in 1807 at twenty-three with an introduction to the same Sir Joseph Banks whom Al-Abbasi had visited five years earlier. As president of the African Association and of the Royal Society, Banks was England’s chief patron of exploration. Their talk that winter centered on the Niger River question. Twelve years before, Mungo Park had come upon the river above Ségou and marched a hundred miles along one bank. Since then, nothing new was known about the river, most of interior Africa remained a blank, and the lucrative caravan routes that crisscrossed the continent were secret. (See Fig. 11.) One by one, Sir Joseph had sent four accomplished explorers to their death trying to chart the Niger from the west. To learn any more, he believed, they must approach the river from the opposite direction, moving southwest from Cairo through the Sudan, traveling with the Hajj caravans returning to Mali, through which the Niger flows. The key to reaching the river by pilgrim routes would be a sharp-eyed explorer capable of blending in with Muslims.

In May 1808, Burckhardt volunteered for the job. To reach Timbuktu or any town on the Niger’s banks, it was agreed that he should travel disguised as an Arab trader. Since Muslims would be his constant companions, he was first to study their language and manners in Aleppo. The appointment would run for eight years. Long terms were sensible. War, revolt, and raiders kept the Hajj caravan routes in an uproar, as al-Abassi’s account makes clear. Already chastened by disaster, Banks hoped to give Burckhardt ample time. A small sum was placed in his name at Cairo to buy goods and camels for his journey. His passage from London to Malta was prepaid, and he received a first allowance of seventy pounds. Burckhardt proposed to spend any unused funds on Arabic manuscripts, shipping them to the British Museum.

Burckhardt made his way to Aleppo and stayed two years, often at the English consul’s house, studying Arabic, translating Robinson Crusoe for practice, and collecting manuscripts. During this time, he perfected a persona, Shaykh Ibrahim Al-Barakat,97 to such a degree that he could argue Muslim law with local scholars. He traveled, too, through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, always in Arab dress, with little money, posting detailed reports to London on the true geography of the Hauran, on ancient Apamea beside the Orontes, on the first Hittite inscriptions at Hama, and on his discovery of the lost city of Petra.

Banks was impressed by Burckhardt’s work and trusted his instincts. When the explorer wrote from southern Nubia in 1813, proposing to cross the Red Sea and make the Hajj, Banks saw the logic. Rather than imitate a pilgrim returning from Mecca, Burckhardt was proposing to become one. Geographically, this meant traveling in the wrong direction for a Niger expedition, but the plan made sense. In March, with Banks’s blessing, Burckhardt struck out for the Hijaz.

If al-Abbasi witnessed the arrival of the Wahhabis in Mecca, Burckhardt reported on their ebb. In the seven intervening years, Cairo’s Pasha, Muhammad Ali, had garrisoned the Hijaz to drive them out. As the 1814 Hajj approached, his sixteen thousand troops were poised to strike. Burckhardt’s meeting with the Pasha, excerpted here, posed the final test of his masquerade. Here we see the outline of every impostor’s nightmare: a face-to-face confrontation with the powers that be. Burckhardt was at his most nimble in this encounter. He shrewdly took the Pasha’s measure, effected his escape, and went on to perform the Hajj unhindered. In Mecca, he noticed everything: the casual talk of the local people, their proverbs and cooking, the taste of the water, the desert’s geology, the town’s infrastructure and economy. He found the revenues of the Haram to be substantial. It owned income-producing properties throughout the Near East, left in trust by pious Muslims, and it also received large donations every year from wealthy hajjis, especially the Indian governors. Some of these arrangements went back centuries, but Burckhardt was the first Westerner to examine them systematically.

The effects of long-term war on the Hijaz show through in these pages. Mecca, its population, and the safety of its roads all seem reduced and under pressure. Rifle fire echoes through the rites, and Arafat is thick with soldiers. Burckhardt, loathe to miss anything, walked to Arafat among the crowds, leading two donkeys, climbed Mount Mercy, and strolled through all the camps. The details of the sacred plain, the placement of the encampments, the general mood of the pilgrims, are precisely rendered in the handful of pages included here.

Burckhardt’s achievement is all the more impressive in view of the martial backdrop all around him. As soon as the Hajj was over, war broke out, and thousands of homebound pilgrims were trapped in Mecca. Burckhardt himself took up residence in the Haram Mosque—banking that whoever won would still respect its laws of asylum. A few days later Muhammad Ali’s troops triumphed decisively. By Burckhardt’s count, five thousand Wahhabis were slaughtered in one day on the Bissal Plain. The remainder withdrew into the Nejd Desert. Only then were the pilgrims permitted to start home.

After the Hajj and a long illness in Medina, Burckhardt returned to Cairo. With Mecca behind him, he felt prepared to set out on his long-awaited Niger expedition. As he was now a well-traveled pilgrim, his Muslim credentials could not be doubted. Finally, in September 1817, the Niger caravan passed through town on its way to Mecca, and Burckhardt was able to arrange to travel back to West Africa with it in December. He was elated. In October, dysentery intervened. One week he was strolling the consular gardens, happily planning his crowning journey to the great river. The next week he lay on his deathbed. After nearly ten years of preparation for the Niger, he died in Cairo at the age of thirty-two. His grave lies south of the city’s gates, facing the trailhead of the Niger caravans.

All of Burckhardt’s seven books were published posthumously. When they finally appeared, one by one in the 1820s, they made him famous. His painstaking chapters on the Haram Mosque, which he treated as a city in itself, were issued separately, to wide acclaim. Their accuracy was such that Sir Richard Burton simply quoted whole sections in his own account of Mecca forty years later. Thomas Carlyle consulted Burckhardt, too, for his On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841). Washington Irving read him in composing his two-volume Mahomet and His Successors (1849–50), the first book about the Prophet by an American.

from John Lewis Burckhardt’s Travels in The Hijaz of Arabia

JIDDA My arrival in the Hijaz was attended with some unfavourable circumstances. On entering the town of Jidda, in the morning of the fifteenth of July 1814, I went to the house of a person on whom I had a letter of credit delivered to me at my departure from Cairo, in January 1813, when I had not yet fully resolved to extend my travels into Arabia. From this person I met with a very cold reception; the letter was thought to be of too old a date to deserve notice: indeed, my ragged appearance might have rendered anyone cautious how he committed himself with his correspondents, in paying me a large sum of money on their account. Bills and letters of credit are, besides, often trifled with in the mutual dealings of Eastern merchants, and I thus experienced a flat refusal, accompanied, however, with an offer of lodgings in the man’s house. This I accepted for the first two days, thinking that by a more intimate acquaintance I might convince him that I was neither an adventurer nor impostor; but finding him inflexible, I removed to one of the numerous public khans in the town, my whole stock of money being two dollars and a few sequins98 sewed up in an amulet which I wore on my arm. I had little time to make melancholy reflections upon my situation, for on the fourth day after my arrival I was attacked by a violent fever, occasioned, probably, by indulging too freely in the fine fruits which were then in the Jidda market, an imprudence, which my abstemious diet, for the last twelve months, rendered, perhaps, less inexcusable, but certainly of worse consequence. I was for several days delirious, and nature would probably have been exhausted had it not been for the aid of a Greek captain, my fellow passenger from Suwakin. He attended me in one of my lucid intervals and, at my request, procured a barber, or country physician, who bled me copiously, though with much reluctance, as he insisted that a potion, made up of ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon, was the only remedy adapted to my case. In a fortnight after, I had sufficiently recovered to be able to walk about, but the weakness and languor which the fever had occasioned would not yield to the damp heat of the atmosphere of the town, and I owed my complete recovery to the temperate climate of Taʾif, situated in the mountains behind Mecca, where I afterwards proceeded. . . .

The present state of the Hijaz rendered travelling through it, in the disguise of a beggar, or at least for a person of my outward appearance, impracticable; and the slow progress of my recovery made me desirous of obtaining comforts. I therefore equipped myself anew in the dress of a reduced Egyptian gentleman and immediately wrote to Cairo for a supply of money, but this I could hardly receive in less than three or four months. Being determined, however, to remain in the Hijaz until the time of the pilgrimage the following November, it became necessary for me to find the means of procuring subsistence until my funds should arrive. Had I been disappointed in all my hopes, I should then have followed the example of numbers of the poor hajjis, even those of respectable families, who earn a daily subsistence during their stay in the Hijaz by manual labour . . .

The Pasha, Muhammad Ali arrived in the Hijaz at the close of the spring of 1813 and was now resident at Taʾif, where he had established the headquarters of the army with which he intended to attack the strongholds of the Wahhabis. I had seen the Pasha several times at Cairo, before my departure for Upper Egypt, and had informed him in general terms of my travelling madness (as he afterwards jocularly termed it himself at Taʾif ). . . .

The Pasha, however, had heard of my being at Jidda, through another person in his suite whom I had seen there and who had arrived at Taʾif; and hearing that I was walking about in rags, he immediately despatched a messenger, with two dromedaries, to the collector of customs at Jidda, Sayyid Ali Odjakli, in whose hands was the management of all the affairs of the town, with an order to furnish me a suit of clothes and a purse of five hundred piastres as travelling money, accompanied with a request that I should repair immediately to Taʾif with the same messenger who had brought the letter. In a postscript, Sayyid Ali Odjakli was enjoined to order the messenger to take me by the upper road to Taʾif, which leaves Mecca to the south, the lower and more usual road passing through the middle of that town.

The invitation of a Turkish pasha is a polite command; whatever, therefore, might be my reluctance to go at this time to Taʾif, I could not avoid, under the present circumstances, complying with the Pasha’s wishes; and notwithstanding the secret aversion I had to receive a present at his hands instead of a loan, I could not refuse to accept the clothes and money without hurting the pride and exciting the resentment of a chief whose good graces it was now my principal aim to conciliate.99 I likewise understood the meaning of the postscript, although Sayyid Ali was not aware of it, but on this point I flattered myself I should be a match for the Pasha and his people.

As the invitation was very pressing, I left Jidda in the evening of the same day on which the messenger arrived, after supping with Sayyid Ali, in company with a great number of hajjis from all parts of the world; for the fast of Ramadan had already commenced, and during this month everybody displays as much hospitality and splendour as he possibly can, particularly in the supper after sunset. Distrusting in some measure the Pasha’s intentions, I thought it necessary to carry a full purse to Taʾif. . . . A person who has money has little to fear among Osmanlis, except the loss of it; but I thought that I might stand in need of what I had, either as a bribe, or to facilitate my departure from Taʾif. I was, however, fortunately mistaken in both these conjectures.

RESIDENCE AT TAʾIF I arrived at Taʾif about midday, and alighted at the house of Bosari, the Pasha’s physician, with whom I had been well acquainted at Cairo. As it was now the fast of Ramadan, during which the Turkish grandees always sleep in the daytime, the Pasha could not be informed of my arrival till after sunset. In the meanwhile, Bosari, after the usual Levantine assurances of his entire devotion to my interests and of the sincerity of his friendship, asked me what were my views in coming to the Hijaz. I answered, to visit Mecca and Medina and then to return to Cairo. Of my intention respecting Egypt he seemed doubtful, begged me to be candid with him as with a friend and to declare the truth, as he confessed that he suspected I was going to the East Indies. This I positively denied; and in the course of our conversation, he hinted that if I really meant to return to Egypt, I had better remain at headquarters with them till the Pasha himself should proceed to Cairo. . . .

In the evening Bosari went privately to the Pasha at his women’s residence, where he only received visits from friends or very intimate acquaintances. In half an hour he returned and told me that the Pasha wished to see me rather late that evening in his public room. He added that he found seated with the Pasha the Qadi of Mecca, who was then at Taʾif for his health, and that the former, when he heard of my desire to visit the Holy Cities, observed jocosely, “It is not the beard alone100 which proves a man to be a true Muslim”; but turning towards the Qadi, he said, “You are a better judge in such matters than I am.” The Qadi then observed that as none but a Muslim could be permitted to see the Holy Cities, a circumstance of which he could not possibly suppose me ignorant, he did not believe that I would declare myself to be one unless I really was. When I learnt these particulars, I told Bosari that he might return alone to the Pasha, that my feelings had already been much hurt by the orders given to my guide not to carry me through Mecca, and that I certainly should not go to the Pasha’s public audience if he would not receive me as a Muslim.

Bosari was alarmed at this declaration and in vain endeavoured to dissuade me from such a course, telling me that he had orders to conduct me to the Pasha, which he could not disobey. I however adhered firmly to what I had said, and he reluctantly went back to Muhammad Ali, whom he found alone, the Qadi having left him. When Bosari delivered his message, the Pasha smiled and answered that I was welcome, whether Muslim or not. About eight o’clock in the evening I repaired to the castle, a miserable, half-ruined habitation of Sharif Ghalib, dressed in the new suit which I had received at Jidda by the Pasha’s command. I found His Highness seated in a large saloon, with the Qadi on one hand and Hasan Pasha, the chief of the Arnaut soldiers on the other. Thirty or forty of his principal officers formed a half-circle about the sofa on which they sat, and a number of Bedouin shaykhs were squatted in the midst of the semicircle. I went up to the Pasha, gave him the “Salaam Alaykoum,” and kissed his hand. He made a sign for me to sit down by the side of the Qadi, then addressed me very politely, inquired after my health and if there was any news from the Mamluks in the black country which I had visited, but said nothing whatever on the subject most interesting to me. Amin Effendi, his Arabic dragoman, interpreted between us, as I do not speak Turkish and the Pasha speaks Arabic very imperfectly. In about five minutes he renewed the business with the Bedouins, which I had interrupted. When this was terminated and Hasan Pasha had left the room, everybody was ordered to withdraw except the Qadi, Bosari, and myself.

I expected now to be put to the proof, and I was fully prepared for it, but not a word was mentioned of my personal affairs, nor did Muhammad Ali, in any of our subsequent conversations, ever enter further into them than to hint that he was persuaded I was on my way to the East Indies. As soon as we were alone, the Pasha introduced the subject of politics. He had just received information of the entrance of the allies into Paris and the departure of Bonaparte for Elba. Several Malta gazettes, giving the details of these occurrences, had been sent to him from Cairo. He seemed deeply interested in these important events, chiefly because he laboured under the impression that after Bonaparte’s downfall, England would probably seek for an augmentation of power in the Mediterranean and consequently invade Egypt.

After remaining for two or three hours with the Pasha in private conversation, either speaking Arabic to him, through the medium of the Qadi, who, though a native of Constantinople, knew that language perfectly, or Italian, through Bosari, who was an Armenian but had acquired a smattering of that tongue at Cairo, I took my leave, and the Pasha said that he expected me again on the morrow at the same hour.

AUGUST 29 I paid a visit to the Qadi before sunset and found him with his companion and secretary, a learned man of Constantinople. The Qadi, Sadiq Effendi, was a true Eastern courtier of very engaging manners and address, possessing all that suavity of expression for which the well-bred natives of Istanbul are so distinguished. After we had interchanged a few complimentary phrases, I mentioned my astonishment on finding that the Pasha had expressed any doubts of my being a true Muslim, after I had now been a proselyte to that faith for so many years. He replied that Muhammad Ali had allowed that he (the Qadi) was the best judge in such matters and added that he hoped we should become better acquainted with each other. He then began to question me about my Nubian travels. In the course of conversation literary subjects were introduced. He asked me what Arabic books I had read and what commentaries on the Quran and on the law, and he probably found me better acquainted, with the titles, at least, of such works than he had expected, for we did not enter deeply into the subject. While we were thus conversing, the call to evening prayers announced the termination of this day’s fast. I supped with the Qadi and afterwards performed the evening prayers in his company, when I took great care to chant as long a chapter of the Quran as my memory furnished at the moment; after which we both went to the Pasha, who again sat up a part of the night in private conversation with me, chiefly on political affairs, without ever introducing the subject of my private business.

After another interview, I went every evening, first to the Qadi and then to the Pasha, but notwithstanding a polite reception at the castle, I could perceive that my actions were closely watched. Bosari had asked me if I kept a journal, but I answered that the Hijaz was not like Egypt, full of antiquities, and that in these barren mountains I saw nothing worthy of notice. I was never allowed to be alone for a moment, and I had reason to suspect that Bosari, with all his assurances of friendship, was nothing better than a spy. To remain at Taʾif for an indeterminate period in the situation I now found myself was little desirable, yet I could not guess the Pasha’s intentions with respect to me.

I was evidently considered in no other light than as a spy sent to this country by the English government to ascertain its present state and report upon it in the East Indies. This, I presume, was the Pasha’s own opinion: he knew me as an Englishman, a name which I assumed during my travels (I hope without any discredit to that country) whenever it seemed necessary to appear as a European, because at that time none but the subjects of England and France enjoyed in the East any real security: they were considered as too well protected, both by their governments at home and their ministers at Constantinople, to be trifled with by provincial governors. The Pasha, moreover, supposed me to be a man of some rank, for every Englishman travelling in the East is styled “my lord”; and he was the more convinced of this by a certain air of dignity which it was necessary for me to assume in a Turkish court, where modesty of behaviour and affability are quite out of place. Afraid as he then was of Great Britain, he probably thought it imprudent to treat me ill, though he did nothing whatever to forward my projects. As far as he knew, I could have only the five hundred piastres which he had ordered for me at Jidda and which were not sufficient to pay my expenses for any length of time in Hijaz. Nothing was said to me either by him or Bosari of taking my bill upon Cairo, as I had requested him to do, but this favour I did not again solicit, having money enough for the present and expecting a fresh supply from Egypt.

To remain for any length of time at Taʾif, in a sort of polite imprisonment, was little to my taste, yet I could not press my departure without increasing his suspicions. This was manifest after my first interview with the Pasha and the Qadi, and I knew that the reports of Bosari might considerably influence the mind of Muhammad Ali. Under these circumstances, I thought the best course was to make Bosari tired of me and thus induce him involuntarily to forward my views. I therefore began to act at his house with all the petulance of an Osmanli. It being the Ramadan, I fasted during the day and at night demanded a supper apart; early on the following morning I called for an abundant breakfast before the fast recommenced. I appropriated to myself the best room which his small house afforded, and his servants were kept in constant attendance upon me. Eastern hospitality forbids all resentment for such behaviour; I was, besides, a great man, and on a visit to the Pasha. In my conversations with Bosari, I assured him that I felt myself most comfortably situated at Taʾif and that its climate agreed perfectly with my health, and I betrayed no desire of quitting the place for the present. To maintain a person in my character for any length of time at Taʾif, where provisions of all kinds were much dearer than in London, was a matter of no small moment, and a petulant guest is everywhere disagreeable. The design, I believe, succeeded perfectly, and Bosari endeavoured to persuade the Pasha that I was a harmless being, in order that I might be the sooner dismissed.

I had been six days at Taʾif but seldom went out, except to the castle in the evening, when Bosari asked whether my business with the Pasha was likely to prevent me much longer from pursuing my travels and visiting Mecca. I replied that I had no business with the Pasha, though I had come to Taʾif at his desire, but that my situation was very agreeable to me, possessing so warm and generous a friend as he, my host. The next day he renewed the subject and remarked that it must be tiresome to live entirely among soldiers, without any comforts or amusements, unacquainted besides, as I was, with the Turkish language. I assented to this but added that being ignorant of the Pasha’s wishes, I could determine on nothing. This brought him to the point I wished. “This being the case,” said he, “I will, if you like, speak to His Highness on the subject.” He did so in the evening, before I went to the castle, and the Pasha told me, in the course of conversation, that as he understood I wished to pass the last days of Ramadan at Mecca (a suggestion originating with Bosari), I had better join the party of the Qadi, who was going there to the feast and who would be very glad of my company. This was precisely such a circumstance as I wished for. The departure of the Qadi was fixed for the seventh of September, and I hired two asses, the usual mode of conveyance in this country, in order to follow him.

As it was my intention to proceed afterwards to Medina, where Tussan Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali, was Governor, I begged Bosari to ask the Pasha for a firman, or passport, authorising me to travel through all the Hijaz, together with a letter of recommendation to his son. In reply, Bosari told me that the Pasha did not like to interfere personally in my travels; that I might act as I pleased, on my own responsibility; and that my knowledge of the language rendered a passport unnecessary. This was equivalent to telling me, “Do what you please; I shall neither obstruct nor facilitate your projects,” which, indeed, was as much, at present, as I could well expect or desire.

On the sixth of September I took my leave of the Pasha, who told me at parting that if ever my travels should carry me to India, I might assure the English people there that he was much attached to the interests of the India trade. Early on the seventh the Qadi sent me word that he should not set out till evening, would travel during the night, and hoped to meet me at Jabal Qora, midway to Mecca. I therefore left Taʾif alone, as I had entered it, after a residence of ten days. At parting, Bosari assured me of his inviolable attachment to my interest, and I blessed my good stars when I left the precincts of the town, and the residence of a Turkish court, in which I found it more difficult to avoid danger than among the wild Bedouins of Nubia. . . .

TAʾIF TO MECCA Not far from Taʾif I overtook three Arnaut soldiers, each, like myself, mounted on an ass. At Taʾif they had exchanged their money, getting thirteen piastres of the Cairo mint for one Spanish dollar, which at Jidda was worth but eleven; they had, therefore, made a common purse of one thousand dollars and travelled from Jidda to Taʾif, whenever the road was secure, for the sake of the two piastres which they gained upon each dollar. They carried the money, sewed in bags, upon their asses; and having forgotten, perhaps, to leave out any cash for travelling expenses, they joined me, finding that my travelling sack was well stocked with provisions, and left me to pay for our joint expenses on the road whenever we stopped at the coffee huts. But they were good-humoured companions, and the expense was not thrown away.

In passing by Wadi Mohram, I assumed the ihram, as being now for the first time about to visit Mecca and its temple. . . . I arrived at Mecca about midday, when my companions went in search of their acquaintance among the soldiers and left me to shift for myself without knowing a single individual in the town and without being recommended to anybody but the Qadi, whom, as I have already said, I wished to avoid.

Whoever enters Mecca, whether pilgrim or not, is enjoined by the law to visit the temple immediately and not to attend to any worldly concern whatever before he has done so. We crossed the line of shops and houses, up to the gates of the mosque, where my ass driver took his fare and set me down. Here I was accosted by half a dozen mutawwifs, or guides to the Holy Places, who knew, from my being dressed in the ihram, that I intended to visit the Kaʿba. I chose one of them as my guide and, after having deposited my baggage in a neighbouring shop, entered the mosque at the gate called Bab al-Salaam, by which the newcomer is recommended to enter. The ceremonies to be performed in visiting the mosque are the following: 1. certain religious rites to be practised in the interior of the temple; 2. the walk between Safa and Marwa; 3. the [optional] visit to the Umra [mosque]. These ceremonies ought to be repeated by every Muslim whenever he enters Mecca from a journey farther than two days’ distance, and they must again be more particularly performed at the time of the pilgrimage to Arafat. . . .

MECCA I hired decent apartments in a quarter of the town not much frequented, called Haret al-Mesfala. I had here the advantage of several large trees growing before my windows, the verdure of which, among the barren and sunburnt rocks of Mecca, was to me more exhilarating than the finest landscape could have been under different circumstances. At this place I enjoyed an enviable freedom and independence, known only to the Qadi and his followers, who soon after took their departure. The Pasha and his court remained at Taʾif till the days of the Hajj. I frequented only such society as pleased me, and, mixing with a crowd of foreign pilgrims from all parts of the world, I was not liable to impertinent remarks or disagreeable inquiries. If any question arose about my origin (a circumstance that rarely happened in a place which always abounds with strangers), I stated myself to be a reduced member of the Mamluk corps of Egypt and found it easy to avoid those persons whose intimate knowledge of that country might perhaps have enabled them to detect the falsehood. But there was little to be apprehended even from the consequences of such detection, for the assumption of a false character is frequent among all Eastern travellers, and especially at Mecca, where everyone affects poverty in order to escape imposition or being led into great expenses. During all my journeys in the East, I never enjoyed such perfect ease as at Mecca; and I shall always retain a pleasing recollection of my residence there, although the state of my health did not permit me to benefit by all the advantages that my situation offered. . . .

Mecca may be styled a handsome town: its streets are in general broader than those of Eastern cities, the houses lofty and built of stone, and the numerous windows that face the streets give them a more lively and European aspect than those of Egypt or Syria, where the houses present but few windows towards the exterior. Mecca (like Jidda) contains many houses three storeys high. Few at Mecca are whitewashed, but the dark grey colour of the stone is much preferable to the glaring white that offends the eye in Jidda. In most towns of the Levant the narrowness of a street contributes to its coolness, and in countries where wheel carriages are not used, a space that allows two loaded camels to pass each other is deemed sufficient. At Mecca, however, it was necessary to leave the passages wide for the innumerable visitors who here crowd together, and it is in the houses adapted for the reception of pilgrims and other sojourners that the windows are so contrived as to command a view of the streets.

The city is open on every side, but the neighbouring mountains, if properly defended, would form a barrier of considerable strength against an enemy. In former times it had three walls to protect its extremities; one was built across the valley, at the street of Maʿla, another at the quarter of Shubayka, and the third at the valley opening into the Misfala. These walls were repaired in 1413 and 1425, and in a century after some traces of them still remained.

The only public place in the body of the town is the ample square of the Great Mosque. No trees or gardens cheer the eye, and the scene is enlivened only during the Hajj by the great number of well-stored shops which are found in every quarter. Except four or five large houses belonging to the sharif, two colleges (now converted into corn magazines), and the mosque, with some buildings and schools attached to it, Mecca cannot boast of any public edifices and in this respect is, perhaps, more deficient than any other Eastern city of the same size. Neither khans, for the accommodation of travellers, or for the deposit of merchandise, nor palaces of grandees, nor mosques, which adorn every quarter of other towns in the East, are here to be seen, and we may perhaps attribute this want of splendid buildings to the veneration which its inhabitants entertain for their temple. This prevents them from constructing any edifice which might possibly pretend to rival it.

The mode of building is the same as that adopted at Jidda, with the addition of windows looking towards the street; of these many project from the wall and have their framework elaborately carved, or gaudily painted. Before them hang blinds made of slight reeds, which exclude flies and gnats while they admit fresh air. Every house has its terrace, the floor of which (composed of a preparation from limestone) is built with a slight inclination, so that the rainwater runs off through gutters into the street, for the rains here are so irregular that it is not worthwhile to collect the water of them in cisterns, as is done in Syria. The terraces are concealed from view by slight parapet walls, for throughout the East it is reckoned discreditable that a man should appear upon the terrace, whence he might be accused of looking at women in the neighbouring houses, as the females pass much of their time on the terraces, employed in various domestic occupations, such as drying corn, hanging up linen, etc. . . . All the houses of the Meccans, except those of the principal and richest inhabitants, are constructed for the accommodation of lodgers, being divided into many apartments, separated from each other, and each consisting of a sitting room and a small kitchen. Since the pilgrimage, which has begun to decline (this happened before the Wahhabi conquest), many of the Meccans, no longer deriving profit from the letting of their lodgings, found themselves unable to afford the expense of repairs; and thus numerous buildings in the outskirts have fallen completely into ruin, and the town itself exhibits in every street houses rapidly decaying. I saw only one of recent construction; it was in the quarter of al-Shubayka, belonged to a sharif, and cost, as report said, 150 purses. Such a house might have been built at Cairo for 60 purses.

The streets are all unpaved, and in summertime the sand and dust in them are as great a nuisance as the mud is in the rainy season, during which they are scarcely passable after a shower, for in the interior of the town the water does not run off, but remains till it is dried up. It may be ascribed to the destructive rains, which, though of shorter duration than in other tropical countries, fall with considerable violence, that no ancient buildings are found in Mecca. The mosque itself has undergone so many repairs under different sultans that it may be called a modern structure, and of the houses, I do not think there exists one older than four centuries. It is not, therefore, in this place, that the traveller must look for interesting specimens of architecture or such beautiful remains of Saracenic structures as are still admired in Syria, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain. In this respect, the ancient and far-famed Mecca is surpassed by the smallest provincial towns of Syria or Egypt. The same may be said with respect to Medina, and I suspect that the towns of Yemen are generally poor in architectural remains.

Mecca is deficient in those regulations of police which are customary in Eastern cities. The streets are totally dark at night, no lamps of any kind being lighted; its different quarters are without gates, differing in this respect also from most Eastern towns, where each quarter is regularly shut up after the last evening prayers. The town may therefore be crossed at any time of the night, and the same attention is not paid here to the security of merchants, as well as of husbands (on whose account principally, the quarters are closed), as in Syrian or Egyptian towns of equal magnitude. The dirt and sweepings of the houses are cast into the streets, where they soon become dust or mud according to the season. The same custom seems to have prevailed equally in ancient times, for I did not perceive in the skirts of the town any of those heaps of rubbish which are usually found near the large towns of Turkey.

With respect to water, the most important of all supplies (and that which always forms the first object of inquiry among Asiatics), Mecca is not much better provided than Jidda. There are but few cisterns for collecting rain, and the well water is so brackish that it is used only for culinary purposes, except during the time of the pilgrimage, when the lowest class of hajjis drink it. The famous Well of Zamzam, in the Great Mosque, is indeed sufficiently copious to supply the whole town, but however holy, its water is heavy to the taste and impedes digestion; the poorer classes besides have not permission to fill their waterskins with it at pleasure. The best water in Mecca is brought by a conduit from the vicinity of Arafat, six or seven hours distant. The present government, instead of constructing similar works, neglects even the repairs and requisite cleansing of this aqueduct. It is wholly built of stone, and all those parts of it which appear above ground are covered with a thick layer of stone and cement. I heard that it had not been cleaned during the last fifty years. The consequence of this negligence is that the most of the water is lost in its passage to the city through apertures or slowly forces its way through the obstructing sediment, though it flows in a full stream into the head of the aqueduct at Arafat. The supply which it affords in ordinary times is barely sufficient for the use of the inhabitants, and during the pilgrimage sweet water becomes an absolute scarcity; a small skin of water (two of which skins a person may carry) being then often sold for one shilling—a very high price among Arabs.

There are two places in the interior of Mecca where the aqueduct runs above ground; there the water is let off into small channels or fountains, at which some slaves of the Sharif are stationed to exact a toll from persons filling their waterskins. In the time of the Hajj, these fountains are surrounded day and night by crowds of people quarrelling and fighting for access to the water. During the late siege the Wahhabis cut off the supply of water from the aqueduct, and it was not till some time after that the injury which this structure then received was partially repaired. The whole length of the aqueduct is seven or eight hours. . . .

As soon as we pass the extreme precincts of Mecca, the desert presents itself, for neither gardens, trees, nor pleasure houses line the avenues to the town, which is surrounded on every side by barren sandy valleys and equally barren hills. A stranger placed on the great road to Taʾif, just beyond the turn of the hill, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Sharif ‘s garden house, would think himself as far removed from human society as if he were in the midst of the Nubian Desert. But this may be wholly ascribed to the apathy of the inhabitants and their indifference for agricultural pursuits. Numerous wells, dispersed throughout the town, prove that water may be easily obtained at about thirty feet below the surface.

In Arabia, wherever the ground can be irrigated by wells, the sands may be soon made productive. The industry of a very few years might thus render Mecca and its environs as remarkable for gardens and plantations as it now is for absolute sterility. Al-Azraqi101 speaks of gardens in this valley and describes different springs and wells that no longer exist, having probably been choked up by the violent torrents. Al-Fasi102 likewise affirms that in his days the town contained no less than fifty-eight wells. But in the earliest times of Arabian history, this place was certainly barren, and the Quran styles it accordingly “the valley without seeds.” Al-Azraqi further says that before houses were constructed here by the Qusayy,103 this valley abounded with acacias and various thorny trees.

Nothing is more difficult than to compute exactly the population of Eastern towns, where registers are never kept and where even the number of houses can scarcely be ascertained. To judge from appearances, and by comparison with European towns in which the amount of population is well-known, may be very fallacious. The private habitations in the East are generally (though the Hijaz forms an exception to this rule) of one storey only, and therefore contain fewer inmates in proportion than European dwellings. On the other hand, Eastern towns have very narrow streets, are without public squares or large marketplaces, and their miserable suburbs are in general more numerously peopled than their principal and best streets. Travellers, however, in passing rapidly through towns, may be easily deceived, for they see only the bazaars and certain streets, in which the greater part of the male population is usually assembled during the day. Thus it happens that recent and respectable authorities have stated 200,000 souls as the population of Aleppo, 400,000 as that of Damascus, and 300,000 as that of Cairo. My estimate of the population of the three great Syrian towns is as follows: Damascus, 250,000; Hama (of which, however, I must speak with less confidence), from 60,000 to 100,000; and Aleppo, daily dwindling into decay, between 80,000 and 90,000. To Cairo I would allow at most 200,000. As to Mecca, which I have seen both before and after the Hajj and know, perhaps, more thoroughly than any other town of the East, the result of my inquiries gives between 25,000 and 30,000 stationary inhabitants for the population of the city and suburbs, besides from 3,000 to 4,000 Abyssinian and black slaves. Its habitations are capable of containing three times this number. In the time of Sultan Selim I (according to Qutb al-Din,104 in 1526) a census was taken of the inhabitants of Mecca, previous to a gratuitous distribution of corn among them, and the number was found to be 12,000 men, women, and children. The same author shows that in earlier times, the population was much more considerable; for when Abu Daher, the chief of the Qarmatians (a heretic sect of Muslims), sacked Mecca, in 926, 30,000 of the inhabitants were killed by his ferocious soldiers.

THE PROCESSION TO ARAFAT The Syrian and Egyptian caravans always arrive at fixed periods, generally a day or two before the departure of the Hajj for Arafat. Both caravans usually pass by Badr on the same day, or with an interval of one day only. The Syrian caravan coming from Medina, and the Egyptian from Yanbu, prosecute their route from Badr to Mecca, at a short distance from each other. On the fifth of the month of Dhu al-Hijja, or the twenty-first of November 1814, the approach of the Syrian caravan was announced by one of its scouts, who came galloping into the town to win the prize which is always awarded to him who brings the first tidings of the safe arrival of that caravan. The loud acclamations of the mob followed him to the Governor’s house, where his horse expired the moment he dismounted. The news was the more important, as nothing had been heard of this Hajj caravan, and rumours had even been circulated of the Bedouins having plundered it on the road to the north of Medina. Two hours after, many other persons belonging to it arrived, and in the night the whole body came up and encamped, with the Pasha of Damascus at their head, in the plain of Shaykh Mahmud.

Early the next morning, the Egyptian caravan also arrived. The heavy baggage and the camels were sent to the usual place of encampment of the Egyptian Hajj, in the Moab Desert, but the mahmal, or holy camel, remained at Shaykh Mahmud, that it might pass from thence in procession next day through the town. Pasha Muhammad Ali arrived unexpectedly this morning from Taʾif, to be present at the Hajj and to inspect the cavalry which had come with the Egyptian caravan, a reinforcement that strongly excited his hopes of success against the Wahhabis. He was dressed in a very handsome ihram, having two large entirely white cashmirene shawls wrapped round his loins and shoulders. His head was bare, but an officer held over it an umbrella to protect him from the sun, while riding through the streets. On the same morning, all the hajjis resident at Mecca took the ihram at their own lodgings, with the usual ceremonies preparatory to their setting out for Arafat, and at midday they assembled in the mosque, where a short sermon was preached on the occasion. The hajjis who had come with the caravan had already taken the ihram at Asfan, two stations in advance of Mecca, but a great number of them, especially the servants and camel drivers, did not throw off their ordinary dresses and even appeared in them at Arafat, without causing either surprise or indignation. There is no religious police or inquisition here, and everybody is left to the dictates of his conscience, either to observe or neglect the precepts of the canonical law.

Great bustle prevailed this evening in the town. Everybody was preparing for his journey to Arafat; Syrian hajjis came to engage lodgings, to inquire about the state of the markets, and to pay their first visits to the Kaʿba. A number of pedlars and petty shopkeepers left the town to establish themselves at Arafat and to be ready there for the accommodation of the pilgrims. A number of camel drivers from Syria and Egypt led their unloaded camels through the streets, offering to let them out to the hajjis going to Arafat. The rate of hire this year was very moderate on account of the great number of beasts of burden. I engaged two of these camels, for the journey of four days to Arafat and back again, for three dollars.

On the eighth of Hajj, early in the morning, the Syrian Hajj passed in procession through the town, accompanied by all its soldiers and carrying the mahmal in front. All its baggage was left at Shaykh Mahmud, excepting the tents that were to be pitched at Arafat. Most of the hajjis were mounted in the shubreya,105 a sort of palanquin placed upon the camel. The great people, and the Pasha of Damascus himself, rode in takhtruans, a kind of closed litter or box carried by two camels, one before and the other behind, and forming a very commodious conveyance, except that it is necessary always to have a ladder by means of which one may mount or descend. The camels were decorated with feathers, tassels, and bells, but their heads, bent down towards the ground, showed how much they were fatigued by their journey. While these passed, the streets were lined by people of all classes, who greeted the caravan with loud acclamations and praise. The martial music of the Pasha of Damascus, a dozen fine caparisoned horses led in front of his litter, and the rich takhtruans in which his women rode particularly attracted attention.

Soon after the Syrians had passed, the Egyptian procession followed, consisting of its mahmal, or sacred ark (for each of the caravans carries one), and the shubreyas of the public officers who always accompany the Hajj. But not a single private pilgrim was to be seen in its suite. The good appearance of the soldiers who were with them, the splendour of the mahmal and of the equipage of the Amir al-Hajj, who was a commander of the Turkish horsemen, drew from Meccans many signs of approbation, such as had been given to those who immediately preceded them. Both caravans continued their route to Arafat without stopping.

Before midday, all the hajjis who had resided for some time at Mecca likewise mounted their camels and crowded the streets as they pressed forward to follow the Hajj. They were joined by the far greater part of the population of Mecca, who make it a rule to go every year to Arafat, and by a similar portion of the population of Jidda, who had been assembled here for some time. During five or six days, the gates of Jidda, thus deserted by so many people, remain shut.

I left my lodgings on foot after midday with a companion and a slave boy mounted on two camels which I had hired from a Syrian driver, a native of Homs. It is thought meritorious to make the six hours’ journey to Arafat on foot, particularly if the pilgrim goes barefooted. Many hajjis did so, and I preferred this mode because I had led a very sedentary life for some months. We were several hours before we could reach the outskirts of the town, so great was the crowd of camels, and many accidents happened. Of the half-naked hajjis, all dressed in the white ihram, some sat reading the Quran upon their camels, some ejaculated loud prayers, whilst others cursed their drivers and quarrelled with those near them, who were choking up the passage. Beyond the town the road widens, and we passed on through the valleys at a very slow march for two hours, to Mina Valley, in the narrow entrance of which great confusion again occurred. The law enjoins that the hajjis shall recite five prayers at Mina, Muhammad having always done so. That is to say, that they shall arrive there at noon, in time for the midday prayer and, remaining until the next morning, shall perform the prayers of asr, maghrib, ʿisha, and that of the dawn on the ensuing day. The inconvenience, however, arising from a delay on the route has led to the neglect of this precept for some time past, and the Hajj now passes Mina, on its way to Arafat, without halting.

In advance of Mina, we had the mosque of Muzdalifa to our right, whither many pilgrims went to recite the prayers of asr and maghrib, but the caravan continued its march. Beyond Muzdalifa, we again entered the mountains by the pass called al-Mazumayn, on the eastern side of which we issued towards the Plain of Arafat. Here the pilgrims passed between the two pillars called Alamayn and, on approaching the vicinity of Jabal Arafat, dispersed over the plain in search of their place of encampment. I reached the camp about three hours after sunset, but the last stragglers did not arrive till midnight. Numberless fires were seen lighted on an extent of ground of three or four miles in length, and high and brilliant clusters of lamps marked the different places of encampment of Muhammad Ali Suleyman Pasha, and the Amir al-Hajj of the Egyptian caravan. Hajjis were seen in every direction wandering among the tents in search of their companions, whom they had lost in the confusion on the road, and it was several hours before the noise and clamour had subsided. Few persons slept during that night: the devotees sat up praying, and their loud chants were particularly distinguished on the side of the Syrian encampment; the merry Meccans formed themselves into parties, singing the jovial songs called djok, accompanied by clapping hands; and the coffeehouses scattered over the plain were crowded the whole night with customers.

The night was dark and cold, and a few drops of rain fell. I had formed a resting place for myself by means of a large carpet tied to the back part of a Meccan’s tent. Having walked about for the greater part of the night, I had just disposed myself to sleep when two guns, fired by the Syrian and Egyptian Hajj, announced the approaching dawn of the day of pilgrimage and summoned the faithful to prepare for their morning prayers. . . .

THE STANDING DAY VIGIL At sunrise on the ninth of Dhu al-Hajj, every pilgrim issued from his tent to walk over the plains and take a view of the busy crowds assembled there. Long streets of tents, fitted up as bazaars, furnished all kinds of provisions. The Syrian and Egyptian cavalry were exercised by their chiefs early in the morning, while thousands of camels were seen feeding upon the dry shrubs of the plain all round the camp. I walked to Mount Arafat, to enjoy from its summit a more distinct view of the whole.

This granite hill, which is also called Jabal al-Rahma, or the Mountain of Mercy, rises on the northeast side of the plain close to the mountains which encompass it, but separated from them by a rocky valley. It is about a mile or a mile and a half in circuit. Its sides are sloping, and its summit is nearly two hundred feet above the level of the plain. On the eastern side broad stone steps lead up to the top, and a broad unpaved path, on the western, over rude masses of granite with which its declivity is covered. After mounting about forty steps, we find a spot a little on the left, called the Place of Prayer of Our Lord Adam, where, it is related, the father of mankind used to stand while praying; for here it was, according to Muhammadan tradition, that the angel Gabriel first instructed Adam how to adore his Creator. A marble slab, bearing an inscription in modern characters, is fixed in the side of the mountain. On reaching about the sixtieth step, we come to a small paved platform to our right, on a level spot of the hill, where the preacher stands who admonishes the pilgrims on the afternoon of this day, as I shall hereafter mention. Thus high, the steps are so broad and easy that a horse or camel may ascend, but higher up they become more steep and uneven. On the summit the place is shown where Muhammad used to take his station during the Hajj; a small chapel formerly stood over it, but this was destroyed by the Wahhabis. Here the pilgrims usually pray two rakats in salutation of Arafat. The steps and the summit are covered with handkerchiefs to receive their pious gifts, and each family of the Meccans or Bedouins of the tribe of Quraysh, in whose territory Arafat lies, has its particular spot assigned to it for this purpose. The summit commands a very extensive and singular prospect. I brought my compass to take a circle of bearings, but the crowd was so great that I could not use it. Towards the western extremity of the plain are seen the Basan Well and the [pillars marking the boundary of the Haram territory]; somewhat nearer, southwards, the Namira mosque, and on the southeast a small house where the Sharif used to lodge during the pilgrimage. From thence an elevated rocky ground in the plain extends towards Arafat. On the eastern side of the mountain, and close to its foot, are the ruins of a small mosque built on rocky ground where Muhammad was accustomed to pray, and where the pilgrims make four prostrations in memory of the Prophet. Several large reservoirs lined with stone are dispersed over the plain; two or three are close to the foot of Arafat, and there are some near the house of the sharifs. They [all] are filled from the same fine aqueduct which supplies Mecca, and the head of which is about one hour and a half distant, in the eastern mountains. The canal is left open here for the convenience of pilgrims and is conducted round the three sides of the mountains, passing by Adam’s Place of Prayer.106

From the summit of Arafat, I counted about three thousand tents dispersed over the plain, of which two thirds belonged to the two Hajj caravans and to the suite and soldiers of Muhammad Ali, the rest to the Arabs of the Sharif, the Bedouin hajjis, and the people of Mecca and Jidda. These assembled multitudes were for the greater number, like myself, without tents. The two caravans were encamped without much order, each party of pilgrims or soldiers having pitched its tents in large circles, in the midst of which many of their camels were reposing. The plain contained, dispersed in different parts, from twenty to twenty-five thousand camels, twelve thousand of which belonged to the Syrian Hajj, and from five to six thousand to the Egyptian; besides about three thousand, purchased by Muhammad Ali from the Bedouins in the Syrian deserts and brought to Mecca with the Hajj, to convey the pilgrims to this place, previous to being used for the transport of army provisions to Taʾif.

The Syrian Hajj was encamped on the south and southwest side of the mountain; the Egyptian on the southeast. Around the house of the Sharif, Yahya himself was encamped with his Bedouin troops, and in its neighbourhood were all the Hijaz people. Here it was that the two Yemen caravans used formerly to take their station. Muhammad Ali and Suleyman Pasha of Damascus, as well as several of their officers, had very handsome tents, but the most magnificent of all was that of the wife of Muhammad Ali, the mother of Tussan Pasha and Ibrahim Pasha, who had lately arrived from Cairo for the Hajj with a truly royal equipage, five hundred camels being necessary to transport her baggage from Jidda to Mecca. Her tent was in fact an encampment consisting of a dozen tents of different sizes, inhabited by her women, the whole enclosed by a wall of linen cloth eight hundred paces in circuit, the single entrance to which was guarded by eunuchs in splendid dresses. Around this enclosure were pitched the tents of the men who formed her numerous suite. The beautiful embroidery on the exterior of this linen palace, with the various colours displayed in every part of it, constituted an object which reminded me of some descriptions in the Arabian tales of The Thousand and One Nights. Among the rich equipages of the other hajjis, or of the Mecca people, none were so conspicuous as that belonging to the family of Jelani, the merchant, whose tents, pitched in a semicircle, rivalled in beauty those of the two pashas and far exceeded those of Sharif Yahya. In other parts of the East, a merchant would as soon think of buying a rope for his own neck as of displaying his wealth in the presence of a pasha; but Jelani has not yet laid aside the customs which the Meccans learned under their old government, particularly that of Sharif Ghalib, who seldom exercised extortion upon single individuals;107 and they now rely on the promises of Muhammad Ali, that he will respect their property.

During the whole morning, there were repeated discharges of the artillery which both pashas had brought with them. A few pilgrims had taken up their quarters on Jabal Arafat itself, where some small cavern, or impending block of granite, afforded them shelter from the sun. It is a belief generally entertained in the East, and strengthened by many boasting hajjis on their return home, that all the pilgrims on this day encamp upon Mount Arafat, and that the mountain possesses the miraculous property of expansion, so as to admit an indefinite number of the faithful upon its summit. The law ordains that the position of the Hajj should be on Jabal Arafat, but it wisely provides against any impossibility by declaring that the plain in the immediate neighbourhood of the mountain may be regarded as comprised under the term mountain.

I estimated the number of persons assembled here at about seventy thousand. The camp was from three to four miles long and between one and two in breath. There is, perhaps, no spot on Earth where, in so small a place, such a diversity of languages are heard; I reckoned about forty and have no doubt that there were many more. It appeared to me as if I were here placed in a holy temple of travellers only, and never did I at any time feel a more ardent wish to be able to penetrate once into the inmost recesses of the countries of many of those persons whom I now saw before me, fondly imagining that I might have no more difficulty in reaching their homes than what they had experienced in their journey to this spot.

When the attention is engrossed by such a multitude of new objects, time passes rapidly away. I had only descended from Mount Arafat and had walked for some time about the camp, here and there entering into conversation with pilgrims (inquiring at the Syrian camp after some of my friends and among the Syrian Bedouins for news from their deserts), when midday had already passed. The prayers of their period of the day ought to be performed either within or in the immediate neighbourhood of the mosque of Namira, whither the two pashas had repaired for that purpose. The far greater number of hajjis, however, dispense with this observance, and many of them with the midday prayers altogether, for no one concerns himself whether his neighbour is punctual or not in the performance of the prescribed rites. After midday, the pilgrims are to wash and purify the body by means of the entire ablution prescribed by the law, for which purpose chiefly the numerous tents in the plain have been constructed. But the weather was cloudy and rather cold, which induced nine tenths of the pilgrims, shivering as they were already under the thin covering of the ihram, to omit the rite also and to content themselves with the ordinary ablution. The time of asr (or about three p.m.) approached, when that ceremony of the Hajj takes place for which the whole assembly had come hither.

The pilgrims now pressed forward towards the mountain of Arafat and covered its sides from top to bottom. At the precise time of asr, the preacher took his stand upon the platform on the mountain and began to address the multitude. This sermon, which lasts till sunset, constitutes the holy ceremony of the Hajj called Qutba al-Wukuf, and no pilgrim, although he may have visited all the holy places of Mecca, is entitled to the name of hajji, unless he has been present on this occasion. As asr approached, therefore, all the tents were struck, everything was packed up, the caravans began to load, and the pilgrims belonging to them mounted their camels and crowded round the mountain to be within sight of the preacher, which is sufficient, as the greater part of the multitude is necessarily too distant to hear him. The two pashas, with their whole cavalry drawn up in two squadrons behind them, took their post in the rear of the deep lines of camels of the hajjis, to which those of the people of the Hijaz were also joined, and here they waited in solemn and respectful silence the conclusion of the sermon. Further removed from the preacher was the Sharif Yahya, with his small body of soldiers, distinguished by several green standards carried before him. The two mahmals, or holy camels, which carry on their back the high structure that serves as the banner of their respective caravans, made way with difficulty through the ranks of camels that encircled the southern and eastern sides of the hill, opposite to the preacher, and took their station surrounded by their guards directly under the platform in front of him.108

The preacher, who is usually the Qadi of Mecca, was mounted upon a finely caparisoned camel which had been led up the steps, it being traditionally said that Muhammad was always seated when he here addressed his followers, a practice in which he was imitated by all the caliphs who came to the Hajj, and who from hence addressed their subjects in person. The Turkish gentleman of Constantinople, however, unused to camel riding, could not keep his seat so well as the hardy Bedouin Prophet; and the camel becoming unruly, he was soon obliged to alight from it. He read his sermon from a book in Arabic, which he held in his hands. At intervals of every four or five minutes he paused and stretched forth his arms to implore blessings from above while the assembled multitudes around and before him waved the skirts of their ihrams over their heads and rent the air with shouts of “Labayk Allahumma Labayk” (i.e., “Here we are, at thy commands, O God!”) During the wavings of the ihrams, the side of the mountain, thickly crowded as it was by the people in their white garments, had the appearance of a cataract of water, while the green umbrellas, with which several thousand hajjis, sitting on their camels below were provided, bore some resemblance to a verdant plain. . . .

At length the sun began to descend behind the western mountains, upon which the Qadi, having shut his book, received a last greeting of “Labayk,” and the crowds rushed down the mountain in order to quit Arafat. It is thought meritorious to accelerate the pace on this occasion, and many persons make it a complete race, called by the Arabs, the Rush from Arafat. In former times, when the strength of the Syrian and Egyptian caravans happened to be nearly balanced, bloody affrays took place here almost every year between them, each party endeavouring to outrun and to carry its mahmal in advance of the other. The same happened when the mahmals approached the platform at the commencement of the sermon, and two hundred lives have on some occasions been lost in supporting what was thought the honour of the respective caravans. At present the power of Muhammad Ali preponderates, and the Syrian hajjis display great humility.

The united caravans and the whole mass of pilgrims now moved forward over the plain. Every tent had been previously packed up, to be ready for the occasion. The pilgrims pressed through the al-Alamayn pillars, which they must repass on their return, and night came on before they reached the defile called al-Mazumayn. Innumerable torches were now lighted, twenty-four being carried before each pasha, and the sparks of fire from them flew far over the plain. There were continual discharges of artillery; the soldiers fired their muskets; the martial bands of both the pashas played; skyrockets were thrown as well by the pashas’ officers, as by many private pilgrims, while the Hajj passed at a quick pace in the greatest disorder, amidst a deafening clamour, through the pass of Mazumayn, leading towards Muzdalifa, where all alighted, after a two hours’ march. No order was observed here in encamping, and everyone lay down on the spot that first presented itself, no tents being pitched except those of the pashas and their suites, before which was an illumination of lamps in the form of high arches, which continued to blaze the whole night while the firing of the artillery was kept up without intermission.

In the indescribable confusion attending the departure of the Hajj from Arafat, many pilgrims had lost their camels and were now heard calling loudly for their drivers as they sought them over the plain: I myself was among their number. When I went to the Mountain of Arafat, I ordered my camel driver and my slave to remain in readiness upon the spot where they then were till I should return to them after sunset; but seeing, soon after I quitted them, that the other loaded camels pressed forward towards the mountain, they followed the example, and when I returned to the place where I left them, they were not to be found. I was therefore obliged to walk to Muzdalifa, where I slept on the sand, covered only by my ihram, after having searched for my people during several hours.

97 The last name, nearly the sound in Arabic of Burckhardt, was bestowed by neighbors in Aleppo.

98 sequin: a gold piece, ducat, or dinar.

99 Some persons, perhaps, consider it an honour to receive presents from pashas; but I think differently. I know that the real motive of a Turkish [ruler] in making presents is either to get double the value in return (which could not be the case with me) or to gratify his own pride in showing to his courtiers that he deigns to be liberal towards a person whom he holds infinitely below him in station or worth. I have often witnessed the sneers of the donor and his people on making such presents, and their sentiments are sometimes expressed by the saying, “Look, he has thrown a morsel to this dog!” Few Europeans may, perhaps, agree with me in this respect, but my knowledge authorises me to form this opinion; and the only advice which I can give to travellers who would not lower themselves in the estimation of Turkish grandees is to be always ready, on similar occasions, to return the supposed favour twofold. As for myself, I had but seldom occasion to make presents during my travels; and this was the only one that I was ever obliged to accept.

100 I wore a beard at this time, as I did at Cairo, when the Pasha saw me.

101 al-Azraqi: Abu al-Walid Muhammad al-Azraqi, chronicler of Mecca (flourished 865). [Ed.]

102 al-Fasi: Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Fasi, chronicler of Mecca (died 1429). [Ed.]

103 Qusayy: founders of urban Mecca (ca. 390–410). [Ed.]

104 Qutb al-Din: Ottoman chronicler of Mecca (died 1582). [Ed.]

105 shubreya: the shevria of Ali Bey al-Abbasi. [Ed.]

106 At the close of the sixteenth century, according to Qutb al-Din, the whole Plain of Arafat was cultivated.

107 A statement contradicted by al-Abbasi. [Ed.]

108 The mahmal . . . is a high, hollow, wooden frame in the form of a cone, with a pyramidal top, covered with a fine silk brocade adorned with ostrich feathers and having a small book of prayers and charms placed in the midst of it, wrapped up in a piece of silk. (My description is taken from the Egyptian mahmal.) When on the road, it serves as a holy banner to the caravan, and on the return of the Egyptian caravan, the book of prayers is exposed in the mosque al-Hassanayn, at Cairo, where men and women of the lower classes go to kiss it and obtain a blessing by rubbing their foreheads upon it. No copy of the Quran, nor anything but the book of prayers, is placed in the Cairo mahmal. The Wahhabis declared this ceremony of the Hajj to be a vain pomp, of idolatrous origin, and contrary to the spirit of true religion, and its use was one of the principal reasons which they assigned for interdicting the caravans from repairing to Mecca. In the first centuries of Islam, neither the Umayyads nor the Abbasids ever had a mahmal. Al-Maqrizi, in his treatise On Those Caliphs and Sultans Who Performed the Pilgrimage in Person, says that al-Zahir Baybars Bunbukdari, Sultan of Egypt, was the first who introduced the mahmal, about 1280. Since his time, all the sultans who sent their caravans to Mecca have considered it as a privilege to send one with each, as a sign of their own royalty. I believe the custom to have arisen in the battle banners of the Bedouins, . . . which I have mentioned in my remarks on the Bedouins, and which resemble the mahmal, inasmuch as they are high wooden frames placed upon camels.