which command the "Darb el Maala," or road leading from
the north into Meccah. Thence we passed into the Maabidah (northern
suburb), where the Sherif's palace is built. After this, on the left
hand, came the deserted abode of the Sherif bin Aun, now said to be a
"haunted house."[106] Opposite to it lies the Jannat el Maala, the holy
cemetery of Meccah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the
Sulaymaniyah or Afghan quarter. Here the boy Mohammed, being an
inhabitant of the Shamiyah or Syrian ward, thought proper to display
some apprehension. These two are on bad terms; children never meet
without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight furiously with
quarter-staves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of religion, the knife
and sabre are drawn. But these hostilities have their code. If a citizen
be killed, there is a subscription for blood-money. An inhabitant of one
quarter, passing singly through another, becomes a guest; once beyond
the walls, he is likely to be beaten to insensibility by his hospitable
foes.

At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a by-way, and
ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of Jebel Hindi, upon which
stands a small whitewashed and crenellated building called a "fort."
Thence descending, we threaded dark streets, in places crowded with rude
cots and dusky figures, and finally at 2 A.M. we found ourselves at the
door of the boy Mohammed's house.

We arrived on the morning of Sunday the 7th Zu'l Hijjah (11th September,
1853), and had one day before the beginning of the pilgrimage to repose
and visit the Haram. From El Medinah to Meccah the distance, according
to my calculation, was 248 English miles, which was accomplished in
eleven marches.

FOOTNOTES:

[106] I cannot conceive what made the accurate Niebuhr fall into the
strange error that "apparitions are unknown in Arabia." Arabs fear to
sleep alone, to enter the bath at night, to pass by cemeteries during
dark, and to sit amongst ruins, simply for fear of apparitions.
And Arabia, together with Persia, has supplied half the Western
World--Southern Europe--with its ghost stories and tales of angels,
demons, and fairies. To quote Milton, the land is struck "with
superstition as with a planet."

ROBERT BURTON

(1577-1640)

There are some books of which every reader knows the names, but of whose
contents few know anything, excepting as the same may have come to them
filtered through the work of others.