long pannier on one side of a camel, balanced
by a second pilgrim in a pannier on the other side, and over the whole an
awning spread? But this luxurious travelling is for the rich pilgrim, who
swings silently along day after day, under the burning sun or the cold
stars, across the tideless sea of sand, towards an illimitable horizon.
Hadj Riffi "footed it," spent three days at Mecca, at this time
transformed into a city of a myriad tents, among which it is easy enough
to be lost, teeming with pilgrims--Chinese, Hindoos, Circassians,
Georgians, Bosnians--most of them unable to understand each other, beyond
a verse or two from the Kor[=a]n and a few pious ejaculations.

Hadj Riffi and his fellow-Moors prayed three days at Mecca, and performed
the ceremonies round the celebrated _K[=a]aba_, the chief shrine and
holiest of all holy places, built by Adam and Eve after the pattern of
their own Sanctum Sanctorum in the Garden of Eden.

The far-famed Black Stone, presented to the masons by the Angel Gabriel,
built into the east corner of the outer wall of the K[=a]aba, is a
semicircular fragment of volcanic basalt, sprinkled with coloured
crystals, about six by eight inches large, bordered with silver, and the
surface of it reddish brown, undulating, and polished.

Having kissed the Black Stone and performed other rites, the Moors went
three days' journey to the Prophet's Mountain to pray; then they took
themselves back to Morocco, but on their way, missing a steamer, were
obliged to travel by land through Tunis, which took them five months,
and, running short of money, lived, Hadj Riffi said, largely on roots.

In the meantime he urged our donkey along, breaking his discourse with
"Arrah! Arrah!" until at last it was cajoled under the gateway and into
the Kasbah. This fortress, reported a good specimen of Moorish
architecture, could impress nobody: it has no regular garrison; the
batteries are antiquated, the artillery hopelessly inefficient. The
crumbling battlements are overgrown with rank grass and fig-trees, though
tradition has it they were once brass, when the city was built of gold
and silver.

Tangier is immensely old, and has seen many conquerors, many demolitions.
Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Spaniards, and Portuguese
have all in their turn besieged and taken, ruled and deserted, the white
city. England has had her turn too. When Charles II. married Catherine of
Braganza, Tangier and Bombay form