 Chapter 20 Part 1 of Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca by Richard Francis Burton. The Visitation of Hamza's Tomb, Part 1 On the morning of Sunday, 23 Zulkada, 28 August, 1853, arrived from Al-Sham, or Damascus, the great caravan, popularly called Haj Al-Shammi, the Damascus pilgrimage, as the Egyptian kafila, is al-Misri, or the Cairo pilgrimage, footnote, Damascus derives its names at the great gate of pilgrimage, and the key of the Prophet's tomb from its being-the-gathering place of this caravan, and a footnote. It is the mainstream which carries off all the small currents that, at this season of general movement, flow from Central Asia towards the great centre of the Islamic world, and in 1853 it amounted to about 7,000 souls. The arrival was anxiously expected by the people for several reasons. In the first place, it brought with it a new curtain for the Prophet's hujra, the old one being in a tattered condition. Secondly, it had charge of the annual stipends and pendants of the citizens. And thirdly, many families expected members returning under its escort to their homes. The popular anxiety was greatly increased by the disordered state of the country roundabout, and moreover, the great caravan had been one day too late, generally arriving on the morning of the twenty-second Zulkada. Footnote, I reprint the following from the illustrated news, in proof that the literati of England still have something to learn. On the first instant, the annual ceremony of the departure of the Sur Emine, with the imperial gifts for the Prophet's tomb at Mecca, took place in front of the palace at Constantinople. The Levent Harreld states that the presents, which consist beside the large money donation of rich shawls and gold-woven stoves, were brought out of the imperial apartments and packed in presence of the Sultan on two beautiful camels, which, after the delivery of the usual prayers, were then led in grand possession, accompanied by all the high offices of state, to the landing-place at Kabatash, where the Sur Emine and camels were embarked on a government steamer and ferried over discutery. There the holy functionary will remain for some days till the faithful of the capital and those who have come from the interior have joined him when the caravan will start for Damascus. At this letter-city, the grand rendezvous takes place, and, that accomplished, the great caravan sets out for Mecca under the Imir El Hajj of the year. The imperial presents on this occasion cost more than twenty thousand pounds. End of footnote. During the night, three of Shaikhamid's brothers, who had entered as mousseviers with the Hajj, came suddenly to the house. They leaped off their camels and lost not a moment in going through the usual scene of kissing, embracing, and weeping bitterly for joy. I arose in the morning and looked out from the windows of the majlis. The bar al-Manakka, from a dusty waist dotted with a few badry hair-tents, had assumed all the various shapes of the colors of the kaleidoscope. The eye was bewildered by the shifting of innumerable details in all parts totally different from one another, thrown confusedly together in one small field, and, however jaded with sight-seeing, it dwelt with delight upon the variety, the vivacity, and the intense picturesqueness of the scene. In one night had sprung up a town of tents of every size, color, and shape, round, square, and oblong, open and closed, from the shawl-lined and gilt-topped pavilion of the pasha, with all the luxurious apportionances of the harem, to its neighbor, the little dirty green rowty of the tobacco-seller. They were pitched in admirable order. Here ranged an long line where a street was required, there packed in dense masses, where thorough affairs were unnecessary. But how described the utter confusion in the crowding, the bustling, and the vast variety of volume of sound? Huge white Syrian dromedaries, compared with which those of Al-Hijaz appeared mere pony-camels, jingle large bells, and bearing shuk-duvs, litters, like miniature green tents, swaying and tossing upon their backs, gorgeous tak-tug-ur-avan, or litters carried between camels or mules with scarlet and brass trappings. Bada-win, bestriding naked-backed dalools, dromedaries, and clinging like apes to the hairy humps. Arnaud, Kurt, and Turkish irregular cavalry, fierce looking in their mirth than Roman peasants in their rage, fainting Persian pilgrims, forcing their stubborn camels to kneel or dismounted grumbling from jaded dunk-case, kawajis, sherbet-sellers, and violent tobacconists crying their goods, country-people driving flocks of sheep and goats, with infinite clamour through the lines of horses fiercely snorting and biting and kicking and rearing, townspeople seeking their friends, returned travelers exchanging affectionate salutes, devout hajiz, jostling one another, running under the legs of camels, and tumbling over the dense robes in their hurry to reach the hardim, cannon roaring from the citadel, shopmen, water-carriers, and fruit-vendors fighting over their bargains, boys with loud screams bullying heretics, a well-mounted party of fine-old Arab shikes of the Hamidak clan, preceded by their violets, performing the arza, or war-dance, compared with which the Perinian bear's performance is grace itself, firing their duck-gums upwards, or blowing the powder into the calves of those before them, branching their swords, leaping frantically the while with their bright-coloured rags floating in the wind, tossing their long spears, tufted with ostrich feathers high in the air, reckless where they fall, servants seeking their masters, and masters their tents, with vain cries of Ya Muhammad, footnote, one might ostensibly cry out John in an English theatre, and a footnote. Grandees riding mules or stalking on foot, preceded by their crowd-beaters, shouting to clear the way, hear the loud shrieks of women and children whose litters are bumping and rasping against one another, there the low moaning of some poor wretch that is seeking a shady corner to die in, and a thick dust which blurs the outlines like a London fog, with a flaming sun that draws sparkles of fire from the burnish weapons of the crowd, and the brass balls of tent and litter, and—I doubt, gentle reader, that even the length, the jar, and the confusion of this description is adequate to its subject, or that any word-painting of mine can convey a just idea of the scene. This was the day appointed for our visiting, the Merchers of Orhot. After praying the dawn prayers, as directed at the Harim, we mounted our donkeys, and armed with pistols and knives, we set out from the city. Our party was large, Saad the demon had offered to accompany us, and the bustle around kept him in the best of humours. Omar Effendi was also there, quite looking and humble as usual, leading his asses to avoid the trouble of dismounting every second minute. Footnote. Respectable men in Al-Hijaz when they meet friends acquaintances or superiors considered only polite to dismount from a donkey. And a footnote. I had the boy Mohammed and my slave, and Shaik Hamid was attended by half a dozen friends. To avoid the crush of the bar al-Manakka, we made a detour westwards, over the bridge and down the course of the torn bed al-Sahi. We then passed along the southern wall of the castle, traversed its eastern outwork, and issued from the bubble Shammi. During the greater part of the time we were struggling through a living tide, and among dromedaries and charges adonkiest by no means a pleasant monterre. With some difficulty, but without any more serious accident than a fall or two, we found ourselves in the space beyond and northward of the city. This also was covered with travellers' intents, amongst which, on an eminence on the left of the road rose suspicious the bright green pavilion of the emir al-Hajj, the commandant of the caravan. Footnote. The title of the pasha, who has the privilege of conducting the caravan, it is a lucrative as well as an honourable employment, for the emir enjoys a drodo-ben, becoming heir to the personal property of all pilgrims who die in the holy cities or on the line of the march. And no Persian, even of the poorest, would think of undertaking a pilgrimage by this line of country without having at least eighty pounds and ready money with him. The first person who bore the title of emir al-Hajj was Abu Bakr, who, in the ninth year of the hidra, led three hundred Muslims from Al-Madinah to the Mecca pilgrimage. On this occasion idolatrous and infidels were for the first time expelled of the holy city. And a footnote. Hard by, half its height surrounded by a kanata tent wall, stood the Syrian, or sultans mahmil, litter, all glittering with green and gilding and gold. And around it were pictured the handsome habitations of the principal officers and grandees of the pilgrimage. On the right hand lay extensive palm plantations, and on the left, strewed over the plain, were signs of wells and tanks, built to supply the hatch with water. We passed two small buildings, one the Kubbat al-Sabak, or dome of the precedents, where the Prophet's warrior friends used to display their horsemanship. The second, the Mak'an, or burial-place of Zahitna Zaki al-Din, one of Muhammad's multitudinous descendants. Then we fall into a plain, resembling that of Cuba, but less fertile. While we are jogging over it, a few words concerning Mount Ohot may not be misplaced. A popular this-stage says, Verily there's healing to the eye that looks unto Ohot and the true Hara's ridges near. Footnote Hara, from Hare, heat, is the generic name of lava, porous basalt, scoriae, greenstone, schister, and others supposed to be of ingenious origin. It is also used to denote a ridge or hill of such formation. One Hara has already been mentioned in Chapter 15. The second is on the road to Ohot. There's a third Hara, called al-Waqin, or al-Zahra, about one mile eastward of Almadina. Here the Prophet wept, predicting that the last man of his faith would be foully slain. The prophecy was fulfilled in the days of Yazid, when the people of Almadina filled their assembly with slippers and turbans to show that, on account of his abominations, they had cast off their allegiance as a garment. The accursed, sent an aged sinner, Muslim bin al-Khba al-Marai, who, though a cripple, defeated the Madani, in a battle called the Affair of the Ridge, slaying of them ten thousand citizens, one thousand seven hundred learned and great men, seven hundred teachers of the Koran, and ninety-seven Karashi nobles. This happened in the Mount of Zul-Hijjah, on Nohegire, sixty-three. For three days the city was plundered, the streets ran blood, dogs ate human flesh in the mosque, and no fewer than one thousand women were insulted. It was long before Almadina recovered from this fatal blow, which old Muslim declared would open to him the gates of paradise. The occurrence is now forgotten at Almadina, though it will live in history. The people know not the place, and even the books are doubtful whether this hara be not upon the spot where the kandak or moat was, and a footnote. And of this holy hill the apostle declared, Ohat is a mountain which loves us, and which we love, it is upon the gate of heaven, footnote, meaning that on the day of resurrection it shall be so treated. Many, however, suppose Ohat to be one of the four hills of paradise. The other three, according to Al-Tabrani from Amur-Binauf, are Sinai, Lebanon and Mount Varkhan on the Meccan Road. Others suppose Ohat to be one of the six mountains which afforded materials for the Kaaba. Also it is said that when the Lord conversed with Moses on Sinai the mountain burst into six pieces, three of which flew to Almadina, Ohat, Varkhan, and Eradva, and three to Mecca, Hira, now popularly called Jabal-Nur, Sabir, the old name for Jabal-Muna, and Saur, and a footnote. And Ayir is the place which hates us and which we hate, it is upon the gates of hell. Footnote, Ayir means a wild ass, whereas Ohat is derived from Ahat, one, so called because fated to be the place of victory to those who worship one God. The very names, say Muslim divines, make it abundantly evident that even as the men of Almadina wear two parties, friendly and hostile to the Prophet, so wear these mountains. And a footnote. The former sheltered Muhammad in the time of danger, therefore on Resurrection Day it will be razed to Paradise, whereas Jabal-Ayir, its neighbor, having been so ill-judged as to refuse the Prophet water on one occasion, while he thirsted, will be cast incontinently into Jahannam. Muslim divines, be it observed, iscribed to Muhammad miraculous authority over animals, vegetables, and minerals, as well as over men, angels, and jinnies, hence the speaking wolf, the weeping post, the old stone, and the love and hate of these two mountains. It is probably one of the many remains of ancient paganism, pulled down and afterwards used to build up the edifice of Al-Islam. According to the old Persians, this fear has an active soul. Some sects of Hindus believe Mother Earth upon whose bosom we little parasites crawl to be a living being. This was a dogma, also amongst the ancient Egyptians, who denoted it by a peculiar symbol the globe with human legs. Hence the macrocosmos of the plagiaristic Greeks, the animal on large scale, whose diminutive was the microcosmos, man, Totanatura, repeats Malpegi, exists in minimis. Amongst the Romans, Telus or Terra was a female deity, anthropomorphised according to their syncretic system which fringed with strange guards their pantheon, but forgot to append the scroll explaining the innocence of the symbol. And some modern philosophers, Kepler, Blackmore, and others, have not scrupled to own their belief in a doctrine which, as long as life is a mere word on man's tongue, can neither be proved nor disproved. The Mohammedans, as usual, exaggerate the dogma. A hadith related by Abu Hurayya casts on the day of judgment the sun and the moon into hell fire. Jabal Ohat owes its present reputation to a cave which sheltered the apostle when pursued by his enemies to certain springs of which he drank, and especially to its being the scene of a battle celebrated in Al-Islam. Footnote. This cave is a place of visitation, but I did not go there, as it is on the northern flank of the hill, and all assured me that it contained nothing worth seeing. Many ignored altogether. Ohat, it is said, sent forth in the prophet's day three hundred and sixty springs of which ten or twelve now remain. And a footnote. On Saturday, the eleventh Shawwal, in the third year of the Hijra, 26 January, AD 625, Mohammed with seven hundred men, engaged three thousand infidels under the command of Abu Sufyan, ran great personal danger, and lost his uncle Hamza, the Lord of Mirters. On the topmost pinnacle, also, is the Kubat Harun, the dome erected over Aaron's remains. It is now, I was told, in a ruinous condition, and is placed upon the pinnacle of the seven hills in a position somewhat like that of certain buildings of St. Angelo in the Bay of Naples. Footnote. Assuming that the visitor must have sent several smaller eminences, the time occupied is from eight to nine hours, but I should not advise my successor to attempt it in the hot weather. And a footnote. Alluding to the toil of reaching it, the Madani crewed a facetious rhyme inscribed upon the wall by one of their number who had wasted his breath. Malun im Malun, Manthala a Kubat Harun. Angles, the man must be a ruffian who climbs up to Aaron's dome. Devout Muslims visit Ohad every Thursday morning after the dawn devotions in the Haarim, pray for the martyrs, and, after going through the ceremonies, return to the Haarim in time for midday worship. On the 12th of Rajab, Zaheers come out in large bodies from the city, and camp on the plain for three or four days, and pass the time in feasting, jollity, and devotion, as as usual, at pilgrimages and at saints' festivals in general. After half an hour's ride, we came to the Mustara, or resting place, so-called because the Prophet sat there for a few minutes on his way to the Battle of Ohad. It is a newly built square enclosed of dwarf white-washed walls, within which devotees pray. On the outside, fronting Almadina, is a seat like a chair of rough stones. My eye was placed by Mousa Weir, who recited an insignificant supplication to be repeated after him. At its end, with a Fatiha, and accompaniments, we remounted our asses and resumed our way. Travelling onwards, we came inside of the second Haara, or ridge. It lies to the right, and left of the road, and resembles lines of lava, but I had not an opportunity to examine it narrowly. End of footnote. When engaged in such a holy errand as this, to have ridden away for the purpose of inspecting a line of black stone would have been certain to arouse the suspicions of an Arab, either, he would argue, you recognise the place of some treasure described in your books, or you are a magician seeking a talisman. End of footnote. Then we reached the gardens of Ohad, which reflect a miniature, those of Cuba, and presently we arrived at what explains the presence of vendor and vegetable life, a deep fiamura full of loose sand and large stones denoting an impetuous stream. It flows along the southern base of Ohad, said to be a part of a plain of Almadina, and it collects the drainage of the high lands lying to the south and southeast. The bed becomes impassable after rain, and sometimes the torrents overflow the neighbouring gardens. By the direction of this fiamura, I judged that it must supply the gaba, or basin, in the hills north of the plain. Good authorities, however, informed me that a large volume of water will not stand there, but flows down the beds that wind through the ghats westward of Almadina, and falls into the sea near the harbour of Wai. To the south of the fiamura is a village on an eminence containing some large brick houses now in a ruinous state. These are the villas of upland and religious citizens who visited the place for change of air, recreation, and warship at Hamzah's tomb. Our donkeys presently sank fatlock deep in the loose sand of the torrent bed. Then reaching the northern side, and ascending a gentle slope, we found ourselves upon the battlefield. This spot, so celebrated in the annals of Al-Islam, is a shelving strip of land close to the southern base of Mount Orhot. The army of the infidels advance from the fiamura in crescent shape, with Abu Sufyan, the general, and his idols in the centre. It is distant about three miles from Almadina in a northerly direction. All the visitor's seas is hard gravelly ground, covered with little heaps of various coloured granites, red sandstone, and bits of porphyry to denote the different places where the marches fell and were buried. Footnote, they are said to be seventy, but the heaps appear to me at least three times more numerous. And a footnote. Seen from this point, there is something appalling in the look of the holy mountain. Its seared and jacked flanks rise like masses of iron from the plain, and the crevice into which the Muslim host retired, when the disobedience of the arches and hastening to plunder enabled Khalid bin Walid to fall upon Muhammad's rear is the only break in the grim wall. Reaking with heat, its surface produces not one green shrub or a stunted tray, neither burst nor beast appeared upon its inhospitable sights, and the bright blue sky glaring above its bald and sullen brow made it look only the more repulsive. I was glad to turn away my eyes from it. CHAPTER XXII OF PERSONAL NARRATIVE of a pilgrimage to Almadina and Mecca, of personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Almadina and Mecca, by Richard Francis Burton. The Visitation of Hamza's Tomb, Part II On the left of the road, north of the Fumura, and leading to the mountains, stands Hamza's Mosque, which, like the harem of Almadina, is a mausoleum as well as a fain. It is a small, strongly-built square of hoonstone, with a dome covering the solitary hopostyle of the south and the usual minaret. The westward wing is a saviour, or oratory, frequented by the celebrated Sufi and saint Mohamed Al-Saman, the clarified Batasa-seller, one of whose blood the reader will remember stood by my side in the person of Shaik Hamid. Footnote A saviour in northern Africa resembles the Taqia of India, Persia and Egypt, being a monastery for derwishes who reside there singly or in numbers. A mosque and sometimes according to the excellent practice of al-Islam, a school are attached to it. And a footnote. On the eastern side of the building, a half-wing projects, and a small door opens to the south. Upon a mastaba, or stonebench, five or six feet high, this completes the square of the edifice. On the right of the road opposite Hamza's mosque is a large erection, known ruins, containing a deep hole leading to a well, with huge platforms for the accommodation of travellers. Beyond, towards the mountains, are the small edifices presently to be described. Some Turkish women were sitting veiled upon the shady platform opposite the Metru's mosque. At a little distance their husbands and the servants holding horses and asses lay upon the ground, and a large crowd of Bedouin, boys, girls and old women, had gathered around to beg, draw water, and sell dry dates. They were awaiting the guardian who had not yet acknowledged the summons. To half an hour's vain patience, we determined to proceed with these ceremonies. Ascended by its steps, the mastaba, subtending half the eastern wall, Shaik Hamid placed me so as to front the tomb. There standing in the burning sun, we repeated the following prayer. Peace be upon thee, O our Lord Hamza, O paternal uncle of Allah's Apostle, O paternal uncle of Allah's Prophet, Peace be upon thee, O paternal uncle of Mustafa, Peace be upon thee, O Prince of the Matters, O Prince of the Happy, Peace be upon thee, O Lion of Allah, O Lion of His Prophet. After which we asked Hamza and his companions to lend us their aid in obtaining for us and ours pardon, worldly prosperity and future happiness. Finally had we finished, when, mounted on a high trotting dromedary, appeared the emissary of Muhammad Khalifa, descendant of al-Abbas, who keeps the key of the mosque, and who receives the fees and donations of the devout. It was to be opened for the Turkish pilgrims. I waited to see the interior. The Arab drew forth from his pouch with abundant solemnity, a bunch of curiously made keys, and sharply directed me to stand away from and out of sight of the door. When I obeyed grumblingly, he began to rattle the locks and to snap the padlocks, opening them slowly, shaking them and making as much noise as possible. The reason of the precaution, it sounded like poetry if not sense, is this. It is believed that souls of matters, leaving the habitations of their senseless clay, are fond of sitting together in spiritual converse, and profane eye must not fall upon the scene. Footnote Some historians relate that forty-six years after the Battle of Ahad, the tombs were laid bare by a torrent when the corpses appeared in their winding sheets as if buried the day before. Some had their hands upon their death wounds, from which fresh blood trickled when the pressure was forcibly removed. In opposition to this Muslim theory, we have that of the modern Greeks, namely, that if the body be not decomposed within a year, it shows that the soul is not where it should be. And a footnote What grand pictures these imaginative Arabs say conceive the majestic figures of the saints, for the soul with Mohammedans is like the old European spirit, as something immaterial in the shape of a body, with long grey beards, earnest faces, and solemn eyes, reposing beneath the palms and discussing events now buried in the gloom of a thousand years. I would feign be hard upon this superstition, but shame prevents. When in Nottingham eggs may not be carried out after sunset. When Ireland hears banshees, or apparitional older women with streaming hair, and dressed in blue mantles. Then Scotland sees a shroud about a person, showing his approaching death. When France has her loup-garou, revenants, and poule du vendredissant, it asks, hence hatched on Good Friday supposed to change colour every year, as long as the holy goat cures devotees et treves, Madonna's wink at Remini, St. Januario melts at Naples, and Adalorat and Estatish make converts to hysteria at Rome, whilst the Virgin manifests herself to children on the Alps and in France, whilst Germany sends forth psychography, whilst Europe, the civilised, the enlightened, the sceptical, dotes over clairvoyance, and table-turning, and whilst even hard-headed America believes in mediums, in snail-telegraphs, and spirit-wrappings. I must hold the men of Almadina to be as wise, and their superstition to be as respectable as that of others. Footnote. In fairness I must confess to believing in the reality of these phenomena, but not in their spiritual origin. End of footnote. But the realities of Hamza's mosque have little to recommend them. The building is like that of Cuba, only smaller, and the hippostyle is hung with oil lamps and ostrich eggs, the usual paltry furniture of an Arab mausoleum. On the walls are few modern inscriptions and framed poetry, written in a calligraphic hand. Beneath the revoc, lies Hamza, under a mass of black, basaltic stone, resembling that of Aden, only more porous and scouraceous, convex at the top, like a heap of earth, without the quisoire, or cover of a saint's tomb, and railed round with wooden bars. Footnote. In the common tombs of mausoles, saints, and holy men, this covering is usually of green cloth, with long white letters sewn upon it. I forgot to ask whether it was temporarily absent from Hamza's grave. End of footnote. At his head, or westward, lies Abdullah binyaysh, a name little known to fame, under a plain white wash tomb, also convex, and in the courtyard is a similar pile, erected over the remains of Shamas bin Osman, another obscure companion. Footnote. All these erections are new. In Burkart's time there were mere heaps of earth, with a few loose stones placed around them. I do not know what has become of the third murder, said to have been interred near Hamza. Possibly some day he may reappear. Meanwhile the people of Almadina are so wealthy in saints, that they can well afford to lose sight of one. End of footnote. We then passed through a door in the northern part of the western wall, and saw a diminutive palm plantation and a well, after which we left the mosque, and I was under the fatal necessity of paying a dollar for the honour of entering it. But the guardian promised that the chapter Y.S. of Ali Kloss should be recited for my benefit. The letter forty times, and if their efficacy be one twentieth part of what men say it is, the reader cannot quote against me a certain popular proverb concerning an order of men easily parted from their money. Issuing from the mosque we advanced a few paces toward the mountain. On our left we passed by, at a respectful distance, for the Turkish Haji's cried out that their women were engaged in ablution, a large sarri, or tank, built of cut stone with steps, and intended to detain the overflowing waters of the torrent. The next place we prayed at was a small square, enclosed with a dwarf whitewashed walls, containing a few graves denoted by ovals of loose stones, thinly spread upon the ground. This is primitive Arab simplicity. The Bedouin still marked the places of their dead with four stones planted at the head, the feet, and the sides. In the centre the earth is either heaped up Mus annam, it asked like the hump of a camel, or more generally left Mus atta, level. I therefore supposed that the latter was the original shape of the prophet's tomb. Within the enclosure certain mergers of the holy army were buried. After praying there we repaired to a small building still nearer to the foot of the mountain. It is usual cupola, springing from the four square walls, not in the best preservation. Here the prophet prayed, and it is called the kubat al-Saniya, dorm of the front teeth, from the following circumstance. Five infidels were bound by oath to slay Mohammed at the battle of Ahot. One of these, im kumaia, threw so many stones, and with such goodwill, the two rings of the prophet's helmet were driven into his cheeks, and blood poured from his brow down his mustachios, which he wiped with a cloak to prevent the drops falling to the ground. Then Utba bin Abi Wakkas hurled a stone at him, which, splitting his lower lip, knocked out one of his front teeth. On the left of the mirab, inserted low in the wall, is a square stone, upon which Shaikhamid showed me the impression of a tooth. He kissed it with peculiar reverence, and so did I. But the boy Mohammed, being by me, objugated, for I remarked in him a jaunty demeanor combined with neglectfulness of ceremonies, saluted it sulkily, muttering the wild hints about the holiness of his birthplace, exempting him from the trouble of stooping. Already he had appeared at the Harim without his juba, and with ungird loins, in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. Moreover he had conducted himself indecoriously by nudging Shaikhamid's sights during divine service, feeling that the youth's moral man was, like his physical, under my charge, and determined to arrest a cause of conduct which must have ended in obtaining for me, the master, the reputation of a son of Belyal, I insisted upon his joining us in the customary two-bar prayers. And Sa'ad, the demon, taking my side of the question, with his usual alacrity, when a disturbance was in prospect, the youth found it necessary to yield. After this little scene, Shaikhamid poached out his sprawling inscription, blessing the companions of the prophet. The unhappy Abu Bakr's name had been half effaced by some phonetic shia, a circumstance which seemed to arouse all the evil in my companion's nature, and, looking close at the wall, I found a line of Persian verse to this effect. I am wary of my life, Umar, because it bears the name of Umar. Footnote. In the Persian characters the word Umar, life, and Umar, the name of the hated Caliph, are written in the same way, which explains the pun. End of footnote. We English wanderers are beginning to be shamed out of our vulgar habit of scribbling names and nonsense in noted spots, yet the practice is both classical and oriental. The Greeks and Persians left their marks everywhere as Egypt chose, and the paws of the swings bear scratches which, being interpreted, are found to be the same manner of trash as that written upon the remains of Thebes in A.D. 1879, and Easterns appear never to enter a building with a white wall without indicting upon it platitudes and verse and prose. Influenced by these considerations, I drew forth a pencil and inscribed in the Kubat Alsania. Abdullah, the servant of Allah. Anuhagria, 1269. Issuing from the dome, we turned a few paces to the left, past northwards, and thus blessed the martyrs of Ahod. Peace be upon ye, O martyrs. Peace be upon ye, O blessed, ye pious, ye pure, who fought upon Allah's path, the good fight, who worshipped your Lord until he brought you to certainty. Footnote. That is to say, to the hour of death. And a footnote. Peace be upon you of whom Allah said, virally repute not them slain on God's path, it is't worrying with infidels, nay, rather they are alive, and there's no fear upon them, nor are they sorrowful. Peace be upon ye, O martyrs of Ahod, one and all, and the mercy of Allah and his blessings. Then again we moved a few paces forward and went through a similar ceremony, supposing ourselves to be in the cave that sheltered the Apostle, after which, returning towards the torrent bed, by the way we came, we stood a small distance from the cupola called Qabad al-Masra. It resembled stead of the front teeth, and notes, as its name proves, the place where the gallant Hamza fell by the spear of Washi, the slave. Footnote. When Jubair ibn Mutim was marching to Ahod, according to the Rausat al-Saffa, in revenge for the death of his uncle Taima, he offered many a mission to his slave Washi, who was noted for the use of the Abyssinian spear, if he slew Hamza. The slave set an ambush behind a rock, and when the hero had dispatched one Siba bin Aptal Lais of Mecca, he threw a javelin which pierced his navel and came out of his back. The wounded man advanced towards his assassin, who escaped. Hamza then fell, and his friends coming up found him dead. While she waited till he saw an opportunity, drew the javelin from the body and mutilated it, in order to present trophies to the ferocious hinder, mother of Muavia, whose father Utpal had been slain by Hamza. The Amazon insisted upon seeing the corpse, having presented her necklace and bracelets to Washi. She supplied their place with the nose, the ears, and other parts of the dead hero. After mangling the body in a disgusting manner, she ended by tearing open the stomach and biting the liver, when she was called When Muhammad saw the state of his father's brother, he was sadly moved. Presently comforted by the inspirations brought by Gabriel, he cried, It is written among the people of the Seven Heavens, Hamza, son of Mutalib, is the line of Allah and the line of his prophet, and ordered him to be shrouded and prayed over him. Beginning, says the jazbal kulup, with seventy repetitions of Allah Akbar. Ali had brought in his shield some water for Muhammad, from Imaras or stone trough, which stood near the scene of action. But the prophet refused to drink it, and washed with it the blood from the face of him, measured by the side of the maras. It was of the Muslim slain at Ohad, according to Abu Dawud, that the prophet declared that their souls should be carried into the crops of green birds, that they might drink the waters and taste the fruits of paradise, and nestle beneath the golden lamps that hang from the celestial ceiling. He also forbade, on this occasion, this still popular practice of mutilating an enemy's corpse. And a footnote. We faced towards it and finished the ceremonies of this ziyarat, by a supplication, the testification and the fatia. In the evening I went with my friends to the harem. The minaret galleries were hung with lamps, and the inside of the temple was illuminated. It was crowded with hajjis, amongst whom were many women, a circumstance which struck me from its being unusual. Footnote. The prophet preferred women and young boys to pray privately, and in some parts of al-Islam they are not allowed to join a congregation. At al-Madinah, however, it is no longer, as in Burkut's time, a thought very in decorous in women to enter the mosque. End of footnote. Some pious pilgrims, who had duly paid for the privilege, were perched upon letters, trimming wax candles of vast dimensions, others were laying up for themselves rewards and paradise, by performing the same offers to the lamps. Many were going through the ceremonies of the ziyarat, and not a few were sitting in different parts of the mosque apparently overwhelmed with emotion. The boys and the beggars were inspired with fresh energy. The akhwat, were gruffer and surlier than had ever seen them, and the young men about town walked and talked with a freer nizia dimina than usual. My old friends, the Persians, there were about one thousand two hundred of them in the Hajj caravan attracted my attention. The doorkeepers stopped them with curses as they were about to enter, and claimed from each the sum of five piasters, whilst other Muslims were allowed to enter the mosque free. Unhappy men, they had lost all the shirah's swagger, their mustachios dropped pitiably, their eyes would not look anyone in the face, and not a head borecaps struck upon it crookedly. Whenever Najami, whatever might be his rank, stood in the way of an Arab or a Turk, he was rudely thrust aside, with abuse muttered loud enough to be heard by all around. All eyes followed them as they went through the ceremonies of ziyarat, especially as they approached the tombs of Abu Bakr and Omar, which every man is bound to defile if he can, and the supposed place of Fatima's burial. Here they stood in parties, after praying before the Prophet's window. One read from a book the pathetic tale of the lady's life, sorrows and mourning death, whilst the others listened to him with breathless attention. Sometimes their emotion was too strong to be repressed. I Fatima, I Musluma, why, why, oh Fatima, oh, thou injured one, allas, allas, burst involuntarily from their lips, despite the danger of such exclamations. Tears trickled down their hairy cheeks, and their brawny bosoms heaved with sobs. A strange sight it was to see rugged fellows, mountaineers perhaps, or the fierce liliads of the plains, sometimes weeping silently like children, sometimes shrieking like hysteric girls, and utterly careless to conceal a grief so coarse and grisly, at the same time so true and real that I knew not how to behold it. Then the satanic scowls with which they passed by, or pretended to pray at, the hated Omar's tomb, with what curses their hearts are belying those mouths full of blessings, how they are internally canonizing Fairuz, the Persian slave who stepped Omar in the Mosque, and praying for his eternal happiness in the presence of the murdered man. Sticks and stones, however, and not unfrequently the knife and the sabre, have taught them the hard lesson of disciplining their feelings, and nothing but a furious contraction of the brow, a roll of the eye, intensely vicious, and a twitching of the muscles about the region of the mouth, denote the wild storm of wrath within. They generally, too, managed to discharge some part of their passionate words. Hail Omar, thou hog, exclaim some fanatic madani as he passes by the heretic, a demand more outraging than requiring a red-hot black north protestant to bless the Pope. O Allah, help him, meekly response the Persian, changing the benediction to a curse most intelligible to and most delicious in his fellow's ears. An evening hour in the steamy heart of the harem was equal to half a dozen afternoons, and I left it resolved never to revisit it till the Hajj departed from Al-Madinah. It was only prudent not to see much of the Ajami's, and as I did so somewhat ostentatiously, my companions discovered that the Shaik Abdullah, having slain many of those heretics in some war or other, was avoiding them to escape retaliation. In proof of my generalistic qualities, the rolling down of the water-jar upon the heads of the Maghribi pilgrims in the golden thread was quoted, and all offered to fight for me allotrons, I took care not to contradict the report. CHAPTER XXI. THE PEOPLE OF AL-Madinah. Al-Madinah contains but few families descended from the prophet's auxiliaries. I heard only of four whose genealogy is undoubted, these were. The Bait al-ansari, or descendants of Abu Ayyub, a most noble race, whose tree ramifies through a space of fifteen hundred years. They keep the keys of the Cuba mosque and are imams in the harem, but the family is no longer wealthy or powerful. FOOTNOTE. Ibn Jubair relates that in his day a descendant of Bilal, the original mu'azin of the prophet, practices ancestral profession at al-Madinah. AND A FOOTNOTE. The Bait Abu Jude, they supply the harem with imams and mu'azins. I was told that there are now but two surviving members of this family, a boy and a girl. The Bait al-Sha'ab, a numerous race. Some of the members travel professionally, others trade and others are employed in the harem. The Bait al-Kharani, who are mostly engaged in commerce. There is also a race called al-Nachawila, who according to some are descendants of the Ansar, while others derive it from the Yazid, the son of Muawiyah. The latter opinion is improbable, as the caliph in question was a mortal foe to Ali's family, which is inordinately venerated by these people. FOOTNOTE. This word is said to be the plural of Naqwali, one who cultivates the date tree, a gardener or farmer. No one could tell me whether these heretics had not a peculiar name for themselves. I hazard a conjecture that they may be identical with the Mutawali, also written Mutawila, Mutawalis, Metualis, etc., etc. The hardy, courageous and hospitable mountaineers of Syria and Kola-Syria proper. This race of sectarians, about thirty-five thousand in number, holds to the Imamship or Supreme Pontificate of Ali and his descendants. They differ, however, in doctrine from the Persians, believing in a transmigration of the soul which, gradually purified, is at last orbed into a perfect star. They are scrupulous of cased and will not allow a Jew or a Frank to touch a piece of their furniture, yet they erect guest houses for infidels. In this they resemble the Shias, who are far more particular about ceremonial purity than the Sunnis. They use ablutions before each meal and, herein, remind us of the Hindus. END OF FOOTNOTE. As far as I could ascertain they abused the Sheikhan, Abu Bakar and Omar. All my informants agreed upon this point, but none could tell me why they neglected to Bedeval Osman, the third object of hatred to the Shia persuasion. They are numerous and warlike, yet they are despised by the townspeople because they openly profess heresy and are, moreover, of humble degree. They have their own priests and instructors, although subject to the Orthodox Kazi. Mary and their own sect are confined to low offices just slaughtering animals, sweeping and gardening, and are not allowed to enter the Harim during life or to be carried to it after death. Their corpses are taken down an outer street called the Darb al-Janaza, road of beers, to their own cemetery near Al-Bakia. They dress and speak Arabic like the townspeople, but the Arabs pretend to distinguish them by a peculiar look to noting their degradation. It is doubtless the mistake of effect for cause about all such tribes of a wandering foot and weary beast. A number of reports are current about the horrid customs of these people, and their community of women with the Persian pilgrims who passed through the town. Footnote. The Communist principles of Mazdaq the Persian, sixth century, have given his nation a permanent bad fame in this particular among the Arabs. End of footnote. It needs scarcely be said that such tales coming from the mouths of fanatic foes are not to be credited. I regret not having an opportunity to become intimate with any of the Nakhawila, from whom curious information might be elicited. Orthodox Muslims do not like to be questioned about such hateful subjects, when I attempted to learn something from one of my acquaintance, Sheikh Ula al-Din, of a Kurd family, settled at Al-Madinah. A man who had travelled over the east and who spoke five languages to perfection, he coldly replied that he had never consorted with these heretics. Sayeeds and Sharifes, the descendants of the Prophet, hear abound. Footnote. In Arabia the Sharif is the descendant of Hassan through his two sons, Sayeed and Hassan al-Moussana. The Sayeed is the descendant of the Hossain through Zayeen al-Abadin, the soul of twelve children who survived the fatal field of Karbala. The former devotes himself to government and war, the latter to learning and religion. In Persia and India the Sharif is the son of a Sayeed woman and a common Muslim. The Sayeed Nijib al-Taraf, noble on one side, is the son of a Sayeed father and a common Muslimah. The Sayeed Nijib al-Taraf, noble on both sides, is one whose parents are both Sayeeds. End of footnote. The Benu Hossain of al-Madinah have their headquarters at Suwariqiya. The former place contains six or seven families, the latter, 93 or 94. Footnote. Burkhardt alludes to this settlement when he says, in the eastern desert at three or four days journey from Madinah, lives a whole Bedouin tribe called Beniali, who are all of this Persian creed. I travelled to Suwariqiya and found it inhabited by Benu Hossain. The Benu Ali are Bedouin settled at the Awali near the Kubah Mosque. They were originally slaves of the Great House of Aouf, and are still heretical in their opinions. End of footnote. Anciently they were much more numerous, and such was their power that for centuries they retained charge of the Prophet's tomb. They subsist principally upon their amlak, property and land, for which they have tidal deeds extending back to Muhammad's days, and auqaf, religious bequests. Popular rumour accuses them of frequent murders for the sake of succession. At al-Madinah they live chiefly at the Hosh ibn Sa'ad, a settlement outside the town and south of the Darb al-janaza. There is, however, no objection to their dwelling within the walls, and they are taken to the Harim after death, if there be no evil report against the individual. Their burial place is the Bakiya Cemetery. The reason of this toleration is that some are supposed to be Sunni or Orthodox, and even the most heretical keep their Rafas, heresy, a profound secret. Footnote. Refusing, rejecting. Hence the origin of Rafizi, a rejecter, a heretic. In a Rafah's Nahum, verily we have rejected them. Abubakar, Omar, and Osman exclaim the Persians, glorying in the approprious epithet. End of footnote. Most learned Arabs believe that they belong like the Persians to the sect of Ali. The truth, however, is so vaguely known that I could find out none of the peculiarities of their faith till I met a Shirazi friend at Bombay. The Benu Hussein are spare dark men of Badawi appearance, and they dress in the old Arab style still affected by the Sharifes, a Kuffiya, kerchief on the head, a Banish, a long and wide-sleeved garment resembling our magician's gown, thrown over their white cotton camis, shirt. In public, they always carry swords even when others leave weapons at home. Footnote. Sayeeds in al-Hijaz as general rule do not denote their descent by the green turban. In fact, most of them wear a red Kashmir shawl around the head when able to afford the luxury. The green turban is an innovation in al-Islam. In some countries it is confined to the Sayeeds, in others it is worn as a mark of distinction by pilgrims. Kuda Baqsh, the Indian at Cairo, generally dressed in a tender green suit like a mantis. End of footnote. There are about two hundred families of Sayeed al-Awiyah, descendants of Ali, by any of his wives but Fatima. They bear no distinctive mark in dress or appearance, and are either employed at the temple or engage at trade. Of the Khalifiyah, or descendants of Abbas, there is, I am told, but one household, the Bait al-Khalifa, who act as imams in the Harim, and have charge of the Hamza's tomb. Some declare that there are a few of the Sidikiyah, or descendants from Abu Bakr. Others ignore them, and none could give me any information of the Benoona Jahr. The rest of the population of Al-Madinah is a motley race composed of offshoots from every nation in al-Islam. The sanctity of the city attracts strangers who, purposing to stay about a short time, become residents after finding some employment they marry, have families, die, and are buried there with an eye to the spiritual advantages of the place. I was much importun to stay at Al-Madinah. The only known physician was one Shaikh Abdullah Sahib, an Indian, a learned man, but of so melancholic a temperament and so ascetic in his habits that his knowledge was entirely lost to the public. Why dost thou not, said my friends, hire a shop somewhere near the Prophet's mosque, there thou wilt eat bread by thy skill, and thy soul will have the blessing of being on holy ground. Shaikh Noor also opined, after a short residence at Al-Madinah, that it was a Bara Janati Shahar, a very heavenly city, and little would have induced him to make it his home. The present ruling race at Al-Madinah in consequence of political vicissitudes is the Sufat, sons of Turkish fathers by Arab mothers. Footnote. Plural of Sufda, a half-case Turk, and a footnote. These half-case are now numerous and have managed to secure the highest and most lucrative offices. Since Turks, there are families originally from the Maghrib, Takruris, Egyptians in considerable numbers, settlers from Al-Yaman and other parts of Arabia, Syrians, Kurds, Afghans, Dagestanis from the Caucasus, and a few Jawis, Java Muslims. The Sindhis, I was told, reckon about one hundred families, who were exceedingly despised for their cowardice and want of manliness, whilst the Baluch and the Afghan are respected. The Indians are not so numerous in proportion here as at Mecca. Still, Hindustani is by no means uncommonly heard in the streets. They preserve their peculiar costume, the women persisting in showing their faces and in wearing tight, exceedingly tight pantaloons. This, together with other reasons, secures for them the contempt of the Arabs. At Al-Madinah they are generally small shopkeepers, especially drugists and sellers of kumash, cloth, and they form a society of their own. The terrible cases of misery and starvation which so commonly occur among the improvident Indians at Jeddah and Mecca are here rare. The Hanafi school holds the first rank at Al-Madinah, as in most parts of all Islam, although many of the citizens, and almost all the Badawan, are Shafais. The reader will have remarked with astonishment that at one of the fountain heads of the faith there are several races of schismatics, the Benu Hossain, the Benu Ali, and the Nachawila. At the town of Safra there are said to be a number of the Zuyud schismatics who visit Al-Madinah and have settled in force at Mecca, and some declare that the Bayazi sect also exists. Footnote. Plural of Zaidi. These are well-known schismatics of the Shia persuasion who abound in southern Arabia. End of footnote. Footnote. The Bayazi sect flourishes near Muscat, whose imam or prince it is said belongs to the heretical persuasion. It rejects Osman and advocates the superiority of Omar over the other two caliphs. End of footnote. The citizens of Al-Madinah are a favored race, although the city is not, like Mecca, the grand mart of the Muslim world or the meeting-place of nations. They pay no taxes and reject the idea of Amiri or Lances with extreme disdain. Are we the children of the Prophet they exclaim to support or to be supported? The Wahhabis, not understanding the argument, tax them as was their want, in speci and in materials, for which reason the very name of those Puritans is an abomination. As has before been shown, all the numerous attendants at the mosque are paid partly by the sultan, partly by the Okaf, the rents of houses and lands bequeathed to the shrine, and scattered over every part of the Muslim world. When a Madani is inclined to travel, he applies to the Mudir al-Harim and receives from him a paper which entitles him to the receipt of a considerable sum at Constantinople. The Ikram, honorarium as it is called, varies with the rank of the recipient, the citizens being divided into these four orders, vidicellate. First and highest, the Sadat, Sayeeds, and Imams, who are entitled to twelve purses or about sixty pounds. Footnote. Sadat is the plural of Sayeed. This word in the northern Hijaz is applied indifferently to the posterity of Hassan and Hossain. And a footnote. Of these there are said to be three hundred families. The Kanadan, who keep open house and receive poor strangers gratis. Their Ikram amounts to eight purses and they number from a hundred to a hundred and fifty families. The Ahali, Burgers, or Madani properly speaking, who have homes and families and were born in Al Medina, they claim, six purses. Footnote. The plural of Al, an inhabitant of a particular place. The reader will excuse my troubling him with these terms as they are almost all local in their application and therefore are not explained in such restricted sense by lexicographers the specification may not be useless to the Oriental students. End of footnote. The Mujah we're in, strangers as Egyptians or Indians, settled at though not born in Al Medina. There on Arrarium is four purses. The Madani traveler on arrival at Constantinople reports his arrival to his consul, the Wakil Al Haramayan. This agent of the two holy places applies to the Nazir Al-Aukuf, or Intendent of Bequests. The latter, after transmitting the demand to the different officers of the treasury, sends the money to the Wakil, who delivers it to the applicant. This gift is sometimes squandered in pleasure, more often profitably invested either in merchandise or in articles of home use, presents of dress and jewelry for the women, handsome arms especially pistols and balas, yata-gans, silk tassels, amber pipe-pieces, slippers, and embroidered purses. End of footnote. The Turkish yata-gans. It is a long dagger intended for thrusting rather than cutting and has a curve which, methinks, has been wisely copied by the Duke of Orléans in the bayonet of the Chasseur de Vincen. End of footnote. They are packed up in one or two large Saharas and then commences the labour of returning home gratis. Besides the Ikram, most of the Madani when upon these begging trips are received as guests by great men at Constantinople. The citizens whose turn it is not to travel await the Aokaf and Sadakat, bequests and alms, forwarded every year by the Damascus caravan. Besides which, as has been before explained, the Harim supplies even those not officially employed in it with many perquisites. Without these advantages, Almadina would soon be abandoned to cultivators and Badawan. Though commerce is here honourable as everywhere in the east, business is slack, because the higher classes prefer the idleness of administering their landed estates and being servants to the mosque. Footnote. Omar Effendi's brothers, grandsons of the principal Mufti of Almadina were both shopkeepers and were always exhorting him to do some useful work rather than muddle his brains and waste his time on books. End of footnote. I heard of only four respectable houses, al-Isawi, al-Sha'ab, abd al-Jawad and a family from al-Shark, the eastern region. They all deal in grain, cloth and provisions, and perhaps the richest have a capital of $20,000. Caravans and the cold weather are constantly passing between Almadina and Egypt, but they are rather bodies of visitors to Constantinople than traders travelling for gain. Corn is brought from Jeddah by land and imported into Yambu or via Al-Ra'is, a port on the Red Sea, one day and a half's journey from Safra. There is an active provision trade with the neighbouring Badawan, and the Syrian hajj supplies the citizens with apparel and articles of luxury, tobacco, dried fruits, sweet meats, knives and all that is included under the word notions. There are few storekeepers and their dealings are petty because articles of every kind are brought from Egypt, Syria and Constantinople. As a general rule labour is exceedingly expensive and at the visitation time a man will demand 15 or 20 piastres from a stranger for such a trifling job as mending an umbrella. To a townsman, even during the dead season, the pay of a gardener would be two piastres, a carpenter eight piastres per diem, and a common servant, a balwab or porter for instance, twenty-five piastres per mensum, or three pounds per annum, besides board and dress. Considering the value of money in the country these are very high rates. And a footnote. Handicraftsmen and artisans, carpenters, masons, locksmiths, potters and others are either slaves or foreigners, mostly Egyptians. Footnote. Who alone sell milk, curds or butter, the reason of their monopoly has been given in Chapter 8. And a footnote. This proceeds partly from the pride of the people. They are taught from their childhood that the Madani is a favoured being to be respected, however vile or schismatic, and that the vengeance of Allah will fall upon anyone who ventures to abuse much more to strike him. Footnote. History informs us that the sanctity of their birthplace has not always preserved the people of Al Medina, but the memory of their misfortunes is soon washed away by the overwhelming pride of the race. And a footnote. They receive a stranger at the shop window with the haughtiness of pashas and take pains to show him by words as well as by looks, that they consider themselves as good gentlemen as the king only not so rich. Added to this pride are indolence and the true Arab prejudice, which, even in the present day, prevents Abaddawi from marrying the daughter of an artisan. Like Castilians, they consider labour humiliating to any but a slave. Nor is this, as a clever French author remarks, by any means an unreasonable idea, since heaven, to punish man for disobedience, caused him to eat daily bread by the sweat of his brow. Besides, there is degradation, moral and physical in handiwork compared with the freedom of the desert. The loom and the filed do not conserve courtesy and chivalry like the sword and the spear. Man extends his tongue to use an Arab phrase when a cuff and not a stab is to be the consequence of an injurious expression. Even the Ruffian becomes polite in California where his brother Ruffian carries his revolver, and those European nations who were the most polished, when every gentleman wore a rapier, have become the rudest, since civilization disarmed them. By the tariff quoted below it will be evident that Almadina is not a cheap place. Footnote. The market is under the charge of an Arab mutasib or bazaar master, who again is subject to the muhafiz or pasha governing the place. The following was the current price of provisions at Almadina early in August 1853. During the visitation season everything is doubled. One pound mutton, two piasters. Beef is half price, but seldom eaten. There is no buffalo meat, and only Badoen will touch the camel. A fowl, five piasters. Eggs in summer, eight in winter, four for the piaster. One pound clarified butter, four piasters. When cheap it falls to two-and-a-half. Butter is made at home by those who eat it, and sometimes by the Egyptians for sale. One pound milk, one piaster. One pound cheese, two piasters. When cheap it is one, when deer, three piasters per pound. A wheaten loaf weighing twelve dirhams, ten paras. There are loaves of twenty-four dirhams costing half a piaster. One pound dry biscuits imported, three piasters. One pound of vegetables, half a piaster. One mud dates, varies according to quality, from four piasters to one hundred. One pound grapes, one-and-a-half piasters. A lime, one para. A pomegranate, from twenty paras, to one piaster. A watermelon, from three to six piasters each. One pound peaches, two piasters. One pound coffee, four piasters. The Yamani is the only kind drunk here. One pound tea, fifteen piasters. Black tea imported from India. One pound European loaf sugar, six piasters. White Egyptian five piasters. Brown Egyptian three piasters. Brown Indian for cooking and conserves, three piasters. One pound spermaceti candles, seven piasters. Called wax and imported from Egypt. One pound tallow candles, three piasters. One ardeb wheat, two hundred and ninety-five piasters. One ardeb onions, thirty-three piasters. When cheap, twenty, when dear, forty. One ardeb barley, one hundred and twenty piasters. Minimum ninety, maximum one hundred and eighty. One ardeb rice, Indian, three hundred and two piasters. It varies from two hundred and sixty to three hundred and fifty piasters according to quality. Dora or maize is generally given to animals and is very cheap. Barsim, clover, a bundle of, three wakias, thirty-six dirhams, costs one para. Adas or lentil is the same price as rice. One pound latakia tobacco, sixteen piasters. One pound Syrian tobacco, eight piasters. One pound tumbak, Persian, six piasters. One pound olive oil, six piasters. When cheap, it is four. A skin of water, half a piaster. Bag of charcoal containing one hundred wuka, ten piasters. The best kind is made from an acacia called samur. The para, Turkish, fada, Egyptian, or diwani, hijazi word, is the fortieth part of a piaster or nearly the quarter of a farthing. The piaster is about two and two-fifths pence. Throughout al-hijaz there is no want of small change as in Egypt, where the deficiency calls for the attention of the government. End of footnote. Yet the citizens, despite their being generally in debt, manage to live well. Their cookery, like that of Mecca, has borrowed something from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Persia, and India, as all orientals they are exceedingly fond of clarified butter. Footnote. Physiologists have remarked that fat and greasy food containing a quantity of carbon is peculiar to cold countries, whereas the inhabitants of the tropics delight in fruit, vegetables, and articles of diet which do not increase caloric. This must be taken cum grano. In Italy, Spain, and Greece the general use of olive oil begins. In Africa and Asia, especially in the hottest parts, the people habitually eat enough clarified butter to satisfy an eskimo. End of footnote. I have seen the boy Mohammed drink off nearly a tumblerful, although his friends warned him that it would make him as fat as an elephant. When a man cannot enjoy clarified butter in these countries it is considered a sign that his stomach is out of order, and all my excuses of a melancholic temperament were required to be in full play, to prevent the infliction of fried meats froming in Greece, or that guest-dish rice saturated with melted, perhaps I should say rancid, butter. Footnote. In Persia you jacosly say to a man when he is threatened with a sudden in-road of guests, go and swamp the rice with rogan, clarified butter. End of footnote. The salmon of al-hijaz, however, is often fresh, being brought in by the Badawan. It has not therefore the foul flavour derived from the old and impregnated skin-bag which distinguishes the ghee of India. Footnote. Among the Indians, ghee placed in pots carefully stopped up and kept for years till a hard black mass only remains is considered a panacea for diseases and wounds. End of footnote. The house of a Madani in good circumstances is comfortable, for the building is substantial and the attendance respectable. Black slave-girls here perform the complicated duties of servant-maids in England. They are taught to sew, to cook, and to wash, besides sweeping the house and drawing water for domestic use. Hazina, the charmer, I decided, Miss Nomer, costs from forty to fifty dollars. If she be a mother her value is less, but neat-handedness, propriety of demeanour, and skill in feminine accomplishments raise her to a hundred dollars or twenty-five pounds. A little black boy, perfect in all his points and tolerably intelligent, costs about a thousand piasters. Girls are dearer and eunuchs fetch double that sum. The older the children become, the more their value diminishes and no one would purchase, save under exceptional circumstances, an adult slave, because he is never parted with but for some incurable vice. The Abyssinian, mostly Gala-girls, so much pride because their skins are always cool in the hottest weather, are here rare. They sell themself for less than twenty pounds and they often fetch sixty pounds. I never heard of a Jaria-biza, a white slave-girl, being in the market at Almadina. In Sarkasia they fetch from one hundred to four hundred pounds prime cost, and few men in Al-Hijaz could afford so expensive a luxury. The bazaar at Almadina is poor, and as almost all the slaves are brought from Mecca by the Jalabs or Drivers, after exporting the best to Egypt, the town receives only the refuse. Footnote. Some of these slaves come from Abyssinia, the greater part, are driven from the Gala country and exported at the harbors of the Somali coast, Berbera, Tajora, and Zaila. As many as two thousand slaves from the former place and four thousand from the latter are annually shipped off to Mocha, Jeddah, Suez, and Muscat. It is strange that the Imam of the latter place should voluntarily have made a treaty with us for the suppression of this vile trade, and yet should allow so extensive an importation to his dominions. The personal appearance of the Madani makes the stranger wonder how this mongrel population of settlers has acquired a peculiar and almost an Arab physiognomy. They are remarkably fair, the effect of a cold climate. Sometimes the cheeks are lighted up with red and the hair is a dark chestnut. At Almadina I was not stared at as a white man. The cheeks and different parts of the children's bodies are sometimes marked with Mashali or Tashri, not the three long stripes of the meccans, but little scars generally in threes. Footnote. More will be said concerning the origin of this strange custom when speaking of Mecca and the meccans. End of footnote. In some points they approach very near the true Arab type, that is to say the Badawi of ancient and noble fame. The cheekbones are high and seant. The eyes small, more round than long. Piercing, fiery, deep-set, and brown rather than black. The head is small, the ears well cut, the face long and oval, though not infrequently disfigured by what is popularly called the lantern jaw. The forehead high, bony, broad, and slightly retreating, and the beard and moustachio scanty, consisting of two tufts upon the chin, with, generally speaking, little or no whisker. These are the points of resemblance between the city and the country Arab. The difference is equally remarkable. The temperament of the Madani is not purely nervous like that of the Badawi, but admits a large admixture of the bilious, and though rarely, the lymphatic. The cheeks are fuller, the jaws project more than in the pure race, the lips are more fleshy, more sensual, and ill-fitting. The features are broader, and the limbs are stouter and more bony. The beard is little thicker, and the young Arabs of the towns are beginning to imitate the Turks in that abomination to their ancestors, shaving. Personal vanity, always a ruling passion among Orientals, and a hopeless wish to emulate the flowing beards of the Turks and the Persians, perhaps the only nations in the world who ought not to shave the chin, have overruled even the religious objections to such innovation. I was more frequently appealed to at Al Medina than anywhere else for some means of removing the Approbrium Cusa, or scant bearded man. They blacken the beard with gallnuts, henna, and other preparations, especially the Egyptian mixture, composed of sulphate of iron one part, ammonia of iron one part, and gallnuts two parts infused in eight parts of distilled water. It is a very bad dye. Much refinement of dress is now found at Al Medina, Constantinople, the Paris of the East, supplying it with the newest fashions. Respectable men, wear either a banish or a juba. The latter, as at Mecca, is generally of some light and flashy color, gamboge, yellow, tender green, or bright pink. This is the sign of a dressy man. If you have a single coat, it should be of some modest color, as a dark violet, to appear always in the same tender green or bright pink would excite derision. But the hijazis, poor and rich, always prefer these tulip tints. The proper badan, or long coat without sleeve, still worn in truly Arab countries, is here confined to the lowest classes. That ugliest of headdress is the red Tunisian cap, called tarbush, is much used, only the Arabs have too much disregard for their eyes and faces to wear it as the Turks do without a turban. Footnote. The word tarbush is a corruption from the Persian sarpush, head covering, headdress. The Anglo-Saxon further debases it to tarbush. The other name for the tarbush, Fez, denotes the place where the best were made. Some Egyptians distinguish between the two, calling the large high crimson cap Fez, the small one tarbush, and a footnote. It is with regret that one sees the most graceful headgear imaginable, the kufiya and the akhal, prescribed except among the sharifes and the badawan. The women dress like the men handsomely. Indoors they wear, I am told, a sudayuriya, or bodice of calico and other stuffs like the koli of India, which supports the bosom without the evils of European stays. Over this is a saub, or white shirt, of the white stuff called halayili, or borunjuk, with enormous sleeves and flowing down to the feet. The sarwal or pantaloons are not wide like the Egyptians, but rather tight, approaching to the Indian cut without its exaggeration. Footnote. In India, as in Sindh, a lady of fashion will sometimes be occupied a quarter of an hour in persuading her bloomers to pass over the region of the ankle. End of footnote. Abroad they throw over the head a silk or cotton milaya, generally checkered white and blue. The burqa, face veil, all over hijaz, is white, a decided improvement in point of cleanliness upon that of Egypt. Women of all ranks dye the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands black, and trace thin lines down the inside of the fingers, by first applying a plaster of henna, and then a mixture called shadar, of golnuts, alum, and lime. The hair parted in the center is plated into about twenty little twists called jadila. Footnote. In the plural called jadail. It is a most becoming headdress when the hair is thick, and when, which I regret to say is rare in Arabia, the twists are undone for ablution once a day. End of footnote. Of ornaments, as usual among orientals, they have a vast variety ranging from brass and spangles to gold and precious stones, and they delight in strong perfumes, musk, civet, ambergris, atar of rose, oil of jasmine, aloe wood, and extractive cinnamon. Both sexes wear Constantinople slippers. The women draw on kuf, inner slippers of bright yellow leather, serving for socks, and covering the ankle, with papush of the same material, sometimes lined with velvet and embroidered with a gold sprig under the hollow of the foot. In mourning the men show no difference of dress like good Muslims, to whom such display of grief is forbidden. But the women who cannot dissociate the heart and the toilette evince their sorrow by wearing white clothes and by doffing their ornaments. This is a modern custom. The accurate Burkhart informs us that in his day the women of Al Medina did not wear mourning. The Medani generally appear abroad on foot. Few animals are kept here on account, I suppose, of the expense of feeding them. The cavalry are mounted on poor Egyptian nags. The horses generally ridden by rich men are generally nidghti, costing from two hundred to three hundred dollars. Camels are numerous, but those bred in al-hijjahs are small, weak, and consequently little prized. Dramedaries of good breed, called Arar, the noble, and Namanee from the place of that name, are to be had for any sum between ten and four hundred dollars. Footnote. Plural of Hurrah, the free, the noble. End of footnote. They are diminutive, but exceedingly swift, sure-footed, sagacious, thoroughbred, with eyes like the antelopes, and muzzles that would almost enter a tumbler. Mules are not found at Al Medina, although popular prejudice does not now forbid the people to mount them. Asses come from Egypt and Mecca. I am told that some good animals are to be found in the town, and that certain ignoble Badawi clans have a fine breed, but I never saw any. Of beasts intended for food, the sheep is the only common one in this part of al-hijjahs. There are three distinct breeds. The larger animal comes from nidght and the Anizah Badawin, who drive a flourishing trade. The smaller is a native of the country. Both are the common Arab species of a tawny color with a long, fat tail. Occasionally, one meets with what at Aden is called the Barbera sheep, a totally different beast, white with a black broad face, a dew-lap, and a short, fat tail that looks as if it twisted up into a knot. It was doubtless introduced by the Persians. Cows are rare at Al Medina. Beef throughout the east is considered an unwholesome food, and the Badawi will not drink cow's milk, preferring that of the camel, the ewe, and the goat. The flesh of the latter animal is scarcely ever eaten in the city except by the poorest classes. The manners of the Madani are graver and somewhat more pompous than those of any Arabs with whom I have ever mixed. This they appear to have borrowed from their rulers, the Turks, but their austerity and ceremoniousness are skin-deep. In intimacy or in anger, the garb of politeness is thrown off, and the screaming Arab voice, the voluble, copious, and emphatic abuse, and the mania for gesticulation, return in all their deformity. They are great talkers as the following little trait shows, when a man is opposed to more than his match in disputing or bargaining, instead of patiently saying to himself, Sikrash Ilemar, he interrupts the adversary with a sal ala Muhammad, bless the Prophet. Every good Muslim is obliged to obey such requisition by responding ala huma sali alaih, O Allah bless him. But the Madani curtail the phrase too, an, supposing it to be equivalent, and precedes in his locosity. Then perhaps the baffled opponent will shout out wahid, i.e., attest the unity of the deity. When instead of employing the usual religious phrases to assert that dogma, he will briefly ejaculate al, and hurry on with the course of the conversation. As it may be supposed, these wars of words frequently end in violent quarrels. For, to do the Madani justice, they are always ready to fight. The desperate old feud between the Jua and the Bara, the town and the suburbs, has been put down with the greatest difficulty. The boys, indeed, still keep it up, turning out in bodies, and making determined onslaughts with sticks and stones. Footnote. This appears to be, and to have been, a favoured weapon with the Arabs. At the battle of Uhud, we read that the combatants amuse themselves with throwing stones. On our road to Mecca, the Badawi attacked a party of city Arabs, and the fight was determined with these harmless weapons. At Mecca the men as well as the boys used them with as much skill as the Somalis at Aden. As regards these feuds between different quarters of the Arab towns, the reader will bear in mind that such things can coexist with considerable amount of civilisation. In my time, the different villages in the Sorrentine plain were always at war. The Irish still fight in bodies at Birkenhead, and in the days of our fathers the gammons of London amuse themselves every Sunday by pitched battles on Primrose Hill, and the fields about Marleybone and St. Pancras. End of Footnote. It is not to be believed that in a town garrisoned by Turkish troops full of travelled traders, and which supports itself by plundering hajis, the primitive virtues of the Arab could exist. The Meccans, a dark people, say of the Madani that their hearts are black as their skins are white. Footnote. Alluding especially to their revengefulness and their habits of storing up an injury, and of forgetting old friendships or benefits when a trivial cause or quarrel arises. End of Footnote. This is, of course, exaggerated, but it is not too much to assert that pride, pugnacity, peculiar point of honour, and vindictiveness of wonderful force and patience are the only characteristic traits of Arab character which the citizens of Almadine habitually display. Here you meet with scant remains of the chivalry of the desert. A man will abuse his guest even though he will not dine without him, and will protect him bravely against an enemy. And words often pass lightly between individuals which suffice to cause a blood feud amongst Badawan. The outward appearance of decorum is conspicuous among the Madani. There are no places where Corinthians dwell, as at Mecca, Cairo, and Jeddah. Adultery, if detected, would be punished by lapidation according to the rigor of the Quranic law, and simple immorality by religious stripes, or, if of repeated occurrence, by expulsion from the city. Footnote. The sentence is passed by the Qazi. In cases of murder he tries the criminal, and after finding him guilty, sends him to the Pasha, who orders a Qawas, or policemen, to strike off his head with a sword. Thieves are punished by mutilation of the hand. In fact, justice at Almadina is administered in perfect conformity with the Shariaat or Holy Law. End of footnote. But scandals seldom occur, and the women, I am told, behave with great decency. Abroad they have the usual Muslim pleasures of marriage, liings in, circumcision feasts, holy incitations, and funerals. At home they employ themselves with domestic matters, and especially in scolding Hasina and Zafaran. In this occupation they surpass even the notable English housekeeper of the middle orders of society, the latter being confined to nagging at her slavey, whereas the Arab lady is allowed an unbounded extent of vocabulary. At Sheikh Hamid's house, however, I cannot accuse the women of swearing into strong shudders the immortal gods who heard them. They abused the black girls with unction, but without any violent expletives. At Mecca, however, the old lady in whose house I was living would, when excited by the melancholy temperament of her eldest son and his irregular hours of eating, scold him in the grossest terms, not unfrequently ridiculous in the extreme. For instance, one of her assertions was that he, the son, was the offspring of an immoral mother, which assertion one might suppose reflected not indirectly upon herself. So in Egypt I have frequently heard a father, when reproving his boy, address him by, O dog, son of a dog, and O spawn of an infidel, of a Jew, of a Christian. Amongst the men of Al-Madinah I remarked a considerable share of hypocrisy. Their mouths were as full of religious salutations, exclamations, and hackneyed quotations from the Quran, as of indecency and evile abuse, a point in which they resemble the Persians. As before observed they preserved their reputation as the sons of a holy city by praying only in public. At Constantinople there are by no means remarkable for sobriety. Intoxicating liquors, especially Araki, are made in Al-Madinah only by the Turks. The citizens seldom indulge in this way at home, as detection by smell is imminent among the people of water-bibbers. During the whole time of my stay I had to content myself with a single bottle of cognac, colored and scented to resemble medicine. The Madani are, like the Meccans, a curious mixture of generosity and meanness of profuseness and penuriousness. But the former quality is the result of ostentation. The latter is a characteristic of the Semitic race, long ago made familiar to Europe by the Jew. The citizens will run deeply in debt, expecting a good season of devotees to pay off their liabilities, or relying upon the next begging trip to Turkey, and such a proceeding contrary to the custom of the Muslim world is not condemned by public opinion. Above all their qualities personal conceit is remarkable. They show it in their strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. I am such and one, the son of such and one is a common expletive especially in times of danger, and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly acts as an incentive to gallant actions. But it often excites them to vie with one another in expensive entertainments and similar vanities. The expression so offensive to English ears, Insha'Allah Bukra, please God to-morrow, always said about what should be done today, is here common as in Egypt or in India. This procrastination belongs more or less to all Orientals, but Arabia especially abounds in the Tawakal al-Allah yashayk, place thy reliance upon Allah o'shaik. Enjoyed when a man should depend upon his own exertions. Upon the whole, however, though alive to the infirmities of the Madani character, I thought favorably of it, finding among this people more of the redeeming point manliness than in most Eastern nations with whom I am acquainted. The Arabs, like the Egyptians, all marry. Yet as usual, they are hard and facetious upon that ill-treated subject matrimony. It has exercised the brain of their wits and sages who have not failed to indict notable things concerning it, Sayyidh, Harikar al-Hakim, Dominidu'al, to his nephew Nadan, Sir Whitlist, whom he would dissuade from taking to himself a wife. Marriage is a joy for a month and a sorrow for a life, and the paying of settlements and the breaking of back, i.e. under the load of misery, and the listening to a woman's tongue. And again we have inverse. They say, Mary, I replied, far be it for me to take to my bosom a sack full of snakes. I am free, why then become a slave? May Allah never bless woman kind. And the following lines are generally quoted as affording a kind of bird's eye view of female existence. From ten years of age unto twenty, a repose to the eyes of beholders. Footnote. A phrase corresponding with our end of footnote. From twenty to thirty, still fair and full of flesh. From thirty unto forty, a mother of many boys and girls. From forty unto fifty, an old woman of the deceitful. From fifty unto sixty, slayer with a knife. From sixty unto seventy, the curse of Allah upon them, one and all. Another popular couplet makes a most unsupported assertion. They declare a woman kind to be heaven to man, I say. Allah, give me jahanam, and not this heaven. Yet the fair sex has the laugh on its side for these railers at al-Madinah as at other places, invariably Mary. The marriage ceremony is tedious and expensive. It begins with a kitbah or betrothal. The father of the young man repairs to the parent or guardian of the girl, and at the end of his visit exclaims, the Fatiha, we beg of your kindness, your daughter for our son. Should the other be favourable to the proposal, his reply is, Welcome and congratulation to you, but we must perform Istikara, religious lot-casting. This means consulting the will of the deity by praying for a dream and sleep by the rosary, by opening the Quran, and other such devices which bear blame if a negative be deemed necessary. It is accustomed throughout the Muslim world, a relic doubtless of the Islam or Qida, seven divining arrows of the pagan times. At al-Madinah it is generally called Qira and a footnote. And when consent is given, both pledge themselves to the agreement by reciting the Fatiha. Then commence negotiations about the mar or sum settled upon the bride. Footnote, among respectable citizens four hundred dollars would be considered a fair average sum. The expense of the ceremony would be about half. This amount of ready money, a hundred and fifty pounds, not being always procurable, many of the madani marry late in life. End of footnote. And after the smoothing of this difficulty, follow feastings of friends and relatives, male and female. The marriage itself is called Aqt al-Nikah or Zewaj. Awalima or banquet is prepared by the father of the Aris, Groom, at his own house, and the Qazi attends to perform the nuptial ceremony, the girl's consent being obtained through her Wakil, any male relation whom she commissions to act for her. Then, with great pomp and circumstance, the Aris visits his Arusa bride at her father's house, and finally, with a zufa or procession and sundry ceremonies at the Harim, she is brought to her new home. Arab funerals are as simple as their marriages are complicated. Neither Nadaba, myriologist or hired keener, nor indeed any female even a relation, is present at burials as in other parts of the Muslim world, and it is esteemed disgraceful for a man to weep aloud. Footnote. Boys are allowed to be present, but they are not permitted to cry. Of their so misdemeaning themselves there is little danger the Arab in these matters is a man from his cradle. End of footnote. The Prophet, who doubtless had heard of those pagan mornings, wherein a feminine and unlimited display of woe was often terminated by licentious excesses, like the Christian's half-heathen wakes, for bad ought beyond a decent demonstration of grief, and his strong good sense enabled him to see through the vanity of professional mourners. At Al-Madinah the corpse is interred shortly after decease. The beer is carried through the streets at a moderate pace by friends and relatives, these bringing up the rear. Footnote. They are called the Azdika in the singular Sadiq. End of footnote. Every man who passes lends his shoulder for a minute, a mark of respect to the dead, and also considered a pious and prayerful act. Arrived at the Harim they carry the corpse in visitation to the Prophet's window, and pray over it at Osman's niche. Finally it is interred after the usual Muslim fashion in the cemetery Al-Bakia. Al-Madinah, though pillaged by the Wahhabis, still abounds in books. Near the Harim are two madrasa or colleges, the Mahmudiyya, so called from Sultan Mahmud, and that of Bashir Aga. Both have large stores of theological and other works. I also heard of extensive private collections, particularly of one belonging to the Najib al-Ashraf, or chief of the Sharifs, a certain Mohammed Jamal al-Lail, whose father is well known in India. Besides which there is a large Waqf or bequest of books presented to the mosque or entailed upon particular families. Footnote. From what I saw at Al-Madinah the people are not so unprejudiced on this point as the Kyrenes, who think little of selling a book in Waqf. The subject of Waqf, however, is an extensive one and does not wholly exclude the legality of sale. And a footnote. The celebrated Mohammed ibn Abdullah al-Sanusi has removed his collection, amounting it is said, to 8000 volumes, from Al-Madinah to his house in Jabal Qabais at Mecca. Footnote. This shaykh is a Maliki Muslim from Algiers, celebrated as an Alim, sage, especially in the mystic study of Al-Jafir. He is a Wali or saint, but opinions differ as regards his Kiramat, saints' miracles. Some disciples look upon him as the Makdi, the forerunner of the Prophet. Others consider him a clever imposter. His peculiar dogma is the superiority of live over dead saints whose tombs are therefore not to be visited, a new doctrine in a Maliki. Abbas Pasha loved and respected him, and as he refused all presence, built him a new Zawiyah oratory at Bulak, and when the Egyptian ruler's mother was at Al-Madinah, she called upon him three times it is said before he would receive her. His followers and disciples are scattered in numbers about Tripoli, and amongst other oases of the Fezzan at Siwa, where they saved the Abbey Hamilton's life in A.D. 1843. End of Footnote. The burial place of the Prophet, therefore, no longer lies open to the charge of utter ignorance brought against it by my predecessor. The people now praise their olemah for learning and boast a superiority in respect of science over Mecca. Yet many students leave the place for Damascus and Cairo, where the Rewak Al-Haramin, college of the two shrines in the Azhar Mosque University, is always crowded, and though Omar Effendi boasted to me that his city was full of lore, he did not appear the less anxious to attend the lectures of Egyptian professors. But none of my informants claim for Al-Madinah any facilities of studying other than the purely religious sciences. Philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, mathematics, and algebra cannot be learned here. I was careful to inquire about the occult sciences, remembering that Paracelsus had traveled in Arabia and that the Count Cagliostro, Giuseppe Balsamo, who claimed the Meccan Sharif as his father, asserted that about A.D. 1765 he had studied alchemy at Al-Madinah. The only trace I could find was a superficial knowledge of the magic mirror. But after denying the Madonna the praise of varied learning, it must be owned that their quick observation and retentive memories have stored up for them an abundance of superficial knowledge, culled from conversations in the market and in the camp. I found it impossible here to display those feats which in Sin, South Persia, Eastern Arabia, and many parts of India would be looked upon as miraculous. Most probably one of the company had witnessed the performance of some Italian conjurer at Constantinople or Alexandria and retained a lively recollection of every maneuver. As linguists they are not equal to the Meccans who surpass all Orientals accepting only the Armenians. The Madani seldom know Turkish and more rarely still Persian and Indian. Those only who have studied in Egypt chant the Koran well. The citizens speak and pronounce their language purely. They are not equal to the people of the southern Hijaz. Still, their Arabic is refreshing after the horrors of Cairo and Muscat. Footnote. The only abnormal sound amongst the Constanents heard here and in al-Hijaz generally is the pronouncing of K, Arabic, a hard G, for instance Guran for Koran, a Koran, and Hagi or Haki, my right. This G however is pronounced deep in the throat and does not resemble the corrupt Egyptian pronunciation of the Jim, J, Arabic, a letter which the cops knew not and which their modern descendants cannot articulate. In al-Hijaz the only abnormal sounds among the vowels are O for O, as Khokh, Apeach, and Arabic for Arabic. As Ohod for Uhud, the two short vowels Fath and Kasir are correctly pronounced, the former never becoming a short E as in Egypt, L for Al and Yemen for Yaman, or a short I as in Syria, Min for Man, Hu, etc. These vowels however are differently articulated in every part of the Arab world. So says St. Jerome of the Hebrew. The classical Arabic, be it observed, in consequence of an extended empire, soon split up into various dialects, as the Latin under similar circumstances separated into the Neo-Roman Petois of Italy, Sicily, Provence, and Languedoc. And though Nibur has been deservedly censured for comparing the Koranic language to Latin and the Vulgar tongue to Italian, still there is a great difference between them almost every word having undergone some alteration in addition to the manifold changes and simplifications of grammar and syntax. The traveller will hear in every part of Arabia that some distant tribe preserves the linguistic purity of its ancestors, uses final vowels with the noun, and rejects the addition of the pronoun, which Apokhopi in the verb now renders necessary. The final vowel, suffering Apokhopi, would leave Zahrabt equally applicable to the first person singular and the second person singular masculine. And a footnote. But I greatly doubt the existence of such a race of philologists. In al-Hijjahs, however, it is considered graceful in an old man, especially when conversing publicly, to lean towards classical Arabic. On the contrary, in a youth, this would be treated as pedantic affectation and condemned in some such satiric quotation as, There are two things colder than ice, a young old man and an old young man. End of section 29