Sir Richard Francis Burton

“ Many pilgrims, especially the soldiers, were in laical costume. In one place a half-drunken Arnaut stalked down the road, elbowing peaceful passengers and frowning fiercely in hopes of a quarrel. In another part, a huge dimly-lit tent, reeking hot, and garnished with cane seats, contained knots of Egyptians, as their red Tarbushes, white turbands, and black Zaabuts showed, noisily intoxicating themselves with forbidden hemp. There were frequent brawls and great confusion; many men had lost their parties, and, mixed with loud Labbayks, rose the shouted names of women as well as of men. ”

“ Moslem historians seem to delight in the obscurity which hangs over the ladys last resting-place, as if it were an honour even for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of men. Some place her in the Harim, relying upon this tradition: Fatimah, feeling about to die, rose up joyfully, performed the greater ablution, dressed herself in pure garments, spread a mat upon the floor of her house near the Prophets Tomb, lay down fronting the Kiblah, placed her hand under her cheek, and said to her attendant, I am pure and in a pure dress ”

“ When your hunger is satisfied, you do not sit for your companions; you exclaim Al Hamd! edge away from the tray, wash your hands and mouth with soap, display signs of repletion, otherwise you will be pressed to eat more, seize your pipe, sip your coffee, and take your Kayf. Nor is it customary, in these lands, to sit together after dinnerthe evening prayer cuts short the seance. Before we rose to take leave of Ali bin Ya Sin, a boy ran into the room, and displayed those infantine civilities which in the East are equivalent to begging a present. ”

“ The road was flanked on the left by an iron wall of black basalt. Noon brought us to another ridge, whence we descended into a second wooded basin surrounded by hills.
Here the air was filled with those pillars of sand so graphically described by Abyssinian Bruce. They scudded on the wings of the whirlwind over the plain,huge yellow shafts, with lofty heads, horizontally bent backwards, in the form of clouds; and on more than one occasion camels were thrown down by them. It required little stretch of fancy to enter into the Arabs superstition. ”

“ O Allah, I extend my Hand to Thee, and great is my Desire to Thee! O accept Thou my Supplication, and diminish my Obstacles, and pity my Humiliation, and graciously grant me Thy Pardon! After which, as we were still unable to reach the stone, we raised our hands to our ears, the palms facing the stone, as if touching it, recited the various religious formulae, the Takbir, the Tahlil, and the Hamdilah, blessed the Prophet, and kissed the finger-tips of the right hand. The Prophet used to weep when he touched the Black Stone, and said that it was the place for the pouring forth of tears. ”

“ Inside there are no flower-plots, no tall trees, in fact none of the refinements which lightens the gloom of a Christian burial-place: the buildings are simple, they might even be called mean. Almost all are the common Arab Mosque, cleanly whitewashed, and looking quite new. The ancient monuments were levelled to the ground by Saad the Wahhabi and his puritan followers, who waged pitiless warfare against what must have appeared to them magnificent mausolea, deeming as they did a loose heap of stones sufficient for a grave. ”

“ After an hours rapid march we toiled over a rugged ridge, composed of broken and detached blocks of basalt and scoriæ, fantastically piled together, and dotted with thorny trees. Shaykh Masud passed the time in walking to and fro along his line of camels, addressing us with a Khallikum guddam, to the front (of the litter) ! as we ascended, and a Khallikum wara, to the rear! during the descent. It was wonderful to see the animals stepping from block to block with the sagacity of mountaineers; assuring themselves of their forefeet before trusting all their weight to advance. ”

“ The pilgrims,
swaying to and fro, Like waves of a great sea, that in mid shock Confound each other, white with foam and fear,
rushed down the hill with a Labbayk sounding like a blast, and took the road to Muna. Then I saw the scene which has given to this part of the ceremonies the name of Al-Dafa min Arafat,the Hurry from Arafat. Every man urged his beast with might and main: it was sunset; the plain bristled with tent-pegs, litters were crushed, pedestrians were trampled, camels were overthrown: single combats with sticks and other weapons took place ”

“ In the drawing-room, which the Turkish colonel occupied when at Meccah, the Kabirah supplied me with a pipe, coffee, cold water, and breakfast. I won her heart by praising the graceless boy Mohammed; like all mothers, she dearly loved the scamp of the family. When he entered, and saw his maternal parent standing near me, with only the end of her veil drawn over her mouth, he began to scold her with divers insinuations. Soon thou wilt sit amongst the men in the hall! he exclaimed. O, my son, rejoined the Kabirah, fear Allah: thy mother is in years!and truly she was so, being at least fifty. ”

“ But, contemptible though their battles be, the Badawin are not cowards. The habit of danger in raids and blood-feuds, the continual uncertainty of existence, the desert, the chase, the hard life and exposure to the air, blunting the nervous system; the presence and the practice of weapons, horsemanship, sharpshooting, and martial exercises, habituate them to look death in the face like men, and powerful motives will make them heroes. The English, it is said, fight willingly for liberty, our neighbours for glory ”

“ On the other hand, male travellers generally speak lovingly of the harim. Sonnini, no admirer of Egypt, expatiates on the generous virtues, the examples of magnanimity and affectionate attachment, the sentiments ardent, yet gentle, forming a delightful unison with personal charms in the harims of the Mamluks.
As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Human nature, all the world over, differs but in degree. Everywhere women may be capricious, coy, and hard to please in common conjunctures: in the hour of need they will display devoted heroism. ”

“ There is no god but Allah, Alone, without Partner; His is the Kingdom, unto Him be Praise; He giveth Life and Death, He is alive and perisheth not; in His Hand is Good, and He over all Things is Omnipotent. Then, with the donkey-boys leading our animals and a stout fellow preceding us with lantern and a quarter-staff to keep off the running Badawin, camel-men, and riders of asses, we descended Safa, and walked slowly down the street Al-Massa, towards Marwah. ”

“ Is there no true greatness in this sentiment?Birth is the boast of the faineant; noble is the youth who beareth every ill, who clotheth himself in mail during the noontide heat, and who wandereth through the outer darkness of night. And why does the knight of knights love Ibla? Because she is blooming as the sun at dawn, with hair black as the midnight shades, with Paradise in her eye, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nijd? ”

“ OF HAJJ, OR PILGRIMAGE. The word Hajj is explained by Moslem divines to mean Kasd, or aspiration, and to express mans sentiment that he is but a wayfarer on earth wending towards another and a nobler world. This explains the origin and the belief that the greater the hardships the higher will be the reward of the pious wanderer. He is urged by the voice of his soul: O thou who toilest so hard for worldly pleasures and perishable profit, wilt thou endure nothing to win a more lasting reward? ”

“ Around the moving host of white-robed pilgrims hovered a crowd of Badawin, male and female, all mounted on swift dromedaries, and many of them armed to the teeth. As their drapery floated in the wind, and their faces were veiled with the Lisam, it was frequently difficult to
[p.182] distinguish the sex of the wild being, flogging its animal to speed. These people, as has been said, often resort to Arafat for blood-revenge, in hopes of finding the victim unprepared. Nothing can be more sinful in Al-Islam than such deedit is murder, made sicker by sacrilege ”

“ And nothing stranger than the contrasts; a band of half-naked Takruri marching with the Pashas equipage, and long-capped, bearded Persians conversing with Tarbushd and shaven Turks.
The plain even at an early hour reeked with vapours distilled by the fires of the Samum: about noon, however, the air became cloudy, and nothing of colour remained, save that milky white haze, dull, but glaring withal, which is the prevailing day-tint in these regions. At mid-day we reached a narrowing of the basin, where, from both sides, Irk, or low hills, stretch their last spurs into the plain. ”

“ If you will add a few obliging expressions to the bundle, and offer Latro a cup of coffee and a pipe, you will talk half your toilette back to your own person; and if you can quote a little poetry, you will part the best of friends, leaving perhaps only a pair of sandals behind you. But should you hesitate, Latro, lamenting the painful necessity, touches up your back with the heel of his spear. If this hint suffice not, he will make things plain by the lances point, and when blood shows, the tiger-part of humanity appears. ”

“ Arab wars, too, are a succession of skirmishes, in which five hundred men will retreat after losing a dozen of their number. In this partisan-fighting the first charge secures a victory, and the vanquished fly till covered by the shades of night. Then come cries and taunts of women, deep oaths, wild poetry, excitement, and reprisals, which will probably end in the flight of the former victor. ”

“ I never saw men more destitute. They carried wooden bowls, which they filled with water by begging; their only weapon was a small knife, tied in a leathern sheath above the elbow; and their costume an old skull-cap, strips of leather like sandals under the feet, and a long dirty shirt, or sometimes a mere rag covering the loins. Some were perfect savages, others had been fine-looking men, broad-shouldered, thin-flanked, and long-limbed; many were lamed by fatigue and by thorns; and looking at most of them, I fancied death depicted in their forms and features. ”

“ The Eastern Arabs allay the torments of thirst by a spoonful of clarified butter, carried on journeys in a leathern bottle. Every European traveller has some recipe of his own. One chews a musket-bullet or a small stone. A second smears his legs with butter. ”

“ When peace is to be made, both parties count up their dead, and the usual blood-money is paid for excess on either side. Generally, however, the feud endures till, all becoming weary of it, some great man, as the Sharif of Meccah, is called upon to settle the terms of a treaty, which is nothing but an armistice. After a few months peace, a glance or a word will draw blood, for these hates are old growths, and new dissensions easily shoot up from them. ”

“ Thus, in all imaginative countries, the brigand is a hero; even the assassin who shoots his victim from behind a hedge appeals to the fancy in Tipperary or on the Abruzzian hills. Romance invests his loneliness with grandeur; if he have a wife or a friends wife, romance becomes doubly romantic, and a tithe of the superfluity robbed from the rich and bestowed upon the poor will win to Gasparoni the hearts of a people. The true Badawi style of plundering, with its numerous niceties of honour and gentlemanly manners, gives the robber a consciousness of moral rectitude. ”

“ Sometimes a patient would interrupt me, but a doctor is far less popular in Al-Hijaz than in Egypt. The people, being more healthy, have less faith in physic: Shaykh Masud and his son had never tasted in their lives aught more medicinal than green dates and camels milk. Occasionally the black slave-girls came into the room, asking if the pilgrim wanted a pipe or a cup of coffee: they generally retired in a state of delight, attempting vainly to conceal with a corner of tattered veil a grand display of ivory consequent upon some small and innocent facetiousness. ”

“ Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilised Badawin; and there is even to this day little or no religion amongst the wild people, except those on the coast or in the vicinity of cities. The faith of the Badawi comes from Al-Islam, whose hold is weak. But his customs and institutions, the growth of his climate, his nature, and his wants, are still those of his ancestors, cherished ere Meccah had sent forth a Prophet, and likely to survive the day when every vestige of the Kaabah shall have disappeared. ”