The Greater Part Of The Hadjys Bring Their Own Carpets With Them.

The more distant parts of the area, and the floor under the colonnade, are spread with mats, brought from Souakin; the latter situation being the usual place for the performance of the mid-day and afternoon prayers.

Many of these mats are presented to the mosque by the hadjys, for which they have in return the satisfaction of seeing their names inscribed on them in large characters.

At sun-set, great numbers assemble for the first evening prayer: they form themselves into several wide circles, sometimes as many as

[p.149] twenty, around the Kaaba as a common centre before which every person makes his prostration; and thus, as the Mohammedan doctors observe, Mekka is the only spot throughout the world in which the true believer can, with propriety, turn during his prayers towards any point of the compass. The Imam takes his post near the gate of the Kaaba, and his genuflexions are imitated by the whole assembled multitude. The effect of the joint prostrations of six or eight thousand persons, added to the recollection of the distance and various quarters from whence they come, and for what purpose, cannot fail to impress the most cool- minded spectator with some degree of awe. At night, when the lamps are lighted, and numbers of devotees are performing the Towaf round the Kaaba, the sight of the busy crowds - the voices of the Metowefs, intent upon making themselves heard by those to whom they recite their prayers - the loud conversation of many idle persons - the running, playing, and laughing of boys, give to the whole a very different appearance, and one more resembling that of a place of public amusement. The crowd, however, leaves the mosque about nine o'clock, when it again becomes the place of silent meditation and prayer, to the few visitors who are led to the spot by sincere piety, and not worldly motives or fashion.

There is an opinion prevalent at Mekka, founded on holy tradition, that the mosque will contain any number of the faithful; and that if even the whole Mohammedan community were to enter at once, they would all find room in it to pray. The guardian angels, it is said, would invisibly extend the dimensions of the building, and diminish the size of each individual. The fact is, that during the most numerous pilgrimages, the mosque, which can contain, I believe, about thirty-five thousand persons in the act of prayer, is never half filled. Even on Fridays, the greater part of the Mekkawys, contrary to the injunctions of the law, pray at home, if at all, and many hadjys follow their example. I could never count more than ten thousand individuals in the mosque at one time, even after the return from Arafat, when the whole body of hadjys were collected, for a few days, in and about the city.

At every hour of the day persons may be seen under the colonnade,

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Words from 56564 to 57066 of 182297