It Is An Irregular Oval, About Seven
Inches In Diameter, With An Undulated Surface, Composed Of About A Dozen
Smaller Stones Of Different Sizes And Shapes, Well Joined Together With
A Small Quantity Of Cement, And Perfectly Smoothed:
It looks as if the
whole had been broken into many pieces by a violent blow, and then
united again.
It is very difficult to determine accurately the quality
of this stone, which has been worn to its present surface by the
millions of touches and kisses it has received. It appeared to me like a
lava, containing several small extraneous particles, of a whitish and of
a yellowish substance. Its colour is now a deep reddish brown,
approaching to black: it is surrounded on all sides by a border,
composed of a substance which I took to be a close cement of pitch and
gravel, of a similar, but not quite the same brownish colour. This
border serves to support its detached pieces; it is two or three inches
in breadth, and rises a little above the surface of the stone: Both the
border and the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, broader
below than above
[p.138] and on the two sides, with a considerable swelling below, as if
a part of the stone were hidden under it. The lower part of the border
is studded with silver nails.
In the south-east corner of the Kaaba, or, as the Arabs call it, Roken
el Yemany, there is another stone, about five feet from the ground; it
is one foot and a half in length, and two inches in breadth, placed
upright, and of the common Mekka stone.
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