At Present The Privilege Of The Sacred Territory Seems Almost Forgotten; And It Has Been Crossed In Every Direction By Infidel Christians Employed In The Army Of Mohammed Aly Or Tousoun Pasha, Who, Though They Have Not Entered Mekka, Have Visited Mount Arafat.

Contrary to the precepts of Mohammed, wood is now cut in the mountains close behind Mekka, and no one is prevented from shooting in the neighbouring valleys.

The plain of Arafat alone is respected, and there the trees are never cut down. The sacred district, or, as it is called, Hedoud el Haram (the limits of the Haram), is at present commonly supposed to be enclosed by those positions where the ihram is assumed on the approach to Mekka: those are, Hadda to the west, Asfan to the north, Wady Mohrem to the east, and Zat Ork to the south. Aly Bey el Abbassi has represented this district, in his map, as a particular province or sacred territory called Belad el Harameyn: but in fact, no such province has ever existed; and the title of Belad el Harameyn is given, not to this sacred space, but to both the territories of Mekka and Medina.

[p.466] No. VII

Philological Observations.

MANY Arabic terms which have become obsolete in other places, and are found only in the good authors, many expressions even of the Koran, no longer used elsewhere, are heard at Mekka in the common conversation of the people, who retain, at least in part, the original language of the Koreysh. Some neighbouring Bedouin tribes, especially those of Fahm and Hodheyl, use a dialect still more pure and free from provincialisms and grammatical errors. I sometimes attended the lectures of a Sheikh in the mosque, who to his own excellent native Arabic had added the result of his studies at Cairo: and I never heard finer Arabic spoken. He prided himself in sounding all the vowels, not only in reading, but even in conversation; and every word he uttered might be noted as of standard purity.

It is to their extensive commerce with foreigners that we must ascribe the corruption of the Mekkan dialect when compared with that of the neighbouring Bedouins, though it still serves as a model of softness to the natives of Syria and Egypt. In pronunciation, the Mekkans imitate the Bedouin purity - every letter has its precise and distinct sound: they pronounce [Arabic consonant] like k, and the [Arabic consonant] like a soft g, (as in the word going); although in the public service of the mosque, and in reading the Koran, they express that letter with the guttural aspiration given to it in Syria, and which is therefore regarded as the true pronunciation. The [Arabic consonant] is pronounced djem; but in the mountains to the south, and the interior of Yemen, it is sounded gym, as at Cairo. The guttural pronunciation of the elif [Arabic consonant], often neglected in other places, is here strictly observed. The only fault in the Mekkan pronunciation is, that in common with the Bedouins they sometimes give, in words of two syllables, too great an emphasis to the last:

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