I Have Little Doubt That On Many
Other Points Of That Great Chain Of Mountains, Similar Volcanoes Have
Existed.
The great number of warm springs found at almost every station
of the road to Mekka, authorises such a conjecture.
I am here induced, by a passage in the extract contained in the last
note, to offer the following remark. According to the strict precept of
Mohammed, that part of the territory of Medina which encompassed the
town in a circle of twelve miles, having on the S. side Djebel Ayre, and
on the N. side Djebel Thor, (a small mountain just behind Djebel Ohod,)
as the boundary, should be considered sacred; no person should be slain
therein, except aggressors, and enemies, in self-defence, or infidels
who polluted it; and neither game should be killed nor trees cut in such
a holy territory. This interdiction, however, is at present completely
set aside; trees are cut, game is killed, bloody affrays happen in the
town itself and
[p.361] in its immediate vicinity ; and though an avowed follower of any
other religion than the Mohammedan is not permitted to enter the gates
of the town, yet several instances occurred, during my stay there, (and
while I resided at Yembo,) of Greek Christians employed in the
commissariat of the army of Tousoun Pasha encamping within gun-shot of
Medina, previous to their departure for the head-quarters of the Pasha,
then in the province of Kasym.
[p.362] ACCOUNT OF SOME PLACES OF ZYARA,
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 510 of 669
Words from 138918 to 139169
of 182297
