The Reader Will Be Surprised To Learn, That In Two
Shops Intoxicating Liquors Are Publicly Sold During The Night, Though
Not In The Day-Time:
One liquor is prepared from fermented raisins, and
although usually mixed with a good deal of water, is still so strong,
that a few glasses of it produce intoxication.
The other is a sort of
bouza, mixed with spices, and called soubye. This beverage is known
(although not made so strong) at Cairo.
The Mesaa is the place of punishment: there capital offenders are put to
death. During my stay, a man was beheaded, by sentence of the Kadhy, for
having robbed a Turkish pilgrim of about two hun-dred pounds sterling;
this was the only instance of the kind which came to my knowledge,
though thieves are said to abound in Mekka, while the Hadj continues.
The history of Mekka, however, affords many instances of the most cruel
punishments: in A.D. 1624, two thieves were flayed alive in this street;
in 1629, a military chief of Yemen, who had been made prisoner by the
reigning Sherif, had both his arms and shoulders perforated in many
places, and lighted tapers put into the wounds; one of his feet was
turned up, and fastened to his shoulder by an iron hook, and in this
posture he was suspended two days on a tree in the Mala, till he died.
The destruction
[p.118] of a man's sight, no uncommon punishment in other parts of the
east, seems never to have been inflicted by the Hedjaz governors.
In the Mesaa, and annexed to the mosque, stands a handsome building,
erected in A.H. 882, by Kaid Bey, Sultan of Egypt, in which he
established a large public school, with seventy-two different
apartments; he also furnished it with a valuable library. The historian
Kotobeddyn, who, one hundred years afterwards, was librarian here,
complains that only three hundred volumes remained in his time, the rest
having been stolen by his unprincipled predecessors.
On the northern extremity of the Mesaa is the place called Merowa, the
termination of the Say, as already described; this, as it now stands,
was built in A.H. 801. Behind it is shown a house which was the original
habitation of El Abbas, one of the many uncles of Mohammed. Near the
Merowa are the barbers' shops, in which pilgrims have their heads shaved
after performing the Say. Here, too, public auctions are held every
morning, where wearing-apparel, and goods of every description, are
offered to the highest bidder: for the sake of the Turkish pilgrims,
their language is used on these occasions; and there is scarcely a boy
at Mekka who is not thus acquainted with, at least, the Turkish
numerals. Near this place, too, is a public fountain, the work of the
Othman Emperor Soleyman Ibn Selym: it is supplied from the Mekka
aqueduct, and is crowded the whole day by hadjys, who come to fill their
water-skins.
Eastward of the Mesaa, near its extremity at the Merowa, branches off a
street called Soueyga, or the Little Market, which runs almost parallel
with the east side of the mosque.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 86 of 350
Words from 44488 to 45017
of 182297
