At Al-Madinah and at Meccah the traveller's hand must be perpetually in
his pouch: no stranger in Paris or in London is more surely or more
severely taken in. Already I began to fear that my eighty pounds would
not suffice for all the expenses of sight-seeing, and the apprehension
was justified by the sequel. My only friend was the boy Mohammed, who
displayed a fiery economy that brought him into considerable disrepute
with his countrymen. They saw with emotion that he was preaching
parsimony to me solely that I might have more money to spend at Meccah
under his auspices. This being palpably the case, I threw all the blame
of penuriousness upon the young Machiavel's shoulders, and resolved, as
he had taken charge of my finances at Al-Madinah, so at Meccah to
administer them myself.
After praying at the window, to the great disgust of the Khadim, who
openly asserted that we were "low
[p.412]fellows," we passed through some lanes lined with beggars and
Badawi children, till we came to a third little Mosque situated due
South of the larger one. This is called the Masjid Arafat, and is
erected upon a mound also named Tall Arafat, because on one occasion
the Prophet, being unable to visit the Holy Mountain at the pilgrimage
season, stood there, saw through the intervening space, and in spirit
performed the ceremony.
