Now, It Is Of Silk And Cotton Mixed. [FN#38] These Are The Brazen Rings Which Serve To Fasten The

Lower edge of the Kiswah, or covering. [FN#39] A true description of the water of the well Zemzem. [FN#

40] There is great confusion in this part of Bartema’s narrative. On the 9th of Zu’l Hijjah, the pilgrims leave Mount Arafat. On the 10th, many hasten into Meccah, and enter the Ka’abah. They then return to the valley of Muna, where their tents are pitched and they sacrifice the victims. On the 12th, the tents are struck, and the pilgrims re-enter Meccah. [FN#41] This well describes the wretched state of the poor “Takruri,” and other Africans, but it attributes to them an unworthy motive. I once asked a learned Arab what induced the wretches to rush upon destruction, as they do, when the Faith renders pilgrimage obligatory only upon those who can afford necessaries for the way. “By Allah,” he replied, “there is fire within their hearts, which can be quenched only at God’s House, and at His Prophet’s Tomb.” [FN#42] Bartema alludes to the “Day of Arafat,” 9th of Zu’l Hijjah, which precedes, not follows, the “Day of Sacrifice.” [FN#43] Bartema alludes to the “Shaytan al-Kabir,” the “great devil,” as the buttress at Al-Muna is called. His account of Satan’s appearance is not strictly correct. Most Moslems believe that Abraham threw the stone at the “Rajim,”—the lapidated one; but there are various traditions upon the subject. [FN#44] A Christian version of an obscure Moslem legend about a white dove alighting on the Prophet’s shoulder, and appearing to whisper in his ear whilst he was addressing a congregation. Butler alludes to it :— “Th’ apostles of this fierce religion, Like Mahomet’s, were ass and widgeon;” the latter word being probably a clerical error for pigeon. When describing the Ka’abah, I shall have occasion to allude to the “blue-rocks” of Meccah. [FN#45] No one would eat the pigeons of the Ka’abah; but in other places, Al-Madinah, for instance, they are sometimes used as articles of food. [FN#46] In the vulgar dialect, “Ant min ayn?” [FN#47] I confess inability to explain these words: the printer has probably done more than the author to make them unintelligible. “Atamannik minalnabi,” in vulgar and rather corrupt Arabic, would mean “I beg you (to aid me) for the sake of the Prophet.” [FN#48] Ashrafi, ducats. [FN#49] The Deccan. [FN#50] Jeddah [FN#51] A foist, foyst or buss, was a kind of felucca, partially decked.

[p.358]APPENDIX V.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF JOSEPH PITTS TO MECCAH AND AL-MADINAH.—A.D. 1680

OUR second pilgrim was Jos. Pitts, of Exon,[FN#1] a youth fifteen or sixteen years old, when in A.D. 1678, his genius “leading him to be a sailor and to see foreign countries,” caused him to be captured by an Algerine pirate. After living in slavery for some years, he was taken by his “patroon” to Meccah and Al-Madinah via Alexandria, Rosetta, Cairo, and Suez. His description of these places is accurate in the main points, and though tainted with prejudice and bigotry, he is free from superstition and credulity. Conversant with Turkish and Arabic, he has acquired more knowledge of the tenets and practice of Al-Islam than his predecessor, and the term of his residence at Algier, fifteen years, sufficed, despite the defects of his education, to give fulness and finish to his observations. His chief patroon, captain of a troop of

[p.359] horse, was a profligate and debauched man in his time, and a murderer, “who determined to proselyte a Christian slave as an atonement for past impieties.” He began by large offers and failed; he succeeded by dint of a great cudgel repeatedly applied to Joseph Pitts’ bare feet. “I roared out,” says the relator, “to feel the pain of his cruel strokes, but the more I cried, the more furiously he laid on, and to stop the noise of my crying, would stamp with his feet on my mouth.” “At last,” through terror, he “turned and spake the words (la ilaha, &c.), as usual holding up the forefinger of the right hand”; he was then circumcised in due form. Of course, such conversion was not a sincere one—“there was yet swines-flesh in his teeth.” He boasts of saying his prayers in a state of impurity, hates his fellow religionists, was truly pleased to hear Mahomet called sabbatero, i.e., shoemaker, reads his bible, talks of the horrid evil of apostacy, calls the Prophet a “bloody imposter,” eats heartily in private of hog, and is very much concerned for one of his countrymen who went home to his own country, but came again to Algier, and voluntarily, without the least force used towards him, became a Mahometan. His first letter from his father reached him some days after he had been compelled by his patroon’s barbarity to abjure his faith. One sentence appears particularly to have afflicted him: it was this, “to have a care and keep close to God, and to be sure never, by any methods of cruelty that could be used towards me, be prevailed to deny my blessed Saviour, and that he (the father) would rather hear of my death than of my being a Mahometan.” Indeed, throughout the work, it appears that his repentance was sincere.

“God be merciful to me a Sinner!”

is the deprecation that precedes the account of his “turning Turk,” and the book concludes with,

“To him, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three

[p.360] Persons and one God, be all Honour, Glory, and Praise, world without end. Amen.”

Having received from his patroon, whom he acknowledges to have been a second parent to him, a letter of freedom at Meccah and having entered into pay, still living with his master, Pitts began to think of escape. The Grand Turk had sent to Algier for ships, and the renegade was allowed to embark on board one of them provided with a diplomatic letter[FN#2] from Mr. Baker, Consul of Algier, to Mr. Raye, Consul at Smyrna.

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