[P.232] The meal concluded, I used to sit for a time outside the
street-door in great dignity, upon a broken-backed black-wood chair,
traditionally said to have been left in the house by one of the princes
of Delhi, smoking a Shishah, and drinking sundry cups of strong green
tea with a slice of lime, a fair substitute for milk. At this hour the
seat was as in a theatre, but the words of the actors were of a nature
somewhat too Fescennine for a respectable public. After nightfall we
either returned to the Harim or retired to rest. Our common dormitory
was the flat roof of the house; under each cot stood a water-gugglet;
and all slept, as must be done in the torrid lands, on and not in bed.
I sojourned at Meccah but a short time, and, as usual with travellers,
did not see the best specimens of the population. The citizens appeared
to me more civilised and more vicious than those of Al-Madinah. They
often leave
“Home, where small experience grows,”
and—qui multum peregrinatur, raro sanctificatur—become a worldly-wise,
God-forgetting, and Mammonish sort of folk. Tuf w’ asaa, w’ aamil
al-saba—“Circumambulate and run (i.e. between Safa and Marwah) and commit
the Seven (deadly sins)”—is a satire popularly levelled against them.
Hence, too, the proverb Al-haram f’ il Haramayn—“Evil (dwelleth) in the two
Holy Cities”; and no wonder, since plenary indulgence is so easily
secured.[FN#7] The pilgrim is forbidden, or rather dissuaded, from
abiding at Meccah after the rites, and wisely.
