But Those Performing The “Hajjat Al-Islam” Are Enjoined To Commence At Meccah. [FN#2] When Respectable Married Men Live

Together in the same house, a rare occurrence, except on journeys, this most ungallant practice of clearing the way is

And must be kept up in the East. [FN#3] I offer no lengthened description of the town of Meccah: Ali Bey and Burckhardt have already said all that requires saying. Although the origin of the Bayt Ullah be lost in the glooms of past time, the city is a comparatively modern place, built about A.D. 450, by Kusay and the Kuraysh. It contains about 30,000 to 45,000 inhabitants, with lodging room for at least treble that number; and the material of the houses is brick, granite, and sandstone from the neighbouring hills. The site is a winding valley, on a small plateau, half-way “below the Ghauts.” Its utmost length is two miles and a half from the Mab’dah (North) to the Southern mount Jiyad; and three-quarters of a mile would be the extreme breadth between Abu Kubays Eastward,—upon whose Western slope the most solid mass of the town clusters,—and Jabal Hindi Westward of the city. In the centre of this line stands the Ka’abah. I regret being unable to offer the reader a sketch of Meccah, or of the Great Temple. The stranger who would do this should visit the city out of the pilgrimage season, and hire a room looking into the quadrangle of the Harim.

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