Outside the town of Jeddah
lies no less a personage than Sittna Hawwa, the Mother of mankind.
The
boy Mohammed and I, mounting asses one evening, issued through the
Meccan gate, and turned towards the North-East over a sandy plain.
After half an hour’s ride, amongst dirty huts and tattered coffee-hovels,
we reached the enceinte, and found the door closed. Presently a man
came running with might from the town; he was followed by two others;
and it struck me at the time they applied the key with peculiar
empressement, and made inordinately low conges as we entered the
enclosure of whitewashed walls.
“The Mother” is supposed to lie, like a Moslemah, fronting the Ka’abah, with
her feet northwards, her head southwards, and her right cheek propped
by her right hand. Whitewashed, and conspicuous to the voyager and
traveller from afar, is a diminutive dome with an opening to the West;
it is furnished as such places usually are in Al-Hijaz. Under it and in
the centre is a square stone, planted upright and fancifully carved, to
represent the omphalic region of the human frame. This, as well as the
dome, is called Al-Surrah, or the navel. The cicerone directed me to
kiss this manner of hieroglyph, which I did, thinking the while, that,
under the circumstances, the salutation was quite uncalled-for. Having
prayed here, and at the head, where a few young trees grow, we walked
along the side of the two parallel dwarf walls which define the
outlines of the body:
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