It Is A Place Of No Force, Wanting Both Walls And
Gates.
Its buildings are (as I said before) very ordinary, insomuch
that it would be a place of no tolerable
Entertainment, were it not for
the anniversary resort of so many thousand Hagges, or pilgrims, on
whose coming the whole dependance of the town (in a manner) is; for
many shops are scarcely open all the year besides.
The people here, I observed, are a poor sort of people, very thin,
lean, and swarthy. The town is surrounded for several miles with many
thousands of little hills, which are very near one to the other. I have
been on the top of some of them near Mecca, where I could see some
miles about, yet was not able to see the farthest of the hills. They
are all stony-rock and blackish, and pretty near of a bigness,
appearing at a distance like cocks of hay, but all pointing towards
Mecca. Some of them are half a mile in circumference, but all near of
one height. The people here have an odd and foolish sort of tradition
concerning them, viz.: That when Abraham went about building the
Beat-Allah, God by his wonderful providence did so order it, that every
mountain in the world should contribute something to the building
thereof; and accordingly every one did send its proportion; though
there is a mountain near Algier, which is called Corradog, i.e. Black
Mountain; and the reason of its blackness, they say, is because it did
not send any part of itself towards building the temple at
Mecca.[FN#16] Between
[p.366] these hills is good and plain travelling, though they stand one
to another.
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