Something in it that is calculated to impress a sort of awe, and it was
the hour of noon when everything is very silent, except the Muezzins
calling from the minarets.
“The principal feature of the city is that celebrated sacred enclosure
which is placed about the centre of it; it is a vast paved court with
doorways opening into it from every side, and with a covered colonnade
carried all round like a cloister, while in the midst of the open space
stands the edifice called the Caaba, whose walls are entirely covered
over on the outside with hangings of rich velvet,[FN#4] on which there
are Arabic inscriptions embroidered in gold.
“Facing one of its angles (for this little edifice is of
[p.394] a square form),[FN#5] there is a well which is called the well
Zemzem, of which the water is considered so peculiarly holy that some
of it is even sent annually to the Sultan at Constantinople; and no
person who comes to Meccah, whether on pilgrimage or for mere worldly
considerations, ever fails both to drink of it and to use it in his
ablutions, since it is supposed to wipe out the stain of all past
transgressions.
“There is a stone also near the bottom of the building itself which all
the visitants kiss as they pass round it, and the multitude of them has
been so prodigious as to have worn the surface quite away.
