It was two o’clock by the time we had completed the Course of Perseverance, and, since we had broken our fast at an early hour in the morning, we betook ourselves in a mighty hurry to the eating-house of Stád Mukhtar, the Effendi pastrycook of Mecca. The caravan we had left behind us at Heddah, swollen beyond recognition on the journey up, had just arrived, and Mussah-street was in a veritable delirium of excitement. It was dry and blazing weather, with a glow as of a furnace in the air, and the passing of the caravan, with its streaming banners, its jaded camels, and its betousled pilgrims, added to the poignance of our hunger by delaying the hour that should see it satisfied. Only one glimpse we took of the medley of men and beasts. As we raised our eyes we saw, securely strapped on an ambling mule, a man of lofty mien, albeit distressingly wasted, with streaming white beard and hair, and the face of a corpse for tense impassivity. His eyes, deep sunk and expressionless, met mine. He at once raised his voice—and never shall I forget the eerie exaltation ringing in its tones—and cried aloud: “Praise be to God on high, who hath brought me alive into His house. Blessed is he who dieth in the house of the Lord. May He be praised and glorified!” And from the crowd there arose a shout, that passed from lip to lip in a fervour of congratulation: “May it be auspicious.... May your eyes be lightened.... May your years be increased.... May your shadow never grow less.... Yá—Allah!... Yá—Muhammad!” The grim fortitude of that towering wraith of a man on the nimble-footed mule stirred in his co-religionists I know not what feelings of awe and gratification. For pity there was no room in their breasts; envy there might have been, but of a sort whereof heroism is engendered; not one among them but had wished to be in the place of him who, supported by faith and guided by death, had won the crown of self-martyrdom. In a moment the man was gone past.

“Islám,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “see how brightly it burns in a grate worthy to contain the sacred fire. That man’s zeal has made me rich in faith. I tell you that the stars of heaven were a mean decoration for a zealot so long-suffering and sincere. But come, Yá-Moulai, let us break our fast in the famous eating-house of Stád Mukhtar. Behold, the entrance awaits our coming, for the door is open.”

On crossing the threshold we uttered a loud salám, looking up into the air the while. Then we stepped inside, for, as the Persians say, if you wish to escape reproof you must assume the same “colour” as your company. The shop was oblong, measuring some 24ft. by 9ft., at a guess. Rough stools and low black erections on four legs took the place of chairs and tables. I counted no less than sixty pilgrims engaged in eating. It would have been impossible to count the beggars who came crowding in. These I brushed unceremoniously aside, much to the annoyance of one of them, who cried out in vulgar Arabic: “May your meal not sit well on you! How can you eat while we are starving here?” Compassion laid its hand in mine, and I would have given the petitioner a present, ungracious though he was, had not Seyyid ’Alí restrained me, saying: “Yá-Moulai, do not judge our friend by his looks. His appearance, I grant, is poverty-stricken beyond the power of repletion, but, you may take my word for it, his wealth underground surpasses the dreams of this slave of yours.” In this opinion he was supported by the pilgrims inside, who assured me that the residential beggars of Mecca are often extremely rich and in the habit of burying the money they wring from the credulity or the generosity of the strangers within the gates. The din in the eating-house was beyond belief. Everybody spoke at once, and at the top of his voice. A pack of children fresh from school would give you an idea of the uproar. The first questions the pilgrims asked of one another were their names, their nationalities, their professions, and their family pedigrees. Around one of the diminutive tables were seated two men, and, as there were a couple of vacant stools, I took one of them, my guide, as a mark of respect, sitting down on my left. Shortly after another pilgrim came in, and, picking up a stool, wedged himself between Seyyid ’Alí and myself, muttering a half-reluctant “Bismillah!” The gentleman directly facing me was a Turkish Effendi, Mahmud Bey by name. Like the majority of the inmates, he was clad in íhram, but his face singled itself out by virtue of its stony reserve. On the extreme right was a Persian Mirza, called Zainul-Abedin, whose countenance prepared me for the authoritative unction of his speech. A stalwart Afghan sat on my guide’s left hand, while the intruder, who had separated us, was a native of Hyderabad, Deccan. His name was Abdul Saleh.

The Persian Mirza was the first to break the silence. Looking at each of us in turn he said, in his mellowest tones: “Bah! Bah! Khúsh amedid! You are welcome. You have brought purity into the City of God.”

“And so have you,” was ’Alí’s affable response. “I was the essence of impurity when I left my native town of Ardebil to perform this holy pilgrimage; but I trust that God may purify my conscience.” The guide changed his birthplace with his company. “Do you come from Ardebil, my friend?” said Abdul Saleh. “Many learned people have come from that blessed city. The poet calls it the House of Knowledge.”

Seyyid ’Alí smiled a sarcastic smile. “Even the learned, my good brother of Hindustan,” quoth he, “are prisoners within the limits of the knowable, so fear not to inform the company wherein the fame of Ardebil consists.” My guide referred to the fact that the place he had chosen as his native town is the convict station of Persia.

“God forbid!” replied Abdul Saleh, courteously, “for the tact that is yours shows the poet to have been right. The abode of learning must count you among its most honoured citizens.” These amenities put the whole table in a good temper, and Seyyid ’Alí was not long in summoning the waiter, Omar, who, having informed us that his master, Stád Mukhtar, had gone to Mina in order to open a branch establishment there, awaited our orders in an attitude so free and easy that Mahmud Bey, frowning ever so slightly, grew a degree more reserved than ever. The waiter wore a fez with a streaming tassel, a long white robe, and a bright silk sash, from which hung an apron that had once been white. The dishes we ordered were a ghormeh of camel’s flesh roasted in onions; a kúfteh, or mincemeat, served with rice and seasoned with spices; a lamb kebab on a skewer folded in a sheet of bread fresh from the oven; and a sweet called mehlabi, which looked like English jelly. Omar, placing his right hand to his ear, like a muezzin bugling out the cry of the Faith, shouted out at the top of his voice to the cook in the adjoining kitchen: “Ghormeh! Kúfteh! Kebab! Melabi! Eikki!” then, seeing that his cigarette was gone out, he asked me to provide him with a match, which was given to him by my guide, who did not share Mahmud Bey’s ill-disguised disapproval of the waiter’s demeanour. The Turk, raising his eyes to mine, said across the table: “Effendim, the waiters of Stambul have better manners—however.” A contemptuous shrug of the shoulders completed the sentence. The speaker addressed me in his own language, though he was a good Arabic scholar; but a political discussion which followed a question of mine as to whether Abdul Saleh approved or disapproved of the British rule in India was held in Arabic.

“The poet says: ‘The essence of human enjoyment is the belly,’” said my guide, “so let us enjoy ourselves in a human fashion.”

“What will you say,” objected Masoud, “if I assure you that the poet means the spiritual belly and not the bodily one?”

“This,” replied Seyyid ’Alí, quickly, “that there was once a Dervish whose mysticism had so clouded his understanding that he interpreted the writings of Omar Khayyam as you would have me interpret them. The drinking of wine, according to him, was meant to symbolise the adoration of God. Now, it chanced that the dervish broke the law, and was brought before his Governor, who sentenced him ‘to eat five hundred sticks.’ The farrashes, fortified by the juice of the grape, laid on with a will. It was heart-rending to hear the shrieks of the sufferer. His philosophy deserted him, so that he yelled for mercy. The minions of the law appealed to the Governor, who said to the dervish: ‘Have no fear, they are merely spiritual sticks. You must eat them every one. May they go down well with you.’ Are you answered?”

“Blessed be Islám. Long live the Caliphs of the Faith!” cried Abdul Saleh, as though he had just awoke from sleep.

“And long live the Ameers!” said Masoud, in a frenzy of patriotism. “May the soul of Abdur Rahman Khan, the conqueror of Kafiristan, the light of the nation and religion, rest in peace, and may the sword of Islám grow sharper day by day.”

“The sword of Islám is sharp enough,” cried Seyyid ’Alí, “but it requires men to use it, as in the age of the blessed Caliphs.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Persian Mirza, in anger. “Do you think we have no men in Persia? May God keep stiff the neck of Iran. One man of Iran is worth fifty foreign unbelievers.”

“Particularly if they come from Káshán and Isfahán,” added the guide, sarcastically, referring to the alleged lack of courage in the inhabitants of those two towns.

“May your heart be cleansed,” cried the Mirza. “Your sarcasm, I take it, is aimed at the authorities, that enlist so few soldiers from the southern provinces, and scarce a single man from the towns you mention.”

The Turk looked surprised. “Do you mean to say that Isfahán and Káshán do not contribute to the strength of the Persian Nizam?” he asked. “How, then, can Persia defend herself against aggression?”

“You do not know, my good friend,” replied the Mirza, “what the Persians can do. We have no cause to fear any foreign invasion.”

“Certainly not,” said the Afghan, with the tongue in his cheek, dreaming no doubt of the sacking of Isfahán by his countrymen.

“If you will have patience,” said the guide, “I will tell you the circumstances that led the authorities, whereon the sun of the Faith shines, to abandon the practice of enrolling recruits from Káshán and Isfahán.”

We had now finished our meal and were drinking coffee and smoking hukkahs, and so we lent a willing ear to the sceptical rogue, who proceeded thus:

“Early in the reign of the late martyred Shah-in-Shah—may peace be on his soul—the late Amin-ud-dowleh of Káshán assumed the reins of government, and when that came to pass his fellow-citizens implored him to free them from the obligation of serving in the Army. The Minister laid before them a plan whereby they might achieve the end they had in view. Now you must know that Teherán is a mighty capital, and if any one of you doubt the fact let him go there at midday and listen to the booming of the great gun, which shatters the buildings round about, laying whole streets in ruins. Well, one day, when the Shah-in-Shah was driving through the parade square, he saw a squad of Kásháni soldiers weeping over a dead comrade. His Majesty, having made inquiries, was informed that the brave Kásháni had died from the fright caused by the sound of the midday gun. Then the Shah, bursting out laughing, disbanded the whole regiment, giving strict orders to discontinue the enlistment of soldiers from Káshán.”

“Why don’t you finish the story, my friend?” asked the Mirza. “The sting lies in the tail thereof. For when the regiment was disbanded the soldiers asked for a Cavalry escort to conduct them safely home.” A roar of laughter followed.

“As for the non-enlistment of soldiers from Isfahán,” resumed the Mirza, “take this story from me as its true cause. The soldiers of the Isfahán regiment had not received any pay for a long time, and so they waylaid his Majesty one day when he was driving to the shrine of Shah Abdul Azim and asked him to give them relief. The Secretary for War, fearing revelations and the consequences, approached his Majesty and told him that the soldiers had rebelled in connection with the cursed Bábí Rebellion. The late Shah returned to the Palace at once, and had fourteen of the soldiers executed, and then started on a trip to the hills. When he came back it was to discover the mistake he had made, and, as an act of repentance, he absolved the town from the yoke of soldiery.”

The Turk, Mahmud Bey, rose and made to leave the eating-house. Looking the Persian Mirza in the eyes, he said: “My friend, it is better to be seated in a corner, deaf and dumb, than to have a tongue that is not under one’s control. I have the honour to bid you good-bye.” My guide and I followed him, leaving the others to digest his admonition at their leisure, and bent our steps once more in the direction of the Harem for the purpose of visiting the interior of the House of God.

The gate of the House, except on certain occasions, is kept shut. It is opened for men on the tenth day of the month of Muharram, and for women on the following day. During each of the months of Rabíu-’l-avval, Rajab, and Ramazán (the Muhammadan Lent) admittance is granted on two occasions to the devout, who are again free to cross the sacred threshold once in the month of Sha’ban. On the twelfth day of Rabíu-’l-avval prayers are offered by the high priest of Mecca, within the Ka’bah, for the health of his Majesty the Sultan. This ceremony is a private one. The open sesame to the house, in the days of pilgrimage, is the seductive jingle of gold. An influential Hájí, by means of bakhshísh, can effect an entrance whenever he likes, but his poverty-stricken fellow-pilgrims are not granted the same privilege. Twice every year the house is ceremoniously cleaned and washed. When that happens it is incumbent on the Sheríf, the Governor-General of Hejaz, the head priest, the keepers, and the priestly officials to be present, after they have performed the prescribed purifications and ablutions of the body. The first annual cleaning takes place on the twentieth day of Rabíu-’l-avval. First the floor of the house is scrubbed with the water from the Zem-Zem well, then the walls are besprinkled with ottar of roses and other fragrant scents. Aloe-wood is kindled in braziers, and spreads its delicious perfume through the air. The officials prostrate themselves twice in prayer, after which they withdraw. The second cleaning of the year is effected in the same fashion on the twentieth day of Zi-ka’d, preparatory to the ceremony of draping the outer walls of the house with ihrám. For, thirteen days before the Hájj-day, the Ka’bah itself is clothed in the winding-sheet of humility, as though it were regarded unworthy to be called the House of God.

This ihrám of the shrine consists of a soft white material manufactured in Yemen, and is hung on the outer walls to the height of seven feet from the ground. One of the most interesting sights is the selling of this stuff to the richer pilgrims by the keepers of the Ka’bah. A square inch of it will often fetch as much as £3. The purchaser considers it his most cherished possession. The mere touch of it is held to cure every sickness. The sight of it is enough to protect its owner from the evil eye. So long as he has it about him Satan will practise his snares on him in vain. Thousands of miracles are believed to be wrought by its use. “So-and-So is a lucky man,” one devout will say to another, “he has obtained through God’s grace a strip of the ihrám of the Blessed Ka’bah.” The chief door-keeper of the present day goes by the name of Sheykh Shaban. The post is a coveted one, and has become hereditary of recent years. On the Hájj-day the ihrám is taken down, and is replaced by the kesveh, which is composed of eight pieces of black silk, embroidered round the margins with Kurán texts in letters of gold, and of a curtain of the same design and colour. Two of these pieces of silk go to cover each one of the outer walls. They are hung from the corners on long silver loops. The curtain is used to drape the silver-plated door, and falls to the ground from a rod of solid silver beautifully chased.

The “Square House,” or Ka’bah, stands almost in the centre of the Harem, rather nearer to the west than to the east. The ground whereon it lies is accounted holy, since it was here that Adam, after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden, first worshipped his Creator, a tent being sent down from heaven for the purpose. This act of grace on the part of the heavenly hosts was the compassionate result of a conference over which the Archangel Gabriel had presided. There was substituted for the tent by Adam’s son Seth a structure of clay and stone which was rebuilt at a later period, under the superintendence of Abraham and Ishmael his son. So much for the legendary history of the house. The task of restoring the sacred edifice, in the time of Ignorance, fell to the lot of the four chief tribes of Arabia. It was rebuilt by the Kuraish, a few years after Muhammad’s birth, and was destroyed by the torrents thirty-five years after its completion. Then ensued an intertribal war, each of the clans claiming for itself a complete side of the house which should face its tents, till the cause of strife was settled by an agreement among the contending tribes to accept the arbitration of Abú-Amid, the chief of the Kuraish. The decision of Abú-Amid was that the tribes should abide by the determination of the man who, on the following Friday afternoon, should be the first to leave the temple. So haphazard an arrangement was bound to appeal to the sportsmanlike instinct of a race that has been ever wont to test the wisdom of its actions by the arbitrament of chance. The warriors sheathed their swords, and when the fateful day arrived not a single murmur was raised against the man who, being the first to reach the open air, set about planning the building as it now appears. This man, it is said, was Muhammad. The Ka’bah, which was certainly reconstructed in the year 1627—the successive Sherífs and Sultans adding to its interior decoration—is said to have been destroyed and restored twelve times since the death of the Prophet.

In shape the Ka’bah is an almost solid square, having from outside a length of fourteen yards, and being eleven yards broad and sixteen yards high. From afar it has the look of an immense block of dark-coloured granite. The double roof is supported from within by pillars of aloe-wood, and is held in so great reverence by the devout that it is declared by them never to have been polluted by the Harem pigeons until recently, the present misbehaviour on the part of the birds being taken as a sign of the approaching end of the world. The gateway, which fills a considerable portion of the eastern wall, is raised about six feet from the ground, and measures in height some four yards, as far as I could gauge. The door itself is made of aloe-wood, and is covered over with plates of solid silver, and studded with heavy silver nails. The precious metal was presented to the house, in 959 of the Hegira, by the generous Sultan Suleymán. Inlaid in the eastern end of the southern wall of the Ka’bah is the famous Black Stone which might be said to be the centre of the pilgrims’ circling aspirations, and the pivot of their circumambulations round the sacred precincts. Another stone, marking the Sepulchre of Ishmael, lies at the base of the northern wall, and from the roof above there projects a horizontal semicircular rainspout, which, including the end fixed in the wall, is five yards long, measures twenty-four inches in width, and is made of massive gold. The water flows from the lip of the split pipe to the floor of the Harem below. The tomb of Abraham, the legendary builder of the temple, is situated close by, to the east, not far from the Gate of Beni Shaibeh.

The Prophet’s faithful followers, when they say their prayers, must turn their faces in the direction of the Ka’bah, no matter where they may be. This ascertaining of the exact position of the House of God, which is the centre of the Holy City, is called “taking the Kiblah or Outlook.” Thus the Muhammadans of Syria, and those beyond it to the north, having fixed the Kiblah, are face to face with the northern wall, sacred to the Stone of Ishmael and the gold rainspout: their prayers are therefore sure to be heard. Those of Persia, Turkistan, Northern India, Sind, and a part of China, look in the direction of the north-eastern angle, called the Rokné-Araghi, which is an equally blessed outlook, since the door of the house is on the eastern side and rather more to the north than the south thereof. The faces of the Muslims of Aden, of Southern India, of Madagascar, and of Australia, are turned to the eastern wall or the south-eastern corner of it, while those of the faithful of Constantinople, as well as those of the Muhammadans of some parts of Russia, are opposite to the western wall of the sacred building. The Boers believed themselves to be the “chosen people.” It is a pity they are not Muhammadans. For, if they were, they would be considered now the chosen people of Islám for the simple reason that they would face the southern wall of the Ka’bah, wherein is laid the Black Stone of immemorial sanctity. But the prayers the most acceptable to God, when all is said and done, are the prayers raised from any quarter within the Harem of the House of Allah on earth.

The interior of the Ka’bah is far more impressive than the exterior. The silver threshold is reached by means of a staircase running on wheels. There the pilgrim must prostrate himself, asking God to grant him his heart’s desire. He must be careful to maintain the correct demeanour, closing his eyes and lifting up his hands, inasmuch as the angels, who are believed to keep watch over the entrance, are quick to resent the slightest breach in the prescribed ceremony. The guide who accompanied me assured me of the fact. He was good enough to see that I had forgotten neither my rosary of ninety-nine beads corresponding with the wondrous names of God used in prayer, nor yet the lump of clay (called mohre) whereon are stamped the selfsame names, together with those of the twelve Imáms and the Prophet. It was on the clay that I bowed my head in contrition when I fell on my knees. My guide, who had also prostrated himself, expressed the conviction, on rising, that the angels were on his side. I was also about to declare myself to be on the side of the angels when a couple of sturdy pilgrims, in their impatience to behold the Light of their eyes, wedged me tight between their bulky forms and then hustled me to the ground, adding insult to injury by being obviously unconscious of the presence of my humble body. They were “absent-minded beggars” with a vengeance. I can only say that, on regaining my feet, I hoped the silent prayer I said, on the spur of my annoyance, would be answered ere long; but when I crossed the doorsill I was overcome by a sense of my own unworthiness, so that I pardoned the men who had offended me. I raised my eyes. The ceiling was flat, and supported on three columns of aloe-wood, and from it hung vases of great beauty on delicate gold chains. The walls were covered with red velvet, save where, in white squares, were written, in Arabic characters, the words “Allah-Jal-Jelalah! (Praise to God the Almighty!)” The velvet is said to have been a gift from Sultan Abdul Aziz. In the corner formed by the northern and eastern walls there is a door leading to the roof. This door, which is called the Door of Repentance, is closed to the public; but a prayer said on the hither side of the threshold meets with a gracious response, and the pilgrim is clean-washed of his sins if he but touch the wood with his hand. The floor is now flagged with marble—the work of some twenty years ago.

While I was admiring the unpretentious grace of the holy shrine, and meditating from its threshold on the golden age of Islám, my guide broke in on my thoughts, saying: “You are allowed to make two prostrations at the base of any one of the pillars. Let me advise you, in the welfare of your immortal soul, to choose the one facing the Black Stone outside, which is the most sacred spot under the canopy of heaven.” The difficulty was to force my way thither. The whole house was packed with pilgrims. Some were praying, some were weeping, others were groaning or beating their chests, and all—except the Bedouins—were clad in their sacred habits. A great awe fell on me. It was as though the graves had yielded up their dead at the blast of Israfil’s trumpet. All eyes were blind, all ears deaf. The thought of home, of country, of wife and child seemed drowned as in a sea of passionate devotion to the Creator of those human blessings. And from outside, in the Harem, there arose the chant of the Talbih, which every pilgrim must sing on sighting Mecca, on donning the Ihrám, on entering the Harem, on starting for the Valley of Desire and the Mountain of Compassion, and on performing the little pilgrimage of Omreh. I paused in the effort to reach the southern pillar, and listened to the singing from without.

On my soul, it was fine! All my senses must have deserted me. I must have lost all consciousness of self suddenly. The burden of existence seemed to be lifted. If I did not actually slip off the slough of the flesh I came to realise in a flash that the soul is immortal. These introspective thoughts were not mine at the moment of the transformation. They were retrospective, forced on me, when, on coming back to a sense of my surroundings, I found myself kneeling at the Door of Repentance, and heard myself crying “Labbaik, la Sherika lak Labbaik.” Yes; there was I—“an Agnostic who would like to know”—rubbing my brow on the marble floor of the Ka’bah, without the dimmest notion in my mind as to how I came to be there. Only a month before I had been sipping lemon squash in a London restaurant. Strange. The first thing I did was to look round in search of my guide, as sceptical a rascal as ever breathed. He was on his knees, at my side, his eyes starting out of the sockets. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Come,” I said, “let us go out. I’m suffocating.” He rose to his feet, looking scared and abashed; but his face assumed its usual expression of sunny mirth on reaching the Harem. He put his tongue in his cheek as of yore; then, repenting him of his unregenerate mood, he told the truth. “Yá-Moulai (Oh, sir),” said he, “within the house so great reverence fell on me that I did hardly think of the blessed hourís and perís promised to me in Paradise. The same emotion overmasters me every year on entering into the Ka’bah of Allah, and yet what does it all mean? What is the value of this dream which we call life, and which is my true self? Is it the self that inquires, scoffs, doubts, but wants to find truth? Or is it the self that you discovered a moment ago bereft of every sense save one, namely, that which would seem to have drawn me irresistibly to a power whose will none would seem able to dispute? Has that power an existence outside my emotions, or is it merely the fabric of my senses? You are silent, Yá-Moulai. Well, there are more ways of getting drunk than by drinking of the juice of the forbidden fruit. I escaped from myself just then on a spiritual rather than a spirituous fluid. Let us return to our camp.”