On leaving the talisman-monger’s we went about our shopping in the Meccan bazaars, my guide pointing out to me the places of interest on the way. He grew excited when we passed a certain coffee-house, from within whose doors, as he assured me, he had escaped from himself into the bosom of the Beloved more times than he could count. “There are better ways of ascending into heaven, yá-Moulai,” he exclaimed, ecstatically, “than by being buried underground!” He paused as if to give me the opportunity of begging him to explain the connection; but all I said in reply was that a Tower of Silence would scarcely suit one whose tongue was for ever on the wag.

“’Tis true,” he affirmed, in no way disconcerted, “the birds of prey are not to my liking. I would discourse of the parrot of mysteries, that hath opened to me the gates of Paradise more than once. If your Excellency would acquaint himself with——” I interrupted him, saying: “Are you speaking of hashísh, my friend? If you are, let me tell you that I have no wish to renew my experience of the drug.” And when I hurried on, he drew a deep breath, but whether of disappointment or of relief I couldn’t make out. “In that coffee-house, yá-Moulai,” he said at last, “you might have tasted of every narcotic of the drowsy East: of hashísh, the master Seyyid, or the Parrot of Mysteries, an acquired taste; of bang, a most potent liberator of thought; and, lastly, of opium, which is, as we Persians have it, the Antidote, the healer of every ill except the one it engenders. I was once a well-seasoned vafurí (opium-smoker), and could discourse of mysteries more eloquently than any dervish. My nose would grow wet every time I smoked a pipe of hashísh and my imagination bear me on its wings to the seventh heaven, or plunge me into the lowest hell. Those were days of spiritual intoxication—yá-Allah. What cured me of drug-bibbing was the dread of remaining in the abode of the damned.”

He sauntered on, telling over the beads of his rosary. “Never,” he cried suddenly, “shall I forget the last pipe of hashísh I smoked.” I followed him up on the scent of a story. “Come,” said I, “tell me your tale, and have done with it.”

“Well, it was at Shíráz; I was in the society of some twenty matured dervishes, and the year was at the spring and the sun was set. I never hear a nightingale, nor smell a rose, but I can taste that kalyan of hashísh and tobacco. Not that I was conscious at the time of any stomachic qualm. Not more than half-a-dozen whiffs were enough to speed me on my way into a world in which this mortal flesh lay shuddering at the terrible aspect of things—terrible beyond the imagination of the unenlightened to conceive. Supper was brought in. Among the dishes laid before me was a plate of piláw, dome-shaped, having on top a multitude of round pieces of meat, and these, to my exceeding terror, came tumbling down the pyramid of white rice, owing to the carelessness of the servant in handling the dish. But what did I, in my excited fancy, behold, yá-Moulai? I thought I was at the foot of a snow-clad mountain, whose crest dwarfed that of Demavend, and from the summit thereof there came hurtling down on me huge boulders of massy rock. I cried aloud in terror, and tried to hide myself in the corner of the room. My friends, the dervishes, laid hold of me, and carried me into the compound, and flung me into the tank, and in so doing they cheated me to believe that a host of angels had rescued me from the avalanche, and, bearing me into Paradise, had cast me into the living waters of Salsabíl. For, on opening my eyes, I saw a heavenly houri, whose face shone as the face of the sun. Her feet were on the earth, but her head reached as high as the fourth heaven. How could I—a man of ordinary stature—make love to a houri whose height, even among the ladies of Paradise, must have been a swallow’s flight above the average? True, I might sit in adoration at her feet, but that a taller man than I would have the pleasure of kissing her lips seemed only too likely. This thought was blasphemy in itself; and no sooner did it creep into this unregenerate mind of mine than two angels caught me by the hands and threw me into the burning furnace of hell. And this sudden change in my fortunes corresponded with the actions of my friends in taking me out of the tank and putting me to bed, and applying a hot remedy to what they believed to be a cold disease. Yá-Allah, how I burned, but without consuming, in that fire of the unredeemed. I cried for help, but Allah—may I be His sacrifice—cast me still deeper into the hell of His displeasure, saying, ‘He who would worship me must worship me in soberness and sincerity! Eschew all narcotics, O Seyyid ’Alí, lest I leave thee here to perish in the flames.’ Then repentance wrung my heart so that the tears started to my eyes and overflowed. And when that happened a wind from heaven blew, and I caught sight of a cloud of sun-lit hair—the hair of the divine houri who had previously overawed me—and these radiant tresses were wafted by the wind within arms’ reach of my despair. I clutched them in these two hands. The exhilaration of a swift ascent filled my soul with thanksgiving, and a shriek—like a throb of pain—darted through me from without, striking on the drum of consciousness within me. In other words, I awoke to find myself lying at home, with a handful of my wife’s hair pressed to my lips in rapture. How I came to be there I never discovered, but the mother of my children explained to me with many words that the too forcible removal of the hair I held in my fingers had left a bald patch on the crown of her head. And this, yá-Moulai, is the true story of my redemption.”

Meanwhile, we had reached the northern extremity of Mussah-street, where in a shop I noticed a number of small bags of yellow leather containing, as Seyyid ’Alí informed me, the celebrated henna of Wady Fatima. This valley, called after the Prophet’s daughter, the wife of ’Alí, his cousin, is situated about eight hours’ journey to the north-west of Mecca, on the road to Medina. The whole neighbourhood abounds in the shrub from whose pounded leaves the henna paste is produced. The act of dyeing the hair with henna is known by the name of khezab, and is so popular among the Muhammadans of both sexes that it has come to be almost a religious rite. Many a devout dyes his hands and feet and hair once a week, the paste giving to the skin an orange-reddish colour, and deepening the original shade of dark hair to a ruddy black. On the hammám day the henna is taken to the bath; the attendant forms it into a paste in small dishes used for the purpose and called jamé-henna; the decoction should be allowed to stand for half an hour before it is applied to the skin and the hair. There are special women artists who draw, on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, all manner of pictures with this dye. Not less than eight hours are devoted to the practice, the victims—women, of course—lying with outstretched limbs, for the henna “to take its colour.”

If one neglects to make use of the dye one runs the risk of bringing misfortune and leprosy on one’s whole family. The henna of Wady Fatima, which has a perfume peculiar to itself, is considered particularly blessed. I was told by the shopkeeper—a prejudiced person, no doubt—that the Devil himself could be rendered harmless to the Muslim who should dye his hands once a week and employ an apt quotation from the Kurán, always provided he were not clad in ihrám. The assurance that he had sold one hundred thousand bags of the precious dye to the pilgrims within the month gave me a lively notion of the credulity of his customers.

Next day I had an opportunity of witnessing the funeral of one of the chief priests of Mecca, who had died of cholera. The procession, despite the panic created by the epidemic, was of considerable length. Half a dozen mullás, intoning passages of the perspicuous Book, led the way. These were followed by twelve unkempt dervishes in quaint uniforms, reciting in unison the praises of the dead priest. Then came the rough bier peculiar to Mecca on the shoulders of ten pilgrims of as many nationalities. The son, supported by two stalwart priests, and the chief mourners came next, and after them the women, about twenty in number, and a crowd of beggars, who had heard that the flesh of two camels was to be distributed among them. Every now and then, as we noticed on watching the procession pass by, the bearers would be relieved of their burden by the most eager among the bystanders, for it is a tradition that seventy thousand angels will praise the man who lends a helping hand in carrying the dead to the cemetery. A frequent cry went up of “O Lord, may his sins be forgiven him. Praise be with Muhammad and with his people.”

“Yá-Moulai,” said Seyyid ’Alí, “you saw how the people lent their assistance in order to win the approval of the angels? Well, I will tell you of a clever trick performed in Mecca last year by four Sunnis who had murdered a Shiah in a lodging-house. One of the assassins was chosen by the arbitrament of the estakhhareh to buy the bier and to bring it to the house where the body lay. That being done, the mutilated corpse was laid inside by the four men, who, so to speak, bore the burden of their misdeed into the street. The passers-by, seeing a funeral, hastened to offer their help in carrying the corpse to its resting-place. No sooner was each one of the assassins relieved than he made good his escape, so that by the time the washing-house was reached the culprits had all disappeared. The crime was detected when the body was taken out to be washed. Suspicion fell on the bearers—half a dozen strange pilgrims who had lent a willing shoulder—and they were brought before the Kazi on the charge of murder. They only escaped death by paying a heavy sum in blood money.”

We pursued our course eastward to the temporary Syrian bazaar called Sughé-Shami. Goods from all parts of Syria—from the town of Smyrna to the remotest fastness of Lebanon—were to be found there. The Syrians drove a lively trade in silk stuffs from Damascus and Aleppo, as well as in European cotton prints and in steel ware. The steel ware was sold as “Inglisi,” though it was generally of German manufacture, imported into Asia Minor either direct from the Fatherland or from Constantinople. I saw “Inglisi” silk umbrellas, with what appeared to be silver handles, priced at half a mejidi, or about two shillings. German watches, guaranteed to be “Inglisi,” could be bought at a cost varying from four to ten shillings. On the other hand, Persian carpets were far more expensive there than they are in London, and so also were Turkish ones. Silk headgear called chepi and silk kerchiefs called kefi were in great request among the Bedouins, who purchased, besides, the dried fruits of Syria. There were many coffee-houses à la turque, where story-tellers recited in flowery language, either Arabic or Turkish, the tales of the Arabian Nights. Some pilgrims might sit listening from sunrise to sunset, but my guide and I, having drunk a cup of coffee, proceeded on our way, past the Prophet’s birthplace, to the Moamil or pottery bazaar. There, as I watched the potters at work, I couldn’t help quoting the immortal lines of Omar Khayyám, as translated by Fitzgerald:

Thence, in the Sughé-Lail, the carpenters have their niches. My guide told me a story of a Meccan carpenter who went once to measure a doorway of one of the houses in the neighbourhood. Having forgotten his yard measure he calculated the width by opening his arms. Then, still keeping his arms in the same position, he hastened back to his shop. On the way he fell down a well; the people gathered round; and one among them threw him a rope, but the carpenter refused to catch hold of it, lest he might change the measurement of the doorway. “Ah, my friend,” said I, “there I waited for you. That story is taken from ‘Mullá Nasiru’-Din,’ a book satirising the mock piety and the folly of the priests. You must be more careful in choosing the tales you would foist on my credulity.” And so wrangling we reach the cattle market.

Now, kindness to animals is specially recommended by Muhammad, but his followers have still much to learn in practice. The sheep and cattle are driven to the market in the early morning, before sunrise, and, unless they are sold, must remain all day long without anything to eat or to drink. The condition of some of the sheep was pitiful. The camels, that are not accustomed to be for ever nibbling like the sheep, appeared to suffer less from the deprivation of food. In that quarter of the town nearly all the tradesmen, whether cattle-sellers, butchers, fruiterers, or grocers, were Bedouins, dwelling in their encampments inside the town, and holding themselves aloof from the Arab townsmen and the foreigners. In manners, customs, and morality they have suffered but little change from the time of the Prophet, for, unlike the Meccans themselves, they have borrowed none of the characteristics of their co-religionists from alien countries. They forbid their women to be on intimate terms with the townswomen; and when you meet them buying and selling in the market place they are always extremely reserved, and sometimes not less haughty in their demeanour towards you. For the frankness which is their most pleasing quality in their canvas cities is held in restraint so soon as they take up their quarters in Mecca during the pilgrimage. The women, both rich and poor, work hard, in most cases even harder than the men, and that is why they wear, in contrast to the townswomen, who are corpulent and comely, an appearance of being as muscular as they are lean and sun-baked. Near the cattle market we saw some low shops and warehouses in which corn and provisions were being sold by Indians and Egyptians to some Bedouins who had entered the town in order to replenish their supplies, and there, too, the out-going caravans are wont to take in their eatables for the homeward journey. Rice and wheat are the commodities which are most needed by the Bedouins of Hejaz, and in these the southern Indians carry on a brisk trade with the interior of that barren province.