Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER IX

The Had­je (Pil­grim­age to Mec­ca).--Com­mand­ed to be per­formed by Mahu­mud.--Ea­ger­ness of both sex­es to vis­it the Prophet's tomb.--Qual­ifi­ca­tions req­ui­site for the un­der­tak­ing.--Dif­fer­ent routes from In­dia to Mec­ca.--Du­ties of the pil­grims at the Holy House.--Mec­ca and its en­vi­rons.--Place of Abra­ham.--The Bedouins.--Anec­dote of a devo­tee and two pil­grims.--A Bedouin Arab, and the trav­ellers to Mec­ca.--The Kaabah (Holy House).--Su­per­sti­tious re­gard to a chain sus­pend­ed there.--Ac­count of the gold wa­ter-​spout.--Tax levied on pil­grims vis­it­ing the tomb of Mahu­mud by the Sheruff of Mec­ca.--Sa­cred vis­it to the tombs of Ali, Hasan, and Ho­sein.--The im­por­tance at­tached to this du­ty.--Trav­ellers an­noyed by the Arabs.--An in­stance record­ed.--The Nudghiff Usheruff.--Anec­dotes of Syaad Harshim.

'The Pil­grim­age to Mec­ca' is com­mand­ed by Mahu­mud to his fol­low­ers at least once dur­ing their life­time, pro­vid­ed the ob­sta­cles are not in­sur­mount­able. In­dul­gences are made for the sick, or in­di­vid­ual pover­ty. All who have the means at com­mand, what­ev­er may be their dis­tance from the place, are ex­pect­ed to per­form the Had­je them­selves if pos­si­ble; or, if pre­vent­ed by any cir­cum­stances they can­not con­trol, they are re­quired to pay the ex­pens­es of oth­er per­sons will­ing to be their prox­ies.

What­ev­er in­for­ma­tion I have ac­quired on the sub­ject of this pil­grim­age has been gleaned from fre­quent con­ver­sa­tions with Meer Had­jee Shaah, who, as I have be­fore re­marked, per­formed the Had­je from Hin­doost­aun to Mec­ca, at three dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods of his event­ful life.

If the fa­tigues, pri­va­tions, and dif­fi­cul­ties of the pil­grim­age to Mec­ca be con­sid­ered, the dis­tance from Hin­doost­aun must in­deed ren­der the Had­je a formidable un­der­tak­ing; yet, the pi­ous­ly dis­posed of both sex­es yearn for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of ful­fill­ing the in­junc­tions of their Law­giv­er, and at the same time, grat­ify­ing their laud­able feel­ings of sym­pa­thy and cu­rios­ity--their sym­pa­thy, as re­gards the re­li­gious ven­er­ation for the place and its pur­pos­es; their cu­rios­ity, to wit­ness with their own eyes those places ren­dered sa­cred by the words of the Kho­raun in one in­stance, and al­so for the de­posits con­tained in the sev­er­al tombs of prophets, whom they have been taught to rev­er­ence and re­spect as the ser­vants of God.

Ev­ery year may be wit­nessed in In­dia the Mus­sul­mauns of both sex­es form­ing them­selves in­to Kau­flaahs[1] (par­ties of pil­grims) to pur­sue their march on this joy­ous ex­pe­di­tion, be­liev­ing, as they do, that they are ful­fill­ing a sa­cred du­ty. The num­ber of wom­en is com­par­ative­ly few, and those chiefly from the mid­dling and low­er class­es of the peo­ple, whose ex­pens­es are gen­er­al­ly paid by the rich fe­males. The great ob­sta­cle to the high­er class­es per­form­ing the pil­grim­age them­selves is, that the per­son must at times be nec­es­sar­ily ex­posed to the view of the males. The low­er or­ders are less scrupu­lous in this re­spect, who, whilst on the pil­grim­age, wear a hood­ed cloak[2] of white cal­ico, by which the per­son is tol­er­ably well se­cret­ed, so that the aged and youth­ful have but one ap­pear­ance; the bet­ter sort of peo­ple, how­ev­er, can­not rec­on­cile them­selves to go abroad, un­less they could be per­mit­ted to have their cov­ered con­veyances, which in this case is im­pos­si­ble.

The qual­ifi­ca­tions nec­es­sary for all to pos­sess, ere they can be deemed fit sub­jects for the Had­je, are, as I learn, the fol­low­ing:

'They must be true Mus­sul­mauns in their faith; that is, be­lieve in one on­ly true God, and that Mahu­mud is His Prophet.

'They must strict­ly obey the du­ties com­mand­ed by Mahu­mud; that is, prayer five times dai­ly, the fast of Rumza­un, &c.

'They must be free from the world; that is, all their debts must be paid, and their fam­ily so well pro­vid­ed for, ac­cord­ing to their sta­tion, that no one de­pen­dent on them may be in want of the nec­es­saries of life dur­ing the ab­sence of the pil­grim from his home and coun­try.

'They must ab­stain from all fer­ment­ed or in­tox­icat­ing liquors, and al­so from all things for­bid­den to be eat­en by the law (which is strict­ly on the Mo­sa­ic prin­ci­ple).

'They must freely for­give their en­emies; and if they have giv­en any one cause of of­fence, they must hum­ble them­selves, and seek to be for­giv­en.

'They must re­pent of ev­ery evil they have com­mit­ted, ei­ther in thought, word, or deed, against God or their neigh­bour.'

Thus pre­pared, the pi­ous Mus­sul­maun sets out on his sup­posed du­ty, with faith in its ef­fi­ca­cy, and re­liance on the good­ness of Di­vine Prov­idence to pros­per him in the ar­du­ous un­der­tak­ing.

Many Kau­flaahs from the Up­per Provinces of In­dia, trav­el over­land to Bom­bay; oth­ers make Cal­cut­ta their place of em­barka­tion, in the Arab ships, which vis­it those ports an­nu­al­ly with re­turn­ing pil­grims from Ara­bia, car­goes of cof­fee, Ara­bi­an fruits, and drugs. Some few en­ter­pris­ing peo­ple make the whole pil­grim­age by land; this is, how­ev­er, at­tend­ed with so many and se­vere dif­fi­cul­ties, that but few of the present day have courage to at­tempt it. In those cas­es their road would be from Del­hie to Cash­mire, through Buckaria,[3] mak­ing a wide cir­cuit to get in­to Per­sia. This is the most te­dious route, but pos­sess­es the ad­van­tages of more in­hab­it­ed places on the line of march, and there­fore pro­vi­sions are the more read­ily pro­cured. There is one route from the La­hore Province,--the En­glish ter­ri­to­ry here is bound­ed by the riv­er Sut­tledge, which the trav­eller cross­es in­to the Sikh coun­try,--through Afghas­taan and Per­sia. I have not heard of the Kau­flaahs mak­ing this their road of late; there seems to be al­ways a dis­po­si­tion to fear the Sikhs,[4] who are be­come a pow­er­ful na­tion un­der Run­jeet Singh; but I am not aware what ground the pil­grims have for their dis­trust, ex­cept that they can scarce­ly ex­pect the same cour­tesy from these peo­ple as from the Mus­sul­mauns, who would nat­ural­ly aid and as­sist the pil­grims, and re­spect the per­sons thus labour­ing to ac­com­plish the com­mand of their Prophet.

What­ev­er may be the cho­sen route, the pil­grims must make up their minds to many tri­als nec­es­sar­ily in­ci­dent to the un­der­tak­ing; and to the habits of the Mus­sul­mauns of In­dia, I can­not sup­pose any fa­tigue or tri­al greater than the voy­age by sea, in an Arab ves­sel. It is well for those per­sons whose hearts have un­der­gone that thor­ough change, which by the law fits them for the Had­je; with such men, earth­ly calami­ties, pri­va­tions, or any oth­er mere mor­tal an­noy­ances, are met with pi­ous for­ti­tude, hav­ing con­so­la­tions with­in which strength­en the out­ward man: in all their tri­als they will say, 'It is in the road of God, by Him cometh our re­ward'.

The du­ty of the pil­grims, on their ar­rival at the Holy Place, is to wor­ship God, and vis­it the tombs of the Prophets. There are forms and reg­ula­tions to be ob­served in the man­ner of wor­ship; cer­tain cir­cuits to be made round the Kaabah; salut­ing with the lips the sa­cred stone there­in de­posit­ed; and call­ing to re­mem­brance the past won­ders of God, with rev­er­ence and piety of heart. I have of­ten heard Meer Had­jee Shaah speak of the com­fort a hum­ble-​mind­ed pil­grim en­joys at the time he is mak­ing his vis­it to the Holy House; he says, 'There the heart of the faith­ful ser­vant of God is en­light­ened and com­fort­ed; but the wicked finds no rest near Kaabah'.

The pil­grims vis­it the tombs of ev­ery prophet of their faith with­in their reach; as the mau­soleum of Hasan and Ho­sein, the Nudghiff Usheruff of Ali, and, if it be pos­si­ble, Jerusalem al­so. At Dimishk (Dam­as­cus) they pay re­spect to the bury­ing-​place of Yieyah[5] (St. John), over whose earth­ly re­mains is erect­ed, they say, the Jum­na Musjud[6] (mosque), to which the faith­ful re­sort on Fri­days (their Sab­bath) to prayer.

With­in the con­fines of the Holy House, life is held so sa­cred that not the mean­est liv­ing thing is al­lowed to be de­stroyed; and if even by ac­ci­dent the small­est in­sect is killed, the per­son who has caused the death is obliged to of­fer in atone­ment, at the ap­point­ed place for sac­ri­fic­ing to God, sheep or goats ac­cord­ing to his means.[7]

Ac­cord­ing to the de­scrip­tion of Meer Had­jee Shaah the city of Mec­ca is sit­uat­ed in the midst of a par­tial­ly bar­ren coun­try; but at the spot called Taaif,[8]--on­ly one day's jour­ney from Mec­ca,--the soil is par­tic­ular­ly fer­tile, pro­duc­ing all kinds of fruit and veg­eta­bles in great abun­dance, and the air re­mark­ably pure and healthy. The word Taaif im­plies in the Ara­bic 'the cir­cuits com­plet­ed'. It is record­ed 'that the an­gel Gabriel brought this pro­duc­tive soil, by God's com­mand, and placed it at a con­ve­nient dis­tance from Mec­ca, in or­der that the pil­grims and so­journ­ers at the Holy House might be ben­efit­ed by the pro­duce of the earth, with­out hav­ing them suf­fi­cient­ly near to call off their at­ten­tion from the solemn du­ty of wor­ship­ping their God, which they are ex­press­ly called up­on to per­form at Mec­ca'.

My in­for­mant tells me that there is a stone at Mec­ca known by the ap­pel­la­tion of 'Ibraahim Mukhaun' (Place of Abra­ham):[9] on this is seen the mark of a hu­man foot, and be­lieved by pil­grims, on good au­thor­ity, to be the very stone on which Abra­ham rest­ed his foot when mak­ing oc­ca­sion­al vis­its to his son Ish­mael: at the per­for­mance of this du­ty he nev­er dis­mount­ed from his camel, in com­pli­ance with his sa­cred promise made to Sarah the moth­er of Isaac.

The pil­grim­age to Mec­ca is most se­cure­ly per­formed by those per­sons who trav­el in a hum­ble way; rich­es are sure to at­tract the cu­pid­ity of the Bedouins. A poor pil­grim they re­spect, and with him they will share their last meal or coin. The Bedouin Arab de­lights in hos­pitably en­ter­tain­ing men of his own faith, pro­vid­ed they are re­al­ly dis­tressed; but the con­se­quence of de­cep­tion would be a se­vere vis­ita­tion on the delin­quent. The two fol­low­ing sto­ries I have re­ceived from Meer Had­jee Shaah, de­scrip­tive of some of the in­ci­dents that oc­cur to pil­grims, and there­fore may be ac­cept­able here.

'A good Mus­sul­maun of Hin­doost­aun re­solved on un­der­tak­ing the Had­je, be­ing un­der the strong im­pres­sion of a warn­ing dream that his earth­ly ca­reer would speed­ily ter­mi­nate. He trav­elled on foot, with one com­pan­ion on­ly, who was a faith­ful­ly-​at­tached friend; they had no world­ly wealth, and jour­neyed on their way as men­di­cants, trust­ing for each day's food to the boun­ti­ful care of Di­vine Prov­idence: nor was their trust in vain, since the hearts of all who saw these pi­ous trav­ellers were moved by the pow­er of God to yield them present re­lief.

'On a cer­tain day these pil­grims had jour­neyed from the dawn un­til eve with­out a meal, or meet­ing any one to as­sist them, when they were at last en­coun­tered by a re­li­gious devo­tee of an­oth­er na­tion, with whom they con­versed for some time. Their new ac­quain­tance hav­ing found they were in­deed poor, not even pos­sessed of a sin­gle coin to pur­chase corn or food of any kind, ex­pressed his hearty sym­pa­thy, and de­sired to be of ser­vice to the pil­grims; he there­fore dis­closed to them that he was in pos­ses­sion of a se­cret for the trans­mu­ta­tion of met­als,[10] and of­fered some of his pre­pared pow­der to the el­der Had­jee, by which he would have per­suad­ed him want should nev­er again in­trude; adding, “You will with this be in­de­pen­dent of all fu­ture care about sub­sis­tence on your pil­grim­age.”

'The pi­ous Had­jee, how­ev­er, was of a dif­fer­ent mind from the devo­tee, and po­lite­ly re­ject­ed the of­fer of the pow­der by which he was to ac­quire rich­es, declar­ing that the pos­ses­sion of such an ar­ti­cle would rob him of the best trea­sure he en­joyed, name­ly, the most per­fect re­liance on Him, by whom the birds of the air are fed from day to day with­out labour or care, and who had hith­er­to fed him both in the city and in the desert; and that in this trust he had com­forts and con­so­la­tions which the whole world could not grant him: “My God, in whom I trust, will nev­er desert me whilst I re­ly on Him alone for suc­cour and sup­port.”'

My ex­cel­lent friend says, such pil­grims as the one de­scribed may pass through the haunts of the Bedouins with­out fear or sor­row, and they are al­ways re­spect­ed. The next anec­dote I am about to re­late will de­vel­op more par­tic­ular­ly the Arab's nat­ural dis­po­si­tion, and how nec­es­sary it is for men re­al­ly to be that they would seem, when placed by cir­cum­stances with­in their reach. Some of the par­ties were known to my ven­er­able rel­ative.

'Six Mus­sul­mauns from In­dia were trav­el­ling on foot in Ara­bia; they as­sumed the ti­tle of pil­grim men­di­cants. On a cer­tain day they drew nigh to the tent of a Bedouin Arab, who went out to meet them, and en­ter­ing in­to con­ver­sa­tion, soon dis­cov­ered by their talk that they were poor pil­grims from In­dia, who de­pend­ed on ca­su­al boun­ties from men of their faith for their dai­ly meal. The Bedouin, though a rob­ber, had re­spect for the com­mands of his re­li­gion; and with that re­spect he boast­ed a due share of hos­pitable feel­ing to­wards all who were of his own faith; he ac­cord­ing­ly told them they were wel­come to his home, and the best meal he could pro­vide for them, which of­fers they very glad­ly ac­cept­ed, and fol­lowed him to the tent.

'The Arab de­sired his wife to take wa­ter to his guests and wash their feet af­ter the fa­tigue of their day's march, and told her in se­cret to di­vert their at­ten­tion whilst he went out in search of plun­der, that the hos­pi­tal­ity of an Arab might be shown to the strangers. Then mount­ing his fleet-​camel, he was quick­ly out of sight. Many a weary cir­cuit the Arab made, his ill stars pre­vailed; not a Kau­flaah nor a trav­eller could he meet, whence a sup­ply might be ex­tract­ed, to be the means of pro­vid­ing for his guests; his home was pen­ni­less, and with the Bedouins, none give cred­it. His bad suc­cess dispir­it­ed him, and he re­turned to the back of his tent, to con­sult what was best to be done in this emer­gen­cy. The on­ly thing he pos­sessed in the world fit for food was the an­imal on which he rode, from day to day, to levy con­tri­bu­tions up­on the pass­ing trav­eller.

'His on­ly im­me­di­ate re­source was to kill his favourite camel. His hon­our was at stake; the sac­ri­fice would be great; he was at­tached to the beast; the loss would be ir­repara­ble, he thought:--yet ev­ery weighty ar­gu­ment on one side to pre­serve the camel's life, was as quick­ly over­turned in the re­flec­tion of his Ara­bi­an hon­our;--his vis­itors must be fed, and this was the on­ly way he could con­trive the meal. With trem­bling hands and half-​avert­ed eyes, the camel's blood was shed; with one plunge his favourite ceased to breathe. For some min­utes, the Arab could not look on his poor faith­ful ser­vant; but pride drove pity from her haunt, and the an­imal was quick­ly skinned and dressed in savoury dish­es, with his wife's as­sis­tance. At length, the food pre­pared, the Arab and his wife placed the most choice por­tions be­fore their guests, and whilst they dined at­tend­ed them with re­spect­ful as­siduity; se­lect­ing for each the most del­icate pieces, to in­duce the trav­ellers to eat, and evince the cor­dial wel­come ten­dered by the host.[11]

'The trav­ellers hav­ing dined; the Arab and his wife took their turn at the feast with ap­petites most keen,--for­get­ful even, for the time, whence the savoury dish­es were pro­cured; and if an in­trud­ing thought of his favourite camel shot across the mind of the Arab, it was quick­ly chased in the re­flec­tion that his prid­ed hon­our was se­cured by the sac­ri­fice, and that re­flec­tion was to him a suf­fi­cient com­pen­sa­tion.

'The pil­grims, re­freshed by food, were not in­clined to de­part, and as they were urged to stay by their friend­ly host, they slept com­fort­ably in the Arab's tent, on coarse mats, the on­ly bed known to the wan­der­ing Bedouins. The morn­ing found them prepar­ing to pur­sue their march; but the Arab pressed their con­tin­uance an­oth­er day, to share with him in the abun­dance his camel af­ford­ed for the whole of the par­ty. The trav­ellers were not un­will­ing to de­lay their de­par­ture, for they had jour­neyed many days with­out much ease, and with very lit­tle food; their host's con­ver­sa­tion al­so was amus­ing, and this sec­ond day of hos­pi­tal­ity by the Arab was an ad­di­tion to the com­fort and con­ve­nience of the weary pil­grims.

'The fol­low­ing morn­ing, as was fixed, the trav­ellers rose to take leave of their benev­olent host and his at­ten­tive wife; each as he em­braced the Arab, had some grate­ful word to add, for the good they had re­ceived at his hands. The last of the pil­grims, hav­ing em­braced the Arab, was walk­ing from the tent, when the dog be­long­ing to the host seized the man by his gar­ment and held him fast. “What is this?” in­quired the Arab, “sure­ly you must have de­ceived me; my dog is wise as he is trusty,--he nev­er yet lied to his mas­ter. This labaad­har of yours he has tak­en a fan­cy to it seems; but you shall have my coat of bet­ter-​look­ing stuff for your old chintz gar­ment. We will ex­change labaad­hars,[12] my friend,” said the Arab, throw­ing his own to­wards the hes­itat­ing trav­eller. His fel­low-​pil­grims, hear­ing al­ter­ca­tion, ad­vanced, and with sur­prise lis­tened to the par­ley go­ing on be­tween the host and guest.--“I have a ven­er­ation for my chintz, old as it is,” said the pil­grim; “it has been my com­pan­ion for many years, broth­er; in­deed I can­not part with it.” The dog held fast the gar­ment, and the Arab, find­ing per­sua­sion was but loss of words, cast a frown of deep mean­ing on the trav­ellers, and ad­dressed them:--“Ye came to me beg­gars, hun­gry and fa­tigued; I be­lieved ye were poor, and I shel­tered ye these two days, and fed ye with my best; nay, more, I even killed my use­ful camel, that your hunger might be ap­peased. Had I known there was mon­ey with any of ye, my poor beast's life might yet have been spared; but it is too late to re­pent the sac­ri­fice I made to serve you,” Then, look­ing stead­fast­ly at the chintz-​robed trav­eller, he added, in a tone of sharp au­thor­ity, “Come, change gar­ments!--here, no one dis­putes my com­mands!”

'The trem­bling pil­grim re­luc­tant­ly obeyed. The Arab took up the gar­ment and pro­ceed­ed with it to where the fire was kin­dled. “Now we shall see what my trusty dog dis­cov­ered in your tat­tered chintz,” said the Arab, as he threw it on the fire. All the pil­grims hov­ered round the flames to watch what would re­sult from the con­sum­ing gar­ment, with in­tense anx­iety. The Arab drew from the em­bers one hun­dred gold mo­hurs, to the sur­prise and won­der of all the trav­ellers, save him who owned the chintz gar­ment; he had kept his trea­sures so se­cret­ly, that even in their great­est dis­tress he al­lowed his broth­er pil­grims to suf­fer, with him­self, want and pri­va­tions which, ow­ing to his lust for gold, he had no heart to re­lieve.

'The Arab se­lect­ed from the prize he had ob­tained, by the ex­change of gar­ments, ten gold mo­hurs, and pre­sent­ed them to the own­er with a sharp re­buke for his du­plic­ity, al­lud­ing to the mean­ness he had been guilty of in seek­ing and ac­cept­ing a meal from a Bedouin, whilst he pos­sessed so much wealth about his per­son; then adding,--“There is noth­ing hid­den from God; I killed my sole trea­sure to give food to the poor hun­gry trav­ellers; my deed of char­ity is re­ward­ed; de­ceit in you is pun­ished by the loss of that wealth you de­served not to pos­sess.--De­part, and be thank­ful that your life is spared; there are some of my tribe who would not have per­mit­ted you to go so eas­ily: you have enough spared to you for your jour­ney; in fu­ture, avoid base de­cep­tions.”'

Of the Kaabah (Holy House) many won­der­ful things are record­ed in the sev­er­al com­men­taries on the Kho­raun, and oth­er an­cient au­thor­ities, which it would fill my let­ter to de­tail. I will, how­ev­er, make men­tion of the mys­tic chain as a sam­ple of the many su­per­sti­tious habits of that age.

It is said, 'A chain was sus­pend­ed from the roof of Kaabah, whith­er the peo­ple as­sem­bled to set­tle (by the touch) dis­put­ed rights in any case of doubt be­tween con­tend­ing par­ties.'

Many cu­ri­ous things are re­lat­ed as hav­ing been de­cid­ed by this mys­tic chain,[13] which it should seem, by their de­scrip­tion, could on­ly be reached by the just per­son in the cause to be de­cid­ed, since, how­ev­er long the arm of the faulty per­son, he could nev­er reach the chain; and how­ev­er short the per­son's arm who was in the right, he al­ways touched the chain with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. I will here re­late one of the anec­dotes on this sub­ject.

'Two pil­grims trav­elled to­geth­er in Ara­bia; on the way one robbed the oth­er of his gold coins, and se­cret­ed them care­ful­ly in the hol­low of his cane or staff. His com­pan­ion miss­ing his cash, ac­cused him of the theft, and when dis­putes had risen high be­tween them, they agreed to vis­it the mys­tic chain to set­tle their dif­fer­ence. Ar­riv­ing at Kaabah, their in­ten­tions be­ing dis­closed to the keep­ers of the place, the thief claimed the priv­ilege, be­ing the ac­cused, of first reach­ing to touch the chain; he then gave the staff in which he had de­posit­ed the mon­ey in­to his fel­low-​pil­grim's hands, say­ing, “Keep this, whilst I go to prove my in­no­cence.” He next ad­vanced and made the usu­al prayer, adding to which, “Lord, what­ev­er I have done amiss I strive to rem­edy; I re­pent, and I re­store”; then rais­ing his arm, he touched the chain with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. The spec­ta­tors were much sur­prised, be­cause all be­lieved he was ac­tu­al­ly the thief. The man who lost his gold, freely for­gave his fel­low-​trav­eller, and ex­pressed sor­row that he had ac­cused him wrong­ful­ly; yet he wished to prove that he was not guilty of false­hood--hav­ing re­al­ly lost his gold,--and de­clared he al­so would ap­proach the chain to clear him­self from such a sus­pi­cion. “Here,” said he to the crim­inal, “take back your staff;” and he ad­vanced with­in the Kaabah, mak­ing the re­quired prayer, and adding, “Now my Cre­ator will grant me mer­cy and favour, for He knoweth my gold was stolen, and I have not spo­ken false­ly in that, yet I know not who is the thief.” He raised his hand and grasped the chain, at which the peo­ple were much amazed.'

It is pre­sumed, by writ­ers of a lat­er pe­ri­od, that this cir­cum­stance threw the mys­tic prop­er­ties of the chain out of favour; for it was soon af­ter re­moved se­cret­ly, these writ­ers add, and its dis­ap­pear­ance made the sub­ject of much con­jec­ture; no one could ev­er as­cer­tain by whom it was tak­en, but the gen­er­al be­lief is, that it was con­veyed away by su­per­nat­ural agen­cy. An­oth­er mar­vel­lous sto­ry is record­ed of the Kaabah, as fol­lows:

'A poor pil­grim, near­ly fam­ish­ing with hunger, while en­cir­cling the Holy House, on look­ing up to­wards the build­ing ob­served the wa­ter-​spout of gold[14] hang­ing over his head. He prayed that his wants might be re­lieved, adding, “To Thee, O God, noth­ing is dif­fi­cult. At thy com­mand, that spout of gold may de­scend to my re­lief;” hold­ing the skirt of his gar­ment to re­ceive it, in an­swer to his faith­ful ad­dress. The spout had been firm­ly fixed for ages, yet it fell as the pil­grim fin­ished his prayer. He lost no time in walk­ing away with his valu­able gift, and of­fered it to a mer­chant for sale, who im­me­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­ing the gold spout of Kaabah, ac­cused the pil­grim of sac­ri­lege, and with­out de­lay hand­ed him over to the Sheruff[15] of Mec­ca, to an­swer for his crime. He de­clared his in­no­cence to the Sheruff, and told him how he be­came pos­sessed of the trea­sure. The Sheruff had some dif­fi­cul­ty in be­liev­ing his con­fes­sion, yet per­ceiv­ing he had not the ap­pear­ance of a com­mon thief, he told him, if what he had de­clared was true, the good­ness of God would again be ex­tend­ed to­wards him on the tri­al he pro­posed to in­sti­tute. The spout was re­stored to its orig­inal po­si­tion on the Kaabah, and made se­cure. This done, the pil­grim was re­quired to re­peat his faith­ful ad­dress to God, in the pres­ence of the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude; when, to their as­ton­ish­ment, it again de­scend­ed at the in­stant his prayer was fin­ished. Tak­ing up the spout with­out hes­ita­tion, he was walk­ing away with it very qui­et­ly, when the peo­ple flocked round him, be­liev­ing him to be some saint­ed per­son, and earnest­ly re­quest­ed him to be­stow on them small por­tions of his rai­ment as relics of his holy per­son. The Sheruff then clothed him in rich gar­ments, and in lieu of the gold spout--which none could now dis­pute his right to,--the same weight of gold in the cur­rent coin of Ara­bia was giv­en to him, thus rais­ing him from beg­gary to af­flu­ence.'

I have of­ten heard Meer Had­jee Shaah speak of this gold spout which adorns the Kaabah, be­ing held in great ven­er­ation by the pil­grims who make the Had­je to that place.

All Mus­sul­mauns per­form­ing the pil­grim­age pay a kind of tax to the Sheruff of Mec­ca. The present pos­ses­sors of pow­er in Mec­ca are of the Soonie sect. The ad­mis­sion mon­ey, in con­se­quence, falls heavy on the Sheahs, from whom they ex­act heavy sums, out of jeal­ousy and prej­udice. This ren­ders it dif­fi­cult for the poor Sheah pil­grim to gain ad­mit­tance, and it is even sus­pect­ed that in many cas­es they are in­duced to fal­si­fy them­selves, when it is de­mand­ed of them what sect they be­long to, rather than be de­nied en­trance af­ter their se­vere tri­al to reach the con­fines of Mec­ca. The tax levied on the Soonies is said to be tri­fling in pro­por­tion to that of the Sheahs.

Amongst the dif­fer­ent places vis­it­ed by each Had­jee,--af­ter the cir­cuit is made,--a zeearut to the tomb of Ali at Nudghiff Usheruff, and the far-​famed Kraabaal­lah of Hasan and Ho­sein are es­teemed in­dis­pens­able en­gage­ments, if it be pos­si­ble; there is not, how­ev­er, any com­mand to this ef­fect in the Mus­sul­maun law, but the Sheahs, zeal­ous for their lead­ers, are will­ing to think they do hon­our to their mem­ory, by vis­it­ing those tombs which con­tain the mor­tal re­mains of their re­spect­ed Emaums.

Trav­el­ling through this part of Ara­bia, Meer Had­jee Shaah says, is at­tend­ed with much in­con­ve­nience and fa­tigue; but he failed not at each pil­grim­age he made, to pay a vis­it to the mau­soleums of his fore­fa­thers. He tells me that Kraabaal­lah was for a long time al­most an in­ter­dict­ed vis­it, through the pow­er of the Soonies, who were so jeal­ous of the re­spect paid to the Emaums, that the Turks (who are Soonies) raised the price of ad­mis­sion with­in the gates to one hun­dred gold pieces. At that time very few peo­ple could grat­ify their yearn­ings be­yond the out­side view of the mau­soleum; and even now that the en­trance-​mon­ey is much re­duced the sums so col­lect­ed yield a hand­some rev­enue to the Turks.

I will here in­tro­duce an anec­dote which proves the val­ue cer­tain in­di­vid­uals set on the zeearut (sa­cred vis­it) to Kraabaal­lah, which I have re­ceived from my revered pil­grim-​friend and rel­ative.

'Amongst the ap­pli­cants for ad­mis­sion at the gates of Kraabaal­lah was an aged wom­an clothed in ragged gar­ments. The gate-​keep­er, judg­ing from her ap­pear­ance, that she was des­ti­tute of mon­ey, scoffed at her pre­sump­tion; she, how­ev­er, pro­duced the price of ad­mis­sion with much con­fi­dence of man­ner, and de­mand­ed en­trance with­out fur­ther de­lay. The keep­ers now sus­pect­ed the old wom­an to be a thief, and com­menced in­ter­ro­gat­ing her how she be­came pos­sessed of so large a sum. The poor old wom­an an­swered them, “I have laboured hard for thir­ty years at my spin­ning-​wheel, and have de­barred my­self dur­ing those years of all su­per­fluities, con­tent­ing my­self with a bare sub­sis­tence; I have done this that the dear­est wish of my heart might once in my life­time be grat­ified, to vis­it and weep over the tomb of my Emaums. Here, take the fruits of my labour, and let me have my re­ward; ev­ery mo­ment de­layed is agony to me.”'

In jour­ney­ing through Ara­bia, pil­grims are much an­noyed with the in­tru­sion they so fre­quent­ly meet with from the idle Arabs, who force their way in­to ev­ery stranger's place of so­journ with­out cer­emo­ny, to strain the nerves of char­ity from 'brethren of the faith'.

There is a max­im well known amongst Mus­sul­mauns,--the words of Mahu­mud,--'With the faith­ful, all are broth­ers'; and this is the pass-​word with those idle men who pre­tend to have too much pride to beg, and are yet too in­do­lent to labour for their sup­port.

A Mus­sul­maun,--how­ev­er great his rank,--is seat­ed with his friends and at­ten­dants; an Arab, who lives by this method, stalks in­to the tent or apart­ment, salutes the mas­ter with, 'Salaam-​oon-​ali Koom!' (health or peace be with you!) and un­bid­den takes his seat on the near­est va­cant spot to the head per­son of the as­sem­bly. Af­ter the first sur­prise ex­cit­ed by the stranger's in­tru­sion, he looks at the mas­ter and says, 'I claim the priv­ilege of a broth­er'; by which it is to be un­der­stood the Arab re­quires mon­ey from the rich­er man of his faith. A small sum is ten­dered, he re­ceives it with­out in­di­cat­ing any sense of obli­ga­tion, ris­es from his seat, and moves off with no oth­er than the fa­mil­iar salute which marked his en­trance, 'Salaam-​oon-​ali Koom!'[16]

A rich Eu­nuch, of Luc­know, ac­com­pa­nied Meer Had­jee Shaah on one of his pil­grim­ages, with a large Kau­flaah. Up­on one oc­ca­sion, when the whole par­ty were seat­ed in friend­ly con­clave, some of these idle Arabs en­tered in the way de­scribed; the Eu­nuch was un­ac­quaint­ed with the lan­guage, or the man­ners of Ara­bia, and ex­pressed his dis­like to their free­dom in warm lan­guage, and ev­ident anger in his coun­te­nance; many had claimed the trib­ute of broth­er­hood, when the Eu­nuch, who was ac­cus­tomed in his own coun­try to re­ceive re­spect and def­er­ence from in­fe­ri­ors, lost all pa­tience with the un­court­ly in­tru­sion of the Arabs, and evinced his wrath to the proud Arab then present, who un­der­stood by his vi­olent man­ners, if not by his lan­guage, that he was of­fend­ed with him. The good sense and kind­ly man­ner of Meer Had­jee Shaah re­stored tran­quil­li­ty in the as­sem­bly; he gave mon­ey to the man, and apol­ogized for his friend's ig­no­rance of the cus­toms of Ara­bia: thus pre­vent­ing the en­raged Arab from ful­fill­ing his threat of forc­ing the Eu­nuch to ap­pear be­fore the Sheruff of Mec­ca.

Nudghiff Usheruff, the bury­ing-​place of Ali, is the re­sort of many pi­ous men of the Mus­sul­maun per­sua­sion, as well as the shrine to be vis­it­ed by 'the faith­ful' of the Sheah sect. Amongst the many sin­gu­lar sto­ries I have heard of the de­vout men of that re­li­gion, I se­lect one from the num­ber re­lat­ing to a man whose abode was--through choice--near the shrine of their beloved Emaum Ali. I shall give it in ex­act­ly the style I have re­ceived it, through my hus­band's trans­la­tion, from an old work in the Per­sian lan­guage.

'In the reign of Nadir Shaah,[17] a de­vout man of the faith took up his abode in the vicin­ity of Nudghiff Usheruff in Ara­bia. He was a Syaad, named Harshim;[18] a man of great learn­ing, whose heart was set on seek­ing with love the most mer­ci­ful God, whom he served faith­ful­ly. Syaad Harshim, con­scious that the rich­es and hon­ours of this world are in­ad­equate to pro­cure eter­nal hap­pi­ness, and feel­ing con­vinced that the more hum­ble a man's mode of liv­ing is, the greater are the prospects of es­cap­ing temp­ta­tions in this life of pro­ba­tion, re­solved on labour­ing for his dai­ly bread, and re­lin­quished with his pa­ter­nal home, the abun­dance and rich­es which his an­cient house had long boast­ed.

'Syaad Harshim se­lect­ed Nudghiff Usheruff for his so­journ, and the busi­ness of a wood­man for a call­ing. The piety of his life, and the good­ness of his heart, drew up­on him the re­spect of the in­hab­itants of the city. It was his prac­tice to spend ev­ery day in the jun­gle (wilder­ness) cut­ting fire-​wood, of which he gave a light bur­then to his ass; and re­turn­ing to­wards evening to the pop­ulat­ed city, he found ready cus­tomers for the load which his day's labour pro­duced. His hon­esty and love of truth were prover­bial: he asked the price for his wood which he in­tend­ed to take; if more was of­fered, it was re­ject­ed,--if less, he would not ac­cept it.

'One evening, a man of su­pe­ri­or ad­dress to his usu­al cus­tomers, but poor­ly clad, met him at the en­trance of the street, and bar­gained for the load of wood. Syaad Harshim was pen­etrat­ing, and could not help ex­press­ing his sur­prise at the cir­cum­stance of one, ev­ident­ly mov­ing in a high­er sphere, be­ing there to pur­chase wood. “I see,” said the Syaad to the pur­chas­er, “that your sta­tion is su­pe­ri­or to your cir­cum­stances!--How is this?”--“My sto­ry,” replied the stranger, "is not, I fear, un­com­mon in this age of the world. I will re­late it briefly:--I was once a rich man, and my mind was set on mak­ing the pil­grim­age. Aware that valu­ables and mon­ey would be an in­cum­brance to me on my jour­ney, I ap­plied to the Kauzy of this city to take charge of all my world­ly rich­es dur­ing my ab­sence, to which he read­ily con­sent­ed, and hav­ing packed my jew­els, mon­ey, and valu­ables in a strong chest with a good lock, I gave it in­to his charge and de­part­ed.

'“My pil­grim­age ac­com­plished, and tired of a wan­der­ing life, I re­turned home af­ter a few years' ab­sence, wait­ed on the Kauzy, and ap­plied for the trea­sure I had de­posit­ed in his care; he de­nied all knowl­edge of me or my valu­ables, pre­tend­ed not to un­der­stand me, called me an im­pos­tor, and even­tu­al­ly drove me from his house with vi­olence. I again tried the Kauzy by ex­pos­tu­la­tion, and sent my friends to him, but all with­out ben­efit; for here I am as you see me, Syaad Harshim, re­duced to penury by the Kauzy's in­jus­tice. The world es­teems him a per­son of great char­ac­ter, and con­demns me as the un­just one. Well! I can say no more; I know that God is mer­ci­ful, I put my trust in Him!” “Ameen,” re­spond­ed the Syaad, “do you so, and it will yet be well with you.”

'The stranger lin­gered with the sym­pa­thiz­ing Wood­man, and af­ter some time had elapsed he asked him if he would in­ter­est him­self with the Kauzy to ef­fect a resti­tu­tion of his rights, adding, “All are will­ing to give you, O Syaad, great cred­it for su­pe­ri­or virtues.” Harshim replied he had no mer­it to call for his fel­low-​mor­tals' good opin­ion, but as he felt in­ter­est­ed in the af­fair he would cer­tain­ly vis­it the un­just man, and re­quest­ed the stranger to meet him at the Kauzy's door on the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

'Ar­rived at the Kauzy's res­idence, Harshim was re­ceived with ev­ident plea­sure, for though but a wood­man, he yet was known to be a per­son of su­pe­ri­or rank, and a man uni­ver­sal­ly re­spect­ed for his great piety. Af­ter the com­mon salu­ta­tions, the Syaad stat­ed the ob­ject of his vis­it, as­sur­ing the Kauzy he was ac­tu­at­ed pure­ly by good feel­ings to­wards him in the part he had un­der­tak­en;--be­ing de­sirous on­ly of pre­serv­ing his soul from the evil that at­tend­ed the un­just men of this world, who die with­out re­pen­tance and resti­tu­tion to those whom they have in­jured. Then call­ing the stranger for­ward, he said with firm­ness of voice and man­ner, “Be­hold this man! he left mon­ey and jew­els in your charge whilst he went on his du­ty to the pil­grim­age; he comes now to de­mand his prop­er­ty, give back his chest of trea­sures with­out de­lay, hon­est­ly and just­ly, as you hope for mer­cy in a fu­ture state!”

'The Kauzy an­swered, “I have it not, Syaad Harshim, you may be­lieve me; this fel­low wicked­ly rais­es the false­hood to in­jure me, and it is as much to his own dis­hon­our as to my dis­cred­it. I beg, there­fore, you will nei­ther give cred­it to his base as­ser­tions, nor think so mean­ly of me; my sta­tion as Kauzy of this dis­trict should, me­thinks, screen me from such im­pu­ta­tions.”--“True,” said Harshim, "the sta­tion you oc­cu­py in the world, and the place you hold as Kauzy, pre­vent sus­pi­cion from at­tach­ing to you; hence this poor man has not yet found re­dress to the jus­tice of his claims. I would have you be­lieve me sin­cere­ly your friend, in de­sir­ing to bring your heart to re­pen­tance, and thus on­ly can your soul's safe­ty be se­cured. I know you to have this man's prop­er­ty, and your own heart even now con­victs you of the in­jus­tice you prac­tise. Noth­ing is hid­den from God;--re­flect on the pun­ish­ment pre­pared for the un­re­pent­ing hyp­ocrite. Lis­ten, whilst I re­late to you my own con­vic­tions, or rather ex­pe­ri­ence, of that ter­ri­ble pun­ish­ment which is pre­pared for the im­pen­itent hard­ened sin­ner be­yond the grave.

'"I have been a wood­man for sev­er­al years, and by my dai­ly labour have earned my coarse food. Some years since, I was sick and un­able to pur­sue my usu­al oc­cu­pa­tion; my sup­ply was thus cut off. Re­quir­ing tem­po­rary re­lief, I ap­plied to a rich Banker of this city for a tri­fling loan; my re­quest was prompt­ly com­plied with, and I en­gaged to re­pay the sum by two pice each day up­on again re­sum­ing my em­ploy­ment. By the mer­cy of God I re­cov­ered; and on the evening of each day, as I sold the wood my day's labour pro­duced in the mar­ket, I paid the Banker two pice. On the very day, how­ev­er, that the last two were to have been paid, the Banker died. Thus I re­mained his debtor still. Of­ten had I thought of the cir­cum­stance that I was his debtor, and with re­al re­gret; yet the sum was small, and with this I be­came rec­on­ciled.

'"Not long af­ter his de­cease I was vis­it­ed with a dream, im­por­tant to all the world to know, and I there­fore de­sire to make it pub­lic. Judge­ment was opened to my view; the beau­ty of heav­en was dis­played on one side, and the tor­ments of hell on the oth­er. My dream pre­sent­ed many peo­ple wait­ing their award, whom I had known in life, and amongst the num­ber my cred­itor the Banker; he was stand­ing on the brink of that fiery yawn­ing gulf which is pre­pared for the wicked and un­just. His at­ten­dant an­gels pro­duced the doc­uments of their faith­ful keep­ing,--good and evil ac­tions of ev­ery mor­tal are thus reg­is­tered,--one ex­hib­it­ed a small blank book in which not one good deed had been record­ed, and that pre­sent­ed by the oth­er, con­tain­ing the evils of his ways on earth, ap­peared to me an im­mense vol­ume filled through­out.

'"'Take him to his mer­it­ed tor­ments!' was pro­nounced in an aw­ful tone of com­mand.--'Have mer­cy! have pity!' cried the Banker, in a sup­pli­cat­ing voice.--'Pro­duce one claim for pity,' was heard.--The Banker in agony looked wild­ly round, as if in search of some­thing he might urge in ex­ten­ua­tion, when cast­ing his eyes on me he ex­claimed, 'There! oh, there is one! who when in trou­ble I re­lieved, and he is still my debtor!'

'"In my dream this ap­peared too slen­der a ben­efit to draw forth the slight­est re­mis­sion of the pun­ish­ments award­ed to his deserts. 'Away with him!' was heard.--'Oh!' cried the Banker's soul, 'draw near to me, thou good, vir­tu­ous, and hum­ble Wood­man, that the re­flect­ed light of thy virtues may give one in­stant's ease to my present tor­ture. Let me but touch the righ­teous Harshim, and I will de­part to my just pun­ish­ment with sub­mis­sion!'

'“I was per­mit­ted to grat­ify the un­hap­py spir­it, won­der­ing at the same time what ben­efit he could de­rive from touch­ing me. Ad­vanc­ing near the tor­tured soul he stretched forth his hand and touched me on the knee; it was like a fire­brand; I drew back hasti­ly and found my knee was scorched. 'Re­turn to men with warn­ings,' said the wretched spir­it. 'Tell them of my un­hap­py state; tell them what are the tor­tures of the wicked; that touch you have re­ceived on your knee, is of the same na­ture my whole body suf­fers in eter­nal flames.'--The pain I suf­fered in my knee dis­or­dered my sleep; I awoke in agony, and here it is to this day,” said the Wood­man, un­ty­ing a ban­dage from his knee. “Ex­am­ine the place, and be warned, O Kauzy, by the ter­ri­ble cer­tain­ty I have brought from that Banker whom you knew, and who is now suf­fer­ing for his in­jus­tice on earth. I have been lame from that night of my dream,” con­tin­ued Syaad Harshim, “but I shall re­joice in the pain, if the ex­am­ple in­flu­ence one hard­ened sin­ner to re­pent, whilst re­pen­tance may avail.”

'Dur­ing the recital of the dream, Syaad Harshim watched the coun­te­nance of the Kauzy, who tried in vain to hide the guilty changes of his face. The Syaad at last fixed his keen eyes on him, “Now, friend,” said he, “it would be great fol­ly to add guilt to guilt by far­ther sub­terfuge. I know the day, the hour, you in­ge­nious­ly sub­sti­tut­ed a false key to this man's chest; I could tell you what you wicked­ly took out; the place where it is se­cret­ed, even, is not hid­den from my knowl­edge; go, bring it from your wife's apart­ment; a lit­tle labour will re­move it from the cor­ner near the bed­stead.”

'The Kauzy was now sub­dued by the com­mand­ing truths of the Syaad, and his heart be­ing soft­ened by the fear­ful re­la­tion of the Banker's tor­ment, he sank to the earth with shame and re­morse,--“I ac­knowl­edge my sin, thou holy man of truth;--for­give me!” he cried, “for­give me, oh my God! I am in­deed re­pen­tant, and by this holy man's means I am brought to a sense of my guilt!” He then went to the wom­en's apart­ment, brought out the chest and de­liv­ered it to the own­er, en­treat­ing Syaad Harshim to for­give him.

'The Syaad replied, “I have noth­ing to for­give, nor pow­er to re­mit; my ad­vice you have freely, and may it serve you! Seek par­don from God who loves to be sought, and whose mer­cy nev­er faileth. He is not the God of re­venge, where re­pen­tance is sin­cere; but He is the God of mer­cy to all who seek Him faith­ful­ly. His mer­cy is al­ready ex­tend­ed to you, for He has giv­en you time to re­pent:--but for His mer­cy, you had been tak­en to your pun­ish­ment, whilst you had no thoughts of re­pen­tance in your guilty heart. Farewell! let me know by your fu­ture life, that Syaad Harshim's lost labour in the jun­gle of this day, has pro­duced some­thing to the bet­ter har­vest--awak­en­ing one sin­ner to a sense of his dan­ger.”'

Meer Had­jee Shaah has re­lat­ed to me many sin­gu­lar anec­dotes of this Syaad Harshim, which are gen­er­al­ly spo­ken of, and be­lieved to be true by the so­journ­ers at Nudghiff Usheruff. His mem­ory is much re­spect­ed by the Mus­sul­mauns, and the acts of his life are reg­is­tered with the ven­er­ation paid to saints, amongst peo­ple of more en­light­ened na­tions. They con­fi­dent­ly as­sert, that when­ev­er Syaad Harshim pre­sent­ed him­self at the en­trance to Nudghiff Usheruff, the gates, which are al­ways kept locked, flew open to re­ceive him.

In proof that he dis­re­gard­ed world­ly pos­ses­sions, the fol­low­ing is re­lat­ed of him in the an­cient works both of Ara­bia and Per­sia:--

'The great con­queror, Nadir Shaah, on one oc­ca­sion vis­it­ed the shrine of Ali, with a vast ret­inue of his chiefs, courtiers, and fol­low­ers. The King heard, whilst at Nudghiff Usheruff, of the saint­ed life led by the Wood­man, Syaad Harshim, in that neigh­bour­hood, and he felt dis­posed to ten­der a present of mon­ey and valu­ables, to in­duce the Syaad's prayer for his fu­ture pros­per­ity. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the King com­mand­ed trays to be filled from his In­di­an spoils, which were sent with a mes­sage, humbly couched, en­treat­ing the good Syaad would ac­cept his of­fer­ing of re­spect, and make prayers to God for him.

'The trays were con­veyed by ser­vants of the King, who ar­rived at the Syaad's hut at the mo­ment he was sat­is­fy­ing the de­mands of na­ture with a meal of coarse bar­ley bread and pure wa­ter. “What is all this?” in­quired the Syaad, on see­ing the valu­ables be­fore him. “An hum­ble of­fer­ing from the great Nadir Shaah,” replied the mes­sen­ger, “who en­treats you will hon­our him by the ac­cep­tance of his presents, and of­fer your pi­ous prayer for God's mer­cy in his be­half.” “My prayers”, said the Syaad, “I can promise shall be made du­ly and tru­ly, but not my ac­cep­tance of his gifts. Take back these hate­ful, use­less things! Tell Nadir Shaah, Syaad Harshim will not even touch them.” The mes­sen­ger tried per­sua­sions with­out avail; he was con­strained to re­turn to his roy­al mas­ter, with his load­ed trays.

'No soon­er were the King's ser­vants out of sight, than the wife of Syaad Harshim vent­ed her dis­ap­point­ment in no mea­sured strain of anger to­wards her hus­band. “Here am I,” said the old la­dy, “a very slave in con­se­quence of our pover­ty, a very beg­gar in ap­pear­ance, and my scanty meal of coarse bread is scarce suf­fi­cient to keep me in bod­ily strength; sure­ly you ought to have re­mem­bered me, when the King's of­fer­ing was be­fore you--even if you liked not to ac­cept it for your­self.”--“I might in­deed”, he replied, “have done as you say, wife, had I known your sen­ti­ments soon­er; but I be­lieved you were as con­tent­ed as my­self with home­ly fare and hon­est labour; but be com­fort­ed, you shall have a share of the next of­fer­ing made by the King to Syaad Harshim, pro­vid­ed your present in­cli­na­tion re­mains un­changed by time.” This promise qui­et­ed the wife's an­gry hu­mour, and peace was again re­stored be­tween them.

'“Wife,” said the Syaad, “this al-​kaulock[19] (Arab's coat of cal­ico) of mine re­quires a lit­tle of thy labour: as I have now no oth­er gar­ment to change with, I trust you may please to wash it whilst I take my sleep;--one cau­tion you must ob­serve,--I have oc­ca­sion for the wa­ter in which this dress is to be washed; pre­serve it care­ful­ly for me, my good wife;” and he laid him down on his mat to sleep. The wife, obe­di­ent to her hus­band's wish­es, washed his dress, and took care to pre­serve the dirty wa­ter; when he awoke, she brought him the clean gar­ment, and re­ceived his warm com­men­da­tions for her dili­gence. She then pro­duced the pan of dirty wa­ter, in which she had cleansed the gar­ment, say­ing, “There, Syaad Harshim, I have done as you de­sired.”--“Very good,” replied her hus­band, “now you must far­ther oblige me by drink­ing it--you know there is noth­ing in this wa­ter but the sweat of my body pro­duced by my dai­ly labour.” The wife, dis­gust­ed at the strange re­quest of her hus­band, looked with amaze­ment, and fan­cied he must have lost his sens­es. “What is this you re­quire of me? would you poi­son your wife, O Syaad Harshim, with the filth from your skin, the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of many days' labour in the jun­gles? art thou mad, to ask thy wife a re­quest so un­heard of?”

'“Lis­ten to me, wife,” said the Syaad, in gen­tle terms; “you pro­fess to love, hon­our, and re­spect me, as your faith­ful, law­ful hus­band; pray can the dirt from my body be more of­fen­sive to your palate than the scum of Nadir Shaah, whom you on­ly know by name? You would have ac­cept­ed the filthy of­fer­ings of a cru­el man, who plun­dered and sac­ri­ficed his vic­tims to ob­tain the trea­sures he pos­sess­es;--you would not have scru­pled to ob­tain your fu­ture sus­te­nance by the coins of Nadir Shaah, gained as they were by the spilling of hu­man blood? Is this your love for Syaad Harshim?” The wife threw her­self at her hus­band's feet, when his speech was fin­ished: “Par­don me, my dear hus­band! par­don my ig­no­rance and self-​love; I see my­self dis­graced by har­bour­ing one wish for more than is gained by hon­est in­dus­try. No longer have I any de­sire for the gold of Nadir Shaah. Con­tent­ed as your­self, my dear, good hus­band! I will con­tin­ue to labour for the hon­est bread that sus­tains, nor ev­er again de­sire my con­di­tion to be changed.”'

The Wood­man, Syaad Harshim, lived to a great age; many a tear hath fall­en on his grave from the good pil­grims vis­it­ing the shrine of Ali, near which he was buried; and his rest­ing place is rev­er­enced to this day by the pass­ing trav­eller of his own faith.

[1] _Kafi­lah_.

[2] The _burqa'_: see draw­ing in Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, p. 95.

[3] Bokhara.

[4] _The Ori­gin of the Sikhs_, by H. Cole­brooke, Esq., gives a faith­ful pic­ture of those war­like peo­ple. [The best ac­count of their be­liefs is by M. Macauliffe, _The Sikh Re­li­gion_, Ox­ford, 1909.]

[5] Yahya. On the cap­ture of Dam­as­cus by the Muham­madans, the church­es were equal­ly di­vid­ed be­tween the Chris­tians and their con­querors. The great Cathe­dral of St. John was sim­ilar­ly di­vid­ed, and for eighty years the two re­li­gions wor­shipped un­der the same roof.--Arnold, _The Preach­ing of Is­lam_, p. 50.

[6] A vul­gar cor­rup­tion of Jame' Masjid, the Cathe­dral Mosque.

[7] On the taboos at­tached to the sanc­tu­ary, see Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, i. 379 f.

[8] At-​Ta'if, mean­ing 'cir­cum­am­bu­la­tion'. When Adam set­tled at Mec­ca, find­ing the coun­try bar­ren, he prayed to Al­lah to sup­ply him with a piece of fer­tile land. Im­me­di­ate­ly a moun­tain ap­peared, which, hav­ing cir­cum­am­bu­lat­ed the Ka'aba, set­tled it­self down east­ward of Mec­ca. Hence it was called Ki­ta min Sham, 'a piece of Syr­ia,' whence it came. (Bur­ton, ii. 336.) 'Its fer­tile lands pro­duce the fruits of Syr­ia in the midst of the Ara­bi­an desert' ( Gib­bon, _De­cline and Fall_, vi. 255).

[9] At Mec­ca are 'ev­ident signs, with the stand­ing place of Abra­ham; and he who en­ters it is safe' _(Ko­ran_, iii. 90). On the north side of the Ka'aba, just by its door, is a slight hol­low in the ground, lined with mar­ble. The spot is called Mi'jan, and it is sup­posed to be the place where Abra­ham and Ish­mael knead­ed the chalk which they used in build­ing the Ka'aba: the stone, with the mark of Abra­ham's feet, is shown.--Bur­ck­hardt, quot­ed by Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, p. 337; Bur­ton, ii. 311; Sale, _Pre­lim­inary Dis­course_, p. 84.

[10] The Asi­at­ics, gen­er­al­ly, have faith in cer­tain prop­er­ties of chem­ical pro­duc­tions to al­ter the na­ture of the com­mon to the pre­cious met­als. I have of­ten wit­nessed the anx­ious ex­er­tions of Na­tives in In­dia, who try all sorts of ex­per­iments in alche­my, ex­pect­ing to suc­ceed; but I have nev­er known any oth­er is­sue from the many la­bo­ri­ous ef­forts of in­di­vid­uals than waste of time and prop­er­ty in these ab­surd schemes. [_Au­thor_.]

[11] One of the best-​known ver­sions of this fa­mous tale is found in _The De­cameron_ of Boc­cac­cio, Day 5, nov­el 9. It goes back to Bud­dhist times, and is told of Ha­tim Tai, the mod­el of Ori­en­tal lib­er­al­ity. For nu­mer­ous par­al­lels, see A.C. Lee, _The De­cameron of Boc­cac­cio, its Sources and Ana­logues_, 1909, pp. 170 ff.

[12] _Laba­da_, 'a rain coat, wrap­per'.

[13] This is prob­ably some lo­cal tra­di­tion, of which no record ap­pears in trav­ellers' ac­counts of the Ka'aba.

[14] On the north-​west side of the Ka'aba is a wa­ter-​spout, called Mi'zabu'r-​Rahmah, 'the spout of Mer­cy'. It is made of gold, and was sent from Con­stantino­ple in A.D. 1573. It car­ries the rain-​wa­ter from the roof, and dis­charges it on the grave of Ish­mael.--Hugh­es, _Dic­tio­nary of Is­lam_, pp. 257, 337.

[15] The Sharif, 'hon­ourable,' is the lo­cal ruler of Mec­ca and the Ha­jaz: see _En­cy­clopae­dia Bri­tan­ni­ca_, xvii. 952; Bur­ton, _Pil­grim­age_, ii. 3.

[16] _As-​Sala­mu-'alai-​kum_, 'Peace be with you!'

[17] Nadir Shah, born a shep­herd, A.D. 1687, aid­ed Shah Tah­masp against Ashraf, lead­er of the Afghans, de­feat­ed him, and re­stored his mas­ter in 1730. Af­ter­wards he de­posed Tah­masp, and raised his in­fant son to the throne of Per­sia, un­der the ti­tle of 'Ab­bas III. But he con­tin­ued to rule the coun­try, and on the death of 'Ab­bas in 1736 he be­came king. He marched on In­dia in 1739, de­feat­ed the Em­per­or Muham­mad on the his­toric field of Pa­ni­pat, sacked Del­hi, and per­pe­trat­ed a hor­ri­ble mas­sacre. He re­turned to Per­sia laden with spoil, but his tyran­ny ex­cit­ed the hos­til­ity of the no­bles, and he was as­sas­si­nat­ed in 1747, and buried at Mash­had.

[18] Sayyid Hashim.

[19] _Alkha­laq_, Turk­ish, 'a coat with sleeves'.