Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah

Front matter

NARRATLVE OF A PILGRIMAGE TO MECCAH AND MEDINAH. THE ROUTE OF CAPT. BURTON, FROM SUEZ TO EL MEDINA?, MECCAH, AND BACK. Outward Route — Return „ NARRATIVE OF A PILGRIMAGE TO MECCAH and MEDINA!!. EY RICHARD F. BURTON. " Our notions of Meccah. must be drawn from the Arabians : as no unbeliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent."— Gibbox, chap. 50. THIRD EDITION, REVISED. WILLIAM MTJLLAN & SON", LONDON AND BELFAST. 1879. aP c *<i"'\'& -*o_oS JitJl. i_sj_JI^ i ijwJlj _V Mutanabbi. After a lapse of twenty-five years, a third edition of my Pilgrimage has been called for by the public, to whom I take this opportunity of returning thanks. Messrs. Mullan have chosen the very best opportunity. My two publications con cerning the Khedival Expeditions to Midian (" The Gold Mines of Midian," and " The Land of Midian Revisited," *), are, as I have stated in the Preface, sequels and continuations of this Pilgrimage from which the adventures forming their subject may be said to date.

The text has been carefully revised, and the " baggage of notes " has been materially lightened. From the Appendix I have removed matter which, though useful to the student, is of scant general interest. The quaint and interesting " Narrative and Voyages of Ludovicus Vertomannus, Gentleman of Rome," need no longer be read in extracts, when the whole has been printed by the Hakluyt Society. (The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, iq Persia, India, and Ethiopia, a.d. 1503 to 1508. Translated from the original Italian edition of 1510, with a Preface by John Winter Jones, Esq., F.S.A., and edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by George Percy Badger, late Government Chaplain in the 1 Messrs. C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1, Paternoster Square, London. VI Presidency of Bombay.

London.) On the other hand, I have inserted after the Appendix, with the permission of the author, two highly interesting communications from Dr. Aloys Sprenger, the well-known Orientalist and Arabist, concerning the routes of the Great Caravans. My friend supports his suspicions that an error of direction has been made, and geo graphers will enjoy the benefit of his conscientious studies, topographical and linguistic. The truculent attacks made upon pilgrims and Darwayshes call for a few words of notice. Even that learned and amiable philanthropist, the late Dr. John Wilson of Bombay (" Lands of the Bible," vol. ii., p. 302) alludes, in the case of the Spaniard Badia, alias Ali Bey el-Abbasi, to the " unjustifiable fanciful disguise of a Mohammedan Pilgrim." The author of the Ruddy Goose Theory ("Voice of Israel from Mount Sinai ") and compiler of the " Historical Geography of Arabia " has dealt a foul blow to the memory of Burckhardt, the energetic and inoffensive Swiss traveller, whose name has ever been held in the highest repute.

Preface

TO THE FIRST EDITION. The interest now felt in everything that relates to the East would alone be sufficient to ensure to the author of " El- Medinah and Meccah " the favorable consideration of the Reading Public. But when it is borne in mind that since the days of William Pitts of Exeter (a.d. 1678—1688) no European travellers, with the exception of Burckhardt (1811) and Lieut. Burton, have been able to enter the City and to send us back an account of their travels there, it cannot be doubted but that the present work will be hailed as a welcome addition to our knowledge of these hitherto mysterious penetralia of Mohammedan superstition. In fact, El-Medinah may be considered almost a virgin theme ; sol as Burckhardt was prostrated by sickness throughout the period of his stay in the Northern Hejaz, he was not able to describe it as satisfactorily or minutely as he did the southern country ; he could not send a plan of the mosque, nor correct the popular but erroneous ideas which prevail concerning it and the surrounding city.

The reader may question the propriety of introducing in a work of description, anecdotes which may appear open to the charge of triviality. The author's object, however, seems to be to illustrate the peculiarities of the people; to drama tise, as it were, the dry journal of a journey, and to preserve

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. XII the tone of the adventures, together with that local coloring in which mainly consists T education d'un voyage. For the same reason, the prayers of the " Visitation " ceremony have been translated at length, despite the danger of inducing tedium ; they are an essential part of the subject, and cannot be omitted, nor be represented by " specimens." Mr. Burton is already known by his " History of Sindh." As if to mark their sense of the spirit of observation and daring evinced by him when in that country, and still more during his late journeyings in Arabia and East Africa, the Royal Geographical Society, through their learned Secretary, Dr. Norton Shaw, have given valuable aid to this work in its progress through the press. It was during a residence of many years in India that Lieut. Burton had fitted himself for his late undertaking, by acquiring, through his peculiar aptitude for such studies, a thorough acquaintance with the various dialects of Arabia and Persia; and, indeed, his Eastern cast of features seemed already to point him out as the very person of all others best suited for an expedition like that described in the following pages.

It will be observed that in writing Arabic, Hindostani, Persian, or Turkish words, the author has generally adopted the system proposed by Sir William Jones and modified by later Orientalists. But when a word has been " stamped " by general popular use, the conversational form has been preferred ; and the same, too, may be said of the common corruptions, Cairo, Mohammed, etc., which, in any other form, would appear to us pedantic and ridiculous. Let us hope that the proofs now furnished of untiring energy and capacity for observation and research by our author, as well as his ability to bear fatigue and exposure to the most inclement climate, will induce the Governments of

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. XIII England and of India to provide him with men and means (evidently all that is required for the purpose) to pursue his adventurous and useful career in other countries equally difficult of access, and, if possible, of still greater interest, than the eastern shores of the Red Sea. Thomas L. Wollet. Hampton Court Palace, June, 1S55. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I, To Alexandria 1 II. I leave Alexandria . . . . .12 III. The Nile Steamboat 21 IV. Lite esthe Wakalah 31 V. The Bamazan 54 VI. The Mosque . . . . . . .65 VII. Preparations to quit Cairo .... 79 VIII. From Cairo to Suez 98 IX. Suez Ill X. The Pilgrim Ship 128 XL To Vambtj' 144 XII. The Halt at Vambtj' 157 XIII. From Vambtj' to Bie Abbas . . . .169 XIV From Bie Abbas to El-Medinah . ,- . 184 XV. Through the Suburb op El-Medinah to Hamid's House 197 XVI.

A Visit to the Prophet's Tomb . . . 210 XVII. An Essay towards the History of the Prophet's Mosque 234 XVIII. El-Medinah 256 XIX. A Bide to the Mosque of Kuba . . . 271 XX. The Visitation of Hamzah's Tomb. . . 284 XXI. The People of El-Medinah .... 299 XXII. A Visit to the Saints' Cemetery . . . CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. From El-Medinah to El-Suwathkitah . 337 XXIV. The Bedawin of El-Hejaz . . . .350 XXV. Feom Suwayrkiyah to Meccah . . . 379 XXVI. The First Visit to the House of Allah . 402 XXVII. The Ceremonies of the Yaum El-Tarwiyah, or the First Day ..... 416 XXVHI. The Ceremonies of the Yaum Arafat, or the Second Day 426 XXIX. The Ceremonies of the Yaum Nahr, or the Third Day ...... 433 XXX. The Three Days of Drying Flesh . . 445 XXXI. Life at Meccah, and Umrah, oh the Little Pilgrimage 451 XXXII.

Places of Pious Visitation at Meccah . 466 XXXIII. To Jeddah 474 Appendix 489 Notes on my Journey. By A. Sprenger . . . 510 The Meccah Pilgrimage A PILGRIMAGE TO EL-MEDINAH AND MECCAH.

Chapter I. To Alexandria

& rftia SEortrs wnrmting fohat iabuair fp to s Spilgrimajf. In the autumn of 1852, through the medium of my excellent friend, the late General Monteith, I offered my services to the Royal Geographical Society of London for the purpose of removing that opprobrium to modern adventure, the huge white blot which in our maps still notes the Eastern and the Central regions of Arabia. Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Colonel P. Yorke, and Dr. Shaw, a deputation from that distinguished body, with their usual zeal for discovery and readiness to encourage the discoverer, honored me by warmly supporting, in a personal interview with the then Chairman of the then Court of Directors to the then Honorable East India Company, my application for three years' leave of absence on special duty from India to Muscat.

But they were unable to prevail upon the said Chairman, Sir James Hogg, who, much disliking, if fact must be told, my impolitic habit of telling political truths, and not un willing to mortify my supporter, his colleague, Colonel W. Sykes, refused his sanction, alleging as a no-reason that the contemplated journey was of too dangerous a nature. In compensation, however, for the disappointment, I was allowed the additional furlough of a year, in order to pursue my Arabic studies in lands where the language is best learned. What remained for me but to prove, by trial, that what might be perilous to other travellers was safe to me ? The experimentum cruets was a visit to El-Hejaz, at once the most difficult and the most dangerous point by which a European can enter Arabia. I had intended, had the period of leave originally applied for been granted, to land at Maskat — a favorable starting-place — and there to apply myself, slowly and surely, to the task of spanning the Deserts.

But now I was to hurry, in the midst of summer, after a four years' sojourn in Europe, during which many things Oriental had faded from my memory ; and, after passing through the ordeal of Egypt, a country where the police is curious as in Rome or Milan, to begin with the Moslem's Holy Land, the jealously guarded and exclusive Haram. However, being liberally supplied with the sinews of travel by the Royal Geographical Society ; thoroughly tired of" progress " and of " civilisation ; " curious to see with my eyes what others are content to hear with ears, namely, Moslem inner life in a really Moham medan country ; and longing, if truth be told, to set foot on that mysterious spot which no vacation tourist has yet described, measured, sketched, and photographed, I resolved to resume my old character of a wandering "Dervish," and to make the attempt.

The principal object with which I started was this : to cross the unknown Arabian Peninsula, in a direct line from either El-Medinah to Maskat, or diagonally from Meccah to Makallah on the Indian Ocean. By what " Circum stance, the miscreator," my plans were defeated, the reader will discover in the course of this volume. The secondary objects were numerous. I was desirous to find out if any market for horses could be opened between Central Arabia and India, where the studs were beginning to excite general dissatisfaction ; to obtain information concerning the Great Eastern wilderness, the vast expanse marked Ruba' el-Khali (the "Empty Abode") in our maps; to inquire into the hydro- OBJECTS OF TRAVEL. 3 graphy of the Hejaz, its water-shed, the disputed slope of the country, and the existence or non-existence of perennial streams; and finally, to try, by actual observation, the truth of a theory proposed by Colonel W. Sykes, namely, that if history speak truth, in the population of the vast Peninsula there must exist certain physiological differences sufficient to warrant our questioning the common origin of the Arab family.

As regards horses, I am satisfied that from the Eastern coast something might be done, — nothing on the Western, where the animals, though thoroughbred, are mere "weeds," of a foolish price and procurable only by chance. Of the Ruba' el-Khali I have heard enough, from credible relators, to conclude that its horrid depths swarm with a large aud half-starving population ; that it abounds in Wadys, valleys, gullies, and ravines, partially fertilised by intermittent torrents ; and, therefore, that the land is open to the adventurous traveller. Moreover, I am satisfied that, in spite of all geographers, from Ptolemy to Jomard, Arabia, which abounds in Nullahs or Fiumaras, possesses not a single perennial stream worthy the name of river ; and the testimony of the natives induces me to think, with Wallin, contrary to Ritter and others, that the Peninsula falls instead of rising towards the south.

Finally, I have found proof, to be produced in a future part of this publication, for believing in three distinct races. 1. The aborigines of the country, driven, like the Bheels and other autochthonic Indians, into the eastern and south-eastern wilds bordering upon the ocean. 2. A Syrian or Mesopotamian stock, typified by Shem and Joktan, that drove the Indigenæ from the choicest tracts of country ; these invaders still enjoy their conquests, representing the great Arabian people. And, 3. An impure Egypto-Arab clan — we personify it by Ishmael, his son Nebajoth, and Edom, (Esau, the son of Isaac,) that populated and still populates the Sinaitic Penin sula. And in most places, even in the heart of Meccah, I met with debris of heathenry, proscribed by Mohammed, yet still popular, while the ignorant observers of the. old customs assign to them a modern and a rationalistic origin.

I have entitled this account of my summer's tour through El-Hejaz, a Personal Narrative, and I have labored to make its nature correspond with its name, simply because "it is the personal that interests mankind." Many may not follow my example ; but some perchance will be curious to see what measures I adopted, in order to appear suddenly as an Eastern upon the stage of Oriental life ; and, as the recital may be found useful by future adventurers, I make no apology for the egotistical semblance of the narrative. Those who have felt the want of some " silent friend " to aid them with advice, when it must not be asked, will appreciate what may appear to the uninterested critic mere outpourings of a mind full of self. On the evening of April 3, 1853, 1 left London for South ampton. By the advice of a brother officer — little thought at that time the adviser or the advised how valuable was the suggestion ! — my Eastern dress was called into requisition before leaving Town, and all my " impedimenta " were taught to look exceedingly Oriental.

Early the next day a " Persian Prince," accompanied by Captain Henry Grindlay of the Bengal Cavalry, embarked on board the Peninsular and Oriental Company's magnificent screw steamer Bengal. A fortnight was profitably spent in getting into the train of Oriental manners. For what polite Chesterfield says of the difference between a gentleman and his reverse, namely, that both perform the same offices of life, but each in a several and widely different way, is notably as applicable to the manners of the Eastern as of the Western man. Look, for instance, at that Indian Moslem drinking a glass of water. With us the operation is simple enough, but his performance includes no less than five novelties. In the first place, he clutches his tumbler as though it were the throat of a foe ; secondly, he ejaculates, " In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful !" before wetting his lips ; thirdly, he imbibes the contents, swallowing them, not sipping them as he ought to do, and ending with a satisfied grunt ; fourthly, before setting down the cup, he sighs forth, " Praise be to Allah!" of which you will under stand the full meaning in the Desert; and, fifthly, he THE VOYAGE. 5 replies, " May Allah make it pleasant to thee !

" in answer to his friend's polite « Pleasurably and health ! " Also he is careful to avoid the irreligious action of drinking the pure element in a standing position, mindful, however, of the three recognised exceptions, the fluid of the Holy Well Zem Zem, water distributed in charity, and that which remains after Wuzu, the lesser ablution. Moreover, in Europe, where both extremities are used indiscriminately, one forgets the use of the right hand, the manipulation of the rosary, the abuse of the chair, — your genuine Oriental gathers up his legs, looking almost as comfortable in it as a sailor upon the back of a high-trotting horse,— the rolling gait with the toes straight to the front, the grave look and the habit of pious ejaculations. Our voyage over the " summer sea " was eventless. In a steamer of two or three thousand tons you discover the once dreaded, now contemptible, " stormy waters " only by the band— a standing nuisance be it remarked— performing "There we lay. all the day, In the Bay of Biscay, O !

" The sight of glorious Trafalgar excites none of the sentiments with which a tedious sail used to invest it. " Gib" is, probably, better known to you, by Theo. Gautier and Warburton, than the regions about Cornhill ; besides which, you anchor under the Rock exactly long enough to land and to breakfast. Malta, too, wears an old familiar face, which bids you order a dinner and superintend the iceing of claret (beginning of Oriental barbarism), instead of galloping about on donkey-back through fiery air in memory of St. Paul and White-Cross Knights. But though our journey was monotonous, there was nothing to complain of. The ship was in every way com fortable; the cook, strange to say, was good; and the voyage lasted long enough, and not too long. On the evening of the thirteenth day after our start, the big-trousered pilot, so lovely in his deformities to western eyes, made his appearance, and the good screw Bengal found herself at anchor off the Headland of Clay (Ra sel-Tin), the promontory upon which immortal Pharos once stood.

Having been invited to start from the house of a kind friend, John Wingfield Larking, I disembarked with him, and rejoiced to see that by dint of a beard and a shaven head I had succeeded, like the Lord of Geesh, in " misleading the inquisitive spirit of the populace." The mingled herd of spectators before whom we passed in review on the landing-place, hearing an audible " Alhamdulillah" (Praise be to Allah, Lord of the three worlds ! ), whispered " Muslim ! " The infant population spared me the compliments usually addressed to hatted heads ; and when a little boy, presuming that the occasion might possibly open the hand of generosity, looked in my face and exclaimed " Bakhshish " (Largesse !), x he ob tained in reply a " Mafish "2 (not a bless !), which convinced the bystanders that the sheep-skin covered a real sheep.

We then mounted a carriage, fought our way through the donkeys, and in half an hour found ourselves, chibouque iu mouth and coffee-cup in hand, seated on the divan of my friend's hospitable home. Wonderful was the contrast between the steamer and that villa on the Mahmudiyah canal ! Startling the sudden change from presto to adagio life ! In thirteen days we had passed from the clammy grey fog, that atmosphere of industry which kept us at anchor off the Isle of Wight, through the liveliest air of the Inland Sea, whose sparkling blue and purple haze spread charms even on North Africa's beldame features ; and now we are sitting silent and still, listening to the monotonous melody of the East — the soft night-breeze wandering through starlit skies and tufted trees, with a voice of melancholy meaning. 1 " Bakhshish," says a modern writer, " is a fee or present which the Arabs (he here means the Egyptians, who took the word from the Persians through the Turks,) claim on all occasions for services you render them, as well as for services they have rendered you.

A doctor visits a patient gratis, — the patient or his servant will ask for a oakhshuh ; you employ, pay, clothe, and feed a, child,— the father will demand his bakhshish; you may save the life of an Arab, at the risk of your own, and he will certainly claim a bakhshish. This bakhshish, in fact, is a sort of alms or tribute, which the poor Arab believes himself entitled to claim from every respectable looking person." 2 Maftsh, " there is none," equivalent to, " I have left my purse at home." Nothing takes the Oriental mind so much as a retort alliterative or jingling. An officer in the Bombay army once saved himself from assault and battery by informing a furious band of natives, that under British rule "harakat na hui, barakat hui," " blessing hath there been to you ; bane there hath been none."

" KAYF. 7 And this is the Arab's "Kays." The savoring of animal existence ; the passive enjoyment of mere sense ; the plea sant languor, the dreamy tranquillity, the airy castle-building, which in Asia stand in lieu of the vigorous, intensive, passionate life of Europe. It is the result of a lively, im pressible, excitable nature, and exquisite sensibility of nerve ; it argues a facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern regions, where happiness is placed in the exertion of mental and physical powers; where Ernst ist dasLeben; where niggard earth commands ceaseless sweat of brow, and damp chill air demands perpetual excitement, exercise, or change, or adventure, or dissipation, for want of something better. In the East, man requires but rest and shade : upon the bank of a bubbling stream, or under the cool shelter of a per fumed tree, he is perfectly happy, smoking a pipe, or sipping a cup of coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbet, but above all things deranging body and mind as little as possible ; the trouble of conversations, the displeasures of memory, and the vanity of thought being the most unpleasant interrup tions to his " Kays."

No wonder that " Kays" is a word untranslatable in our mother-tongue ! l " Laudabunt alii claram Ehodon aut Mitylenem." Let others describe this once famous Capital of Egypt, this City of Misnomers, whose dry-docks are ever wet, and whose marble fountain is eternally dry ; whose " Cleopatra's Needle " is not Cleopatra's ; whose " Pompey's Pillar " never had any connection with Pompey ; and whose Cleo patra's Baths are, according to veracious travellers, no baths at all. Yet is it a wonderful place, this " Libyan suburb " of our day, this outpost of civilisation planted upon the skirts of barbarism, this Osiris seated side by side with Typhon, his great old enemy. Still may be said of it, " it ever beareth something new ;" and Alexandria, a threadbare subject in Bruce's time, is even yet, from its perpetual changes, a fit field for modern description. 1 In a coarser sense "kayf" is applied to all manner of intoxication.

Sonnini is not wrong when he says, " The Arabs give the name of Kayf to the voluptuous relaxation, the delicious stupor, produced by the smoking of hemp." The better to blind the inquisitive eyes of servants and visitors, my friend Larking lodged me in an outhouse, where I could revel in the utmost freedom of life and manners. And although some Armenian Dragoman, a restless spy like all his race, occasionally remarked voild un Persan diable ment de'gage, none, except those who were entrusted with the secret, had any idea of the part I was playing. The domestics, devout Moslems, pronounced me to be an Ajami, a Persian as opposed to an Arab, not a good Mo hammedan like themselves, but, still, better than nothing. I lost no time in securing the assistance of a Shaykh or private tutor, and plunged once more into the intricacies of the Faith, revived my recollections of religious ablution, read the Koran, and again became an adept in the art of prostration.

My leisure hours were employed in visiting the baths and coffee-houses, in attending the bazars, and in shopping, — an operation which hereabouts consists of sitting upon a chapman's counter, smoking, sipping coffee, and telling your beads the while, to show that you are not of the slaves for whom time is made ; in fact, in pitting your patience against that of your adversary, the vendor. I found time for a short excursion to a country village on the banks of the canal ; nor was an opportunity of seeing " El-nahl," the Bee-dance, neglected, for it would be some months before my eyes might dwell on such a pleasant spectacle again. " Delicias videam, Nile jocose, tuas ! " Careful also of graver matters, I attended the mosque, and visited the venerable localities in which modern Alex andria abounds.

Pilgrimaging Moslems are here shown the tomb of El-nabi Daniyal (Daniel the Prophet), discovered upon a spot where the late Sultan Mahmud dreamed that he saw an ancient man at prayer. Sikandar El-Rumi, the Moslem Alexander the Great, of course left his bones in the place bearing his name, or— as he ought to have done so— bones have been found for him. Alexandria also boasts of two celebrated Walis (holy men). One is Mohammed Ll-Busin, the author of a poem called El-Burdah universally read throughout the world of Islam, and locally PILLS AND POWDERS. 9 recited at funerals, and on other solemn occasions. The other is Abu Abbas El-Andalnsi, a sage and saint of the first water, at whose tomb prayer is never breathed in vain. It is not to be supposed that the people of Alexandria could look upon my phials and pill-boxes without a yearning for their contents.

An Indian doctor, too, was a novelty to them ; Franks they despised, — but a man who had come so far from East and West! Then there was something infinitely seducing in the character of a magician, doctor, and fakir, each admirable of itself, thus combined to make " great medicine." Men, women, and children besieged my door, by which means I could see the people face to face, and especially the fair sex, of which Europeans, generally speaking, know only the worst. Even respectable natives, after witnessing a performance of the Magic mirror, opined that the stranger was a holy man, gifted with supernatural powers, and knowing everything. One old person sent to offer me his daughter in marriage ; — he said nothing about dowry, — but I thought proper to decline the honor. And a middle-aged lady proffered me the sum of a hundred piastres, one Napoleon, if I would stay at Alexandria, and superintend the restoration of her blind left eye.

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted " Carabin," or " Sangrado," without any knowledge of my trade. From youth I have always been a dabbler in medical and mystical study. Moreover, the practice cf physic is comparatively easy amongst dwellers in warm latitudes, uncivilised peoples, where there is not that com plication of maladies which troubles more polished nations. And further, what simplifies extremely the treatment of the sick in these parts is the undoubted periodicity of disease, reducing almost all to one type— ague. Hence the origin of the Chronothermal system, a discovery which physic owes to my old friend, the late Dr. Samuel Dickson. Many of the complaints of tropical climates, as medical men well know, display palpably intermittent symptoms little known to colder countries ; and, speaking from individual experience, I may safely assert that in all cases of suffering, from a wound to ophthalmia, this phenomenon has forced itself upon my notice.

So much by way of excuse. I therefore considered myself as well qualified for the work as if I had taken out a buono per Vestero diploma at Padua, and not more likely to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young surgeons who start to " finish themselves " upon the sturdy frame of the British soldier. After a month's hard work at Alexandria, I prepared to assume the character of a wandering Dervish ; re forming my title from " Mirza," the Persian " Mister," to " Shaykh" Abdullah. Arab Christians sometimes take the name of Servant of Allah — " which," as a modern traveller observes, " all sects and religions might be equally proud to adopt." The Moslem Prophet said, " The names most approved of God are Abdullah, Abd-el-rahman (Slave of the Com passionate), and such like." A reverend man whose name I do not care to quote, some time ago initiated me into his order, the Kadiriyah, under the high-sounding name of Bismillah-Shah — " King-in-the-name-of-Allah," a manner of Oriental " Praise-God-Barebones " : and, after a due period of probation, he graciously elevated me to the proud position of Murshid, or Master,1 in the mystic craft.

I was therefore sufficiently well acquainted with the tenets and practices of these Oriental Freemasons. No character in the Moslem world is so proper for disguise as that of the Dervish. It is assumed by all ranks, ages, and creeds ; by the nobleman who has been disgraced at court, and by the peasant who is too idle to till the ground ; by Dives, who is weary of life, and by Lazarus, who begs his bread from door to door. Further, the Dervish is allowed to ignore ceremony and politeness, as one who ceases to appear upon the stage of life ; he may pray or not, marry or remain single as he pleases, be respectable in cloth of frieze as in cloth of gold, and no one asks him — the chartered vagabond —Why he comes here ? or Wherefore he goes there ? He -may wend his way on foot or alone, or ride his Arab mare followed by a dozen servants ; he is equally feared without 1 A Murshid is one allowed to admit Murids or apprentices into the order.