Current Literature
PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA By Lady. Evelyn Cobb°ld
We are all familiar with those. people who go. to Covent Garden to be seen there rather than to listen to the music. The best example of this race of gossip-stars was a well- known snob of the last reign who attended the Opera intent on her favourite pastime of meeting famous people. Her method "of .approach was to go up to them and remark : I am sure I know. your face but I've forgotten your name." On this occasion she approached a distinguished-looking bearded man with her usual opening. ' ".You probably do," he replied, -" I'm` the 'King." _ This -story *as' brought to mind on reading Lady Evelyn Cobbold's opening paragraph in the introduction to Pilgrimage, to Mecca (John Murray, 10s. 6d.),' in which she tells us, with perhaps misplaced ingenuousness, that. the realization that she was a Moslem only came to her in an interview with the Pope. Having spent the winter months of her Childhood in a -villa outside Algiers : she became, she tells us, " unconsciously a little Moslem at heart." However,- it-was-His Holiness' 'asking her whether she wasa CathOlic that prompted her somewhat unorthodox reply that she-was in fact a Moslem, an admission which ultimately led 'her to Mecca. - On her journey Lady Evelyn was deeply moved by the historiCal associations of the scenes she visited ; consequently the book is supple- mented by. copious 'extracts taken from many sources of information and several well-chosen passages-from the Koran. In addition her descriptions of the religious excitements- of the pilgrims are picturesque, while her account of the harems of Mecca and Medina will be valuable to all those interested in Islam and its practices. Lady Evelyn attacks Burton and others for penetrating the Haram disguised • as Moslems " merely in order to describe scenes of the Hadj for the benefit of a wondering- 'World, mill one 'cannot but applaud her apparently unthinking certainty that no such suspicion could fall on her in this connexion, especially since she records almost with gusto the attentions of the Press on her return. Those who might be inclined, to, doubt her sincerity -could perhaps find. support in the faCt that Lady Evelyn is inconsistent even in-the spelling of her Prophet's name.
Previous page
