BURCKHARDT'S TRAVELS IN ARABIA.* THE posthumous work of BURCKHARDT is
republished in an octavo form. We should be glad to learn that the second edition had not been caused by a desire to complete a work uniform with other produc- tions of the author, but by a demand on the part of the public. It would show a taste beyond mere frivolous amusement ; for BURCK- HARDT was not a traveller for the multitude—he was too thoroughly an Oriental in all his pursuits, and in the state of his information, to be afftfinted by those things which would attract the gaze of an ordi- nary traveller. His description of the Hedjaz, and the famous holy places of it, so difficult of access to Christians, is an invaluable pre- sent to the Orientalist ; though we fear it will prove far too learned for the general reader. Not that BURCKHARDT is a dry writer—on the contrary, he is lively and rapid; but charged with Oriental informa- tion, he forgets that he is writing for those very imperfectly accom- plished in that branch of instruction, or rather, he conceives it is for Oriental scholars that his work is composed. He consequently directs his attention to those points chiefly which were imperfectly. known, and presumes in his reader an acquaintance with a general stock of Oriental literature and history.
BURCKHARDT'S knowledge of the Eastern languages, at least of Arabic, and his familiarity with all religious rites, gave him a facility which has rarely been enjoyed by a Christian visiting the forbidden spots of the East. In manners, habits, and language, BURCKHARDT could assume the Turk to such perfection, that even within the sacred precincts of the temple, and amid all its complicated ceremonies, his faith was not for one moment doubted. Even the Kadhy, the best of judges, smiled at the idea of his being other than a true Turk. The following is part of his description of the great mosque of MAI:a, which contains the famous Kaaba or Holy House in its centre; a sight which few profane eyes have beheld.
THE KAABA.
" Seven paved causeways lead from the colonnades towards the Kaaba, or holy house, in the centre. They are of sufficient breadth to admit four Or five persons to walk abreast, and they are elevated about nine inches above the ground. Between these causeways, which are covered with fine gravel or sand, grass appears growing in several places, produced by the Ze water oozing out of the jars, which are placed in the ground in long rows
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during the day. The whole area of the mosque is upon a lower level than any of the streets surrounding it. There is a descent of eight or ten steps from the gates on the north side into the platform of the colonnade, and of three or four steps from the gates, on the south side. " Towards the middle of this area stands the Kaaba ; it is one hundred and fifteen paces from the north colonnade, and eighty-eight from the south. For this want of symmetry we may readily account ; the Kaaba having ex- isted prior to the mosque, which was built around it and enlarged at dif- ferent periods. The Kaaba is an oblong massive structure, eighteen paces in length, fourteen in breadth, and from thirty-five to forty feet in height. I took the bearing of one of its longest: sides, and found it to be
!, W. It is constructed of the grey Mckka stone, in large blocks of different sizes, joined together in a very rough manner, and with bad cement. It * Travels in Arabia, comprehending an Account of those Territories in Hedjaz whieh the Mohammedans record as sacred. By the late Jan Lewis Burekhardt. Publeined by authority of the A,soci ation for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa. vols. bvo. London, h-,29. Colburn. It is a strange oversight, that the publisher has prefixed the Index of the quarto volume to the first volume of the octavo edition. was entirely rebuilt as it now stands in A. D. 1627 : the torrent in the pre- (sang year had thrown down three of its sides ; and preparatory to its re- election, the fourth side was, according to Asamy, pulled down, after the ocreas, or learned divines, had been consulted on the question, whether mortals might be permitted to destroy any part of the holy edifice without incurring the charge of sacrilege and infidelity. "The Kaaba stands upon a base two feet in height, which presents a sharp inclined plane ; its roof being flat , it has at a distance the appearance of a perfect cube. The only door which affords entrance, and which is opened but two or three times in the year, is on the north side, and about seven
feet above the ground. In entering it, therefore, wooden steps are used—of them I shall speak hereafter. In the first periods of Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in A. H. 64, by Ihn Zebeyr, chief of Mekka, the nephew of Aysha, it had two doors even with the ground floor of the mosque. The present door (which, according to Azraky, was brought hither from Constantinople in los,) is wholly coated with silver, and has several gilt ornaments. Upon its threshold are placed every night various small lighted wax candles, and perfuming-pans, tilled with musk, aloe-wood, &c. At the north-east corner of the Kaaba, near the door, is the famous ' Black Stone ;' it forms a part of the sharp angle of the building, at four or five feet above the ground. It is an irregular oval, about seven inches in diameter, with an undulated surface, composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together, with a small quan- tity of cement, and perfectly smoothed : it looks as if the whole had been broken into many pieces by a violent blow, and then united again. It is very difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone, which has been worn to its present surface by the Millions of touches and kisses it -has re- ceived. It appeared to me like a lava, containing several small extraneous particles, of a whitish and of a yellowish substance. Its colour is now a deep reddish brown, approaching to black : it is surrounded on all sides by a border, composed of a substance which I took to be a close cement of pitch and gravel, of a similar, but not quite the same brownish colour. This border serves to support its detached pieces ; it is two or three inches in breadth, and rises a little above the surface of the stone. Both the border and the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, broader below than above and on the two sides, with it considerable swelling below, as if a part of the stone were hidden under it. The lower part of the border is studded with silver nails.
" In the south. east corner of the Kaaba, or, as the Arabs call it, Roken el Icmhny, there is another stone, about five feet from the ground ; it is one foot and a half in'length, and two inches in breadth, placed upright, and of the common Mekka stone. This the people walking round the Kaaba touch only with the right hand : they do not kiss it. " On the north side of the Kaaba, just by its door, and close to the wall, is a slight hollow in the ground, lined with marble, and sufficiently large to admit of three persons sitting. Here it is thought meritorious to pray : the spot is called El Madjen, and supposed to be that where Abraham and his son lsmayl kneaded the chalk and mud which they used in building the Kaaba ; and near this Madjen, the former is said to have placed the large stone upon which he stood while working at the masonry. On the basis of the Kaaba, just over the Madjen, is an ancient Cufic inscription ; but this I was unable to decipher, and had no opportunity of copying it. I do not find it mentioned hy any of the historians. "On the west side of the Kaaba, about two feet below its summit, is the famous Myzab, or water-spout, through which the rain-water collected on the roof of the, building is discharged, so as to fall upon the ground ; it is about four feet in length, and six inches in breadth, as well as I could judge from below, with borders equal in height to its breadth. At the mouth, hangs what is called the beard of the Myzab, a gilt board, over which the water falls. This spout was sent hither from Constantinople in A. H. 981, and is reported to he of pure gold. The pavement round the Kaaba, below the Itlyzab, was laid down in A. H. 826, and consists of various coloured stones, forming a very handsome specimen of mosaic. There are two large slabs of fine verde-antic° in the centre, which, according to Makrizi, were sent thither as presents from Cairo, in A.I1.241. This is the spot where, according to Mohammedan tradition, lsmayl, the son of Ibrahim, or Abraham, and his mother Hagar, are buried ; and here it is meritorious for the pilgrim to recite a prayer of two rikats. On this west side is a semicircular wall, the two ex- tremities of which are in a line with the sides of the Kaaba, and distant from it three or four feet, leaving an opening which leads to the burying-place of Ismael. The wall bears the name of El Hatym, and the area which it encloses is called Hedjer, or Hedjer Ismayl, on account of its being separated from the Kaaba : the wall itself, also, is sometimes so called ; and the name Hatym is given by the historians to the space of ground between the Kaaba and the wall on one side, and the Bir Zemzetn and Makam Ibrahim on the other. The present Mekkawys, however, apply the name Hatym to the wall only.
"Tradition says that the Kaaba once extended as far as the Hatym, and that this side having fallen down just at the time of the Hadj, the expenses of repairing it weredemanded from the pilgrims, under a pretence that the revenues of government were not acquired in a manner sufficiently pure to admit of their application towards a purpose so sacred, whilst the money of the hadjys would possess the requisite sanctity. The sum, however, obtained from them, proved very inadequate : all that could be done, therefore, was to rnise a wall, which marked the space formerly occupied by the Kaaba. This tradition, although current among the Metowefs, is at variance with history, which declares that the Hedjer was built by the Beni Koreysh, who con- tracted the dimensions of the Kaaba; that it was united to the building by Iladjadj, and again separated from it by Lim 'Zebeyr. It is asserted by Pay, that a part of the Iledjer, as it now stands, was never comprehended within the Kaaba. The law regards it as a portion of the Kaaba, inasmuch as it is esteemed equally meritorious to pray in the Huber as in the Kaaba itself ; and the pilgrims who have not an opportunity of entering the latter, are per- mitted to affirm upon oath that they have prayed in the Kaaba, although they may have only prostrated themselves within the enclosure of the Hatym. The wall is built of solid stone, about five feet in height, and foul- in thickness, eased all over with white marble, and inscribed with prayers and invocations, wetly sculptured upon the stone in modern characters. These and the casing arc the work of El Ghoury. the Egyptian Sultan, in All. 917, fts we learn from Kotobeddyn. The walk round the Kaaba is performed on the out- side of the wall—the nearer to it the better.
"The four sides of the Kaaba are covered with a black silk stuff, hanging down, and leaving the roof bare. This curtain, or veil, is called Itesot«t, and renewed annually at the time of the Hadj, being brought front Cairo, where it is manufactured at the Grand Seignior's expense. On it arc various prayers interwoven in the same colour as the stuff, and it is therefore extremely difficult to read them. .A little above the middle, and running round gate whole building, is a line of similar inscriptions, worked in gold thread. That part of the kesoua which covers the door is richly embroidered with silver. Openings are left for the Black Stone, and the other in the south-east corner, which thus remain uncovered. The kesoua is always of the same form and Pattern ; that which 1 saw on my first visit to the mosque, was in a decayed state, nail full of holes. On the 25th of the month Zul' Katie the old one is taken
away, and the Kaaba continues without a cover for fifteen days. Itis
then said that El Kaaba Yehrent, `The Kaaba has assumed the ihrant," which lasts until the tenth of Zul Hadje, the day of the return of the pilgrims from Arafat to Wady Muna, when the new kesoua is put on. During the first days, the new covering is tucked up by cords fastened to the roof, so as to leave the lower part of the building exposed ; having remained thus for some days, it is let down, and covers the whole structure, being then tied to strong brass rings in the basis of the Kaaba. The removal of the old kesoua was performed in a very indecorous manner ; and a contest ensued among the hadjys and people of Mekka, both young and old, about a few rags of it. The hadjys even collect the dust which sticks to the walls of the Kaaba, under the kesoua, and sell it on their return, as a sacred relic. At the moment the building is covered, and completely bare, (warm as it is styled,) a crowd of women assemble round it, rejoicing with cries called Walwalou.' "The black colour of the kesoua, covering a large cube in the midst of a vast square, gives to the Kaaba, at first sight, a very singular and imposing appearance ; as it is not fastened down tightly, the slightest breeze causes it to move in slow undulations, which are hailed with prayers by the congre- gation assembled around the building, as a sign of the presence of its guar- dian angels, whose wings, by their motion, are supposed to be the cause of the waving of the covering. Seventy thousand wage's have the Kaaba in their holy care, and are ordered to transport it to Paradise, when the trumpet of the last judgment shall be sounded."
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