The two are on bad terms; children never meet
without exchanging volleys of stones, and men fight furiously with
quarterstaves. Sometimes, despite the terrors of religion, the knife
and sabre are drawn. But their hostilities have their code. If a
citizen be killed, there is a subscription for blood-money. An
inhabitant of one quarter, passing singly through another, becomes a
guest; once beyond the walls, he is likely to be beaten to
insensibility by his hospitable foes.
At the Sulaymaniyah we turned off the main road into a byway, and
ascended by narrow lanes the rough heights of Jabal Hindi, upon which
stands a small whitewashed and crenellated building called a fort.
Thence descending, we threaded dark streets, in places crowded with
rude cots and dusky figures, and finally at two A.M. we found ourselves
at the door of the boy Mohammed’s house.
[p.154]From Wady Laymun to Meccah the distance, according to my
calculation, was about twenty-three miles, the direction South-East
forty-five degrees. We arrived on the morning of Sunday, the 7th Zu’l
Hijjah (11th September, 1853), and had one day before the beginning of
the pilgrimage to repose and visit the Harim.
I conclude this chapter with a few remarks upon the watershed of
Al-Hijaz. The country, in my humble opinion, has a compound slope,
Southwards and Westwards.
