The Hagges Do Usually Spend That Time, Or Good Part Of It (Which Is About An Hour And Half), At Towoaf, And Then Sit Down On The Mats And Rest Themselves.

This I did, and after I had sat a while, and for my more ease at last was lying

On my back, with my feet towards the Beat, but at a distance as many others did, a Turk which sat by me, asked me what countryman I was; ‘A Mogrebee’ (said I), i.e. one of the West. ‘Pray,’ quoth he, ‘how far west did you come?’ I told him from Gazair, i.e. Algier. ‘Ah!’ replied he, ‘have you taken so much

[p.380] pains, and been at so much cost, and now be guilty of this irreverent posture before the Beat Allah?’

“Here are many Moors, who get a beggarly livelihood by selling models of the temple unto strangers, and in being serviceable to the Pilgrims. Here are also several Effendies, or masters of learning, who daily expound out of the Alcoran, sitting in high chairs, and some of the learned Pilgrims, whilst they are here, do undertake the same.

“Under the room of the Hanifees (which I mentioned before), people do usually gather together (between the hours of devotion), and sitting round cross-legged, it may be, twenty or thirty of them, they have a very large pair of Tessbeehs, or beads, each bead near as big as a man’s fist, which they keep passing round, bead after bead, one to the other, all the time, using some devout expressions.

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