Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah Volume I Part 29

Besides the eunuchs, there are a number of free servants, called Farrashin, attached to the Mosque; almost all the middle and lower cla.s.s of citizens belong to this order. They are divided into parties of thirty each, and are changed every week, those on duty receiving a Ghazi or twenty-two piastres for their services. Their business

[p.373]is to dust, and to spread the carpets, to put oil and wicks into the lamps which the eunuchs let down from the ceiling, and, generally speaking, diligently to do nothing.

Finally, the menial establishment of the Mosque consists of a Shaykh al-Sakka (chief of the water-carriers), under whom are from forty-five to fifty men who sprinkle the floors, water the garden, and, for a consideration, supply a cupful of brackish liquid to visitors.

The literary establishment is even more extensive than the executive and the menial. There is a Kazi, or chief judge, sent every year from Constantinople. After twelve months at Al-Madinah, he pa.s.ses on to Meccah, and returns home after a similar term of service in the second Holy City. Under him are three Muftis,[FN#62] of the Hanafi, the Shafe'i, and the Maliki schools; the fourth, or Hanbali, is not represented here or at Cairo.[FN#63] Each of these officers receives as pay about two hundred and fifty piastres a month. The Ruasa,[FN#64] as the Mu'ezzins (prayer-callers) here call themselves, are extensively represented; there are forty-eight or forty-nine of the lowest order, presided over by six Kubar or Masters, and these again are under the Shaykh al-Ruasa, who alone has the privilege of calling to prayers from the Raisiyah minaret. The Shaykh receives a hundred and fifty piastres, the chiefs about a hundred, and the common criers sixty; there are

[p.374]forty-five Khatibs, who preach and pray before the congregation on Fridays for a hundred and twenty piastres a month; they are under the Shaykh al-Khutaba. About the same sum is given to seventy-five Imams, who recite the five ordinary prayers of every day in the Mosque; the Shaykh al-Aimmat is their superior.[FN#65]

Almost all the citizens of Al-Madinah who have not some official charge about the temple qualify themselves to act as Muzawwirs. They begin as boys to learn the formula of prayer, and the conducting of visitors; and partly by begging, partly by boldness, they often pick up a tolerable livelihood at an early age. The Muzawwir will often receive strangers into his house, as was done to me, and direct their devotions during the whole time of their stay. For such service he requires a sum of money proportioned to his guests' circ.u.mstances, but this fee does not end the connexion. If the Muzawwir visit the home of his Zair, he expects to be treated with the utmost hospitality, and to depart with a handsome present. A religious visitor will often transmit to his cicerone at Meccah and at Al-Madinah yearly sums to purchase for himself a prayer at the Ka'abah and the Prophet's Tomb. The remittance is usually wrapped up in paper, and placed in a sealed leathern bag, somewhat like a portfolio, upon which is worked the name of the person ent.i.tled to receive it. It is then given in charge either to a trustworthy pilgrim, or to the public treasurer, who accompanies the princ.i.p.al caravans.

I could procure no exact information about the amount of money forwarded every year from Constantinople and Cairo to Al-Madinah; the only point upon which men seemed to agree was that they were defrauded of half their dues. When the Sadaka and Aukaf (the alms and bequests) arrive at the town, they are committed by the Surrah, or

[p.375]financier of the caravan, to the Muftis, the chief of the Khatibs, and the Kazi's clerk. These officers form a committee, and after reckoning the total of the families ent.i.tled to pensions, divide the money amongst them, according to the number in each household, and the rank of the pensioners. They are divided into five orders:- The Olema, or learned, and the Mudarrisin, who profess, lecture, or teach adults in the Harim.

The Imams and Khatibs.

The descendants of the Prophet.

The f.u.kaha, poor divines, pedadogues, gerund-grinders, who teach boys to read the Koran.

The Awam, or n.o.bile vulgus of the Holy City, including the Ahali, or burghers of the town, and the Mujawirin, or those settled in the place.

Omar Effendi belonged to the second order, and he informed me that his share varied from three to fifteen Riyals per annum.

[FN#1] In Oriental geography the parasang still, as in the days of Pliny, greatly varies, from 1500 to 6000 yards. Captain Francklin, whose opinion is generally taken, makes it (in his Tour to Persia) a measure of about four miles (Preface to Ibn Haukal, by Sir Gore Ouseley).

[FN#2] M.C. de Perceval (Essai sur l'Histoire des Arabes avant l'Islamisme), makes Amlak son of Laoud (Lud), son of Shem, or, according to others, son of Ham. That learned writer identifies the Amalik with the Phoenicians, the Amalekites, the Canaanites, and the Hyksos. He alludes, also, to an ancient tradition which makes them to have colonised Barbary in Africa.

[FN#3] The Dabistan al-Mazahib relates a tradition that the Almighty, when addressing the angels in command, uses the Arabic tongue, but when speaking in mercy or beneficence, the Deri dialect of Persian.

[FN#4] These were the giants who fought against Israel in Palestine.

[FN#5] In this wild tradition we find a confirmation of the sound geographical opinion which makes Arabia "Une des pepinieres du genre humain" (M. Jomard). It must be remembered that the theatre of all earliest civilisation has been a fertile valley with a navigable stream, like Sind, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The existence of such a spot in Arabia would have altered every page of her history; she would then have become a centre, not a source, of civilisation. Strabo's Malothes river in Al-Yaman is therefore a myth. As it is, the immense population of the peninsula-still thick, even in the deserts-has, from the earliest ages, been impelled by drought, famine, or desire of conquest, to emigrate into happier regions. All history mentions two main streams which took their rise in the wilds. The first set to the North-East, through Persia, Mekran, Baluchistan, Sind, and the Afghan Mountains, as far as Samarkand, Bokhara, and Tibet; the other, flowing towards the North-West, pa.s.sed through Egypt and Barbary into Etruria, Spain, the Isles of the Mediterranean, and Southern France. There are two minor emigrations chronicled in history, and written in the indelible characters of physiognomy and philology. One of these set in an exiguous but perennial stream towards India, especially Malabar, where, mixing with the people of the country, the Arab merchants became the progenitors of the Moplah race. The other was a partial emigration, also for commercial purposes, to the coast of Berberah, in Eastern Africa, where, mixing with the Galla tribes, the people of Hazramaut became the sires of the extensive Somali and Sawahil nations. Thus we have from Arabia four different lines of emigration, tending N.E. and S.E., N.W. and S.W. At some future time I hope to develop this curious but somewhat obscure portion of Arabian history. It bears upon a most interesting subject, and serves to explain, by the consanguinity of races, the marvellous celerity with which the faith of Al-Islam spread from the Pillars of Hercules to the confines of China-embracing part of Southern Europe, the whole of Northern and a portion of Central Africa, and at least three-fourths of the continent of Asia.

[FN#6] Of this name M.C. de Perceval remarks, "Le mot Arcam etait une designation commune a tous ces rois." He identifies it with Rekem (Numbers x.x.xi. 8), one of the kings of the Midianites; and recognises in the preservation of the royal youth the history of Agag and Samuel.

[FN#7] And some most ignorantly add, "after the entrance of Moses into the Promised Land."

[FN#8] In those days, we are told, the Jews, abandoning their original settlement in Al-Ghabbah or the low lands to the N. of the town, migrated to the highest portions of the Madinah plain on the S. and E., and the lands of the neighbourhood of the Kuba Mosque.

[FN#9] When describing Ohod, I shall have occasion to allude to Aaron's dome, which occupies the highest part. Few authorities, however, believe that Aaron was buried there; his grave, under a small stone cupola, is shown over the summit of Mount Hor, in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and is much visited by devotees.

[FN#10] It must be remembered that many of the Moslem geographers derive the word "Arabia" from a tract of land in the neighbourhood of Al-Madinah.

[FN#11] Khaybar in Hebrew is supposed to signify a castle. D'Herbelot makes it to mean a pact or a.s.sociation of the Jews against the Moslems.

This fort appears to be one of the latest as well as the earliest of the Hebrew settlements in Al-Hijaz. Benjamin of Tudela a.s.serts that there were 50,000 Jews resident at their old colony, Bartema in A.D.

1703 found remnants of the people there, but his account of them is disfigured by fable. In Niebuhr's time the Beni Khaybar had independent Shaykhs, and were divided into three tribes, viz., the Benu Masad, the Benu Shahan, and the Benu Anizah (this latter, however, is a Moslem name), who were isolated and hated by the other Jews, and therefore the traveller supposes them to have been Karaites. In Burckhardt's day the race seems to have been entirely rooted out. I made many inquiries, and all a.s.sured me that there is not a single Jewish family now in Khaybar.

It is indeed the popular boast in Al-Hijaz, that, with the exception of Jeddah (and perhaps Yambu', where the Prophet never set his foot), there is not a town in the country harbouring an Infidel. This has now become a point of fanatic honour; but if history may be trusted, it has become so only lately.

[FN#12] When the Arabs see the a.s.s turn tail to the wind and rain, they exclaim, "Lo! he turneth his back upon the mercy of Allah!"

[FN#13] M.C. de Perceval quotes Judith, ii. 13, 26, and Jeremiah, xlix.

28, to prove that Holofernes, the general of Nebuchadnezzar the First, laid waste the land of Midian and other parts of Northern Arabia.

[FN#14] Saba in Southern Arabia.

[FN#15] The erection of this d.y.k.e is variously attributed to Lukman the Elder (of the tribe of Ad) and to Saba bin Yashjab. It burst according to some, beneath the weight of a flood; according to others, it was miraculously undermined by rats. A learned Indian Shaykh has mistaken the Arabic word "Jurad," a large kind of mouse or rat, for "Jarad," a locust, and he makes the wall to have sunk under a "bar i Malakh," or weight of locusts! No event is more celebrated in the history of pagan Arabia than this, or more trustworthy, despite the exaggeration of the details-the d.y.k.e is said to have been four miles long by four broad-and the fantastic marvels which are said to have accompanied its bursting.

The ruins have lately been visited by M. Arnaud, a French traveller, who communicated his discovery to the French Asiatic Society in 1845.

[FN#16] Ma al-Sama, "the water (or "the splendour") of heaven," is, generally speaking, a feminine name amongst the pagan Arabs; possibly it is here intended as a matronymic.

[FN#17] This expedition to Al-Madinah is mentioned by all the pre-Islamatic historians, but persons and dates are involved in the greatest confusion. Some authors mention two different expeditions by different Tobbas; others only one, attributing it differently, however, to two Tobbas,-Abu Karb in the 3rd century of the Christian era, and Tobba al-Asghar, the last of that dynasty, who reigned, according to some, in A.D. 300, according to others in A.D. 448. M.C. de Perceval places the event about A.D. 206, and a.s.serts that the Aus and Khazraj did not emigrate to Al-Madinah before A.D. 300. The word Tobba or Tubba, I have been informed by some of the modern Arabs, is still used in the Himyaritic dialect of Arabic to signify "the Great" or "the Chief."

[FN#18] Nothing is more remarkable in the annals of the Arabs than their efforts to prove the Ishmaelitic descent of Mohammed; at the same time no historic question is more open to doubt.

[FN#19] If this be true it proves that the Jews of Al-Hijaz had in those days superst.i.tious reverence for the Ka'abah; otherwise the Tobba, after conforming to the law of Moses, would not have shown it this mark of respect. Moreover there is a legend that the same Rabbis dissuaded the Tobba from plundering the sacred place when he was treacherously advised so to do by the Benu Hudayl Arabs. I have lately perused "The Worship of Ba'alim in Israel," based upon the work of Dr.

R. Dozy, "The Israelites in Mecca." By Dr. H. Oort. Translated from the Dutch, and enlarged, with Notes and Appendices, by the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D. (Longmans.) I see no reason why Meccah or Beccah should be made to mean "A Slaughter"; why the Ka'abah should be founded by the Simeonites; why the Hajj should be the Feast of Trumpets; and other a.s.sertions in which everything seems to be taken for granted except etymology, which is tortured into confession. If Meccah had been founded by the Simeonites, why did the Persians and the Hindus respect it?

[FN#20] It is curious that Abdullah, Mohammed's father, died and was buried at Al-Madinah, and that his mother Aminah's tomb is at Abwa, on the Madinah road. Here, too, his great-grandfather Hashim married Salma Al-Mutadalliyah, before him espoused to Uhayhah, of the Aus tribe.

Shaybah, generally called Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's grandfather, was the son of Salma, and was bred at Al-Madinah.

[FN#21] Ayyas bin Ma'az died, it is said, a Moslem.

[FN#22] "Bayat al-Akabat al-ula." It is so called because this oath was sworn at a place called Al-Akabah (the Mountain-road), near Muna. A Mosque was afterwards built there to commemorate the event.

[FN#23] Some Moslem writers suppose that Mohammed singled out twelve men as apostles, and called them Nakil, in imitation of the example of our Saviour. Other Moslems ignore both the fact and the intention. M.C.

de Perceval gives the names of these Nakils in vol. iii. p. 8.

[FN#24] Orthodox Moslems do not fail to quote this circ.u.mstance in honour of the first Caliph, upon whom moreover they bestow the t.i.tle of "Friend of the Cave." The Shi'ahs, on the other hand, hating Abu Bakr, see in it a symptom of treachery, and declare that the Prophet feared to let the "Old Hyena," as they opprobriously term the venerable successor, out of his sight for fear lest he should act as spy to the Kuraysh. The voice of history and of common sense is against the Shi'ahs. M.C. de Perceval justly remarks, that Abu Bakr and Omar were men truly worthy of their great predecessor.

[FN#25] This animal's name, according to some, was Al-Kaswa ("the tips of whose ears are cropped"); according to others Al-Jada'a ("one mutilated in the ear, hand, nose, or lip"). The Prophet bought her for 800 dirhams, on the day before his flight, from Abu Bakr, who had fattened two fine animals of his own breeding. The camel was offered as a gift, but Mohammed insisted upon paying its price, because, say the Moslem casuists, he being engaged in the work of G.o.d would receive no aid from man. According to M.C. de Perceval, the Prophet preached from the back of Al-Kaswa the celebrated pilgrimage sermon at Arafat on the 8th March, A.D. 632.

[FN#26] The Prophet is generally supposed to have started from Meccah on the first of the same month, on a Friday or a Monday. This discrepancy is supposed to arise from the fact that Mohammed fled his house in Meccah on a Friday, pa.s.sed three days in the cave on Jabal Saur, and finally left it for Al-Madinah on Monday, which therefore, according to Moslem divines, was the first day of the "Hijrah." But the aera now commences on the 1st of the previous Muharram, an arrangement made seventeen years after the date of the flight by Omar the Caliph, with the concurrence of Ali.

[FN#27] The distance from Kuba to Al-Madinah is little more than three miles, for which six hours-Friday prayers being about noon-may be considered an inordinately long time. But our author might urge as a reason that the mult.i.tude of people upon a narrow road rendered the Prophet's advance a slow one, and some historians relate that he spent several hours in conversation with the Benu Salim.

[FN#28] Mohammed never would eat these strong smelling vegetables on account of his converse with the angels, even as modern "Spiritualists"

refuse to smoke tobacco; at the same time he allowed his followers to do so, except when appearing in his presence, entering a Mosque, or joining in public prayers. The pious Moslem still eats his onions with these limitations. Some sects, however, as the Wahhabis, considering them abominable, avoid them on all occasions.

[FN#29] The name of the tribe literally means "sons of a carpenter"; hence the error of the learned and violent Humphrey Prideaux, corrected by Sale.

[FN#30] Some say that Abu Bakr had no abode near the Mosque. But it is generally agreed upon, that he had many houses, one in Al-Bakia, another in the higher parts of Al-Madinah, and among them a hut on the spot between the present gates called Salam and Rahmah.

[FN#31] It is clear from the fact above stated, that in those days the Jews of Arabia were in a state of excitement, hourly expecting the advent of their Messiah, and that Mohammed believed himself to be the person appointed to complete the law of Moses.

[FN#32] In many minor details the above differs from the received accounts of Pre-Islamitic and early Mohammedan history. Let the blame be borne by the learned Shaykh Abd al-Hakk al-Muhaddis of Delhi, and his compilation, the "Jazb al-Kulub ila Diyar al-Mahhub (the "Drawing of Hearts towards the Holy Parts"). From the mult.i.tude of versions at last comes correctness.

[FN#33] A Firman from the Porte, dated 13th February, 1841, provides for the paying of these pensions regularly. "It being customary to send every year from Egypt provisions in kind to the two Holy Cities, the provisions and other articles, whatever they may be, which have up to this time been sent to this place, shall continue to be sent thither."

Formerly the Holy Land had immense property in Egypt, and indeed in all parts of Al-Islam. About thirty years ago, Mohammed Ali Pasha bought up all the Wakf (church property), agreeing to pay for its produce, which he rated at five piastres the ardeb, when it was worth three times as much. Even that was not regularly paid. The Sultan has taken advantage of the present crisis to put down Wakf in Turkey. The Holy Land, therefore, will gradually lose all its land and house property, and will soon be compelled to depend entirely upon the presents of the pilgrims, and the Sadakah, or alms, which are still sent to it by the pious Moslems of distant regions. As might be supposed, both the Meccans and the Madani loudly bewail their hard fates, and by no means approve of the Ikram, the modern succedaneum for an extensive and regularly paid revenue. At a future time, I shall recur to this subject.

[FN#34] The prayer-niche and the minaret both date their existence from the days of Al-Walid, the builder of the third Mosque. At this age of their empire, the Moslems had travelled far and had seen art in various lands; it is therefore not without a shadow of reason that the Hindus charge them with having borrowed their two favourite symbols, and transformed them into an arch and a tower.

[FN#35] The Ustawanat al-Hannanah, or "Weeping-Post." See page 335, chapter XVI., ante.

[FN#36] As usual, there are doubts about the invention of this article.

It was covered with cloth by the Caliph Osman, or, as others say, by Al-Mu'awiyah, who, deterred by a solar eclipse from carrying out his project of removing it to Damascus, placed it upon a new framework, elevated six steps above the ground. Al-Mahdi wished to raise the Mambar six steps higher, but was forbidden so to do by the Imam Malik.

The Abbasides changed the pulpit, and converted the Prophet's original seat into combs, which were preserved as relics. Some historians declare that the original Mambar was burnt with the Mosque in A.H. 654.

In Ibn Jubayr's time (A.H. 580), it was customary for visitors to place their right hands upon a bit of old wood, inserted into one of the pillars of the pulpit; this was supposed to be a remnant of the "weeping-post." Every Sultan added some ornament to the Mambar, and at one time it was made of white marble, covered over with a dome of the "eight metals." It is now a handsome structure, apparently of wood, painted and gilt of the usual elegant form, which has been compared by some travellers with the suggesta of Roman Catholic churches. I have been explicit about this pulpit, hoping that, next time the knotty question of Apostolic seats comes upon the tapis, our popular authors will not confound a Curule chair with a Moslem Mambar. Of the latter article, Lane (Mod. Egyptians, chap. iii.) gave a sketch in the "Interior of a Mosque."

[FN#37] The Prophet is said to have had a dwelling-house in the Ambariyah, or the Western quarter of the Manakhah suburb, and here, according to some, he lodged Mariyah, the Coptic girl. As pilgrims do not usually visit the place, and nothing of the original building can be now remaining, I did not trouble myself about it.

[FN#38] Meaning the Prophet's fifteen to twenty-five wives. Their number is not settled. He left nine wives and two concubines. It was this t.i.tle after the Koranic order (chap, x.x.xiii. v. 53) which rendered their widowhood eternal; no Arab would willingly marry a woman whom he has called mother or sister.

[FN#39] Authors mention a place outside the Northern wall called Al-Suffah, which was a.s.signed by Mohammed as a habitation to houseless believers; from which circ.u.mstance these paupers derived the t.i.tle of Ashab al-Suffah, "Companions of the Sofa."

[FN#40] So I translate the Arabicised word "Saj."

[FN#41] A place about five miles from Al-Madinah, on the Meccan way.

See Chap. XIV.

[FN#42] And curious to say Al-Islam still has the largest cathedral in the world-St. Sophia's at Constantinople. Next to this ranks St.

Peter's at Rome; thirdly, I believe, the "Jumma Masjid," or cathedral of the old Moslem city Bij.a.pur in India; the fourth is St. Paul's, London, [FN#43] It is to this monarch that the Saracenic Mosque-architecture mainly owes its present form. As will be seen, he had every advantage of borrowing from Christian, Persian, and even Indian art. From the first he took the dome, from the second the cloister-it might have been naturalised in Arabia before his time-and possibly from the third the minaret and the prayer-niche. The latter appears to be a peculiarly Hindu feature in sacred buildings, intended to contain the idol, and to support the lamps, flowers, and other offerings placed before it.

[FN#44] The reader will remember that in the sixth year of the Hijrah, after Mohammed's marriage with Zaynab, his wives were secluded behind the Hijab, Pardah, or curtain. A verse of the Koran directed the Moslems to converse with them behind this veil. Hence the general practice of Al-Islam: now it is considered highly disgraceful in any Moslem to make a Moslemah expose her face, and she will frequently found a threat upon the prejudice. A battle has been prevented by this means, and occasionally an insurrection has been caused by it.

[FN#45] Amongst which some authors enumerate the goblet and the mirror of Kisra.

[FN#46] The outer wall, built by Al-Walid, remained till A.H. 550, when Jamal al-Din of Isafahan, Wazir to Nur al-Din Shahid Mahmud bin Zangi, supplied its place by a grating of open sandal woodwork, or, as others say, of iron. About the same time, Sayyid Abu 'l Hayja sent from Egypt a sheet of white brocade, embroidered in red silk with the chapter Y.S., in order to cover the inner wall. This was mounted on the accession of Al-Mustazi bi'llah, the Caliph, after which it became the custom for every Sultan to renew the offering. And in A.H. 688, Kalaun of Egypt built the outer network of bra.s.s as it now is, and surmounted it with the Green Dome.

[FN#47] The inner wall, erected by Al-Walid, seems to have resisted the fire which in A.H. 654 burnt the Mosque to the ground. Also, in A.H.

886, when the building was consumed by lightning, the Hujrah was spared by the devouring element.

[FN#48] After the Prophet's death and burial, Ayishah continued to occupy the same room, without even a curtain between her and the tomb.

At last, vexed by the crowds of visitors, she part.i.tioned off the hallowed spot with a wall. She visited the grave unveiled as long as her father Abu Bakr only was placed behind the Prophet; but when Omar's corpse was added, she always covered her face.

[FN#49] One of these, the minaret at the Bab-al-Salam, was soon afterwards overthrown by Al-Walid's brother Sulayman, because it shaded the house of Marwan, where he lodged during his visit to Al-Madinah in the cold season.

[FN#50] The dinar (denarius) was a gold piece, a ducat, a sequin.

[FN#51] I purpose to touch upon this event in a future chapter, when describing my route from Al-Madinah to Meccah.

[FN#52] "On this occasion," says Al-Samanhudi, quoted by Burckhardt, "the interior of the Hujrah was cleared, and three deep graves were found in the inside, full of rubbish, but the author of this history, who himself entered it, saw no traces of tombs." Yet in another place he, an eye-witness, had declared that the coffin containing the dust of Mohammed was cased with silver. I repeat these details.

[FN#53] Burckhardt has given a full account of this event in his history of the Wahhabis.

[FN#54] See Chapter XVI., ante.

[FN#55] My predecessor estimates the whole treasury in those days to have been worth 300,000 Riyals,-a small sum, if we consider the length of time during which it was acc.u.mulating. The chiefs of the town appropriated 1 cwt. of golden vessels, worth at most 50,000 dollars, and Sa'ud sold part of the plunder to Ghalib for 100,000 (I was told one-third more), reserving for himself about the same amount of pearls and corals. Burckhardt supposes that the governors of Al-Madinah, who were often independent chiefs, and sometimes guardians of the tombs, made occasional draughts upon the generosity of the Faithful.

[FN#56] I inquired in vain about the substance that covered the dome.

Some told me it was tinfoil; others supposed it to be rivetted with green tiles.

[FN#57] The Badawi calls a sound dollar "Kirsh Hajar," or "Riyal Hajar," a "stone dollar."

[FN#58] At the same time his account is still carefully copied by our popular and general authors, who, it is presumed, could easily become better informed.

[FN#59] The Persians in remote times, as we learn from Herodotus (lib.

6), were waited upon by eunuchs, and some attribute to them the invention. Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus (lib. 14) ascribes the origin to Semiramis. In Al-Islam, the employment of such persons about the Mosque is a "Bida'ah" or custom unknown in the time of the Prophet. It is said to have arisen from the following three considerations: 1. These people are concentrated in their professions; 2. They must see and touch strange women at the shrines; and 3. The shrines are "Harim," or sacred, having adyta which are kept secret from the prying eyes of men, and, therefore, should be served by eunuchs. It is strange that the Roman Catholic church, as well as the Moslem Mosque, should have admitted such an abomination.

[FN#60] One of these gentry, if called "Tawashi,"-his generic name,-would certainly insult a stranger. The polite form of address to one of them is "Agha"-Master,-in the plural "Aghawat." In partibus, they exact the greatest respect from men, and the t.i.tle of the Eunuch of the Tomb is worth a considerable sum to them. The eunuchs of Al-Madinah are more numerous and better paid than those of Meccah: they are generally the slaves of rich men at Constantinople, and prefer this city on account of its climate.