i88i] A JOURNEY IN THE HEjAZ 511 



of the daybreak that are performed with precise regularity. 

 These two are generally uttered in audible murmur, or 

 even with a clear voice, whose cadences are not devoid of 

 impressiveness, as the words, &quot; God is most Great,&quot; &quot; I 

 testify that there is no God but God, and I testify that 

 Mohammed is his servant and apostle,&quot; rise through the 

 silence of the desert, and spread over the hills with the 

 first rays of the morning light. But the more one sees 

 of it, the less is it possible to feel any sincere respect for 

 Moslem devotion, in which formalism and vain repetition 

 are reduced to a system. The God of the Mohammedan 

 is too remote from his worshipper to be addressed in the 

 language of true prayer ; and the daily liturgy is little 

 more than an abstract glorification of the divine qualities. 

 Special petitions are indeed permitted though not pre 

 scribed, but the opening of the worshipper s heart to his 

 Heavenly Father is not known to the faith of Islam, and 

 help in individual need is sought rather from patron 

 saints, or in the use of charms, among which, to be sure, 

 the recitation of certain formulae from the Koran has a 

 place. There is, of course, a certain belief in the efficacy 

 of special prayer. Some weeks ago a great procession, 

 headed by the Waly, went out from Jeddah in the morn 

 ing to pray for rain. I was not fortunate enough to be 

 able to observe this ceremony. 



From Far eye the road rises through a broken country, 

 where for the first time the granite which predominates 

 in the upland districts is seen breaking through the basalt. 

 In this part of the road there are two cairns by the way 

 side, called respectively the Zalabany and Kunafany 

 that is the baker of zalabiye and the maker of kunafe. 

 Zalabiye is the name of a kind of bread, fried in clarified 

 butter, and eaten with honey. Here it is always baked 

 in great round cakes ; in Syria it has an oblong form, 

 and is eaten with grape syrup. Kunafe is a favourite 

 dish, especially in Ramadan. It is something like ver 

 micelli, but sweet. The legend goes that the artists who 



