546 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



and carried overland to Gaza. Skins are still the chief 

 article of export from the Hejaz, and, indeed, the only 

 important staple of Jeddah. But in these days the trade 

 seems to have been in manufactured leather ; tanned, 

 I suppose, with the leaves of upland trees, according to 

 the still prevalent practice of the country. 



The fair of Okatz was not the affair of a day or two. 

 It is said to have lasted twenty days, or even a month. 

 The several tribes met to settle their old differences and 

 commence new disputes, and business was enlivened by 

 poetical contests, so celebrated that a verb was coined 

 from the name of the place, meaning to contend for glory 

 in poetical recitations. The old poet Abu Dhueib speaks 

 of the time 



When the booths were built on Okatz, and the fair 

 was busy, and the thousands were assembled. 



For such a meeting an ample supply of good water was 

 necessary, and this was to be found in the wady which we 

 crossed just before ascending to the plain. The rise of 

 Islam destroyed the ancient mart, which had essentially 

 the character of a heathenish feast. But the association 

 of religion and commerce still survives in the Mecca 

 pilgrimage, which is the lineal descendant of the old 

 heathen spring feast. Then, as now, Mina was the seat 

 of a pilgrimage fair, and then, as now, a religious sanction 

 was pleaded to protect the travellers. Even the modern 

 distribution of grain to the Bedouins as the price of their 

 good behaviour has its ancient analogue. There were 

 certain families in Mecca whose charge it was to provide 

 the Bedouins during the feast with meat and drink. The 

 observation that for the inhabitants of Mecca the religious 

 feasts were essentially great commercial occasions, is 

 very instructive in connection with the present state 

 of the pilgrimage question. The great feast is no longer 

 the centre of an important international commerce, 

 though a large proportion of the pilgrims have still some- 



