MECCA. 211 



The gates of the mosque are nineteen in number, 

 distributed without any order or symmetry. Most 

 of them have high pointed arches, though some are 

 round, or almost semicircular; and as each gate 

 consists of two or three divisions, the whole number 

 of these arches is thirty-nine. They are without any 

 ornament except the inscriptions on the exterior, 

 which commemorate the merits of the builder. 

 There being no doors, the mosque is open at all 

 hours night and day. 



The great inner court of the Temple forms a pa- 

 rallelogram or oblong of about 250 paces in length 

 and 200 in breadth. Ali Bey's measurement is 536 

 feet 9 inches by 356. The whole square is sur- 

 rounded by a colonnade or double piazza, the fronts 

 of the two longer sides presenting thirty-six, and 

 the two shorter twenty-four, arches, supported by 

 columns of different proportions, and amounting in 

 all to nearly 500. On the eastern side the row of 

 pillars is four deep, and three deep on the others ; 

 they are above twenty feet in height, and generally 

 from 1^ to If feet in diameter. Some of them are 

 of white marble, granite, or porphyry; but the 

 greater number consist of common stone from the 

 neighbouring mountains. No regular order of archi- 

 tecture is observed, and no two capitals or bases are 

 exactly alike. The former are of coarse Saracen 

 workmanship, while, from the ignorance of the 

 workmen, not a few of them have been placed up- 

 side down. Some of the shafts in the weaker parts 

 are strengthened with broad iron hoops or bands, 

 as in many other buildings in the East.* 



* The annexed engraving of Mecca and the Temple is from the 

 splendid work of D'Olisson (Tableau de TEmp. Ottoman). Theap- 



