THE MOHAMMEDAN PILGRIMAGE. 255 



swinging machines, or the feats of jugglers in the 

 streets, make the Temple more like a place of public 

 amusement than a sanctuary of religion. 



Before the caravans take their final departure, the 

 pilgrims, from the highest to the lowest, are occu- 

 pied with commercial transactions, either buying 

 provisions for their journey or engrossed in the pur- 

 suits of gain. The termination of the haj changes the 

 entire aspect both of the town and the Temple. Of 

 the brilliant shops lately filled with the productions 

 and manufactures of every climate in the world, 

 Burckhardt remarks, that not more than a fourth 

 part remained. The streets were deserted, covered 

 with rubbish and filth, which nobody seemed dis- 

 posed to remove, and swarming with beggars, who 

 raised their plaintive voices towards the windows 

 of the houses they supposed to be still inha- 

 bited.* The suburbs were crowded with the car- 

 casses of dead camels, of which above 10,000 are 

 supposed to perish annually ; the smell rendering 

 the air offensive, and spreading pestilence among the 

 inhabitants. 



The mosque itself is not free from these pollutions. 



* The streets and mosques of Mecca resound with the cries of 

 beggars : " O Brethren ! O Faithful ! hear me ! I ask twenty dol- 

 lars from God to pay for my passage home ; twenty dollars only ! 

 God is all-bountiful, and may send me a hundred dollars ; but it is 

 twenty dollars only that I ask ! Remember that charity is the sure 

 road to paradise !' Burckhardt mentions a Yemen beggar at Jidda 

 who mounted the minaret daily after noon prayer, ana exclaimed, 

 loud enough to be heard through the whole bazaar, " I ask from 

 God fifty dollars, a suit of domes, and a copy of the Koran. O 

 Faithful, hear me ! I ask of you fifty dollars," &c. This he re- 

 peated for several weeks, when a Turkish pilgrim offered him thirty 

 dollars to discontinue his cries : " No," said the beggar, " I will 

 not take them, because I am convinced God will send me the whole." 

 At length the same hajji gave him his full demand without being 

 thanked for it " Pull my beard," the needy suppliant will say to 

 the scrupulous pilgrim, " if God does not send you ten times more 

 than what I ask r 



