,£5 



£ Sidi Hadji as host was 

 c most picturesque, and 

 | he entertained us with 

 wonderful stories of his 

 S — pilgrimage to Mecca and 

 if what he had seen and 

 g heard. He described the 

 £ Kaaba, "The Holy of 

 ° Holies," that curious 

 J rectangular building that 

 *a contains the great uncut 

 § ruby that has turned 

 "3 0 black On account of the 

 i: a sins of the world and is 

 now known as the Black 

 Stone. He told us that 

 Mecca was a sacred city 

 centuries before Mo- 

 £ hammed was born, and 

 *g c the Kaaba was already 

 a ° a great shrine. This is 

 the reason : 



§ how mexca became: a 



* ||. HOI,Y PIvACK 



^/i 8 When Abraham led 



^ Hagar and her infant 



h g son,. Ishmael, into the 



°o desert and abandoned 



a £ 



a£ 



o >» 



them to die of hunger 



< .£ ^ and thirst, Ishmael cried 

 % ^'Jj for water, and Hagar 



< rS t! P ut m m d°wn in the 

 u sand and started off in 



< 3« 



03 C 



search of . water, 

 g, The desert . lay' be- 

 | tween two ranges of 

 £ sand - dunes, or moun- 

 £*a tains, and Hagar in her 

 . an g u ish crossed this yalr 

 5? 43 ley seven times, but 

 |J> found no water. Al- 

 most exhausted, s h e 



o a 



dragged herself back to 

 §3? the small child. . - 

 Imagine her surprise 

 '1 and joy to see him creep- 

 £ ing toward a pool of wa- 

 ^ ter that had miracu- 

 ^ lously sprung up since 

 c she had laid him on the 

 rt sand ! The pool was 

 « deep, and, fearing the 

 <u child would fall in and 

 ^ be drowned, she cried 

 | out in Arabic: Z*?m/ 

 ffi ' Zeml which, inter- 



