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Updated: June 3, 2025
The Mesaa is the place of punishment: there capital offenders are put to death. During my stay, a man was beheaded, by sentence of the Kadhy, for having robbed a Turkish pilgrim of about two hun-dred pounds sterling; this was the only instance of the kind which came to my knowledge, though thieves are said to abound in Mekka, while the Hadj continues.
The lady of Mohammed Aly Pasha, who, having performed the pilgrimage to Mekka, came here to visit the tomb, and see her son Tousoun Pasha, passed the greater part of the night in devotion at the mosque: when she returned to a house she had taken for that purpose, close by the gate of the mosque, her son paid her a short visit, and then left her to repose, while he himself ordered a carpet to be spread in the middle of the street, and there slept, at the threshold of his mother's dwelling; offering a testimony of respect and humility which does as much honour to the son, as to the character of the mother who could inspire him with such sentiments.
Contrary to the precepts of Mohammed, wood is now cut in the mountains close behind Mekka, and no one is prevented from shooting in the neighbouring valleys. The plain of Arafat alone is respected, and there the trees are never cut down.
In a fortnight after, I had sufficiently recovered to be able to walk about; but the weakness and languor which the fever had occasioned, would not yield to the damp heat of the atmosphere of the town; and I owed my complete recovery to the temperate climate of Tayf, situated in the mountains behind Mekka, where I afterwards proceeded.
The rich Mekkawys make two meals daily, one before mid-day, the other after sun-set; the lower classes breakfast at sun-rise, and eat nothing more till near sun-set. As in the negro countries, it is very indecorous for a man to be seen eating in the streets: the Turkish soldiers, who retain their native manners, are daily reprehended by the people of Mekka for their ill-breeding in this respect.
Such nocturnal marches are most unfavourable to the researches of a traveller, who thus crosses the country at a time when no objects can be observed; We alighted at Hadda, under the shed of a spacious coffee-hut, where I found a motley crew of Turks and Arabs, in their way to or from Mekka, each extended upon his small carpet.
Their houses contain no furniture but such as is to be found under the tent of a wealthy Bedouin. The Turkish governor of Mekka has not thought proper to place here any of his soldiers, for which the suburb is much indebted to him.
It would demand more leisure than I enjoy, to compile a history of Mekka from the above-mentioned sources. D'Ohsson has given an historical notice on the Sherifs of Mekka, in which are several errors. The succession to the government of Mekka, like that of the Bedouin Sheikhs, was not hereditary; though it remained in the same tribe as long as the power of that tribe preponderated. After the
Twenty years after the last-mentioned date, El Hadjadj Ibn Yousef el Thakafy, then governor of Mekka, disliking the enlarged size of the Kaaba, reduced it to the proportions it had in the time of the Koreysh, cutting off six pikes from its length; he also restored the wall called Hedjer, which Ibn Zebeyr had included within the building.
The seed of the tree which produces the balsam of Mekka, is the drug commonly used for this purpose. The Mekkawys make no distinction whatever between sons born of Abyssinian slaves and those of free Arabian women.
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