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Under these circumstances, the principal inducement with the Mekkawys to remain in the town, namely, their unceasing gains, no longer existed.
Those who style themselves Olemas, or learned doctors, allow the extremity to fall down in a narrow stripe to the middle of their back. The Mekkawys are cleaner in their dress than any Eastern people I have seen.
Kaiabey, Sultan of Egypt, expended a large sum upon it in 879; and in 916, Kansoue el Ghoury, one of the last of the Zirkassian kings of Egypt, contributed to its repair: but the aqueduct was still often obstructed; and whenever that happened, the Mekkawys and Hadjys were ex-posed to great privations. In 931, Sultan Soleyman attempted to construct it anew; but the design was not completed.
The Hodheyl told me, that before the Wahabys came, and obliged them to pay tribute for their fields, they knew no land-tax, but, on the contrary, received yearly presents from the sherifs, and from all the Mekkawys who passed this way to Tayf. Ras el Kora extends from east to west about two and a half or three miles, and is about a mile in breadth.
A few Mekkawys are also settled here, but the far greater part of the foreigners are Indians by origin.
Haroun el Rasheid, who performed the pilgrimage nine times, spent, in one of his visits, one million and fifty thousand dynars in presents to the Mekkawys and the poor hadjys.
This square, the only wide and open place in the whole town, admits through all its gates the cooling breeze; but this the Mekkawys ascribe to the waving wings of those angels who guard the mosque. I witnessed the enthusiasm of a Darfour pilgrim, who arrived at Mekka on the last night of Ramadhan.
The Khalife El Mohdy added to the size of the mosque at two different periods; the last time, in A.H. 163, he bought the ground required for these additions from the Mekkawys, paying to them twenty-five dinars for every square pike. It was this Khalife who brought the columns from Egypt, as I have already observed. The improvements which he had begun, were completed by his son El Hady.
About an hour and a half south of Mekka, to the left of the road to the village of Hosseynye, is a lofty mountain of this name, higher, it is said, than Djebel Nour. On the summit of it is a cavern in which Mohammed and his friend Abou Beker took refuge from the Mekkawys before he fled to Medina.
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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