camel was left to perish on the grave, that he
might serve his master in another life; and the invocation of departed
spirits implies that they were still endowed with consciousness and
power. I am ignorant, and I am careless, of the blind mythology of the
Barbarians; of the local deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth,
of their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination. Each tribe,
each family, each independent warrior, created and changed the rites and
the object of his fantastic worship; but the nation, in every age, has
bowed to the religion, as well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine
antiquity of the Caaba ascends beyond the Christian aera; in describing
the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus [45] has
remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, a famous temple,
whose superior sanctity was revered by all the Arabians; the linen or
silken veil, which is annually renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first
offered by a pious king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred
years before the time of Mahomet. [46] A tent, or a cavern, might
suffice for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of stone and clay
has been erected in its place; and the art and power of the monarchs
of the East have been confined to the simplicity of the original model.
[47] A spacious portico encloses the quadrangle of the Caaba; a square
chapel, twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and twenty-seven
high: a door and a window admit the light; the double roof is supported
by three pillars of wood; a spout (now of gold) discharges the
rain-water, and the well Zemzen is protected by a dome from accidental
pollution. The tribe of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the
custody of the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four
lineal descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the family of the
Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the most respectable and sacred
in the eyes of their country. [48] The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the
rights of sanctuary; and, in the last month of each year, the city and
the temple were crowded with a long train of pilgrims, who presented
their vows and offerings in the house of God. The same rites which are
now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman, were invented and practised
by the superstition of the idolaters. At an awful distance they cast
away their garments: seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the
Caaba, and kissed the black stone: se