the Prophet's Mosque? There thou wilt eat bread by thy
skill, and thy soul will have the blessing of being on holy ground."
Burton, however, wanted to be going forward.

26. Mecca.

On 31st August, after praying "a two-bow prayer," he bade adieu to
Shaykh Hamid, and with Nur and the boy Mohammed, joined the caravan
bound for Mecca, the route taken being the celebrated road through the
arid Nejd made by Zubaydah, wife of Harun al Rashid. The events of the
journey were not remarkable, though Mohammed very nearly killed himself
by feeding too liberally on clarified butter and dates mashed with
flour. Sometimes Burton cheered the way and delighted his companions by
singing the song of Maysunah, the Arab girl who longed to get back from
the Caliph's palace to the black tents of her tribe. Everybody got into
good humour when he began:

"Oh take these purple robes away,
Give back my cloak of camel's hair,"

and they laughed till they fell on their backs when he came to the
line where the desert beauty calls her Royal husband a "fatted ass." In
truth, they needed something to cheer them, for the sky was burnished
brass, and their goats died like flies. Simoon and sand-pillar threw
down the camels, and loathsome vultures ready for either beast or man
hovered above or squabbled around them. To crown their discomforts they
were again attached by the Bedouin, whom they dispersed only after a
stubborn fight and with the loss of several dromedaries. After passing
the classic Wady Laymun, sung by the Arab poet Labid [127] in lines
suggestive of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, they very piously shaved
their heads and donned the conventional attire, namely two new cotton
cloths with narrow red stripes and fringes; and when the Holy City came
in view, the whole caravan raised the cry, "Mecca! Mecca! the Sanctuary!
O the Sanctuary! Labbayk! Labbayk!" [128] the voices being not
infrequently broken by sobs.

On entering the gates, Burton and Nur crossed the famous hill Safa and
took up their abode with the lad Mohammed. Early next morning they rose,
bathed, and made their way with the crowd to the Prophet's Mosque in
order to worship at the huge bier-like erection called the Kaaba, and
the adjacent semi-circular Hatim's wall. The famous Kaaba, which is
in the middle of the great court-yard, looked at a distance like an
enormous cube, covered with a black curtain, but its plan is really
trapeziform. "There at last it lay,"