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 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. 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. 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. 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: seven times they visited and adored the adjacent mountains; seven
times they threw stones into the valley of Mina; and the pilgrimage was
achieved, as at the present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels,
and the burial of their hair and nails in the consecrated ground. Each
tribe either found or introduced in the Caaba their domestic worship:
the temple wa