MECCA, an ancient and very famous town of Asia, in Arabia the Happy; seated on a barren spot, in a valley surrounded with little hills, about a day's journey from the Red-Sea. It is a place of no strength, having neither walls nor gates, and the buildings are very mean. That which supports it is the resort of a great many thousand pilgrims annually, for the shops are scarcely open all the year besides. The inhabitants are poor, very thin, lean, and swarthy. The hills about the town are very numerous, and all consist of a blackish rock, and some of them are half a mile in circumference. On the top of one of them is a cave, where they pretend Mahomet usually retired to perform his devotions, and hither they affirm the greatest part of the Alcoran was brought him by the angel Gabriel. The town has plenty of water, and yet little garden-stuff; but there are several sorts of good fruits to be had, such as grapes, melons, water-melons, and cucumbers. There are also plenty of sheep brought thither to be sold to the pilgrims. It stands in a very hot climate; and the inhabitants usually sleep on the tops of their houses, for the sake of coolness. The temple of Mecca has 42 doors, and its form resembles the
Mecca. royal exchange in London, but is near ten times as large. It is open in the middle, and the ground covered with gravel, except in two or three places that lead to the Beat-Allah through certain doors, and these are paved with short stones. There are cloisters all round, and in the sides are little rooms or cells for those that live a monastic life. The Beat-Allah stands in the middle of the temple, and is a square structure, each side about 20 paces long and 24 feet high; covered all over from top to bottom with a thick sort of silk, and the middle embroidered with letters of gold, each letter being about two feet in length, and two inches broad. The door is covered with silver plate, and there is a curtain before it thick with gold embroidery. This Beat is the principal object of the pilgrims devotion, and is open but two days in the space of six weeks; namely, one day for the men, and the next for the women. Within there is only two wooden pillars in the middle to support the roof, with a bar of iron fastened thereto, on which hang three or four silver lamps. The walls on the inside are marble, and covered with silk, unless when the pilgrims enter. About 12 paces from the Beat is the sepulchre of Abraham, as they pretend, and they affirm that he erected the Beat Allah. The tomb is handsome enough, and not unlike those of people of fashion in England. When they have performed their devotions here, they repair to a gibel or hill, which however is not large enough to contain them all at once, for there are no less than 70,000 pilgrims every year. When certain ceremonies are over, they then receive the title of hadigies or saints, and the next morning they move to a place where they say Abraham went to offer up his son Isaac, which is about two or three miles from Mecca; here they pitch their tents, and then throw seven small stones against a little square stone building. This, as they affirm, is performed in defiance of the devil. Every one then purchases a sheep, which is brought for that purpose, eating some of it themselves, and giving the rest to the poor people who attend upon that occasion. Indeed these are miserable objects, and such starved creatures, that they seem ready to devour each other. After all, one would imagine that this was a very sanctified place; and yet
a renegado who went in pilgrimage thither, affirms there is as much debauchery practised here as in any part of the Turkish dominions. It is 25 miles from Jodda, the sea-port town of Mecca, and 220 south-east of Medina. E. Long. 40. 55. N. Lat. 21. 45.