suggesting volcanic or meteoric origin, fixed at such a height that it can be conveniently kissed by a person of middle size. It was broken by fire in the siege of A.D. 683 (not, as many authors relate, by the Carmathians), and the pieces are kept together by a silver setting. The history of this heavenly stone, given by Gabriel to Abraham, does not conceal the fact that it was originally a fetish, the most venerated of a multitude of idols and sacred stones which stood all round the sanctuary in the time of Mahomet. The Prophet destroyed the idols, but he left the characteristic form of worship--the _tawaf_, or sevenfold circuit of the sanctuary, the worshipper kissing or touching the objects of his veneration--and besides the black stone he recognized the so-called "southern" stone, the same presumably as that which is still touched in the tawaf at the Yemen corner (_Muh. in Med._ pp. 336, 425). The ceremony of the tawaf and the worship of stone fetishes was common to Mecca with other ancient Arabian sanctuaries.[17] It was, as it still is, a frequent religious exercise of the Meccans, and the first duty of one who returned to the city or arrived there under a vow of pilgrimage; and thus the outside of the Ka'ba was and is more important than the inside. Islam did away with the worship of idols; what was lost in interest by their suppression has been supplied by the invention of spots consecrated by recollections of Abraham, Ishmael and Hagar, or held to be acceptable places of prayer. Thus the space of ten spans between the black stone and the door, which is on the east side, between the black and Irak corners, and a man's height from the ground, is called the _Multazam_, and here prayer should be offered after the tawaf with outstretched arms and breast pressed against the house. On the other side of the door, against the same wall, is a shallow trough, which is said to mark the original site of the stone on which Abraham stood to build the Ka'ba. Here the growth of the legend can be traced, for the place is now called the "kneading-place" (Ma'jan), where the cement for the Ka'ba was prepared. This name and story do not appear in the older accounts. Once more, on the north side of the Ka'ba, there projects a low semicircular wall of marble, with an opening at each end between it and the walls of the house. The space within is paved with mosaic, and is called the Hijr. It is included in the tawaf, and two slabs of _verde antico_ within it are called the graves of Ishmael and Hagar, and are places of acceptable prayer. Even the golden or gilded _mizab_ (water-spout) that projects into the Hijr marks a place where prayer is heard, and another such place is the part of the west wall close to the Yemen corner.