[FN#10] The jars are little amphoræ, each inscribed with the name of the donor and a peculiar cypher. [FN#11] My measurements give 22 paces or 55 feet in length by 18 (45) of breadth, and the height appeared greater than the length. Ali Bey makes the Eastern side 37 French feet, 2 inches and 6 lines, the Western 38° 4' 6", the Northern 29 feet, the Southern 31° 6', and the height 34° 4'. He therefore calls it a “veritable trapezium.” In Al-Idrisi’s time it was 25 cubits by 24, and 27 cubits high. [FN#12] I would alter this sentence thus:—“It is built of fine grey granite in horizontal courses of masonry of irregular depth; the stones are tolerably fitted together, and are held by excellent mortar like Roman cement.” The lines are also straight. [FN#13] This base is called Al-Shazarwan, from the Persian Shadarwan, a cornice, eaves, or canopy. It is in pent-house shape, projecting about a foot beyond the wall, and composed of fine white marble slabs, polished like glass; there are two breaks in it, one opposite and under the doorway, and another in front of Ishmael’s tomb. Pilgrims are directed, during circumambulation, to keep their bodies outside of the Shazarwan ; this would imply it to be part of the building, but its only use appears in the large brass rings welded into it, for the purpose of holding down the Ka’abah covering. [FN#14] Ali Bey also errs in describing the roof as “plat endessus.” Were such the case, rain would not pour off with violence through the spout. Most Oriental authors allow a cubit of depression from South-West to North-West. In Al-Idrisi’s day the Ka’abah had a double roof. Some say this is the case in the present building, which has not been materially altered in shape since its restoration by Al-Hajjaj, A.H. 83. The roof was then eighteen cubits long by fifteen broad. [FN#15] In Ibn Jubayr’s time the Ka’abah was opened every day in Rajah, and in other months on every Monday and Friday. The house may now be entered ten or twelve times a year gratis; and by pilgrims as often as they can collect, amongst parties, a sum sufficient to tempt the guardians’ cupidity. [FN#16] This mistake, in which Burckhardt is followed by all our popular authors, is the more extraordinary, as all Arabic authors call the door-wall Janib al-Mashrik—the Eastern side—or Wajh al-Bayt, the front of the house, opposed to Zahr al-Bayt, the back. Niebuhr is equally in error when he asserts that the door fronts to the South. Arabs always hold the “Rukn al-Iraki,” or Irak angle, to face the polar star, and so it appears in Ali Bey’s plan. The Ka’abah, therefore, has no Northern side. And it must be observed that Moslem writers dispose the length of the Ka’abah from East to West, whereas our travellers make it from North to South. Ali Bey places the door only six feet from the pavement, but he calculates distances by the old French measure. It is about seven feet from the ground, and six from the corner of the Black Stone. Between