Total [number of arches] 39[FN#53] An old pair of slippers is here what the “shocking bad hat” is at a crowded house in Europe, a self-preserver. Burckhardt lost three pairs. I, more fortunately, only one. [FN#54] Many authorities place this building upon the site of the modern Makam Hanafi. [FN#55] The Meccans love to boast that at no hour of the day or night is the Ka’abah ever seen without a devotee to perform “Tawaf.” [FN#56] This would be about 50 dollars, whereas 25 is a fair sum for a single apartment. Like English lodging-house-keepers, the Meccans make the season pay for the year. In Burckhardt’s time the colonnato was worth from 9 to 12 piastres; the value of the latter coin is now greatly decreased, for 28 go to the Spanish dollar all over Al-Hijaz. [FN#57] I entered one of these caves, and never experienced such a sense of suffocation even in that favourite spot for Britons to asphixiate themselves—the Baths of Nero. [FN#58] The Magnificent (son of Salim I.), who built at Al-Madinah the minaret bearing his name. The minarets at Meccah are far inferior to those of her rival, and their bands of gaudy colours give them an appearance of tawdry vulgarity. [FN#59] Two minarets, namely, those of the Bab al-Salam and the Bab al-Safa, are separated from the Mosque by private dwelling-houses, a plan neither common nor regular. [FN#60] A stranger must be careful how he appears at a minaret window, unless he would have a bullet whizzing past his head. Arabs are especially jealous of being overlooked, and have no fellow-feeling for votaries of “beautiful views.” For this reason here, as in Egypt, a blind Mu’ezzin is preferred, and many ridiculous stories are told about men who for years have counterfeited cecity to live in idleness[.] [FN#61] I have illustrated this chapter, which otherwise might be unintelligible to many, by a plan of the Ka’abah (taken from Ali Bey al-Abbasi), which Burckhardt pronounced to be “perfectly correct.” This author has not been duly appreciated. In the first place, his disguise was against him; and, secondly, he was a spy of the French Government. According to Mr. Bankes, who had access to the original papers at Constantinople, Ali Bey was a Catalonian named Badia, and was suspected to have been of Jewish extraction. He claimed from Napoleon a reward for his services, returned to the East, and died, it is supposed, of poison in the Hauran, near Damascus. In the edition which I have consulted (Paris, 1814) the author labours to persuade the world by marking the days with their planetary signs, &c., &c., that he is a real Oriental, but he perpetually betrays himself. Some years ago, accurate plans of the two Harims were made by order of the present Sultan. They are doubtless to be found amongst the archives at Constantinople. [FN#62] It must be remembered that the Moslems, like many of the Jews, hold that Paradise was not on earth, but in the lowest firmament, which is, as it were, a reflection of earth.