In our own times, despite gifts brought from the furthermost corners of the world by the hundred thousand pilgrims who come each year to prostrate themselves in its temple, Makkah, "The Mother of Cities," by the splendour of its palaces and mosques, cannot vie with any great capital. In the eyes of the True Believers, its treasures are radiant with incomparable brilliancy, but which is not terrestrial. As a matter of fact, the aspect of Makkah--"Allah's Delight"--is no different from other Arab desert centres. There are more numerous and loftier dwellings, better decorated than in general, but its characteristics, on the whole, are unchanged. From the top of the Jabal Abi-Kubeis which dominates it on the eastern side, it can be viewed stretching from north to south in a narrow valley. At first, it seems to form part of the earth on which it stands, because the bare and rocky mountains surrounding it are not separated from these heights by any oasis or verdant strip, and the terrace-roofs of the houses do not stand out from the heaps of stony fragments that have rolled down from the crags. The spectator's eyes gradually get used to the landscape and pick out architectural lines; mysterious entrances to dwellings; lace-work of tall, straight minarets; and then, astonished at the sudden apparition of a big town that he never thought was there, he sees it, as in a kind of mirage, increasing excessively. Now it is the turn of the rocks to look as if changed into houses; hills becoming immense suburbs extending boundlessly. If, in this chaos of sharply-outlined shapes, it is difficult for the eye to distinguish dwellings from steep rocks; one cannot fail to be startled at once by the strange aspect of a great cube of masonry, built up in the middle of a spacious quadrangular courtyard and veiled by black silk, shining in violent contrast to the dull tints of the entire sun-scorched landscape. This black cube is the Holy Ka'bah, the veritable heart of Islam, and like so many veins bringing blood to the heart to vivify the body, all the prayers of Islam flow towards this Temple to vivify souls. It is the only spot on earth where Moslems, when adoring the Eternal, can meet face to face. [Sidenote: THE TEMPLE OF THE KA'BAH AND THE BLACK STONE] The Ka'bah is not the tomb of the Prophet, nor an object to be worshipped, as many Europeans imagine. It is a temple called "Beit Allah al Haram" (the Holy House of Allah), and its origin can be traced to the most distant days of antiquity.