The Mekkawys study little besides the language and the law. Some boys learn at least as much Turkish as will enable them to cheat the Osmanly pilgrims to whom their knowledge of that tongue may recommend them as guides. The astronomer of the mosque learns to know the exact time of the Sun’s passing the meridian, and occupies himself occasionally with astrology and horoscopes. A Persian doctor, the only avowed medical professor I saw at Mekka, deals in nothing [p.216] but miraculous balsams and infallible elixirs; his potions are all sweet and agreeable; and the musk and aloe-wood which he burns, diffuse through his shop a delicious odour, which has contributed to establish his reputation. Music, in general so passionately loved among the Arabs, is less practised at Mekka than in Syria and Egypt. Of instruments they possess only the rababa, (a kind of guitar,) the nay, (a species of clarinet,) and the tambour, or tambourine. Few songs are heard in the evenings, except among the Bedouins in the skirts of the town. The choral song called Djok, is sometimes sung by the young men at night in the coffee-houses, its measure being accompanied with the clapping of hands. In general, the voices of the Hedjazys are harsh, and not clear: I heard none of those sonorous and harmonious voices which are so remarkable in Egypt, and still more in Syria, whether giving utterance to love songs, or chanting the praises of Mohammed from the minarets, which in the depth of night has a peculiarly grand effect. Even the Imams of the mosque, and those who chant the anthems, in repeating the last words of the introductory prayers of the Imam, men who in other places are chosen for their fine voices, can here be distinguished only by their hoarseness and dissonance. The Sherif has a band of martial music, similar to that kept by Pashas, composed of kettle-drums, trumpets, fifes, &c.: it plays twice a day before his door, and for about an hour on every evening of the new moon. Weddings are attended by professional females, who sing and dance: they have, it is said, good voices, and are not of that dissolute class to which the public singers and dancers belong in Syria and Egypt. The Mekkawys say, that before the Wahaby invasion, singers might be heard during the evening in every street, but that the austerity of the Wahabys, who, though passionately fond of their own Bedouin songs, disapproved of the public singing of females, occasioned the ruin of all musical pursuits:--this, however, may be only an idle notion, to be ranked with that which is as prevalent in the East as it is in Europe, that old times were always better in every respect than the present.