I paid the visit, customary on occasion of this feast, to the Kadhy, and at the expiration of the third day, (on the 15th of September,) set out for Djidda, to complete my travelling equipments, which are more easily procured there than at Mekka. On my way to the coast, I was nearly made prisoner at Bahra by a flying corps of Wahabys. My stay at Djidda was prolonged to three weeks, chiefly in consequence of sore legs; a disease very prevalent on this unhealthy coast, where every bite of a gnat, if neglected, becomes a serious wound. About the middle of October I returned to Mekka, accompanied by a slave whom I had purchased. This boy had been in the caravan with which I went from the Black Country to Sowakin, and was [p.101] quite astonished at seeing me in a condition so superior to that in which he had before known me. I took with me a camel-load of provisions, mostly flour, biscuit, and butter, procured in Djidda at one third of the price demanded at Mekka, where, immediately on my arrival, I hired decent apartments in a quarter of the town not much frequented, called Haret el Mesfale. I had here the advantage of several large trees growing before my windows, the verdure of which, among the barren and sun-burnt rocks of Mekka, was to me more exhilarating than the finest landscape could have been under different circumstances. At this place I enjoyed an enviable freedom and independence, known only to the Kadhy and his followers, who soon after took their departure. The Pasha and his court remained at Tayf till the days of the Hadj. I frequented only such society as pleased me, and, mixing with a crowd of foreign pilgrims from all parts of the world, I was not liable to impertinent remarks or disagreeable inquiries. If any question arose about my origin (a circum­stance that rarely happened in a place which always abounds with strangers), I stated myself to be a reduced member of the Mamelouk corps of Egypt, and found it easy to avoid those persons whose intimate knowledge of that country might perhaps have enabled them to detect the falsehood. But there was little to be appre­hended even from the consequences of such detection; for the assumption of a false character is frequent among all eastern travellers, and especially at Mekka, where every one affects poverty in order to escape imposition, or being led into great expenses. During all my journies in the East, I never enjoyed such perfect ease as at Mekka; and I shall always retain a pleasing recollection of my residence there, although the state of my health did not permit me to benefit by all the advantages that my situation offered. I shall now proceed to describe the town, its inhabitants, and the pilgrimage, and then resume the narrative of my travels. [p.102] DESCRIPTION OF MEKKA. [EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN. [not included]] MEKKA is dignified among the Arabs with many lofty-sounding titles. The most common are Om el Kora (the mother of towns);