Now, kindness to animals is specially recommended by Muhammad, but his followers have still much to learn in practice. The sheep and cattle are driven to the market in the early morning, before sunrise, and, unless they are sold, must remain all day long without anything to eat or to drink. The condition of some of the sheep was pitiful. The camels, that are not accustomed to be for ever nibbling like the sheep, appeared to suffer less from the deprivation of food. In that quarter of the town nearly all the tradesmen, whether cattle-sellers, butchers, fruiterers, or grocers, were Bedouins, dwelling in their encampments inside the town, and holding themselves aloof from the Arab townsmen and the foreigners. In manners, customs, and morality they have suffered but little change from the time of the Prophet, for, unlike the Meccans themselves, they have borrowed none of the characteristics of their co-religionists from alien countries. They forbid their women to be on intimate terms with the townswomen; and when you meet them buying and selling in the market place they are always extremely reserved, and sometimes not less haughty in their demeanour towards you. For the frankness which is their most pleasing quality in their canvas cities is held in restraint so soon as they take up their quarters in Mecca during the pilgrimage. The women, both rich and poor, work hard, in most cases even harder than the men, and that is why they wear, in contrast to the townswomen, who are corpulent and comely, an appearance of being as muscular as they are lean and sun-baked. Near the cattle market we saw some low shops and warehouses in which corn and provisions were being sold by Indians and Egyptians to some Bedouins who had entered the town in order to replenish their supplies, and there, too, the out-going caravans are wont to take in their eatables for the homeward journey. Rice and wheat are the commodities which are most needed by the Bedouins of Hejaz, and in these the southern Indians carry on a brisk trade with the interior of that barren province. CHAPTER IV HEALING BY FAITH