Everything moves slowly in these Arab towns. You will break the laws of good breeding if you walk fast there. Consider the camel of the desert, how he walks; he hurries not, neither does he make a sound: so take this finnikin creature as your model and form your gait on the camel’s. All Orientals pin implicit faith in the doctrine of “slow but sure,” and when they give you some work they recommend you to be “slow over it,” believing that a thing done smartly is not often done well. CHAPTER II FROM JIDDAH TO MECCA The time at my disposal being limited, I went at once in search of a guide, who should accompany me to Mecca and thence to Arafat, and put me in the way of performing the rites and mysteries of the Hájj. The men who officiate in that capacity are called _moghavems_. The pick of them had fallen to the lot of the early-comers who had flocked to Jiddah in great numbers; but with my customary luck, I chanced upon a Persian _moghavem_, whose knowledge of the ceremonies and the holy places of the Pilgrimage was seasoned with the waggish conceits of a singularly original mind. His sceptical witticisms were the more piquant in that he gloried in the name of Seyyid ’Alí. For the rest, he had travelled far and wide, had sat down and laughed beside the waters of Babylon, had wandered on foot as far to the East as Benares, and had undertaken the Pilgrimage of Mecca half a dozen times. I congratulated him on his globe-trotting habit, whereupon he showed a gleam of white teeth, raising himself on the tips of his toes, and stroked his unkempt beard complacently. Then he aired his knowledge of geography. “Yá-Moulai,” he said with unexpected gravity, “Allah has had me in His keeping, may He be praised! He has revealed to me the innermost secrets of the world, and shown to me the whole creation. I have been everywhere except in Hell, and even that experience will not be withheld from me, I trust, when I come to die. True it is, yá-Moulai, that this life is a riddle; we solve it when we give up the ghost--perhaps. Anyhow, my one desire in this world is to go to Europe that I may see China and study the philosophy of that wonderful land.” I had to avert my head lest he should detect the struggle between amusement and politeness which convulsed every feature of my face. “Ah,” said he, “your Excellency is fortunate to have met me: the Hájj Season is far advanced: _moghavems_ are scarce: and I am one of the most reasonable of men. If you will burst from the bonds of economics in the matter of salary, you will find in me a pleasant travelling companion and a lettered guide.” “Will two dollars a day content you?” I asked. The offer was a liberal one, and on the spur of a grateful impulse he clinched the bargain without a moment’s hesitation. This trait of character endeared him to me, and so I treated him on a footing of social equality so long as he was my cicerone.