They are bidden to lay aside one-tenth of their income for religious or charitable purposes. Their fasting takes place during the holy month of Ramazan, and lasts from morning twilight to sunset. Abstinence from food, drink, and smoking must be total. At sunset a gun announces that the day is over, and feasting commences and lasts all night. The day is thus transformed to night, and the night to day. The pilgrimage enjoined is to Mecca, and has to be performed by every Moslem at least once in his lifetime, either in person or by proxy. He then acquires the title of _Hadji_, or Pilgrim, which he prefixes to his name. The shrine or temple visited at Mecca is called the _Caaba_, and tradition records that it was there Hagar discovered the well Zem Zem, which saved Ishmael's life, and that the latter, assisted by Abraham, built a tabernacle. An angel brought the corner-stone, which all pilgrims go and kiss. It was originally of crystalline whiteness, but is now coal-black, owing to its absorption of the sins of worshipping pilgrims. On the Day of Judgment it will testify in favour of those who kissed it, whether men or women. The first mosque was built by Mahomet in Medina, and was of a very simple structure. But as his successors grew wealthier and more powerful, they vied with one another in the magnificence of the buildings erected for God's worship. They were more or less on the model of the Greek churches around them, lofty, and surmounted with a circular dome imitating the canopy of the sky. The dome is covered with lead and on the spike that crowns it is a gilt crescent. The apex of each minaret is also covered with lead and tipped with gold. The dome and the minarets standing side by side remind one of the umbrella pine-tree and the cypress--so characteristic of an Eastern landscape. The interior of a mosque is a mixture of simplicity and grandeur. The dome is supported by columns, which, in the case of the mosque of Sultan Achmet, represented in the illustration facing this chapter, are inlaid with coloured tiles, and decorated with verses from the Koran. The sunlight streams in from the numerous windows encircling the dome, or from those on the walls of the mosque, many of which are of beautiful stained glass, but without figures of any kind, as Moslems consider this would be breaking the commandment relating to images.