The only town met with in this desert track was Suwayrkiyah, consisting of about a hundred houses, grouped at the base of an isolated mass of basaltic rock, which rises abruptly out of a hard clayey plain. The summit is converted into a rude fortalice-no settlement can exist without one in El Hejaz-by a bulwark of uncut stone, piled up so as to make a parapet, and the lower part of the town is protected by a mud wall, with the usual semicircular towers. Inside there is a bazaar, well supplied with mutton by the neighbouring Bedouins; and wheat, barley, and dates are grown near the town. This town belongs to the Beni Husayn, a tribe of schismatics, whose fealty to the Prince of Meccah is merely nominal. Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt, and so it appears to be with the Arabs in the neighbourhood of the Holy Cities; they are almost to a man schismatics, and they never fail, when it is in their power, to rob the pilgrim bound from distant lands on a pious errand, which, it would be supposed, would win for him the respect and protection of the countrymen of the Prophet.

At the next station, a large village called El Sufaya, they were joined by the Baghdad caravan, escorted, Mr. Burton says, by the fierce mountaineers of Jebel Shamar. This, we suspect, is a mistake: the Shamar tribe of Arabs dwell in the plains of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and the only hills they are acquainted with are the Jebel Singar. With such a motley crew of irascible tempers, it is almost needless to say quarrels were of hourly occurrence, and even murders not unfrequent. "I never saw," Mr. Burton relates, and he had had some experience, as those who will peruse his most remarkable narrative will find, "a more pugnacious assembly; a look sufficed for a quarrel. Once a Wahabi stood in front of us, and by pointing with his finger, and other insulting gestures, showed his hatred to the chibuk, in which I was peaceably indulging. It was impossible to refrain from chastising his insolence by a polite and smiling offer of the offending pipe. This made him draw his dagger without a thought; but it was sheathed again, for we all cocked our pistols, and these gentry prefer steel to lead."

At length, at El Zaribah, the appointed place, shaving, washing, and perfuming became the order of the day, and the pilgrim garb, consisting of two cotton cloths, worn in a particular manner, was assumed. No covering was allowed to the head or the instep. All quarrels and bad language were for the future to be avoided, animal life was to be revered, to the extent that scratching was no longer permitted, and even vegetable life was to be held as sacred. It is needless to say that the Moslems themselves admit that none but the Prophet could be perfect in the intricacies of pilgrimage. The caravan now assumed a wondrously picturesque aspect. Crowds hurried along, habited in the pilgrim garb, whose whiteness contrasted strangely with their black skins, their newly shaven heads glistening in the sun, and their long black hair streaming in the wind. The rocks rang with shouts of "Labbayk! Labbayk!" Columns of Wahabis, dark, fierce, savage mountaineers, guided by a large kettledrum, followed in double file the camel of a standard-bearer, whose green flag bore in huge white letters the formula of the Moslem creed. These Arabian schismatics cursed all smokers aloud as infidels and idolaters. Their women also disdained the veil. A momentary attempt upon the caravan, made by the Utaybah robbers at a pass a little beyond El Zaribah, was at once repelled by these brave but reckless savages.

Soon after this little adventure the caravan reached classic and poetic ground, the Wady Laymun, "the Valley of Limes." Scattered villages, buried in clumps of limes, citrons, lemons, pomegranates, and the rarer balm of Gilead, told of the approach to a city. Bedouin girls looked over the garden walls laughingly, and children came out to offer fresh fruit and sweet water. The Sherif of Meccah, a dark, beardless old fanatic, who applied for the expulsion of our consul at Jeddah on the ground that an infidel should not hold position in the Holy Land, came out with his sons and attendants to meet the caravan. The final entry into the Holy City was not so striking as the first appearance of El Medinah.

About 1 A. M. I was aroused (Mr. Burton relates) by general excitement "Meccah! Meccah!" cried some voices; "The Sanctuary! O the Sanctuary!" exclaimed others; and all burst into loud "Labbayk," not unfrequently broken by sobs. I looked out from my litter, and saw by the light of the southern stars the dim outlines of a large city, a shade darker than the surrounding plain. We were passing over the last ridge by an artificial cut, called the Saniyat Kudaa. The "winding path" is flanked on both sides by watch-towers, which command the "Darbel Maala," or road leading from the north into Meccah. Thence we passed into the Maabidah (northern suburb), where the sherif's palace is built. After this, on the left hand, came the deserted abode of the Sherif Bin Aun, now said to be a "haunted house." Opposite to it lies the Jaunat el Maala, the holy cemetery of Meccah. Thence, turning to the right, we entered the Sulaymaniyah, or Afghan quarter.

Meccah is so near the coast that it has already been the theme of many a description. This is because, in case of detection, the traveller can perchance make his escape good to Jeddah in a few hours, but at El Medinah discovery would assuredly entail serious consequences. The chief feature of the place, the Bait Ullah, "House of Allah," or Kaabah, has hence been fully described by Burckhardt and Ali Bey. Mr. Burton, therefore, wisely devoted himself rather to giving an account of the proceedings of the pilgrims during the Holy Week, than to detailed descriptions of localities. And it would, indeed, be difficult to imagine anything more novel or interesting than this account of the ceremonies and festivals of the Moslems. Mr. Burton entered into them almost with the spirit of a Mussulman. See him in the presence of the Sanctuary:

There at last it lay, the bourn of my long and weary pilgrimage, realising the plans and hopes of many a year. The mirage medium of fancy invested the huge catafalque and its gloomy pall with peculiar charms. There were no giant fragments of hoar antiquity as in Egypt, no remains of graceful and harmonious beauty as in Greece and Italy, no barbaric gorgeousness as in the buildings of India; yet the view was strange, unique, and how few have looked upon the celebrated shrine! I may truly say that, of all worshippers who clung weeping to the curtain, or who pressed their beating hearts to the stone, none felt for a moment a deeper emotion than did the Haji from the far North. It was as if the poetical legends of the Arab spoke truth, and that the waving wings of angels, not the sweet breeze of morning, were agitating and swelling the black covering of the shrine. But, to confess humbling truth, theirs was the high feeling of religious enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride.

No small difficulty was experienced in getting a sight of the worldrenowned Hajar el Aswad, "The Black Stone." Crowds of pilgrims blocked up the way: in vain our traveller prayed and raised his hands to his ears, the palms facing the stone; no one would make way for a miserable Dervish. In despair, he went through the ceremony of

circumambulation and kissing the finger tips of his right hand, but still no further progress was made; till at last the boy Muhammad collected half a dozen stalwart Meccans, with whose assistance he was enabled, by sheer strength, to wedge his way into the thin and lightlegged crowd. After thus reaching the stone, he relates, despite popular indignation, testified by impatient shouts, he monopolised the use of it for at least ten minutes. Whilst kissing it, and rubbing hands and forehead upon it, he narrowly observed it, and went away persuaded that it is a big aërolite.

Aerolite worship is a thing of such very great antiquity, ascribed, indeed, by Sanconiathon to the god Coelus, that there is little doubt that this is the true view of the case. The Arabians were given to litholatry, it is well known, long before the time of Muhammad, just as the Hindus worship a pyramidal black stone at Jagannath. The sun was worshipped at Emesa under the form of an aërolite, which was removed to Rome by Heliogabalus. Something of the same kind is to be observed in the practices of the Hebrews in setting up stones for pillars for kings—a practice which was handed down to medieval times in the Königs Stuhl, or King's Chair, near Coblentz, the Morasteen of Sweden, the Irish Stone, the Scone Stone, the King's Stone at Kingston-on-Thames, and in many other instances. It is curious that some Greek writers call these holy stones Baitulia, or Bethulia, from the Hebrew "House of our Lord," the literal interpretation of Jacob's Stone Pillar, and the name of which, "Bait Allah," is preserved in the Kaaba of Meccah.

Speaking of Meccah itself, Mr. Burton says, "The site might be compared at an humble distance to Bath. Some writers liken it to Florence; but conceive a Florence without beauty! Among the many ceremonies and pilgrimages performed during the Holy Week, one of the most striking is the visitation to Mount Arafat, which owes its repute to the legend that when our first parents forfeited heaven by eating wheat, which deprived them of their primeval purity, they were cast down upon earth. The serpent descended at Ispahan, the peacock at Cabul, Satan at Bilbays, Eve upon Arafat, and Adam at Ceylon."

Although the "Mountain of Mercy," as it is also called, is only a six hours' march, or twelve miles east of Meccah, the camels were wearied, and many pilgrims fell down and died on the way. "Between Muna and Arafat," Mr. Burton relates, "I saw no less than five men fall down and die upon the highway; exhausted and moribund, they had dragged themselves out to give up the ghost where it departs to instant beatitude. The spectacle showed how easy it is to die in these latitudes; each man suddenly staggered, fell as if shot, and, after a brief convulsion, lay still as marble." There are no end of consecrated sites on Arafat, and the breaking up the ceremonies, called the "Hurry from Arafat," was a complete rout, replete with the greatest dangers.

If, however, the pilgrimage to Arafat is one of the most striking and picturesque ceremonies of the Holy Week, the stoning of the devil is by far the most curious. At Muna, or Mina, a place of considerable sanctity, half-way between Meccah and Arafat, are no less than three devils, or devil stations. One called Jamrat el Akabah, or Shaytan al Kabir, the "Great Devil," is a dwarf buttress of rude masonry, placed against a

rough wall of stones, in a narrow way at the Meccan entrance to Muna. Another is a pillar called the "Wusta," or central place of stoning, built in the middle of Muna; and the third is at the eastern end, and is called "El Ula," or the first place. There were different days for stoning these devils, upon which days the ceremony among such a horde of savages was one continuous scene of fearful and most dangerous struggles.

The ceremonies of the Yaum el Tarwiyah, those of the Day of Arafat, the ceremonies of the Days of Victims, the Days of Drying Flesh, when five or six thousand animals are slain and cut up (in the "Devil's Punchbowl," as Mr. Burton irreverently calls it), as if on purpose to engender plague and thin the number of devotees, and lastly, the Umrah, or "Little Pilgrimage," constitute the main features of the Holy Week; but Mr. Burton also introduces us to a variety of minor performances, none of them without interest to those who like to study the vagaries of the human mind.

A general plunge into worldly pursuits and pleasures announced the end of the ceremonies. All the devotees were now "whitewashed," the book of their sins was a tabula rusa, and most of them lost no time in taking their departure, or in opening a fresh account. Nothing, therefore, remained to detain our traveller in the broiling, noxious atmosphere of Meccah, and, issuing forth into the open plain on his way to Jeddah, he felt, he says, a thrill of pleasure-such pleasure as only the captive delivered from his dungeon can experience. Exclamations of astonishment and a hospitable welcome awaited him at the British consul's house at Jeddah. Mr. Cole had, in divers discussions with the Turks about the possibility of an Englishman finding his way in disguise to Meccah, often asserted that his compatriots could do everything, even make a pilgrimage to the Holy City. The Moslems politely assented to the first, but denied the second part of the proposition. Mr. Cole now proposed to himself to have a good laugh at the expense of his bigoted friends, but he soon found that they took up the statement of their having been duped, or their Holy Places having been profaned by the presence of an infidel, so angrily, that he was induced to drop the subject. Yet the very tomb of Abu-Bekr has been profaned by unbelieving Shiahs, and the Holy Stone itself has been polluted by some incredulous Greek or Jew in a manner that will be understood by all Oriental travellers!

"The defilement of the Black Stone," says Mr. Burton, 66 was probably the work of some Jew or Greek, who risked his life to gratify a furious bigotry. The Turcomaniacs of Europe are now beginning to know how their Eastern co-religionists, and with ample reason, feel towards the Moslems."

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A NIGHT OR TWO IN PARIS.

ALTHOUGH I have been a pretty regular visitor to Paris for the last five years, strange to say I had never felt any particular inclination to dive more deeply into those mysteries which Parisian authors have such a peculiar talent for unveiling. I had hitherto been perfectly satisfied to receive their accounts of Parisian villany at second-hand but in perfect good faith, and had not attempted to prove the correctness of their details by personal inspection in company of a sergent de ville. Last October, however, being accompanied by a young painter cousin of mine on my visit to the Exhibition, and he evincing an intense inclination to judge of such matters for himself, I reluctantly consented, consoling myself with the reflection that, if I did get home again with an uninjured hide, I might be able to pick up some interesting information for my old friends the readers of the Miscellany.

At starting, however, I must premise that the two evenings I devoted to the subject were far from being sufficient to exhaust it: why even a week, with the aid of the most competent guides, would not have enabled me to treat this subject comprehensively; for this a knowledge of the most secret lurking-places is required, which you cannot enter at any given moment. I only tried, at the outset, to orienter myself to a certain extent, and judge how far it might be advisable for me to go again should curiosity prompt me hereafter. It requires great caution to visit these places if you want to derive any instruction from your visit. You must always be prepared to be taken for a mouchard so soon as you betray, by the slightest sign, that you do not belong to their sphere. The lamentable population of the barrières, who lurk in these their nooks of misery, cannot naturally comprehend that any one could descend to them from other motives than treachery and espionnage, so they regard you not only as dangerous but as unprivileged, and a kid glove will not more carefully avoid the contact of a chiffonnier's bag than these wretched beings will get out of your way. I will here only attempt to describe what these my first excursions into the realms of Parisian penury allowed me to witness.

For the purpose of these studies I had hired a trustworthy young man, who asserted that he was acquainted with every hole and corner of the barrière life. We made ourselves as unrecognisable as possible, removed from our exterior every article which might offend the native pride of the barrières, and, in addition, my cousin pocketed a revolver, to be prepared for any eventuality. Our guide was perfectly well aware where he had to lead us, for we had most carefully instructed him to show us something very vulgaire et vilain. My cousin, speaking as he does only French of Bow, had received strict orders not to open his mouth lest he might betray us, and so was condemned to the character of a deaf and dumb man. Thus, then, we commenced our voyage of discovery.

This was directed, in the first place, to the Barrières de Belleville and de la Chopinette, the Faubourgs St. Martin and du Temple. We selected the road through the former-through those gloomy streets where the