Nothing is more simple than the interior of this celebrated building. The pavement, which is level with the ground, is composed of slabs of fine and various coloured marbles, mostly, however, white, disposed chequerwise. The walls, as far as they can be seen, are of the same material, but the pieces are irregularly shaped, and many of them are engraved with long inscriptions in the Suls and other modern characters. The upper part of the walls, together with the ceiling, at which it is considered disrespectful to look,[FN#12] are covered with handsome
[p.208] red damask, flowered over with gold,[FN#13] and tucked up about six feet high, so as to be removed from pilgrims hands. The flat roof is upheld by three cross-beams, whose shapes appear under the arras; they rest upon the eastern and western walls, and are supported in the centre by three columns[FN#14] about twenty inches in diameter, covered with carved and ornamented aloes wood.[FN#15] At the Iraki corner there is a dwarf door, called Bab al-Taubah (of Repentance).[FN#16] It leads into a narrow passage and to the staircase by which the servants ascend to the roof: it is never opened except for working purposes. The Aswad or
[p.209] Asad[FN#17] corner is occupied by a flat-topped and quadrant-shaped press or safe,[FN#18] in which at times is placed the key of the Kaabah.[FN#19] Both door and safe are of aloes wood. Between the columns, and about nine feet from the ground, ran bars of a metal which I could not distinguish, and hanging to them were many lamps, said to be of gold.
Although there were in the Kaabah but a few attendants engaged in preparing it for the entrance of pilgrims,[FN#20] the windowless stone walls and the choked-up door made it worse than the Piombi of Venice; perspiration trickled in large drops, and I thought with horror what it must be when filled with a mass of furiously jostling and crushing fanatics. Our devotions consisted of a two-bow prayer,[FN#21] followed by long supplications at the Shami (West) corner, the Iraki (north) angle, the Yamani (south), and, lastly, opposite the southern third of the back wall.[FN#22] These concluded, I returned to the door, where payment is made. The boy Mohammed told me that the total expense would be seven dollars. At the same time he had been indulging aloud in his favourite rhodomontade, boasting of my greatness, and had declared me to be an Indian pilgrim, a race still supposed at