Under these circumstances, paying aristocratic visits does not seem likely to be an altogether profitable occupation; but they are not always attended with embarrassments of this nature. I have other aristocratic friends, who live about five hours distant from here. They are also originally from the Hedjaz; they also claim kinship with the Prophet, and they also once ruled a large tract of country. In fact, the two families divided the whole of this country between them, and their history has been almost identical.
My visit to this family was in some respects highly characteristic. My way led across the Ruhah, or “Breezy-land,” across open, rolling downs, fairly watered, and covered with the remains of what was once a magnificent oak forest. The trees are now dotted singly over it, in park-like fashion. The village itself was beautifully situated at an elevation of about seven hundred feet above the sea, on the side of a thickly wooded mountain, twelve hundred feet high. On this occasion my host, who came out to meet me, led me to an elevated platform in front of the village mosque, an unusually imposing edifice. Here, under the shade of a spreading mulberry-tree, were collected seven brothers, who represented the family, and about fifty other members of it. They were in the act of prayer when I arrived—indeed, they are renowned for their piety. Along the front of the terrace was a row of water-bottles for ablutions, behind them mats on which the praying was going forward, and behind the worshippers a confused mass of slippers. When they had done praying, they all got into their slippers. It was a marvel to me how each knew his own.
They led me to what I supposed was a place of honour, where soft coverlets had been spread near the door of the mosque. We formed the usual squatting circle, and were sipping coffee, when suddenly every one started to his feet; a dark, active little man seemed to dart into the midst of us. Everybody struggled frantically to kiss his hand, and he passed through us like a flash to the other end of the platform, followed by a tall negro, whose hand everybody, including my aristocratic host, seemed also anxious to kiss. I had not recovered from my astonishment at this proceeding, when I received a message from the new-comer to take a place by his side. I now found that he was on the seat of honour, and it became a question, until I knew who he was, whether I should admit his right to invite me to it, thus acknowledging his superiority in rank—etiquette in these matters being a point which has to be attended to in the East, however absurd it may seem among ourselves. I therefore for the moment ignored his invitation, and asked my host, in an off-hand way, who he was. He informed me that he was a mollah, held in the highest consideration for his learning and piety all through the country, upon which he, in fact, levied a sort of religious tax; that he was here on a visit, and that in his own home he was in the habit of entertaining two hundred guests a night, no one being refused hospitality. His father was a dervish, celebrated for his miraculous powers, and the mantle thereof had fallen upon the negro, who had been his servant, and who also was much venerated, because it was his habit to go to sleep in the mosque, and be spirited away, no one knew whither, in the night; in fact, he could become invisible almost at will.