Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1842

 Similar testimonies are to be found in the inscriptions of Burckhardt. After a long sojourn on the hill, which was occasioned by the investigation of some interesting plants in the crater of the mound, we set out for Sa'dîje, which is built on the slope of a hill. After a good hour's journey we arrived at the Makâm Êjûb, “the favoured tomb of Job,” situated at the southern base of the hill, and rendered conspicuous by two white domes, and there we dismounted. The six attendants and alumni of the Makâm, or, as the Arabs thoughtfully call them, “the servants of our master Job” (châdimîn sêjidna Êjûb), received us, with some other pilgrims, at the door of the courtyard, and led us to the basin of the fountain of Job, by the side of which they spread out their mantles for us to rest upon under the shade of walnut tree and a willow. While the rest were negated in the duties of hospitality, the superior of the Makâm, the Sheikh Sa'îd el-Darfûri (from Darfûr) did not leave us, and made himself in every way obliging. Like him, all the rest of the inhabitants of the place were black, and all unmarried; their celibacy, however, I imagine, was only caused by the want of opportunity of marrying, and the limited accommodation of the place. Sheikh Sa'îd believed himself to be fifty years of age; he left his home twenty years before to go on pilgrimage to Mekka, where he “studied” four years; the same length of time he sojourned in Medîna, and had held his present office ten years. Besides his mother tongue, he spoke Arabic and a little Turkish, having been in Constantinople a few years before. His judgment of the inhabitants of that city is rather harsh: he charges them with immorality, drunkenness, and avarice. In one year, said he, I could hardly save enough to travel by the steamer to Chôdscha Bêk (Odessa). How different was my experience to the inhabitants of this city! I was there three months, during