Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/339

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIEE 817 was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina -<^ and Mecca,^! Mecca near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places Avas knovn to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba ; and the termination of the word is expressive of its greatness, which has not indeed, in the most flourishing period, exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some latent motive, pei'haps of superstitit)n, must have impelled the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising situation. They erected their habitations of mud or stone in a plain about two miles long and o)ie mile broad, at the foot of three barren mountains ; the soil is a rock ; the water even of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish ; the pastures are remote from the city ; and grapes are trans- ported about seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef. The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in Mecca, Avere conspicuous among the Arabian tribes ; but their ungrateful soil refused the labours of agriculture, and their position was favourable to the enterprises of trade. By the sea-port of her trade Gedda, at the distance only of forty miles, they maintained an easy coirespondence with Abyssinia ; and that Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the ])eninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean exiles ; -'-^ and from thence, Avith the native pearls of the Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an 20 The name of rity, Medina, was appropriated, ko-t efo,v))i', to Yatreb [Yathrib] (the latrippa of the Greeks), the seat of the prophet [al-Med!na, or, in full, Medinat en-Nebi, ' ' the city of the prophet "]. The distances from Medina are reckoned by Abulfc-da in stations, or days' journey of a caravan (p. 15), to Bahrein, xv. ; to Bassora, xviii. ; to Cufah, xx. ; to Damascus or Palestine, xx. ; to Cairo, xxv. ; to Mecca, x. ; from Mecca to Saana (p. 52), or Aden, xxx. ; to Cairo, xxxi. days, or 412 hours (Shaw's Travels, p. 477) ; which, according to the estimate of d'Anville (Mesures Itindraires, p. 99), allows about twenty-five English miles for a day's journey. From the land of frankincense (Hadramaut, in Yemen, between Aden and Cape Fartasch) to Gaza, in Syria, Phny (Hist. Nat. xii. 32) computes Ixv. mansions of camels. These measures may assist fancy and elucidate facts. 21 Our notions of Mecca must be drawn from the Arabians (d'Herbelot, Biblio- theque Orientale, p. 368-371. Pocock, Specimen, p. 125-128. Abulfeda, p. 11-40). As no unljcliever is permitted to enter the city, our travellers are silent ; and the short hints of Thevenot (Voyages du Levant, part i. p. 490) are taken from the suspicious mouth of an African renegado. Some Persians counted 6000 houses (Chardin, tom. iv. p. 167). [For a description of Mecca, see Burckhardt, 0/. cit. ; and Sir. R. Burton's Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meecah, 1855-6 ; and, best of all, Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, i888. Gibbon was ignorant of the visit of Joseph Pitts, his captivity and his book, "Account of the religion and manners of the Mahometans" (3rd ed., 1731). For this, and other visits, see Burton, op. cit., Appendix.] "Strabo, 1. xvi. p. mo [3, § 3]. See one of these salt houses near Bassora, in d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient, p. 6.