Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/233

Rh an annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The route could be but in one line — a direct course from the head of the Gulf of Suez to the head of the Gulf of Akaba; and it is probable that the conquerors of Egypt fixed the midway station at Nukhl; that they erected the fort, and dug the wells, and built the tanks; and that along this route thus marked out the pilgrimage has flowed and reflowed for more than twelve hundred years.

The custom of making pilgrimages to holy shrines is a very ancient one, and one that came from the East. The Wise Men came from the East to the place of the Saviour's birth. Roman Catholics have introduced the custom into Europe, but its origin is Asiatic. India is the land of pilgrimages. The Prophet did not forget to make use of this powerful means of touching the Oriental imagination, and inspiring Oriental devotion. He himself made pilgrimages to Mecca. Almost the last act of his life was to lead forty thousand pilgrims to that sacred spot. In the eyes of a hundred and fifty (some estimate it at a hundred and eighty) millions, Mecca is the holiest spot on earth. To visit it — to walk round the Kaaba, and kiss the black stone which came from heaven, and to drink of the well Zem Zem — is at once the greatest privilege and honor. To perform this act of devotion invests the pilgrim with peculiar sanctity. Pilgrims come from all parts of the Moslem world. When I crossed the Mediterranean in 1875, there were on board four hundred Circassians from the farther shores of the Black Sea; and when, four months later, I sailed from Singapore to the island of Java, the deck of the little Dutch steamer was crowded with returning pilgrims. Thus they came from the extremes of Western and Southern Asia, to meet at the same holy place in the heart of Arabia.

But the most imposing Moslem pilgrimages are from