Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/54

38 qualities on ourselves, as we were in the best of health, we did find it most agreeable to the palate, and I drank such quantities of it that a pious Arab, sitting near by, gazed at me, first with astonishment and then with terror, though I took no harm from the cooling draughts.

From the kubba we turn to visit the mosque, above which reaches upward a minaret whose sides are covered with beautiful mosaics. The mosque has an entrance such as I have nowhere seen in this part of Africa. Through a monumental door, studded with bronze ornaments, one enters a vestibule where the mosaics, brilliant tiles, arabesques, inscriptions and the artistic columns supporting the ceiling give evidence not only of the piety, but of the artistic taste, of the sultan who in 1339 erected this house of worship to Allah. A wide flight of stairs, with eleven marble steps, leads down from the vestibule into the court of ablutions, where the ritual basin rises from the center of an onyx pavement, worn soft and smooth by the feet of thousands of worshipers.

To enter the mosque itself we have to pass a carved cedar door of rare beauty. The interior is rich with the most typical forms and ornamentation of the Moorish architecture. The delicate workmanship of the ceiling of the mihrab, or the holy alcove marking the direction of Mecca, fills us with delight. Generally one finds here only the ordinary painted Turkish plaster. We are puzzled by the large, smooth stones which we see tying about all over the carpets on the floor without any sense of design or order, until it is explained to us that these are ritual stones, which are used in the place of water by those who, because of great age or of some infirmity or malady,