The morning call., 1894-03-31
THE FORBIDDEN CITY.

4 days Journey from one of the beaten
paths of the worlds commerce stands a
city, which is one of the oldest In the
world. and contains sixty or seventy
thousand people, yet which no Christian
can enter under penalty Of death. This is
the Arabian city of Mecca, the holy city of
the Arabs, the throne and chief seat of
the religion Of Mohammed. During the
present century it has been visited by four
Europeans: Badia in 1907. Burckbardt in
1914, Burton in 1853 and Nathan in 1860
Now turns up fifth in the person of DIR.
HurgroDje of Holland. who not only sue
ceede In getting TO Mecca. but actually
remained there for six years. and has just
written a book describing his observa-
tions in the holy city.
The difficulties which the doctor had to
surmount were various and formidable
To reach Mecca he had to Join one of the
Moslem caravans, and pass himself off as
a Moslem. Not only was it necessary for
him TO speak some oriental language with
such a perfect accent that he would n OF
be detected by native of the region from
which he claimed 10 hail. but be had to
stain his complexion so as to efface the white
line of the men of the West, and to prac-
tice all the various customs which are used
by Asiatics. Burton tells US how some
Indian Moslems watched him eat day after
day, having evident suspicious OF his dis
guise, and how he had to be particularly
careful when to use his fingers and when
his spoon at his meals. Why the followers
of Moslem are so jealous of Christian in
trusion has been a puzzle to travellers. II
seems that the feeling is relic of the old
anti-Christian prejudice which led the
Moslems of the middle ages to call
Christians dogs, and to regard them as an
inferior race OF people who ought to be
thankful that they were allowed to live.
The thirty odd thousand MOslems who
land at Djiddah every year en- route for
Mecca are generally DOOR, ignorant and
unspeakably filthy. but they look down upon
Christians as a lower order of created
beings. An attempt of Christian to in
troduce himself into their society during
the pilgrimage is followed by instant
death.
Mecca itself Is rather a fine though a
dirty city. with regular we'll paved streets
and four and five story houses of stone,
but it is planted in a sand desert between
two rugged bare mountain ridges, and it is
entirely without drainage. Being in the
latitude of Tonquin aud Cuba the climate
is hot, and when the normal population Is
swelled by the advent OF sixty or seventy
thousand pilgrims the atmosphere becomes
sitting. The poorer pilgrims generally
bring their food with them, and throw the
bones and remnants in to the streets; thus
mass of fostering offal fills the air with
bacteria. In the old days Mecca was a
place OF trade and a leading station on the
caravan route to Central Arabia and Persia,
but for some centuries neither trade nor
industry have flourished; the inhabitants
live on the plunder of the pilgrims. They
mingle devout superstition with keen
capacity to make bargains In the shade of
the Kaaba, which, as the Moslems believe,
was built by Adam shortly after his hur-
ried departure from the Garden of Para
disc. a Meccan junk-dealer will strip a
Bombay pietist of his possessions with
alacrity and dispatch.
The chief interest which the Christian
world takes In Mecca arises from the fact
that it is II not the chief place Of produc-
ton at least the chief distributing point
| for cholera. Steamers from all the Indian
and Persian ports land cholera patients al
Djiddah, and three caravan routes, one
! from Irak on the Euphrates, one from
Damascus, and one from Cairo. converge
there and diffase the raw material of dis
| ease and death. Popular theory assumes