The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-03-16
BURIAL PLACE OF
EVE IS NEAR MECCA
GRAVE SUPPOSED TO BE AT JID-
DA, FoRTY-FIVE MILES FROM
IsLAMs BROADWAY.

WASHINGTON, D. C.-Jidda, re-
puted burial place of Eve, and forty
five miles from Islam's religious
Broadway, the holy city of Mecca, has
been selected for the meeting place
of Lord Allenby and the King of the
Hedjaz.
Frederick Simpich, ma communica-
ton to the National Geographic Soci-
ETY., writes of Jidda and Mecca as fol-
lows:
"The port of Jidda, red sea gate
way to hidden Mecca, sprawls over
hot, treeless hills, whitewashed, SIMS
ter and forbidding, as if loath to give
up her long guardianship of Arabia's
secrets and isolation.
"a cables length off shore our pill
grim ship swung at anchor, bllsterlng
and silent, for cholera had come
among the white-robed, praying pill
grims and the Tigris was quarantined
against this dread disease. For days
we rolled on the oily swells of the Red
sea, waiting for the hateful yellow
flag to be pulled down.
'Tdling at the foul, sticky rail,
gazed down into the clear, deep wat
ers. seeking in whimsical fancy to
make out rusty old chariot wheels or
the white bones of men and horses,
relics of Pharaoh's hosts engulfed so
long ago.
Ewes Tomb
Here in Jidda the Arabs will show
YOU long stone tomb shaped like an
airship's hangar; here, they claim,
Eve is buried. Adam and Eve were
big people, the Arabs say; Eve was
so tall she could hold a grown lion
in her lap. When you note the size
of her tomb, you can readily believe
she was rather a stalwart dame.
Forty five miles east of Jidda,
poured into the canyons and valleys
of a mass of rough hills, lies Mecca
itself, the famous holy city of Islam.
In spite of it's vast political and reli-
gious Importance, the town is mean
and small, with les sthan 100000 Mo-
hammedan souls. 1t has almost no
trade, and it manufactures nothing.
But it has the largest tourist traffic
of any city on earth, and like other
tourist towns, it lives on the traveller.
"The Meccans peddle food and
clothing to the pilgrims, rent them
houses, act as their guides, make con-
tracts for transporting pilgrims by
! land and sea, and in hundred other
ways they craftily exploit Ito their
own special benefit) the vast benefac-
tions that flow to the holy city. Even
| temporary marriages are arranged
for the visiting pilgrims.
"And the country Arabs, or Bedou-
ms, likewise thrive on the bounty OF
the pilgrim, either by outright rob-
berry and pillage of the caravans or
by imposing taxes, for protection on
those who pass through their tribal
regions.
"But even among the Bedouins the
Meccans have bad reputation. They
say the worst birth certificate any
Arab can have is the Tashrift (three
parallel gashes), distinguishing the
bearer as one born in Mecca.
Ever since Mohammed purged the
Kaaba of early Arab idols and made
it the chief sanctuary of Moslem wor-
ship by the fiction that Gabriel threw
the black stone down from heaven to
Abraham, 'the unspeakable vices of
Mecca have been scandal to all Is
lam and a constant source of wonder
to pious pilgrims
"All we know of Mecca, as yet, has
come mostly from Moslem writers
and photographers, and from the mea-
ger reports of few Christians like
Burton, Heroine and others, who
braved the dangers of discovery and
succeeded in visiting the hidden city.
But, with the rise of the new nation,
Mecca and Medina will go on the re-
vised map as places to which Chris
tians may travel, if they wish, either
as merchants or tourists.
at is not likely, judging from its
location, climate and surroundings,
that many non-Moslem globe-trotters
will get the Mecca habit, but its days
of complete isolation probably are
gone forever"