'Personal Narrative of a pilgrimmage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. Vol. II' [‎358] (393/568)

APPENDIX V.
the pilgrimage of joseph pitts to meccah and
al-madinah.—a.d. l58o.
Our second pilgrim was Jos. Pitts, of Exon, 1 a youth
fifteen or sixteen years old, when in a.d. 1678, his genius
" leading him to be a sailor and to see foreign countries,"
caused him to be captured by an Algerine pirate. After
living in slavery for some years, he was taken by his
" patroon " to Meccah and Al-Madinah via Alexandria,
Rosetta, Cairo, and Suez. His description of these
places is accurate in the main points, and though tainted
with prejudice and bigotry, he is free from superstition
and credulity. Conversant with Turkish and Arabic, he
has acquired more knowledge of the tenets and practice
of Al-Islam than his predecessor, and the term of his
residence at Algier, fifteen years, sufficed, despite the
defects of his education, to give fulness and finish to his
observations. His chief patr oon, captain of a troop of
1 It is curious, as Crichton (Arabia, vol. ii. p. 208) observes, that
Gibbon seems not to have seen or known anything of the little work
published by Pitts on his return home. It is entitled "A faithful
Account of the Religion and the Manners of the Mahometans, in
which is a particular Relation of their Pilgrimage to Mecca, the
Place of Mahomet's Birth, and Description of Medina, and of his
Tomb there," &C., &c. My copy is the 4th edition, printed for
T. Longman and R. Hett, London, a.d. 1708. The only remarkable
feature in the " getting up " of the little octavo is, that the engraving
headed " the most sacred and antient Temple of the Mahometans at
Mecca," is the reverse of the impression