"رواية شخصية عن الحج الى المدينة ومكة. المجلد II" [‎٢‎٧‎٥] (٥٦٨/٣٠٨)

XXXIV.—To Jeddah.
275
scarcely say, has been carefully copied by our popular
authors, was informed that it was a " rude structure
of stone, about four feet in length, two or three feet in
height, and as many in breadth"; thus resembling the
tomb of Noah, seen in the valley of Al-Buka'a in Syria.
Bruce writes: "Two days' journey from this place
(? Meccah or Jeddah) Eve's grave, of green sods, about fifty
yards in length, is shown to this day"; but the great trav
eller probably never issued from the town-gates. And Sir
W. Harris, who could not have visited the Holy Place,
repeats, in 1840, that Eve's grave of green sod is still
shown on the barren shore of the Red Sea." The present
structure is clearly modern; anciently, I was told at
Jeddah, the sepulchre consisted of a stone at the head, a
second at the feet, and the navel-dome.
The idol of Jeddah, in the days of Arab litholatry,
was called Sakhrah Tawilah, the Long Stone. May not
this stone of Eve be the Moslemized revival of the old
idolatry? It is to be observed that the Arabs, if the
tombs be admitted as evidence, are inconsistent in their
dimensions of the patriarchal stature. The sepulchre of
Adam at the Masjid al-Khayf is, like that of Eve, gigantic.
That of Noah at Al-Buka'a is a bit of Aqueduct thirty-
eight paces long by one and a half wide. Job's tomb
near Hulah (seven parasangs from Kerbela) is small. I
have not seen the grave of Moses (south-east of the Red
Sea), which is becoming known by the bitumen cups
there sold to pilgrims. But Aaron's sepulchre in the
Sinaitic peninsula is of moderate dimensions.
On leaving the graveyard I offered the guardian a
dollar, which he received with a remonstrance that a man
of my dignity should give so paltry a fee. Nor was he
at all contented -with the assurance that nothing more
could be expected from an Afghan Darwaysh, however
pious. Next day the boy Mohammed explained the