and a new one put on. A few days ago a Moslem pilgrim showed me a piece of
the cloth of last year's overcoat and he was very proud of it. It was
indeed a fine piece of heavy silk and the names of God and Mohammed were
prettily woven into the cloth. This man had just come from visiting the
square-house and I will tell you what he saw.

The place he visited with hundreds and thousands of other pilgrims is
called Mecca and the square-house is the _Beit Allah_ or house of God to
all Mohammedans. It is also called the _Kaaba_, which is the Arabic word
for a cube.

The Moslems believe all sorts of foolish things about the Kaaba. They say
Adam built it as soon as he fell down on the earth out of Paradise, and
that Abraham repaired it after it had been ruined by the flood in the days
of Noah. They even show a large white stone on which Abraham and Ishmael
stood when they plastered the walls; the stone still bears the impress of
Abraham's feet, they say. Did you ever hear such a topsy-turvy story?

The building is about twenty-four cubits long and wide and nearly twenty
cubits high. It has no ornaments or beauty except one rain-spout to carry
the water off the flat roof; you can see it on the right side of the Kaaba
on the picture. This spout is said to be of pure gold. In one corner of
the building is a large black stone which is also an object of worship.
The Mohammedans say it came down from heaven with Adam and was once pure
white. By the many kisses of sinful worshippers it has turned black. Not
only is it black but broken. For about three hundred years after
Mohammed's death the stone remained imbedded in the walls of the Kaaba,
but then some wild Arabs from the Persian Gulf came, sacked Mecca and
stole the black stone. It was carried to Katif, a place near Bahrein,
right across Arabia, and they kept it a long time until the people of