Of one thing only could the beholder be really conscious--desolation,
desolation; a desolate city surrounded by huge, bare, skeleton-like
mountains, grim old Abu Kubays with the city stretching half way up its
gloomy side, on the east; the Red mountain on the west; Jebel Kara
toward Tayf, and Jebel Thaur with Jebel Jiyad the Greater, on the south.

[Illustration: "Read, O Mohammed, and see him who was able to restore
the withered hand."--See page 23.]

Yusuf watched the people, many of whom were pilgrims, swarming like so
many ants below him towards the Caaba, which was in full view, standing
like a huge sarcophagus in the center of the great courtyard. In the
transparent air of the Orient, even the pillars supporting the covered
portico about the courtyard were quite visible. Yusuf had observed the
great system of barter, the buying and selling that went on beneath the
roof of that long portico, within the very precincts of the temple set
apart for the worship of the Deity, and, as he watched the pigmy
creatures, now swarming towards the trading stalls, now hastening to
perform Tawaf about the temple, he almost wept that such sacrilege
should exist, and a great throb of pity for these erring people whose
spiritual nature was barren as the vast, treeless, verdureless waste
about them, filled his breast.

Amzi directed his attention towards the east, where the blue mountains
of Tayf stood like outposts in the distance.

"There," said he, "at but a three days' journey is the district of
plenty, the Canaan of Mecca, whence come the grapes, melons, cucumbers,
and pomegranates that are to be seen in our markets. There are pleasant
dales and gardens where the camel-thorn gives way to a carpet of