Some parts of the walls and arches are gaudily painted in stripes of yellow, red, and blue, as are also the minarets. Paintings of flowers, in the usual Muselman
[p.297] style, are nowhere seen; the floors of the colonnades are paved with large stones badly cemented together.
Some paved causeways lead from the colonnades towards the Kaabah, or Holy House, in the centre.[FN#9] They are of sufficient breadth to admit four or five persons to walk abreast, and they are elevated about nine inches above the ground. Between these causeways, which are covered with fine gravel or sand, grass appears growing in several places, produced by the Zem Zem water oozing out of the jars which are placed in the ground in long rows during the day.[FN#10] There is a descent of eight or ten steps from the gates on the north side into the platform of the colonnade, and of three or four steps from the gates on the south side.
Towards the middle of this area stands the Kaabah; it is 115 paces from the north colonnade, and 88 from the south. For this want of symmetry we may readily account, the Kaabah having existed prior to the Mosque, which was built around it, and enlarged at different periods. The Kaabah is an oblong massive structure, 18 paces in length, 14 in breadth, and from 35 to 40 feet in height.[FN#11] It is constructed of the grey Mekka stone, in large blocks of different sizes joined together, in a very
[p.298] rough manner, with bad cement.[FN#12] It was entirely rebuilt, as it now stands, in A.D. 1627. The torrent in the preceding year had thrown down three of its sides, and, preparatory to its re-erection, the fourth side was, according to Asamy, pulled down, after the Olemas, or learned divines, had been consulted on the question whether mortals might be permitted to destroy any part of the holy edifice without incurring the charge of sacrilege and infidelity.
The Kaabah stands upon a base two feet in height, which presents a sharp inclined plane.[FN#13] Its roof being flat, it has at a distance the appearance of a perfect cube.[FN#14] The only door which affords entrance, and which is opened but two or three times in the year,[FN#15] is on the
[p.299] north side and about seven feet above the ground.[FN#16] In the first periods of Islam, however, when it was rebuilt in A.H. 64 by Ibn Zebeyr (Zubayr), chief of Mecca, it had two doors even with the ground floor of the Mosque.[FN#17]