But the people who most frequently go are the business men and the old people. The business men manage to make a business journey, which will include Mecca, and the old people, old women especially, are often sent as a polite way of getting rid of them when they are cranky and ill-tempered. If they die on the way, they are supposed to go straight to Heaven. A good many do die on the road, which is a very rough one. It reminds one of the man who said of his enemies that he should like to convert them and send them to Heaven before they had time to backslide.
One day in a _caravansarai_, or native inn, I met a young woman who told me a friend who was going on a pilgrimage had passed through her village and had persuaded her to come too. She was going to walk all the way and trust to charity for food, as many pilgrims do, for it is considered a greater work of merit to give to a pilgrim than to an ordinary beggar. The journey would take several months.
Yes, she said, she had a husband and children.
“Then who is going to take care of them while you are away?”
“I do not know. There was no time to make arrangements. I had not even time to tell my husband I was going. He was at work. My friends tell me it will be a very great work of merit if I go. What do you think?”
We had a long talk, and I believe she went back the same evening to her home. If so, she would get back within twenty-four hours of having left it.
The Muhammadans themselves generally allow that they are no more agreeable or kind or truthful or good after their pilgrimages--at least those who do not go say so freely. They even have a proverb: “If your friend has been to Mecca, trust him not. If he has been there twice, avoid him. But if he has made the pilgrimage the third time, flee from him as you would from Satan.”
Even dead people make pilgrimages, generally to Qum, or, if they are very important people, to Kerbela. I have not been to Kerbela, but I have been to Qum, and we met quite a number of corpses going to the burying-ground outside the big mosque. Sometimes the relations bring them, but often they cannot afford the journey and pay a muleteer to take them, and to pay the fees, which are very large. Sometimes the muleteers bury the bodies elsewhere and pocket the fees.