John Keane (Hajj Mohammed Amin)

Six months in Meccah: an account of the Mohammedan pilgrimage to Meccah, 1881.

Chapter ?: The Various Races.
 

[...]

...if England must be international monitor, then - as the nigger says: "If you do a t'ing, do a t'ing" - annex Arabia, blow up Meccah, and reform the world; but don't continue to figure a petty plundering pirate to the 180,000,000 of its Mohammedan inhabitants.

I must apologise for having been carried off into this tirade, and return calmly to the proper subject of my narrative.

Besides these slaves, there are many free Negroes, labourers and keepers of stalls in the bazaars. The attendants of the Kaabah are Negro eunuchs, whose duties are to keep order among the worshippers, serve out materials for the trimming and lighting of the lamps to the volunteers who are never wanting to perform these and other like duties. The Kaabah itself is washed out once a year by these attendants alone. They possess a kind of sanctity by virtue of their office, and carry long wands with which they make very free play among the refractory or crowding pilgrims, and are veritable jacks-in-office. There are also a scattering of Negro pilgrims from most Mohammedan countries. [Especially Jumallis, to whose earnest, childish faith Mohammedanism is fetisch.]

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