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A Prince of Islam 275
3
A day or two after the visit of the Crown Prince to the Wisdom I went to see the tomb of Mother Eve, which lies in the desert just outside the town walls. It is in the center of a small graveyard, surrounded by a low wall. Eve was apparently a lady of sufficient size to mother all the human race, for her grave is several hundred feet long. Three domes mark the position of her head, feet, and navel, and two low walls, a yard or so apart, connect them. Burton recounts that he remarked to his travelling companion, the boy Mohammed, that Eve must have been shaped like a duck, for she measures, according to the placing of the domes, 120 paces from head to waist and 80 from waist to heel. Whereupon that youth replied flippantly "that he thanked his stars the Mother was underground, otherwise that men would lose their senses with fright." We found that the tomb was not regarded with great respect by the Mahommedans, and why should it be (Islam would ask), for after all, it is only the tomb of a woman, even if she was the mother of mankind. The attendants of the tomb are women also. A ragged old one showed us around, and ended her pious office by extending a very dirty hand and whining for "backsheesh."
The four days for 1923 when the rites of the pilgrimage are celebrated were set for July, but, already when we were in Jidda (this in February) the pilgrims had begun to come in. A boat, carrying several hundred Javanese pilgrims, anchored a quarter of a mile from