ABSTRACT
W e will now speak o f the very noble city o f Mecca, what it is, its state, and who governs it. The city is most beauti ful, and is very well inhabited, and contains about 6,000 families. The houses are extremely good, like our own, and there are houses worth three or four thousand ducats each. This city is not surrounded by walls.2 A quarter of a mile distant from the city we found a mountain where there was a road cut by human labour.3 And then we descended into
1 The remarkable coincidence o f this casual remark with the historical record o f the period has been fully noticed in the Introduction.
