Mecca

ولما وصلت القاهرة وجدت قاضي القضاة عز الدين بن قاضي القضاة بدر الدين ابن جماعة قد توجه إلى مكة في ركب عظيم يسمونه الرجبي لسفرهم في شهر رجب ... وأخبرت أن الوباء لم يزل معهم حتى وصلوا عقبة أيلة فارتفع عنهم.

When I arrived in Cairo, I found that the chief judge Izz al-Din, son of the chief judge Badr al-Din ibn Jamaa, had left for Mecca with a great caravan. They call it the Rajab caravan, because it travels in the month of Rajab. I was told that the pestilence stayed with them until they reached the pass of Ayla, and then it lifted.

A terre, les tapis recommençaient, une jonchée de toisons grasses : il y avait, au centre, un tapis d'Agra, une pièce extraordinaire à fond blanc et à large bordure bleu tendre, où couraient des ornements violâtres, d'une imagination exquise; partout, ensuite, s'étalaient des merveilles, les tapis de la Mecque aux reflets de velours, les tapis de prière du Daghestan à la pointe symbolique, les tapis du Kurdistan semés de fleurs épanouies; enfin, dans un coin, un écroulement à bon marché, des tapis de Gheurdès, de Coula et de Kircheer, en tas, depuis quinze francs.

On the floor the carpets began again, a litter of thick fleeces. In the center lay a carpet from Agra, an extraordinary piece with a white ground and a wide border of soft blue, where purplish ornaments ran in exquisite designs. Everywhere else, marvels were spread out: carpets from Mecca with a velvety sheen, prayer rugs from Daghestan with their symbolic point, and carpets from Kurdistan scattered with flowers in full bloom. Last, in one corner, lay a cheap tumble of carpets from Gheurdès, Coula, and Kircheer, piled up, from fifteen francs.