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Mahomet is said to have given a dying promise to return in a thousand years, but that time being already past, his faithful followers say the period he really mentioned was two thousand, though, owing to the weakness of his voice, he could not be distinctly heard.

A pilgrimage to Mecca is thought, by devout Mahometans, to be the most efficacious means of procuring remission of sins and the enjoyments of Paradise; and even the camels[3] which go on that journey are held so sacred after their return, that many fanatical Turks, when they have seen them, destroy their eyesight by looking closely on hot bricks, desiring to see nothing profane after so sacred a spectacle.

The early leaning of the Jews towards idolatry and superstition has been recorded in terms that admit of no dispute, by their own historians. The same leaning continued to be manifest in them for many ages. Sandys, in his travels, heard of an ancient tradition current on the borders of the Red Sea, that the day on which the Jews celebrate the passover, loaves of bread, by time converted into stone, are seen to arise from that sea;[4] and are supposed to be some of the bread the Jews left in their passage.