The Ceremonies of the Yaum Al-Tarwiyah, or the First Day.

AT ten A.M., on the 8th Zu’l Hijjah, A.H. 1269 (Monday, 12th Sept., 1853), habited in our Ihram, or pilgrim garbs, we mounted the litter. Shaykh Mas’ud had been standing at the door from dawn-time, impatient to start before the Damascus and the Egyptian caravans made the road dangerous. Our delay arose from the tyrannical conduct of the boy Mohammed, who insisted upon leaving his little nephew behind. It was long before he yielded. I then placed the poor child, who was crying bitterly, in the litter between us, and at last we started.

We followed the road by which the Caravans entered Meccah. It was covered with white-robed pilgrims, some few wending their way on foot1; others riding, and all men barefooted and bareheaded. Most of the wealthier classes mounted asses. The scene was, as usual, one of strange contrasts: Badawin bestriding swift dromedaries; Turkish dignitaries on fine horses; the most picturesque beggars, and the most uninteresting Nizam. Not a little wrangling mingled with the loud bursts of Talbiyat. Dead animals dotted the ground, and carcasses had been cast into a dry tank, the Birkat al-Shami which caused every Badawi to hold his nose.2 Here, on the right of the road, the poorer pilgrims, who could not find houses, had erected huts, and pitched their ragged tents. Traversing the suburb Al-Ma’b’dah (Ma’abadah), in a valley between the two barren prolongations of Kayka’an and Khandamah, we turned to the north-east, leaving on the left certain barracks of Turkish soldiery, and the negro militia here stationed, with the Saniyat Kuda’a in the background. Then, advancing about 3000 paces over rising ground, we passed by the conical head of Jabal Nur,3 and entered the plain of many names.4 It contained nothing but a few whitewashed walls, surrounding places of prayer, and a number of stone cisterns, some well preserved, others in ruins. All, however, were dry, and water-vendors crowded the roadside. Gravel and lumps of granite grew there like grass, and from under every large stone, as Shaykh Mas’ud took a delight in showing, a small scorpion, with tail curled over its back, fled, Parthian-like, from the invaders of its home. At eleven A.M., ascending a Mudarraj, or flight of stone steps, about thirty yards broad, we passed without difficulty, for we were in advance of the caravans, over the Akabah, or Steeps,5 and the narrow, hill-girt entrance, to the low gravel basin in which Muna lies.

Muna, more classically called Mina,6 is a place of considerable sanctity. Its three standing miracles are these: The pebbles thrown at “the Devil” return by angelic agency to whence they came; during the three Days of Drying Meat rapacious beasts and birds cannot prey there; and, lastly, flies do not settle upon the articles of food exposed so abundantly in the bazars.7 During pilgrimage, houses are let for an exorbitant sum, and it becomes a “World’s Fair” of Moslem merchants. At all other seasons it is almost deserted, in consequence, says popular superstition, of the Rajm or (diabolical) lapidation.8 Distant about three miles from Meccah, it is a long, narrow, straggling village, composed of mud and stone houses of one or two stories, built in the common Arab style. Traversing a narrow street, we passed on the left the Great Devil, which shall be described at a future time. After a quarter of an hour’s halt, spent over pipes and coffee, we came to an open space, where stands the Mosque “Al-Khayf.” Here, according to some Arabs, Adam lies, his head being at one end of one long wall, and his feet at another, whilst the dome covers his omphalic region. Grand preparations for fireworks were being made in this square; I especially remarked a fire-ship, which savoured strongly of Stambul. After passing through the town, we came to Batn al-Muhassir, “The Basin of the Troubler,9” (Satan) at the beginning of a descent leading to Muzdalifah (the Approacher), where the road falls into the valley of the Arafat torrent.

At noon we reached the Muzdalifah, also called Mashar al-Haram, the “Place dedicated to religious Ceremonies.10” It is known in Al-Islam as “the Minaret without the Mosque,” opposed to Masjid Nimrah, which is the “Mosque without the Minaret.” Half-way between Muna and Arafat, it is about three miles from both. There is something peculiarly striking in the distant appearance of the tall, solitary tower, rising abruptly from the desolate valley of gravel, flanked with buttresses of yellow rock. No wonder that the ancient Arabs loved to give the high-sounding name of this oratory to distant places in their giant Caliph-empire.

Here as we halted to perform the mid-day prayer, we were overtaken by the Damascus Caravan. It was a grand spectacle. The Mahmil, no longer naked as upon the line of march, flashed in the sun all green and gold. Around the moving host of white-robed pilgrims hovered a crowd of Badawin, male and female, all mounted on swift dromedaries, and many of them armed to the teeth. As their drapery floated in the wind, and their faces were veiled with the “Lisam,” it was frequently difficult to distinguish the sex of the wild being, flogging its animal to speed. These people, as has been said, often resort to Arafat for blood-revenge, in hopes of finding the victim unprepared. Nothing can be more sinful in Al-Islam than such deed — it is murder, “made sicker” by sacrilege; yet the prevalence of the practice proves how feeble is the religion’s hold upon the race. The women are as unscrupulous: I remarked many of them emulating the men in reckless riding, and striking with their sticks every animal in the way.

Travelling Eastward up the Arafat Fiumara, after about half an hour we came to a narrow pass called Al-Akhshabayn11 or the “Two Rugged Hills.” Here the spurs of the rock limited the road to about a hundred paces, and it is generally a scene of great confusion. After this we arrived at Al-Bazan (the Basin),12 a widening of the plain; and another half-hour brought us to the Alamayn (the “Two Signs”), whitewashed pillars, or rather thin, narrow walls, surmounted with pinnacles, which denote the precincts of the Arafat plain. Here, in full sight of the Holy Hill, standing boldly out from the deep blue sky, the host of pilgrims broke into loud Labbayks. A little beyond, and to our right, was the simple enclosure called the Masjid Nimrah.13 We then turned from our eastern course northwards, and began threading our way down the main street of the town of tents which clustered about the southern foot of Arafat. At last, about three P.M., we found a vacant space near the Matbakh, or kitchen, formerly belonging to a Sharif’s palace, but now a ruin with a few shells of arches.

Arafat is about six hours’ very slow march, or twelve miles,14 on the Taif road, due east of Meccah. We arrived there in a shorter time, but our weary camels, during the last third of the way, frequently threw themselves upon the ground. Human beings suffered more. Between Muna and Arafat I saw no fewer than five men fall down and die upon the highway: exhausted and moribund, they had dragged themselves out to give up the ghost where it departs to instant beatitude.15 The spectacle showed how easy it is to die in these latitudes16; each man suddenly staggered, fell as if shot; and, after a brief convulsion, lay still as marble. The corpses were carefully taken up, and carelessly buried that same evening, in a vacant space amongst the crowds encamped upon the Arafat plain.17

The boy Mohammed, who had long chafed at my pertinacious claim to Darwaysh-hood, resolved on this occasion to be grand. To swell the party he had invited Omar Effendi, whom we accidentally met in the streets of Meccah, to join us[;] but failing therein, he brought with him two cousins, fat youths of sixteen and seventeen, and his mother’s ground-floor servants. These were four Indians: an old man; his wife, a middle-aged woman of the most ordinary appearance; their son, a sharp boy, who spoke excellent Arabic18; and a family friend, a stout fellow about thirty years old. They were Panjabis, and the bachelor’s history was instructive. He was gaining an honest livelihood in his own country, when suddenly one night Hazrat Ali, dressed in green, and mounted upon his charger Duldul19 — at least, so said the narrator — appeared, crying in a terrible voice, “How long wilt thou toil for this world, and be idle about the life to come?” From that moment, like an English murderer, he knew no peace; Conscience and Hazrat Ali haunted him.20 Finding life unendurable at home, he sold everything; raised the sum of twenty pounds, and started for the Holy Land. He reached Jeddah with a few rupees in his pocket[;] and came to Meccah, where, everything being exorbitantly dear and charity all but unknown, he might have starved, had he not been received by his old friend. The married pair and their son had been taken as house-servants by the boy Mohammed’s mother, who generously allowed them shelter and a pound of rice per diem to each, but not a farthing of pay. They were even expected to provide their own turmeric and onions. Yet these poor people were anxiously awaiting the opportunity to visit Al-Madinah, without which their pilgrimage would not, they believed, be complete. They would beg their way through the terrible Desert and its Badawin — an old man, a boy, and a woman! What were their chances of returning to their homes? Such, I believe, is too often the history of those wretches whom a fi............