1. At the place of circumambulation. 2. Under the Mizab, or spout of the Ka’abah. 3. Inside the Ka’abah. 4. At the well Zemzem. 5. Behind Abraham’s place of prayer. 6 and 7. On Mounts Safa and Marwah. 8. During the ceremony called “Al-Sai.” 9. Upon Mount Arafat. 10. At Muzdalifah. 11. In Muna. 12. During the devil-stoning. 13. On first seeing the Ka’abah. 14. At the Hatim or Hijr. [FN#10] The former is the 109th, the latter the 112th chapter of the Koran (I have translated it in a previous volume). [FN#11] These superstitions, I must remark, belong only to the vulgar. [FN#12] Strictly speaking we ought, after this, to have performed the ceremony called Al-Sai, or the running seven times between Mounts Safa and Marwah. Fatigue put this fresh trial completely out of the question. [FN#13] I have been diffuse in my description of this vestibule, as it is the general way of laying out a ground-floor at Meccah. During the pilgrimage time the lower hall is usually converted into a shop for the display of goods, especially when situated in a populous quarter. [FN#14] This is equivalent to throwing oneself upon the sofa in Europe. Only in the East it asserts a decided claim to superiority; the West would scarcely view it in that light. [FN#15] Ibn Haukal begins his cosmography with Meccah “because the temple of the Lord is situated there, and the holy Ka’abah is the navel of the earth, and Meccah is styled in sacred writ the parent city, or the mother of towns.” Unfortunately, Ibn Haukal, like most other Moslem travellers and geographers, says no more about Meccah. [FN#16] To distinguish it from the Jiyad (above the cemetery Al-Ma’ala) over which Khalid entered Meccah. Some topographers call the Jiyad upon which the fort is built “the lesser,” and apply “greater” to Jiyad Amir, the hill north of Meccah. [FN#17] The Meccans, however, do not fail to boast of its strength; and has stood some sieges. [FN#18] In the Mandal, or palm-divination, a black slave is considered the best subject. European travellers have frequently remarked their nervous sensibility. In Abyssinia the maladies called “bouda” and “tigritiya” appear to depend upon some obscure connection between a weak impressionable brain and the strong will of a feared and hated race—the blacksmiths. [p.178]CHAPTER XXVIII. 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.