We followed the road by which the Caravans entered Meccah. It was covered with white-robed pilgrims, some few wending their way on foot[FN#1]; 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 [p.179] hold his nose.[FN#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,[FN#3] and entered the plain of many names.[FN#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,[FN#5] and the narrow, hill-girt entrance, to the low gravel basin in which Muna lies.