Presently the coffee-tent keeper, after receiving payment, brought us water for ablution. This preamble over, we entered the principal chapel; an unpretending building, badly lighted, spread with dirty rugs, full of pilgrims, and offensively close. Here we prayed the Isha, or night devotions, and then a two-bow prayer in honour of the Ihram,[FN#24] after which we distributed gratuities to the guardians, and alms to the importunate beggars. And now I perceived the object of Abdullah’s companionship. The melancholy man assured me that he had ridden out for love of me, and in order to perform as Wakil (substitute) a vicarious pilgrimage for my parents. Vainly I assured him that they had been strict in the exercises of their faith. He would take no denial, and I perceived that love of me meant love of my dollars. With a surly assent, he was at last permitted to act for the “pious pilgrim Yusuf (Joseph) bin Ahmad and Fatimah bint Yunus,”—my progenitors. It was impossible to prevent smiling at contrasts, as Abdullah, gravely raising his hands, and directing his face to the Ka’abah, intoned, “I do vow this Ihram of Umrah in the name of Yusuf Son of Ahmad, and Fatimah Daughter of Yunus; then render it attainable unto them, and accept it of them! Bismillah! Allaho Akbar!” [p.244] Remounting, we galloped towards Meccah, shouting Labbayk, and halting at every half-mile to smoke and drink coffee. In a short time we entered the city, and repairing to the Harim by the Safa Gate, performed the Tawaf, or circumambulation of Umrah. After this dull round and necessary repose we left the temple by the same exit, and mounting once more, turned towards Al-Safa, which stands about a hundred yards South-East of the Mosque, and as little deserves its name of “Mountain” as do those that undulate the face of modern Rome. The Safa end is closed by a mean-looking building, composed of three round arches, with a dwarf flight of stairs leading up to them out of a narrow road. Without dismounting, we wheeled our donkeys[FN#25] round, “left shoulders forward,” no easy task in the crowd, and, vainly striving to sight the Ka’abah through the Bab al-Safa, performed the Niyat, or vow of the rite Al-Sai, or the running.[FN#26] After Tahlil, Takbir, and Talbiyat, we raised our hands in the supplicatory position, and twice repeated,[FN#27] “There is no god but Allah, Alone, without Partner; His is the Kingdom, unto Him be Praise; He giveth Life and Death, He is alive and perisheth not; in His Hand is Good, and He over all Things is Omnipotent.” Then, with the donkey-boys leading our animals and a stout fellow preceding us with lantern and a quarter-staff to keep off the running Badawin, camel-men, and riders of asses, we descended Safa, and walked slowly down the street Al-Massa, towards Marwah.[FN#28]