I have heard them tell the story exactly as it is recorded in the 21st chapter of Genesis; and they say, that in the very place where the child paddled with his feet, the water flowed out. “I shall now inform you how, when, and where, they receive the honourable title of Hagges, for which they are at all this pains and expence. “The Curbaen Byram, or the Feast of Sacrifice, follows two months and ten days after the Ramadan fast. The eighth day after the said two months they all enter into Hirrawem, i.e.} put on their mortifying habit again, and in that manner go to a certain hill called Gibbel el Orphat (El Arafat), i.e. the Mountain of Knowledge; for [p.374] there, they say, Adam first found and knew his wife Eve. And they likewise say, that she was buried at Gidda near the Red Sea; at whose sepulchre all the Hagges who come to Mecca by way of the Red Sea, perform two Erkaets-nomas, and, I think, no more. I could not but smile to hear this their ridiculous tradition (for so I must pronounce it), when observing the marks which were set, the one at the head, and the other at the foot of the grave: I guessed them to be a bow-shot distant from each other. On the middle of her supposed grave is a little Mosque built, where the Hagges pay their religious respect. “This Gibbel or hill is not so big as to contain the vast multitudes which resort thither; for it is said by them, that there meet no less than 70,000 souls every year, in the ninth day after the two months after Ramadan; and if it happen that in any year there be wanting some of that number, God, they say, will supply the deficiency by so many angels.[FN#31] “I do confess the number of Hagges I saw at this mountain was very great; nevertheless, I cannot think they could amount to so many as 70,000. There are certain bound-stones placed round the Gibbel, in the plain, to shew how far the sacred ground (as they esteem it) extends; and many are so zealous as to come and pitch their tents within these bounds, some time before the hour of paying their devotion here comes, waiting for it. But why they so solemnly approach this mountain beyond any other place, and receive from hence the title of Hagges, I confess I do not more fully understand than what I have already said, giving but little heed to these delusions. I observed nothing worth seeing on this hill, for there was only a small cupola on the top of it[FN#32]; [p.375] neither are there any inhabitants nearer to it than Mecca. About one or two of the clock, which is the time of Eulea-nomas, having washed and made themselves ready for it, they perform that, and at the same time perform Ekinde-nomas, which they never do at one time, but upon this occasion; because at the time when Ekinde-nomas should be performed in the accustomed order, viz. about four of the clock in the afternoon, they are imploring pardon for their sins, and receiving the Emaum’s benediction.[FN#33]