[p.271] silence the conclusion of the sermon. Further removed from the preacher, was the Sherif Yahya, with his small body of soldiers, distinguished by several green standards carried before him. The two Mahmals, or holy camels, which carry on their back the high structure that serves as the banner of their respective caravans, made way with difficulty through the ranks of camels that encircled the southern and eastern sides of the hill, opposite to the preacher, and took their station, surrounded by their guards, directly under the platform in front of him. [The Mahmal (an exact representation of which is given by D’Ohsson,) is a high, hollow, wooden frame, in the form of a cone, with a pyramidal top, covered with a fine silk brocade adorned with ostrich feathers, and having a small book of prayers and charms placed in the midst of it, wrapped up in a piece of silk. (My description is taken from the Egyptian Mahmal.) When on the road, it serves as a holy banner to the caravan; and on the return of the Egyptian caravan, the book of prayers is exposed in the mosque El Hassaneyn, at Cairo, where men and women of the lower classes go to kiss it, and obtain a blessing by rubbing their foreheads upon it. No copy of the Koran, nor any thing but the book of prayers, is placed in the Cairo Mahmal. The Wahabys declared this ceremony of the Hadj to be a vain pomp, of idolatrous origin, and contrary to the spirit of true religion; and its use was one of the principal reasons which they assigned for interdicting the caravans from repairing to Mekka. In the first centuries of Islam, neither the Omeyades nor the Abassides ever had a Mahmal. Makrisi, in his treatise “On those Khalifes and Sultans who performed the pilgrimage in person,” says that Dhaher Bybars el Bondokdary, Sultan of Egypt, was the first who introduced the Mahmal, about A.H. 670. Since his time, all the Sultans who sent their caravans to Mekka, have considered it as a privilege to send one with each, as a sign of their own royalty. The first Mahmal from Yemen came in A.H. 960; and in A.H.1049, El Moayed Billah, king, and Imam of Yemen, who publicly professed the creed of Zeyd, came with one to Arafat; and the caravans of Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo, have always carried it with them. In A.H. 730, the Baghdad caravan brought it to Arafat upon an elephant (vide Asamy). I believe the custom to have arisen in the battle-banner of the Bedouins, called Merkeb and Otfe, which I have mentioned in my remarks on the Bedouins, and which resemble the Mahmal, inasmuch as they are high wooden frames placed upon camels.] The preacher, or Khatyb, who is usually the Kadhy of Mekka, was mounted upon a finely-caparisoned camel, which had been led up the steps; it being traditionally said that Mohammed was always seated when he here addressed his followers, a practice in which he was imitated by all the Khalifes who came to the Hadj, and who from