Seyyid ’Alí gave me a hearty welcome when I entered the house. He had scoured the city, he said, in search of me, and had given me up for dead. I found everything in readiness for our journey, and when we had smoked a kalyán or two and quenched our thirst we got astride our ambling mules and made for the Hill of Arafat. Now, when my friends and I left Mecca for the Hill of Arafat it was about four o’clock in the afternoon of Youm-ul-Tarvih. Late as it was, the streets were still packed with men and beasts. In the indescribable confusion steady progress was impossible, and to the universal disorder was added the danger of a general stampede on the part of our mules. The uncertain tempers of those animals of ours taxed our patience to the utmost. We had hired them in the belief that they were tractable creatures trained to amble. We rode them in terror of our lives, conscious of our impotence to control their paces. Now they would charge through a crowd in a panic blind and headlong, and next they would stand stock-still in a sweat of suspicion at the mere sight of a straw or a splash of water on the road. Our _moghavem_, having a lively inkling of our rising indignation, assured us with haughty unconcern that we had been wiser to have followed his advice and ridden camels. With one thing and another it took us quite an hour to reach the outskirts of the city. All the people we had met wore íhram except the drivers and the servants, who were in their ordinary clothes. [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN DONKEY AND ITS DRIVER.]