The reader will understand that these musicians and dancers were not proceeding to Arafat that they might be present at the forthcoming sermon on the mount. Their aim was to collect as much money as they could wring from the pilgrims, and then be the first to lead the procession back to Mina. For there, after the Lenten hardships of the Hájj are ended, several days are spent in holding revels and in merry-making. An uninterrupted march of half-an-hour, under a stormy sky, brought us to where two walls define the boundary of Arafat. There the _moghavem_ halted, and cried out, in a joyful voice, “O blessed pilgrims, here we are on the exalted soil of Alemeyn! May peace be with Muhammad and with his family!” Forthwith there arose on all sides such an outburst of religious enthusiasm as I had not witnessed even in the Harem of the Ka’bah. Cries of “Labbaik allahhomá labbaik!” passed from lip to lip. The torch-bearer fell on his face to the earth, and shed tears of delirious joy. The dying man on my mule sank to the ground, dragging the corpse with him, and sang praises to Allah with his last breath. A native dervish, beside himself with hashshish-bibbing, danced furiously round and round, beating on his bare breast, and tearing his unkempt locks, and shrieking excitedly, “Yá-Hú! Hú-yá!” Then, with one accord, we all prostrated ourselves five times in prayer, rending the air with a chorus of “Here I am, O Allah, here am I!” After the excitement had subsided, the _Sahebin-ul-Maiet_, or owners of the dead, met in conference together, and decided that it would be best to bury the corpses of their friends before we entered the encampment on the plain of Arafat. To that end the help of the Bedouin drivers was solicited. A grave was dug, measuring about ten feet by twelve, and having a depth of some two-and-a-half feet and into this the bodies were lowered and placed side by side, some wrapt in their white _kefans_, and the rest wearing the habits they died in. The pit was then filled up, and large stones were piled a-top, serving the double purpose of preventing the corpses from being snatched by beasts of prey, and of marking the place where they lay buried. This done, an Indian _mullá_, putting his thumbs behind the lobes of his ears, the fingers extended, exclaimed with indescribable fervour, “One only is great--one Allah!” while the pilgrims, taking their stand behind him, bowed themselves to the ground in prayer. The funeral rites over, the _mullá_ declared the dead to be “martyrs in the Faith,” on which the _moghavems_ of our respective caravans, having made all necessary preparations, ordered us to press forward in the direction of the city of tents. I looked round in search of the torch-bearer, but he was nowhere to be seen, nor could anyone whom I questioned tell me what was become of him. I never saw him again.