They, too, are freeborn men and carry their heads high even in the presence of the Sheríf of Mecca, who holds his race too dear to exact an obsequious homage. Indeed, his face never wears a frown; his voice is never raised in anger; and yet for all who come near him the consciousness of his power lies not in themselves, but in the man himself: in a word, it lies in his complete self-forgetfulness and his freedom from all arrogance and pretence. [Illustration: THE SHERÍF OF MECCA IN HIS UNIFORM.] Well, as I walked along in the direction of the Holy Mountain, I found a great many pilgrims engaged in calling out the names of such of their absent friends as had begged to be remembered on the night of Arafat. The Prophet recommended his followers to perform this act of remembrance, and said that whosoever among them should thus create seventy pilgrims by proxy would be rewarded with seventy palaces in the world to come and the praises of seventy thousand angels. Imagine, then, with what zeal and devotion my fellow-pilgrims lifted up their voices! After each name, loud cries of “Here I am, O Allah! here am I!” were raised by one and all, the Maghrebis singling themselves out, to my amusement, by the number of women’s names that came tripping off their tongues; it seemed for all the world as though they were resolved to win the praise of none save female angels! Tickled not a little by this delicious trait of character, I wandered on, falling the while into a vein of pleasant memories on the friends I had left behind me, until I was suddenly recalled to myself by a mighty hue and cry. And this is what had happened. A Bedouin thief, breaking through the tent of a pilgrim whom he knew to be engaged in calling out names on the plain, saw in a corner a round bundle in a white cloth. With greedy hands he made to possess himself of its contents when, to his intense amazement, a woman burst from its folds, shrieking! She had wrapped herself up in the cloth ere she went to sleep, as the custom is among Orientals of the lower class, so that not even her head was visible to the nefarious Bedouin, who, on now perceiving his mistake, threw himself on the floor, with the intention of slipping headforemost under the tent. He had certainly got away at once, had not the husband returned, and, in the belief that the thief had it in the mind to take advantage of his dearest treasure, laid hold of the intruder by the leg, giving the alarm that had startled me from my day-dream. The woman swooned away, while the Bedouin tugged himself free and made good his escape. A few minutes later, a sergeant and his men shouldered their way through the crowd that had collected round the entrance--too late for once.