When the cavalcade was stationed near the Mahmils, guns were fired again and again to announce that the sermon was about to begin. Then, amid the sighs and sobs and tears of that vast congregation, the Kazi of Mecca, sitting on a dromedary, began to preach, or (perhaps more correctly) to pray. Speaking in Arabic verse, each line being repeated about a dozen times by the pilgrims, he intoned the rhythmic psalm in a deep but ringing voice. The opening passages ran as follows:-- Thou, O Lord, no mate possessest: Thou, in truth, the King of kings! I am here for Thee--for Thee: I am here with praise for Thee. Thou no compeer hast, O Allah! Nights are darkened at Thy command: Stars are shining in obedience: Angels praise Thee round Thy Throne. Prophets come at Thy beck and call: The sun goes round to sing Thy praises: Thou art holy and Thy name is holy: Thou art merciful, magnanimous, and compassionate! * * * * * May the end of our life come with heavenly blessing! May the angels of punishment pass by from our doors! We glorify and praise Thee, Lord! May the angels of mercy show their grace to us! May our humble supplications be acceptable to Thee! We glorify and praise Thee, Lord! At first the pilgrims held their breath, afraid of missing a word; but as the prayers and psalms and exhortations proceeded, their enthusiasm grew more and more unrestrained. No longer content with repeating the Kazi’s words, line by line, they burst into tears, and from tears into shrieks. They beat their breasts, sobbing from sheer excess of joy; they could be seen, on the plain, whirling round and round, as they sang the Labbaik. Some swooned, partly from delirium of religious emotion, and partly from the effect of the sun’s excessive heat. One moment--and your blood seemed to boil and your brain to swim in liquid fire; then came relief: you were drenched in sweat, reduced to liquid that alternately evaporated and gushed out of every pore. I was wedged so tight in a compact mass of pilgrims, within a stone’s throw of the preacher, that there was no chance of my reaching the haven of my one desire--the cooling spring where I had slaked my thirst at noonday. And so one hour wore on. What had happened among the pilgrims out there in the dancing glare of the sunlit plain, I cannot say; but the least said about the reports of the behaviour of some of them, the better. No good purpose can be served by emphasising the exceptional and parading the obscene. Where I stood, longing for the sound of running water, there, at least, the solemnity and the fervour of the congregation were of a sort to take one’s reason captive, overcoming, by sheer repetition of appeal, even the craving I had to swill my gullet with a draught of water.